Category Archives: Compilation Posts

TTT – Top Ten Books with Purple in the Title or on the Cover!

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tolstoy purple chairHappy Tuesday! The Top Ten Theme this week is your favorite color on the cover or in the title, so purple it is! Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and she’ll have links to a bunch of other blogs participating in the Top Ten!

So my favorite color is purple, and I actually just finished a prompt for the PopSugar 2018 Reading Challenge that was “your favorite color in the title.” I read Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, and my review will be going up on Thursday! It’s about a woman reading and reviewing a book every day for a year, and after borrowing the book from my library, I’d really like to own a copy. It was really good. But I’ll talk about that more on Thursday!

aesop's fablesWe have a Collector’s Edition of Aesop’s Fables with a gorgeous purple cover. It’s my husband’s favorite book, and his favorite color as well.

victorianThat Inevitable Victorian Thing was a fun book that I read a while back for the Read Canadian Challenge. It was a little fluffy, but entertaining.

mage the ascensionMage, The Ascension! While this wasn’t my primary game of the old World of Darkness, it was my husband’s favorite. (I was more a Werewolf or Vampire girl.) World of Darkness is the tabletop roleplaying game I spent high school and college playing, I’ve only just now really gotten into D&D.

stroke of midnightSpeaking of things that go bump in the night, Laurell K. Hamilton, who I started with because of her outstanding Anita Blake, Vampire Executioner novels (before they devolved into vampire and werewolf porn, anyway) also wrote a series of Fae novels. (which kind of started as fae erotica, but I’m more okay with a series starting that way and being that, instead of starting as kind of gritty mystery/horror and devolving into erotica around book 7 or 8.) A Stroke of Midnight is Book 4 in the Meredith Gentry series.

the bone witchI’m going to dip into my library hold list for a few of these, but I am VERY excited about The Bone Witch and its sequel, The Heart Forger. They both look absolutely amazing. (I have 60 books on my library hold list, with most of the holds frozen so I can thaw a few at a time and not be overwhelmed!)

gunslinger girlAnother one on my hold list is Gunslinger Girl, which I’ve heard great things about.

dear ijeawele feminist manifestoOn my To Read List, along with the rest of her books, is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. She also wrote We Should All Be Feminists and Purple Hibiscus, neither of which I’ve read but I really, really should. Should I count two books from the same author as part of my Top Ten?

happy accidents jane lynchBack to things I’ve read, Jane Lynch’s memoir, Happy Accidents, was a joy to read. She often seems to get type casted as a dour, joyless masculine woman, but it’s at least usually in comedies. Her book was funny and she had a great writing style.

bloodhoundBook 2 of Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper Saga, Bloodhound, was great. The entire trilogy was, actually. I think it’s my favorite of her writing so far, though the new trilogy about Numair is shaping up to be pretty incredible too.

So those are my ten picks for purple books, eleven if you count Purple Hibiscus!

TTT: Top Ten Books I’d Slay a Lion to Get Early

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s topic is “Books I’d slay a lion to get early!”

1&2. The first one that comes to mind is the sequel to Children of Blood and Bone. There isn’t even a title yet but I WANT IT! Next up is the sequel to City of Brass, The Kingdom of winter of the witchCopper. No cover image for either of those yet. (Update: the title for the Children of Blood and Bone sequel is Children of Virtue and Vengeance, due out in 2019!)

3. The Winter of the Witch, luckily, I don’t have to wait too much longer for, as it comes out in August. It’s the conclusion to the trilogy Katherine Arden started with The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower. You’d better believe I will spend August in the frozen forests of Russia!

4. The author of The Crown’s Game and The Crown’s Fate, Evelyn Skye, is coming out with a new series at some point, starting with Circle of Shadows. There’s no information on what it’s about, but it’s Evelyn Skye, it’s bound to be amazing!

kingdom of the blazing phoenix5. Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix, Julie C. Dao’s sequel to Forest of a Thousand Lanterns, is due out in November and I CAN’T WAIT.

endless water starless sky

6. Another one I don’t have to wait too much longer for is Endless Water, Starless Sky, the sequel to Bright Smoke, Cold Fire. Rosamund Hodge’s retelling of Romeo and Juliet is AMAZING and I can’t wait to see where it goes. It’s due out in July.

7. The next Tortall book! Tempests and Slaughter was excellent, as always, and I really hope the sequel will answer some questions left in the air with the first. There isn’t a title, or cover, or release date or anything yet. But Tamora Pierce is hard at work.

8. The Iron Season is supposed to be out sometime this year! It’s the sequel to The Golem and the Jinni, an enchanting debut novel I read several years ago. No title or cover art Starlessyet. (Which makes me think it might not come out this year, as it was announced in 2015, and no word since then.)

9. The sequel to The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic is being worked on, but no title, cover, or release date. Someday? Please?

10. Starless by Jacqueline Carey. I have fond memories of Kushiel’s Dart, though after the first trilogy they became less interesting. Miranda and Caliban was okay. But I’ve read the first chapter of Starless when it was released online, and I am DYING to read the rest! It’s due out in June, so not too long to wait.

Library Loot Wednesday!

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the merry spinsterThe Merry Spinster finally made its way to me through the library system! It’s a collection of short fantasy stories and I’ve been quite eager to read it. The author also recently came out as trans, so this is part of my effort to read more inclusively! There’s apparently a lot about gender in the book, too.

tolstoy purple chairI also checked out Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, which is my PopSugar pick for “favorite color in the title.” It’s about a woman spending a year dedicated to reading, so I’m hopeful I’ll find something in here for another PopSugar prompt, “a book mentioned in another book.” Also, that chair on the cover? I WANT IT.

red clocks dystopiaRed Clocks finally arrived in my holds! I’ve been pretty excited about this one, but there were a lot of people in line ahead of me. It’s another feminist dystopia – I love those – this one set in a small Oregon fishing town, so – my home state! Abortion and in vitro fertilization are both illegal in this dystopia, and it follows the stories of women dealing with that.

pretending to be normal aspergerAnd one of the books off my Autism Reading List arrived from another library system – Pretending to be Normal – Living with Asperger’s Syndrome. This is the expanded version published in 2015.

women from another planet autismIn not-quite-library-loot, I also bought the Kindle version of Women From Another Planet? Our Lives in the Universe of Autism on the recommendation of Catana, who commented on my review of Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate.

One of these days I’m going to gather some pictures of my library to show you guys my local branch. The librarians there are pretty awesome.

TTT: Top Ten Frequently Used Words in Fantasy Titles

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Today’s topic from That Artsy Reader Girl was “Top Ten Frequently Used Words in <insert genre/age group> Titles” and because Fantasy is most of what I read, that’s what I’m going with! So in no particular order, these are the words I feel like I see the most often in Fantasy titles:

1. GLASS

Of these, the only one I’ve actually read yet is Girls Made of Snow and Glass, though the other four are on my TBR list as part of their respective series.

2. THRONE

I’ve read Game of Thrones and Throne of Jade, but not the other three. (Though again, they’re all on my TBR list, along with their series, and yes I totally just reused Throne of Glass.)

3. DRAGON

So of course I had to start with a Pern book here! The only one of these I haven’t read is A Natural History of Dragons – that’s from my TBR list.

4. DEEP

I’ve read Into the Drowning Deep (loved it!) and Deep Kiss of Winter (and most of that series). Deep Roots is book 2 of a Cthulu mythos series (Book 1 is on hold at the library!) Music of the Deep is on my TBR list and I’ve read a lot of reviews of The Wicked Deep but don’t actually think I’ll read it myself.

5. BLADE

I’ve only read the two on the right, but Traitor’s Blade’s summary reminds me of Dishonored. I’ve put a hold on it at my library.

6. SHADOW

The only one of these I haven’t read is Shadows of Self, which is the sequel to Alloy of Law, the very first review I ever posted on this blog!

7. BLOOD

I’ve…read all of these, actually. I reviewed Faerie Blood and Children of Blood and Bone.

8. WOLF

I’ve read most of these. Reviewed The Wolves of Dynamo.

9. FATE

I reviewed The Crown’s Fate and Fated. I’ve read all but the Robin Hobb series.

10. WIND

I’ve read all of these except the Piers Anthony book, actually.

Those are the first ten words that popped into my head for Fantasy titles. And I didn’t even use “Magic”!

Library Loot – April 18th, 2018

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queens of geekI mentioned a couple of these yesterday in my Top Ten Books by Autistic Authors. Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate, and Queens of Geek are both books by autistic authors that I’m reading for Autism Acceptance Month.

I picked up one more nonfiction book, The Alternative Autoimmune Cookbook. It’s by one half of the blogging team behind the AutoImmune Wellness website. I’m currently working alternative aip cookbookthrough the cookbook written by the other half, The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook. I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, a condition in which my immune system goes haywire and attacks my thyroid. I’ve been on the AIP diet for two and a half weeks at this point, and the amount I’ve energy I’ve regained is astounding. I’m sleeping better, and haven’t had heartburn since I started. So I’m eager to crack the other book for more recipes.

sing unburied singFor fiction I picked up Sing, Unburied, Sing, one of the most popular novels last year. (I requested it in December, but there was a long line!) For my Canadian read I got The Young in One Another’s Arms – besides being Canadian, it’s also about alternative family structures. My last book this week is To Kill A Kingdom, a young adult novel about predatory mermaids. I do like predatory mermaids!

It’s a pretty eclectic collection – but I am trying to branch out from my sci-fi/fantasy habit all the time!

 

TTT – Top Ten Books by Autistic Authors

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So I’ve mentioned it on Twitter, but I have been remiss in mentioning it here – April is Autism Acceptance Month! This is another cause close to my heart, because my husband is on the spectrum. We didn’t actually realize this until a year ago, but having realized it, it has given us SO MANY tools to use to manage daily life. The improvement has been amazing. So in the last year I’ve been doing a lot of self-education about autism, and I recently learned that there is a publishing house specifically for autistic authors, because so many mainstream publishers were turning them away! It’s called Autonomous Press, and their slogan is Weird Books for Weird People. Goodreads also has a list of books by autistic authors; some are explicitly about autism, some are fiction with autistic characters, and some aren’t about autism at all. But reading books by autistic authors is a great way to support the community and neurodivergence. This list is more of a to-be-read list for me; these are books I want to read. My library only has a few of them, though, and a few of them are working their way through the system to me.

journalThe first book on my list is one I HAVE read – The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Aperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to be a Better Husband. I really enjoyed this one, as a chronicle of a marriage almost torn apart but ultimately saved by their new understanding of how his brain works. So many of the author’s behaviors are things I also see in my husband – I often stopped to read passages to him, only to have him stare at me in surprised recognition. It was also surprising to me – I’d have to stop and say “wait, is that really the way you think about that subject?” To which he’d reply “what, that isn’t normal?” So it was a journey of discovery for us both.

queens of geekCurrently out from the library I have Queens of Geek, which I didn’t realize was by an autistic author and only makes me more eager to read it. (Also, look at that cover! Bright hair FTW!) Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate – A User Guide to an Asperger Life is by a blogger whose blog I pored through, reading nerdy shy socially inappropriate asperger autismentries to my husband and following links to quizzes and other resources. (Taking the diagnostic quizzes together was also enlightening – I really did not fully realize how differently his brain worked from mine – and we’ve been together over twelve years!)

pretending to be normal aspergerMaking their way to me through my extended library system (they’ll ship books to my county from any system in the state, it’s amazing!) are Pretending to be Normal – Living with Asperger’s Syndrome and Loud Hands – Autistic People Speaking. I really prefer loud hands autistic people speakingreading about autistic experiences through the eyes of actually autistic people. I know there’s several books out there by family members or doctors, but really. Who knows them better than themselves? I’m trying to be aware of the #ownvoices movement when reading about marginalized groups, and this is part of that.

So those are the five books I have read or am going to read. The next five are ones I either don’t have requested yet, or my library doesn’t have them at all. But they look interesting.

ABCs_of_Aut_Acceptance_Ebook_Cover3_largeThe ABCs of Autism Acceptance is one I should DEFINITELY read. I might be making an order from Autonomous Press soon! This is a collection of 26 short essays about autistic culture, systemic barriers that face autistics, and some of the history of autism. I really want to pick this one up.

The_Real_Experts_Online_Cover_largeThe Real Experts: Readings for Parents of Autistic Children doesn’t apply to me specifically, but I still thought it should receive a place in this top ten list. It’s another collection of essays, this time by a variety nothing is rightof autistic adults.

The Shaping Clay series of novels looks interesting; they’re about the life of an autistic man named Clay Dillon. They begin with Nothing is Right, set in first grade. The books continue through Imaginary Friends to Defiant, taking place when Clay is 30. The books are written by Michael Scott Monje Jr, who is transgender as well as autistic.

Spoon_Knife_Cover_Final_JPEG_largeThe Spoon Knife Anthology: thoughts on Compliance, Defiance, and Resistance looks like a fascinating book, edited by Michael Scott Monje Jr. and N.I. Nicholson. This appears to be an annually published book, with Spoon Knife 2 being called “Test Chamber.” They’re published by NeuroQueer, an imprint from Autonomous books that focuses on gender, sexuality, and race, and they’re billed as an “annual open-call collection to find new talent.”

barking sycamoresAlso under the NeuroQueer imprint is the first anthology of Barking Sycamores, a quarterly magazine of neurodivergent literature and art. The magazine publishes “poetry, artwork, short fiction, creative nonfiction, and hybrid genre work by emerging and established neurodivergent writers as well as book reviews.” They’re only available online at the website, though past issues can be bought as ebooks. They publish one piece per day on their blog until the issue is complete. I’ll definitely be following this blog!

So those are my Top Ten books to read this month for Autism Acceptance Month. (Technically I suppose that’s thirteen books, but I grouped the series together.) I think an order from Autonomous Press is in my near future!

So I had finished this post and had it ready to publish when a friend of mine gave me a few more titles! The Autism Women’s Network has published a few books like All The Weight of Our Dreams, which is a collection of essays by autistic people of color, and What Every Autistic Girl Wishes Her Parents Knew, a collection of essays by autistic women. So those are also worth checking out!

As I continue to find and read books by autistic authors, I’m just going to list them at the bottom of this post so they’re all in one place to refer back to!

All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome

The Kiss Quotient

Look Me In The Eye