The Sunday Post #8

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted at @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.  See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

Reviews:

Declare 4 stars

One Hundred Years of Solitude 3 stars

Mini-reviews for comics: Monstress Vol. 3 + House of Whispers #1 2 stars, 3 stars

Spinning Silver 4 stars

Non-review posts for Wyrd & Wonder:

5 Favorite Fantasy Cities 
  

6 Great Standalone Fantasy Novels

Wyrd & Wonder Blog Tag, prompts 27-31 with links to previous posts

I also commented on other blog posts during the event. I really enjoyed my first blog tag! I will do another one sometime.

Check out everyone elses Wyrd & Wonder posts at Imyril’s blog (onemore.org):
https://onemore.org/category/special-events/wyrd-and-wonder/

And I finally wrote another Ovid post: 

Metamorphoses Book VII-IX Jason & Medea; Erysichthon; Hercules & Achelous
(with links to the previous posts)

 

The Sunday Post

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted at @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.  

I last did one of these about a month ago. Here is what I have been up to on the blog since then. 

Recent reviews of books: 

City of Bones by Martha Wells (fantasy)

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin (science fiction) This is one of my favorite books!

Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder (nonfiction)

Upcoming reviews:
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman -- Mary Wollstonecraft
Declare -- Tim Powers (fantasy, currently listening on audio)

other posts: 

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Inspirational/Thought-Provoking Quotes from Classics (April) 

Wyrd & Wonder Blog Tag, prompts 1-10 (Wyrd & Wonder blog event) 

Book Beginnings & The Friday 56: One Hundred Years of Solitude 

Bout of Books 25: May 13-19 sign up post!

Almost a year ago, I selected the 17th century poem "Corinna’s Going a-Maying" (Robert Herrick)  for the weekly feature The Monday Poem in a  GoodReads group, All About Books. I didn't write about it, but you can read the poem here with some helpful annotations. Herrick’s best-known poem is "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," on a similar theme. The first stanza:

Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
    See how Aurora throws her fair
    Fresh-quilted colors through the air:
    Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
    The dew bespangling herb and tree.
Each flower has wept and bow'd toward the east
Above an hour since: yet you not dress'd;
    Nay! not so much as out of bed?
    When all the birds have matins said
    And sung their thankful hymns, 'tis sin,
    Nay, profanation to keep in,
Whereas a thousand virgins on this day
Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

The Sunday Post

The Sunday Post is a recap of the past week (or so) for book bloggers.

Reviews for this week:
The Black Tides of Heaven by J.Y. Yang (fantasy)
Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard (nonfiction)

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (fiction -- my book group listed this as SF)

Good Omens: The Nice & Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (fantasy/humor)

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (humor/sf)

The Truro Bear & Other Adventures: Poems & Essays by Mary Oliver (poetry)

Monstress, vol. 2: The Blood by Marjorie Liu (graphic novel, fantasy/horror)

Reviews pending:

City of Bones by Martha Wells (fantasy)

Events I am participating in:

April Readalong with Ruth @ A Great Book Study:

My comments are in the first discussion post.

Wyrd & Wonder 2019 sign-up post: a month-long blog event in May celebrating the fantastic in literature.  I am looking forward to this!

The Sunday Post

The Sunday Post is a recap of the past week (or so) for book bloggers.

I should do this more often! I did it a few times last year but didn't stick with it.

Reviews for books read last week:

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry)

Reviews from earlier this month:

• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
• A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar (World Fantasy Award Winner)
  

Deal Me In Short Story Challenge so far this year:

• January & February short stories (science fiction & fantasy)
• Poetry: The Eve of St. Agnes by John Keats

Upcoming reviews:
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel

The Black Tides of Heaven by J.Y. Yang

The Happy Prince & Other Stories

Other happenings:
I have signed up for Dewey's 24 hour Readathon, April 6th. I am not sure how much I will read for this, but it will be my 6th Dewey's Readathon. Not sure how much reading I will get done, but I will record my reading and post at some point. (My last time participating was in July last year.) I am in the GoodReads group for the readathon, but this will be my first time writing about the readathon on my blog, because I skipped the October readathon last year. So I think I will do the opening and/or closing survey on my blog, and check in on GoodReads a little bit. The group does week-long, unofficial readathons in the two weeks before the big readathon, so there's one going on right now.

Pages Unbound is hosting two weeks of Tolkien-related posts as part of a Tolkien Reading Event. The first post was yesterday (March 25), the date of the downfall of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. I will be following the posts and discussions!

In April,  Ruth @ A Great Book Study is hosting a readalong for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I'm in!

I guess that's all for now!

The Sunday Post

Last week I posted reviews of The Red Tree, contemporary horror for the RIP Challenge, and Manfred,  my first book for the Classics Club.

I saw Love's Labor's Lost on Thursday at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I got a discounted ticket on short notice, but I started reading the play before I went to see it. It was a great performance. Just finished reading it this morning. I haven't reviewed it yet. I really enjoyed this one. I think I'll want to watch it again at some point, so I'll look for a video version.

I'm reading The Ballad of Black Tom. Hoping to finish this soon.

I posted the Monday Poem for All About Books again this week: "Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Shelley.

I started listening to the Uncanny Magazine podcast. This month they have a two-part podcast (episode 24, parts A & B) with the theme of disability in SF, which is also the theme of this month's issue.

The Sunday Post

The Sunday Post is hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer.


Reviews on this blog: I posted reviews for On Bullshit  and The Red Tree (also posted on GoodReads).

Last week was Horror Week on the GoodReads blog, which posted this list:

The 50 Most Popular Horror Novels on GoodReads (the list also includes some short story collections)

I've read: 

Coraline

Frankenstein

Poe’s stories & poems 

The Haunting of Hill House

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

some Lovecraft stories (but not an entire collection)

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

On my list: 

The Ballad of Black Tom

House of Leaves

Of the classics on the list, the big one I haven’t read is Dracula, but I don’t know if I want to read it. 

On Sunday I posted The Monday Poem again for All About Books. I picked "Alone" by Edgar Allen Poe. I'm also doing next week. 

I finished Manfred by Lord Byron. It was great, but I still need to write a review. This will be my first book review for the Classics Club and my third review for the Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge. (I think I heard of this play originally from some review of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Manfred is mentioned, and quoted, in that book, but not by name, if I remember right. And JS & MN is one of my favorite books, so this has been on my to-read list for a while. (Also: I really wanted to have some books by the Romantic poets on my Classics Club list, but reading this reminded me that I haven't read Prometheus Unbound, which I completely forgot about when I made my list. So, I'll keep it in mind and maybe if I find something on my list that I don't want to read, I'll read that instead.) 

After that, I think I'll read at least one more book for the RIP Challenge.

The Sunday Post

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

Some of the stuff I've been up to:

On Friday, I finished The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates and On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt. I'll have reviews for both up soon, I think.

I enjoyed reading the responses for the Tolkien blog party tag over at The Edge of the Precipice.

I have just posted The Monday Poem for All About Books, a GoodReads group I'm in. I've done this a few times before. This time I picked Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare.

I am now on Archive of Our Own as AssamTeawithBooks, a name I came up with after getting the response "that name is already taken" for a few other names. I just realized a few weeks ago that you don't have to be a writer to have an account. (I have written fanfiction before, actually, but I'm not interested now. I still read & comment sometimes, though.) So I've been bookmarking stories and saving some for later that I had meant to read.

I've also signed up for a tumblr account (under the same name, except in lowercase), for the same reason: it's a way for me to keep track of stuff written by other people. I don't know if I'll post anything. I'll probably focus more on this blog.

Yesterday I listened to the Mission Log Star Trek podcast. I've been following them for a while, through most of TNG and now DS9. (They were already doing TNG when I discovered the podcast, but I went back and listened to a few of the Original Series episodes as well.) The most recent podcast is "Necessary Evil" -- an excellent discussion of a great episode, I thought. (Also check out "Melora," another recent podcast, for an excellent discussion of a very flawed episode.)

At the Rogue Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship today, the service was about the work of Ursula LeGuin. Works mentioned:

"The Creation of Ea," the epigraph to A Wizard of Earthsea. 

"Solitude" -- I can't remember what the quote was that was shared, but I know this story, although I haven't read it recently. This one is about the differences between generations and cultures on an alien world: a world where solitude is very important, and adults usually lead fairly solitary lives. 

Tehanu - the storytelling for children today was adapted from Therru's story in Tehanu.
"Unchosen Love" - Well, I thought I recognized this one, based on the excerpt that was read. Actually, what I'd read was "Another Story OR A Fisherman of the Inland Sea," as I figured out when I looked at the program. The two stories are set on the same planet, hence my confusion. "Another Story..." is earlier of the two, but it seems like you can read them in either order. I will try to look for a collection that has this one when I get a chance. 

Five Ways to Forgiveness - This one was new to me. The description at GoodReads says: "First published in 1995 as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe, two worlds whose peoples, long known as "owners" and "assets," together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution."

My personal favorite book of hers, though, is The Left Hand of Darkness. My favorite of her short stories might be "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow," but I didn't think of that one until I got home today, for some reason.

The Sunday Post

The Sunday Post is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

September 21 was my birthday. I didn't get around to mentioning it because I wasn't online much that day. Sept. 21 also happens to be the birthday of H.G. Wells!

I had a great day. I had chocolate cake and my mom took me out to a restaurant called Sauce. I had a bowl of rice, vegetables and dahl that was very good.

What I read this week:
I finished Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, a group read in the Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Club on GoodReads. This was a reread for me. It was great! I'll write a review soon.

I started The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates. I like it so far. I'll have more to say later but for now, here's the official synopsis: "This eerie tale of psychological horror sees the real inhabitants of turn-of-the-century Princeton fall under the influence of a supernatural power. New Jersey, 1905: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a nearby farm, Socialist author Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of his novel The Jungle, has taken up residence with his family. This is a quiet, bookish community - elite, intellectual and indisputably privileged. But when a savage lynching in a nearby town is hushed up, a horrifying chain of events is initiated - until it becomes apparent that the families of Princeton have been beset by a powerful curse..."

I'm still following Jeff La Sala's posts for The Silmarillion Primer at Tor. The most recent is:
Morgoth Is Rendered Null And Void In An All Out War of Wrath -- the end of the Quenta Silmarillion. He has some interesting thoughts; I think I'm going to reread this post later.

Hamlette at Edge of the Precipice (on my blogroll) has posted the questions for the Tolkien Blog Party 2018. I've started to fill them out, so I'll probably post tomorrow.