Ask Me Anything post here.

slashmarks asked: How do you find and choose the books you read?

So many ways. Earlier this year, I finally started a spreadsheet that tracks what book was recommended, where it was recommended, who recommended it, and what they said about it. Outside of that, I have GoodReads books marked want to read, multiple wishlists on bookstore sites, scraps of paper shoved into planners, notebooks with lists, note files on my phone, private posts on Livejournal and Dreamwidth with lists, and so many other ways. The spreadsheet is helping me keep them in one place, sort of.

(I do this with other media, too.)

These books mostly come from:

+ friends telling me directly to read something
+ people on my reading lists posting about what they're reading and me being interested
+ books appearing on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books sales lists
+ seeing a book on social media somewhere (including anon memes)
+ themed reading lists
+ books people read in school that I never read
+ YouTube
+ wandering a bookstore or library (including online)
+ freebies

I also have certain books that come from other places: authors I love, my friends' books, books for projects (e.g., 80s and 90s nostalgic fiction), books given to me for review, things like that.

How do I choose what to read next? I wish I had a process! There's always so much to read and so little time.

(Things What I Read While Traveling Last Week: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, The Game You Played by Anni Taylor, Winter Study by Nevada Barr, Rolling in the Deep and Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, Dark Alchemy by Laura Bickle, and The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton.)

The rest of upper management are in the office next door looking into concert tickets, so I'm popping on to blow the last bit of the work day here. (I already gave my input into the concert tickets. Also, I love my job.) (Not just because I can do stuff like this at work, but also, yes, because I can do stuff like this at work.)

(Random work story from the other day: I was very grumpy and so doing things with more force than necessary. I reached up to knock some hair out of my face and punched myself in the nose. I am awesome like that. I then promptly told everyone because it was so hilarious. What, you expect upper management to have poise and [I can't think of the word I want here, thanks a lot, med brain, so I'll say esteemed behavior and hope someone knows what word I actually mean]? Not around here!)

I just updated my book list last night, so it's a good time to do a What I'm Reading Wednesday post.

Last Three Things I Read

+ Sparrow Hill Road and Girl in the Green Silk Gown by Seanan McGuire

Reread of Sparrow Hill Road in preparation to read the sequel. I've loved Rose Marshall through a couple of iterations now, and I really enjoyed Girl in the Green Silk Gown. I thought the pacing dragged a little in a couple places, but not enough to knock me out of the story, and I loved what the story itself.

+ Spellbound by Christopher Pike

A reread for a project. It's not my favorite Christopher Pike (that is Monster), but it's one of my favorites and it continues to be a lot of fun. (Racist as hell in places, though. Pike struggles with that and with sexism a lot.)

I have no idea what I'll read next. (Well, no, I'll read Scavenger Hunt by Christopher Pike in the near future for that same project, but other than that, I don't know.) I need to knock out some non-fiction. My goals this year were to read 100+ books (I'm at 113), 50 from my to read list (I'm at 17 ... oops), and 12 non-fiction (I'm at 5). I'm probably not going to hit the to read list set (which is actually failing anyway because I keep adding new books -- it's a list of books I own but haven't read, and the goal was to work my way through it. That is not what's happening), but I can do some non-fiction reading. (In fact, I just bought a Humble Bundle about management and happiness and things like that, so I'll try to knock some of them out.)

(Though mostly, I need to be writing Yuletide. BEARS. I'M AT BEARS.)

Thought I'd give this a try again this year. I've never been able to keep it up, but maybe if I try to do it just once a month, that will make it happen.

What I just finished:
A lot in 2017, haven't finished anything in 2018 yet. Starting fresh.

What I'm reading now:

The Last Vampire by Christopher Pike. For a project.

Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You're Drowning in Your Daily Life by Jessica Abel. My writing group was talking about this at the end of 2017, and I decided to give it a try. I tend to read books like this all the way through one time before I try to put anything into action, so we'll see if it ends up being useful.

Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine. I've been on a mystery/thriller kick lately, and this is the latest one. I'm about halfway through, and though the main character is really frustrating a lot of the time and the plot has been slow to arrive, it is tense and entertaining.

What I'm reading next:

Probably Leader Lion by Zoe Chant, which I picked up earlier today, and Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, which Sister K gave me for the holidays. Sometime in the near future, Black Blood (The Last Vampire #2) by Christopher Pike, also for a project.

J is doing a rewatch of Longmire, and I am doing (another) rewatch of Leverage (no, seriously, this is probably my fifth in six months? Counting that initial time marathoning it over a matter of days), and as we were talking about our favorite characters on Longmire, an interesting thought struck me. My favorite character is Henry. (J's is Hector, which is incredibly fitting, unsurprising, and not actually pertinent.) In the episode we watched, Walt loses his temper and destroys his office in his rage. That scene is a great example of why Walt can't be my favorite, which surprised J, because I am a creature of rage.(1) But that is why Walt can't be my favorite, because I identify with him too much (at least in that way), and I don't much care for my rage control issues. (I don't mind my rage itself, generally, but too often, the uncontrollable aspect of it is tied tightly to the bipolar(2). I have fought long and hard to gain control and find an even emotional ground -- and most of that is medicine supported -- but I know it is there.)

This got me thinking. I tend to love certain characters and identify hard with certain characters, and those characters do not generally overlap, because when I identify with characters, it is mostly because of traits I don't particularly like in myself.

Examples: Henry vs Walt; She-Hulk is my favorite Hulk, but I deeply identify with MCU Bruce Banner and his rage(3); Hardison is my favorite, but I identify more with Eliot (his control is more of the kind of control I've managed, though he is probably the most controlled of the characters with which I identify); Sir Keladry is my favorite of the Tortall characters (from Tamora Pierce's series), but I identify more with Sir Alanna (who is known for her anger issues).

This can sometimes fall apart when it comes to angry women: Faith from BTVS is both my favorite and the one I identify with the most; so is Letty, from the Fast and the Furious series; of the women in the United States of Asgard, I love Glory the Fenris Wolf and her neverending hunger and Sygny the Valkyrie proving herself in blood and fire and rage, and I identify with them immensely. But generally, I like the ones who have learned control, and identify with the ones who have not, who let their anger ride so near the surface.

I need to think about this some more, but it might give me structure for that series of essays I've been wanting to write about bipolar.



(1) Recently I mentioned on my grad school friends chat thread that I am feeling very manic lately, and have a berserker heart. I have been reading too much Norse-inspired fiction, I suppose; I'm in the middle of yet another reread of Tessa Gratton's United States of Asgard series, and the more times I read the series, the more I love the berserker main character of the first book, Soren. He is the best.

(2) Note: I am NOT saying that mental illness makes people dangerous. My mental illness sometimes manifests in ways that make me dangerous, because my rage and lack of control sometimes makes me dangerous, with or without the mental illness.

(3) Though werewolf is my favorite metaphor for bipolar, the Hulk thing works pretty well for it, too. Despite how long we've been together, J recently learned that She-Hulk is my favorite (he only recently learned She-Hulk exists at all, because J is not a comic book fan, and when he does watch adaptations, he always does DC), and I explained it is because if you take the Hulk thing as a metaphor for bipolar, LOOK AT HER. She is what I want to be.

After seeing wakeupnew (and a number of other people) talk about the series (and Riordan's other work) in such glowing terms, I picked up "...and the Gods of Asgard" on sale awhile back, and since I devoured "Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day" by Seanan McGuire the second it downloaded (thought it was cute, but not as engaging as the Rose Marshall ghost stories), I finally had a break in my reading, and started Riordan's book. It's cute, so far, and I love books incorporating Asgardian gods into the modern world (for all its problems, I love the hell out of Tessa Gratton's United States of Asgard series, particularly Strange Maid and "Glory's Teeth: A Novella of Hungry Girls and the End of the World." I have so much love for Glory!), but there's some racism that is annoying the hell out of me, and I'm hoping it gets better. (This is my first Riordan book. I'm also hoping I can read it without having read Percy Jackson, but we'll see.)

Do you guys have recs for any other books about Asgardian gods in a modern world? (If it helps, I'm not a huge fan of American Gods, but I will try any book for awhile, at least.)

I also recently read a couple books in Robert Dugoni's Tracy Crosswhite series and liked them a lot more than I expected; Dugoni's a lawyer turned author who writes mysteries (/thrillers, maybe). The first one is pretty heavy in legal scenes, and I don't normally like media that has a lot of law to it (while I watch Criminal Minds and Bones, for example, I don't watch Law & Order unless I'm intentionally spending time with J, because there's too much courtroom stuff for me). I found Dugoni to be an incredibly engaging author, and he even had me interested in a long bit of courtroom writing. I'm leery of the third book in the series, which deals with murder on a reservation, and looks like a white savior narrative, but I'll probably give it a try eventually.

Otherwise, life continues apace. I am super grumpy, because of work politics crap and because we went from 50 degree days to ICE STORM to 50 degree days (or at least that is what is predicted for next week), and I both hate being cold and don't deal well with drastic temperature changes. I'm never going to get over this sinus stuff if the weather keeps doing that. Recorded two podcast episodes yesterday, and despite some technical difficulties, it was, as always, a ton of fun.

( 31 Days )

Day 5: talk about books this year

I should have known this topic would be next, because it's another long one for me. I've started more than 100 different books this year, and finished the majority of them, some of them more than once. All of this is not counting the ones I read on bad days, but didn't have the energy to track.

Here are some of the ones I enjoyed:

Beware the Wild - Natalie Parker: Really fun teen southern supernatural mystery.

Trust Me, I'm Lying - Mary Elizabeth Summer: Super entertaining teen con artist and friends.

Shutter - Courtney Alameda: Excellent teen horror, though there's a bit of Our Girl is Badass (Other Girls Aren't).

Nearly Gone - Elle Cosimano: Suspenseful teen thrilled with characters I loved.

Little House series (minus Farmer Boy) - Laura Ingalls Wilder: I never read Farmer Boy. I do not care about Almonzo unless he's around Laura. I missed my mother a lot earlier this year, and my first memory is of her reading this series to me, so I read it again, and mourned.

Incryptid series - Seanan McGuire: Supernatural adventures about a family of cryptozoologists. The fourth book came out this year, and it was about werewolves, so pretty much Made For Me in a series that already feels made for me. So I reread the first three in a marathon to celebrate the fourth book. Then, last month, I reread all four again. Even when I'm bothered by things (there's a big thread of White Savior to the universe), I love them so hard.

Uglies series - Scott Westerfeld: I wanted a dose of dystopia, and I love the main characters of this series a lot, so I did a marthon reread over a weekend.

Caszandra series - Andrea K. Host: Sci-fi portal fantasy, and one of my favorite self-published books ever. It is really satisfying, even though I don't normally enjoy the journal format in books. Cassandra is a fantastic narrator, and the world building delightful. I read this series (three books and a Gratuitous Epilogue that is entitled as such) three times this year.

Kilmer Cure - Lynn Schneider: Lynn Schneider is the best, y'all, and her collection of essays about bipolar, framed around Val Kilmer's movies, broke me wide open.

Under the Lights - Dahlia Adler: This was a delightful story about teen friendship and romance with two of my favorite queer girl characters ever.

United States of Asgard series - Tessa Gratton: I keep getting caught up wanting to know where the hell all the Indian tribes have gone, because they are hardly ever mentioned, and the one time a Native American character shows up onscreen, it's a trick. Even with new gods coming in, the native gods, and the people who worshipped them, still fucking exist. That being said, I love this series and its characters so much; fierce, angry teen girls who are strong in different ways and who have such grand adventures. I read this series twice this year.

Parasitology series - Mira Grant: I marathoned the first and second book right before the third came out this year, and ever since have been super annoyed by the fact there is a GIANT CONTINUITY ERROR at the beginning of book two. It keeps bleeding into my overall enjoyment of the series, which is really great zombie fiction with fantastic science behind it.

20-sided Sorceress series - Annie Bellet: The first couple books of this supernatural adventure series is fantastic! The main character is a geeky woman who owns a gaming shop and learned to control her sorcerer powers through D&D references. And then the latest book in the series absolutely fell flat; it felt more like a couple chapters cut off from a much bigger story.

A Trifle Dead, Blackmail Blend, and Drowned Vanilla - Livia Day: Super fun, sweet cozy mysteries set in Hobart about a baker who knows everyone in town and keeps getting pulled into mysteries.

I tried making homemade pie crust tonight, and now four mini pies are in the oven. I'm not sure I like the mini pie pan we have (no one has used it before), and probably it was not the greatest plan to use untried equipment for a new recipe (and not just a new recipe for the pie crust; I've actually never made a pie before even with pre-made pie crusts), but it is what it is. I really liked the pie crust recipe itself, and will try it again in a regular pie pan before I make any decisions.

The filling turned out delicious, though: granny smith apples, butter, cinnamon, a touch of sugar, and ground cloves. Nom.

I've been reading a cozy mystery series (I think that's right) by Sarah Graves, the Home Repair is Homicide series. The blurb that turns up on a lot of the covers is from the Denver Post: Think Diane Mott Davidson with a tool belt instead of recipes!

I don't actually read Davidson's books (though I would, I just haven't), and I'm still not sure how I ended up with this series. I think the first one I read was a dollar book from Half Price Books, and it sat on my to read bookshelves for awhile, but I finally read it when I unpacked it recently, and liked it enough I picked up a handful of others from a used bookstore. (I went down to watch more college hockey with Sister K a few weeks ago, and had some extra time before she got off work, so I ended up at a used bookstore near her workplace. It's overpriced and the staff was unfriendly, but I found a couple more Graves books, so that was nice.) I'm on my third book now, and the style frustrates me, the pacing is uneven, and I often dislike the main characters, but the stories keep sucking me in. There's a point where I can't stop reading, because I have to see what happens. That's pretty impressive, considering the rest of it.

These books are set in Eastport, Maine, where the author lives, and I have to say, they've made me want to visit that part of Maine, maybe stay awhile. Maybe I should write a Maine werewolf story, and go do some first hand research.

Other than that, still unmedicated and unemployed, had a pretty massive breakdown the other day, but I keep pushing through.

I'm really enjoying everyone's What I'm Reading Wednesday posts, so I thought I'd start trying to do it too (at least sporadically, I'm not great at regular weekly posting).

What I Just Finished Reading

I finished this a couple days ago, Nobody by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. I really love Barnes' Raised by Wolves and The Squad series(es), and enjoyed her last standalone. This one felt really slow to me, and the back and forth point of views kept throwing me out of the story at first, but eventually I got sucked in, and the world building was really, really interesting.

What I'm Reading

I just started (again, I read at least the first chapter awhile ago) Soulless by Gail Carriger. das_hydra has recced it to me more than once, and I'm more or less enjoying it, though I'm not much of a fan of stories set in Victorian London. (Except I loved studying Victorian lit back when I did my undergrad, so -- I don't know, I'm complicated?) But I'm really enjoying the werewolf and vampire politics and world building.

What I'm Reading Next

I ... have no idea. When We Wake by Karen Healey comes out in North America (it's already out in NZ/AUS, as far as I know), and I'm super excited to read the published version. However, I'll need something new to read before that, and I have no idea what will be next. I have boxes and boxes of books to unpack still, and I know I have unread books in there, but I want something in particular, I'm just not sure what. (Well, awesome werewolf stories, always. And fantastic teen supernatural adventures.)

Recs?

Stop! Self-awareness time!

I was reading this fantastic post in which toft talks about Mercedes Lackey's books and I realized why I have so little patience for -- well, I'll put it in toft's words:

7) I love that all of the books that I've read so far punch my talented-outcast-child-is-rescued-from-family-and-excels-at-school narrative kink right in the kidneys and throw it down the stairs. In a good way.

Now I read this post after watching the first three Harry Potter movies with Mom (one last night, two today) and even though I've seen them before and read the books and wrote fanfic, damn it, it struck me really hard how much of an idiot Harry is a lot of the time and how things just fall in his lap. Sometimes literally.

And don't get me wrong, I love the first four Harry Potter books a lot. (The movies not as much and the last three not nearly as much, but the first four, particularly three and four, SO MUCH LOVE.) And I also love the Mercedes Lackey books I've read, which isn't very many, I'll admit, but I read the Arrows trilogy and then BY THE SWORD which has KEROWYN I'LL KICK YOUR GODDAMN ASS AND YOU'LL LIKE IT who is my hero, so obviously I'm a fan of that one, too.

But frequently these talented-outcast-child-rescued-from-family-and-excels-at-[fill in the blank] narratives really bug me. While reading toft's post I finally figured out why, even though it is really obvious if you know me at all: Basically every awesome thing I have ever done is because I am trying to live up to the awesomeness of my family. No, really, they've set the bar high and it just keeps getting pushed higher. Even though I don't directly follow in anyone's footsteps, what I do is done so I can be as awesome as my family. So of course I don't grok that narrative the way some others might.

Not very awesome that it took me that long to figure it out, but whatever.

(By the way, as we're watching Harry Potter, Mom turns to me and says she doesn't understand why people threw such a fit over Harry Potter being satanic or whatever, nothing they did magically seemed all that bad and I said I thought it was just the idea of ~magic in the first place that was so horrible. She scoffed and said that was ridiculous, kids should grow up with magical stories and reading stories about magic doesn't make them bad Christians. Oh, Mom, you are the best conservative, Christian mother ever! [Though obviously conservative doesn't apply to Christian in that sentence.] Oh, speaking of conservatives, I am not adjusting well to being back in a small town in a red state. Today some guy came around talking about politicians because we're running up on the November election and ads and calls and door to door is going wild. Anyway, dude told me politician is a Democrat and liberal in [these ways], but still conservative, too, in [these ways] and is pro life. I don't think he expected me to say, well, those liberal things are really good, but the pro life thing is generally a deal breaker for me. Too liberal for the liberals here, what?)

~*~

Sons of Anarchy comes back this week! I think I will liveblog it, because OMG FINALLY. J and I were talking the other night and he said the adverts make it look like it's going to be very soap opera-y and the season finale was very much a soap opera. I laughed and said even if it is, if I kept watching after [that thing with Gemma last season], I'll give them a season of being a soap opera before I quit them.

The Vampire Diaries comes back, too, but I rarely talk about that here. Maybe that will change this season. Because [THINGS! THINGS WHICH ARE SPOILERS!]

~*~

I am tired, but I am waiting on a thing and I pulled up my werewolfbigbang, which I keep thinking I won't finish, but the first draft isn't due until later this month, so maybe I will finish. I'm writing a sequel to "wolf woman wild," but I keep wanting to write some ridiculous crossover (er, even more ridiculous than "wolf woman wild" which has BtVS, Angel, Fast and the Furious series, and Ginger Snaps) about a wolf pack that contains characters from BtVS, Fast and the Furious series, Sons of Anarchy, Harry Potter, etc. I do not need to set aside the sequel and write 10k of a ridiculous crossover. I don't.

(Dude, Sons of Anarchy basically is a werewolf pack without being werewolves. And how awesome would it be to have Oz and Faith, Letty and Dom and Mia, Jax and Opie and Donna and Tara, Remus and Sirius, Clay and Gemma all in a wolf pack together? Hell, let's really make it ridiculous and throw in Sam and Dean and John and Mary Winchester and, GOD, Ellen and Jo Harvelle, because obviously after Race Wars, Jesse runs off and becomes Ash. Hell, Chad Lindberg himself brings together Fast and the Furious, Supernatural, and Sons of Anarchy. If I really wanted to go wild, I know I could work in Velma and Daphne.

Good grief, I'm actually considering this.)

~*~

THING is done, so I can go to bed! Except now I'm thinking about the damn ridiculous crossover.

ETA: It has taken me five billion edits to get the coding right, even though I swear I was using the same coding I'd been using since I started crossposting from DW. WHAT THE HELL?

While I am (impatiently) waiting for Yuletide assignments to arrive, I have been reading some source material I am considering for Yuletide Madness, even if it ends up not being my main assignment. This is fun and relaxing.

I am also thinking about fandoms to request next year. I think I'm going to request Never Cry Werewolf fic, even though this year I thought it might be too much of a longshot. Between then and now, I'll maybe even write a fandom manifesto or something. (The dvd cover on the wiki page is actually kinda awesome. I want that one.)

In addition, I'm struck with the desire to request Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House? Helping Your Child Understand the Stay-at-Home Server, all about girls and their servers.

OMG It's here, it's here, it's here! YULETIDE!