if my pockets are full of loose change and crumpled receipts

Annual thoughts: Traditionally, I have used the first Wednesday of the year as a bit of a place to reflect on the reading I have been doing. I had had a few goals in the last few years – read 100 books a year, read more nonfiction, read more broadly – and I think those goals have been pretty good for my reading habits!

This year, I want to focus this year on reading more complex books, and so I’m lowering the “total number of books” goal to down from 100 to 80 books. I also hope this will help with the nonfiction reading and the vague goal of reading more older books. I read just a few nonfiction books this year, only 6, but I really think they were fantastic choices, and I’m going to try and lean into that more this year. I think there’s good context out in the world that I need to get into.

I also had a number of books suggested over the course of Arisia 2025 that I would like to actually sit down and read! They are here, if you are curious: https://kitewithfish.dreamwidth.org/479961.html


What I’ve Read­
Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett – I have been slowly reading thru the Night Watch thread of Terry Pratchett, and this was very good. I know this was a re-read, but god knows how long ago it was. I liked this one, and the general message of (non) human decency and bonds among fellow watchmen was emotionally fulfilling while the book itself was very funny. Recommend!

I skipped the Wednesday Reading Meme posts for the last few weeks, so if you are interested in what I read that last two weeks, it’s in a round up post here! https://kitewithfish.dreamwidth.org/492482.html

What I’m Reading
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins – The second Hunger Games book. About 30% in, and, well, recent evens make this feel like a good book to be reading about empires and power and violence and effective resistance not being something a sixteen year old girl can manage on her own. I think there’s a bit of a fashion of expressing annoyance at love triangles, but I think Katniss being torn between these particular two boys makes perfect sense. They are each decent and good people working in very different molds, and honestly, I can see how awful it is that Peeta’s earnest kindness is made into a snare against Katniss’s rebellion by the Capitol. This book is simply written but it never thinks the reader is stupid, and I respect the hell out that.

One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters – Book two of the Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries. Great so far – I do not know a lot about the civil wars of the 12th century, so I am likely missing some details but I generally trust the book to actually get me what I need to know. Ellis Peters, who is actually Edith Pargeter, has a deft had for women characters even if Cadfael is the lead, and I think that I will continue to enjoy these books for some time!

What I’ll Read Next
Playing it by ear.

Not quite the Wrap Up for 2025 – I got busy the last few Wednesdays so I am making an effort to post about the books I finished before the end of the year!

What I’ve Read
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Xing Book Club – This was blast from the past, and one that held up amazingly. The beginning was every so slightly slow but also set up the world very well. I felt like Katniss is weirdly charming – she has so little concept of the world as a trustworthy place or people as kind, and that calculation serves to save her life in the Hunger Games. The ending of this book, with her beginning to understand what her approach has cost Peeta, is wonderfully sensitive and ambiguous.

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) – A very pleasant medieval murder mystery that is solved by a clever protagonist in favor of a humanist and quite funny resolution. Brother Cadfael is a well traveled Welsh brother in an English Benedictine abbey in 1138, when one of leaders of the order takes it into his head that they need the bones of a saint to make their abbey a really hopping spot. This book was published in 1977, and features a fairly liberal mindset towards the medieval caste system and a deeply humorous Welsh disrespect for the English. I picked this up as a break on the recommendation of oldshrewsburyian (over at tumblr, but I see there’s a DW name and I think it’s the same person!)

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan – Oh, I really felt excited about the book that this wasn’t! ­I really thought there would be natural history in it! To be fair, the author’s interviews make it clear that she’s going for an Indiana Jones-inspired plot, and she’s very much accomplished that!

However, it’s not as funny or charming as Indiana Jones, and I would not pick up an Indiana Jones novel. The structure of the book impeded my enjoyment – the narrator is an elderly version of the main character writing her memoirs, but the main plot is a rollicking adventure where the younger character is doing field research in a rural foreign country and uncovering black market dragon schemes. This results in the author functionally interrupting the interesting plot and deflating the narrative tension to offer Her Humble Opinion on her younger self’s actions. If I needed distance from an unlikeable younger version of the character, this would be a good break. However, the older version of the character is snide, bigoted, defensive, and Not Like Other Girls. The effect is charmless and kludgey, and makes me lament that the young promising character we meet in the past grows up into this unpleasant arrogant person.

Anyone who reads my book ramblings on the regular will have picked up that I am vastly irritated when authors deflate their carefully constructed tension or have unsatisfying pacing. So, please feel free to try this book and see if it works for you.

Misethere by Astolat – I had to do a lot of rather stressful family socializing the last few weeks, so re-reading a past favorite! A wonderful story about someone too clever by half and the Witcher that loves him.