Books and Tour of Normandy cars October - December 2019
I made my goal of 100 books this year! It helped that many of them were YA. I like reading the teen ones best, but I want to be the cool book auntie for some kids who will be ~10 years old so I've been reading many of those. I think books are better today than when I was a kid...but I also think everyone says that :)
Giant dog! (and fancy car)
While in Bayeux a car show came through town. A number of the photos are hilariously bad because I tried to grab photos while they were driving past-oh well! It wasn't until later in the day that we found the cars parked for folks to look at. Quite the variety, antiques, new fancy, and art cars.
Books I read on the Serial Reader app
-by H.P. Lovecraft
Shadow Over Innsmouth: Scarier than Chthulu, but not by much. Short and yet it still felt like it could use an editor. Still, not bad for one of the first horror stories.
-by Maurice LeBlanc
Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar and Arsene Lupin vs Herlock Sholmes: This is France's answer to Arthur Conan Doyle. They are very short little story collections. Lupin is a bit haughty, but fun enough. The second gets annoying as Herlock Sholmes (ahem, copyright avoidance) is a bit of a doof. Memorable in not a good way.
This is an organized tour, interesting way to spend your time.
-by Shannon Hale
Enna Burning: Follows after The Goose Girl. Not quite as compelling, but I like how she pulls all the threads together.
Palace of Stone: Second in the Princess Academy series. I like that she takes on real world issues and even though the ending is not real world, it doesn't just magically drop out of the sky. Our heroine struggles with how to figure out what the right thing is and how to do it.
The Forgotten Sisters: Third in the Princess Academy. Nice mix of classic tropes and newish style.
Still loving her, I have a couple more on hold.
-by Kareem Abdul-Jabar and Anna Waterhouse
Mycroft and Holmes The Empty Birdcage: Yes, the basketball star writes mystery novels! This is the second in the series and I would totally read the first. It goes back to when Sherlock is ~20 and focused a good bit on Mycroft. Smart choice!
-by Darwyn Cooke
DC: New Frontiers: And alternate version of the big names from the DC universe set in the 50s. Originally all the superheros were in their own world and didn't meet up. That evolved over time which let the stories (and villians) become bigger. Here the whole timeline gets re-imagined and includes origin stories and growth of character. I am so loving Cooke's artwork!
Catwoman, Sabrina's big score: Excellent! Read his Richard Stark books first and you get to understand a bit of bonus crossover.
-by Bill Burnett
Designing Your Life: Leftover recommendation from my Happiness class. Basis of a class they teach at Stanford. Summary, learn to be an engineer and don't just let life happen to you. Best take away for me is Have a Bias Toward Action. Give something a try to see if it works for you. Probably really useful for young people or folks who want to make a big change in their life. To do all the exercises would take some time, but likely worthwhile. I'm pretty happy as I am, so I skipped all the work.
-by Nina LaCour and David Levithan
You Know Me Well: Both a queer coming of age (late high school) story and about tight friendship. The coming of age part is one of the best I have read (heard because, audiobook, which was fantastic). The kids are true to life in thoughts and actions so I never got annoyed with them.
-by Sigrid Nunez
The Friend: If you liked H is for Hawk, this might be for you. If you don't want to hear at all about suicide this is not for you. A bit of a meta story about a woman and her dog? I listened to the audiobook because it wasn't too long. I liked it for it's unusual style.
-by Renee Watson
Piecing me Together: A cross between The Hate U Give and You Know Me Well. Coming of age, learning to speak up for yourself, friendship. Especially relevant to me because it a mentor/mentee relationship is center.
-by James Nicol
The Apprentice Witch: meh, something about this I didn't love. Adults could pay a little more attention, I don't believe the hero witch is really that dumb and no overall story plot. Don't need to read more.
-by Jessica Townsend
The Trials of Morrigan Crow and Wundersmith The Calling of Morrigan Crow: Lovely fanciful descriptions. Also one where the adult in charge could have avoided trouble by paying more attention. I did go on to read the second book and look forward to the third because there is a little bit of overall plot and good secondary characters.
-by Tamora Pierce
Protector of the Small Quartet: First Test, Page, Squire, Lady Knight. I really liked this set! Maybe even better than the original Alanna for me. I'll keep going through Tortall for sure.
More Graphic Novels
-by Raina Telgemeier
Sisters: More specifically autobiographical compared to her other books. Focused on elementary and middle school years growing up with a sister. Very realistic, the difficulties are not glossed over.
-by Cece Bell
El Deafo: Another autobiographical, elementary age book. Cece has severe hearing loss after an illness and it results in some isolation. I liked the art too.
With style!
-by Peter Wohlleben
The Hidden Life of Trees: The tone of this is very odd/different/unusual. The trees 'think' and 'feel' and have families. I was only able to read it a few chapters at a time. Even though he cites tons of scientific research, the science details are almost completely removed.
-by Tracey Baptiste
The Jumbies: Fairytale, in the Caribbean. More poetic than many books for this age group. Not moved to read more.
-by Kelly Barnhill
The Girl Who Drank the Moon: Fairytale, magic and witches and a happy ending. I liked the characters, could have been edited a bit.
-by Adam Gidwitz
The Unicorn Rescue Society The Creature in the Pines: Like Carl Hiaasen for younger readers with magical creatures. Magical animal of the week style with no overall plot, no need for me to read more.
-by Janet Evanovich
Look Alive Twenty-Five: Exactly what you expect if you have read any of the previous 24, same story, different characters.
-by Kiersten White
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein: Nice twist on the classic! It had been years since reading the original, so even the basics felt new.
-by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein: They included this as a package deal so I read it after the new one. The style is older and not as fast, but good to read again with more life perspective.
-by Tayari Jones
An American Marriage: hmm, kept me reading, I think the topic is important, but I disliked certain aspects of the characters. One main guy is a bit of an jerk. With reason, but still, did not like! I was also annoyed by the passive aspects of the woman, again, I understood why, but kept wishing she would do things differently. But that also makes it realistic. Maybe see how I feel in a year.
-by Diana Wynne Jones
Howl's Moving Castle: Saw the movie forever ago, always meant to read the book. Loved it! Very untraditional for a kids book. It does contain standard fairytale bits like magic and quests and curses, but the main character gets turned into an old woman and she is more interesting.
-by Louise Sacher
Holes: Again saw the movie long ago and meant to read the book. Excellent! Misunderstood kid is good and good things happen.
-by Darynda Jones
First Grave on the Right: Did not finish! Similar to Janet Evanovitch with more supernatural and more explicit content. meh!
