On Pandemic Novels

Ok look on paper I think pandemic novels are terrible. Just like 9/11 novels were terrible. (Remember when that was very briefly a thing and they were all just so very bad? And they all came far too soon? And it was just a whole mess? I still have

Not Gone

I know I disappeared for a while. There are a lot of reasons! February and March were very light on new releases, so I didn't have much to write about. Plus I've reached a new stage in post-book-job life where I am really luxuriating in not having to keep my

Feb 1: Awards

I am doing some awards reading, which is always tricky because I need to keep quiet about it but I also log all my books so it's a weird tension. But lucky you, that means I will have less reviews in the What I'm Reading Right Now section, which is

Jan 26: Adaptations

I have very little to say about faithful adaptations. Like The Lost Daughter, a fantastic movie based on a fantastic book, a relatively close adaptation all things considered. I could not write a whole newsletter about it. But I can about Station Eleven. I read the novel in April, 2014.

Jan 18: Switching It Up

I listen to a lot of audio, about a third of my books last year. I am trying to get better at figuring out when a book is right for audio. This has become more important with my more-frequent reading slumps during pandemic that are almost always print reading slumps.

Jan 12: DNF

DNF is one of those words of the bookternet that may not be recognizable to people who run outside of it. It stands for Did Not Finish, and it means exactly that, a book that you put down before it was over and never came back to. I DNF a

Jan 4: Starting Off Right

It is a little weird to start the "oh hey books are coming out" train after it slows down so much at the end of the year. But if the extremely anecdotal evidence of my galley stacks are to be believed, January is going to be a very big month.

12/30: No Surprises

It is that time of year when everyone wants to cozy up with a book. Not just cozy up, but read in its entirety. There is time to read and we want to use it. I am not immune from this, even though I read much more than the average

Dec 23: Best of 2021

So much for always sending on Tuesdays! It's ok. You do not need me to tell you what a long and strange year it's been, but it's been so long and strange that I honestly thought some of these books came out a few years ago rather than being on