Space Station Mir

It's been a busy month, for many reasons. I'm yet again a couple of issues behind on The Economist; I think I'm going to try more skimming/speed reading. I definitely do feel much more aware of what's going in the world and world economy, so I feel like I'm getting some value. I'll see if the value is worth the price at the end of the year. I revived my ereader this past week and read  The Winner's Curse and The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski. The first book came up as a $2.99 deal on Amazon, and I recalled enjoying a free sample of the first chapter when it came out. It's a quick read with world-building elements I like, and the author hasn't met a metaphor she doesn't love (fortunately, I loved hers). The two main characters, general's daughter Kestrel and rebellious slave Arin, are a little bland, and their romance obvious from the first sentence. However, I was intrigued enough to continue to the second book, which was meatier i...

1. I'm on eye drops, ear drops, and nose drops ftw. Here's hoping I'm back up to full health soon. 2. Wedding planning looms. I hit the three-month out mark, and although I'm totally on checklist, wished I had more details completed. If you've got more time, you might want to think about how you'll feel at xyz points. The WIC (Wedding Industry Complex, recently learned acronym) pushes you to decide earlier and it's definitely not necessary...but it might make you feel better, which is an angle I hadn't considered when I decided to take it more item-by-item. 3. That said, I'm now two months out and don't feel any MORE stressed than I did three months out. 4. Choosing and sending the invitations has been my favorite task so far.  Choosing my own stationery felt so gloriously luxurious. Highly recommend Minted.com--gorgeous designs and excellent customer service. I'm looking forward to getting back all the RSVPs! 5. Books...I'm lovin...

So, I finished Revenge Wears Prada . My assertion that it doesn't measure up to the original stands, but also that it was interesting to peer further down the lane of the characters' lives. There was one brilliant bit of plot that I didn't quite see coming, and another that was obvious, but still satisfying. The focus on weddings, since Andy and Emily run a luxe wedding magazine, was obviously interesting to me right now, as I plan my own! I haven't been keeping up as well with The Economist or with The Case for G-d . I did this last time I read Karen Armstrong, where I got kind of slogged in the middle--even though it's fascinating, it requires a lot of in-depth thinking as you read along. I'm more than halfway through though, just need to keep going. For The Economist , I'm letting myself skip a couple of issues and start fresh. I'm still keeping up better than the last time I had a weekly magazine when piles of The New Yorker  buried my closet floo...

I'm still reading The Case for G-d by Karen Armstrong. It's enjoyable, but takes time to grok. I read A   History of G-d in similar fashion several years ago. Appropriately for the times, she's creating an "alternate" history of G-d, choosing to focus on traditions of mysticism and spirituality, and elucidating the original meanings of "faith" and "belief," which she claims had less to do with literal belief than trust in the disembodied divinity of within and without. It makes a lot of sense to me, but it is certainly not something one can understand without thinking about--or with thinking about :-P I finished The Magicians audiobook, just in time for season 2 of The Magicians . I love how the show plays with the events/characters of the book while managing to keep perfectly in tone. Lev Grossman is a creative consultant on the show, so that makes sense. The last episode...!!! I was flabbergasted by the last episode of season 1, since, des...

This year, I decided to get a subscription to The Economist.  It felt  important to me this year especially to stay on top of national and international events (although things have been happening faster than I could have anticipated...). In the past, keeping up with a weekly subscription has been too much for me, but I got the idea from Gretchen Rubin's  Better Than Before  that "we manage what we monitor," so I created an Excel spreadsheet to track my magazine reading since I couldn't find any on the interwebs. Also, I've previously used this blog to keep track of my reading, but now I prefer to use it to reflect on my reading (and life). Instead, I've (finally) joined Goodreads to track reading. I wish one could track magazine, article, short story etc. reading as well--does anyone know of a website/app for that? Let me know if you find one! Anyway, I'm reading The Economist weekly now and I feel much better informed about the world--I keep telli...

Hope Jahren's Lab Girl was a surprisingly apt follow-up read to Helen Russell's The Year of Living Danishly.  Not only did I stick with the nonfiction female memoir trend, but the mood stayed Scandinavian (or 'Scandi' as Russell frequently abbreviates in what I'm not sure is magazine-speak, Brit-speak, or her own argot). Jahren describes her Minnesota childhood and immediately evokes the type of winter that Russell observes, except without the cozy sense of  hygge . As Jahren puts it, she traded the icy exterior for a different type of iciness when she entered her home. The writing in Jahren's memoir has a strong sense of place, grounded literally by her interpolated chapters on plant life. It reminds me of the best attributes of scientific writing--the ability to say a lot in a short space and to be precise where it matters. Jahren's goal also exemplifies the truest goal of scientific writing today, to inspire research, by way of grants. As she s...

I've started off my new year's reading very similar to what became my go-to books last year: nonfiction memoirs by female authors. The last book I read last year (November and December reading will be up, er, soon-ish), was Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster, and the first book I read this year was--dum dum dum-- Jeneration X by Jen Lancaster. But seriously. My fiance doesn't even know her name, but he's like "Oh no, are you reading that person who makes you laugh all the time again!?" My second book this year was The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell. I'm interested (me and the rest of the world) in the Danish concept of hygge ( I first saw it on the Konmari Instagram feed). It fits since winter is my least favorite season, and I'm sick of being somewhat sad for 4-5 months of the year. This winter has been mild, although there's currently an inch of snow and it's well below freezing. Still, the concept of making winter a "co...

Borrowed from Boston Bibliophile . How many books read in 2016? 65 (not including rereads or work reads) How many fiction and non fiction?  42 fiction and 19 nonfiction (2 short story collections, 1 book of poetry) Male/Female author ratio?  48 written by women to 15 written by men. I didn ’ t  read intentionally in this regard this year, but I did notice I was tending more towards books by women.  Favorite book of 2016?   Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster. Also, The Yiddish Policemen ’ s Union by Michael Chabon, Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, Better Than Before and Happiness Project books by Gretchen Rubin, and Man ’ s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Least favorite?  Paper Towns by John Green or A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler Any that you simply couldn’t finish and why? I DNF ’ d Empress of the Night by Eva Stachniak. I disliked all of the switching back and forth in time. Oldest book...