Space Station Mir

1. A Practical Wedding Planner by Meg Keene I read this first in 2016, but it was incredibly helpful planning my wedding, especially in the last couple days! 2. The Magician King by Lev Grossman I appreciate so much more the riffing on and respect for some of my favorite children's fantasy novels, and the Magicians series are fantasy novels in their own right too. Currently finishing up the trilogy with The Magician's Land . 3. The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer Insightful about who your audience really is, when it really is okay to ask (something I've struggled with most of my life), and plenty of wild, heartwarming stories from Amanda's life. 4. Wedding Stories, Ed. Diana Secker Tesdell Thematic and timely for me, and also a thorough range of classic and contemporary American authors, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Edwidge Danticat. Also starts off with an entertaining story from English author A. A. Milne. 5. The Winner's...

Top Ten Tuesdays are over at the Broke and the Bookish . I feel like I used to have a lot of these, but I'll give it a go... Top Ten Series I've Been Meaning to Start But Haven't 1. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor 2. Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling 3. Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde 4. The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin 5. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir 6. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin 7. Defy by Sara B. Larson 8. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan 9. 10. I'll see if I can remember more later!

Meme over at Bookishly Boisterous ! 1. Especially towards the end of wedding planning, looking at wedding magazines made me sick and wedding advice columns made me sick with dread. It didn't stop me from reading, but what's surprising is that I've continued reading after the wedding--and I'm enjoying it! Ideas for weddings make me smile, conundrums inspire sympathy. The Practical Wedding column where the sister wears the white dress still leaves me flabbergasted--my sister/MOH wore an awesome gold jacket. 2. I have much more interest in wedding planning than I did before. Prior to mine, it was something I'd never thought about. Though it was stressful, afterward, it was kind of cool.  I'm not interested in planning a wedding or large party again, but I appreciate the experience because I have sympathy for my friends and relatives who are about to or may at some point go through it, and I like feeling like I could be of help to them 3. We got incredibly l...

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at the Broke and the Bookish! Top Ten Fantasy Books I Recently Added to My TBR I haven't read any of these yet, but they're all books I've added to my TBR in the past six months or so. Most are recommendations from other bloggers. 1. Mangoverse series by Shira Glassman 2. Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton 3. Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton 4. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders 5. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman 6. Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel 7. The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi 8. Everfair by Nisi Shawl 9. The Crystal Ribbon by Celeste Lim 10. Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julia C. Dao

Post-wedding, I've been on a reading roll. Finished The Scar and The Magician King from Bookmooch, took out a ton of library books, and made some purchases at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. I enjoyed The Magician King and look forward to finishing the trilogy with The Magician's Land . I better appreciate now Lev Grossman's  transmutation of fantasy tropes, not to mention his D&D references--he casually refers to characters using "cantrips" and "Magic Missile." The protagonist Quentin, a snarky teenager for most of the first book,  is truly becoming the hero he felt entitled to be. It was also interesting to see Julia's story, although the essence of it was given away in the first season of the TV show. There were some differences, and I wonder if the show will go where this book does with her story. We haven't finished the second season yet, so don't tell me! I found some longtime TBR books at the library and have finished two alr...

1. We got married! It was beautiful and perfect and it's over :-) 2. We went on our honeymoon to Colonial Williamsburg, which was also pretty perfect, and I picked up Everlasting Syllabub and the Art of Carving by Hannah Glasse, an 18th century cookbook intended to be for the servants and thus not written in the "high polite style." Although I don't think I'll be attempting any of her recipes, it is a fascinating read. 3. While I was gone, a pair of books arrived from Bookmooch, The Magician King by Lev Grossman and The Scar by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko. I gave up on the former at the library, so now I've got two handsome hardcovers to call my own. I read The Scar first, and enjoyed it immensely. It's a fleshed out fairytale about an arrogant man from a militaristic culture, who receives a scar that turns him into a coward. It has strains of Beauty and the Beast, now that I think about it, and I liked it much better than A Court of Thorns and Roses...

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...