Space Station Mir

A lot of speculative fiction this month, and I needed it. Also, rereading two of my favorite fantasy novels, Graceling and Bitterblue , in preparation for the next in the series, Winterkeep , which I am eagerly awaiting---5 of 34 on the library waitlist! It was my first reread of Graceling since I first read it in 2012 (!) but I own Bitterblue and have read it many times. I'm glad she's going to be a character in Winterkeep . A Traveler in Time is a book I picked up at a Chicago library sale, and have had for a while, but I finally read it. It's such a cozy story about time travel into the 1600s, but it was written pre-1930s, so for me, it's like time-traveling twice. The two Kevin Emerson books are the second and third in the middle-grade science fiction Dark Star trilogy which offers alternatively irreverent and profound interpretations of the space/time continuum, plus a meditation on personal and collective responsibility.   Books Read This Month A Traveler in Ti

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! I know I've done similar topics before, so while David Lebovitz or Jen Lancaster can always get me to laugh, I'm focusing on books I've read in the past couple of years. Happy reading! A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher Black Widow by Leslie Gray Streeter My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List ed. Alana Newhouse Embrace Your Weird by Felicia Day Howl's Moving Castle by Dianne Wynne Jones The Boy Who Steals Houses by C.G. Drews Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce Born a Crime by Trevor Noah To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

Today's Top Ten Tuesday is a Valentine's Day freebie, so I thought I'd have a little fun and share with you some of the most un romantic stories I've ever read. Definitely DO NOT RECOMMEND if you're trying to impress your valentine. Some of them should be obvious--and some of them should be obvious. And I have a little more to say on the last one, which is one of my favorite books of all time, and in some ways one of the most romantic books of all time, but also the key to explaining why some books are not as romantic as some may think. Keep reading if you're curious: Top Ten Books You Shouldn't Read for Valentine's Day Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Pamela by Samuel Richardson My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier  Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 1984 by George Orwell Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Carey Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Persuasion by Jane Austen Jane Austen on Why Roma