Space Station Mir

1. I finished reading A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, but I didn't like it as much as I wanted to. A fantasy fairytale retelling should be right up my alley, especially one of my favorites, Beauty and the Beast. But the power differential between Tamlin (the Beast) and Feyre (Beauty) rubbed me the wrong way, and I couldn't get past it. Maas creates a dark fantasy world where humans live apart from monstrous, bloodthirsty, and powerful faeries, including nearly omnipotent immortal High Lords like Tamlin. Worse, although Feyre is a huntress, she's a nearly physically powerless and illiterate mortal. That huge power discrepancy made their love story icky to me, and the book is at least as much romance as fantasy. I got through it, but I'm reevaluating whether to read any more of her books. 2. Next up, Fairest by Marissa Meyer, a fairytale background retelling I'm almost certain to like. 3. Both of these books are due back to the library AFTER my weddi...

If wedding planning loomed before, > three weeks out and it dominates my non-work life. I'm feeling accomplished at that moment though, as some looming wedding tasks are done or on their way there, and I just finished reading Get Your Sh*t Together by Sarah Knight. Although I enjoyed perusing it in the bookstore and Knight's irreverent tone is amusing in and of itself, my biggest takeaway from the book is that I'm perhaps better at adulting than I thought. For example, I can do my taxes all by myself (sorry Sarah Knight!). Small manageable chunks and converting to-do to must-do lists are my daily cup of tea, so even though my apartment isn't decorated and I haven't yet done my hair trial (tomorrow!), I'm feeling calmer. Contributing to my calm may be a recent spurt of feel-good reads. I finished The Winner's Kiss, the third in the Winner's Curse trilogy, and in my opinion, each book got richer and deeper. I thought the characters were bland at fir...

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...