"Through a Glass, Darkly" by Donna Leon. Brunetti book. Obviously I enjoy these or I would not have read so many of them.
2. "The Capture" by Kathryn Lasky. Reread. First of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole books, a children's fantasy series about owls. I read these as they came out until I kind of aged out of them but now I'm going back and reading them all, I think. This first book specifically was a favorite of mine (as evidenced by how beat up my old paperback is). Delightfully strange. Everything makes perfect sense while still being wildly original and weird (complimentary). The first book may be the strongest, but I think it has enough momentum to carry readers onward through weaker entries.
3. "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" by Salman Rushdie. Phantom Tollbooth-esque, fairy taleish novel. Very cute.
4. "Platform Decay" by Martha Wells. New Murderbot book. Took about 40 pages to get into, but then I was into it the way I'm into every Murderbot book.
5. "Case Closed Vol. 11" by Gosho Aoyama.
6. "The Journey" by Kathryn Lasky. Reread.
7. "The Becoming" by Nora Roberts. Second of a trilogy. This is the first Nora Roberts book I've read that has an actual gay romance. Like, there have been gay characters and even couples in her books that I've seen before, but this one actually has two men meet and fall in love. They don't get a sex scene, but they do get to date and kiss and obliquely reference the sex they just had and plan on having later. The rest of the book was fine.
8. "The Rescue" by Kathryn Lasky. Reread.
9. "Suffer the Little Children" by Donna Leon.
10. "The Siege" by Kathryn Lasky. Reread.
11. "The Girl of His Dreams" by Donna Leon.
12. "The Shattering" by Kathryn Lasky. Reread.
13. "The Choice" by Nora Roberts. Final book in the trilogy. It was also fine.
14. "About Face" by Donna Leon.
15. "The Burning" by Kathryn Lasky. Reread. Sixth book in the series of like 16, but the last of the first arc. I remember losing interest after this one as a child because I was very attached to Soren and his friends, but maybe I will feel differently this time.
16. "Brunetti's Cookbook" by Donna Leon and Roberta Pianaro. Yeah I read a cookbook all the way through. The recipes were interspersed with food-centric passages from the Brunetti books, though, which was nice.
17. "A Question of Belief" by Donna Leon. Suicide tw toward the end. Once again more people are dead by the end of Brunetti's investigation than at the beginning of it. Fascinating.
18. "The Hatchling" by Kathryn Lasky. Reread. I absolutely missed as a child that the racist owls are in fact Nazi racist owls. They have a "Pure Ones Youth"... This one is about Soren's nephew escaping from his evil parents (technically his dad is already dead but he still has to escape his dad's evil ghost). And like deprogramming.
f&f prediction: in f&f 15, the whole crew dies except Dom and he straps a nuclear bomb to his car and it makes him go fast enough he goes back in time. He saves them and then there are 2 doms but one of them is forgotten until f&f 25.
f&f 23: deep in the throes of his sea madness, Jason Statham hatches a plot to kill all whales. Vanessa Kirby and Michelle Rodriguez team up to cure him before it's too late
Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding tasteful and expensive servingware within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty years more. Within, dishes continued glossy, napkins creased neatly, knives were straight, and forks were sensibly laid to the right of the plate; silence lay steadily against the rattan and linen of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone, except when it was throwing a garden party.
"The Galaxy Game" by Karen Lord. Sequel to "The Best of All Possible Worlds" and also very good. Complex. I wished I had the first one on hand to reference while reading this.
2. "Jedi Twilight" by Michael Reaves. Star Wars book. First of the Coruscant Nights trilogy, but really requires reading the previous Michael Reaves Star Wars books AND Shatterpoint first. Not a very good series. Imo its biggest problem is that it has interesting side characters but an incredibly boring protagonist. Just like most straight-laced straight man alive and for some reason everyone falls all over themselves for this guy. Why would I care about Jax Pavan's angst over the morality of revenge when there's a droid right there that has a soul?? Not good with female characters either.
3. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn. Very good. Def better than the movie and it's not like I disliked the movie. I think it would have been even better if I hadn't seen the movie first, but at least I got to picture Rosamund Pike the whole time.
4. "Red Hood: Outlaws Volume One" by Patrick R. Young and Nico Bascuñan. Lmao.
5. "The Blue, Beautiful World" by Karen Lord. Sequel to "The Galaxy Game." Even MORE complex but still good and also very beautiful philosophically.
6. "Street of Shadows" by Michael Reaves.
7. "The Midnight Hunt" by L.L. Raand. Lesbian werewolf erotica an ex gave me years ago that I finally got around to reading. I did not know it was going to be erotica, but it wasn't even good erotica...
8. "Revenge Prey" by John Sandford. New Lucas Davenport book!! I missed that guy...
9. "Patterns of Force" by Michael Reaves.
10. "The Awakening" by Nora Roberts. First of a trilogy about a woman who finds out her mom hid the fact that she, the daughter, was left four million dollars by her father. And then she finds out she's the chosen one... Slow. The biggest issue is that the male love interest is just unpleasant for a long time. But I liked it okay overall.
11. "The Last Jedi" by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. Basically just another Coruscant Nights book.
12. "Twisting the Rope" by R. A. MacAvoy. Sequel to "Tea with the Black Dragon." It has all the flaws of the first novel and then some fun new ones. I still liked Mayland and Martha and their relationship, but I didn't like much else here.
13. "Case Closed Vol. 10" by Gosho Aoyama.
14. "There's a Dead Person Following My Sister Around" by Vivian Vande Velde. Children's light horror novel about a kid whose sister is being haunted by the ghosts of two escaped slaves his great-something grandparents tried and failed to help. A very serviceable book, but not one I'll revisit.
2. "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck. One of those rare books where I think the author accomplished exactly what she set out to accomplish and I hate it anyway. Very much of a product of its time (derogatory) and I understand why it's read in schools.
3. "Doctored Evidence" by Donna Leon. Brunetti book.
4. "The Best of All Possible Worlds" by Karen Lord. Really loved this. More sociological fiction than science fiction (but plenty of scifi to keep me happy). Complex and fascinating.
5. "A School for Sorcery" by E. Rose Sabin. 2002 YA fantasy novel about a magic school. I found it very grating. The protagonist was excessively naive, like pre middle grade naive. The magic was almost interesting.
6. "Kenobi" by John Jackson Miller. Star Wars book.
7. "Time and Again" by Jack Finney. Started out fairly strong but ultimately just a slow book where nothing really happens. Not good at female characters at all. I found it easier to believe in time travel than that the cold war US government would give one guy so much power without having something on him.
8. "The Rise of Magicks" by Nora Roberts.
9. "Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader" by James Luceno.
10. "Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism" by bell hooks. Lots of history I didn't know or didn't know in such detail. Very interesting to see what has and has not changed in the intervening 45 years.
11. "Blood from a Stone" by Donna Leon.
12. "Imperial Commando: 501st" by Karen Traviss. Bad. Tired of these guys.
13. "Lost Lake" by Sarah Addison Allen. Not the best of her books but still a good read.
"It's Not a Cult" by Joey Batey. I read this because I really like the author's band, so I was cautiously optimistic. I'm really glad I read it. I liked it very, very much. It's definitely not a flawless novel, but idk I think that's actually part of its charm. It's messy in a very human way. Very unique, unusual, original, etc. A difficult book to describe.
2. "Willful Behavior" by Donna Leon. Brunetti book.
3. "Jedi Trial" by David Sherman and Dan Cragg. Anakin teams up with Corran Horn's grandfather to do some stuff that I didn't care about in a way that yeah it was pretty obvious this was written by men.
4. "Case Closed Vol. 5" by Gosho Aoyama.
5. "Case Closed Vol. 6" by Gosho Aoyama.
6. "Yoda: Dark Rendezvous" by Sean Stewart. Reread. Very good character book for Yoda and Dooku.
7. "Twelve Months" by Jim Butcher. Latest Dresden Files book. I don't think it works. Like. Harry's grief is just exhausting to read about for so long, and you can't add a romantic comedy and action movie on top of it. Kind of made me worry about Jim Butcher.
8. "Banned Book Club" by Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada, and Ko Hyung-Ju. Semi-biographical graphic novel about students against dictatorship. I cannot claim to be an expert on anything to do with Korean history, so this was very educational for me. Fascinating (in like a negative way obviously) how much fascism echoes itself.
9. "The Seven Rings" by Nora Roberts. Not good. Repetitive. Uninteresting. Unconvincing re: the magic aspects.
10. "Labyrinth of Evil" by James Luceno. One of those books that's meant to fill in details and plot holes from the movies that don't matter. It was fine.
11. "The Bookworm" by Mitch Silver. Not my thing.
12. "Case Closed Vol. 7" by Gosho Aoyama.
13. "The Rising Force" by Dave Wolverton. Reread. First of the Jedi Apprentice books. I liked the series as a kid but it's definitely not a book that appeals to adults.
14. "Year One" by Nora Roberts. Not a great trilogy. There are some interesting parts, but also lots of eye rolling ones. Again, quite repetitive. And I don't like post apocalypse type fiction.
15. "Best Lesbian Love Stories 2003" edited by Angela Brown. A few good stories, but none that are going to stick with me. Worth reading, not worth rereading. Interesting to read from a historical perspective.
16. "Uniform Justice" by Donna Leon.
17. "Ice" by Sarah Beth Durst. East of the Moon and West of the Sun YA retelling. Kept me reading because I like the underlying story and the author chose some interesting ways to interpret parts of it but the end felt like a cop out and also like. Did not enjoy the pregnancy aspects.
18. "Foul Matter" by Donna Leon.
19. "Redemption in Indigo" by Karen Lord. Really good. Recommended for fairy tale retelling lovers.
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"Lethal Prey" by John Sandford. Another Lucas book, and the last until I get ahold of the new one. I will miss him.
2. "Shatterpoint" by Matthew Stover. Reread. Widely regarded as one of the best Star Wars books. It's fine. Repetitive. Would appeal to Jim Butcher and Brandon Sanderson fans, and there's probably a lot of Star Wars readers who love those guys.
3. "The Summer War" by Naomi Novik. A good novella. Nothing groundbreaking here, but a solid original fairy tale. I liked it a lot.
4. "A Sea of Troubles" by Donna Leon. Brunetti book.
5. "The Cestus Deception" by Steven Barnes. Very boring. The paperback has a short story included that's actually pretty good and goes into like colonialism and stuff and why wasn't that just the book?
6. "My Brother Michael" by Mary Stewart. Not her best. I liked it okay but I don't think I know anyone else who would.
7. "Come Sundown" by Nora Roberts. Nora Roberts is back on her horse ranch and weird Crazy Killer bullshit but this time..... There's more rape than ever. It could have been much, much worse.
8. "Medstar I: Battle Surgeons" by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry. I haven't ever actually watched MASH but I'm pretty sure this is Star Wars MASH. But not, like, good. I found the main character insufferable, and yet, for the sake of my quest to read all the legends books, I continued to suffer him.
9. "Charming Billy" by Alice McDermott. People make some crazy decisions here, which I do appreciate from a dramatic perspective, but I think this book only works if the reader actually Likes Billy (or is very into being Irish American) and that is not me.
10. "Saturn Run" by John Sandford and Ctein. This kind of felt like a Hollywood version of The Three Body Problem, just like in terms of vibes and overall content. I did get sad when a character died. It was mostly a fun book and the alien parts were interesting, but there wasn't enough alien stuff at all.
11. "Medstar II: Jedi Healer" by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry. Reread. Yeah, I read this one a long time ago but not the first one until this year. I always wondered if it would make more sense if I read the first one, and it did, and I still didn't care.
"Friends in High Places" by Donna Leon. One of the sadder Brunetti books thus far. He was Brunetti's friend...
2. "Triple Zero" by Karen Traviss. Star Wars. About halfway through, her weird anti-Jedi, pro-Mandalorian thing becomes not just repetitive but deeply annoying.
3. "Blindness" by Jose Saramago. I think it suffers a bit from like Literary Sci-Fi syndrome where a Serious writer thinks no genre writer has ever thought of allegory. This is not one of the most glaring or condescending examples of that, but it was still sometimes like. C'mon man we get it. So like... It did what it was trying to do pretty well I think but also I disagree with a lot of what it was trying to do. The rape (there is a lot of rape) and sexism is a big part of that. I think Saramago intended to be anti-sexist, but I absolutely don't think he succeeded. A lot of skill went into this novel. I hated reading it and don't recommend it.
4. "True Colors" by Karen Traviss. Star Wars. Hate this series so much.
5. "The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour" by Clint McElroy et al.
6. "Lavinia" by Ursula K. Le Guin. This took me a while to get into. I have some passing familiarity with the Odyssey, having read it back in high school and a few books based on it since then, but I had approximately zero Aeneid knowledge prior to reading this. Now I have a tiny, tiny bit. Probably this would appeal more to someone who actually has that kind of classical background or even just an interest in it, which I do not, but it's Le Guin so of course it was a good book.
7. "Order 66" by Karen Traviss. Star Wars. Not a good book. Having to get through these is why I did so little January reading.
8. "The Adventure Zone: The Suffering Game" by Clint McElroy et al. I think this is kind of where things fell apart for me in the podcast and I also began losing interest here.
"Hard Contact" by Karen Traviss. Star Wars, first in the Republic Commando series. This one was not bad but unfortunately the latter books in the series are so fucking obnoxious that I cannot recommend this to even the most rabid of Star Wars fans.
2. "Slow Gods" by Claire North. Very good, very interesting things going on with gender here, very interesting political ideology stuff. Not an Easy read though and if you're new to Claire North this is not where I would recommend you start.
3. "The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton. The kind of book they feature on morning talk shows. I didn't like it.
4. "All Systems Red" by Martha Wells. Reread. Decided to do a Murderbot reread in December, which is always a good choice.
5. "Quietly in Their Sleep" by Donna Leon. Brunetti book. Tw for child sexual abuse.
6. "Rogue Protocol" by Martha Wells. Reread.
7. "Still Life" by Louise Penny. I liked that the two episodes of the TV show I watched had snow and Alfred Molina so I decided to give this a try. It was not worth it.
8. "Exit Strategy" by Martha Wells. Reread.
9. "Judgment Prey" by John Sandford. Pretty routine Lucas and Virgil book, which is a good thing.
10. "Fugitive Telemetry" by Martha Wells. Reread.
11. "A Noble Radiance" by Donna Leon. Rather sad Brunetti book.
12. "Network Effect" by Martha Wells. Reread.
13. "The Talented Mr. Ripley" by Patricia Highsmith. I've never seen the movie so I had very few expectations going into this. I didn't much like it. It's not bad, per say. I'm just not much interested in the whole genre of "going places and getting drunk" books, and Tom just isn't a criminal genius. I think the gay aspects were probably pretty progressive for the time but it's just homophobic now.
14. "System Collapse" by Martha Wells. Reread.
15. "Red Lily" by Nora Roberts. Final book in the series. Exactly what I expected, no real complaints.
16. "The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins" by Clint McElroy et al. Reread. Very nostalgic to reread this and then read the rest of the series for the first time. Picked up most of these at a local bargain store. Made me crave jigsaw puzzles since I did those while I listened to the podcast years ago.
17. "Fatal Remedies" by Donna Leon. Pretty good Brunetti book, mostly because it had lots of his wife. Once again, SA trigger warning.
18. "The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited" by Clint McElroy et al.
19. "Dark Angel" by John Sandford. First of the Letty Davenport books. I wish there were more of them because I do prefer her over Lucas and definitely prefer her over Virgil.
20. "The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal" by Clint McElroy et al. I remembered the "bury your gays" controversy back when this arc aired on the podcast, so I wasn't really looking forward to this one. Turns out they changed that for the graphic novel, which I think was an improvement.
21. "Toxic Prey" by John Sandford. Especially fun Lucas book.
22. "The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom" by Clint McElroy et al.
23. "Whiskey Beach" by Nora Roberts. It was okay.
24. "Hero" by Perry Moore. Reread. 2007 gay YA superhero book. I don't think it's a great book, but the fact that it is from 2007 is important. There were not a lot of YA books like this in mainstream bookstores in 2007, which is where and when I got it.
25. "The Stormy Petrel" by Mary Stewart. Reread. Not a particularly great Mary Stewart novel. Light on suspense and romance, heavy on nature description.
"The Approaching Storm" by Alan Dean Foster. Reread. Star Wars novel. Just your regular ol adventure with some minor plot development to help bridge the personality changes of characters between films. It's fine. I hope Disney's still paying him for it.
2. "You Might be a Zombie and Other Bad News" by various Cracked.com authors. In way, this was partially a reread, as I read many of the articles within it back in high school. This is just a collection of old (well, then-current-ish) Cracked articles, after all. I don't think they aged well. Not even in that they're particularly offensive for the time. They just aren't very funny or interesting anymore. Or maybe never were but I was in high school.
3. "Case Closed Vol. 3" by Gosho Aoyama.
4. "Wild Space" by Karen Miller. Star Wars book, mostly about Obi Wan suffering. Not bad.
5. "Boy, Snow, Bird" by Helen Oyeyemi. A disappointment. Tw for SA and transphobia. Made me want to reread "Passing," though.
6. "Acqua Alta" by Donna Leon. Brunetti book.
7. "No Prisoners" by Karen Traviss. Star Wars. Kinda feels like filler and I liked it better before I realized how weird Traviss is about Jedi.
8. "Play Nice" by Rachel Harrison. Horror (in genre more than in Scares) novel about a woman returning to the haunted house of her childhood. I liked a lot of things about it and disliked a few, so not a bad balance.
9. "Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth" by Karen Miller. A good Obi Wan and Anakin friendship book, serves as a good transition of their relationship from episode II to III.
10. "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See. Novel about a woman's life in 19th century China with a Lot about foot binding. Very interesting in that it covers many subjects I know very little about. This book is like 20 years old so while it has a lot of homoerotic subtext if you Google that to see what others think you mostly get people talking about what a great example it is of female friendship. I can't say that I liked it or would reread it.
11. "Black Rose" by Nora Roberts. Perfectly serviceable sequel. Exactly what I expected, which I appreciate in this kind of book.
12. "Clone Wars Gambit: Siege" by Karen Miller. I consider this more of a second half of the prior book than a sequel.
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