Space Station Mir

  It's down to the wire, and I still don't know if I will finish another book this year or not 😀. However, I've finished 57 books so far, and so I'm completing my customary annual survey with those in mind. 2021 Reading Stats (As usual, borrowed and modified from the sadly now discontinued blog, Boston Bibliophile.) How many books read? 57 Fiction/nonfiction? 48 fiction (including 2 mixed collections),  9 nonfiction Female/male/nonbinary author ratio? 41 female, 13 male, and 3 collections with mixed genders  Writers of Color/Minority Writers? 10 books by writers of color,  13 books by Jewish authors, which also includes some writers of color and LGBTQ writers Favorite book? The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers--three very different aliens temporarily stranded at a waystation in space, plus their host alien and her child--a thoughtful depiction of alien cultures and a masterpiece of character interaction Longest and shortest books? Longest:  The Secret Co

At last, the semester comes to an end. As I write this, I'm still very much in the thick of it, but by the time this has posted, it (hopefully) will feel long over. I turned my calendar over to December recently, and at the end of this calendar of Zen sayings, it says "You cannot teach people anything; you can only help them find it within themselves." Such an appropriate ending to the year for a teacher (I adjusted the saying here for gender inclusivity). I've also decided to post on Dec. 30, to get ahead of New Year's, but I'll post in January if I finished up any books last minute.   Books I've Read This Month The Latke in the Library & Other Mystery Stories for Chanukah by Libi Astaire Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner Sex Wars by Marge Piercy Dogs on the Trail: A Year in the Life by Blair Braverman and Quince Mountain

Happy Top Ten Tuesday!  These are my favorite books that I read in 2021, i.e. not necessarily published this year, anything that I may have read and enjoyed in this past year! It wasn't one of my best reading years, unfortunately, mostly in that I did not discover any new authors that I particularly love, with the exception of Leigh Bardugo (but I burned through almost all of them, though, yay! there are more). I did however read some exquisite sequels and new books by some of my all-time favorite authors--I was especially excited to get new books from Kristin Cashore and Becky Chambers, but I also read new books by Charlie Jane Anders, Maggie Stiefvater, and more, and a new-to-me book by Marge Piercy.  Best Books I Read in 2021 The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers Sex Wars by Marge Piercy Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore The Secret Commonwealth by Ph

 Happy Hanukkah! I haven't been reading a lot of books lately, in favor of immersive high-octane TV. First, I watched all the seasons of Supergirl, and now I'm halfway through Arrow. It gets the job done, and watching episodes so close together, I'm doing plenty of narrative and character analysis. It also helps me think about my characters for NaNoWriMo. I've spent most of this NaNoWriMo doing character profiles for the characters from my last complete NaNoWriMo draft in 2019, which I finished in July 2020. Since then, I've been figuring out how to write a second draft, so this work is giving me another angle into writing that, I think (I hope). I'm not trying to reach 50,000 words so much as just get some work done every day, which I've been doing, so I'm proud of myself. Books Read This Month News of the World by Paulette Jiles (book club) The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (other book club)