January books

[clare_dragonfly]

The book count starts over for 2014! Rather a mixed bag this month.

1. Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey - ***
2. 101 Ways to Find a Ghost by Melissa Martin Ellis - *** 1/2
3. Jack, the Giant-Killer by Charles de Lint - DNF
4. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron - **
5. On Writing by Stephen King - ****
6. The Grail of Hearts by Susan Shwartz - ****


My January books cross off a few squares on my Reading Bingo. Intrigues fills I2, "a book with nonhuman characters"; 101 Ways to Find a Ghost fills O3, "a book of nonfiction"; The Grail of Hearts fills G2, "a book by a female author" (aka free square, because really). I have no bingo yet.

I'm not counting DNF books for the bingo, and the other two books were actually read mostly in 2013, so I'm not counting them either.

I did not meet my goal this month of writing 50k words. However, I wrote about 10k more than I wrote in December, so I'm pretty happy with it anyway. If the trend continues, I'll definitely hit 50k, um, in March XD I doubt I'll hit it in February due to the short month.

I didn't get any editing done this month.

As always, I welcome book discussion! Have you read any of these books? Liked them? Interested in reading them and wondering about my rating? Please comment!

Comments

[outlineofash]

Why didn't you finish Jack, the Giant-Killer? (I'm always curious about the reasons why someone stops reading a book. I usually do it when I find a book boring.)

[clare_dragonfly]

It was boring! Heh. That's pretty much the only reason I would stop reading a book (or I guess if it offended me somehow). It's weird, because I usually love Charles de Lint, but the story was repetitive and didn't seem to go anywhere. It also had a lot of POV slips in the middle of scenes, which I hate, but I can get through that if I like the book enough. I think the novel should have been a short story or novella, perhaps--I'm reading a collection of his short stories now, and I love them.

[d_generate_girl]

st_aurafina recced Carol K. Carr's India Black series the other week, and I have just binged on ALL of them. I really recommend them for fun, light reading (if you don't mind occasional infodumps of plot-relevant Victorian politics).

[clare_dragonfly]

That definitely does not sound like an infodump I would object to! :D Not sure why I didn't sample it based on st_aurafina's post, actually, but the sample is on my Kindle now!