URGENT ETA: Please don't describe the things you see when you google the thing I said not to google!
Last year I had a lot of concentration issues, and I really didn't keep track of what I read, what I started and never finished, what I put in the to-read pile. This year, I will do better! I know I read a lot of books last year, before I fell into the Mercedes Lackey epic re-read, but I didn't really think about it. So.
What have you just finished reading?
London Falling, by Paul Cornell
Someone on my flist -![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
glinda, I think? - posted about this, and I remembered that I had tried it, and given up. She said that the start tripped her up at first, with a lot of police procedural talk. Which was the reason I put it down - I felt trapped in an episode of The Bill. So I picked it up again and pushed on and I really enjoyed it - the magic system was interesting, I loved the history and mythology of magical London and football culture, and the way the characters adapted to police work with magic was super cool. I'm looking forward to more from this series. (I presume it's a series? It's set up that way.)
Also, canon gay characters, canon POC characters. Yay.
Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovitch
Because I liked London Falling, and because I like the trope of 'London is old and full of magic', I gave this a go, too. Yeah, I liked it? Well enough? I adored the spirits of the rivers - I want all the fanart of them at their various gatherings. I liked Nightingale, I loved the Folly and Toby and Molly and Leslie. Took me a while to click with Peter, though; he's kind of an arsehole at the start. But we worked it out. I'll definitely read more. Because there is more. Needs moar queer tho. Lots more queer.
Divergent, by Veronica Roth
[Redacted rant about invisible queer people] We know all that. I should know better than to have picked that book up in the first place. I need to stop grabbing the ones that have all the buzz and the upcoming movie, and look for the ones that don't have all that attention.
What are you currently reading?
I've started Moon Over Soho, second in the Rivers of London series.
What do you think you'll read next?
I'm going to go plumb![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
diversityinya. It's a good tumblr. [ETA: Going to read Inheritance, the sequel to Adaptation, by Malinda Lo.]
Other random thoughts I am thinking right now:
- I like cooking and baking, but I am crap at cakes. They're either weird and rubbery or dry and horrible. What is the secret of cakes? Why can I bake something complicated like bread, but not a cake?
Ditto for hummus. (Entirely prompted by someone's delicious homemade hummus on my flist, drool.) Why is tahini so gross? It grosses up my hummus, and I don't understand what I can substitute for it.
- It turns out my Harvest Box code is reusable, so if you're in Australia and you want to try out a service like Graze in the US, here: 86231FJMCVJ (You get two half-priced boxes, and I get a $4 discount.
It's working out pretty well for me; there's only been a couple that I really, really hated - the one with dried rockmelon (ugh, like bitter leather wrapped around my teeth) and the one with the spoopy berries that set off my things-with-holes phobia.
The website is here: HarvestBox, you get four snacks in one box, and as you rate them, they tweak what you get. So no more spoopy berries ever again, thank goodness because they were nasty. (They were dried white mulberries, don't google it if you have trypophobia and DO NOT GOOGLE TRYPOPHOBIA IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE IT. DO NOT. NO. GET A FRIEND TO DO IT. Ugh, even the word has too many holes for my comfort.)
- I wrote some fics for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandom_stocking. Not as many as I would have liked, but since the mod has unfortunately been sucked into the polar vortex, I'm taking the opportunity to peck away at more. Stay safe, people in the icy north!
- I had a good therapy time on Tuesday, which involved a discussion of Klingon birthday rituals, and the visualisation of pain sticks becoming matchsticks. (In preparation for my family's heinous birthday season in April/May.)
- Every now and then I remember that Derek Jacobi is the narrator on In the Night Garden (of the genre of trippy British children's puppet shows) and will exhort you to catch the ninky-nonk. I think this is either really good or really terrifying, or maybe both. Sample at 2:25, under the cut.
( Catch the ninky-nonk! )
Last year I had a lot of concentration issues, and I really didn't keep track of what I read, what I started and never finished, what I put in the to-read pile. This year, I will do better! I know I read a lot of books last year, before I fell into the Mercedes Lackey epic re-read, but I didn't really think about it. So.
What have you just finished reading?
London Falling, by Paul Cornell
Someone on my flist -
glinda, I think? - posted about this, and I remembered that I had tried it, and given up. She said that the start tripped her up at first, with a lot of police procedural talk. Which was the reason I put it down - I felt trapped in an episode of The Bill. So I picked it up again and pushed on and I really enjoyed it - the magic system was interesting, I loved the history and mythology of magical London and football culture, and the way the characters adapted to police work with magic was super cool. I'm looking forward to more from this series. (I presume it's a series? It's set up that way.) Also, canon gay characters, canon POC characters. Yay.
Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovitch
Because I liked London Falling, and because I like the trope of 'London is old and full of magic', I gave this a go, too. Yeah, I liked it? Well enough? I adored the spirits of the rivers - I want all the fanart of them at their various gatherings. I liked Nightingale, I loved the Folly and Toby and Molly and Leslie. Took me a while to click with Peter, though; he's kind of an arsehole at the start. But we worked it out. I'll definitely read more. Because there is more. Needs moar queer tho. Lots more queer.
Divergent, by Veronica Roth
[Redacted rant about invisible queer people] We know all that. I should know better than to have picked that book up in the first place. I need to stop grabbing the ones that have all the buzz and the upcoming movie, and look for the ones that don't have all that attention.
What are you currently reading?
I've started Moon Over Soho, second in the Rivers of London series.
What do you think you'll read next?
I'm going to go plumb
Other random thoughts I am thinking right now:
- I like cooking and baking, but I am crap at cakes. They're either weird and rubbery or dry and horrible. What is the secret of cakes? Why can I bake something complicated like bread, but not a cake?
Ditto for hummus. (Entirely prompted by someone's delicious homemade hummus on my flist, drool.) Why is tahini so gross? It grosses up my hummus, and I don't understand what I can substitute for it.
- It turns out my Harvest Box code is reusable, so if you're in Australia and you want to try out a service like Graze in the US, here: 86231FJMCVJ (You get two half-priced boxes, and I get a $4 discount.
It's working out pretty well for me; there's only been a couple that I really, really hated - the one with dried rockmelon (ugh, like bitter leather wrapped around my teeth) and the one with the spoopy berries that set off my things-with-holes phobia.
The website is here: HarvestBox, you get four snacks in one box, and as you rate them, they tweak what you get. So no more spoopy berries ever again, thank goodness because they were nasty. (They were dried white mulberries, don't google it if you have trypophobia and DO NOT GOOGLE TRYPOPHOBIA IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE IT. DO NOT. NO. GET A FRIEND TO DO IT. Ugh, even the word has too many holes for my comfort.)
- I wrote some fics for
fandom_stocking. Not as many as I would have liked, but since the mod has unfortunately been sucked into the polar vortex, I'm taking the opportunity to peck away at more. Stay safe, people in the icy north! - I had a good therapy time on Tuesday, which involved a discussion of Klingon birthday rituals, and the visualisation of pain sticks becoming matchsticks. (In preparation for my family's heinous birthday season in April/May.)
- Every now and then I remember that Derek Jacobi is the narrator on In the Night Garden (of the genre of trippy British children's puppet shows) and will exhort you to catch the ninky-nonk. I think this is either really good or really terrifying, or maybe both. Sample at 2:25, under the cut.
( Catch the ninky-nonk! )