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Hello everyone,

We are in for some warm fall weather next week here in New England. The colors are beautiful.

I finished Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 for neighborhood book club that met this past week. I liked it a lot more than I expected and we actually had some discussion about the book at the meeting. It highlights why we need regulations and companies, left to themselves, make bad choices.

I am about halfway through Full Speed to a Crash Landing and am enjoying it so far. It is a novella, about the length and genre as Murderbot. It is light and fun.

On my kindle I am reading When We Were Widows: A Novel that I got for free from Amazon first books of the month program. I'm not too far into it, but the premise is that there are 3 generations of women, grandmother, mother, adult daughter who are all widows and then forced to live together.

I'm getting my way through North Woods. It has been an interesting ride so far and I'm enjoying the book and its setting in New England.

QOTW:
What's a memorable book for you that is outside your usual genre(s) that you were surprised you enjoyed (or disliked) it?

For me it would be reading The Stand. I don't normally read Stephen King or that type of book. I tend to avoid anything even remotely in the horror realm. But it really held my interest. It is a hefty, sizable book and I kept at it.

Another memorable one is John Scalzi's The God Engines. I read anything Scalzi, and this one was memorable in a "I hate this" way. It was his foray into horror and it kind of blindsided me since his usual works are so enjoyable.

We had a nice cabin vacation and now I have to go back to work on Monday, sigh.

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth - This one was a bit disappointing to me. The author spent more time than I would've preferred on philosophical discussions of the meaning of consciousness and the like, the reluctance of the scientific community to accept ideas like "plant intelligence", her own journey to a deeper appreciation of plants... I was like, "OK, but what do the plants do?" There was of course some of that, but it included a fair amount of "we're not sure yet how (whatever it is) works", which is certainly valid but unsatisfying.

QOTW: This is hard because I do try to read widely. I would say sff is not my usual genre, but I probably average at least two a year, so maybe we could count Becky Chambers? Or A Kiss Before Dying, because I don't normally like thrillers, but I do like classic mysteries, and that's a classic, well crafted, mystery-adjacent thriller.

I'm mostly feeling better after having been sick last week.

We got our voter pamphlet but not our ballots yet. WA state is all vote-by-mail, so I'm looking forward to getting it so I can vote and drop it off in a dropbox.

Finished:
Jasmine Is Haunted by Mark Oshiro - 4 stars - no prompt. A really cute middle grade horror. More spooky than actually

Comics/manga:
Chihayafuru, Vol. 10
Daytime Shooting Star, Vol. 4
How Do We Relationship?, Vol. 11
Tamon's B-Side, Vol. 5

Currently reading:
The Wedding Witch by Erin Sterling - no prompt.  There are witches for spooky season, but it takes place during Yule, so double the holidays.

Upcoming/Planned:
The City in Glass by Nghi Vo - no prompt.

Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Matt Parker - for Robot Librarian's Nonfiction: The 500s

QOTW:
Susan, I was also surprised by The Stand when I read it with my book club. I'm not a horror reader at all, but I found it very readable and interesting. Also in the horror vein, I was surprised how much I enjoyed Bird Box.

I'm also loving the fall colors right now! My family went out for brunch yesterday at a restaurant on a farm to celebrate my husband's birthday and sat outside to eat. It's glorious.

A Ruse of Shadows - book 8 of the Lady Sherlock series. The series continues to be wildly entertaining. This one was especially twisty, as it bounced back and forth between the "present" and what's gone before.

Now I'm continuing my mystery kick and I've started Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, which hooked me right away. I'm really enjoying the narration, which is almost meta-fictional.

I've got Provenance by Ann Leckie lined up to start next, for my other GR group read, probably getting back to the Shadows of the Apt series after that one.

QotW: I'm generally not a fan of straight romance novels - I like a romantic subplot, but don't usually seek out books where the romance is the main focus. So I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Georgette Heyer's regency romances. I especially liked The Grand Sophy.