Currently Reading

As promised, it’s time for a mid-January reading update!

I’ve made some progress on the books I mentioned in my last post, and I’ve even managed to finish a few! Here’s the inbox / outbox update…

Outbox

Since my last post, I finished reading:

• The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal — I enjoyed this, but didn’t love it. It’s been positioned as “The Thin Man in space.” I’d never seen that old movie, or read the book the movie was based on, so I waited to watch the movie until after I read this reimagining of the story. Now that I’ve read this book and seen the movie, I think I’m a little disappointed that the detective couple in The Spare Man isn’t quite as charming and charismatic as the detective couple in the movie. Without the movie, I wouldn’t have known what I was missing, but if you’re familiar with the movie, I guess that’s just something to be aware of going in. You’re not really getting Nick and Nora. Then again, maybe The Spare Man is meant to be riffing off the original source material (the book by Dashiell Hammett)? I’m really curious to hear more about this when the Writing Excuses podcast does their deep dive on this book in February.
• Finding Me by Viola Davis — This audiobook was riveting! If you like Viola Davis’s work (and seriously, who doesn’t?), I highly recommend checking this out. I also recommend it to anyone pursuing any sort of artistic endeavor. It’s so good. And, if you like audiobooks, definitely listen to this one because she reads it herself.

Inbox

After finishing The Spare Man, I needed another fiction book to read. So I went through my FairyLoot hardcovers, and decided to start with A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson.

I picked this because it’s short, and I’d heard a lot of glowing reviews for this book. Plus, it is technically the first book in a new series, so I can use it for the January prompt in the Choose Your Own Adventure: Year in Aeldia Magical Readathon 2023 Challenge. And yes, I started a Magical Readathon spread in my Passion Planner. More on that when I do my February set-up post. 🙂

Until then, happy reading! Talk with you more soon.