A Snake Falls to Earth

 A Snake Falls To Earth by Darcie Little Badger, 352 pages.

Nina is a Lipan girl from the human world who loves storytelling, especially the stories that have been passed down in her families for many generations. She's also obsessed with translating the strange family history that her great grandmother told her in Lipan shortly before she died.

Oli is a cottonmouth from the reflected world where spirits live. He lives near the shores of a bottomless lake where he and many of his animal people friends have many adventures. But when a friend falls suddenly and gravely ill their two worlds will collide as Oli does everything in his power to save his friend.

This is a really neat book, in no small part because it very obviously draws a lot on Apache storytelling traditions. The result is a very unusual feeling book that kept making me think of weaving. I really enjoyed it, and will probably read it again at some point.

Side note: I love the cover on this book

Hard Reboot

 Hard Reboot by Django Wexler, 160 pages.

Kas is a junior researcher on a research trip to the frankly terrible Old Earth. She's excited about the chance to make some career making studies of ancient code, and is not at all prepared for a con artist to swoop in and maneuver her into an accidental bet on a giant robot fight that may torpedo her academic career before it ever starts. She's also very cute and sitting on a major academic discovery, so keeping close through all the danger seems like a good idea to Kas, even when the circumstances surrounding her new friend starts to get very dangerous.

I read this months Orcs and Aliens book a little early and I don't regret it one bit. It was obviously fun (it's about giant robot fights), but it's also surprisingly emotionally relevant. It's also the type of novella that manages to imply SO MUCH about a wider world, and I would love to read more in this setting. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else has to say about this one!

Third Class Superhero

 Third Class Superhero by Charles Yu, 173 pages.

This collection of short stories is hard to describe because many of them left me a little puzzled. The collection is described as Kafka-esque and I would say that seems pretty accurate. Broadly speaking many of the themes seem to come back to alienation. Yu has a very distinctive style, and I was definitely reminded of his novel Interior Chinatown. It's a strong short story collection overall, short and dense.

Sandman volumes 8, 9, & 10

The Sandman volumes 8, 9, and 10 by Neil Gaiman, various artists, 712 pages

These three volumes wrap up the main story of the seminal Sandman comics series, so I'm hesitant to go into much detail. That said, I will say that volume 8, World's End, is my favorite of the volumes that collect Sandman-adjacent stories, this time in an inn that is one of the odd liminal spaces where the barriers between worlds and time is thin. The Kindly Ones (volume 9) is the longest chapter of the Sandman story, and has some of my favorite artwork in the series (at least until the published-much-later Overture), and

The Wake is a beautiful meditation on grief, loss, and change. It's a lovely end to the main series.

Three Parts Dead

 Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone, 336 pages.

Tara Abernathy is thrown right into the deep end at the start of her probationary hiring with the necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao when she is immediately tasked to assist with the resurrection of a god. Not just any god, but Kos, one of the greatest of the survivors of the God Wars whose fires are a staple of the global economy. As if that wasn't a big enough tasks, the details of Kos' death keep not adding up, and it seems like there are people who are desperate for Tara not to learn more.

This was a really fantastic book! It was the kind of many threaded plot that actually managed to all come together for an exceptionally satisfying resolution, aided by some excellently cinematic pacing. The setting is also very interesting. It seems that we have skyscrapers and steam generators, but not guns or ink pens. The whole world comes together into something that feels exceptionally unique, and I felt like I kept getting surprising world building details up through the end of the book. There are four more books set in this same world (although I think they mostly follow different characters in different locations) and I'm really excited to read more of them.

Tell No Tales

 Tell No Tales: Pirates of the Southern Seas by Sam Maggs, illustrated by Kendra Wells, 160 pages.

Anne Bonny and her crew of sirens probably have the most fun pirate ship on the seven seas. But the night after an unsettling dream their taking of a ship is thwarted by Woods Rodgers, zealot pirate hunter (who may have powers from the devil). Following another unsettling dream, but this one prophetic and specific, the crew has to go on a quest to find a symbolic item for each crew member.

So this was a fun pirate fantasy, but I can't help but feel like it would have been a stronger book if it embraced the fact that it was pirate fantasy instead of masquerading as historical fiction.

The Book Haters' Book Club

 The Book Haters' Book Club by Gretchen Anthony, 352 pages.

Elliott, co-founder of Over the Rainbow Bookstore, had a special gift for recommending a perfect book to win over reluctant readers. This was the special talent he brought to the bookstore, but far from the largest reason why the people around him were crushed when he suddenly died. Then, less than a year later, his business partner Irma is selling the bookstore for a pittance to be replaced by fancy condos. Unfortunately for her (or fortunately?) there are other people who care about the store's fate and won't let it go so easily, including her own daughters and Elliott's partner Thom. They think there's something suspicious about this deal, and are willing to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of what's going on and save the store. 

I picked this one up on a whim when it came in with the new books at the library, and overall found it pretty alright. The characters were a little two-dimensional to carry this story, and the shocking twist was less shocking than I may have liked. Nevertheless, it was a pretty pleasant, easy read with some fun moments. 

Delphine Jones Takes a Chance

 

Delphine Jones Takes a Chance by Beth Morrey (2022) 318 pages

Delphine Jones is 28, stuck in a waitressing job with an awful boss, just trying to get enough money to support herself, her 12-year-old, crazy-smart daughter, and her father, who has been in deep mourning since his wife died 15 years ago. When Delphine gets fired from her job, she's paralyzed, not knowing what to do next. A couple things happen, opening doors to new people and possibilities: Her daughter Em has an amazing teacher whom Delphine meets, and then Em finds a help wanted sign for a cafe and lures her mother to the cafe to meet the owner. These events cascade into a series of opportunities‒and new relationships‒opening up for Delphine. Will she be able to break out of her fears and improve her lot?

I'd been waiting for another book by Morrey, whose first book, The Love Story of Missy Carmichael, became one of my favorites. To me, Delphine is every bit as good at detailing the intricacies of life and relationships as Missy Carmichael was. Really love the characters!

A Mirror Mended

A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow, 130 pages

In this sequel to A Spindle Splintered, our protagonist Zinnia has somehow moved from her own Sleeping Beauty-inspired multiverse to that of Snow White. But unlike her own multiverse, where she's been jumping from world to world to save the princesses, this time she's pulled over by the evil queen, who wants her help escaping her own fate. I loved the creative fairy tale-multiverse and the many twists on Sleeping Beauty that the first book brought, but I REALLY dig this one, which examines the nature of good and evil, and the agency of characters to change. It's amazing what a full story Harrow can create with just 130 pages. Highly recommend this series! 

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, 212 pages

I am not one for self-help books, but given that there was a big ol' swear word in the title, I thought this one might be worth a look. Unfortunately, other than a few small quips that might stick in my head better with the bad words than their PG counterparts, this book was just... bleh. As he starts into anecdotes about his own life (and starts referencing female celebrities' body parts...why??), Manson's upper-middle-class-straight-white-guy privilege comes shining through, and this seems to be one of those things that he just doesn't give a f*ck about. The narrator for the audiobook also made some questionable accent/voice choices, and between that and Manson's weird attitude, I was very glad this was a short book. Feel free to just swear a bunch and skip it.

Portrait of a Thief

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li, 375 pages

Will was at work at the Sackler Museum when it was robbed, the thieves making off with some priceless Chinese art. Will had recently written about the questionable provenance of Asian art in museums around the world, and that (as well as the fact that he snagged a small jade figurine himself) is probably why the thieves asked him to lead a team to steal back five bronze zodiac heads that had been stolen from China's Old Summer Palace in 1860. Soon, Will, his sister Irene, their friend Daniel, Irene's roommate Lily, and Will's friend Alex are traveling the globe and plotting ways to break into some of the world's most prestigious museums to steal the heads — after all, there's $50 million in it for them if they can get the heads back to China.

While this debut heist novel is a bit slow at times, the back story of the missing zodiac heads is real (though the five that aren't in Chinese museums are also not at the museums in the book), which brings the story to a different level. I love heist novels and movies (I giggled when the five students in the book watched heist movies to plan their own robberies), so it surprises me to say that what I enjoyed most about this book was the way Li brought nuance to the characters' identities as children of immigrants, and made me think hard about the whole idea of stolen art being displayed at western museums. I enjoyed this one.

The Crime at Black Dudley

The Crime at Black Dudley  by Margery Allingham (1929) 256 pages

A group gathers for the weekend at an old English mansion. They are mostly young folk, friends of Wyatt Petrie. But the house is occupied by his uncle by marriage, Colonel Gordon Coombe. A few of the gathering are there for the Colonel, including his personal physician and two other men, Benjamin Dawlish and Gideon. This story is told from the point of view of George Abbershaw, who is a doctor of pathology. George went to school with Wyatt, and wanted Wyatt to invite Meggie Oliphant as part of the group, since he is interested in her.

After dinner the first night, they gather in the drawing room, which has an ornate 15th century Italian dagger incorporated into the middle of a group of hanging lances and banners. After hearing a story about the dagger being part of a ritual in the past, someone proposes that they use the dagger to play a game. Who could foresee that playing a game with a dagger‒in the dark‒would end in disaster?!

A death occurs, of course. Meanwhile, something of value is missing, and the remaining persons are held against their will at the mansion. Albert Campion, a funny guy with large eyeglasses whom no one can really figure out (is he a good guy or a bad guy?), sometimes jokes and sometimes has good ideas on what to do next.

This was a fun, old-fashioned mystery with a full array of colorful  characters. I wasn't surprised to hear that there was a couple seasons of a Campion television series.

Spy x Family vol. 2

 Spy x Family vol. 2 by Tatsuya Endo (trans. Casey Loe), 200 pages.

In this volume we get more into the meat of the mission as Anya goes to school! Unfortunately, telepathy is not enough to make her grades good, and her attempts to befriend the targets arrogant son, Damien Desmond, are less than stellar. This volume is still extremely cute, and I am waiting impatiently for volume three to come in for me.

Architects of Memory

 Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne, 350 pages.

Read Kara's recent review of this book here.

Ash Jackson is an Indenture working towards citizenship in the Aurora Cooperation by doing salvage work. Unfortunately she's also dying faster than she should be of a disease gotten from improper mining conditions of rocket fuel. But when her crew comes across a very powerful alien weapon it could catapult them all to citizenship, or cause the bloodiest war the universe has ever seen.

Honestly it was a bit of a struggle to get through this one for me. It's not that it was poorly written (although as Kara said a lo of the characters were pretty two-dimensional), and more that I felt like I had read almost every part of this book before. Space corporations you sell your life to, alien tech left over from an absent species, and incomprehensible alien hive minds are all almost stock tropes at this point, and I don't feel like Osborne introduced anything fresh enough to liven them up.

The Radium Girls

 The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore, 506 pages.

In the early twentieth century radium was being hailed as the world's newest miracle. It was in (or allegedly in) medicines, beauty products, and, perhaps most commonly, glowing watch dials. Radium dial painting got it's biggest boom during WWI, when radium was used to paint luminous displays on military equipment, but after the war was over civilian demand for luminous watch faces didn't decline, and many millions were produced. The women who painted the dials, generally young and working class, eventually began to sicken and die from internal radiation poisoning. And, although the companies knew the radium wasn't safe long before the truly horrific deaths and disfigurements began, they did everything in their power to deny it.

This book follows both the original dial painters in New Jersey and dial painters from a studio that went up a number of years later in Ottawa, Illinois. It begins in the early days of dial painting when it was absolutely the most coveted job around, and follows several women through the horrible decline in their health (and in many cases, deaths), and through the decades long legal battles to hold the companies accountable for the damage they had done to the women.

This book is absolutely haunting. Part of the horror comes from the benefit of hindsight (ie, as a modern person who knows about radiation the fact that the girls painted their faces with radioactive material and ate their lunches at their workstations is horrifying), and the other part comes from absolutely stunning displays of corporate cruelty, which even expecting the worst from them is still surprising. This is a powerful work of nonfiction, but it is also very intense. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it after many years of having it on my tbr list. 

Fun Fact: Radium watches were only discontinued in 1968

Black Cake

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson, 385 pages

When Eleanor Bennett died, she left her children Byron and Benny a Caribbean black cake and a long audio recording they had to listen to together. While this would be difficult for anyone who just lost their mother, it's particularly tough for them because Benny hasn't spoken to Byron (or anyone else in the family) since that fateful Thanksgiving many years ago, when she came out as bisexual. However, they do what they're told and listen to the recording, learning that their mother had a past that neither of them ever suspected, one that involved multiple identity changes and a secret child.

Through these characters and a narrative that bounces around in time, Wilkerson weaves a complex family history that spans continents and oceans, making the characters (and readers) question what we really know about those we love. This is a phenomenal debut novel, and I can't wait to see what Wilkerson does next.

Sandman vol. 6 & 7

Sandman vol. 6 & 7 by Neil Gaiman, various artists, 511 pages

In Sandman: Fables & Reflections (volume 6), we find Morpheus interacting with prominent fellows such as Marco Polo, Cain & Abel, Augustus Caesar, and Orpheus. The volume feels a bit like a short story collection that's tangentially related to the Sandman universe, with a cameo or two from the titular character. 

Sandman: Brief Lives (volume 7), however, is firmly centered on our main character, as Dream accompanies his sister, Delirium, as they search for their estranged brother, Destruction. This is one of my favorite volumes of the series, as I love Delirium as a character, and her childlike views and non-sequiturs play so well against Dream's goth moodiness. Honestly, I could read about their adventures together forever.

Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words

 

Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words by Annika Sharma (2021) 374 pages

Kiran is a 28-year-old biomedical engineer based in New York City and is supporting her parents, who live in India. She's a dutiful daughter, knowing how important it is to take care of them, especially since they had sent away her older sister after she married a lower-caste Indian 20 years ago. Kiran's trying to find a suitable Indian spouse, but like her tightly-knit group of four friends from college, she has had no luck.

Meanwhile, Nash has just moved to New York City from Tennessee. He's had a tough childhood, with his drug-using mother and absentee father. With the support of his aunt and his best friend's family, he's now a psychologist, ready to start working in a hospital in New York.

When Kiran and Nash meet, it's an instant friendship. But can the relationship go anywhere further with Kiran's wish to please her parents and with Nash's reticence to trusting in a relationship? The twists and turns kept this situation from being too formulaic of a love story. Just enough to give a pleasant day's reading.

Drama

Drama by Raina Telgemeier, 233 pages

In this delightful graphic novel, seventh grader Callie deals with the drama of middle school while working on the set for the school musical. As expected, there are crushes and miscommunications, complicated sets and even more complicated friendships. My 10-year-old daughter has read this book (and every other Telgemeier title) absolutely ragged, so when she offered this to me in a bit of pre-youth-soccer-game downtime, I couldn't resist. It was fun, and sweet, and absolutely captures the, well, drama of being a tween.

All About Me!

All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business by Mel Brooks, 460 pages

In this long memoir, iconic writer, director, actor, and all-around funnyman Mel Brooks reminisces about his experiences in Hollywood, from writing for Your Show of Shows and the Sid Caesar Variety Hour to making The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs and more riotous movies that both skewer and pay homage to genre classics. 

I loved hearing the behind-the-scenes stories (particularly as 96-year-old Brooks reads the audiobook himself) and found myself laughing MANY times throughout the book. However, Brooks isn't afraid to toot his own horn, and at times, he seemed to really make a meal of his accolades and boundary-pushing methods. The book may have come off a bit more even-handed if someone else had written it, or even if it had been more tightly edited. Still, the stories certainly inspired me to dig out my DVD copies of his various movies, and I definitely annoyed my family by spitting out random tidbits throughout our screenings of Silent Movie and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. If you're a fan of Brooks' films, it's worth checking out.

Spy x Family vol. 1

 Spy x Family vol. 1 by Tatsuya Endo (translated by Casey Loe), 220 pages.

Spy Twilight is a master of disguise, but that won't help him much in his latest impossible mission. He has been tasked to infiltrate an elite elementary school to gather intel on a valuable target, which means he has less than a week to find himself a civilian wife and child and convince the board of admissions that they're a respectable family. On such a tight timeline it's no surprise that his new wife is secretly an assassin and his daughter is a telepath.

To be completely upfront this premise makes very little sense. Which doesn't matter at all because the story is very sweet and also hilarious. Loid and Yor (which are the names of our spy and assassin, respectively) know absolutely nothing about how normal people work, which is the only way that their respective covers weren't blown immediately. I'm really excited to get my hands on more of these!

Fun fact: this is also an animated show, which is very worth watching.

A Killing Frost

 A Killing Frost by Seanan McGuire, 368 pages.

Due to a quirk of the faerie rules of politeness Toby has to undertake a quest she had promised to do earlier than usual, or risk serious consequences arising from her marriage. (It gets harder to write these descriptors free of spoilers the longer this goes on, this is book 14 and everything is feeding into everything else).

Unfortunately, I think this book may be the weakest of the series so far. The pacing wasn't as good as usual, many people's motivations didn't really make sense, and there was an astoundingly high instance of deus ex machina. However, McGuire mentions in the acknowledgments that this book was written during in the height of lockdown, so I can give her some grace about it, especially since I've heard the most recent book is phenomenal.

Beautiful News

 Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions by David McCandless, 256 pages.

This book is pretty much exactly what it says on the byline, a collection of statistics and graphs on things that are to gradual to be newsworthy, but which are trending in positive directions. There's a lot of emphasis on good ecological news and global health, but the full range of topics is really wide. Some of the graphs are not actually that good and conveying information, but it is a really great book to flip through a little at a time for a little good news to brighten your day. I'd definitely recommend taking a look at it.

Bullet Train

 Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka, 352 pages.

This book takes place on a bullet train from Tokyo that is absolutely chock full of assassins. Like ridiculously full of assassins. Everyone is there pursuing their own mission, and (as they begin to realize the truly absurd number of other professionals on the train) do their best to not be noticed by the others, as it slowly becomes clear whose agendas are driving the events.

This was a really fun book, and I'm especially fond of the assassin who is essentially a walking case of Murphy's law. It's a pretty tight novel that's listed as a satirical thriller, which sounds at least more or less right, but it's mostly a lot of deeply weird characters in weird situations trying to get everything sorted out.
 

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

 A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, 152 pages.

This continuation of the Monk and Robot series picks up almost exactly where A Psalm for the Wild-Built, with Sibling Dex and Mosscap making their way to the city and touring the villages on the way to ask everyone they meet the question that spawned the mission, What do humans need? 

I feel like I should love these books. The cover is absolutely breathtaking, that's a great title, and the concept seems really cool. Yet somehow these books never seem to quite work for me personally.

Fun Fact: The first book in this series won the Hugo for best novella earlier this week.

Architects of Memory

Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne, 350 pages

Ash Jackson is indentured to the Aurora Corporation, traveling the galaxy scavenging relics from an alien war as she works off her years of service to gain Auroran citizenship (it's all corporations now that the governments are long gone). However, every time she needs medical attention, that deducts credits from her account, adding more years to her indenture. Complicating matters, Ash is hiding a serious illness that will eventually kill her and will almost certainly put the rest of her ship's crew in danger — but if she seeks much-needed medical attention, her chances for citizenship plummet. When Ash's ship comes in contact with a high-powered alien weapon, Aurora and its competitors start a fight that finds Ash, her colleagues, and the alien race as expendable in their fight for market share.

The Orcs & Aliens Book Group will be discussing this title next week, and I really think that this book will give us plenty to talk about: corporate greed and the treatment of low-level employees; exorbitantly expensive health care; the pitfalls of stereotypes about the "other"... there's a LOT here. That said, the characters were a little two-dimensional and, combined with the many plot twists and shifting alliances, it made it a bit hard to keep track of who was doing what. Osborne created a truly alien species, which is refreshing — these are far from "human in a lizard suit" aliens, and I'd love to learn more about them. There's a second book in this series, and I'll definitely check it out.

We Need To Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter

We Need To Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter by Celeste Headlee (2017) 244 pages

Celeste Headlee, a radio host whom I've heard on NPR, and who has also appeared on various television  news programs, shows us to how to improve our conversations with others and why that matters.

Headlee draws one in by her willingness to talk about her own mistakes and what she has learned, which comes down to a few important pointers on how to really listen to others. Part 2 of the book has very concrete, short chapters that each deal with an issue that could make or break an interaction. I could see my own foibles and hope to practice improving my own conversational skills using her tips. One of the takeaways I had was that sometimes we need to suspend our own selves during a conversation, and not be focusing on the next thing we want to say when there is an opening.

I found this book very helpful.

What Moves the Dead

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher, 165 pages

Longtime soldier Alex Easton has traveled far to visit their childhood friend Madeline Usher, who wrote a few weeks earlier begging for a deathbed visit from her friend. But when Alex arrived, they found Madeline and her brother Roderick in a much more worrisome state than anticipated — in fact, they both looked on the brink of death and much, much older than their years. Obviously something is wrong, and the presence of creepy, crawling (literally) hares doesn't do much to help settle Alex's mind.

I love T. Kingfisher's writing, and I'll read anything she writes, including this twist on Poe's classic short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher." All of Kingfisher's books have the sort of realistic protagonist that I can really relate to and appreciate (and not just the one that featured a protagonist named Kara). That said, after reading a few books that feature it, I realize that I'm really not a fan of fungus-based horror. It's gross and creepy, yes, but ugh, it's just not my thing. So this book gets a "meh" from me. Not because of the characters or writing (which are fantastic), but because of the fungus, which Poe was apparently obsessed with.

August totals

Pretty sure this is Kara's cat.

And just like that, we're at the end of another blogging year!

Between Sept. 1, 2021 and Aug. 31, 2022, we had a total of 8 bloggers, who blogged about 349 books and 112,733 pages!

For the month of August, our stats were:

Jan  2/505

Kara  12/3548

Regan  13/4088

TOTAL: 27/8141

So as we start a new blogging year, we need new bloggers! Help us out so we can bring the shiny trophy back to UCPL!