February reads

 Hahahaha best intentions and all that: the second book I read in February was an accidental re-read but all the rest of them were new-to-me:

• Normal Women by Ainslie Hogarth - I don't remember much about this one now but I liked it well-enough.
• The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher - I liked it the first time I read it (whenever that was) and I liked it this time too.  Scary portals to other worlds and rampaging taxidermy.
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman - You know how if there's a book and a movie, it's usually the book that is better?  The movie is better, for me anyway.  It may have been the edition I read.  And the movie is so well-cast, so iconic, that it kept getting in the way of what I was reading.
• Loot by Tania James - Historical fiction set in India and England.  Didn't love it, found it a little tedious.
• Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett.  Pretty good, seemed a little lightweight.
• How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelman.  Really liked this one: a retelling of classic fairytales via a support group for traumatized women.
• Into the Mist by PC Cast.  Post-apocalyptic, women-focused, mystical.  Characters seemed a little thinly drawn.
• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.  Power, privilege and dark magics on the Yale University campus.  Really liked this one, as well as the second one in the not-yet-complete trilogy.
• Hellbent by Leigh Bardugo.  Continuing the story from Ninth House.
• The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark.  This one is a novella and seemed lighweight.  Didn't love it but it was okay.

Hooray for libraries!

January reads

 It's 2025 and the country is on fire, literally and figuratively; my dog has now decided to be afraid of the fridge; and it has been cold and dark but without the snow our mountains desperately need.  So what's to do?  Slightly resurrect this little blog to report on the books I've read each month.  I just got a new library card - my second: one for the SLC library system I've had for years and the new one for the county system - in an attempt to support local.  I've always liked libraries as I read so quickly as to bankrupt myself were I to purchase all the books I read.  And I've always got at least one book going at any given time, re-reading old favorites if I'm in between library visits. 

That's what prompted this second library card, when I realized I'd re-read three books in one month (as outlined below), despite the lengthy to-be-read list I have.  So here's January's list and I'm planning for February's to have no re-reads:

• Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie - the final volume in the First Law trilogy.  I love Joe Abercrombie's stuff (re-read)
• Off Course by Erin Beresini - I stole this one from Mr. Mouse's library haul.  It's about obstacle course racing (non-fiction omg)
• Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman - Horror fiction looking closely at hauntings and addiction
• The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller - Gothic resurrection horror and ooh I liked this one a lot
• The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean - Kind of weird, literally about people who eat books, like vampires but words and paper instead of blood
• Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy - menopause horror!  I liked this one a lot too
• Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie - The first of three standalone books in between his two trilogies, set in the same universe, using some of the same characters.  Swords and sandals and bloody, bloody treachery (re-read)
• The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie - The second of three standalone books in between his two trilogies, set in the same universe, using some of the same characters.  Swords and sandals battle fantasy, frigging amazing (re-read)

What are you reading?  What's on your to-be-read list?