O'Brien's Necromancer Pictures; Revisionists Rockin' Machina - also reading goals for 2016
Batten your hatches, folks! I've read 465 books this year, and you'll notice that this entry starts with book #222... I don't intend to catch up tonight, but I will be posting a lot for the next few days :D.
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, by Lish McBride
This is a fun book, Buffy-esque but with a male protagonist who is actually working class, and not just sometimes broke. It's also funny and earnest. Need to read more of this author's work.
(222)
The Book with No Pictures, by B. J. Novak
This was cute enough, as storybooks without pictures go, and would make a fun read-aloud - it feels designed for a read-aloud - but it'd been overhyped by the time I got around it, and ... hm, it was okay, you know? Not the sort of thing I'd have felt called to go around overhyping.
(223)
Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, by A. S. King
This YA novel exploded my brain. So so so so good. Just weird enough, just grounded enough, just bitter enough, just sweet enough.... I loved it start to finish and will probably reread it in the next couple of years, because here it is six months out from when I read it and I am remembering specific images from the story and I can almost *taste* how good it is, all over again!
(224)
Rockin' the Boat, by Jeff Fleischer
This was an odd but neat book. Basically YA non-fiction mini-biographies of dozens of different rebels, many of them not at all admirable. The juxtapositions were sometimes uncomfortable, and not especially appealing, but each individual article was engaging and well-researched. Perfect for the kid I gave it to, not entirely my own cup of tea.
(225, O46)
Ex Machina, vol. 1: The First Hundred Days, vol. 2: Tag, vol 3: Fact v. Fiction, vol. 4: March to War, vol. 5: Smoke, Smoke, and vol. 6: Power Down, by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, et al
As you can tell, I spent a lot of time with this comic book series this year. I have no idea why it took me this long to get to it, considering how much I like Y the Last Man, Saga, and what few issues of Runaways I've read. It's extremely solid - not quite as wonderful as Fables or Unwritten but often reaching Transmet or Hitman or Preacher levels of unputdownability. It reminds me a bit of Y the Last Man, actually, although I find it more fundamentally sympathetic (but, oddly enough, less superficially sympathetic ... I am contrary). Anyway! If you like politics in your comics and compelling plots and interesting characters, you should try it. I am waiting on vol. 7 right now, and sad that I am getting close to the end...
(227, 228, 329, 344, 353, 459)
The Revisionists, by Thomas Mullen
Another odd and interesting book. This was kind of a time travel fantasy and kind of a Beltway grinder and kind of a spy story and kind of a psychological thriller. The disparate elements gelled elegantly. Also, I checked it out because I had it confused with another novel by the same name, but it satisfied me well enough that I haven't yet gotten around to checking out the book I was originally wanting. So that's something.
(229)
************
Last year I had no reading goals, even though I wasn't in school anymore, and it worked out pretty darn well. I read a lot, things I wanted to read, and it was fun. But this year I'm going to try for something different, so I've set a bunch of absurd reading-related goals for myself. If I meet ANY of them, I will be shocked! But it's fun to let my reach exceed my grasp, too...
1) Read at least 700 books.
2) Read at least 300 of my own books.
3) Read at least 100 advance reading copies (that would pretty much catch me up on ARCs, I think? if I actually have less than 100 and read all of them, that counts as meeting this goal...) These also count toward goal 2.
4) Read at least 100 of my ebooks, starting with the giant Tor stories compilation I'm in the middle of. These also count toward goal 2.
4) Get my library checkouts down to no more 10 between both libraries, including ILLs.
5) Keep them at that level for at least 3 months.
6) Catch up completely on reading my backlog of magazines.
7) Catalog every book in my entire house.
8) Get rid of at least 8 boxes full of books. (Shh, I'd be donating them, not throwing them away...)
So those are my ridiculous goals for the year. It's funny, I have no expectation of meeting them - and yet my heart stirs with excitement just reading the list. Goals are weird.
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, by Lish McBride
This is a fun book, Buffy-esque but with a male protagonist who is actually working class, and not just sometimes broke. It's also funny and earnest. Need to read more of this author's work.
(222)
The Book with No Pictures, by B. J. Novak
This was cute enough, as storybooks without pictures go, and would make a fun read-aloud - it feels designed for a read-aloud - but it'd been overhyped by the time I got around it, and ... hm, it was okay, you know? Not the sort of thing I'd have felt called to go around overhyping.
(223)
Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, by A. S. King
This YA novel exploded my brain. So so so so good. Just weird enough, just grounded enough, just bitter enough, just sweet enough.... I loved it start to finish and will probably reread it in the next couple of years, because here it is six months out from when I read it and I am remembering specific images from the story and I can almost *taste* how good it is, all over again!
(224)
Rockin' the Boat, by Jeff Fleischer
This was an odd but neat book. Basically YA non-fiction mini-biographies of dozens of different rebels, many of them not at all admirable. The juxtapositions were sometimes uncomfortable, and not especially appealing, but each individual article was engaging and well-researched. Perfect for the kid I gave it to, not entirely my own cup of tea.
(225, O46)
Ex Machina, vol. 1: The First Hundred Days, vol. 2: Tag, vol 3: Fact v. Fiction, vol. 4: March to War, vol. 5: Smoke, Smoke, and vol. 6: Power Down, by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, et al
As you can tell, I spent a lot of time with this comic book series this year. I have no idea why it took me this long to get to it, considering how much I like Y the Last Man, Saga, and what few issues of Runaways I've read. It's extremely solid - not quite as wonderful as Fables or Unwritten but often reaching Transmet or Hitman or Preacher levels of unputdownability. It reminds me a bit of Y the Last Man, actually, although I find it more fundamentally sympathetic (but, oddly enough, less superficially sympathetic ... I am contrary). Anyway! If you like politics in your comics and compelling plots and interesting characters, you should try it. I am waiting on vol. 7 right now, and sad that I am getting close to the end...
(227, 228, 329, 344, 353, 459)
The Revisionists, by Thomas Mullen
Another odd and interesting book. This was kind of a time travel fantasy and kind of a Beltway grinder and kind of a spy story and kind of a psychological thriller. The disparate elements gelled elegantly. Also, I checked it out because I had it confused with another novel by the same name, but it satisfied me well enough that I haven't yet gotten around to checking out the book I was originally wanting. So that's something.
(229)
************
Last year I had no reading goals, even though I wasn't in school anymore, and it worked out pretty darn well. I read a lot, things I wanted to read, and it was fun. But this year I'm going to try for something different, so I've set a bunch of absurd reading-related goals for myself. If I meet ANY of them, I will be shocked! But it's fun to let my reach exceed my grasp, too...
1) Read at least 700 books.
2) Read at least 300 of my own books.
3) Read at least 100 advance reading copies (that would pretty much catch me up on ARCs, I think? if I actually have less than 100 and read all of them, that counts as meeting this goal...) These also count toward goal 2.
4) Read at least 100 of my ebooks, starting with the giant Tor stories compilation I'm in the middle of. These also count toward goal 2.
4) Get my library checkouts down to no more 10 between both libraries, including ILLs.
5) Keep them at that level for at least 3 months.
6) Catch up completely on reading my backlog of magazines.
7) Catalog every book in my entire house.
8) Get rid of at least 8 boxes full of books. (Shh, I'd be donating them, not throwing them away...)
So those are my ridiculous goals for the year. It's funny, I have no expectation of meeting them - and yet my heart stirs with excitement just reading the list. Goals are weird.