Disney+ launch day happened to be a snowless snow day for my children, and much television was watched.
We also made a rather extensive watchlist. It includes both “Apple Dumplin’ Gang” features, “The Cat from Outer Space” and “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” because apparently I just long to be 10 again.
One of the SITS Girls writing prompts for November wanted to know what the best book I’ve read lately is. That’s kind of hard to answer, because the last 12 and a half books I’ve read have all been from one series, so it feels like I’ve been reading one story since July.
I started reading Robert Jordan’s 13-book “Wheel of Time” fantasy series when I was in high school, but my interest waned somewhere around book 9. I don’t remember exactly why, but I suspect it had something to do with me going to college and reaching the end of what had already been published right around the same time. I started reading them again over the summer because I heard that Amazon was making it into a TV series and my brother, who also started re-reading them, said they held up pretty well 20 years after watching them the first time.
I’m currently about halfway through the final book. The last three books in the series — “The Gathering Storm,” “Towers of Midnight” and “A Memory of Light” — were actually posthumously finished by another author, Brandon Sanderson, after Robert Jordan passed away. He worked from Jordan’s outline and notes, apparently, so the story is still progressing as Jordan had planned. There’s a marked difference in the writing styles, and there are a lot of things I prefer in Sanderson’s work. His characterization seems to delve a lot deeper, and he makes far fewer references to the female characters’ breasts.
I’m not sure which book is my favorite. I really appreciate the world building in the first one, “Eye of the World,” and I love the end of the sixth, “Lord of Chaos.” Hopefully “A Memory of Light” will end up being a satisfying ending.
I’m really curious to see how they tell such a huge-sprawling story as a TV series. I hope they don’t cut some of my favorite characters or bits from it.
I set out to read 40 books this year, and I ended up reading 51.
My presidential biography project got sidelined a bit this year, which is probably why I read more. I tend to either take comfort from the fact that we’ve been arguing about the same national issues since the beginning or I get irritated about it, and I found myself getting irritated more than comforted this year.
I still read a lot of nonfiction this year, though, and some of those titles were my favorites of the year. In no particular order, here are my Top Seven Reads of 2018:
“Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)” by Jeff Tweedy. I probably would’ve enjoyed this regardless because I love Wilco, but this is so well written, funny and moving that I think it would be enjoyable even to non-Wilco fans.
“The Broken Earth” series by NK Jemisin. OK, so this is technically three books. But it’s a wonderful and different sci-fi/fantasy series and I think you should read it.
“No Turning Back: Life, Love and Hope in Wartime Syria” by Rania Abouzeid. This is not a light breezy read, but it will give you a new perspective on the Middle East.
“Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches” by John Hodgman. This made me laugh out loud, and I read a lot of passages to Rockford. It’s terrific.
Thanks as always to Goodreads for helping me keep track of all of this!