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Books Starred Recommendations

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

Book: Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance (Series: Vorkosigan Saga)
Published: November 2012 (Baen Books)
Audiobook Narrator: Grover Gardner (Blackstone Audio)
Genre/ Trope: Space Opera, Humor, Meet the Family
Rating: 9 of 10 / Highly Recommended

A perfect feel-good read for a lazy summer afternoon! I was chortling my way through this book about Captain Ivan Vorpatril, a rather laidback bureaucrat in the intergalactic Barrayaran Empire. The good news is that the book can be read as a standalone, and is a very good gateway into science fiction.

Ivan Vorpatril is the scion of a powerful political family in Barrayar, but he isn’t very ambitious. He would just rather stick on at his comfortable government job and enjoy his bachelor’s life. His meddlesome cousin Byerly asks him for a favor to check-in on two immigrant women living under fake identities — and poor Ivan can say goodbye to his uneventful life!

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Best of List Books Memes

Eye for an Eye: Ten Tales of Revenge

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. This week’s topic was books similar to Crayola Crayon Colors. But it was really difficult — so I decided to go with tales of revenge.

Here are 10 books where the main driving force was revenge, or where the characters spend a lot of time figuring out the mechanics of vengeance or dealing with its aftermath.

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Books

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Evelyn Hardcastle
Cloak & Dagger 2021: Book #6

I really wanted to give this book a 10-rating, to put it in my Top 10 of 2021 list later in December. Unfortunately, while The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was interesting and certainly novel, I just couldn’t fall in love with this book.

The Plot:

Aiden Bishop finds himself trapped at Blackheath Manor, where he has been invited to attend the homecoming party for Evelyn Hardcastle. It should have been a happy occasion. But night after night, Aiden finds his “spirit” transmigrated to the body of a different guest at Blackheath — all on the same day. If Aiden can figure out who wants to kill Evelyn, he can escape this repetitive time-loop. Trouble is, Aiden has “competitors” in this game, and only one victor can escape Blackheath.

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Books Memes Music & Poetry

Shuggie Bain & Six Degrees of Slavish Fixation

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.

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Music & Poetry

Poetry Friday: A Few Clerihews

Poetry Friday Header

Clerihew: A type of light, humorous biographical four-line poem in rhyming style AABB. The Clerihew was named after its inventor, Edmund Clerihew Bentley (also, one of G.K. Chesterton’s close friends). Clerihews start with the name of a famous person, who is then “put in an absurd light”.

A few Clerihews below:

After dinner, Erasmus
Told Colet not to be “blas’mous”
Which Colet, with some heat
Requested him to repeat.

The people of Spain think Cervantes
Equal to half-a-dozen Dantes:
An opinion resented most bitterly
By the people of Italy.

Sir Humphrey Davy
Detested gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, “I’m going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls,
Say I’m designing St. Paul’s.”

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Memes To Be Read Books

Mythothon Round 4

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!

Mythothon

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.

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Best of List Memes Watchlist

Wednesday Weekly: 20 TV Shows I Binge-Watch(ed)

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!

1 / Jessica Jones (Season 1)

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.

2 / Stranger (Seasons 1 and 2)

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. 

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Books Memes Watchlist

Top 10 Books with Great WorldBuilding

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.

I’m sure I’ve missed out several as this list was only for 10 books! Which ones would you add on?

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Books Recommendations

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell: A Tough Scifi Must-Read

Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.

Matthew Ten, Verse Twenty-Nine

I read The Sparrow some time back, but I am reviewing it here only now. The book raises some uncomfortable questions about our perception of and our (according to the book, unfounded) expectations from God. Mary Russell does a spectacular job of blending science and religion in this book. For both agnostics and believers alike, this is a story that will send you reeling.

The Sparrow is set in the future, and revolves around Emilio Sandoz. Emilio is a devout Jesuit priest and a good man whose friends love him. Sandoz’s biggest strengths are his self-awareness, and his faith in God which can move mountains. But that faith is about to be tested.

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Art & Illustration Books Music & Poetry Starred Recommendations Watchlist

More Japanese Recs: Folklore, Haiku & Anime

This is the final month for the Japanese Literature Reading Challenge, so I really had to hurry up with this one. I had two main recommendations for this month: Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa, and an anthology of Japanese Haiku poetry compiled by Yamamoto and Addiss. And although not “literature”, also the superbly mind-bending scifi anime, Paprika.

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