Mt TBR report: May 2016

[calissa]

May was a challenging month for reading. It got off to a slow start, thanks to the way I binge-watched two seasons of Daredevil on Netflix. It also didn’t help that May unofficially turned into the month of chunksters, particularly when the Hugo nominees for Best Novel arrived from the library.

My #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks stats are looking reasonable. My goal for the challenge was to make sure 60% of the books I read this year come from Mt TBR. I was at 52% at the end of last month and am at the same now. I don’t anticipate that this will improve (or that I will meet my goal for the year) now that I’ve signed up as an Aurealis judge. Books for the Aurealis Awards will likely start arriving in the next month.

Books with an asterisk on the list below were part of my #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks effort.

Mt TBR Status

Mt TBR @ 1 January 2016: 244
Mt TBR @ 30 April 2016: 245
Mt TBR @ 31 May 2016: 248

Books Read

43. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones *. Reread. I saw the Miyazaki anime before I read the book and was so astonished at how different the versions were that I had trouble seeing the book for its own merits. I think I did better this time around. There’s a lot to love in this quirky YA tale. I especially love Howl’s origins and Sophie’s no-nonsense approach to his drama-queen antics.

44. Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold. Reviewed here.

45. Ishtar edited by Amanda Pillar and K.V. Taylor *. Reviewed here.

46. Memories of Ash by Intisar Khanani. Reviewed here.

47. Defying Doomsday by Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench. Reviewed here.

48. The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth *. Review forthcoming.

DNF – The Summon Stone by Ian Irvine. Much like The Lyre Thief, this is the first book in a new epic fantasy series that utilises the world and characters of a prior series. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t pull it off nearly as well. Perhaps it was relying too strongly on the prior series because I felt no emotional connection to the characters. Which was disappointing, because it’s not often you see a protagonist dealing with chronic pain. However, I couldn’t get past that character’s narrow-minded view or the slow pace of the story.

DNF – Carpentaria by Alexis Wright. Only DNF for now, since I fully intend to come back to this one. I got about a fifth of the way through this literary chunkster before I had to set it aside to meet other deadlines. It’s a book that refuses to be hurried.

 

Books Acquired

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
7&7: Anthology of Virtue and Vice
Tempting Mr Townsend by Anna Campbell
Winning Lord West by Anna Campbell
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Aeronaut’s Windlass Jim Butcher
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
Vigil by Angela Slatter
A Word and a Bullet by Rachel Sharp

Online Reading

No online reading this month, as I was too busy trying to keep afloat with the rest of my reading.

What have you read this month?

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Comments

[clare_dragonfly]

I have the same problem with Howl's Moving Castle, but the other way around--I just can't follow the movie!

[calissa]

They are really quite different from each other, aren't they? The movie pushed a strong anti-war angle--which is kind of weird, considering the book didn't go anywhere near that.

I haven't been able to bring myself to watch what Studio Ghibli did to Earthsea, much as I love their work.

[onewhitecrow]

In May I read The Axeman's Jazz, which started off lightly fictionalising real events then threw me by veering off into alt-history, Inglorious Basterds-stlye, and reread The Player of Games, which brought to my attention quite what a jerk the protagonist was for most of it, and how awesome the Culture is as a concept.

Also how we've done the one step forward, two steps back since the 80s, as there's a page that basically goes "well, Marain is gender-neutral, but y'all savages can't handle third-gender pronouns for these aliens so this book will translate with whatever fits your dominant gender group" - which makes its point about language, inequality and fascisim pretty well, but could have broken sci-fi geeks into a pronoun useable today.

[calissa]

Sounds like some fascinating reading! It is strange to look back on the 70s & 80s and see how little we've progressed in some areas. Discouraging, too.

[onewhitecrow]

I miss Iain M. Banks...if ever you feel like some brutal, glorious, surprisingly moral classic sci-fi (incidentally, the Culture's AI citizens are universally 'it', and no-one tries to gender them, which they're happy with) then he is the fellow to go to.

A reason to write more. Though yeah, I saw a gifset of Captain Kirk roundly and pulp-passionately condemning a society of "pro-lifers" on Tumblr the other day, captioned to the effect that such a speech would never make it to modern US TV, which was true...there ought to be some kind of icepick to use against such backsliding.

[calissa]

I shall keep that in mind. Sahaquiel has been fossicking through my Mt TBR for some sci-fi recently, so I might suggest he give your recommendation a try.

An icepick would be very handy.

[moonvoice]

I love the term chunkster and haven't heard of it before, but I think I'm gonna add that to my general writing/reading lexicon.

Also I love your book photographs (and all your photographs) so much.

[calissa]

Glad to know I'm adding to more than just your Mt TBR! XD

And thank you, lovely. I find it a challenge to take good photos for the blog sometimes.