Space Station Mir

My fall TBR list is quite short this year: 1. Whatever I feel like reading. I've taken on quite a workload this fall, and so anything outside of work will be purely auxiliary. Probably, a lot of articles, short stories, re-reads, and impulse library grabs will abound. However, it would be nice if I read some of the yet-to-be-read books on my shelf, namely: 1. The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert 2. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Thank you Top Ten Tuesday, I feel like this is always happening to me! 1. Karen Lord I read The Best of All Possible Worlds almost two years ago now, and I still need to read Redemption in Indigo . At least I'm not too far behind! 2. Marge Piercy I really loved Woman on the Edge of Time , I imagine I would enjoy her other works as well. 3. W.G. Sebald I really enjoyed The Rings of Saturn , have been meaning for years to check out his other work. 4. Elizabeth Gilbert I found Committed to be a very thoughtful read, and The Signature of All Things is sitting on my shelf. Maybe I'll even get around to Eat, Pray, Love one of these days. 5. Karen Joy Fowler The Jane Austen Book Club is one of my favorite books, but I wasn't really riveted by the idea of the next couple of books she put out. The latest sounded interesting though. 6. Philip Pullman Not sure if this counts exactly, since I did read the whole His Dark Materials trilogy, but I haven't r...

Although I've been reading more collections of short stories, I'd stopped reading as much individual short fiction as I did last year. My primary source has been Tor.com, and for a while I wasn't very impressed with the offerings. But I decided to take a chance on "As Good as New" since I recognized the author name, and the plot description intrigued me. "As Good as New" is one of the cleanest, most satisfying short pieces I've read in a while. Marisol, a playwright turned medical student, is possibly the only person to have survived the end of the world. Holed up in a panic room, she eats frozen dinners and watches "The Facts of Life." And then she finds a genie in a bottle. Read it if you like classic, thoughtful stories. It's pared down, with just two characters, and just one clear plot with a couple of underlying ideas that underscore the whole piece. Enjoy!

33. Rav Hisda's Daughter: The Enchantress by Maggie Anton *Published Sept. 2, 2014* Hisdadukh is a charasheta , or enchantress, who is learned in the ways of healing and protective magic. She is the daughter of a historical Talmudic scholar, Rav Hisda, who is himself learned in priestly magic. In Anton's world, the wives and daughters of Talmudic scholars have an equivalent brand of magic that they use to protect their families and communities. It's an interesting portrait of feminine power in a highly misogynistic era. Anton is known for her earlier historical novels on the daughters of Rashi, arguably the best known Talmudic scholar. The Enchantress is the sequel to Rav Hisda's Daughter: The Apprentice. Although I have not read the first book, I was able to get into the story fairly easily. That said, I think my knowledge of the eponymous viewpoint character would have been deeper if I had read it. Many of the events in the earlier book are referenced here....