Shaina Reads

Hi, everyone!

To exactly no one's surprise, I've been devoured by my graduate program, and things are pretty great down here in its belly. Today marks the start of my second week, and I've already learned more about the social determinants of health and the American government's role in public health than I ever thought possible. Self-directed learning is the best, y'all.


via GIPHY

Naturally, this does not leave much time for leisure reading, but I did manage to squeeze in the first episode of the first season of Tremontaine, a serialized fantasy novel by a whole troupe of talented authors. It's got intrigue, sword-fighting, scholarship and the promise of lots of queer naughty times to come. Memory pushed it like no other on her blog and on Twitter, and since the first episode is free for Kindle, I gave it a shot. Big mistake. Now I'm going to have to shell out actual money for the rest of the season, and your girl's unemployed. Memory suggested that I buy the episodes individually as a treat to myself every now and again. At $2 each, that seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Seriously, I want y'all to read TREMONTAINE & the three Riverside novels so we can all jump up and down as we gush incoherently about them.

— Memory Scarlett (@xicanti) October 1, 2016

The latest round of the Social Justice Book Club kicks off today, and I'm actually going to try to participate this time, not least because I may have committed myself to hosting an SJBC Twitter chat with Janani. Gulp. In October, the club will be reading Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, which has been on my TBR and Kindle for far too long. Come join in the fun and keep me honest with the reading schedule!

What are y'all reading this week?

It's finally arrived, guys: orientation week! My first official event is on Thursday, and it's only going to get busier from here on out.

I met some of my cohort yesterday at a picnic in an awesome local park. It used to be the site of Seattle's gas plant, and some of the original structures remain.



The rest of my weekend included a Daft Punk laser light show with friends, delicious ube ice cream in a still-warm waffle cone, and lots of time for crossing fun and productive things off my to-do list.

Reading was (and is) definitely on that list. I've just about rounded the halfway mark of FEED, the first in Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy. I originally assumed this was "just another zombie book," but it's more of a political journalist thriller with the undead wreaking havoc in the background. Goodreads has been recommending this book to me since 2012, and now I know why. It rocks.

On Friday, I picked up Catching Homelessness: A Nurse's Story of Falling Through the Safety Net by Josephine Ensign. It's the book of the year at UW's School of Public Health, and I hope to get through it before Thursday. It's slim, but I know the stories and information it packs in will be heavy, personal and extremely important.

Also also, I joined Litsy as a beta tester for their Android app! Add me @shainareads. I recently updated my phone and lost the ability to post pictures myself, but I'm loving scrolling through my feed to see what everyone else is reading.

Happy Monday, book buds, and happy Labor Day to my friends in the States! I've been unemployed for about a month now, so I have to admit that this whole three-day weekend thing means less to me than usual. I fully deserve any tomatoes you hurl my way.

I forgot to update y'all about my Bout of Books progress last Monday, and suffice it to say that I did not read a whole lot. Thankfully, the lovely Jenna of JMillWanders hosted the Take Back Your Shelves Readathon this weekend (still going today, too!) and I finally, finally managed to get N. K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon under my belt via audio.

I just checked, and I've posted about reading or wanting to read this book no fewer than eight times since last August, so it was about time. Sadly, the writing was a lot clunkier and the metaphors far more heavy-handed than those of the exquisite/wonderful/my bae The Fifth Season, but her world building is as glorious as always. I ended up grabbing its follow-up, The Shadowed Sun, to listen to today. Despite real differences in quality among the novels, I want to read Jemisin's oeuvre, so I will, dang it.

I also started Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer during Bout of Books 17 but sort of dropped it during my Jemisin audio fest, so I hope to jump back into that this week. I've only tried reading one other Foer before (Everything is Illuminated during a particularly tumultuous time in junior year of college), and I couldn't get through it. Naturally, I decided that his part-memoir, part-investigation of the world of factory and family farming might go over better. It's the first bit of food/diet-related nonfiction that I've read since Animal Liberation, and I'm learning a lot. For instance, did y'all know about fecal soup and how much of it commercial chicken absorbs during processing? Maybe you didn't want to know that.

Foer fans: what other novel can I try of his? I feel like I didn't give his fiction a fair shake the first time around.

Happy reading!

Happy Monday, book buds! For many of you out there, it's no longer Monday, but I've got Pacific Standard Time on my side these days.

At the very last second (read: this morning), I decided to take part in my third (maybe fourth?) Bout of Books readathon! Here's the lowdown for those not in the know:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 22nd and runs through Sunday, August 28th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 17 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

Long story short: a whole week devoted to getting down and dirty with our reading material. After the craziness of last week's move, an extended, low-key readathon sounded like the perfect way to wind down.

I kicked off the 'thon today by grabbing some Kindle time with Jesmyn Ward's The Fire This Time in a local park. (I hope y'all aren't sick of my photos of Seattle yet, because there are so many more in your future.)

Finishing up THE FIRE THIS TIME in this gorgeous spot. #boutofbooks pic.twitter.com/tzpA9MWTGz

— Shaina (@shainareads) August 22, 2016

I know I need to lose myself in some fiction after devouring that collection of important but heavy essays and poetry, so I've decided to give N. K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon another go via audio. I will never stop going on about how much I loved The Fifth Season, so here's hoping the third time's the charm with this one! Also, can anyone believe I haven't listened to an audio book since mid-June? Moving, man. Talk to your kids about it.

As has apparently become tradition for me during readathons, I have no formal TBR pile nor any game plan for how the rest of this week will go. I'm insufferably methodical about the rest of my life, but I throw caution to the wind when it comes to communal reading parties.

What are you guys reading this week? Are any of you participating Bout of Books 17?

I'm officially a quarter of a century old, and my birthday weekend was a smashing success. I ate and drank many wonderful things (including this carrot cake) and spent a lot of quality time with friends. Mostly important, I did not get trapped on a space station for the rest of my life—my group and I made it out with four minutes to spare! If any of you are puzzle fiends and have the opportunity to try out an escape room, I highly recommend it.


I also got some birthday books, because this blog has not in fact devolved to a mere journal about my life (yet). I patronized a good ol' local, independent bookstore and walked away with Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond and The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood. The latter in particular was eluding me at the library. I could not be more excited to read both of them.

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Jul 10, 2016 at 11:57am PDT

Things are still slow on the reading front overall, but I am about halfway through God Help the Child by Toni Morrison. It's short, clocking in at just 179 pages. If you've read any Morrison, you know why I'm taking my time with each and every page. I'm not loving it as much as I've loved her past work so far, but I'm reserving my final judgment until the end.

Goodness gracious, you guys, putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) has been a struggle lately. This isn't an entirely bad thing. My dedication to unplugging and chilling has taken root, and I've been catching up on good TV, spending time with friends, baking delicious treats, and starting and abandoning books with gusto. Still, I do miss bumming around in the book blogosphere and, you know, actually finishing the books that I begin.

Thankfully, I think I've finally found two that will stick. Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters was one of my most anticipated BEA galley-grabs, and so far it has not disappointed. It's essentially a detective novel set in an alternate history in which the Civil War never happened. Let me tell you, it makes for some perfect beach reading.

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Jun 18, 2016 at 11:26am PDT

I also started the audio of Grass by Sheri S. Tepper over the weekend. I've been meaning to read some Tepper ever since my boyfriend's mom recommended her science-fiction to me, and this one has the added bonus of being set during the onset of a plague (one of my Books on the Nightstand bingo squares!).

Happy Monday, everyone!

I spent the last week of my life with a severe case of the gobbledybooks. I spent my work hours daydreaming about being in my apartment with my book piles, and then I got home and probably played Candy Crush instead. I also had trouble sinking into anything over the weekend. If anyone can give me tips on how to stop sabotaging myself like this, my TBR pile and I will thank you.

When I have been picking up my books, I've been hopping around with a vengeance. I finished A Wild Swan: And Other Tales by Michael Cunningham (a library grab based purely on tiny size and promised dark whimsy), The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (sob) and Things That Can and Cannot Be Said by John Cusack and Arundhati Roy (an unexpected BEA find that greased up the ol' brain cogs about war, democracy, and—most interesting to me—how funding and radical politics don't play nicely).

In case that wasn't a long enough book list, here are a few more I'm currently in the middle of: Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn (which I raved about over the weekend), Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (a post-nuclear-Holocaust Africa featuring a fierce female shapeshifter on a journey—waiting for this to pick up, but I'm still enjoying the ride) and The Midnight Assassin by Skip Hollandsworth (because Lauren loved it and I didn't fully scratch my true crime itch earlier this month).

Gobble. Dy. Books. Talk to your kids about it, because this business is real.

The Monday After Readathon Weekend ought to be declared a biannual international holiday. I don't have room to complain—I passed out halfway through Hour 17—but it's the principle of the thing, you know?

In addition to making me feel all sorts of lovey-dovey feelings for the book blogging community, I think Readathon helped me bust out of a semi-slump. It wasn't that I wasn't reading, but nothing I was working on was really 100% grabbing me. Sometimes I think that reading that feels too routine can be worse than not reading at all. Happily, the event helped me clear a few (enjoyable!) stragglers off my plate, and the prospect of a clean slate has me feeling energized.

For now, I'm going where my gut takes me, and so far I've been plowing through the audio of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I got through more than half of it over the weekend and fully expect to plow through the rest. This is some of the most literary nonfiction I've ever encountered, and I can't wait to learn more about what Capote's research process was, besides the fact that he had freaking HARPER LEE help him with it.

Also, a group of very, very insistent folks on Twitter have persuaded me to give Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle a shot. I'm not one to pick up young adult on a whim, but all the jubilation over the forthcoming The Raven King has got me curious. I picked up the audiobook of the first installment from the library and am hoping it eases nicely into my current fiction vacancy.

Happy Monday, book buddies! I hope you all had lovely weekends, whether or not you partook in any Easter festivities. Hopefully you weren't bum-rushing any egg hunts.

On Wednesday, I take off for Seattle for my last graduate school visit before I make my final decision about where to attend. I've got a gut feeling that I'm going to love University of Washington's program and may just be calling myself a Seattleite come fall, but only time will tell. One thing's for sure: I'm excited to be done with the whirlwind cross-country travel. My body is, too; after my last red-eye home from Berkeley, I was a sickly mess for almost a week. Yay for another red-eye on Thursday night!

Anyway, you aren't here for travel grumbling. You're here for the books!

Last week, I finished and adored the audio of The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin. I wrote a super gushy review, but I also urge you to read Foz Meadows's thoughtful take on how Jemisin treated her queer characters (after you read the book, if you plan to; it's super spoiler-filled). I stand by my hearty recommendation of the novel and the audio version, but Meadows's points helped me to think more critically about a trope I missed the first time around.

This week, I hope to finish up the last of Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. I should have some non-fiction reviewlettes coming your way soon, but I think I want to finish Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman first. I started it over the weekend and have already flown through 20% of the audio. The way Silberman interweaves the stories of families with children on the spectrum with the history of autism's classification and treatment has me completely hooked.

Hi, book buds! The rumors are true: I'm still alive.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, particularly on the weekends. I closed out February with a trip to New York City to visit a slew of college friends (and, of course, to hit up The Strand), and I spent the following weekend in beautiful Berkeley, California being wooed by their public health school (and not meeting Lauren, much to my sadness). I took a red-eye home last Monday night and worked the next day, and only now am I finally feeling readjusted to real life. I think sleeping for 12 hours on Saturday night/Sunday morning might have finally done the trick. Needless to say, that bloggin' flow has been more of an ebb lately.

Despite my lack of posting, I have been reading! Thirty-six hours of listening later, I finally, FINALLY finished Alexander Hamilton. I immediately dove into audio of Sarah Vowell's Lafayette in the Somewhat United States because I just wasn't ready to quit that tasty, tasty American revolutionary history. It was my first Vowell, and I'm especially interested in getting my hands on Take the Cannoli next. I'm crossing my fingers it'll come to Audible soon.

I've also been gettin' odd for Julianne's Weirdathon (sign-ups are open until tomorrow!). I've had Karin Tidbeck's Jagannath lingering on my virtual bookshelf since this time last year, and these oft-bizarre, always whimsical Swedish short stories did not disappoint. I also knocked another read off my Kindle with The Bees by Laline Paull. The ending managed to feel both epic and too neat, but I really enjoyed the ride. I mean, wildly religious bees. And they talk.

I'm so excited about everything I'm reading right now, too. I've raved about it on Twitter already, but get thee to your nearest audiobook source and grab up The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin. I ended up setting aside The Killing Moon when I tried it last year, but I'm absolutely sucked in to her latest. Fabulous world-building, a sucker-punch of a beginning, and solid narration? I couldn't ask for more. I also started The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol just last night, and my blood has been at a slow roil ever since.

Also, sorry to Rain and In the Woods. I'll come back to you, I promise.

Happiest of Mondays, book buds!

The last week was fairly quiet on the reading front and anything but on the life front. Many of you have already heard, but I was admitted to two of the three public health schools I applied to! I still have one to hear back from before the big decisions start, but regardless, I'M GOING TO GRADUATE SCHOOL IN THE FALL!


via GIPHY Needless to say, my brain has been a bit too scattered for serious reading and blogging since Tuesday, but I'm soldiering on. I finished A Head Full of Ghosts and shared gushing write-ups of it and Mr. Splitfoot on Saturday. I also started my first Tana French, In The Woods, and I already have high hopes that it is going to be a slow-burning masterpiece.
On the nonfiction side of things, I made some headway into my sorely-neglected copy of Rain (did you know that Seattle's reputation as the rainiest city in America is pure hogwash?!). I also fell asleep twice while listening to Hamilton over the weekend, so there's that. I'm so behind on the #HamAlong that it's ceased to be funny, but I will finish it.
This week, I hope to make more time for all of my books, but I'm especially excited to take my sweet time with the delightful Dublin Murder Squad.
How are you starting off your week in reading?

Can I just take a moment to say again how excellent my reading in 2016 has been so far?

Damn, 2016 reading, you are off to such an excellent start, I could squeak.

— Shaina (@shainareads) February 7, 2016

The first week of February kept up last month's trend. Julianne and I weren't supposed to finish up Mr. Splitfoot until today, but I bullied her into closing out our buddy-read yesterday because I couldn't wait to see how it ended. Look out for a review that may or may not be a pasted chat log of Julianne and I gushing to each other about all the weirdo magical realism and cult-y fun. We've done that before.

I also finished The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Sarah Schulman. For a book under 200 pages, this one took me a while to get through—Schulman tackles big ideas about how the AIDS crisis contributed to physical, mental and artistic homogeneity, and she isn't here for anyone else's nonsense. In addition to these larger and more devastating consequences, it got me thinking about how uniformity of material and opinions in the book blogging sphere could contribute to us not seeking out more varied reading (and thinking) experiences. We'll see if I can get my act together enough to draft a full post on that.

I didn't make much time for my chunksters or for Rain last week, so I hope to get to those while also finishing out A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. Lauren, Sal and Julianne have all sung the praises of this horror-story-turned-reality-TV-critique, and I knew they wouldn't steer me wrong. Heck, they even got me to go to the library again. (Sorry, #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks. We all knew this would happen eventually.)

Also, I'm trying to pick my next nonfiction! Does anyone want to sway me either toward The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol or The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler? Let me know!

Oh, and P.S. I BOUGHT MY PLANE TICKETS TO BEA! Let the book bash commence!


via GIPHY

Happy Monday, all! There might only be an hour and half till Tuesday, but better late than never.

January was an excellent month for reading. I say this even though I didn't love everything and, in some cases, had big bones to pick with what I read. Still, I got in a stunning debut and quite a bit of nonfiction, including the unparalleled Tiny Beautiful Things. Out of my six books read, five of them qualified for #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks and two of them for #CleanYourReader. All told, I'm getting off to a great start on my goals for 2016.

I have high hopes moving into February, considering my current stack. A Clash of Kings and Hamilton are still going strong, and I've finally rounded the halfway point of the latter! (Those last eighteen hours are going to fly by, I can feel it.) I'm continuing to ride the nonfiction wave with Cynthia Barnett's beautifully-written Rain: A Natural and Cultural History and Sarah Schulman's searing memoir, The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination. Finally, I've just started Mr. Splitfoot as a buddy read with Julianne. I feel like I don't quite have my footing with it yet, but I'm excited to see where it goes, especially with the queen of weird by my side. (And thank you again to Emily for hosting the giveaway that got this weirdo book into my hands in the first place.)

Time to pack some pages into the shortest month of the year!

Happy last week of January, everyone! Can you believe it?

One of the snowiest storms to hit the East coast in recent memory came and went this weekend, and my neck of Connecticut ended up with about a foot of the stuff (AKA little more than a dusting compared to Kerry, Shannon and others' totals).

Mid-blizzard on Saturday.

You'd think this kind of weather would mean I read all the books on Saturday, but nope—echoing what Shannon said, I was too distracted to get in much more than a few hours' worth of reading. I blame cookie-baking, video games, and the general lure of mindless scrolling on the Internet.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyone! Coming off the last of my graduate school applications, I am more grateful than ever for the long weekend.

I didn't read anywhere near 24 hours this weekend, but 24in48 was still a rousing success. I finished the second half of The Longest Night, Andria Williams's heartbreaking debut, and then Nimona went and destroyed what was left of my heart before rebuilding it and making it swell tenfold. I don't know if I'll get around to a proper review of the latter, but I'm calling it: it'll make my best of 2016 list (in keeping with my super backlist-y 2015 picks).

Dr. Blitzmeyer gets me. #nimona #24in48 #alwaystimefortea

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Jan 17, 2016 at 8:21pm PST

I also started Bats of the Republic by Zachary Thomas Dodson, and I'm already completed sucked in. I expected to be entranced by the illustrations and experimental format, but the story has me hooked, too. I can't wait to see where it goes.

And, of course, I made time for my man Ron Chernow and his man, Hamilton. I might not be writing any actual blog posts for #HamAlong, but darn it if I'm not keeping up and tweeting inane things.

This week, I'll be spending plenty of time with Bats and Hamilton and also plan to keep chipping away at my other nonfiction. I've been in the middle of How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell and Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Life and Love from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed for what feels like months. A quick Goodreads check confirms that feeling. Wish me luck!

100% impulse buy. 0% regrets.

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Oct 8, 2015 at 12:31pm PDT

I'M BACK, Y'ALL.

Mount GRE has been scaled, and though I was hoping for a better math score, I'm above average for everywhere I'm applying. Perfectionist me can go pout in a corner while sane, rational me calls this good. I still have the actual applications to finish, but I'm hoping these won't pull me away from my books and the blogosphere in the same way that godforsaken test did. Moral of the story: seriously, guys, don't go to graduate school.

The Readathon was the very best way to celebrate my newfound freedom, and it helped me knock out a couple of books I'd been dawdling my way through, namely Ancillary Mercy and What Strange Creatures. I hope to get reviews up for these soon, along with, you know, the five other books I've read and have yet to review. Eep.

Right now, though, I've got the reading itch and am basking in my ability to indulge it. I'm struggling not to race through Tiny Beautiful Things, which so far has been a salve, wake-up call and personal validation rolled into one. I have my eye on some other nonfiction, too, particularly of the social science/public health bent. I put down Unfair by Adam Benforado last month and am about ready to try again, and Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer is calling to me, most likely because I know I'll come out of it ready to write some impassioned statements of purpose.

And fiction! I have all the fiction on my shelves. My body is ready.

Oh, y'all. It's about to be a week. I'm hanging out with Shannon on Planet GRE, but I'm not catching the shuttle back to Earth until Friday afternoon. The test anxiety is setting in, but I know all I can do is keep practicing, eat and sleep plenty, and do my best when the time comes. With any luck, I'll never have to take this darned test again. The silver lining? There's been a whole lot of stress baking going on.

Yeah. Just... yeah. #girlsjustwannahavepie #instapie #applepie

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Oct 5, 2015 at 5:14pm PDT

All this studying has had me reading in fits and spurts, and I'm sad to say I haven't finished a single book this month, despite being close to the end of both Ancillary Mercy and A Game of Thrones. I'm hoping that Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon this weekend will help me get some pages in. In addition to reading, I'll be cheering on Twitter, moderating the Goodreads group for a spell and hosting a super-awesome mini-challenge right here on the blog—phew. Stop by during the event on Saturday to check out my challenge and throw your hat in the ring for a $10 Amazon gift card!

As for what I'll be reading during the week, I'm going to try to finish out What Strange Creatures by Emily Arsenault if/when I'm not furiously cramming in the math. This mystery has been easy to follow, perfect for putting down and picking back up when I have a few minutes, but I'm more than halfway through and still not entirely sure where it's going. The jury's still out on whether that's a good or a bad thing.

Good morning, all! I'm checking in to say that I'm still kickin' (kind of), readin' (less), and grad school preppin' (very much).

I could probably fill this whole post with my graduate school application woes, but I'm not quite committed to renaming this place Shaina Applies to Graduate School. After a brief but intense existential crisis ("Do I even want to apply to graduate school?"), I'm back in the saddle, juggling GRE math exercises and statement of purpose drafts. Math is math, and I continue to be amazed by how much statements of purpose are like cover letters but somehow worse. On the bright side, my GRE testing date falls the day before next month's Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon, and I'm thrilled to have a built-in way to celebrate the beast being over. All-day reading parties are the best parties.

Speaking of bookish goodness, I finished a book last week! I was in desperate need of something I could fly through, and The Fever by Megan Abbott fit that bill swimmingly. Abbott brought me back to being a high school girl in a way that was both deeply nostalgic but also left me relieved when I realized how much I've changed since then. Bonus: it totally fit in with the R.I.P. X theme.

This week, I'll continue chugging along with IT. I hit the halfway point in my audio book last night, and I think the slow burn is finally erupting into an inferno. I can no longer listen to it if I'm home alone at night, and my boyfriend might be a little worried about me.

If I have time, I'm also going to dive in to Ancillary Mercy, the final installment in Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy. I requested an ARC from Orbit ages ago and had just about given up hope, and I shrieked when it arrived unannounced a couple of weeks ago. Did I mention my boyfriend is worried about me?

I'm hoping to get a review up this week (The Heart Goes Last, anyone?), but, as per usual lately, we'll just have to see.

Wait. Do we really have to work five days this week? I missed that memo.

About where I'm at today.

Anyway, Monday's here, and I hope y'all are coming off some excellent week(end)s to soften that blow. I can't complain about mine; I got a lot done on the Shaina Applies to Grad School* front and even managed to get some relaxation in. Wine, pumpkin beer and this delicious herbed summer squash pasta bake helped. (If you've got zucchini the size of small dogs, I highly recommend that last recipe.)

To the books! Coming off an amazing listen of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, my boyfriend and I watched the film on Saturday (Peril on the Screen: complete!). I have numerous and ambivalent thoughts about both, and I hope to get them into a semi-coherent state sometime this week. I also finished Atwood's The Heart Goes Last yesterday. I'm honestly not sure what to make of it, and I'm glad I have some time to let my thoughts simmer before its publication date. I do think it's going to make for excellent debate fodder over at The Socratic Salon.

Inspired by Trish's enthusiasm, I started listening to the 44-hour monster that is It by Stephen King, narrated by Steven Weber. I might still be listening to it by the time Halloween 2016 rolls around, but Weber's narration is solid, particularly coming off Parker's unforgettable Cuckoo's Nest performance. I plan to truck along with that and start up some new visual/eyeball/optical reads this week. Two strong contenders are Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho (which I didn't end up getting to last week) and Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg, a library hold I did not expect to get my hands on so soon.

*But let's not talk about how I seem to be getting worse at math, rather than better. I haven't been making enough burnt offerings to the GRE quantitative reasoning gods.

Happy Labor Day to my friends in the States! I hope you've gotten your fill of sunshine, barbecue and books over the long holiday weekend. My Monday off included GRE math prep (gross) and some of the last summer beer of the season (definitely not gross).

I don't want to speak too soon, but I think I've busted my infernal reading slump. Over the weekend, I gobbled up Koji Suzuki's Ring (yes, that Ring), successfully completing my first book for RIP X and scoring myself a Books on the Nightstand BINGO with its 1991 publication date. (Thank you again to everyone who suggested awesome reads for my bingo squares last week! I ended up completely ignoring them in favor of Ring, but you've added a bunch of footnote-y, early '90s books to my TBR. A lady couldn't ask for better friends.)


After a great first listening experience, I'm already making good headway into my second audio book: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, narrated by Tom Parker. So far, Parker is nailing the ominous atmosphere and juggling the large cast of characters like a pro. With just three-ish hours left, I can't wait to see how the story wraps up. I've also taken a chunk out of Atwood's The Heart Goes Last, due out September 29, and plan to finish it soon before diving into a late approval from NetGalley, Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho.

I was hoping to avoid a hiatus, but the graduate school application stress is kicking in in earnest, and things might get a little quieter around my neck of the blogging woods. I still aim to post a couple of times a week and fully intend to keep reading/commenting, but, from now until early December, I'll be doing whatever I can to keep my head on straight. If I vanish for a bit, I hope you won't forget about me!