Always always always 💜💙💚💛❤️ Perfect post-march reading.

THIS is what I want for my birthday!

My partner is reading the library copy and I'm reading the kindle copy--I'm only a chapter in, and already loving it.

😂😂😂😂Honestly, I was already on my way to becoming a seasoned practitioner of not giving a f*ck long before I picked up this book, but it's a funny and easy read (like this morning in bed before work!) and I'm laughing and nodding at the same time as I read.

A difficult but important read. There are some flaws with the telling of the story, but the driving need to have North Korean stories told which begin to communicate the complicated lines of race, culture, politics, and human dignity that all rush together in East Asia and the Koreas creates a compelling, and tragic, story of three lives intertwined at the borders between countries, people, and the push-pull of fear & hope.

We went to the library, I came home with another book...oh well! I'm so excited by the Asian literature in translation out there these days, as well as by Asian American lit that's really getting some good attention. I 💜my public library so much. #ReadHarder2017 #weneeddiversebooks

Starting reading this at 5 am yesterday, when my anxiety jolted me awake and I couldn't get back to sleep (despite being exhausted). Sarah Knight cracks. me. up. Frankly, I'm not sure the book will tell me anything I don't already know (and practice), but she's acerbically witty and generously affirming. A good 5 a.m. read. Also, do I already have 7 books I'm in the middle of, one month into the year?? #ReadHarder2017 #tbr #bulletjournalbooklist

I'm getting close to the end of this second installment in KSR's Mars trilogy--the halfway point of the series. Gotta admit, I think I'd enjoy this more if I were reading a paper book rather than audio. The plot is so intricate, I'm struggling to keep track of everything. BUT! What an INCREDIBLE world! Seriously hard SF, insightful dashes of philosophy, very human characters... 💚💚💚💚💚💚

Jae and I are kicking around Natick--our new home in two weeks--and found a vintage shop with this *beautiful* edition of The Summer Tree, one of my all time fav fantasy novels/series! (We will be decorating almost exclusively with books in our new apartment, naturally.)

WANT WANT WANT. My partner models a book we both now desperately want to read. A novel about a Korean-American experience? YES PLEASE. #readingdiversity #weneeddiversebooks

Went to my local indie bookstore and am instantly filled with booklust!

"...the spirit of the times is one of joyless urgency, many of us preparing ourselves and our children to be means to inscrutable ends that are not utterly our own." Airport reading, and Robinson doesn't waste time getting to the meat of her concerns.

SO GOOD. I liked this even more than Perdido Street Station. Miéville not only builds worlds which are richly detailed and imagined, but also explores complex thought-experiments spread across language, philosophy, and social science. He also delivers high adventure and compelling characters with beautiful prose. The Scar is a near-perfect execution of Miéville's incredible skill.

Here's my #shelfie for #FunPhotoFriday! (Was that #FunFotoFriday??) We're probably moving by the end of the month, and I need to think about recreating the color coordination for the new apartment or not!

Despite some weak dialogue and secondary characters, this is a touching and realistically complicated story about falling in love and coming out in high school. It touched on emotional abuse and cultural intersections enough to be complex, but lightly enough for an overall fun and romantic story. I 💜LGBTQI stories, and wish this has been out when I was in high school! Also: my first completed read of 2017 😎🌈📚

"Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole." ????

LOVING this! It's backlist--and my "New Year" isn't until this weekend (when I return home from holiday travels, when my thesis rough draft is done + handed in, and before I start back to all my jobs) so I've hardly gone through and organized my #tbr list(s) for the year yet...The Scar is ?% my wheelhouse. Intricate world building, detailed characters, and plenty of thaumaturgic intrigue, in the best Miéville fashion.

New Crobuzon is insatiable.

Just in time to get me through my last paper for finals 🌈🎗🌟✨💖 I loved Fifth Season, and I get a little upset to think I'll have to wait another year for the trilogy's conclusion. I'm loving it so far!

Well-written, engaging, and solidly researched look at the rise of ISIS and one of its main figures. The approach and style are journalistic rather than academic, but for me (who really wants to know more and be better informed, but also didn't know where to start) this is a great jumping off point. (Plus, I've finished a lot of Christmas present crochet while listening!)

I *devoured* this third and conclusive book in the Queen of the Tearling trilogy. It was a strong, although somewhat clumsy, finish to a story that I've really become attached to. Despite the bumpy final 40 pages or so, the story of one failed utopia and Kelsea Glynn's impassioned and fiery desire to rectify wrongs is on my list of fav fantasy trilogies.

Surfacing from a week spent at home with my mom while she recovers from surgery. I read this book quickly, in part because it was frankly triggering for me--not overwhelmingly so but enough that I simultaneously had an anxious ball in my stomach AND couldn't put it down.

I had been planning on reading this long before the election, but post-election I feel even more committed to being educated about the historical moment we're living in. I can't say that I'm "looking forward" to reading this book, but so far the prose is precise and the narrative strong and grounded. This feels like a well-researched, well-written account. (Pictured: coffee and reading log, essentials for starting a new audiobook!)

I'll read anything by Miéville, but even so this is a wonderfully creepy set of short stories. (Maybe not the best bedtime reading choice...?)

Almost done with this marathon of a book--McCullough's Adams is down-to-earth, lovable if laughable, and it's been illuminating to read about the founding history of America in light of this election. It's definitely a book for history or biography buffs--while readable, it's a major commitment. I have only 2 hours left to listen to, and I'm looking forward to wrapping it up, as companionable as Adams has been this fall.

Reading Bhanu Khapil for class today, and I'm not actually sure I'm up for reading these fully and carefully right now--her poetry is about black/brown bodies, intimate violence especially for female bodies, immigration and neo-Nazism in the West...in short, powerful and necessary and terrifying, especially now. But I was stunned by Ban en Banlieue, and moving on to Schizophrene now.

The book was meh for me. I listened to it, and I wonder if the narrator's style had something to do with my lack of enthusiasm for the story and characters. As a whole, the book felt predictable and a little stale, a blunt feminist look at a woman and her social and sexual awakening in the 1970s. The initial curiosity of things taking place as Los Alamos and the Manhattan project didn't sustain or even connect for most of the book...

A very academic melange of spicy orange covers! #photoadaynov16

So: here at BR Live and it's FINALLY helped pop me out of my social media rut. (Internships and grad school are a lot of IRL stress sometimes...) I listened to All The Birds in the Sky in advance of #brlive and loved it. I also got to meet Charlie Jane Anders in person and she's absolutely lovely. All the Birds is Roald Dahl meets Buffy does soft-core sci fi; wacky hyperbolic childhoods & witches & mad scientists, oh my!

I love the sweeping history of this novel, but I'm not sure how I feel about a white woman telling the story of First Nations people, and I'm not wowed by the prose. Still, it's good crochet company! (I'm listening to the audiobook.)

I don't usually find myself wondering why I'm enjoying a book when I'm not sure I like the narrative voice, but that's Barkskins for me. It's a fabulously wild story of New England & Canada; it's also a tragic history of colonization and environmental destruction. I walk past the mural of birds & healing herbs in the hospital regularly, & this morning thought about all the healing this land & people need, wondering if it's possible.

Starting Barkskins. Proulx's ability to draw complex and nuanced characters is at the fore, together with amazing historical background. I'm quite hooked (sorry for the pun...) and looking forward to warching this unfold. (Also, my tendinitis is healed enough that I'm crocheting again! 😎)

It's not every day you find an apocalyptic/post apocalyptic vampire odyssey that both feels fresh and is at times beautifully written. So looking forward to reading the next two! (I finished listening to the audiobook on my rainy commute home today.🌧☔️📚💞)

For #WomanCrushWednesday, Mary Oliver! Thirst is one of my favorite collections--I memorized a couple of poems from this collection and use them constantly in the hospital. Yay poetry and Mary Oliver!

Listening to this fascinating dual biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley on a trip to and from Western MA. Yay road trips + audiobooks! 😎

Starting a new quilt project and a new book to wind down the week 💫

Books--like yarn and projects!--add a ton of color to my life, sometimes literally (have I bragged about my color-coordinated bookshelves yet?) and sometimes metaphorically. This holiday weekend I'm thoroughly enjoying Cronin's creepy novel & crocheting up a storm!

Starting Justin Cronin's trilogy and loving it--good thing, since I have at least half a novel's worth of chores today. 😏

Starting this as my overnight read at the hospital; already loving it!

I picked up a book from the hospital yesterday--even better, it was already on my TBR list!

Lunch break! Happy to be getting back to Leighton.

I expected to love this (I listened to the audiobook, with Meryl Streep), but...It was funny, laugh-out-loud at times, and Streep's narration really grew on me, yet in the end I felt pretty lukewarm about it. I've not read Ephron before. Should I try a different book?

I finished this over lunch today at the hospital. I couldn't have anticipated how it would impact me so profoundly with its humorous but blunt sharing of one young Indian man's life and world. 🌟💖

Oh my god. The past three weeks have been a whirlwind of work & almost no time to read, much less catch up here. We're in NH for s friend's wedding and camping for the night--enjoying a wood-smoke scented 2312 (which is AMAZING) and sending a Litsy love letter to all the readers out there tonight.💖

"It was a beautiful and ugly thing." Up late reading during an overnight on-call shift at the hospital. Loving this book, a hilarious and brutally blunt (in a beautiful ugly way) story of Junior/Arnold, the "part-time Indian" of the title.

Two long days at the hospital, and a 24 hour shift starting tomorrow morning...I'm recuperating/resting up with tea and zombies! Still really enjoying this comic, especially since I can read large arcs at once in the collected books.

A little evening cocktail to go with a new audio book!

My fiancé and I watched another ep of The Walking Dead and I worked on a square for my crochet blanket. I'm liking the comic original of The Walking Dead better than the TV adaptation, however. Many more books of the continuing story of survival horror to enjoy!

Went to the library to return 2 overdue books, am heading home with armful of future overdue books! (And a huge shoutout to our public libraries. All the 💜)

It's my turn to prepare an inspirational reading for our interfaith spiritual care cohort at the hospital today. I settled on Norman Fisher's rendition of the fifth psalm from this collection, a very accessible and lovely interpretation of the Psalms by a Zen priest. Oh, and happy Monday!😊