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Reading the End Posts

Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.78: Romance Novels and the Forcening Concludes

Happy Ides of March, friends! After a very tense podcast last week, in which Whiskey Jenny naysayed two of my absolutely favorite books in the whole world, we have again reached an accord this week and legitimately had to stop ourselves from talking forever about romance novels. We also chat about Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer’s book Agnes and the Hit Man, answer some listener mail, and preview some THRILLING NEW PODCAST CONTENT. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go! Episode 78 Here’s the…

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What’s on My To-Lend Shelf?

Happy Tuesday! Today I’m collablogging (hm, that doesn’t really work, does it?) with the fabulous Renay of Lady Business, Chelsea the Reading Outlaw, and Claire Rousseau, and we’re all talking about the ten books we’d like to keep on a “to-lend” shelf (should our lifestyles support such a thing). First up, I know because I nearly bought two copies at a library book sale recently that I like to be able to lend out Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. The un-spoiler-y version of the pitch is that it’s about a girl who used to have two…

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Review: Batgirl, Gail Simone

My DC project is officially launched! Not only has 19% of my reading been comics so far this year (though it’s early days), but I have also now completed half of my New Year’s Resolution re: DC comics, which was to read two substantial runs on two different DC comics. First up: Gail Simone’s Batgirl. Gail Simone’s run on Batgirl follows Barbara Gordon as she’s getting back into the game of fighting crime on the streets after several years away. My main takeaway here is that Batgirl cannot cut a break. Every time she arrests one criminal who’s determined to…

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Spoilsport Big Sisters: A Links Round-Up

Happy Friday, everyone! This week’s been a good one for me, not least because absolutely everybody seems to really hate the new Netflix Iron Fist. The internet tried to warn you, Netflix! “We try not to get too hung up on the split infinitive”: Here’s some charming stories about copyediting and style guides. Gavia Baker-Whitelaw at the Daily Dot adored Logan and made me feel pretty sure that I will too.1 Likewise Emily Asher-Perrin at Tor, who does the excellent thing of saying a superhero movie is very good without trashing all other superhero movies. Emily Yoshida wrote this thing…

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Not a Dumb American: Equatorial Guinea

Let me tell you some of the problems I have encountered in my Africa reading project. Number one is that not a huge amount of books have been published in English about many African countries, particularly smaller ones, particularly non-Anglophone smaller ones. Number two is that my library oftentimes has older African history books but does not have newer African history books, which I assume can be attributed to a shift in purchasing priorities. So the book I read for Equatorial Guinea (a teensy wee Hispanophone country) was Ibrahim Sundiata’s 1990 monograph Equatorial Guinea: Colonialism, State Terror, and the Search…

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March Magics: The Lives of Christopher Chant

Did I ever tell you that The Lives of Christopher Chant was the first Diana Wynne Jones novel I ever loved? And did I ever tell you that when the seventh Harry Potter came out and I was feeling disappointed in Dumbledore, I went back and read The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life and Witch Week and Conrad’s Fate to experience a non-disappointing omniscient wizard man? March Magics is upon us, hosted by the wonderful Kristen at We Be Reading, and I am celebrating this week with a reread of the book that made me certain (at age,…

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Review: Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Would anyone here be interested in a compendium of books about mythic beasts by authors of color? Would that be a resource people would enjoy? Or does it already exist somewhere else and I should consult it myself to get All the Book Recs? Any case, Certain Dark Things is a vampire story set in Mexico City by a Mexican-Canadian writer. In this world, there exist ten known species of vampires, of which we encounter three. The vampire girl Atl and her Doberman Cualli1 are on the run from the Necros vampires who killed her mother and sister. She doesn’t…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.77: Books of the Sea and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History

I FORGOT IT WAS WEDNESDAY YESTERDAY. I apologize to everyone. Mardi Gras happened, and it’s not that I was out partying (I wasn’t, I’m an old lady curmudgeon), it’s just that I had time off work and it threw off my schedule. Sorry this is so late! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go! Episode 77 1:26 – What We’re Reading 4:28 – Books of the Sea 25:40 – Donna Tartt’s The Secret History 43:26 – What We’re Reading for Next Time Books Mentioned…

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Review: Iron Cast, Destiny Soria

Oh friends, I needed this book so much. Iron Cast is a YA alternate history novel about two best friends who can do illegal magic and have fallen in with a gangster club on the eve of Prohibition. I liked it a ton, and it cheered me right the hell up in a week where I was feeling hopeless. Ada and Corinne are hemopaths: Corinne can create completely believable illusions by reciting poetry, while Ada can induce strong emotions with her music. They work for the gangster Johnny Dervish of the Cast Iron club, where they perform for crowds of…

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My Name Is Roger Murdock: A Links Round-Up

Another Friday, another links round-up. This week I had some super good chili and spoke with a sternness to my elected senator at a town hall. What’s your week been like? Regardless I have brought you this links round-up for your enjoyment, and I hope that your weekend is full of sunshine and baby kisses. There is an excellent kicker to this New York Times story about Neil Gaiman and his new book. Why yes I WOULD care for a Frankenstein story by Victor Lavalle that also pulls in the Black Lives Matter movement. THANK YOU FOR ASKING. Angelica Jade…

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