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Hi everyone!

Hope everyone is doing well!

This week I finished:

Wow, No Thank You. - I liked this alright, some parts were pretty funny

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots - Read Harder memoir from someone following a different religious background. This was a gripping read, really powerful.

All Systems Red -re-read, I want to finish up the series but hadn't read the first two in a while.

The Old Guard, Book One: Opening Fire - saw the netflix movie a few weeks ago, really liked it. Decided to give the comic a try, it was pretty good. I liked the movie better, possibly because i saw it first. But I loved Charlize and the movie had more time to develop the characters stories.

Currently reading:

Nocturna - this is on hold, ran out of time on my audio, turns out turning wifi off does NOT stop them from returning, unlike kindle ones. Boo. Probably will be a month or two before I get it again. Might just get the physical from the library.

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot - feminism book focusing on how mainstream feminism tends to leave out the most vulnerable and marginalized people who need it most.

QOTW: Are there any books from your childhood that really stand out even today?

I remember Clifford books a lot, because in second grade my teacher LOVED Clifford. She had a red ferarri that she called Clifford and if you could beat her in math flash cards, you would get a ride in it (I worked SO HARD at math flash cards to get that, but never quite made it). But she also had a giant stuffed Clifford that if you read every Clifford book and marked them off on a chart, you'd get to take him home for the weekend. I owned most the Clifford books because my mom was a second grade teacher herself, I think I finished them all within the first week or two of school, first one to take him home.

When I was older, there were tons of books I loved, but I have a special fondness for Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. Even after I cleared out my bookshelf to make room for older books, when I'd help my mom get her classroom ready for summer, I'd smuggle that one out and read it again before having her take it back. I even bought it on kindle a year or so ago for the "re-read a childhood favorite" popsugar prompt. It still holds up pretty well!

At last check in, I was in the middle of A Wild and Precious Life, which I finished in time for IRL book club #3's Zoom...only to have the meeting postponed until next week! It was a great book, though - I even watched the documentary the author referenced several times in the book (Edie & Thea, A Very Long Engagement, which is available free on Tubi), which covers some different aspects of her life and lets you see their house, which is cool because it's such a central thing in the book.... So I definitely recommend that one.

I also FINALLY finished listening to The Sandman, which took me a month and a half since I don't have much time in the car these days. It was probably also because I didn't enjoy it much - it has none of the humor or atmosphere of the comics, and just comes across as a torrent of the violence and horror parts of the story. The production values were excellent, so if you enjoy that kind of thing, it's certainly well done on that front (famous actors doing the voices, specially composed music, etc.) - but that just made it worse for me, since everything was so vivid. I'll definitely be skipping future installments.

I'm currently reading Bear Town for IRL book club #1, which is very enjoyable. Fredrik Backman books always strike me as a more gender neutral version of Hallmark movies - you know there's going to be lots of heartwarming reunions, unexpected connections, etc. - and the world needs more of that at the moment, so this is a good one to read right now. Sports stories are the one place that I really enjoy schmaltz (as in I ugly cried not only during Rudy but also during Radio), so that makes it even better for me.

I also listened to the first hour of The Will and the Wilds - it's a bit early for a full opinion, but it seems like it's going to be a good fairy tale.

QOTW: Great question! I think back to things I read as a kid all the time - especially when things suddenly make sense or come across in a different way as I get older. Daddy-Long-Legs is one that pops up a lot, and has held up surprisingly well - I think I appreciate the skill it took to write in a non-creepy way much more now. I also think of the Blossom Culp series (The Ghost Belonged to Me, etc.), especially the adults in the background of the stories and how some of the things they did make more sense now - but hopefully would have been different in the 21st century.

Doing pretty good! Sad that my vacation is almost over, but happy to get a three-day weekend at the end of it!

I'm still working on The Fifth Season. So far I'm enjoying it, but I haven't made a whole lot of progress on it.

I spent some time this week cleaning out some library borrows, so a bunch of manga finishes: Komi Can't Communicate, Vol. 5, Hatsu*Haru, Vol. 3, Hatsu*Haru, Vol. 4, Magus of the Library, Vol. 1, Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 13, The Promised Neverland, Vol. 13.

QOTW: The book I remember most from my childhood is a Little Golden Book called The Pokey Little Puppy. I also had this Sesame Street one, The Monster at the End of This Book.

After that, the book that sticks with me most from my childhood is The Hero and the Crown. I want to say I got it from a Scholastic book fair at school (anyone else have these?) but it was the first novel-length fantasy I remember buying, and I read and reread it to the point the cover was falling off. I remember other titles fondly, but none where the plots or characters really stuck with me like that one.

Three finishes this week:

After finishing Mary Trump's book, I needed some literary brain bleach, and in turn I finally completed what seemed to be the most difficult prompt for me this year - a book set in an inn or tavern. I flew through Ilona Andrews' first two Innkeeper Chronicles books, Clean Sweep and Sweep in Peace. I'll admit I was a bit dubious about the first book veering into fantasy romance/Twilight territory, and I laughed out loud when the characters actually referenced Twilight! The second book was far richer to me, and I'll probably read the next installments at some point. I slotted them in the Gryffindor/Lupin/about werewolves and Gryffindor/Three Broomsticks/set in an inn or tavern prompts.

Then I picked up Tell the Wolves I'm Home, which I found quite enjoyable. Certain passages are just heartbreakingly perfect. I used it for the Gryffindor/Marauders/book about friendship prompt.

52/60

QOTW: I grew up surrounded by books. The ones I have the most sentimental attachment to is the Mr. Men books. My Welsh grandmother would mail me a new one every month when I was learning to read.

A bit older, I was handed down a collection of these small hardcover chapter books, which I reread a bunch of times. I can't recall the name of the collection, but Les Ratons laveurs dans la lune is the first title that comes to mind.

My husband regularly browses Slickdeals and has been informing me of free Kindle books of interest, so my first read this week was Vampire Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Really it should just be called "Spooky Stories" or something; some of the stories are about "psychic vampires" of sorts (apparently a common interpretation at the time), and some of them really have nothing to do with vampires at all. I did find them to be entertaining and well-written, and I should probably check out some of Doyle's other non-Holmes work.

I think I was made aware of Elsa Lanchester, Herself via Mara Wilson, who wrote the foreword to the recent reissue. Lanchester is in my "problematic fave" movie Murder By Death, so I thought I'd give it a try. Y'all. That lady was a firecracker. The book starts out with a prologue about how her mother didn't believe in marriage, so when she (the mother) announced her plan to shack up with a fellow socialist, her father and brothers (Elsa's grandfather and uncles) literally kidnapped her - like, they tied her up - and had her committed to an asylum. So then Elsa was raised by these unmarried socialists, went to a dance school in Paris that was really a vanity project for a washed-up dancer, co-founded a theater group for children that eventually morphed into a midnight cabaret, married a man who turned out to be gay, stayed married to that man for his entire life... It was wild. It dragged a little toward the end, as she spent more time on her husband's work (he was apparently the more famous actor, although I have seen more of her films than his) and their sometimes petty marital issues, and she didn't discuss her later films (the ones I know) at all, but dang. If you have any interest in that era of Hollywood, it's a ride.

In my continuing quest to find clued mysteries by PoC, I somehow picked up Murder in G Major without realizing there's a ghost in it. It turned out to be a fun cozy-style mystery, but I don't consider assistance from beyond the grave to be fair play. I was thinking I might eventually continue the series anyway, but then this one ended with a cliffhanger about the fate of the ghost that kind of put me off, so we'll see.

QOTW: There are a lot of ways I could go with this question, for different values of childhood, so I'm picking the one with the best Story Time value.
Growing up with pet-allergic family members, I developed a kind of forbidden-fruit obsession with dogs. Similarly, as we lived in the South, I had a grass-is-always-greener fascination with snow. Then, in third grade, my teacher read Snow Dog to the class.
Snow Dog set off an obsession with huskies that endured for several years. It led to my reading all of the Jim Kjelgaard dog books available at the public library. It was my Thing for a while.
Some years later, I was back at that elementary school (probably due to my younger sister). The school librarians had done some weeding and set up tables of discarded books in the auditorium. I idly browsed along and then I saw it: hardcover, no jacket, tape over the spine, large "D" for "discard" written on the endpapers. It had to be the same copy my teacher read. That book is on my shelf right now.

Not so much reading time last week for me - we went back to school for faculty meetings on Monday. Our students don't arrive until the 16th, but we've got a TON of prep to do!

I did manage to finish The Stone Sky and the trilogy ended in a spectacularly satisfying fashion. Definitely ranking right up there in my list of favorite series. I was going to pick up Find Layla next - got it as a free Kindle First book - but I didn't have the emotional energy to read about an abused kid (not a spoiler, it's right in the blurb) so I'm going to save it for another time. I've just started A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay, who is one of my top five favorite authors of all time - this is his latest book that I somehow didn't end up purchasing until now, and it's the only thing he's written that I haven't read yet so I'm super excited to dive in.

QOTW: I've got lots of childhood favorite chapter books and it's been a ton of fun revisiting them with my own children! My kids are just as tickled by the goofy stories in Sideways Stories from Wayside School as I was when I was little, and it's become a family read-aloud favorite. I also adored All-of-a-Kind Family and the sequels.

We also had this whole series of National Geographic books about the natural world, and the one I was especially obsessed with was called "Our Violent Earth" and it was all about different kinds of natural disasters - volcanoes, hurricanes, etc. I used to fall asleep reading it and then have nightmares! But then I grew up and majored in geology so it ended up being a positive influence, I guess? :D

Rebecca wrote: "... my "problematic fave" movie Murder By Death..."

Hey, that's my problematic fave too! I freaking LOVE that movie. Now I'll have to look for that book, it sounds fascinating!

Fall has officially arrived here. To be fair, we're actually still in that period that the trees are mostly green and you can just kinda be in denial about it, but realistically.... the first termination dust is due any time now. Winter is coming.

Nearly threw one of my class books across the room earlier this week. However, since I can't really go on a rant regarding iconoclastic theology in this group, here's what else I've been up to:

Still working on both The Witcher and The Expanse series.

For the former: Blood of Elves, The Time of Contempt, and I just started Baptism of Fire. Still really, really loving them. It's solid fantasy, but a very fresh take on the genre, which makes sense given that it was written by an author in Poland and translated.

And the latter: finished both Abaddon's Gate and The Churn. I'm continuously amazed that for as much as I adored the TV series, I'm still liking the books even better. Abaddon's Gate in particular, had such a different chain of events to get the plot to the same conclusion, but it really made so much more sense. Soooo good!

QOTW:
About two years back, I re-read Bunnicula on a lark, for the first time since I was a kid. Wow, that book has aged like a fine wine. I was so much fun to revisit, and really doesn't feel dated at all. The Redwall books get a complete reread every decade or so, and were very much staples of my late childhood.

Really what stands out though, are the picture books from when I was really little- in particular the ones closely tied to the super early seasons of Reading Rainbow, which are still regularly referenced by my Mom. That and lots of Dr. Seuss!

I am loving hearing about everyone's persistent childhood books - I also loved The Monster at the End of this book! I think I still have my copy somewhere! And I read Howliday Inn and The Celery Stalks at Midnight over and over before I learned about Bunnicula, so that's always seemed like this mysterious special feature for me. I even remember My Violent Earth - in my tween years, I spent a lot of time in DC, and every time we went to the National Geographic museum, my dad would get me a book, and I know that was one of them. My best friend had all of those Mr. Men books - I always figured they were from Europe, because her family was from Germany and they would send her things from there, but I've seen them in the US as an adult, so they must have made it here eventually. And I didn't discover the Redwall books until I was grown, but I read them all and loved them, too!

I had all the Mr. Men books, as far as I know we didn't have a European connection for them, so they must have been available!

I actually just read The Hero and the Crown a couple years ago! I wish I had read it when I was younger, would have loved it growing up. McKinnley just wasn't on my early radar

I'm 41, so the Mr. Men books might not have made it to Ohio yet when we were the right age for them. :)

I'm going to be 37 in a week and few days, it's possible they were pretty new when I was growing up though. My mom was a second grade teacher, she spent a lot of time at Borders making sure her classroom library was reasonably up to date, and picking stuff up for me.

Looks like they were published in the 70s mostly, and the author died unexpectedly in 88, and his son took over. I can't find a date when they came to America though. Might just be one of those things, based on region & what your parents liked and therefor exposed you to. Like I never watched Star Wars growing up, my parents weren't really fans so I only ever caught little snippets on tv, and never cared enough to rent it myself. But with a book loving mom who was an elementary teacher, I probably had a much more extensive children's book library than the average kid, plus my mom's entire classroom library to pull from.

I had them growing up in Michigan -- I'm 43! Little Miss Naughty was always my favorite :)

I'm in Michigan too! Maybe Michigan had them more readily haha

I'm 40 and my elementary school library here in suburban Alaska had a very generous supply of them. I remember they were all the rage with my 1st and 2nd grade classmates, although for some reason I wasn't ever really into them.

Hi everyone! After a bunch of heavy nonfiction, I needed some urban fantasy as a palate cleanser. Half-Resurrection Blues fit the bill. I'll be attending a writing conference in October and Daniel Jose Older is one of the speakers, so it seemed like the perfect time to dive into this series. It's dark and noir-y, just like I like 'em. It didn't have the warped humor of the Sandman Slim series, but there's some interesting worldbuilding and concepts, so I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of the series.

Also finished another non-fic book, The Monk in the Garden : The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics. It was interesting, but not riveting. The author had to fill a lot of gaps with speculation, and that's a particular peeve of mine - when they try to write a literary passage about a moment in the author's life. Bleh. I find the shift from fact to fiction jarring, and it leaves me questioning the overall accuracy of the rest of the book.

QOTW: Oh my goodnes...there is not enough space on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ for all the childhood books I still rave about! My favorite picture book was one I didn't own - it was only at the doctor's office. Since I was chronically ill as kid, I got lots of time with it, and when my mom asked what I wanted for high school graduation, I asked for Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. Another picture book that still bowls me over is The Patchwork Cat. Moving on to chapter books, I, too, adore the Howliday Inn series. My friend and I used to read The Celery Stalks at Midnight out loud to each other, but we'd be laughing too hard to get more than a couple sentences out at a time. The ElfQuest graphic novels continue to be a huge part of my headspace even now. I still adore The Egypt Game, and Birth of the Firebringer and Tomorrow's Sphinx are two of my most treasured hardcovers.

I still have one of the Mr. Men books, Mr Nosey. I don't remember who got it for me, but I took it as a personal attack, and still feel offended when I think about it as an adult. Ha!