incognitajones

The book club that I've belonged to for over 20 years ended this month. 😢 It had simply run its course; all of the other members are older than me, so several have retired and are living in other provinces full or part-time, and one is working out of the country so often that she's almost never able to make it. The final meeting was about as perfect as it could be: good book, great discussion, great food on a perfect June night outdoors. When we're in the same city, I'm sure we'll continue to get together on an ad hoc basis to drink wine and talk about books, but it won't be quite the same.

Speaking of books, I've read 42 so far this year--only 10 more to meet my goal. It's been very satisfying getting back into the habit of regular reading. Some highlights from the first half of the year:

• Six of Crows
• The Poppy War
• The Wild Dead
• Lost Children Archive
• The Bone Woman

And I'm looking forward to Ayesha at Last next.

Otherwise, I've had to quit keeping up with news from south of the border because it fills me with impotent rage and horror. I can't call my congressperson, demonstrate, vote, or do anything to affect change (other than donate to advocacy organizations) and there's little point in lobbying my government to apply pressure, as the current US administration is clearly immune to any international shaming. And like epidemics, American politics tend to take hold up here eventually, so there's that to worry about as well.

So after years of hearing about it, I finally got around to reading Six of Crows and turns out the hype was warranted--it is that good. ladytharen and youareiron-andyouarestrong​ were right! (I know other people have mentioned it as well, maybe rain_sleet_snow?)

It’s one of those books where I was caught between pleasure as a reader and admiration as a writer: the first couple of chapters are a near-perfect example of genre writing--world-building, exposition, and characterization all wound into a tense action scene--and the pacing is never too rushed to follow, but picks up speed until your heart’s racing like the plot.

Now I just have to read Crooked Kingdom and then I can look forward to the upcoming TV series!

(although the Tumblr presence of the fandom seems... intense in an offputting sort of way. I think I’ll be avoiding it.)