Some of you may recall Heidi Heilig from her previous duology, TIME TRAVELING PIRATES (also known as The Girl from Everywhere and The Ship Beyond Time), and she has returned with a whole new series that won my heart before I ever began it by including music and script pages and letters as well as the straightforward narrative. For a Muse of Fire is about a girl called Jetta whose family is the most renowned troupe of shadow players in Chakrana. She and her parents hope to use their art to gain passage on a boat to Aquitan, where it…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
I have not been diligent enough in hunting down links, friends, and that is why there has been a tragic hiatus in links round-ups. But I am back. It is Friday. This weekend, a small mystery: Will a long-anticipated package arrive despite very confusing FedEx notifications? Let’s hope so! What are you looking forward to this weekend, and do you fear it will elude you like an octopus inking you in the face as it squids away? A list of things I would actually like men to explain to me. LOLSOB TO ALL OF THIS. Charlie Jane Anders urges writers…
Leave a CommentWow, I had this post all planned out in my mind, and then at the very last moment, Tor.com came along with not one BUT TWO circus stories. I don’t know if y’all know this about me, but I hold the controversial opinion that Circus Shoes is the second-best of Noel Streatfeild’s Shoes books, yes, BETTER THAN SKATING SHOES. (This opinion is mainly controversial insofar as very few people know that Circus Shoes even exists.) I read Circus Shoes when I was nine years old, and I’ve been chasing that circus high ever since. (A complaint: If anybody has written…
Leave a CommentOkay, enough of my friends have now asked me about Blood Heir that I’ve decided it’s worth posting about. Pray for me. A few days ago, I saw an author on my TL, LL McKinney, criticizing an ARC she had read, a secondary-world fantasy YA debut called Blood Heir, by Amelie Wen Zhao. She initially identified the book as a problem based on its description including the phrase “oppression is blind to skin color”; later, she read through the book and tweeted about elements that played into racial stereotypes, such as a black character dying to further the emotional arc…
Leave a CommentIt’s one of our three favorite times of year: Seasonal book preview time! With very great difficulty, we intrepid Jennies have sallied forth into the world of publisher catalogs and selected the five-or-six best books coming out between January and April 2019. It’s a good season for books, my friends. Then we chat about the first play we’ve ever read for podcast, Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915. You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around.
1:36 – What we’re reading
3:38 – The best of what we listened to in 2018
5:53 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Book 5, Chapters 5-10
21:47 – Update on Fall 2018 Book Preview
23:07 – Spring 2019 Book Preview
33:22 – We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915, by Jackie Sibblies Drury
45:11 – What we’re reading next time
What we talked about:
The Vela, Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, SL Huang https://www.serialbox.com/serials/vela
The Book of M, Peng Shepherd
Live from Here with Chris Thile
“My Oh My”
Jesus Christ Superstar Live
Return of the King
Gin Jenny’s Fall 18 Books:
Washington Black, Esi Edugyan
Transcription, Kate Atkinson
Zero Sum Game, SL Huang
Hearts Unbroken, Cynthia Leitich Smith
Exit Strategy, Martha Wells
Eternity Girl, Magdalene Visaggio
Whiskey Jenny’s Fall 18 Books:
The Royal Runaway, Lindsay Emory
The Best Bad Things, Katrina Colasco
Waiting for Eden, Elliot Ackerman
Retablos, Octavio Solas
Gin Jenny’s Spring 19 Books:
The Kingdom of Copper, by SA Chakraborty
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, by David Treuer
A People’s Future of the United States, edited by Victor Lavalle and John Joseph Adams
The True Queen, Zen Cho
Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi
Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
Whiskey Jenny’s Spring 19 Books:
Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James
The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders
The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo
American Spy, Lauren Wilkinson
Walking on the Ceiling, Aysegül Savas
We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915, by Jackie Sibblies Drury
Interview with Jackie Sibblies Drury
Insurrecto, Gina Apostol
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcripts by: Sharon of Library Hungry
Transcript is available under the jump!
Leave a CommentHappy last Monday in January! Today I’m over at Lady Business chattering about the best YA sequels in 2018, plus a run-down of the best YA that came out this month. Hop on over and say hi!
Leave a CommentWhen I got to the end of Chapter 19, I said “Ohhhhhh shit” because my friends? The idyll (??) portion of Elinor Glyn’s masterpiece, Three Weeks, has finally ended. The drama has begun. Because after yet another (argh) night of floral scents and uncontained passion, the Lady blows this popsicle stand. Paul is so distraught about her sudden departure that he falls into a desperate illness–brain fever! This sounds like a very real thing that real humans suffer from, and not a nonsense invented by Elinor Glyn as a convenient plot device for her extremely silly novel. Have any of…
Leave a CommentI read two whole horror novels in 2018, and they were both extremely ableist. WYD, horror authors?
Leave a Comment