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Reading report on a Reading Wednesday, what a concept.
Finished:
DC Super Hero Girls: Out of the Bottle, Shea Fontana story, Yancey Labat et al. art -- Another read-aloud to TBD. Not the best volume in the series, but still quite entertaining with a clever resolution, and a reread was immediately requested.
Ivy + Bean: One Big Happy Family, Annie Barrows -- #11 in the series (just out -- the first in five years), read aloud. Again not the best in the series, but I always enjoy the Ivy-focused stories (I love a good quiet weirdo) -- though I note that TBD didn't snork it down, but instead returned to it over a couple days.
The Talented Clementine, Sara Pennypacker -- #2 in the series, audiobook. Third graders are harder for a kindergartener to relate to than second graders like Ivy + Bean.
In progress:
Way of Choices, Mao Ni -- Completion of the translation was a good signal that it was time to return, so I'm bounding along again. It really is the best-written (and most interesting) xianxia I've read, with several compelling characters and conflicts. The perils are not just those faced in battle. One thing that strikes me: many long-running xianxia/xuanhuan novels raise the stakes by expanding the stage spatially, but here the author does it by peeling back layers of history, both recent and deep, thus revealing more contexts and schemes -- and when a climax comes, it can roll up a whole lotta those tensions over a strikingly large episode. At 661 out of 1183 chapters.
Pogo volume 1: Through the Wild Blue Wonder, Walt Kelly -- A gift to myself in memory of a childhood spent consuming my parents' collections. This covers the first two years of the syndicated newspaper strips, so Kelly is still honing his material and technique, with the political satire still to come -- but it's still wonderful to revisit. I have volume 2 waiting for after I slowly work my way through this one. Am a little less than halfway through, having read the first year of daily strips (but not the separate Sunday strips).
On hold:
Chongfei Manual, Feng He You Yue -- Paused at chapter 91 from the reservations noted in my previous update plus returning to Way of Choices.
Plus poetry from various anthologies, mostly in bed as I wind down.
---L.
Subject quote from We Have Met the Maestro, and He Is Walt Kelly, Benito Cereno.
Finished:
DC Super Hero Girls: Out of the Bottle, Shea Fontana story, Yancey Labat et al. art -- Another read-aloud to TBD. Not the best volume in the series, but still quite entertaining with a clever resolution, and a reread was immediately requested.
Ivy + Bean: One Big Happy Family, Annie Barrows -- #11 in the series (just out -- the first in five years), read aloud. Again not the best in the series, but I always enjoy the Ivy-focused stories (I love a good quiet weirdo) -- though I note that TBD didn't snork it down, but instead returned to it over a couple days.
The Talented Clementine, Sara Pennypacker -- #2 in the series, audiobook. Third graders are harder for a kindergartener to relate to than second graders like Ivy + Bean.
In progress:
Way of Choices, Mao Ni -- Completion of the translation was a good signal that it was time to return, so I'm bounding along again. It really is the best-written (and most interesting) xianxia I've read, with several compelling characters and conflicts. The perils are not just those faced in battle. One thing that strikes me: many long-running xianxia/xuanhuan novels raise the stakes by expanding the stage spatially, but here the author does it by peeling back layers of history, both recent and deep, thus revealing more contexts and schemes -- and when a climax comes, it can roll up a whole lotta those tensions over a strikingly large episode. At 661 out of 1183 chapters.
Pogo volume 1: Through the Wild Blue Wonder, Walt Kelly -- A gift to myself in memory of a childhood spent consuming my parents' collections. This covers the first two years of the syndicated newspaper strips, so Kelly is still honing his material and technique, with the political satire still to come -- but it's still wonderful to revisit. I have volume 2 waiting for after I slowly work my way through this one. Am a little less than halfway through, having read the first year of daily strips (but not the separate Sunday strips).
On hold:
Chongfei Manual, Feng He You Yue -- Paused at chapter 91 from the reservations noted in my previous update plus returning to Way of Choices.
Plus poetry from various anthologies, mostly in bed as I wind down.
---L.
Subject quote from We Have Met the Maestro, and He Is Walt Kelly, Benito Cereno.