
Still so much to read, although I think this is lighter than last month. But I have a beta read and an ARC to get to before this gets any smaller.
Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com
The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
Still so much to read, although I think this is lighter than last month. But I have a beta read and an ARC to get to before this gets any smaller.
Today was a very special day. Nearly everything that happened today was annoying, but nothing was, like, really annoying, and even taken in the aggregate complaining about my day seems really whiny, even after adjusting for “this is my blog and you’re reading it for free.” It was the kind of annoying day where complaining about all the annoying things that happened is just going to make me seem kinda hateful and grouchy.
I’mma do it anyway.
Blech.
I think I’m probably okay with considering today the last day of my break, seeing as how technically I do have to go to work tomorrow, but there will be no children there and we are just in training all day, and I’m pretty sure the day is ending early anyway. I got some grading and planning done today, and I’m not kvetching and Sundaying yet, but it’s only 7:30 and that word “yet” is kinda important.
Four days, five days, four days. Then Winter Break. Take ’em one day at a time and everything will be fine, right?
I am forty pages into Annie Proulx’s Barkskins, which is the duly designated novelistic representative of the great state of Wyoming, meaning that I have completed my goal of reading one book from each of the 50 US States, with Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. thrown in for shits and giggles. I’m currently at 39 different countries, a metric I intend to continue to pay attention to for a bit, as I’m still enjoying it, but I have to admit I’m glad to have this particular reading goal in the rear-view mirror. Barkskins is a bit of a doorstopper at 700+ pages, but based on the beginning of the book I think it’ll be a pretty quick and enjoyable read for all that, and once I finish it I have a beta read that I’ve been sitting on (for much too long) for a friend and an ARC to read and review, and then I can move into 2022’s project, which is to read whatever the fuck I want for a year and not worry about the details at all. I’ve had fun with my reading projects for the last several years and I’m sure I’ll revisit the idea again in the future but I want this year to be less about hitting a metric of some sort.
If you’re curious, here’s the list. Hopefully it doesn’t look too heinous outside the editor:
Archaeology from Space | Parcak, Sarah | 2/13/21 | 2/14/21 | US/Alabama |
The Raven’s Gift | Rearden, Don | 5/13/21 | 5/15/21 | US/Alaska |
Son of the Storm | Okungbowa, Suyi Davies | 6/26/21 | 7/2/21 | US/Arizona |
True Grit | Portis, Charles | 11/7/21 | 11/7/21 | US/Arkansas |
Bump | Wallace, Matt | 1/29/21 | 1/29/21 | US/California |
The Future of Another TImeline | Newitz, Annalee | 5/9/21 | 5/13/21 | US/California |
The Hill We Climb | Gorman, Amanda | 5/30/21 | 5/30/21 | US/California |
The Hidden Palace | Wecker, Helene | 7/12/21 | 7/18/21 | US/California |
Savage Bounty | Wallace, Matt | 7/20/21 | 7/24/21 | US/California |
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas | Thompson, Hunter | 6/10/21 | 6/10/21 | US/Colorado |
Rebel Sisters | Onyebuchi, Tochi | 2/20/21 | 2/23/21 | US/Connecticut |
The Book of Unknown Americans | Henriquez, Cristina | 10/24/21 | 10/26/21 | US/Delaware |
Robbing the Bees | Bishop, Holley | 10/22/21 | 10/24/21 | US/Florida |
Treason of Hawks | Bowen, Lila | 9/4/21 | 9/6/21 | US/Georgia |
Sharks in a Time of Saviors | Washburn, Kawai Strong | 6/24/21 | 6/26/21 | US/Hawai’i |
Idaho | Ruskovich, Emily | 10/1/21 | 10/2/21 | US/Idaho |
The Queen of Gilded Horns | Joy, Amanda | 4/19/21 | 4/23/21 | US/Illinois |
Hood Feminism | Kendall, Mikki | 5/23/21 | 5/26/21 | US/Illinois |
Rise to the Sun | Johnson, Leah | 7/24/21 | 7/25/21 | US/Indiana |
Nightbitch | Yoder, Rachel | 9/6/21 | 9/8/21 | US/Iowa |
Nubia: Real One | McKinney, L.L. | 2/26/2021 | 2/21/21 | US/Kansas |
Narrative of the Life of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself | Bibb, Henry | 10/17/21 | 10/18/21 | US/Kentucky |
Into the Dark | Gray, Claudia | 6/17/21 | 6/18/21 | US/Louisiana |
Billy Summers | King, Stephen | 8/10/21 | 8/14/21 | US/Maine |
Stillbright | Ford, Daniel | 1/1/21 | 1/4/21 | US/Maryland |
First, Become Ashes | Szpara, K.M. | 7/2/21 | 7/3/12 | US/Maryland |
How the Word is Passed | Smith III, Clint | 9/16/21 | 9/18/21 | US/Maryland |
The Lightning Thief | Riordan, Rick | 12/29/20 | 12/31/20 | US/Massachusetts |
A Queer History of the United States | Bronski, Michael | 1/17/21 | 1/22/21 | US/Massachusetts |
Unknown Man #89 | Leonard, Elmore | 5/19/21 | 5/23/21 | US/Michigan |
John Crow’s Devil | James, Marlon | 8/18/21 | 8/20/21 | US/Minnesota |
Concrete Rose | Thomas, Angie | 2/27/2021 | 2/27/21 | US/Mississippi |
The Puppet Masters | Heinlein, Robert | 10/12/21 | 10/15/21 | US/Missouri |
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing | Green, Hank | 2/7/21 | 2/8/21 | US/Montana |
The Meaning of Names | Shoemaker, Karen Gettert | 11/7/21 | 11/10/21 | US/Nebraska |
The Necessary Beggar | Palwick, Susan | 11/23/21 | 11/25/21 | US/Nevada |
The Hotel New Hampshire | Irving, John | 10/31/21 | 11/7/21 | US/New Hampshire |
The Empire of Gold | Chakraborty, S.A. | 7/26/21 | 8/4/21 | US/New Jersey |
The Assassination of Fred Hampton | Haas, Jeffrey | 6/3/21 | 6/4/21 | US/New Mexico |
The Traitor Baru Cormorant | Dickinson, Seth | 1/10/21 | 1/14/21 | US/New York |
The Monster Baru Cormorant | Dickinson, Seth | 1/22/21 | 1/27/21 | US/New York |
The Tyrant Baru Cormorant | Dickinson, Seth | 1/30/21 | 2/6/21 | US/New York |
Light of the Jedi | Soule, Charles | 2/6/21 | 2/7/21 | US/New York |
The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X | Payne, Les & Tamara | 3/17/21 | 3/21/21 | US/New York |
The Girl in the Road | Byrne, Monica | 2/11/21 | 2/13/21 | US/North Carolina |
Queen of the Unwanted | Glass, Jenna | 10/4/21 | 10/10/21 | US/North Carolina |
The Haunted Mesa | L’Amour, Louis | 9/2/21 | 9/4/21 | US/North Dakota |
African Samurai | Lockley, Thomas & Girard, Geoffrey | 6/5/21 | 6/8/21 | US/Ohio |
Juneteenth | Ellison, Ralph | 6/18/21 | 6/19/21 | US/Oklahoma |
Cemetery Boys | Thomas, Aiden | 1/4/21 | 1/9/21 | US/Oregon |
Jade Legacy | Lee, Fonda | 8/4/21 | 8/10/11 | US/Oregon |
A Court of Thorns and Roses | Maas, Sarah | 5/5/21 | 5/9/21 | US/Pennsylvania |
The Book of Accidents | Wendig, Chuck | 8/21/21 | 8/24/21 | US/Pennsylvania |
When I Was Puerto Rican | Santiago, Esmeralda | 11/25/21 | 11/26/21 | US/Puerto Rico |
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories | Lovecraft, H.P. | 10/31/21 | 10/31/21 | US/Rhode Island |
Bastard out of Carolina | Allison, Dorothy | 10/2/21 | 10/4/21 | US/South Carolina |
Parasites Like Us | Johnson, Adam | 11/17/21 | 11/18/21 | US/South Dakota |
Crush the King | Estep, Jennifer | 3/10/2021 | 3/13/21 | US/Tennessee |
Ash and Quill | Caine, Rachel | 12/26/20 | 12/29/20 | US/Texas |
Smoke and Iron | Caine, Rachel | 2/24/2021 | 2/27/21 | US/Texas |
Pen and Sword | Caine, Rachel | 3/31/21 | 4/2/21 | US/Texas |
Persephone Station | Leicht, Stina | 5/15/21 | 5/18/21 | US/Texas |
Wings of Ebony | Elle, J. | 6/22/21 | 6/24/21 | US/Texas |
Escaping Exodus: Symbiosis | Drayden, Nicki | 7/8/21 | 7/12/21 | US/Texas |
Heartbreak Bay | Caine, Rachel | 7/19/21 | 7/20/21 | US/Texas |
Legion | Sanderson, Brandon | 9/13/21 | 9/15/21 | US/Utah |
Open Season | Mayor, Archer | 10/10/21 | 10/12/21 | US/Vermont |
The House on the Cerulean Sea | Klune, TJ | 6/8/21 | 6/10/21 | US/Virginia |
Across the Green Grass Fields | McGuire, Seanan | 1/29/21 | 1/30/21 | US/Washington |
Calculated Risks | Mcguire, Seanan | 4/11/21 | 4/16/21 | US/Washington |
A Promised Land | Obama, Barack | 5/30/21 | 6/3/21 | US/Washington DC |
The Unquiet Earth | Giardina, Denise | 10/15/21 | 10/17/21 | US/West Virginia |
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain | Vo, Nghi | 1/27/21 | 1/27/21 | US/Wisconsin |
The Speaker for the Dead | Addison, Katherine | 10/18/21 | 10/21/21 | US/Wisconsin |
Barkskins | Proulx, Annie | 11/27/21 | US/Wyoming |
…Unfortunately, refraining from any Black Friday-related shenanigans is apparently all I had the willpower for, so I’m taking the night off. I’ve been lethargic and bleh all day today, so I’m going to screw around on the PS5 for a bit and go to bed early.