The Other Sandy

This was originally posted to the Bring-Your-Own-Book-Club comm on Pillowfort for the June-August 2021 Challenge--summer reading decision flowchart--on August 17, 2021.

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Title: The Palace Job

Author: Patrick Weekes

Genre: Fantasy

Challenge category: Recommended by a website algorithm

Why did you choose this book? I don't know what I read that made Goodreads think this was the book for me, but I've been getting this book as a recommendation at least weekly--sometimes daily--for probably 5 or 6 years. Then I started a mystery challenge that required me to read a heist caper. Since that is very much not my genre, The Palace Job was literally the only one I could think of, courtesy of Goodreads' frequent bludgeoning.

General thoughts: I'm very conflicted. I really liked the characters and the author's writing style, but ultimately I'm just not into heist capers.

Hero: I'mma steal a thing. ::executes elaborate plan::

Villain: I foresaw your elaborate plan and countered it. Now you're at my mercy!

Hero: I foresaw that you would foresee my plan and it was part of my plan! Take that!

Villain: ::pulls a plot twist out of his ass:: Ha ha! I foresaw that you would foresee...etc., etc., etc.

Lather, rinse, repeat for a whole book.

I mean, I can see why people who like this sort of thing like this sort of thing. I thought it was fun at first too, but over the course of 300 pages, it was just emotionally exhausting. I couldn't really get invested in anything because I already knew that what it looked like was happening was not actually what was happening.

Would you recommend this book? Yes? It wasn't really for me, but I think that was more of a me problem than the book's problem. There were parts of it that I enjoyed very much, but none of those parts involved the heist caper, about which I did not care.

P.S. -- I finished it! I started reading this as an ebook on the first day of this challenge 2 1/2 months ago and I finally finished it! ::throws confetti::

( Flowchart behind cut )

This was originally posted to the Bring-Your-Own-Book-Club comm on Pillowfort for the February 2020 Challenge--a book about or featuring a historical figure--on February 17, 2020.

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Title: Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys

Author: Michael Collins

Genre: Memoir

Why did you choose this book? Years ago, I saw Michael Collins interviewed in a documentary about the space program. He was charming and funny and didn't seem too invested in the "Right Stuff" mythos of the astronaut. Then last summer I read Failure is Not an Option by Mission Control flight director Gene Kranz, and he singled out Carrying the Fire as the best book about what it was really like to be an astronaut.

Did you know much about the person featured in the book prior to reading? Pretty much. I knew he was the command module pilot on Apollo 11 (aka, the one guy who didn't get to land on the moon), that he'd done an EVA on Gemini 10, and that he was the first director of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. It was the little details I didn't know. When Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in the Apollo 1 fire, Collins was the one who had to break the news to Chaffee's wife.

General thoughts: You never really know what you're going to get with an astronaut memoir. Some are interested in maintaining the heroic image, some are engineers who will bury you in technobabble, and some will wax poetic about the stark beauty of the moon or the fragile beauty of the Earth. Michael Collins will tell you how hard he found it to sleep his first night in orbit aboard Gemini 10 because he couldn't figure out what to do with his hands. When weightless, if a person isn't making an effort to use their arms, the hands tend to float around, and the cockpit of Gemini 10 was so small that he was afraid one of his hands would float into a toggle switch while he was asleep and accidentally vent the oxygen or something.

There was some engineering info included, but Collins was not an engineer himself so all the technical stuff is brief, in layman's terms, and only there to show the kinds of things that had to be figured out, like how to make it easy enough to eject from the spacecraft in an emergency that it could be done quickly while under duress, but not so easy that an ejection could be triggered accidentally by bumping into the control or catching a sleeve on it.

Collins also goes over the very extensive training the astronauts were given in everything from jungle survival to geology to flying helicopters. But just when you're starting to get awestruck at what they accomplished, he'll turn around and present--verbatim--the 17 point checklist of the official Gemini urination procedure. He really does seem to like poking holes in the mystique of being an astronaut.

The only thing that really detracted from the book was the occasional comment that reminded you that this book was originally published in 1974 and written by someone who was career military (he didn't use a ghostwriter). He was very respectful when talking about his wife and clearly loved her very much, but then a sexist comment would come flying out of nowhere, like referring to flight attendants as "honeys." Fortunately, it didn't happen often, which is why it was so jarring when it did.

Would you recommend this book? Definitely.

This challenge is being run by BooksandLala. The challenges don't have to be completed in order or in the month they're assigned.





JANUARY: Body part (internal) -- Written in Bone by Sue Black
FEBRUARY: Silhouette -- Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell
MARCH: Action/movement -- Patient Care by Paul Seward
APRIL: Accessories -- Subtle Bodies by Jordan Castillo Price
MAY: Border -- Unhallowed by Jordan L. Hawk
JUNE: Wings -- The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett
JULY: A metallic element -- Copper Script by K.J. Charles
AUGUST: Damage -- Under Dark Skies by A.J. Scudiere
SEPTEMBER: Fire & smoke -- The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan
OCTOBER: Doors/keys/locks -- Come Through Your Door by Carlene O'Connor
NOVEMBER: Reflection -- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
DECEMBER: Music -- Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation Vol. 2 by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù

Filched from viridian5:

Put your mp3 player/phone/streaming collection on shuffle and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results.


Just as I thought it was goin' alright
Can we forget about the things I said when I was drunk?
I don't want to spend the rest of my life
I like where we are
I know a place

Well, you can't place faith in material things
Following every time
I've got a lot of thoughts
Joey
Here we go

Lady, when you're with me I'm smiling
There's a new dance that's going around
Okay what is it tonight?
If she wants to dance and drink all night
Panic on the streets of London

When I die and they lay me to rest
Sorrow found me when I was young
If you think I'm magical
Maybe I've forgotten
Time, time, time

( List of songs )

I swear I have songs newer than 1990, but this is what kept coming up on shuffle.

This challenge is being run by BooksandLala. The challenges don't have to be completed in order or in the month they're assigned.

There is a color version of this card, but it's a shade of pink that is going to clash wildly with the covers of all my books, so I grabbed the black and white option instead.




JANUARY: "Before" & "After" -- Nothing Good Happens After Midnight by Phillip Tomasso III
FEBRUARY: Keyboard keys -- Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
MARCH: "This" & "That" -- This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
APRIL: Ordinal numbers -- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
MAY: "Make" -- Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up by Dave Barry
JUNE: One-word title -- Embedded by Dan Abnett
JULY: Occupations -- The Last Bookseller by Gary Goodman
AUGUST: Groups & clubs -- The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
SEPTEMBER: "Me" & "My" -- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
OCTOBER: Parts of a house -- Come Through Your Door by Carlene O'Connor
NOVEMBER: Instructional title -- Be True by Stella Starling
DECEMBER: Superlatives -- I'm Your Biggest Fan by Kate Coyne

Filched from shipperslist

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This week I'm reading: Embedded by Dan Abnett

My favorite book of all time: I have no idea. How would I even judge such a thing? How could I even pick one favorite book from a single series? (I read a lot of series books.)

My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months): The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett

The last book I bought: Platform Decay by Martha Wells

The first book I bought with my own money: No clue. The first book I remember buying with my own money was a novelization of the Battlestar Galactica episode "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero" (The Cylon Death Machine by Glen A. Larson and Robert Thurston), which I still have, but I was 12, so I can't swear that it was actually the first.

( Moar meme )

This challenge is being run by BooksandLala. The challenges don't have to be completed in order or in the month they're assigned.

There is a color version of this card, but it's a shade of pink that is going to clash wildly with the covers of all my books, so I grabbed the black and white option instead.




JANUARY: "Before" & "After" -- Nothing Good Happens After Midnight by Phillip Tomasso III
FEBRUARY: Keyboard keys
MARCH: "This" & "That" -- This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
APRIL: Ordinal numbers -- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
MAY: "Make" -- Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up by Dave Barry
JUNE: One-word title
JULY: Occupations -- The Last Bookseller by Gary Goodman
AUGUST: Groups & clubs -- The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
SEPTEMBER: "Me" & "My" -- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
OCTOBER: Parts of a house -- Come Through Your Door by Carlene O'Connor
NOVEMBER: Instructional title -- Be True by Stella Starling
DECEMBER: Superlatives -- I'm Your Biggest Fan by Kate Coyne

This challenge is being run by BooksandLala. The challenges don't have to be completed in order or in the month they're assigned.





JANUARY: Body part (internal) -- Written in Bone by Sue Black
FEBRUARY: Silhouette -- Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell
MARCH: Action/movement -- Patient Care by Paul Seward
APRIL: Accessories -- Subtle Bodies by Jordan Castillo Price
MAY: Border
JUNE: Wings
JULY: A metallic element -- Copper Script by K.J. Charles
AUGUST: Damage
SEPTEMBER: Fire & smoke -- The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan
OCTOBER: Doors/keys/locks -- Come Through Your Door by Carlene O'Connor
NOVEMBER: Reflection
DECEMBER: Music

This challenge is being run by kingstoken, and the master post is here.

Two substitutions One more substitution and two wild cards allowed.

Squares: 17 ~ Bingos: 2





( Read more... )

This challenge is being run by BooksandLala. The challenges don't have to be completed in order or in the month they're assigned.

There is a color version of this card, but it's a shade of pink that is going to clash wildly with the covers of all my books, so I grabbed the black and white option instead.




JANUARY: "Before" & "After" -- Nothing Good Happens After Midnight by Phillip Tomasso III
FEBRUARY: Keyboard keys
MARCH: "This" & "That" -- This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
APRIL: Ordinal numbers
MAY: "Make"
JUNE: One-word title
JULY: Occupations -- The Last Bookseller by Gary Goodman
AUGUST: Groups & clubs -- The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
SEPTEMBER: "Me" & "My"
OCTOBER: Parts of a house
NOVEMBER: Instructional title -- Be True by Stella Starling
DECEMBER: Superlatives -- I'm Your Biggest Fan by Kate Coyne