Author Archives: lydias

About lydias

I'm a sci-fi writer who loves lifting weights and hates eating Brussels sprouts.
January 15, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favourite Things to Do in the Winter

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A penguin standing in a patch of sunlight on some snow and stretching out both wings as it looks to the right. Behind it there are deep shadows over the snow. Perhaps it’s next to a mountain or a very large heap of snow that’s casting shadows?To be honest with all of you, the cold, dark days of winter are something I struggle with due to the winter blues.

When I was a kid, I loved building snowmen and going sledding during the winter. This isn’t something I’ve  done much if at all as an adult, but maybe I should someday after getting warmer and more water-resistant outerwear.

These are the sorts of activities I more routinely enjoy during the winter:

  • Watching documentaries with nature-themed ones at the top of my list. Yes, this includes penguins.
  • Doing puzzles and games (sudoku, jigsaw puzzles, solitaire, and the like).
  • Reading much more, especially if I’m recovering from a cold or other illness and must rest.
  • Working ahead on blog posts and other writing stuff.*
  • Taking outdoor walks on milder days (e.g. temperatures above 0 C or 32 Fahrenheit)
  • Taking indoor walks at the mall on cold, snowy, and/or blustery days.
  • Baking and cooking, especially warm and nourishing food like chili or spaghetti.
  • Drinking herbal tea and dairy-free hot chocolate.
  • Exercising at home with yoga, dance, kickboxing or other workouts.
  • Jokingly asking my spouse if they want to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year.**
  • Deep cleaning my home when the weather warms up a tad and I can open the windows briefly.
  • Rewatching favorite films and tv shows. The two tribble episodes from Star Trek are close to the top of my list for rewatches!
  • Watching new episodes of modern shows like Call the Midwife or The Handmaid’s Tale.
  • Catching up gradually on the countless older shows I need to finish like Blackish.
  • Attending free bookish events either virtually or in-person at the library***
  • Visiting coffee shops. To be fair, I do this one all year round.
  • Occasionally visiting local museums if the weather holds. Some museums here even have free nights or other good deals if you’re flexible about when you go!

 

*I schedule some posts months in advance, especially if I know a certain week or month is going to be busy beforehand.

*We prefer to save our special dates nights for other times of the year when restaurants aren’t packed with people. Servers have time to give us more attention that way if needed, and we are also less likely to wait in a long line in the freezing cold or be told they’re out of what we were hoping to order.

**Aren’t libraries the best?

I look forward to seeing what we all have in common!

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January 14, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2025


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Before I get into the meat of this post, let’s highlight the bookish goals I accomplished for 2024:

  • Visit coffee shops more often.
  • Submit a Top Ten Tuesday theme to Jana that she ends up using (which was a thrill!)
  • Read more novellas and short stories
  • Spend less time on social media
  • Meet more bookish people

Accomplishing five out of my ten goals for 2024 is pretty good, especially considering the rough spots this past year had in store for me that I had no idea were coming when I wrote that post.

A possibly computer-generated drawing of someone leaping between two large rocks after dusk. The rock on the left has 2024 on it, and the rock on the right has 2025 on it in bold black letters that look a little like the Holllywood sign in California. There is a full moon hanging above that lightly illuminates this scene. Here are my goals for 2025. Yes, I’m recycling some of the ones from last year. Might as well keep plugging away at them.

1. Finish more books

I had so many DNFs this past year. It was sometimes hard to concentrate due to the non-bookish aspects of my life that needed extra attention.  I also became much less likely to want to read stories that were unhappy or that reminded me of the various things going on in my life that were hard.

 

2. Read more history

I believe I only finished a handful of nonfiction books in this category last year. It was better than 2023, but so many of the ones I tried to read ended up being too heavy for me.

 

3. Patronize independent bookstores

This was a total failure in 2024. Maybe I’ll have the time and energy for it in 2025?

 

4. Try some new caffeine-free teas

I would have loved to do this one last year, but other stuff got in the way. I hope I will try some great new teas in 2025, though.

 

5. Make more bookish friends

We need a platonic version of OkCupid for bookish people!

 

6.  Attend bookish events (semi?) regularly

This could also help with #5. Maybe I’ll find a covid-safe poetry reading or a book club or something to join.

 

7. Read more books about people with invisible illnesses that don’t make the illness the main storyline. 

If they also have migraines or other pain or neurological disorders, that would be awesome. But other sorts of illnesses would be interesting, too. Basically, I would love to read more stories about characters who outwardly “look” healthy but who are still dealing with an illness or disability of some sort.

Suggestions are warmly welcomed if anyone has any!

 

8. Read or listen to more humorous titles.

There’s nothing like laughing until you cry over a ridiculously funny scene.

 

9. Improve my handwriting

Is that bookish enough for Top Ten Tuesday? I have never had pretty handwriting, but it has gotten worse over the years. Time to buy one of those handwriting books and try to make my writing more legible again. Ha!

 

10. Be pleasantly surprised by one book that’s finally being made into a film or TV show 

Okay, so this isn’t something I can personally make happen…but I would love to be surprised by it regardless.

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January 9, 2025 · 1:00 am

When Wishes Come True: A Review of Grey Goo Ticky Tack

 

Book cover for “Grey Goo Ticky Tack” by C M Weller. Image on cover shows several dozen legos piled up on a white surface. One yellow lego is separated from the rest and has a smiling mouth on it. You know, the sort of upwardly bent line you would see on a smiley face but without the two black dots for eyes. Title: Grey Goo Ticky Tack

Author: C M Weller

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 5, 2022

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBTQ+

Length: 10 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

They thought they had invented a cure for all the world’s problems. It would mean the end of every source of complaint in society. Unfortunately, they were solving the wrong problem. Solving the people seen as the problem is not solving the problem at all.

Content Warning: Homophobia and ableism.

Review:

Just about everyone wants an easier life, but not everyone is willing or able to pay the cost of one.

The beginning caught me off guard due to how quickly people accepted the solution for all the world’s problems. I was expecting there to be more conflict in this section, but I soon understood why the author wrote it that way and thought their reasons made sense given some later plot twists that revealed more information about what the solution entailed and how it affected those who accepted it.

This feeling popped up again once or twice as I moved into the middle portion of the plot when I would normally expect to see conflicts become more pressing and characters more eager to solve their woes. In a world without problems, things must unfold in more creative ways that don’t always strictly adhere to the storytelling stages we’re all accustomed to. As someone who reads a lot of science fiction and speculative fiction, I applaud anyone who is willing to take these sorts of risks with these genres. It’s exactly what we need to keep both new and longtime fans engaged with the sorts of questions and ideas these genres explore.

What catapulted this tale firmly into five star territory for me was the final few sentences. They cleared up my lingering confusion and provided a plot twist that made me reevaluate everything I’d just learned about these characters and the solution to every one of humanity’s problems. If you are also a little confused earlier on, keep reading. That final scene was fantastic and couldn’t have wrapped everything up together in a more satisfying way.

Grey Goo Ticky Tack was an excellent example of why I love short stories so much.

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January 8, 2025 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: What I Think of AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Two square white message balloons pasted overlapping each other onto a hot pink background. If we’re talking about AI as in LLMs (large language models like ChatGPT), I am wholeheartedly opposed to the use of them for the following reasons:

1) Dangerously wrong advice.

The article linked to above is one of many examples of these chat bots telling users to do things that could end their lives in excruciating ways by saying that poisonous wild plants are safe to eat, venomous snakes are harmless, etc.

Most of us can generally notice at least some bad advice about a small to medium-sized number of topics right away, but few people will have deep enough knowledge or experience in every important subject to realize how terrible and even deadly some of the LLM responses are, especially if vulnerable people like a kid or someone who has an intellectual disability is asking.

 

2) Stealing other people’s work. 

At best, the vast majority of these programs were trained on the artwork and writing of people who were not paid for their work, did not consent to it being used, and haven’t even been given something as simple as attribution for their ideas.

Just like you (hopefully!) wouldn’t sneak into your neighbour’s backyard to steal their dog, cat, tomatoes, flowers, children, or anything/anyone else you might find there even if you don’t think anyone will notice or care, nobody should be stealing other people’s creative works either.

A business model that depends on unpaid, non-consenting people to make it feasible should not exist. If they need a wide variety of photos or different types of writing to make an LLM work, pay people fairly and regularly for their contributions! This is a basic business expense that should come as a surprise to no one.

 

3) Academic and Business Cheating

From what I have read, there is a tsunami of students and workers who have switched to using LLMs to write anything from papers to exam answers to reports for their bosses. This means that they are not learning or reinforcing proper written communication skills and will become even less likely to notice mistakes in future work.

We need to encourage strong writing, critical thinking, and communication skills in people of all ages. Asking one of these models to do all of your work for you teaches little if anything useful and only makes life harder for those who use it in the long run because they won’t develop the skills they need in these areas.

 

4) Environmental Degradation 

All of these queries are also wasting staggering amounts of water and electricity for frivolous purposes.  I’ve read varying numbers as far as how much is being wasted and I don’t know which ones are correct, so I won’t quote specifics here.

Climate change is already wreaking havoc on the environment, and the last thing we should be doing now is making it worse.

I’d argue that the cost of the wasted water, electricity, and other materials should be the full and permanent responsibility of the LLM companies. They will either lose money or will have to dramatically raise the price of using them to account for all of the environmental damage they have done, are doing, and will do in the future.

 

5) Privacy concerns.

Do you really want LLMs to know so much private information about you? Who else is going to have access to your chats about your physical or mental health, occupation, relationships, sexual orientation, religious and political views, finances, possibly embarrassing family medical or legal history, and other possibly sensitive subjects to? If or when that information is leaked, whether purposefully or unintentionally, where will it go from there and how might it be used against you?

 

Brent Spiner playing Data on the set of "Star Trek: Nemesis.” He’s wearing a black jacket and looking off to the side as someone out-of-view speaks to him. In the background there is a set that shows a blue sky with a few wispy white clouds in it and a hilly, desert landscape behind him. Data looks like a very pale white man with black hair, if you’re not aware of what this character looks like. He’s an android but otherwise looks like a human when his complexion isn’t taken into account.

Image credit: Grcote at Wikipedia

On the other hand…

 

If we’re talking about Data from Star Trek, I’d welcome him to human society without hesitation.

He’s one of my favourite Star Trek: The Next Generation characters and I’d trust his judgment on nearly any subject because instead of simply guessing which word in a sentence should come next like LLMs do he was capable of deep, independent thought, had a wide breadth of knowledge, and was sentient.

If you asked him a question, he would either immediately understand it or ask for more details if necessary.

He would also never advise mixing glue into the cheese one puts on pizza to make it better like one LLM did a year or two ago because he was trustworthy and understood basic human physiology among many other subjects.

End rant! 😉

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January 7, 2025 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2025


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

You all might remember that I struggle with these seasonal TBR posts because I’m a mood reader who relies on my local library for most of what I read. Therefore, there’s not a whole lot of planning ahead for me unless we’re talking about my all-time favourite authors or something.

So guess who came up with seven answers for this prompt? Maybe next time I’ll be able to come up with the full ten!

Book cover for All the Water in the World by Eiran Caffell. Image on cover shows skyscrapers poking out of the water in a city that’s been flooded by rising oceans in a warming world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the Water in the World by Eiran Caffell

Publication Date: Today!

Why I’m Interested: I loved Station Eleven and hope this is just as poignant and hopeful.

 

Book cover for The Other March Sisters by Linda Epstein. There’s a going on with this cover. The background is dandelion yellow. There is a sea blue silhouette of someone’s head over it. There are three smaller black silhouettes of people - presumably women - wearing 1800s style dresses around the head. Inside of the head you see the winding branches of some sort of ivy or fern as well as various types of flowers in all of the usual flower colours: pink, blue, yellow, red, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Other March Sisters by Linda Epstein

Publication Date: February 25

Why I’m Interested: Little Women is such a classic, but I wondered how certain scenes would have looked from perspectives other than Jo’s as well as what was going on the other sisters’ lives that maybe she didn’t know about. Now we’ll get to find out.

 

Book cover for Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey. Image on cover shows black stylized swords and crosses and swirly lines against a blood-red background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey

Publication Date: March 4

Why I’m Interested: Carey is on my short list of must-read authors. At first I thought the protagonist was a vampire, but he may be something else instead. Either way, count me in.

 

Book cover for Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Image on cover is a drawing of a flame that has a blue centre, a white middle, and then various shades of red and orange as one moves closer to the edges of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Publication Date: March 4

Why I’m Interested: Ngozi Adichie is also on my short list of must-read authors! I’m excited to read something new from her as I don’t think she’s written much fiction (if any?) before.

 

Book cover for Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green. Image on cover is a stylized drawing of tuberculosis germs swimming around on a slide that’s under the microscope. What’s interesting about this image is that you see the slide front and centre in all of it’s pink and yellow glory but the microscope is drawn so simply it’s easy to misunderstand it as something else entirely like just an abstract triangle. So the focus is on the disease here, not the doctor or scientist studying it or curing it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green

Publication Date: March 18

Why I’m Interested: Tuberculosis is a sad but intriguing subject. I like learning more about it, especially since it remains a threat to human health to this day. May we someday have much better medications to treat it.

 

Book cover for When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi. Image on cover shows an astronaut standing on the moon which, upon closer inspection, is made of yellow cheese instead of, you know, rocks and dust instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

Publication Date: March 25

Why I’m Interested: Scalzi has such creative ideas. Sometimes I love his work and other times they’re not quite what I’m looking for, but I do give him another shot with every new book either way.

 

Book cover for Don't Sleep with the Dead by Nghi Vo. Image on cover shows a drawing of a gigantic heart - possibly human? - floating over an equally white city below. Everything looks like it’s had the life drained out of it, and I feel sad when I see this image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Sleep with the Dead by Nghi Vo

Publication Date: April 8

Why I’m Interested: This is a bit of a risky pick for me because I loathed The Great Gatsby when it was assigned to us to read in a high school English class and have refused to read anything else from Fitzgerald in the years since then. Can a retelling change my mind, or will this be a rapid DNF? Only time will tell..

 

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January 2, 2025 · 1:00 am

A Review of The Reverse

Book cover for The Reverse by Benjamin Parsons. Image on cover is a black and white drawing of a white woman wearing an ornate dress that appears to be from the late Middle Ages. There is lace on her cuffs and collar and plants embroidered onto the bodice and skirt of her dress. Her lace collar is standing straight up around her head like petals on a flower. It looks stiff and uncomfortable, to be honest. This image has a green background. Title: The Reverse

Author: Benjamin Parsons

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: January 9, 2023

Genres: Romance, Paranormal, Historical

Length: 18 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

An old man tells a tale of his youth, when one snowy night he accepted an invitation to stay in a remote castle. His lovely hostess is so charming that he forgets his broken heart and falls in love with her. But what is the uncanny secret of this ancient castle and its ancient family? Why do the seasons seem to change every morning when he awakes? And is his beloved really what she seems to be… or just the reverse? Part of the collection The Green Man and Other Stories.

Content Warning: Death. Broken engagement. Grief. Brief references to Candlemas, a Christian winter holiday.

Review:

Winter isn’t the best time for traveling.

There was some interesting lore here that required me to think about it carefully to put it together. I especially enjoyed the reactions of the townsfolk in one of the early scenes when they were asked for directions to find Belvay castle. Characters in general would be well served by slowing down and asking the opinions of locals before gallivanting off to find, in this case, a mysterious castle, but if they were sensible enough to do that we wouldn’t have half as many stories to read about what happens when one throws caution to the wind. I know I’m talking circles around the lore here, but I really do want everyone to discover it without any assumptions about what they’re about to read. Just know that it’s worth the time and effort in my opinion.

While the narrator had recently finished grieving a few tragic events in his life and was not in the right state of mind to be making big decisions about what he wanted to do next, I still found myself wishing he had gone into more detail about what was going on at Belvay castle. My impression of this piece was that it was a whirlwind of scenes that didn’t leave the reader much time for contemplation. There were good reasons for it to be written that way that I will allow others to discover for themselves, but this reader would have benefited from as little as one additional scene that provided more context for why things unfurled the way that they did.

The romantic themes in this tale were heavily tinged with grief, anxiety, and an impending sense of doom. This is something I’m mentioning in my review because I want to attract readers who are interested in such things and warn those of you who prefer every ending to be a happy one that this may not be what you’re expecting.  With that being said, this is the sort of romance I prefer to read if I’m going to dip my toes into that genre. Sometimes a situation feels odd for excellent reasons, and I enjoyed seeing how the unnamed old man responded to what should have been a happy moment in his life.

The Reverse was a wild ride.

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January 1, 2025 · 1:40 pm

The 2025 Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge Topics

This is a graphic that shares all 50 Wednesday Weekly Blogging challenge topics for 2025. I will transcribe them in the post as there isn’t space here. Above the list in this image you can see an opened laptop on a wooden table. Long and Short Reviews has released the list of topics for their seventh year of Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge posts. (Can you believe it has been around for long already? I feel like I just heard about it yesterday).

All of the details on how to participate can be found on their site.

If you’re having trouble reading the image, scroll down for a transcription of the weekly topics. Everyone is welcome to join in at any point of the year for as many or as few of the prompts as you wish!

The first one of the year is happening today, and there’s still time to join in! (Apologies for the last minute notice there. I only learned of this list myself late last night, and then I needed to write my post for the first prompt as well as type this one up).

 

January 1 – New Books I Want to Read This Month/Year

January 8 – What I Think of AI (Artificial Intelligence)

January 15 – Favourite Things to Do in the Winter

January 22 – Book Quotes That Make Me Laugh

January 29 – Book Quotes That Make Me Think

 

February 5 – A Story About a Memorable Acquaintance

February 12 – What to Read to Learn About X

February 19 – Fictional Worlds I’d Rather Not Visit

February 26 – Favourite Hobby and Why

 

March 5 – A Book I’m Nervous to Read (and Why)

March 12 – Characters I Want to Meet

March 19 – Favourite Websites/Podcasts/Blogs

March 26 – Favourite Comfort Foods and Why (+ Recipes)

 

April 2 – Characters I Never Want to Meet

April 9 – 10 Unusual Things About Me

April 16 – Books I Discovered on Social Media

April 23 – X Things I Wish More Books Talked About

April 30 – Books I Want Youth to Discover

 

May 7 – Favourite TV Shows and Why

May 14 – Books I Love That Became Films or TV Shows

May 21 – Lessons I Learned From a Book Character

May 28 – Books That Need a Sequel

 

June 4 – Favourite Book Covers and Why

June 11 – Favourite Things to Do in the Summer

June 18 – Humorous Book Titles

June 25 – Do You Follow Celebrity Gossip? Why or Why Not?

 

July 2 – Board and Card Games I Like

July 9 – Fictional Worlds I’d Love to Visit

July 16 – My Favourite Quotes From Books

July 23 – TV Shows I’ve Binge-Watched

July 30 – Books I Loved But Never Wrote Reviews For

 

August 6 – Books I Had to Read in School and Didn’t Like

August 13 – What I Read When I’m Not Feeling Well

August 20 – Books I Had to Read in School and Liked

August 27 – Books  That Deal Well With Tough Topics

 

September 3 – Books I Keep Meaning to Read (but Haven’t)

September 10 – What Is My Superpower?

September 17 – Authors I Wish More People Knew About

September 24 – How I Handle Bad Days

 

October 1 – Books I Would or Wouldn’t Reread and Why

October 8 – Popular/Famous Books I Don’t Plan to Read

October 15 – Books I Read on Someone’s Recommendation

October 22 – Things That Scare Me

October 29 – Books I’ve Recommended and Why

 

November 5 – A Strange or Useless Talent I Have

November 12 –  Things I’m Thankful For

November 19 – Books That Influenced My Life

November 26 – A Genre I Wish Were More Popular

 

December 3 – My Earliest Memory

December 10 – 10 Gifts for People Who Love X

December 17 – Something I Wish I Were Better At Doing

 

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· 8:07 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: New Books I Want to Read this Month/Year

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Top Ten Tuesday had a similar topic last month and another one coming out later on this month, so there will be some repetition in my answers.

Book cover for Isaac's Song by Daniel Black. Image on cover shows a drawing of a young black man whose facial features are just barely included. You can see his eyebrows and the ridge of his nose. He’s standing in front a city filled with skyscrapers as an orange bird flies in the air behind him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My #1 answer is  Isaac’s Song by Daniel Black

Publication Date: January 14

I gushed about the first book in this series, Don’t Cry for Me, last year. It was written from the perspective of a (black) man who grew up in the south during the segregation era. He had a harsh childhood and passed on those impossible and sometimes abusive expectations to his son, Isaac, who cut contact with the protagonist as a young adult.

That was not an easy read by any means due to the themes of racism, homophobia, and generational abuse, but it was beautifully written. I can’t wait to view this world through Isaac’s eyes and hopefully see some sort of reconciliation or other form of healing by the end of it.

 

 

My #2 answer is speculative in nature and I don’t know if it will happen this year. I want a new book from Becky Chambers who is one of my favourite modern science fiction and fantasy writers. She has written some wonderfully gentle, cozy stories, and I need another one of them from her if possible.  (Especially after I read #1 on this list, I think!)

 

 

Book cover for Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Image on cover is a drawing of a flame that has a blue centre, a white middle, and then various shades of red and orange as one moves closer to the edges of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My #3 answer is Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Publication Date: March 4

Why I’m Interested: A little literary fiction in the spring sounds nice. I’ve really enjoyed the previous work from her that I’ve read, too.

 

 

My #4 answer is another wish for a book that may or may not exist yet. Sarah Waters hasn’t released anything new in years, and I’d love for that to change this year.

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December 31, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books I Read in 2024


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

As promised yesterday, here are the best books I read in 2024. I think these posts are more interesting when Top Ten Tuesday bloggers include reasons why they loved certain titles, so I will be adding that into my responses as well.

Seven of my ten answers are books I wrote reviews for, and links to my reviews are included for those ones.

A photo of a gold-coloured championship cup with two handles. It’s the sort of award that would typically be given to someone who won first place. There are two gold-coloured medallions with red, white, and blue ribbons on them hanging from the cup. There is also gold-coloured glitter on the red surface where this cup is sitting. It looks like someone just had a celebration here!  1. What Does It Feel Like? By Sophie Kinsella

Why I Loved It: This book was such an interesting and educational peek at what it’s like to live with a nearly 100% fatal type of brain cancer.  I’m hoping that Ms. Kinsella will be around for many years to come.

 

2.Bodega Botanica Tales by Maria Rodriguez Bross

Why I Loved It: Urban fantasy is such an under-appreciated genre in my opinion. I love reading about how fantasy worlds works in large, bustling cities.

 

3. Strange New World by A.R. Grosjean

Why I Loved It: It retells one of my favourite childhood stories in the zaniest way.

 

4. What Love Survives & Other Stories by DB MacInnes

Why I Loved It: The blend of genres and the willingness to try new things. I don’t think speculative fiction is something this author writes much of – or at least that’s the impression I got – so it’s awesome to see them branch out.

 

5. Cloudspotting for Beginners by William Grill

Why I Loved It: Clouds are endlessly fascinating. Who wants to go cloud watching with me and point out what shapes they make?

 

6. The Killer Catfish of Cape Cod by Bill Russo

Why I Loved It: The slight absurdity of it all, beginning with the title. It sounds like the sort of tall tale a local person would swear is true if you visited a small town bar.

 

7. Neuro Noir by Al Hess

Why I Loved It: Computers as protagonists. The way these ones saw the world was so wildly different from how the average person would interpret the same data.

 

8. Ghosted – A Short Story by H.L. Burke

Why I Loved It: What a cozy little fantasy. It felt like the literary equivalent of drinking a nice cup of tea and warming up after a damp, chilly walk outdoors.

 

9. Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story by Steven Glick

Why I Loved It: While I normally shy away from war stories, I loved how this one showed how a young closeted gay man experienced World War I.

 

10. Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson

Why I Loved It: This book shed light on the shady, and in my opinion sometimes downright immoral, tactics many adoption agencies in the United States use in order to convince people – and mostly mothers – to place their babies for adoption. Adoption can be a great option for kids who can’t safely remain with their birth families, but there are many families that could stay together and thrive if offered support through hard times.

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December 30, 2024 · 1:00 am

What I Read in 2024

A photo of a white bunny with a grey ear who is wearing a gold-coloured pair of human glasses on its face. The glasses are comically large on such a small animal.The rabbit is lying next to an opened book. One can imagine that it is using reading glasses to read that book.

Happy New Year, readers!

In January of 2013, I began blogging about everything I’d read that previous year.  This tradition began when my dad asked me how many books I’ve read in my entire lifetime.

I couldn’t begin to give him an answer to that question, but it did make me decide to start keeping track from that moment forward. The previous posts in this series are as follows: 2023, 2022,  2021, 2020, 2019, 2018,  2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.

2024 was a year of not finishing novels as often as usual and I do not include DNF titles or short stories in these roundup posts. Those things can help to explain why this list is shorter than it typically would be.

There has been some hard stuff over the past year and a half in my personal life that have affected my reading habits. Sometimes these things can make it hard to concentrate, read books about certain sad topics,  or have as much time for reading in general as one would prefer.

My hope is that 2025 is full of nothing but cheerful, healing surprises for all of us.

(Yes, I know I’ve shared this photo of a rabbit who appears to be reading a book here before. The repetition is intentional because I need more excuses for laughter in my life).

I only read one young adult book in the past year. I think I’m leaving that genre to the age group it was intended for.

The theology section is a new addition and probably not one I’ll repeat in 2025.

Other than that, this is mostly the same mixture of genres I always read.

Biographies, Autobiographies, and Memoirs

 

A photo of a grey squirrel sitting in a patch of ferns eating something as daylight streams down around him or her.

“The Lady in the Van” by Alan Bennett

“Always Pack a Candle: A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin” by Marion McKinnon Crook

“Last to Eat, Last to Learn: My Life in Afghanistan Fighting to Educate Women” by Pashtana Durrani

“Shepherd’s Sight: A Farming Life” by Barbara McLean

“Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America” by Joy-Anne Reid

(The internet gave me this squirrel photo as one of the top results when I searched for biography-themed photos that can be used by anyone. Perhaps squirrels write adorable little autobiographies now, and who I am to question that possibility? 😉 )

Fiction

 

A brown-skinned woman with gorgeous, curly, black hair is cuddling her yellow Labrador retriever as she reads a book. The dog looks interested in the book. “Clan of the Cave Bear” (Earth’s Children #1) by Jean M. Auel

“The Mammoth Hunters” (Earth’s Children #3)  by Jean M. Auel

“The Valley of Horses” (Earth’s Children #2)  by Jean M. Auel

“The Sacred Mountain” by Andy Black (this is a fan fiction book that was written to finally tie up the most important loose ends Jean M. Auel left in the Earth’s Children series).

“What Does It Feel Like?” By Sophie Kinsella

“The Field” by Robert Seethaler

 

History

“Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum” by Antonia Hylton

 

Horror

 

A photo of two little white figurines wearing jeans and two different shades of green shirts who look comically scared. Their facial features and body language are seriously over-exaggerated. “Why Didn’t You Just Leave” edited by Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin 

“I Found A Circus Tent In the Woods Behind My House” by Ben Farthing 

“I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls” by Ben Farthing 

“The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion” by Margaret Killjoy 

 

Poetry

“The Home Child” By Liz Berry

“Let the Light Pour In” by Lemn Sissay

 

Mystery

“The Small Museum” by Jody Cooksley

 

Psychology and Sociology

“Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood” by Gretchen Sisson

 

Science Fiction and Fantasy

A photo of a tree that has lost all of its leaves. It’s growing either next to a field or to a grassy area that’s recently been mowed. Superimposed onto the tree are a pair of purple human eyes. This looks like photoshop to me.

“A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens

“Midwinter Magic and Mayhem” edited by Frances Evelyn

“Cryptid Bits” by Jess Simms

“Tucker Vs. The Apocalypse” by Jay Allan Storey

“Christmas Inc.” by Tim Vee 

 

 

Science, Health, and Medicine

An out-of-focus photo of a young Hispanic doctor or researcher swirling a blue liquid around in one beaker while his other hand holds another beaker filled with blue liquid still. “Insulin: A Hundred-Year History” by Stuart Bradwel

“Raising Hare” by Chloe Dalton

“Cloudspotting for Beginners” by William Grill

“James Herriot’s Treasury for Children:  Warm and Joyful Tales by the Author of All Creatures Great and Small” by James Herriot

“Dreams” by Melanie Gillespie Rosen

 

Theology

“The Lambing Season: Stories of Life on an Irish Family Farm” by John Connell

“Bible Truths You Won’t Hear in Church” by Drew Costen

 

Young Adult

“Gay the Pray Away” by Natalie Naudus

 

 

Tomorrow’s Top Ten Tuesday topic asks us to share our favourite reads of 2024, so come back then to see which books I loved the most!

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