Tag Archives: Daniel Jose Older

Knitting, Linkity linkity link, Reading, Reviewettes

Linkity needs help with a dilemma

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From Thursday, May 11, through Thursday, June 1, I will be taking a bookbinding class that’s required for my Book Arts Certificate (and which is always offered on Thursday evenings for some reason). Since Thursday evenings are my time for putting linkity together, I have a dilemma. A month without linkity seems a little extreme, doesn’t it?! How would y’all feel about maybe two Saturday linkities during that time?

Contest(s)

Bookity

Think, Learn, Do, Make

Cookity

Gluten Free

Artsy Crafty

Cool

Cool or Wha…?

Wha…?

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Teh Cute

Reading Update
White Corridor (Bryant & May #5) by Christopher Fowler. I gave it a couple of chapters, but it wasn’t working for me at all. It felt different from the other books in the series somehow. DNF.
Battle Street Bolero (Bone Street Rumba #3) by Daniel Jose Older. Very satisfying conclusion to this trilogy.
Improbable Libraries: A Visual Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Libraries by Alex Johnson. Very cool look at the many, many different ways that libraries reach people and people reach libraries around the world.

“What socks?” -Mayhem

Oh, these socks? 😉 These were for my SIL’s birthday… her March 2016 birthday. I finished them the day before her March 2017 birthday. Yay?!

Linkity linkity link, Reading, Reviewettes

Linkity would like you to remember that’s 2 weeks worth of reading

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Contest(s)

Bookity

Do, Think, Make, Learn

Cookity

Gluten Free

Artsy Crafty

Cool

Cool or Wha…?

Wha…?

LOL

Teh Cute

Reading Update
Ten Second Staircase (Bryant & May #4) by Christopher Fowler. Pretty good addition to the series, as Bryant and May struggle to close both a current case and one of their cold cases while the Home Office looks for ways to shut down the Peculiar Crimes Unit.
Half-Resurrection Blues (Bone Street Rumba #1) by Daniel Jose Older. Half-alive, half-dead, Carlos works for the NYC Council of the Dead, dealing with problems between the living and the dead. I was a lot happier with this before the tragic love interest showed up. :sigh:
Midnight Taxi Tango (Bone Street Rumba #2) by Daniel Jose Older. Good continuation of the series – this adds several other points of view, which was good, as Carlos definitely wasn’t my favorite of the book.
Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #1) by Jodi Taylor. I have really mixed feelings about this one. While it was a pretty enjoyable read, every similarity to Connie Willis’ time-traveling historians of Oxford annoyed the heck out of me. Plus the first-person POV character, Lucy, is one of my least favorite types of characters – she’s the type that has nearly everyone half in love with her and her natural charisma and leadership qualities shine through, blah blah blah. (See Anita Blake for reference.)
Handmade Books by Ray Hemachandra. It’s a coffee table book for a very, very tiny coffee table. Lovely to look at, but one you should get from the library instead of buying (unless you find it used, as I did). The materials used on the included books range from egg cartons to bird spines to acrylic sheets to copper.
The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects by Marshall McLuhan. For a book published 5o years ago, this short book has aged very well (beyond a few references to the technology of the times). Still can’t believe that we didn’t read this in my graduate program, since so many authors name dropped McLuhan.
Sidney Crosby: The Inspirational Story of Hockey Superstar Sidney Crosby by Bill Redban. Awful. Wikipedia is probably more informative and the writing is definitely better. Plus 66 pages is only achieved with a large font and lots of empty pages between chapters, etc.

“…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” -Chaos

Chaotic stealth tabby!

Linkity linkity link, Reading, Reviewettes

In which there’s an awful lot of linkity and reading

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Pace yourselves, people – no linkity next week because I’ll be at another book binding class during my linkity making time.

Bookity

Do, Learn, Think, Make

Cookity

Gluten Free

Artsy Crafty

Cool

Cool or Wha…?

Wha…?

LOL

Teh Cute

Reading Update
The Water Room (Bryant & May #2) by Christopher Fowler. Solid addition to this series about a pair of 80-something detectives in London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit. Again, not necessarily a fast-paced read, but very engaging.
Seventy-Seven Clocks (Bryant & May #3) by Christopher Fowler. This one’s about a Bryant and May case from the early 1970s. If anyone guesses whodunnit on this one, I will be beyond surprised!
Child of Fire (Twenty Palaces #1) by Harry Connolly. Dark urban fantasy about a guy, freshly out of prison, who’s working for a powerful spellcaster as she tries to find the source of a magic that’s killing kids in a small Oregon town.
Game of Cages (Twenty Palaces #2) by Harry Connolly. Good continuation of this series in which Ray starts out assisting an investigator for Twenty Palaces who’s trying to get information about a predator being auctioned off. Things fall apart really fast…
Circle of Enemies (Twenty Palaces #3) by Harry Connolly. I didn’t realize this paranormal/urban fantasy series wasn’t continued past this book. D’oh. The ending does leave things in an ok place, I guess. But still. Hmph.
What We Found in the Sofa and How It Changed the World by Henry Clark. Cute ya scifi book about three friends who discover a mysterious sofa sitting near their school bus stop and then their lives get really, really weird.
The Book That Proves That Time Travel Happens by Henry Clark. Good ya tale about two middle-school boys helping a girl who works at the circus find a mysterious item – and then things get weird. Fun read, with unexpected social commentary.
The Last Dragonslayer (The Chronicles of Kazam #1) by Jasper Fforde. Delightful ya tale of an indentured foundling trying to keep a magical talent agency running in a world rapidly losing its magic.
Salsa Nocturna: Stories by Daniel Jose Older. Very good collection of interconnected stories about a half-dead guy who works for the NYC Council of the Dead, solving problems when the living and the dead intersect. Apparently, if you’re planning to read Half-Resurrection Blues, it’s helpful to read this collection first.
Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Map Making by Jill K. Berry. Highly recommended if you’re intrigued by the idea of making creative, artistic maps of yourself, where you live, where you travel, and where you dream.
Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman. Very good take on cleaning and organization – much more realistic than some! 🙂 I liked the focus on preventing those exhausting marathon cleaning sessions, which I am prone to. Plus the author actually acknowledges that if you have a chronic illness (be it of body or brain), you’re probably going to need to modify things a bit. As you might surmise from the title, if you can’t handle a lot of cussing, this isn’t the book for you.

*SCHLURP* -Chaos

*purring* -Mayhem

Linkity linkity link, Reading, Reviewettes

In which there’s lots of linkity

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But you might want to ration it, since I have a bookbinding class next Thursday evening – which means no linkity next Friday.

Bookity

Do, Think, Make, Learn

Cookity

Gluten Free

Artsy Crafty

Cool

Cool or Wha…?

Wha…?

LOL

Teh Cute

Reading Update
The Hanging Tree (Peter Grant #6) by Ben Aaronovitch. reread. Definitely read Rivers of London: Body Work and Rivers of London: Night Witch before you read this! I hadn’t, so I spent a certain amount of the book being annoyed about the graphic novels sneaking into the series. Update upon reread: There were even more references to the graphic novels than I realized…
Shadowshaper (Shadowshaper #1) by Daniel Jose Older. Good young adult urban fantasy about a teenager who’s been asked paint a new mural on a building and discovers that there’s an awful lot more going on around her than she realized.
Revisionary (Magic Ex Libris #4) by Jim C Hines. It was ok. I started to get annoyed about how all of Isaac’s powers made everything so very convenient. Not sure that makes sense – but I definitely didn’t get sucked into this one.
Full Dark House (Bryant & May #1) by Christopher Fowler. You’re either going to love or loathe this book about a British detective in his 80s who finds himself revisiting the first case he worked on (60 years ago) with his partner in the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Be warned that this is not a fast-paced book and it is, unsurprisingly, filled with flashbacks. Flashbacks usually drive me crazy, but I was ok with them in this book.

“…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” -Chaos