Reading Envy 191: Stealthy Yet Sparkly with Gail Carriger

Author Gail Carriger sits down with me at the Reading Envy Pub, and we discuss her voracious reading habits, and topics in books ranging from little squiddies to magical chocolate pots. Ms. Carriger must have a happy ending, and Jenny is content with fragmentary reads.

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Books discussed:

 

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Sorcery & Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
On Lighthouses by Jazmina Barrera, translated by Christina MacSweeney
Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughan

Other mentions:

Defy or Defend by Gail Carriger
Romancing the Inventor by Gail Carriger
Meat Cute by Gail Carriger
Soulless by Gail Carriger
The Lightning-Struck Heart by TJ Klune
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ranson Riggs
Wolfsong by TJ Klune
Court of Fives by Kate Elliot
LitHub The 50 Best Contemporary Novels under 200 Pages
The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish
My Enemy the Queen by Victoria Holt
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Grace Draven
Taji Beyond the Rings by R. Cooper
The 5th Gender by G.L. Carriger
Earth Fathers are Weird by Lyn Gala
White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton
Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

Related episodes:

Episode 015 - The Time for Exclaiming Over Costumes with Jean and Karen
Episode 060 - A Good Era for Communists with Rose Davis
Episode 187 - Sentient Snails and Spaceships with Paula


Stalk us online:

Gail Carriger website (includes more social media links)
Gail Carriger on Twitter
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

Reading Envy 141: Profound and Tedious Work

Yanira and Jenny gather again at the turning of the year to talk about books we have read and liked lately, and books we hope to read in the near future. We are not afraid, not of tedium, not of long books, okay but maybe we don't want to read about whales.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 141: Profound and Tedious Work

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Books discussed:



Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating by Moira Weigel
Sula by Toni Morrison
When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy
Eliza Waite by Ashley E. Sweeney
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Other mentions:

Book Riot Challenge 2018
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
American Hookup by Lisa Wade
Jenny Colgan
Louise Miller (I called her Louise Baker because she is a baker, whoops!)
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Ruby by Cynthia Bond
Jesmyn Ward
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Origins of Others by Toni Morrison
From the Land of Green Ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe
Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight


Related episodes:
Episode 070 - Words Like Weapons with Yanira Ramirez
Episode 096 - Not Without Hope with Yanira Ramirez
Episode 108 - Venn Diagram with Yanira Ramirez 

 
Stalk me online:
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
Yanira is @notafraidofwords on Litsy 

Epistolary Reading in 2014

Photo by acroamatic in Flickr, CC licensed

I wrote up my reading goals for 2014 a few days ago, and kept feeling like I was forgetting something.  It wasn't until I was wandering the amazing bookstores on Main St. in Charlottesville, Virginia, when I remembered what I had omitted - letters!

I don't read much history, but I enjoy memoir and biography.  Much of what makes up a biography comes from personal letters.  I remember in doing some research on the composer Lou Harrison, realizing all the little tidbits that were possible because he had left his letters on file at an archive.  I often wonder what will happen to all of us when we die and the majority of our correspondence dies in our e-mail accounts.

At least for people in the past, what remains of their letters tells a story.  We can learn about a person, a place, an event, a time.  I would like to do that more intentionally in 2014, and I am committing to reading at least one volume of letters a month.

Which letters?  I have no idea.  If you have ideas, I'd love to hear them.  It isn't helped that in most bookstores, letters are filed under history or biography, so first I would need to have an idea of a time period or person I might hope letters exist for.

When visiting the Appomattox Court House yesterday, I had a nice chat with the recent college grad working in the bookstore.  He pointed me to a volume of letters from the confederacy, arranged in date order from 1864-1865.  That book, No Soap, No Pay, Diarrhea, Dysentery & Desertion:A Composite Diary of the Last 16 Months of the Confederacy from 1864 to 1865  will be one of my twelve volumes, and I expect to learn quite a bit more about the War Between the States (as it is referred to down here.)

@jackiemania just wrote a post about the letters of Emily Dickinson, and those definitely intrigued me.  Watching John Adams on HBO made me want to read the letters between John and Abigail.  Added up, this makes three months' worth, so I am definitely in need of recommendations for my epistolary reading.