It’s time for #6degrees. Start with the monthly read, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the 6 Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is the book for April 2021. Shuggie Bain won the Booker Prize for its portrayal of alcoholism and addiction, and its impact on working-class families in 1980s United Kingdom.
I found a fun reading challenge that starts off today, Mythothon Round 4, which is all about Arthurian adventures! It sounds wonderful, even if a bit complicated, so see if you want to give it a try. I hope I’m not too late in telling you about it!
I’m not sure how much of the required reading I’ll actually do myself. But it got me thinking, and I do think Mythothon makes for an awesome book tag for any existing TBR.
I discovered a cool meme recently, The Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, hosted by Long and Short Reviews. The topic for March 31 is TV Shows I Binge-Watch(ed). Here they are, and maybe you’ll find something new-to-watch here!
Why I binge-watched: the “neo-Noir” tones, a Marvel Comics hero rediscovering confidence, great friendships, Krysten Ritter as Jessica, David Tennant as Kilgrave, and Melissa Rosenberg’s screenwriting.
Available on Netflix. A public prosecutor teams up with a cop to fish out the corrupt, while their two departments remain at loggerheads. Realistic but still marvelously uplifting.
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. And this week, you get to choose top 10 places from books you’d like to live in. Honestly, I couldn’t really remember any specific places — so I decided to focus on worldbuilding instead.
1 / The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. Detailed and intricate mythology: World Tree, void, floating city of Sky, Shadow worlds…
2 / Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. A dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, controlled ruthlessly by its dictators.
3 / Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. A castle that can travel as the magician Howl dictates, fed by a magical fireplace engine.
4 / Lord of the Rings Series by J.R.R. Tolkien. Have you seen the movies? Enough said.
5 / The Bitterbynde Trilogy by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. This Tolkien-esque Faerie world has been sealed off, but some humans still long for it.
6 / The Sevenwaters Series by Juliet Marillier. The tension between the Celts and the Britons gets an epic, magical portrayal in ancient Ireland.
7 / Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Alice falls into a dream-world where the Queen of Hearts bakes some tarts. Well, we know how this goes.
8 / Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson. The Malazan Empire is in turmoil and the imprisoned Crippled God plots to escape.
9 / Game of Thrones Series by George R. Martin. The Hundred Years’ War gets re-written, with oodles of grimdark and gore. Ask HBO.
10 / Imperial Radch Series by Ann Leckie. Radch has expanded its inter-galactic empire by means of sentient AI spaceships and soldiers.
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. This week, we get to spotlight books we plan to read in Spring 2021. Here are my picks — but not choosing by publication date!
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. And this week, we have a Spring Cleaning freebie. So here are ten books I recently said Nay! to.
1 / The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh Because it turned out to be Vampire + Melodrama + YA genre, and I’m afraid I’ve outgrown that.
2 / Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse Because it’s an amazing series but only the first book is out yet and I’d rather wait and then binge-read.
3 / Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K. J. Parker Because I was really looking forward to this till I came across a very different perspective.
4 / Soulswift by Megan Bannen Because I got to know it has a tragic end, and I can’t stomach one of those right now.
5 / Snake Eyes by Hillary Monahan Because although it was extremely well written, it was also a very grotesque (for me) tale about reptile humanoids.
6 / The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan Because although it’s rare to find a YA book dealing with disability with such sensitivity, this book seemed relentlessly bleak.
7 / Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer Because this turned out to be exceptionally boring with characters that were all very “cold fish”.
8 / Lucy Anne Trotter Series by Anya Wylde Because this didn’t turn out to be as funny as I had hoped, and rather contrived.
9 / Corrag by Susan Fletcher Because it reminded me too much of Outlander, and I’m not sure I want to read something along similar lines at the moment.
10 / Planetfall series by Emma Newman Because I really liked the premise but other readers have warned it’s not a read for pandemic times.
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. And this week, we spotlight our ten favorite funny books. In no order of priority, here they are!
“SHOPMAN: “You may have your choice — penny plain or twopence coloured.”
SOLEMN SMALL BOY: “Penny plain, please. It’s better value for the money.”
Penny Plain by O. Douglas was a cozy, charming find (thanks to Elisabeth’s recommendation from last year). It’s set in the small town of Priorsford in Scotland, in the 1920s just after WWI.
Young Jean Jardine, barely twenty four, has been taking care of her three younger brothers since a long time. The Jardines have lived on meager means since their parents passed away, but they are an optimistic, good-hearted lot. There’s young rascal Mhor and his dog Peter, Jock who detests sentimentality because he’s at that teenage of life, David who got a scholarship to Oxford and just wants to improve things for his sister. They make do with what they have, possessing a secret of happiness that certainly the rich don’t. Oh, and they read lot, and quote Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott and lots of wonderful poetry.
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. This is Valentine’s Day week — so, a good time to think about my top 10 literary crushes over the years.
It’s time for #6degrees. Start with the monthly read, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the 6 Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.
February 2021’s book is Redhead By the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler. is about a “Tech Hermit”, Micah Mortimer, whose neat, routined life goes topsy-turvy when guests appear uninvited at his door. This made me think of various house guest experiences, especially for some of the more reclusive literary characters.