I completely agree about Earthsea!
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Earthsea blew my mind. The whole series is so lush and alive and that little bit wonderfully strange. I really, really hope the upcoming adaptation finally does it justice.
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Okay I believe it was @OracleSage who recommended The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which I am finally reading and oh my goodness!! It’s lovely!!
I wavered a bit when it seemed like things had taken a particularly Bad turn, but I held out hope and my hope was just rewarded and ahhhh I wish I could stay in bed and read it all day!
Definitely reminds me of The Starless Sea, which was one of the first books I read in January of last year, so I think I have to start each year from now on with a magically delightful portal fantasy.
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Today I start New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color edited by Nisi Shawl. I’ve had this on my list for a while & one of my jobs picked it for our next diversity in literature book club read. Even though we’re not meeting again until April, I just had to interlibrary-loan it right away. It’s got an intro by Levar Burton!!
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Just finished Deadly Education: Lesson One of the Scholomance . I do this thing where while I’m reading a book, I find myself thinking in the narrator’s voice, so I feel like I’ve been unusually angsty this week. I liked the book overall, though. It was an interesting twist of the “magical school” trope.
Now on to Memorial by Bryan Washington, one of my Book of the Month choices my best friend got me for my birthday! The gift that keeps on giving!
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I’ve just started The Overstory by Richard Powers, and I’m only like, 25 pages in but it’s gorgeous so far omg
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Both Memorial and The Overstory are on my TBR too! I’ve heard great things about both.
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Finished Witches of New York!
Next up Elantris.
In the meantime I don’t even know when I might be able to get my paws on the Bridgerton series, but I really want to watch the show - but I want to read before watching…
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I watched the show before I knew that there were books but now I’m so intrigued!!
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I don’t think I’ll take the challenge this year as I’m already doing enough reading challenges right now, but the Boston Public Library has a Reading Together Challenge with monthly themes and book lists that match each theme. These themes lists might be of interest to some of us.
January — A Book about the Past
February — A Debut Author
March — An #OwnVoices Book
April — A Book with Pictures
May — An Author of Color
June — An Award-Winning Book
July — An LGBTQ+ Author
August — A Book in Translation
September — A Staff Pick
October — A Story under 100 Pages
November — An Author Born Outside the United States
December — A Book about the Future
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Just started James Joyce’s Ulysses (wish me luck), which I think technically counts as a book about the past! Although there’s no way I’m finishing it in January.
I have a few debuts on my radar that I’m looking forward to in February, though!! Ellie Eaton’s The Divines is currently at the top of my list.
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okay, i need to share this series with someone cause im in all kinds of ways trying to find someone who knows it and enjoys it. Julia Grey’s The Guardian Cycle has given me a sense of wonder in reading it that i havent felt since i last read narnia as a kid. The writing can be a little stale at times, but the way the world is written and the way it feels so incredibly vast while keeping the plot is honestly awesome. I dont really read more than i picture things as i read and watch it in my head, and watching this thing has given me a great sense of joy. Highly recommended to anyone who has an interest in Travellers Tales with a Fated Nemesis archetype and a relatively fantasy world with a touch of modernity and mysticism. The Guardian Cycle Series by Julia Gray
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I’ve never heard of those but they sound great!!
We had the briefest flurry of snow this week, so I started The Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford to balance out my attempt at Ulysses. That book definitely requires breaks.
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Started putting together a January recap of everyone’s reads, since it seemed like everyone was starting the new year strong!! I’ll be sure to catch any stragglers that come in over the weekend before I send it out with next week’s newsletter!
https://bookshop.org/lists/basecamp-33-s-january-reads
Weirdly enough, @Cj_Heighton, I couldn’t find The Guardian Cycle anywhere on Bookshop. I even tried pulling it up by the ISBN from Goodreads, and it showed nothing. So it’s either the Mandela effect, or it’s potentially out of print?
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Its out of print! You gotta find it on places like ebay, amazon sellers, stuff like that. It finished in 2002, so
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I ran into the same problem with Monica Furlong’s Colman. I never knew it existed until last year, after I reread the first two books that preceded it. Now I can only find it in hardback, for something around $35? Frustrating.
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The invisible library had finally made it of my TBR pile and I’m kicking myself for leaving it so long.
Really enjoying the amalgamation of various fictions. Some of it falls into the predictable narrative pattern, but then theres something incongruous and I have to readjust.
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Whew, it’s been a hot minute since I last posted in here (maybe not time-wise, but book-wise). I’m not on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and am definitely enjoying my return to the series. There’s a lot details that I didn’t remember (I retained nothing from The Horse and His Boy even though it’s one of my new favorites), so I’m happy that returning to them now still comes with surprises. LWW was still excellent, but I was a little underwhelmed by Prince Caspian which might have to do with its organization. For those who don’t know (or remember), it opens in the present of the book, but then takes four or five chapters (almost a third of the book) to talk about who the Prince is and why he’s in the situation he’s in. I don’t think the story could have worked without these details, but it disrupts the plot in a major way which I think the film adaptation mostly avoids. I’m hoping the latter half of the series also holds up and I look forward to updating you all when I’m done!
I also finished A Wizard of Earthsea, and while it was a bit difficult to process as an audiobook, I really enjoyed the world that Ursula K LeGuin created and look forward to reading more of the books from Earthsea! The other books I read in January were The Titan’s Curse and The Battle of the Labyrinth which I’m reading with my wife since she’s never read them before. We also started The Hunger Games, though we’re both still working through it. I didn’t mean to, but it seems like I’ll be rereading a lot of books I read when I was younger, but I’m excited to revisit some of my favorite characters in their home series!
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I’m actually looking forward to some re-read as my son gets older. He’s only 4 though, so it’ll be a while before I can get into the really good stuff.
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Okay fine.
I started The Girl In the Tower instead.
It’s been snowing for three days, and it’s cold, so it’s just the perfect time for it.
I’m thinking of rereading Sara Douglass’ Troy Game series sometime this year.
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