TW: infant loss
This is an interesting take that adds a lot to a reading of Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein, imo.
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1os31sw/frankenstein_was_written_while_mary_shelley_was/
I’m going to re read it when I finish my current book.
Shit. Shiiiiiit.
Ouch, that little tidbit really carved a hole in me.
On a happier note, I just finished 2 really good middle grade novels for anyone who enjoys a quick read. The Experiment by Rebecca Stead is earth-bound sci fi with some great twists, and The Tontine Caper is almost as fun as The Westing Game without the casual racism. Kind of Dickensian with a plucky orphan boy and a bunch of ridiculous adults.
I like the idea of tracking everything in one place. It makes it easier to spot patterns in what you read and remember what stood out. I am planning to add my own list soon and check in as I finish new books.
This weekend I caught up on Alison Bechdel’s two latest graphic novels!
The Secret to Superhuman Strength, which is very much in the same style as her two other memoirs. This one looks at her/America’s history with recreative exercise, transcendental philosophy, and her life as she was writing it. Lots of beautiful landscapes.
And then Spent, which is a more explicitly fictionalized version of Alison’s life (like her memoir gets turned into prestige TV instead of a Broadway show) and includes a bunch of characters from Dykes to Watch Out For as her friend group. Very entertaining, definitely would recommend.
The Everlasting was wonderful. All about stories and how history is created. I don’t like time travel which is why I didn’t give it 5 stars but I do like stories that mess with characters’ memories.
The Rose Field was also great but the ending was weird. Has anyone else read it?
I am really confused about what happened in the building at the end. Why did they set off the bomb inside the building? They have not historically shown themselves to be that stupid. Not clear why Ionides and Leila Pervani were there either.
I enjoyed the individual Oz books—I’d previously only read the first—but I’m mostly relieved to have finished the whole collection.
Read We Solve Murders by the guy who wrote Thursday Murder Club. Enjoyable, but not as delightful. I think this would be much better as an audio book, which is probably a good proportion of his sales.
Padding my stats with children’s books again but I only review picture books if they’re new and I have something to say.
Finally got around to exporting my Goodreads to Storygraph.
November’s wrap up.
October:
September:
August:
July:
Today in Book Opinions: The Hitchhiker’s Guide series should have ended at Book 4. It had a great ending with God’s Final Message to His Creation:
We Apologize for the Inconvenience.
A gently resigned cynicism.
Book 5 goes way too hard into nothing being meaningful, including parenting, probably better not to become a parent because they will suffer and blame you. It has some great bits about the Sandwich Maker and the Domain of the King but the rest of it just kind of hurts.
Will Storygraph give us the option to set a total books read challenge for 2026? I have one going for 2025 but I don’t see a 2026 one yet.
I assume for database reasons it won’t go live until the 1st.
My 2025 books! The most I’ve read in a year since college! I’m looking forward to even more next year.
Does anyone have any non-quantity based reading goals this year? I want to try to read one long classic every quarter this year, and I also think I’m going to join a few StoryGraph challenges, like the Diverse Baseline 2026 challenge
Yeah, you might consider tracking numbers of words or something instead of numbers of books. Those James Corey books are boat anchors!
I tried to do this and found it’s surprisingly difficult to find work count for some books! Pages is easy but there’s so much variation in page and font size.
I know, I love long books so much but I never end up hitting my yearly book goal because of that. Maybe I’ll track pages read instead?
