forestofglory

Yotsuba&!, Vols 2-7 by Kiyohiko Azuma This slice of life manga about 5 year old Yotsuba and her friends and neighbors is really cute!

Golden Kamuy vol 1 by Satoru Noda I continue to enjoy this rather gory historical fiction manga. Its maybe a little info-dumpy but I'm into info dumps about how to catch and eat squirrels and other wilderness survival stuff. The art is very pretty I love how detailed the costumes and tools are. Plus I've started to care about the characters -- the story is getting more of found family vibe as it goes on.

Yona of the Dawn Vol 1-2 by Mizuho Kusanagi This was rec'ed to me by a friend who loves it, but I'm not finding very compelling. It just seems to have lot of tropes that I'm bored with in YA, dead moms, lost heirs seeking revenge, shifting alliances. I doubt this is fair but its not what I'm in the mood for right now so I'm not going to keep reading the series.

A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi trans. Taro Nettleton manga memoir about a mangaka in post war Japan. Since I've been reading a lot of manga lately I thought I'd like to learn a bit more about the history of form. This was maybe a bit more focused on publishing that I was looking for but was still fascinating. And as and add bonus I enjoyed the built enviroment details about the various places he lived.

The Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World by Emma Marris I'm starting to get frustrated with ecology books that acknowledge that Native Americans manged the landscape before European settlement but don't acknowledge that Native Americans are still around and value those practices for cultural reasons. Aside form that problem this pretty good introduction to the idea that there's no such thing as untouched wilderness and some of the practical implications of that. Since I've studied environmental history none of these ideas where new to me but it was nice to have them in one small book.

Not For Use In Navigation: Thirteen Stories by Iona Datt Sharma I'm about halfway through this collection. The stories in it are so beautiful! but I'm reading it pretty slowly because they are the kind of stories that I need focus on, and then I want to let that story sink in before I rush off and read the next one. Still very much recommenced. (NB I received an ARC of this form the author)

Guardian I finished watching this! It was such an intense experience! I'm not really sure what to say about it. I loved it but I also found the ending pretty heartbreaking. Also I'm still confused about quite a lot things. But I've found some other people's thoughts to read and that helped make sense of some of the things. Maybe I will write some more coherent thoughts up in bit. For now I'm excited to go lurk in the fandom. Its very nice for me that the show has pretty active fandom here on DW. I can actually find conversations. Maybe I will be brave an join in.

I try to make sure that the collection of picture books we have at home features a diverse set of characters. One thing I've really struggled with is finding books with queer characters where their queerness is not a problem. There a fair number of books where some is queer and the book explains that that's ok, but I want to show my kid that queer people are normal and can be the part of all kinds of stories. So I was super excited to find Harriet Gets Carried Away by Jessie Sima about a little girl who has an adventure and also has two dads who are just her dads. I bought it and read it to my kid today and its super cute! Anyways I thought I'd share in case anyone else out there is also looking for this type of picture book.

I'm covered most of my recent manga reading in my last post but I'm still looking for more manga recs. But here's a bit about some of the non-manga things I've been reading and watching lately.

Legend of Korra Season 4 I'm working on a longer write up for this so hopefully more later. Meantime if anyone has recs for criticism or fanworks for Korra or ALTA that would be great!

Fruits Basket I finished it! I have such sense of closure about finishing this manga that I first read about 15 years ago. It was like a gift from my younger self. I liked the ending but I kinda wish the characters had more agency in one of the major events.

The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones One of my friends read this for the first time recently and inspired me to do a reread. Its still very charming!

Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley Its so nice to read something about pregnancy that acknowledges that it can really suck even when you want a baby. Lucy's pregnancy was much harder than mine, but I hated being pregnant. And the stuff about her miscarriage was really affirming if hard to read because it reminded me of my own experience.

Never After: Thirteen Twists on Familiar Tales by Marie Brennan Collection of flash fairy tale retellings. I am generally a fan of Brennan's work but this was bit dark for my tastes.

Ben's Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle by Penelope Peters Gay Jewish Hockey romance. A lot of the conflict in this had to do with the couple having different levels of Jewish observance and since they where both more observant than I am I found that stressful. And honestly the more observant dude was kinda a jerk about the whole thing. It did have donuts and cute pee wee hockey team though.

Guardian This Chinese drama seems like it is popular here on DW so I thought I'd check it out. I've watched the 1st 17 episodes and I'm really liking it so far.

I'm a little confused by this because its not really my usual thing. It centers around police group that investigates the supernatural, and I'm generally not into the police or shows with a lot of crime and violence. It's also not great on female characters either. And it can be confusing at times. Reasons the show is confusing 1) subtitles I'm not great at these at best of times but the ones for this show are extra confusing, sometimes the English grammar is wonky, names are transliterated differently in different episodes, every now and again the subtitles are just missing. 2)This my first time watching a Chinese drama and I'm not familiar with the conventions 3) the plot is pretty complex with bits of backstory being reviled slowly through flashbacks so there's a lot to keep track of 4) there's probably plot holes and stuff but I can't tell for sure because of 3. Anyways I've decided to just roll with it and be confused and that's working out ok for me.

So that's all things I don't like so I should talk about what I do like. The drama is biased on a Boys Love novel but they aren't allowed to have gay romance on TV in China. But what this seams to mean in practice is that they've taken out all the kissing but left in all the flirting. So I really enjoy the relationship between the leads. So many intense looks! And one of them keeps feeding the other one. I generally like the team, they spend a fair amount of time bounding/bickering which is good fun. Plus I just enjoy the fact that its bit cheesy with melodramatic bits a silly specially effects. Its not sophisticated to admit to liking cheesy stuff but its defiantly something I enjoy.

SG1 This is what R and I are watching together. We are doing a good parts version and only watching the episodes that he thinks are good. Its my favorite level of serialized where each episode is contained story but the reset button isn't pushed and there's some meta plot. I enjoy the team dynamics, and how they all look out for each other. Every now and again they say something really sexist or racist and I have to yell at the TV. We are currently in the middle of season 2. The last episode featured a body swap machine which I image is a boon to fic writers.

A while ago I mentioned looking for Theater fluff so here's an update on what I've found so far.

Drama by Raina Telgemeier reced by ambyr I’d read this before but went to reread after the rec. This was just what I wanted, good mix of tech stuff and feeling set during a middle school musical. I especially liked that it focused on backstage characters more than the actors.

The Backstagers, Vol.1& 2 by James Tynion IV Vol 1 was reread. This was fun but I wanted more actually theater tech and less magic.

Backstage Prince by Kanoko Sakurakouji This manga showed up when I looked up the Backstagers on goodreads and since it is only two volumes I decided to check it out. I was able get it via ILL. I was a bit disappointed with this. I want lots of kabuki theatre and it most just kinda boring Shojo romance.

The Importance of Being On Stage by aralias This Dr Who fic reced to me on Twitter. I enjoyed this but I think I would be better if I remembered these characters and the plot of The Importance of Being Earnest better.

Theatrical Sins: A Play in Three Acts by Aria Good Omens fic. I found this by poking the theater tag on AO3 it not actually about people putting on a show but rather people going to the theater but it's cute and fun.

On order:
The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown reced by alchimie The library didn’t have this so I’ve ordered a used copy online.

So that's how my quest for theater fluff is going so far. I’m also thinking about rereading some of the Shoes books since they tend to hit this spot really well. I'd love even more recs! (Any medium is fine)

I’ve been reading a lot of comics, graphic novels, manga ect in the last month or so. So here’s quick rundown of some things I read and what I thought.

Gin no Saji Silver Spoon, Vol 1-4 by Hiromu Arakawa This a manga about a kid who goes to agricultural school to escape his parents’ academic expectations. I liked it a lot. There’s thoughtful exploration of agricultural ethics and finding or having a vocation.

The Divided Earth by Faith Erin Hicks It's the final volume of The Nameless City Trilogy and I liked the resolution. The central friendship of the trilogy is just so great.

Cook Korean!: A Comic Book with Recipes by Robin Ha What it says on the tin. I now know a bit more about Korean food but I didn’t try any of these recipes. They seem pretty approachable though.

Lumberjanes, Vol. 10: Parents' Day by Shannon Watters et al. This was cute installment of this series about girls at summer camp having supernatural adventures. It was fun to see our campers with their parents.

Sound of Snow Falling by Maggie Umber This was on my goodreads TBR for years and years and I finally got via IIL. And it was ok? I guess? It's basically paintings of owls with no words but I couldn’t really follow what was going on and I didn’t love the art style. I think past me who added this to the TBR would have liked it more than present me does.

Conspiracy of Ravens by Leah Moore, John Reppion, and Sally Jane ThompsonI feel like a book about bird themed magical girls at a boarding school should be my thing but this never quite clicked with me.

The Ancient Magus' Bride, Vol. 1 by Kore Yamazaki I think the creepy parts of this outweigh the parts I liked. There's mentorship and the art is really nice but also the main character's mom died by suicide, and there's very inappropriate romantic relationship and lots of creepy magic. So I think I won't be reading more of this.

Fruits Basket Collector's Edition, Vol. 1 by Natsuki Takaya I was really into this series years ago then I went away to uni and never finished it. (I used to be part of friends group that consumed a lot of manga and anime together but we drifted apart while I was in uni) Recently umadoshi has been talking about it a lot, so that reminded me that it existed. So I got this volume out from the library. It's still very cute. I’m a bit more eyerolly about teen behaviour than I was back in the day. And the magic caring depending on know when someone is the “opposite sex” is problematic to say the least. But I also have a lot of nostalgia for these characters and enjoyed reading and plan to continue the series.

I’m enjoying reading lots of comics. I’ve got some more on hold at the library. In the past I’ve been reluctant to read unfinished series but right now I’m trying a few to see how that goes. Have you read any good comics lately or have any recs for me?

This year I’ve formatted the questions I generally try to answer about my end year in books in a more meme-ish format. I think it will be handy for me next year. Feel free to take these questions and answer them yourself (or modify them) if you want.

Books Read:123 (according to goodreads -- but I didn’t record some of the shorter comics I read this year because they were so quick to read.)
nonfiction: 16
oldest book: Citizen 13660 by Mine Okubo
Most recent book: Swordheart by T. Kingfisher
Books by non-white authors: 37 (30% !!!)
Graphic stories: 30
Novellas: 11
Highlights: Wells & Wong Mysteries by Robin Stevens, The Hidden Witch by Molly Ostertag, The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard, The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang, In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Provenance by Ann Leckie
So how about those reading goals?: So for 2018 I had bunch of reading goals and I only completed one of them. My goals where:
1)Read 24 books by new to me non-white authors
2)read 10 scholarly books
3)reread 20 books -- because I need to remember not to always rush after the new shinny things
4)read one book more than 100 years old

The 1st one is the one that I finished! But it was so hard because I’ve been avoiding reading dark things and POC have hard time publishing cheerful books. But it's probably why I did so well on my percentage of books by non-white authors. For 2017 I read 21% POC so 30% is big jump! As for the other goals I read 6.5 scholarly books, reread 12 books, and didn’t read anything more than 100 years old.

What are your goals for 2019? Given that I didn’t do great at my 2018 goals I’m going to scale down a bit. I think that if I don’t push myself I won’t read as many books by non-white authors as I’d like so I’m going set a goal of 30 books by non white authors with 40 as stretch goal. And I’m sad that I’m not reading all the interesting non-fiction that I want to get to so I’m going to set a goal of reading 15 non-fiction books (with 20 as a stretch goal) and try to worry less about how scholarly they are.

I’ve got started working on a couple of other 2018 in review posts about media I consumed so expect to see those in the next couple days. I might also do a favorite short SFF of 2018 post but seeing as I haven’t read much short SFF in the second half of 2018 I have so caughting up to do so if that happens it will be in a month or two.

Well 2018 is almost halfway over so I thought I'd see how I'm doing with my reading goals. So far this year I've read 65 books (according to my not always perfect goodreads account). That puts me on track to read a lot less that total books this year compared to last year when I read 161 books, but still a bit more than 2016 when I read 104 books. This makes sense to me -- the world has been a lot lately and I'm finding it harder to sink into a book, and also having a harder time with heavy books. I've started an decided not to finish a lot of books recently because of these issues.

So with that in mind lets go over my reading goals one by one.

Read 24 new to me non-white authors
Read so far:9
So, not on track here. This goal has been a real struggle -- I just want to read happy fluffy things and the books by non-white authors that I see get the most attention are all downers and I can't read then right now. In fact I have bunch of books like this on my TBR and they are probably just going to keep sitting there for a while. So if you have any recs for me here that would be great. Comics and Manga count too!

Reread 20 books
Reread so far:6
I don't know what's up with my brain and rereading. I'd think rereading would be great when I'm want something comforting but my brain keeps reminding me of all the bad things about any book I consider rereading and then I don't want to reread it anymore in case I don't like it after all. Which seems unproductive. I don't know brains are strange.

Read 10 Scholarly Books (defined as experts writing about the thing they are expert in)
Read so far:5
Hey I'm on track for this one! Yay!

Read 1 book that's over a 100 years old
Read so far:0
Well there's still time but will I have the mental energy? We shall see.

Well that's not great but it could be worse. Did you set yourself any reading goals? If so how are you doing?

I just finished reading Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation ed. Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland. This the 1st explicitly solarpunk work I've tried. Solarpunk seems like it would be my thing hopeful stories with a ecological and social justice focus. However I was disappointed. I felt this volume had less ecology and less hope than I wanted and expected.

I don't know maybe the editors just have different idea about what hopeful means or we live deeply cynical culture and any story where humanity survives on a future earth is now considered hopeful. But I found these stories really really bleak. In basically all of them the Earth is in tatters. There was one I range quit because of in seemed to be endorsing cruelty to children on the theory in would make them people who lived within their ecological means. These futures didn't feel better than the present.

I also wanted more ecology, and more complex look at human nature relationships. I've learned to question the idea of wilderness and thus the idea that human nature interactions have to be about humans destroying nature but most the stories in this book don't question those ideas. I would have also loved to see some manged or created ecosystems but there was very little of that.

I did quite like "The Desert, Blooming" by Lev Mirov and I enjoyed all the art and most of the poetry and the fact that the book included both.

Overall the book was not what I was expecting and I found it a major let down. Since this was the first time I've read anything solarpunk I don't know if this typical of the genre, but I'm going to be much more wary of anything labeled solarpunk going forward.

2017 is halfway done. So I thought I'd check in with my reading goals and see how that was going. I don’t set a yearly goal for how many books to read in a year because I don’t enjoy that. But this year I did set two other goals, so I thought I’d do a midyear check in.

Scholarly books
Goal for 2017:12
Books Read:
1. Queer: A Graphic History
2.The Most Defiant Devil: William Temple Hornaday and His Controversial Crusade to Save American Wildlife by Gregory J. Dehler
3.Camembert: A National Myth by Pierre Boisard
4.S.P.Q.R: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
5.Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America by Steven Stoll
6.Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
7.Seeking Refuge: Birds and Landscapes of the Pacific Flyway by Robert M. Wilson
8. Ten Restaurants That Changed America by Paul Freedman
Thoughts: Originally this goal was to read 10 academic monographs but I had some books that I wanted to read that didn’t qualify so I modified the goal. Anyway this goal is going great! I’m ahead. I think I’ll take a break from reading scholarly books for a bit and read some memoirs.

Books by new to me non-white authors
Goal: 24
Books read:
1. Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris by Ann Mah
2.Runtime by S.B. Divya
3. Everfair by Nisi Shawl
4.The Accidental Alchemistby Gigi Pandian
5. Honey and Clover, Vol. 1 by Chica Umino
6. Little White Duck : A Childhood in China by Na Liu
7. Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
8. Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening
9. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
10. Black Panther #1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates
11.Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older
12. The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Thoughts:
I’m on target with this goal too! Though I feel guilty that such high percentage of these are comics or novellas. The idea behind this goal was that I’d find new to me authors and want to read all their books. So far that hasn’t worked out – I’ve either not wanted to read more or the authors haven’t had much back list. Also I read a lot of these for Hugo consideration either things I was considering nominating, or finalist I read to decide where to rank.

On the other hand I’ve read 17 books by non-white authors so for this year which more than in all of 2016. I’m currently at 22% of book read this year are by non-white authors.

Did you set yourself reading goals for 2017? If so how is that going?

So Hugo nomination season is open. I've been ordering holds from the library and even bought a couple of books so I can read lots of 2016 work before nominations close in March. Anyways during this process I've also decided to not read a couple of things that are probably really good and well done, but aren't what I want to be reading.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (Novella) This a retelling of a Lovecraft story that a bunch of my friends loved. I'm not reading it because I don't like Lovecraft, and I find retelling generally lose a lot if you are not familiar with the original.

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw (Novella) I've really enjoyed a bunch of Khaw's short fiction, but this one is described as dark, lovecraftan and noir and none of those things are for me.

The Obelisk Gate by by N.K. Jemisin (Novel) This the second book in Jemisin's new trilogy, and I've had a copy of the 1st book since it came out. However I've been told that there is some really awful child injury in that book, and I can't bring myself to read it, so I won't be reading the second either.

Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction by André M. Carrington (best related work) This sounds awesome! It's academic history/criticism about race and science fiction. But I want to finish watching DS9 before I read this and I've been watching it pretty slowly and doubt I will finish before March.

The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley (best related work)I really admire Kameron Hurley, but every time I read one of her pep talks I feel bad about myself for not working hard enough. I'm really good at beating myself up without any extra help so I'm going to skip this book, and try to work on self compassion instead.

Anyways if you are not me these might be great books that you will love. Consider checking them out.