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...

I read a lot more this month than I have in a while. Part of it is being off work for most of the month. Part of it is distracting myself from the winter, particularly the winter of this pandemic. The rates, the restriction, the closing in, the cold. I felt better after the 20th was over. I feel confident that I will get the vaccine sometime this year. But I still just want to escape. I'm lucky. I have a lovely cozy place to huddle up with my beloved spouse and dogs. I'm safe. I have everything I need. I just have to find it.   Books Read This Month The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan Paper Brigade 2020-21 One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross by Harry Kemelman Romancing Mr. Bridgerton by Julia Quinn Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel Last Day on Mars by Kevin Emerson Favorite Book This Month 1. The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman It helps to start off the m...

 I encountered some incredible new authors in 2020, a few of them in interesting ways! We read Leslie Gray Streeter's memoir in our book club because one of our members knows her sister and brother-in-law, and we even got to meet her over Zoom. I heard of Gretchen McCulloch's book because a former colleague of mine reviewed it on LinkedIn. I saw someone talking about Junauda Petrus' book on Twitter, commented about how awesome I thought it was, and my husband bought it for me for my birthday! I won Amy Meyerson's second book, The Imperfects , through an Instagram contest, and it came with the sweetest note from her. Overall, I love being open to new bookish experiences and authors, whether it be debuts, new-to-me books, books in translation, or classics. Check out my list--I recommend them all! Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! Top Ten New-to-Me Authors I Read in 2020 Charlotte Lucas T. Kingfisher Gretchen McCulloch Leslie Gray Streeter Amy Meyerson ...

 I debated whether or not even to do this post. Unlike most years, I don't feel like setting goals. However, I decided to take a look back at last year, thinking I would probably laugh, but it actually turns out I set some thoughtful and flexible goals that I did mostly accomplish. So, I will do similarly this year: I'll set goals that I can probably accomplish no matter where this year takes me, and a lot is up in the air for me personally as well as my country politically, and whether I accomplish them or not, that's okay. So, let's go over last year's Bookish and Non-Bookish Goals: 2020-Bookish Goals 1. Read at least 60 books-I read exactly 60 books! 2. Reread old favorites and books I have more to learn from-Yes.  Towards the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, I reread Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and enjoyed it so much. In 2020, I did a couple more rereads like Jen Sincero's You Are a Badass and Mary Oliver's Blue Horses , and I began 202...

For my 2020 Goodreads goal, I had set 60 books. A the beginning of the year, it didn't seem like much, since I read over 80 last year and over 70 the year before. But this year was a different year, when I went through bursts of reading and bursts of just bingeing Netflix, so I had accepted that I wouldn't meet that goal. However, on Dec 26, I realized that I had read 55 books for the year...and my friends on social media egged me on for a 5 books in 5 days challenge, which I am happy to say I completed. I read more books in December than any other month this year, I think, and I did finish 60 books in 2020, finishing up with two book club reads for January, two new books I got for Hanukkah, and a collection of children's books.    I bought the Rebecca  collection a few years ago. I loved American Girl books growing up, and I read all of them. The  Rebecca books, the first (and only, I think) Jewish American Girl, came out after I was an adult, but I wanted to read t...

 2020 Reading Stats As usual, borrowed and modified from the sadly now discontinued Boston Bibliophile. How many books read in 2020? 60, which I hit just in time. Last year, I read 89, and the year before 73, both record-breakers for me, and...I am so freaking proud of myself for what I've been able to accomplish this year.  How many fiction and nonfiction? 36 fiction, 24 nonfiction Female/male/nonbinary author ratio? 50 female, 10 male, including one collection of short stories with female, male, and nonbinary authors Writers of Color/Minority Writers? 14 books by writers of color,  9 books by Jewish authors, at least three by LGBTQ writers, and more including some of the writers in the short story collection Favorite book of 2020? Middlemarch. I spent a long time reading and savoring it, especially in the uncertain days right after we were all told to go home and stay there.  Longest and shortest books? Longest:  Middlemarch by George Eliot, at 904 pages. Shor...