I told that girl that my prospects were good
Just to close out the New Year's Eve travesty, I posted the pictures of everything to tumblr here, so you can see the feast people chose to bail on.
In other news, I was in Starbucks this morning and they played "Reach Out, I'll Be There" by the Four Tops and I had ALL THE STEVE/BUCKY FEELS. Please tell me someone will vid them to that song. (Reach out) Reach out for me / Ha, I'll be there / with a love that will shelter you / I'll be there / with a love that will see you through.
With the holiday eves falling on Wednesdays, I've missed What I'm Reading Wednesday two weeks in a row, so let me remedy that now:
What I've just finished
The Hawkwood War by Ankaret Wells, which I enjoyed, though maybe not as much as the first book? I'm not sure - it maybe had less Innes and Tzenni than the first book? - but I thought it was a good ending to that story. (though now I really want to know about what happened at the very, very end - that seems like a dropped thread!)
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway by Doug Most, which was interesting, but not as compelling as the story should have been. I mean, it's an exciting story! But it was a lot of biography of the dudes who funded the subway initiatives etc. and that was less interesting to me than the actual stories of the different methods of tunneling etc.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, which I thought was a beautifully written post-apocalyptic story that focused just a little too much on the wrong character(s) for me to enjoy it. I wanted more of Kirsten and August and Clark and Miranda, and less (so much less) about Arthur. Is it kind of a programmatic story? Sure, but I thought the writing was supremely lovely and the idea that traveling players and a limited edition comic book could have such an impact on a post-technology world really worked for me.
What I'm reading now
I've been mostly concentrating on Yuletide, so I haven't started a new book yet. (I still need to add names to my recs and get those sorted...this weekend I guess...)
What I'm reading next
I thought I was going to have an answer to this question for once! I thought it was going to be The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro, which I got for Christmas, but it is apparently not available as an ebook, and the paperback is the size of the family bible, so I don't think I'll be schlepping that around any time soon. Maybe I should pack it as a vacation book?
So as usual, the answer is, I don't know. I still have a bunch of yuletide stories open in tabs, and then I'll look at all the books on my iPad and make a choice.
According to goodreads, I read 63 books (it says 67, but four of those were abandoned/did not finish), plus 39 2014-rereads (Discworld & Amelia Peabody), which makes for 102 books read in 2014. Not my best, but not the worst either. I think a lot of the big nonfiction books slowed me down a bit. I have to say, the combination of getting an iPad and getting into comics made my reading stats shoot up starting in 2011. I don't disagree that there are some issues with ereaders - I do sometimes feel like I don't retain the information as well as I do from paper books - but once I spent the money on the thing, I was for damn sure going to use it, and getting a new library card (I hadn't had one since the 90s) made it even better. One of the problems with being a voracious reader is the need to always have at least one backup book available at all times, and the iPad allows me to carry a ton of books (including comics) all the time, in a bunch of different apps as necessary.
As for the best things I read this year, I would say, in no particular order:
- The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
- Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
- The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- The First World War by John Keegan
- The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
With honorable mentions to:
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- Nancy Wake by Russell Braddon
- Agent Zigzag & Double Cross by Ben McInerney
- Tigerman - Nick Harkaway
***
I'm hungry but I don't feel like cooking. I went out earlier for ice cream. Maybe I will have that for dinner...
*wins at being an adult*
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/718974.html.
people have commented there.
In other news, I was in Starbucks this morning and they played "Reach Out, I'll Be There" by the Four Tops and I had ALL THE STEVE/BUCKY FEELS. Please tell me someone will vid them to that song. (Reach out) Reach out for me / Ha, I'll be there / with a love that will shelter you / I'll be there / with a love that will see you through.
With the holiday eves falling on Wednesdays, I've missed What I'm Reading Wednesday two weeks in a row, so let me remedy that now:
What I've just finished
The Hawkwood War by Ankaret Wells, which I enjoyed, though maybe not as much as the first book? I'm not sure - it maybe had less Innes and Tzenni than the first book? - but I thought it was a good ending to that story. (though now I really want to know about what happened at the very, very end - that seems like a dropped thread!)
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway by Doug Most, which was interesting, but not as compelling as the story should have been. I mean, it's an exciting story! But it was a lot of biography of the dudes who funded the subway initiatives etc. and that was less interesting to me than the actual stories of the different methods of tunneling etc.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, which I thought was a beautifully written post-apocalyptic story that focused just a little too much on the wrong character(s) for me to enjoy it. I wanted more of Kirsten and August and Clark and Miranda, and less (so much less) about Arthur. Is it kind of a programmatic story? Sure, but I thought the writing was supremely lovely and the idea that traveling players and a limited edition comic book could have such an impact on a post-technology world really worked for me.
What I'm reading now
I've been mostly concentrating on Yuletide, so I haven't started a new book yet. (I still need to add names to my recs and get those sorted...this weekend I guess...)
What I'm reading next
I thought I was going to have an answer to this question for once! I thought it was going to be The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro, which I got for Christmas, but it is apparently not available as an ebook, and the paperback is the size of the family bible, so I don't think I'll be schlepping that around any time soon. Maybe I should pack it as a vacation book?
So as usual, the answer is, I don't know. I still have a bunch of yuletide stories open in tabs, and then I'll look at all the books on my iPad and make a choice.
According to goodreads, I read 63 books (it says 67, but four of those were abandoned/did not finish), plus 39 2014-rereads (Discworld & Amelia Peabody), which makes for 102 books read in 2014. Not my best, but not the worst either. I think a lot of the big nonfiction books slowed me down a bit. I have to say, the combination of getting an iPad and getting into comics made my reading stats shoot up starting in 2011. I don't disagree that there are some issues with ereaders - I do sometimes feel like I don't retain the information as well as I do from paper books - but once I spent the money on the thing, I was for damn sure going to use it, and getting a new library card (I hadn't had one since the 90s) made it even better. One of the problems with being a voracious reader is the need to always have at least one backup book available at all times, and the iPad allows me to carry a ton of books (including comics) all the time, in a bunch of different apps as necessary.
As for the best things I read this year, I would say, in no particular order:
- The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
- Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
- The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- The First World War by John Keegan
- The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
With honorable mentions to:
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- Nancy Wake by Russell Braddon
- Agent Zigzag & Double Cross by Ben McInerney
- Tigerman - Nick Harkaway
***
I'm hungry but I don't feel like cooking. I went out earlier for ice cream. Maybe I will have that for dinner...
*wins at being an adult*
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/718974.html.
people have commented there.