Hey guys, it's Jane!
I'm back! It's been a little while...
I'm not going to be able to post again, probably, until the end of the month,
but I've just stolen a moment today, and I'm just hoping
that I can get through this before the kids get back.
Before I begin I have to explain something.
I started the year with a Reading Challenge list,
it's by Tim Challies, I'll link to it below,
he's a Christian blogger.
a number of people that I know in real life have taken on this reading challenge this year,
and I thought seeing as how books are kind of my thing that I would, y'know, give it a go.
So that has determined a few of my choices at the beginning of the year.
I got to about book five, and I'm still working on that book while I
reading other things, so things have kind of freed up a bit in my challenge, in my list
 
but some of these books are chosen because of the challenge.
The first book, the first thing on the reading challenge thing was:
a biography.
And I went to my list of books that had been recommended to me over the years
and I've been meaning to get around to and I never have.
And I found Ernest Hemingway's 'A Moveable Feast'
which is, I thought, I was told, a memoir of his time
as a young writer, before he was really published
in Paris. Him hanging out with other authors
and, y'know, just living in Paris and being bohemian.
If you believe him in what he writes
about this, it is actually fiction,
and I don't know how much you...
does that mean he's giving himself an out for not necessarily telling the truth about things?
I don't know. But what I can say is
that I did not enjoy this book.
Or, more accurately,
I really, really did not like the protagonist of this book, i.e. Ernest Hemingway,
and it certainly has not made me want to read any more by Hemingway.
I actually let myself go in my goodreads review, and
really had a bit of a rant,
so if you are interested in reading why I didn't like this book,
I'll link to that below, and you can have your fill of
hearing what it sounds like when Jane really lets fly.
The second book that I read this year was also from the challenge list.
it was supposed to be a classic, and
the classic that I chose as a science fiction reader
was a science fiction classic, because there's lots of science fiction classics that I have never read,
and I thought this was a good opportunity.
And I picked up Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451'
which I'm sure everybody has read, but I had never read.
Happily, this was a much more rewarding experiment than the fist book.
If you have not rea this before,
its a science fiction story set in a putative future time
 
when books are illeagal and firemen
don't put out housefires, but burn books.
That's what I knew about the book going in.
And that's not inaccurate.
I really enjoyed this book, it's quite short,
I'm not going to say much, because in order to say anything interesting, I think I would have to read it again.
Because even though it was short, there were lots of ideas in it.
There were a few questions that Ihad, I don't know that I was
100% sold by everything that went on in the story,
but it certainly was a rewarding read,
and if you haven't read it, this is an older science fiction story that really stands up, so
I would encourage you to give it a try.
The third book on the reading challenge list was
a book about history.
And I picked up:
'The Underground Railroad' by Colson Whitehead.
This has been on all the bestseller lists
over the past six months
I've seen it in all the bookstores,
and I had vaguely heard that it had a science fiction-y twist,
plus, I was just sort of interested in it, so I picked this one up.
For those of you who have not read it, I can put the kibosh on the science fictiony thing - there is no science fiction in here.
there are elements that are counter factual,
i.e. the railroad in question is not
 
as it was in history, a network of people who helped escaping slaves,
but an actual kind of train tracks, and tunnels,
but that's kind of a counter factual rather than a science fiction
it didn't feel like science fiction at any point.
Having said that it was a really engrossing story,
and especially the characters, the characters in it, the main character in particular,
really well drawn, and I understand why so many people have been raving about this book.
If you have the stomach to read another slave history,
I don't know how many slave histories you've read, but
if you *have* the stomach to read another slave history,
this is a really good one
and althought the story is heartbreaking,
our heroine is kind of victorious at the end.
I like something with the non tragic ending, so that's good.
 
the fourth book on the reading challenge list was a book that was targetted at your gender,
and here is where I start having issues with the categories on the reading challenge list.
When I did searches for 'books for women' there are lots of Christain devotional guides
that are written specifically for women, but most of them....
I don't know. I don't understand why...
I mean, there are certain...
I know that women's experiences are different
from men's in lots of respects,
but some of the ways that it's gone about in the Christian world...
I can't, I can't stomach it.
 
So, I ended up looking at feminist books
and thinking, maybe I can find something here that will fit this,
that will be a rewarding read.
What I came up with was a book by a British comic, called
'A Book for Her'.
I figured with a title like that it had to fit in the category.
The author is someone that I had never heard of before,
she was a working stand up comic for some years
doing all sorts of different material,
and then became kind of an overnight sensation when she did a show that was based on feminist themes,
 
which is not something that she ahd really done before.
The book is really a memoir about her life as a comic, and
especially focussed on her experience
around this show about feminist
and how different people responded to that.
it was OK.
parts of it were funny.
Other things I didn't really connect to.
It wasn't terrible.
There are two more books that I finished this month
neither of them were connected to the reading challenge, they were just books that I picked up
because I wanted to read them. The first one
is one that so many people put on their best reads lists of last year, and I never got around to last year.
'Ninefox Gambit' by Yoon Ha Lee.
(I think I have remembered the author's name correctly.)
This is a corker.
I'm not going to tell you much,
It's a space opera, military SF story, set in this
amzingly complex and intricate and interesting
world where the main character is
a mid level soldier,
who ends up getting a centuries old
dead general inserted in her brain
to help her fight this thing,
and, but then more happens.
It is just such a good read.
And if you have any interest in military SF or space opera at all,
and you haven't read this,
run don't walk.
That was easily the best book that I
have read this month.
And then, I just finished this morning
Emma Newman's 'After Atlas'.
Which is a second, it's sort of a loose sequel
to 'Planetfall',
which was a big book
a year or so ago.
It only came out in November, I think,
last year, so it's new new.
 
'After Atlas' I enjoyed a lot.
it is almost like my perfect book,
it's this really, really good marriage
between a near future science fiction story and
a police procedural.
The central character is a homicide detective
in the British CID, essentially,
only it's all different in this particular near future world.
The connection with 'Planetfall', which about this group of people who have left on this mission to the stars,
is that this detective,
as a baby was left behind by his mother who was one of the people who went on the mission.
That's not the only connection, but that's the initial connection.
with the book. It does come full circle, and
at the end, the last few chapters of the book we're back much more in the world
 
That connects with the 'Planetfall' story. For the first two thirds
of the book you don't really need to have read book one,
I think the ending would make you want to read book one
if you haven't read book one already, but
that was also a stonking good read,
which I just finished thismorning.
So the only other book that I have been reading this month
which I haven't finished yet,
'The Promise of the Father' by Marianne Meye Thompson.
The fifth book on Tim Challies reading challenge was
a book of theology,
this is a theology book that I've had on my shelf for a number of years and
I've been meaning to read but I've never got around to.
As you know, paper books always take me a lot longer
to read, plus it's non-fiction,
plus it's , like, deep,
so you actually have to sit aside and read it whileyou have brain capacity,
and there's not so much of that going on for me right now,
so it's been slow going, but I am really enjoying it.
What this is is an investigationa nd a discussion
of the ideas around
the use of masculing language for G-d.
In the light of feminist critiques of that
it's a really interesting question,
because, I mean, the Bible
uses ranges of language
for G-d, however
there definintely is a strong skew towards masculine
language, however,
orthodox Christian theology has always maintained
that G-d is not male,
neither male nor female,
in fact, without sex,
and so the question arises, if that is the case,
why do we have this propensity for using masculine language,
what does that mean
if anything, and
if it's the case, can we usefully get away from that,
and if you get away from that is there something , beyond the masculine stuff that you are losing.
SO there's lots of interesting interconnected questions,
and other people may not be interested
in this, but I am
but it is using a whole other part of my brain,
and, yup, that part is only on line sometimes.
That's what I've been reading,
as I said, I'll be back again
at the end of the month, I probably
won't be bak before then.
Ihope you're all well,
I'd love to hear what you're reading,
and I'll talk to you later. Bye!
