I guess the pun is too obvious.
I finished another quick mystery, Death of a Maid by M. C. Beaton, a Hamish Macbeth mystery. Iām not sure how this got on my list, either. It was ok - a series set in a small town in the Scottish Highlands. Itās one of those where they wrap up the main mystery at the 80% point, though, which is annoying. The rest just feels like filler.
Just finished The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes. I didnāt love Me Before You and refused to read anything else by this author for a while. But this is a book club read and I tend to make exceptions for those.
Iām really glad I did. This was a good book with multidimensional characters and a satisfying plot and resolution.
Sooooo, Iām actually reading it -now- (I just bought it when I put it in the thread)
I came across this line in the book, and burst out laughing:
āTo wit: the butt is piquant, ā¦ā
I am giving no further context to that.
My wife was reading āthe stand inā and it has the line-
All jobs have their pitfalls. Iāve heard actuaries can get pretty wildā
So, I have learned that āmy shitā and āyour assā are actually pronouns.
Such as āIāve got to clean up my shit in hereā or āIām gonna whup your assā standing in place of āmy stuffā and āyouā.
Iām learning all sorts of pragmatics up in here.
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Started Tana Frenchās The Secret Place and donāt love it. Trying to decide if itās worth slogging thru or if Iām just going to skip it. That was last week and I didnāt touch it over the weekend so my apathy may be my answer.
Meanwhile I started Octavia Butlerās Dawn. 40 minutes in and Iām captivated. Why did I wait so long to start this one?
What book is this, meep?
John McWhorter
Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever
McWhorter is a linguist, so he often goes through some linguistic concepts that are new to non-linguists (or I forget, because I tend to buy all his stuff, especially his lectures).
And while he does go through etymology/history of terms, often he does dig into how we parse the distinction between, say, being a dick and being an asshole.
Itās a dirty book in that he has loads of dirty words in there, but also gets into how some were just the run-of-the-mill term for the verb/noun in question. And how some things that are just normal pieces of speech now were incredibly offensive in centuries past. Also, he pulls in distinction of British, American, and other Anglophone uses (and what got morphed into Tok Pisin, a creole that came out of pidgin English in Papua New Guinea), and then gets into how certain foul concepts are used in other languages, like Russian.
He mainly sticks to English, though.
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Finished Octavia Butlerās Dawn and I will definitely have to read the others in this trilogy. What else should I read by this author? I read Kindred ages ago.
I donāt always love science fiction and then I read something like this and wonder why not.
Just finished Forever, Interrupted and now I need something happy.
I finished Us Against You by Fredrik Backman, the followup to Beartown. It takes up the story right where the original ended. If you liked Beartown, youāll probably like this. If you didnāt, you definitely wonāt like this one, as the subject and style are pretty much identical (down to the continued use of ābang bang bangā, etc). One thing that only became annoying for me with the followup was his continued use of misleading foreshadowing of major plot points (āshe will come to regret leaving her gun at homeā and stuff like that). When he does it enough times, you come to mistrust the narration and that pulls you out of the book. But I liked it overall. Iām not sure if Iāll read the 3rd book when it becomes available, though. He seems to have wrapped up most conflict with this one.
Iām already most of the way through Stormbreaker, a YA book by Anthony Horowitz, then Iāve got another of his YA books next.
The Gathering Storm, by Churchill.
I liked/disliked it same way you did. Trying to be all, āI know how this ends, you donāt hahahaā and it gets old.
Started Behold the Dreamers as an impulse read. I suspect it wonāt be happy.
Finished Babel-17 and Empire Star a couple weeks ago, then read A Darker Shade of Magic, and now 2/3 of the way through The Night Circus.
Finished this.
Pretty good, hits Christians/Jesus followers pretty hard on āLove thy neighborā business.
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I finished Stormbreaker, a YA kid-spy story by Anthony Horowitz. Itās about exactly what youād expect and follows the format of all spy movies (right, movies, not books).
Iām a good part of the way through another one of his YA books, The Falconās Malteser, but this one is trying to be humorous, with obvious references to The Maltese Falcon, and not particularly succeeding.
TIL, though: Malteser is apparently the British version of Whoppers Malted Milk Balls.
Started āThe Princess Bride.ā
Started Grishamās A Time for Mercy.