The best suggestion I've seen for a post-Twitter landscape is that everybody should go back to blogging, and preferably own their own site. I haven't paid for a domain, but I still have a languishing blog...so here we go.
In November my older brother's cancer got to the point that he had to go into hospice care, and he died a couple of weeks later. I went down to see him and help with things like breaking his lease and packing up his apartment, and I read pretty much nothing the whole month.
December was a little better; I read six books, which is about my normal amount.
The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Can't say how close this hews to The Thin Man; it's been a long time since I saw that movie, and even longer since I read the book. But William Powell and Myrna Loy live in my head rent-free, dog and all, and the boozy banter felt just right.
The Murder of Mr. Wickham, by Claudia Gray
Wonderful, wonderful book. Jane Austen pastiche is a whole cottage industry and has been for years, and I've read enough of it to know when I've found one of the good ones. Austen's characters who appear here speak and act in accord with the way Austen wrote them, and the new characters introduced fit right in and never feel too modern or out of place, even the one who is clearly presented, in 19th century terms, as what 21st century readers will recognize as neurodivergent. Plus the mystery was clever, and the solution was satisfying. I'm very much looking forward to the sequel coming out later this year.
Our America: A Photographic History, by Ken Burns
Most of the photos were new to me, which was pretty cool. But I have to say that the presentation of the photos with only a title, with notes for context at the back of the book, didn't appeal to me the way it was supposed to; I like to know what I'm looking at.
How Am I Doing? 40 Conversation to Have with Yourself, by Dr. Corey Yeager
I will not be having these conversations with myself or a therapist any time soon; I found it hard to find the applicability to my life.
Nothing Lasts Forever, by Roderick Thorp
So there's a local independent bookstore in my town that has partnered with the art house cinema around the corner to do a monthly book-to-film event: buy the book from the bookshop at the beginning of the month, and it comes with a ticket to see the movie on the last Tuesday of the month. I'd never read this one, so I signed up for a book and a ticket, and was somewhat startled to find that the book is even darker and more violent than the movie, given that the movie they made of it was Die Hard. I'm glad I read it once, probably won't ever read it again, and I won't go one to look up the first book in the series or the movie they made of that with Frank Sinatra.
Legends and Lattes, by Travis Baldree
Every bit as charming as everybody says it is. I love the whole idea of high fantasy with low stakes.
