☆❀☆

Currently reading: Kenneyism by Jeremy Appel. About said former Alberta premier's rise, fall, and general efforts to make my province worse. Interesting book, but bad for my blood pressure. (While it's on my mind, the chapter on Kenney's pro-oil and anti-environmentalism stance contained absolutely no mention of the 2016 fire and how its effects influenced the industry and general political climate in the province, which seems like a glaring omission to me.)

Reading through this stuff makes me feel pretty depressed about Alberta in general. Like, Kenney and Smith are awful, but it was people of the province that voted them in to begin with, you know? They didn't just magically get into power; my neighbours and family and coworkers and bosses put them there.

...Anyway, I'm probably going to need to read something light after this. I have a lot of books to choose from, 'cause I keep picking up stuff from Little Libraries, as well as whatever the regular library has to offer.

Tsundoku pile:
+ Summer in Orcus by Ursula Vernon. Some flavour of fantasy novel with a young protagonist. Just realized that this one is signed; I'll have to be gentle with it.
+ Combined edition A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I've read and enjoyed ATOTC; GE is new to me.
+ With Love from London by Sarah Jio. About a librarian who inherits her mother's bookshop. Not a romance novel.
+ Fire Strike by Clive Cussler. I have never claimed to have good taste in literature.
+ An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield. Memoir/what it says on the tin, maybe.
+ The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol - Translated by Pevear & Volokhonsky. Been casually meaning to look into this author for a while.
+ Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman. Probably needs no introduction. I tried to start this at one point, but wasn't in the mood.
+ The Village of Small Houses by Ian Ferguson. A memoir about growing up in Fort Vermillion.
+ Into the Jungle by Erica Ferencik. Some kind of romantic drama/adventure set in Bolivia.
+ The Ghost Ships of Archangel by William Geroux. WWII nonfiction about ships from doomed convoy PQ-17 carrying supplies to Arkhangelsk.
+ Lake of the Dead by Andre Bjerke. A classic Norwegian horror/thriller; it has a film adaptation that I was very into for a while.
+ And All Between by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. This has been on my bookshelf since I was in elementary school and I have no idea what it's about.
+ Dust on the Sea by Douglas Reeman. Pulpy marine adventure set during WWII.
+ Assault in Norway by Thomas Gallagher. Small pulpy paperback about the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during WWII. Looks like it's a novelization of events rather than an actual history book.
+ Sixty-seven Ontological Studies by Jan Zwicky & Robert V. Moody. Poetry and photography.
+ Olav H. Hauges vakraste dikt. Sent to me by a friend. Compilation of my favourite poet's works. Norwegian only, not facing translation.

Currently Reading:
My Life in Propaganda: Language and Totalitarian Regimes by Magda Storińska. About (as the title suggests) propagandist language, with reflection on the author's experiences growing up in communist Poland. Part personal account, part linguistic analysis; it doesn't really fit neatly into either box, though I think it'd appeal to people who are interested in either/both. She also discusses modern Poland a small amount - mainly ways that restrictions and ambiguities of language either persisted post-1989 or did not, and ways that similar tactics are being used in more modern times by PiS etc.

I'm only halfway through it, but I'm finding it difficult to put down. ...It has also reminded me of various topics I've been meaning to read about but haven't found time to get around to. Namely the Solidarity movement (which she touches on). Most likely my library has something on that, though suggestions for books about it are also welcome. :V

Also Currently Reading:
Barefoot Britain by Anna McNuff. This one is an account of her adventure running a length of 100 marathons from Shetland to London in bare feet. I get a lot of enjoyment out of reading sport/adventure memoirs of things that I would never attempt myself, and this fits the bill. Anyway - it's a very fun and light read; the author has a lot of good humour, and that really comes out. Also, there's this one bit where she was injured and had to put a pause on the run for a few weeks, and all of her discussion about how she felt about it, how awful it felt to stop even for a while, made me recall when I got hurt at judo and was out of commission for a while - obviously the situations are not all that comparable, but it was nice to read that and think, ah, she gets it. ...Anyway, yeah, I'm enjoying this.

Reading Next:
+ From the library:
- Red Dirt Road by S. R. White. Next in the Detective Dana Russo series, which I've been really enjoying.
- Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon vol 03 by Naoko Takeuchi. Still snailing my way through this.

+ On the tsundoku shelf:
- Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher
- The King is Dead by Naomi Libicki
- Crossing the Carpathians by Carmen Bugan
- The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
- Pilgrimage by Zanne Handley
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- Athabasca by Alistair MacLean
- The Lake of the Dead by Andre Bjerke
- And All Between by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
- Sixty-Seven Ontological Studies by Jan Zwicky and Robert V. Moody

I'll probably nibble at the tsundoku pile after I get through the library borrows; there's too much stuff on there for my liking, and I really want to read some of these (the first three especially).

No brains at the moment. Have a Reading Wednesday.

Just finished: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Breezy and light. Premise: After a layoff, our first person protagonist takes a job with some kind of mysterious government-funded animal conservation agency. Surprise, the animals are kaiju! And then it just gets more wild from there. IDK what to tell ya man, this is fun and not very deep. Just what I needed!

Currently Reading: The Long Walk by Stephen King. Death game genre; 100 boys set out on a walk. Last one standing wins. If you fall behind... well, don't fall behind. I picked this one up after seeing people mention it; 80 pages in and so far I'm like, "Man, this is whack". Having a good time with it, though.

Also currently reading: The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War by Tim Butcher. About Gavrilo Princip, the dude who shot Archduke Ferdinand. Less a biography per se, and more trying to put him in context, I think. I have no earthly idea why I picked this one up. Not deep into it yet, but finding it interesting so far.

Reading next: I have no idea what, but it's probably going to be some nonfiction from my own bookshelves. I have an Estonia-related fic I want to write, but I'm going to need to do some research/review first.

I've been sick as a dog since Friday. On the one hand, I can't do much. On the other, since I'm not doing much, I might as well read. :V

Currently reading: HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. I picked this up because I really loved Echo by the same author.

This one's about a village that is haunted by a 17th-century witch. Old-timey curses + modern technology = the constant risk that somebody will find out about this thing, and the curse will spread. (And as the threat increases, the response from the town takes a historical turn...)

Overall, I'm really enjoying it. The mix of ancient curse + modern tech is something I see more often in film; it seems like something that would be tricky to pull off in text, but it works here. I'm finding it less creepy than Echo, but that one has a very different vibe, so I guess it's a matter of different subgenres hitting differently.

I'm only halfway through it, so it's possible my opinion could change, but so far I'm having a grand time.

Been a while since I did one of these. :V

Just finished: The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins. This one is poetry. I've never encountered this guy's work before, but I found this volume really solid. Honestly, I don't enjoy most poetry that I pick up at random off the library shelf, but I did like this. He has a way with words and images and small moments.

Also just finished: Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Saw this on the 'featured' shelf at the library; decided to finally read it. I didn't read this novel in school, so it's nice to finally understand what all the references to it are on about. I knew there was going to be murder, but I wasn't expecting quite as much; I was a little surprised. As for a read, it's all right, but I think I'd have liked it better as a kid - I loved all those "stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere" kind of stories.

Reading next: Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History by Robert D. Kaplan. I expected this to be a straightforward history book, but now that I take a closer look, it's described as a "political travelogue". A lot of what the local library has on this region seems to be that sort of thing. Apparently this one caused quite a stir at the time it was published. At this point I'm basically scraping through what little the library has that covers Romania and Bulgaria - after that I'll move on to less immediately-available material.

Just Finished: Braille Rainbow by Mike Barnes. Poetry. This guy has quite a way with words - good with sensory stuff, good with imagery. I have a hard time describing what I like about poetry in general, but I enjoy whatever is going on here, and will probably be revisiting this collection at a future date.

Currently Reading: House of Gucci by Sara Gay Forden. I saw the movie, and enjoyed it (embellished tho' it was etc). So, I decided to take a look at the book, too. Not very far into it yet, but at this point I can say that it was engrossing enough that I stayed up way too late reading it. (And regretted it the next morning, but y'know. ;p )

Reading Next: Uhhhh I'll get back to you on that one. :V

+ Life continues to be busy!

+ Continuing to have some nice slow conversations with a couple of fans from the Chinese side of Hetalia fandom. Lu and Kosmi are very chill, but also enthusiastic, and it's just so nice to talk to people who have the same favourite characters as I do, ahh. ;3;

+ Working on this exchange fic is like pulling teeth. I know exactly what I want to happen! Getting it down on paper is really hard! I need to have this draft done in a week so I can send it to the beta! Oh no. (I'll manage.)

+ Fandom Trumps Hate raised over 50K for US charities this year (details here). I'm so glad this event continues to be successful. Kind of bummed that I got outbid on some fanart offers, but oh well. ;p

And since it's Wednesday, some reading-related things:

Just Finished: Woom by Duncan Ralson. It's supposed to be a horror novel, but it isn't scary at all, just kind of gross (lots of body fluids, vomit, etc, and a very odd unbirthing scene). And it's very... like, the entire time I was reading it, I was thinking, "Well, this sure is someone's kink, but not mine". The novel centres around the main character telling various stories of horrible things that have happened in one specific hotel room, leading to him committing one final horrible act in said hotel room. I feel like the bones of the premise could work for me, but the execution did not. At all. Would not recommend.

Currently Reading: The Oslo Conspiracy by Asle Skredderberget. Not as gritty as my usual Scandicrime fare; this one's more of a breezy read. I'm enjoying it quite a bit; will check out this author more later.

Want to read: Henryk Sienkiewicz's With Fire and Sword/Ogniem i mieczem. I recently came across a post discussing the translations into English and the merits of each of them, which reminded me of it. In truth this book has been on my to-read list for ages, but it might be a while before I get around to it. I really want to read it though. And then watch the film (I've thirsted over the costuming in screencaps, at least).

Occasionally I get peeks into, like, "Eastern European Literary Classics Fandom", due to various people I follow being into that sort of thing, and there's something that just interests me about it a lot. Maybe it's because so much of it is stuff I have intended to read for ages, but haven't yet. And as for OiM specifically, some people I follow are into it fannishly in the "creating fanworks" sense, and I'd like to have more context.

Discussion about Gogol came across my dash as well, and of course his works are on the to-read list too. The library doesn't have anything on paper, but maybe I'll see what the electronic options are, even though that isn't my favourite way to Do Books.

Currently Reading: The Outsider by Stephen King. The longer this one goes, the more batshit it gets. Leans heavily into the investigative/procedural angle, so I guess you could say it's a combination of two of my favourite genres - crime/mystery and horror. This novel won't end up a favourite, but I'm pretty curious about the film adaptation now.

Reading Next: I'm thinking about checking out the Jujutsu Kaisen manga, since the local library has it. I have a feeling it won't really be my thing, but one of my mates got into it a while ago, and it would be nice to have some context for all the fic she's been writing.

Speaking of the local library carrying manga - man, I'm so glad how easy it is to access this stuff now. Manga and comics at the library used to be a totally out-there concept (at least where I live), and what that meant was that if you wanted to read this stuff on paper rather than sketchy websites, it was a very expensive hobby. Now I can just... pick up a volume of something, and get a taste of it, without committing to anything or paying a cent. Amazing. Sure, they don't carry everything, and sometimes they're missing a few volumes in the middle of a series (argh, Fruits Basket!) but still - I'll never take this for granted.

Just Finished: Thomas Quick: The Making Of A Serial Killer by Hannes Råstam. This was absolutely engrossing. The latter half of the book dealt with the painstaking effort to track down all the withheld evidence and proof that there had been some major fuckups. (And there was proof, in spades, including information being fed to Quick while on tape.) Not going to lie, I found it a wild ride from start to finish.

Currently Reading: The Far Arena by Richard Ben Sapir. The premise: the corpse of a Roman is found frozen in northern ice. With the modern magic of ~science~, he's brought back to life! Sounds kind of cracky, but hey, I can roll with that. Not very deep into it yet, but I'm really enjoying what I have read so far.

Reading Next: Haven't started on any of the library books I picked up previously, so I'll tackle those later.

Finished reading: How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino. This is an unusual kids novel; it's kind of hard to classify. It's a story about a teenage boy in prewar Japan, dealing with friendship and bullying; but it's also very didactic. The introduction describes it as "a story about growing up, bravery, cowardice, social class, and finding out who you are, interrupted by essays about scientific thought and personal ethics". I'd say that's a fair description. It reminds me of certain philosophical novels I've read, where the subject/philosophy being discussed was more important than the plot, though in the case of How Do You Live? I feel like the plot and the philosophy were given roughly equal attention.

Anyway - the reason I picked this up is there's currently a Studio Ghibli adaptation of it in production (no release date yet). I thought the story would be very straightforward, but after reading the novel, I'm very curious as to how they're going to adapt it. It's probably easy enough to just do the actual plot, but some of the conversations on ethics seem like they would fit into a Miyazaki film pretty well, though they'd have to be in a trimmed-down form.

Currently reading: The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor. Murder mystery set in 1666, during the Great Fire of London. Not very far into it yet, but so far it's very atmospheric, with some really vivid setting descriptions.

Reading next: Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg. Described as "speculative historical fiction", and one of the protagonists is trans. I don't know much about it beyond that. Will report back once I get to it. ;V