2024 Reading List

I loved watching Wax's relationship with Steris grow, and seeing Steris grow into herself. 

Make impossible states unrepresentable (in your type system).

Rough around the edges, with some very sudden and not-surprising transitions, but has a fun story, interesting characters & magic, and a surprise ending.

I prefer big books, but for a novella I couldn't ask for much more than is here. The storm-fork was hilarious. 😂 

Very emotional. Short and brutal. Hopefully exaggerated, but possibly not.

I enjoy these discworld books. This one has a bunch of Shakespeare references. I like the twisting/changing of fate in this one.

This was great. It tugged on my emotions. I appreciated the peaks into the effects of the Great Depression and the goings-on of Nazi Germany at the time, without being a full accounting of either. This book is about the boys in the boat.

Wow! What a cool magic system! Using music and the mysterious "charter" to control "free magic" and the spirits of the dead! I loved the prologue, with Abhorson (spelling? I listened to the audiobook) entering death to save a baby's life--it was such a nice, quick way to introduce us to the magic and themes of the book.

I'm really liking this series. I accidentally spoiled a little bit of it by reading a wiki page about Lirael (the character), but nothing huge. I liked Lirael a lot. Sameth was relatable, but annoying. I really liked the dog and cat. I feel like this one was slower than the first, with less development of the magic system.

I love seeing Dalinar struggle with his past. I didn't enjoy Shallan's struggle with figuring out who she is as much. I think that says more about me than the book.

I didn't like the awkward Spanish "translation." I didn't connect with any of the characters, and the plot didn't make up for it.

I was hooked from the very beginning. Their dream of living of the fat of the land made me think about how lucky I am to be living my life.

STRANGER, WHOEVER YOU ARE, OPEN THIS TO LEARN WHAT WILL AMAZE YOU

I enjoyed this. It made me laugh and it made me cry.

I would have liked a bigger book, though. There were about 4 different timelines (ancient Constantinople, Zeno's childhood, Seymour's childhood & adolescence, and Konstance on the spaceship), and each kind of felt like its own little short story. For something so epic, I wish the stories were bigger and more developed, especially the endings. (Actually, I really enjoyed the ending of the ancient Constantinople story.)

I want a physical copy of this book so I can re-read it and try to untangle this fun puzzle.

The six stories are all different, and they're all very enjoyable. 

Watching a single soul drift across time is engrossing.

The most maddening part is I don't understand how Timothy Cavendish fits in with the rest. XD

2024 Re-read notes (spoilers...)

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (pt 1)

PG 181:

I had seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with an extraordinarily talentless but wealthy and widowed poetess whose collected works, Verses Wild & Wayward, I was annotating, but who transpired to be less widowed than initially claimed.

An Orison of Sonmi (pt 2)

PG 330:

I remember the drop: it shook free an earlier memory of blackness, inertia, gravity, of being trapped in another ford; I could not find its source in my own memories.

Letters from Zedelghem (pt 2)

PG 459:

During the run-up to my forcible ejection from the Frobishery, it was all 'You're a disgrace to Adrian's memory!' Never, ever forgive the parents that. Remembered our last send- off one drizzly autumn afternoon at Audley End, Adrian was in uniform, Pater clasping him. Days of bunting and cheering were long over - later heard Military Police were escorting conscripts to Dunkirk to deter mass desertions. All those Adrians jammed like pilchards in cemeteries throughout eastern France, western Belgium, beyond. We cut a pack of cards called historical context -- our generation, Sixsmith, cut tens, Jacks and Queens. Adrian's cut threes, fours and fives. That's all.

I am so grateful to have been born when and where I was.

PG 476

A blue vein throbbed over Ayrs's Adam's apple and I fought off an unaccountably strong urge to open it up with my penknife. Most uncanny. Not quite déjà vu, more jamais vu. Killing, an experience that comes to few outside wartime.

Referencing Sloosha's Crossing.

PG 522

A glass touched my lips & Goose's hand cradled my head. I tried to thank him. The potion tasted of bilgewater & almond. Goose raised my head, & stroked my Adam's apple until I swallowed the liquid.

Seems the poison was cyanide.

The end of the book:

PG 528

A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. Upon my return to San Francisco, I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere.

I hear my father-in-law's response. 'Oho, fine, Whiggish sentiments, Adam. But don't tell me about justice! Ride to Tennessee on an ass & convince the red-necks that they are merely white-washed negroes & their negroes are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell 'em their imperial slaves' rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium's! Oh, you'll grow hoarse, poor & grey in caucuses! You'll be spat on, shot at, lynched, pacified with medals, spurned by backwoodsmen! Crucified! Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!'   Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?

This book sucked me in real well. It's a fun quick read, with familiar characters from the rest of the series.

Sanderson does it again. Great characters (good guys and bad guys and in between), engaging plot, and such a world... The depth and detail just keep growing! And I cried happy tears more than once.

Update in Sep 2024: it's a great re-read.

That was a wild ride. I enjoyed the focus on language and meaning and intent. The aliens could understand two people speaking together with a shared mental process, or recording of the same, but not language generated by a machine.

I listened on audiobook, and sometimes the alien speech was hard to understand (because they're speaking separate words/sounds with two mouths at once).

Avice has a robot-friend, Ehrsul, and I didn't understand what happened to her in the end, so that was a bit of a bummer. I think it was Miéville's way of demonstrating she didn't have sentence, as a machine, but I felt like that was missing some closure.

I'd like to reread this one eventually.

I don't like the story of the Iliad much. Part of that is due to Homer's exacting detail concerning names and lineages, but only part. Part of that is due to the extreme violence, but again only part. I think the main reason I don't like it is because of how realisticly the losses of war and anger are depicted. No one here is an admirable person. No one is fighting for an "honorable" cause. Every death in this story is pointless. At least, that's how it feels.

I don't enjoy the overall story, but there are pieces I like. I especially liked the introduction in this version, by Sheila Murnaghan.

PG xli

When Achilles takes Priam's ransom, he finally gives up the stubborn insistence on equal compensation that has caused both him and Agamemnon so much grief; he accepts and values that ransom as the only compensation there is.

And here are some quotes I made note of as I read:

A man may lose someone dearer than Achilles has,

A brother from the same womb, or a son,

But when he has wept and mourned, he lets go.

The Fates have given men an enduring heart.

(24.50-53)

(The introduction highlighted this. It feels like a benefit of mortality.)

11.62-63

Hector, behind the perfect circle of his shield,

Shone like a death star in a bank of clouds,

(Homer was a Star Wars fan.)

16.535-540

The end came as he spoke, and death settled

On his nostrils and eyes. Patroclus put his heel

On Sarpedon's chest and pulled out his spear.

The lungs came out with it, and Sarpedon's life.

The Myrmidons steadied his snorting horses.

They did not want to leave their master's chariot.

(This book has a ton of body violence.)

21.512-515

"Tell you what, Leto, I won't fight with you.

Zeus' wives are pretty tough customers.

You have my permission to boast openly

That you have beaten the daylights out of me."

(Hermes, to Leto, after Hera wacked Artemis around the ears with her own bow.)

Fun collection of cosmere short stories.

I really liked the white sands story, where the main character is weak in the magic system and compensates with cleverness and finesse; and the story of Silence in the forests of hell, the innkeeping lady who hunts down bounties in haunted forests; and the story of the Sixth of Dusk, where futuristic people are trying to artificially elevate the technological level of a Polynesian-inspired culture so they can take advantage of them within they legal limits (oh, and the main character spend the whole story avoiding being killed by his own island).

Oh, and the secret Mistborn history was awesome... I guess I liked all the stories? :)

Notes and questions from my 2024 re-read.

The Emperor's Soul

How similar is "forging" to soul-casting? They both transform objects, and some transformations might be easier than others... Forging seems slower and more delicate. Changes can't be as drastic (can't change linen sheets into glass), and aren't as permanent (just pop the stamp off and the transformation reverses). But medical providers can use it to heal people, which is difficult even for Jasna.

Mistborn: Secret History

When Preservation holds his knife he says "Old friend," with no other explanation. Why? Is he talking of the knife, or maybe someone who gave him the knife? Maybe Ruin gave him the knife, and he's remembering their friendship from before they became shards.

This series is a lot of fun! There's no romance in this one, but it comes with a satisfying conclusion for the events in the last book. 

I like the disreputable dog. 

I like Tim Curry as the audiobook narrator.

What a sweet book! The characters were great, the romance was darling, the family was properly infuriating, and the setting was so cozy. I only wish the book was longer. :)

I wasn't expecting much from a prequel, but this was awesome. Wow.

Clariel definitely travels a sad journey, though. And there's no romance. But the bad guys in this book are excellently done! And there's so much to love about the Old Kingdom as a setting.

This one felt pretty short. And the bad guy didn't seem all that difficult, after Oranis. That made this feel kinda like a filler book in the series... But the romance was fun! :)

I'm not sure I've met a Sanderson book I didn't love.

That was such a fun story! I could hardly stop reading. The spore-oceans were terrifying. I liked the characters. The plot was very satisfying; more satisfying than I had expected.

The one thing it lacked was tragedy. :)

I want to read more about Tress and Chuck sailing the 12 spore seas.

Well that was sweet and adorable. It made me cry, circling back to the beginning of Sabriel like that. I liked Elinor, and her juggling and acting and knife-throwing. It was fun to see a young Terciel, too.

Dystopias are fun.

For comparison, I think 1984 is a more realistic dystopia than this one, making 1984 more dreadful (this one is fantasy/sci-fi), and Hunger Games is more focused on romance and has less mystery.

I like the characters; it's easy to like the good guys, and the bad guys were good at upsetting me. The plot was interesting, with lots of mystery. The setting is also very nice: I love the completely alien world that Fforde has dreamt up.

This book has slight romance.

That said, I kinda wish I had waited to read this until the whole trilogy was out... The ending was okay, but there's so much left unanswered!

(I forgot to write this review until a couple months after finishing the book.) I liked it! I like the characters, and the dystopia setting, and the weird world-building where your place in society is determined by which color(s) you can see. This one's ending is a bit more satisfying than the first book in the series, but there's clearly more to come. The romance situation is odd, dystopian, and cute.

I've loved the stories of Odysseus since my dad told them to me as a kid. Although, I'm always surprised that only four books (9, 10, 11, 12) of the 24 contain Odysseus' mythical adventures with Scylla and Charibdis, the cyclops, the lotus-eaters, etc.

I like this story a lot more than the Illiad. Telemachus grows up, Odysseus comes home, and Penelope is proven to be amazing.

Notes:

Introduction

A Tale of Homecoming 

The Mêtis of Odysseus

PG xxi

Odysseus succeeds where others fail because he never forgets his goal and never loses sight of his desire for it, even in the face of the greatest temptations.

The Man of Pain

I'm Greek, the name "Odysseus" is related to a verb meaning "to suffer pain" and "to inflict pain," and Homer sometimes makes puns with Odysseus's name and this verb. The translator often uses "odius" to make similar puns in English. 

Olympian Friends and Enemies

PG xxxiii

In the Odyssey upright characters show their virtue by honoring their obligation to provide hospitality, [...]

PG xxxiii

As [Zeus] puts it, by ignoring the common rules of human culture, humans bring on themselves "more [troubles] than they were destined for" (1.39), an extra measure of suffering beyond that which the gods impose on everyone.

Fathers and Sons, Masters and Slaves

The Fame of Penelope

PG xli

The marriage of Odysseus and Penelope is based, then, in like-mindedness, a quality designated in Greek by the term homophrosynê, which suggests both a similar cast of mind [...] and a congruence of interests [...]

PG xlv

By using the bed as her test, Penelope also reveals her own fidelity, for it would be useless as proof if she had let anyone else in on the secret. The marriage bed then becomes the symbol and the means of restoring a marriage that is equally constructed by a powerful husband and a powerful wife.

(Emphasis mine)

Ha. I can't stand the idea that Penelope has to prove her fidelity, after Odysseus spent seven years sleeping with his second goddess-girlfriend. There's nothing equal about that. Dumb ancient culture. Penelope's awesome.

The Limits of Heroism

PG xli

A central virtue in the Odyssey is the ability to see another person as potentially like oneself, and this ethic of similitude is reflected in its distinctive use of the poetic figure of the simile.

History and the Poetic Tradition

In having Demodocus sing, at Odysseus' request, a kind of alternative Iliad concerned with the opposition between Achilles and Odysseus, the Odyssey sets up a competition with both the Iliad and its hero that Odysseus wins. Achilles is famous for the choice he has to make between kleos, glory won at war, and nostos, homecoming. Odysseus, the Odyssey tells us, is the hero who does not have to make that choice, who manages to have it all—thanks to his remarkable mind, his mêtis, as described in a poem that is as clearly focused, as wide-ranging, as varied, and as subtle as he is.

Book 11: In Hades

People Odysseus met in Hades:

• Tireseus
• His mom
• Alcmene (Heracles's mom)
• Megara (Heracles's wife)
• lots of other women...
• Agamemnon
• Achilles
• Telemonian Ajax
• Minos (judge)
• Orion (driving beats with bronze club)
• Tityos (vultures eating liver)
• Tantalus (water and fruit inaccessible)
• Sisyphus (pushing a rock up, only for it to fall)
• Heracles

Book 22

Odysseus reveals himself to the suitors

"Eurymachus, not even if all of you

Gave me your entire family fortunes,

All that you have and ever will have,

Would I stay my hands from killing.

You courted my wife, and you will pay in full.

Your only choice now is to fight like men

Or run for it. Who knows, one or two of you

Might live to see another day. But I doubt it."

I liked Dios's story more than I thought I would. That was cool.

Teppic was a fun main character. The book almost felt like A Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

I love The Hobbit. It's such a a comforting read. I love that it's written as if someone is telling you a bedtime story. It's cozy.

Some favorite quotes:

Ch. 12, pg. 205

Thieves! Fire! Murder! Such a thing had not happened since first he came to the Mountain! His rage passes description-the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.

When Smaug discovers that Bilbo has "stolen" a golden cup.

Ch. 12 pg. 210

"You have nice manners for a thief and a liar," said the dragon. "You seem familiar with my name, but I don't seem to remember smelling you before. Who are you and where do you come from, may I ask?"

"You may indeed! I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen."

"So I can well believe," said Smaug, "but that is hardly your usual name."

"I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number."

"Lovely titles!" sneered the dragon. "But lucky numbers don't always come off.

"I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me."

"These don't sound so creditable," scoffed Smaug

"I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer, and I am Barrel-rider," went on Bilbo beginning to be pleased with his riddling.

"That's better!" said Smaug. "But don't let your imagination run away with you!"

Ch. 12, pg. 214

"Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself, and it became a favourite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb.

That was a good one. Carrot and Lady Ramkin were my favorite characters. I also liked the secret brotherhood meetings, and the swamp dragon breeding. So ridiculous.

An epic conclusion to the first arc.

Super short. I saw I had five minutes left and wondered if my audiobook was missing content--it wasn't.

I like Rincewind. The book is a fun series of vignettes. But it wasn't as well-developed as others.

I love this book. It's just so fun, from the ridiculous freaking device to the "true love and high adventure."

The movie is quite faithful as an adaptation. The main differences are the framing devices and the pit of despair vs zoo of death.

Oh, and the book includes the first chapter of the "sequel", Buttercup's Baby, which is a fun exercise in cliff-hangerism.

Some favorite parts/quotes:

1 The Bride

PG 57

The competition was tremendous now, but the day after she was ninth a three-page letter arrived from Westley in London and just reading it over put her up to eighth. That was really what was doing it for her more than anything- her love for Westley would not stop growing, and people were dazzled when she delivered milk in the morning. Some people were only able to gape at her, but many talked and those that did found her warmer and gentler than she had ever been before. Even the village girls would nod and smile now, and some of them would ask after Westley, which was a mistake unless you happened to have a lot of spare time, because when someone asked Buttercup how Westley was well, she told them. He was supreme as usual; he was spectacular; he was singularly fabulous. Oh, she could go on for hours. Sometimes it got a little tough for the listeners to maintain strict attention, but they did their best, since Buttercup loved him so completely.

Which was why Westley's death hit her the way it did.

PG 59

In point of fact, she had never looked as well. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, an ocean sadder. This one understood the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was char- acter, and a sure knowledge of suffering.

She was eighteen. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years. She didn't seem to care.

"You're all right?" her mother asked.

Buttercup sipped her cocoa. "Fine," she said.

"You're sure?" her father wondered.

"Yes," Buttercup replied. There was a very long pause.

"But I must never love again."

 

She never did.

2 The Groom

PG 64

So to avoid the problem of absence, Prince Humperdinck built the Zoo of Death. He designed it himself with Count Rugen's help, and he sent his hirelings across the world to stock it for him. It was kept brimming with things that he could hunt, and it really wasn't like any other animal sanctuary anywhere. In the first place, there were never any visitors. Only the albino keeper, to make sure the beasts were properly fed, and that there was never any sickness or weakness inside.

The other thing about the Zoo was that it was underground. The Prince picked the spot himself, in the quietest, remotest corner of the castle grounds. And he decreed there were to be five levels, all with the proper needs for his individual enemies. On the first level, he put enemies of speed: wild dogs, cheetahs, hummingbirds. On the second level belonged the enemies of strength: anacondas and rhinos and crocodiles of over twenty feet. The third level was for poisoners: spitting cobras, jumping spiders, death bats galore. The fourth level was the kingdom of the most dangerous, the enemies of fear: the shrieking taran- tula (the only spider capable of sound), the blood eagle (the only bird that thrived on human flesh), plus, in its own black pool, the sucking squid. Even the albino shivered during feeding time on the fourth level.

The fifth level was empty.

The Prince constructed it in the hopes of someday find- ing something worthy, something as dangerous and fierce and powerful as he was.

Unlikely. Still, he was an eternal optimist, so he kept the great cage of the fifth level always in readiness.

3 The Courtship

PG 77

"I am your Prince and you will marry me," Humperdinck said.

Buttercup whispered, "I am your servant and I refuse."

"I am your Prince and you cannot refuse."

"I am your loyal servant and I just did."

"Refusal means death."

"Kill me then."

"I am your Prince and I'm not that bad-how could you rather be dead than married to me?"

"Because," Buttercup said, "marriage involves love, and that is not a pastime at which I excel. I tried once, and it went badly, and I am sworn never to love another."

"Love?" said Prince Humperdinck. "Who mentioned love? Not me, I can tell you. Look: there must always be a male heir to the throne of Florin. That's me. Once my father dies, there won't be an heir, just a king. That's me again. When that happens, I'll marry and have children until there is a son. So you can either marry me and be the richest and most powerful woman in a thousand miles and give turkeys away at Christmas and provide me a son, or you can die in terrible pain in the very near future. Make up your own mind."

"I'll never love you."

"I wouldn't want it if I had it."

"Then by all means let us marry."

4 The Preparations

PG 81

But from a narrative point of view, in 105 pages nothing happens. Except this: 'What with one thing and another, three years passed.'

5 The Announcement

PG 87

She had studied hard to do things royally, and she wanted very much to succeed, so she kept her posture erect and her smile gentle, and that her death was so close would have only made her laugh, if someone had told her.

But-

-in the farthest corner of the Great Square-

-in the highest building in the land- -deep in the deepest shadow-

-the man in black stood waiting.

His boots were black and leather. His pants were black and his shirt. His mask was black, blacker than raven. But blackest of all were his flashing eyes.

Flashing and cruel and deadly...

PG 90

"I don't like killing a girl," the Spaniard said.

"God does it all the time; if it doesn't bother Him, don't let it worry you."

6 The Festivities

PG 208

Look. (Grown-ups skip this paragraph.) I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending, I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming up, torture you've already been prepared for, but there's worse. There's death coming up, and you better understand this: some of the wrong people die. Be ready for it. This isn't Curious George Uses the Potty. Nobody warned me and it was my own fault (you'll see what I mean in a little) and that was my mistake, so I'm not letting it happen to you. The wrong people die, some of them, and the reason is this; life is not fair. Forget all the garbage your parents put out. Remember Morgenstern. You'll be a lot happier.

Okay. Enough. Back to the next. Nightmare time.

That was fun! I liked the movie references. I loved Gaspard the wonder dog and the King Kong role-reversal. I apparently need to watch Gone with the Wind, though.

One of the best treatments for feelings of helplessness is immediate action. [Paraphrased]

I liked this book. I didn't feel part of the target audience, but a lot of this is applicable to non-parental relationships. It has tips for recognizing emotionally immature & mature people, 4 basic types of immature parenting, 2 basic coping strategies kids might use into adulthood, tips for growing emotionally, and stories exemplifying the principles.