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Jan. 2nd, 2025

kitewithfish: (harley quinn with the hammer)
­Reading Journal up to Jan 1 2025

What I’ve Read

Marry Me A Little: A Graphic Memoir by Robert Kirby – a sweet cartoon memoir around the author’s marriage to his husband in 2013 (two years before the national legalization of gay marriage in the US). It’s sweet, the political moment was hopeful and vulnerable, and it was written just after the first Trump administration ended, so, a nice time period to visit.

All My Bicycles by Powerpaola, translated by Andrea Rosenberg. A graphic memoir in bicycles. It’s not wildly engaging, I think I was turned off by the art style.

Ex Machina  Vols 1, 2, and 3  by Brian K. Vaughan– A deeply weird visit to the early 2000s. The comic ran from 2004-2010 and the whole thing feels like edgelord superheroes doing The West Wing. The main character, Mitchell Hundred, is a former superhero with the power to control machines, now mayor of New York as an independent. The tone is that politics are about little power struggles and making decisions with the authority of the office, rather than, say, having beliefs about how to build the best city that keeps people the most happy and safe. The thing is, it’s also got a decently engaging superhero plot about Hundred’s short stint as a masked vigilante and the source of his powers, but there is just a horrible lack of actual beliefs in the politics. I might go thru and finish the series for the sake of completion, but it seems highly cynical overall. I suspect that this had a stronger moment at the time. The first issue might actually really hit if you were old enough to remember 9/11.

Harrow County Vol 1 – Countless Haints by Cullen Bunn – Creepy! It’s horror with a bit of decent character work and I think it might be setting up something for the second volume (which I happen to have out from the library)

The Wood at Midwinter
by Susanna Clarke – A late entry to the 2024 final day of ready, because it literally game in the mail from a friend! I love Susanna Clarke, and this is an illustrated short story of a woman who is more at home in the woods than in the normal world.

What I’m Reading
Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings- about halfway, it’s Australian and I’m not sure what is the author’s creation or local myth.
The Return of the King – 42% -
It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – 52%
Power Broker – Audiobook Part 3 – 1%
He Who Drowned the World – 59%

Static:
The Lottery and Other Stories – 44%
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – 31%
Ash: A Secret History – 23%
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 10%
Count of Monte Cristo 48%

What I’ll Read Next
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser
Petals on the Wind
Strange Practice
The Centre -Sidiqi
City of Brass
kitewithfish: (Default)

Year End Reading Meme for 2024

How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/etc?


What are your Top 3 books that you read this year?


What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?


Which books most disappointed you this year?


Did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favorite?


What's the oldest book you read?


What's the newest book you read?


Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?


Did you read any books outside of your usual preferred genre(s)?

What was your predominant format this year?


What's the longest book you read this year?


What books from your TBR did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2022?


Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?


(Adding this question myself) What author did you read the most?


 

kitewithfish: (late night early mornings)
Year End Reading Meme for 2024

How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/etc?
101. I count audiobooks, graphic novels, fanfic over 50K, and even traditional books with no pictures!

What are your Top 3 books that you read this year?
Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland, Jackalope Wives by T Kingfisher, and Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery and Dolores Clairborne by Stephen King

Which books most disappointed you this year?
All My Bicycles by Powerpaola – a graphic novel and it was just not that engaging. Also, Romancing Mister Bridgerton was not really landing with me.

Did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favorite?
Murderbot! Re-read the whole series again.

What's the oldest book you read?
Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett – this was arguably her most popular book during her lifetime, but her work focusing on girls has had a longer tail. It’s from 1886

What's the newest book you read?
The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke – published October 20 2024

Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
A bunch – Gild I bailed on for being goofy, A Court of Mist and Fury because I found the writing really bland.

Did you read any books outside of your usual preferred genre(s)?

I read Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, which was fine mystery but really too English. I also read Horrorstor, which was a fascinatingly constructed book because it looks like an ikea catalogue and the book is set inside a giant furniture store.

What was your predominant format this year?
Digital and audibook.

What's the longest book you read this year?
Dune, according to storygraph, but I would count The Power Broker audibooks as the longest bc the audiobook is broken into three parts. But I didn’t actually finish the whole three, soooo.

What books from your TBR did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2022?
I just finished He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan, which was wonderfully written and had a great grasp of character.

Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
I had two sorts of goals, actually. Read 100 books (same goal I’ve had for three years or so now) and read longer books. Turns out, those goals don’t play well together! So I barely made it under the wire. I ended up reading a lot of graphic novels.

(Adding this question myself) What author did you read the most?
T. Kingfisher! I read 7 books by T Kingfisher, all traditionally published. If we are counting fanfiction, then I read the most from Alexandra Rowland aka Ariaste, because I read 6 of their original books and 2 novel length fanfics.

Any thoughts on reading in 2024?
My reading goals were big this year! I still have some left to finish in the new year, but they will get done eventually – this includes finishing the Power Broker by Robert Caro.

I realized after the election, that well, my mental health was suffering and that reading books was harder – I had less focus and energy to read in November 2024 as a whole. While it got better, I am giving myself some leeway on the gap between my performance and my goals. Reading something counts, and if that means we fudge the numbers, so be it.

I had a minor subgoal – Storygraph tracks “streaks” aka continuous days of reading, and over a year ago I had a streak going over 212 days and lost it somehow. I mostly remember being annoyed about the whole thing because I had done the reading but not received the credit. A couple of weeks ago, I hit and passed my old longest streak, and my new subgoal is to read every day this year.

I also found out that you can log magazine issues (at least for Clarkesworld) on Storygraph, so I might start doing that - short stories were a good place for me to be after the election when I was trying to read again.


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