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[Frumple]

Yeah, at that point you can still come in and read but we're not letting you check out any more books until you bring the others back (or pay us)

... though for hundreds of dollars, it also depends on the book. My joint has one that's like... five hundred bucks to replace, ferex. Not because it's particularly rare, but because it's a binder full of hundreds of color pictures of local wildflowers and it turns out that's really friggin' expensive to print >_<

[Vector]

Okie-dokie, updoot. Other than the books in my last edit, I also read:

How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson

I have read parts of:

rubik - Elizabeth Tan
Whipping Girl - Julia Serano
Moscow to the end of the line - Venedikt Erofeev
Mathematics for Human Flourishing - Francis Su
Black, Brown, Bruised - Emily Omotola McGee
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua

And some math books it will take a while to work through ...

Geometry of Schemes - Eisenbud + Harris
The Shape of Space - Weeks
Geometry of Surfaces - Stillwell
Mathematical Understanding of Nature - VI Arnold

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 4/12 (click to show/hide)

Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson

Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 1/4 (click to show/hide)

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love

Spoiler: All About Prison, 3/4 (click to show/hide)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
American Prison - Shane Bauer

Spoiler: Other books, 9/0 (click to show/hide)

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo

Both of the books that I finished were pretty good, but especially How to Hide an Empire. I learned things about America's imperial influence that I'd never really understood, even if the bare bones were expressed to me in high school. More importantly, I learned some things about colonization, the "how the sausage is made" of it, that helped me to understand present geopolitics and the cold war more than I ever had. I very highly recommend this book.

Caste was interesting specifically because of the work it does to expose the underlying logic of race and reproduction of racism, partially by giving us the alienating viewpoint of comparing/contrasting with India's caste system. The book is especially beautifully written and again, helped me understand some of what was at stake in recent US politics in a way that I never had before. The author also relates personal anecdotes of her travels through different places' politics and caste systems that showed that what might seem "obvious" in one situation seems ridiculous in another situation.


Note to self for next post update, I read and need to file away:

Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold

[martinuzz]

I can heartily recommend Fredrik Backman's 'A man called Ove' ('En man som heter Ove').

A heartwarming good read about life.

[delphonso]

Progress report for to also reflect on what I read in the last couple months.

Goal - read 12 books at least this year.

3 fiction books, since I will certainly do that by the end of February.   1/3
- The Shadow over Innsmouth, Waiting for Godot, Morrowind Collected Books, Leaf by Niggle
3 non-fiction histories, biographies or the like. 1/3
- Bandersnatch
3 non-fiction academics. 2/3
- The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide, Raspberry Pi User Guide
2 books in not English (above kids book level, I guess. Maybe depends on the language.) 0/2
1 thing I wrote and actually consider finished.  0/1

Those Raspberry Pi books should also include...just mountains of documentation on Python libraries as I've been doing a bit of engineering as a hobby. Haven't read any good fiction lately, abandoned a lot of novels about 40 pages in...Maybe I should finish the Three Body Problem series.

Currently reading:
Make: Mechanical Engineering for Makers (Brian Bunnell and Samer Najia)
How to Be Anti-Racist (Ibram X. Kendi)

[Vector]

Finished this stuff:

Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Shape of Space - Weeks
Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it can Transform Schools and Classrooms - Feldman

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 5/12 (click to show/hide)

Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich

Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 1/4 (click to show/hide)

The Shape of Space - Weeks

Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 2/4 (click to show/hide)

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love

Spoiler: All About Prison, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
American Prison - Shane Bauer
Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller

Spoiler: Other books, 11/0 (click to show/hide)

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold

So hey, I completed one of my categories. Halfway Home was very interesting in terms of both content and style. The author managed to present the same issues from many sides and perspectives, avoiding easy answers but drawing small conclusions here and there. I would, again, recommend it to anyone here. The Prison section of my reading list is the MVP so far this year.

I also recommend Lost Voices by Svetlana Alexievich, which compiles an oral history taken from people who were children in the Soviet Union during WWII. Almost every important event or situation you could imagine is covered, tracing all kinds of people and all kinds of outcomes. I felt Voices from Chernobyl was a little stronger, but its presence doesn't make her other work any less valuable.

I can heartily recommend Fredrik Backman's 'A man called Ove' ('En man som heter Ove').

Added it to my list ...

[Vector]

Finished more stuff:

Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation - Ebony Omotola McGee
The City We Became - NK Jemisin
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 6/12 (click to show/hide)

Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua

Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 1/4 (click to show/hide)

The Shape of Space - Weeks

Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 3/4 (click to show/hide)

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love
Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it can Transform Schools and Classrooms - Feldman
Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation - Ebony Omotola McGee

Spoiler: All About Prison, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
American Prison - Shane Bauer
Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller

Spoiler: Other books, 13/0 (click to show/hide)

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
The City We Became - NK Jemisin

I don't really feel like going into detail on everything, but I did find every book I read interesting. I'm super close to moving some of my books from the "awesome" list to the "generic stuff I read" list but we shall see what actually happens. There are only so many fantastic books out there, and I am pretty damn depressed.

[Arx]

I've been rambling around reading some of the most eclectic selections of literature. Three web fictions: A Practical Guide to Evil, which I cannot recommend highly enough, The Good Student which was thoroughly mediocre without being offensively bad and I don't recall if I dropped it halfway or simply decided not to wait for updates,and Metaworld Chronicles which is a curious melange of things I hate but nonetheless holds my interest for reasons unclear.

Now cutting across from things unknown because they're very modern self-published affairs to things obscured by age, I quite enjoyed Eminent Victorians, a 1918 set of biographies by Lytton Strachey, covering Cardinal Henry Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr Thomas Arnold, and General Charles Gordon.

Also aged, but less unknown (although I would say rather possessed of an unfair reputation), I gave Machiavelli's The Prince a read. Some of the political theory still holds today, some doesn't, but on the whole the notion of it being a manual of tortured deceit and political evil seems a bit overwrought.

The less controversial leadership manual I also picked up over the weekend was How to Win Friends and Influence People, which I fear is now a victim of its own old success as most of what's in it seems to me to be common sense. Common sense worth having written down and reading, and I have no way of knowing if it were common sense in the 30s, but there wasn't anything in it that was a great upset to me.

My family is now questioning my taste, but really if you don't know why the Papal succession of John XXII was potentially controversial can you really be considered a scholar?

[Vector]

I didn't read a whole lot this month. Here it is:

The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard
Ping Pong Omnibus, Vol. 1 - Taiyo Matsumoto

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 7/12 (click to show/hide)

Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua
The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich

Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 1/4 (click to show/hide)

The Shape of Space - Weeks

Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 3/4 (click to show/hide)

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love
Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it can Transform Schools and Classrooms - Feldman
Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation - Ebony Omotola McGee

Spoiler: All About Prison, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
American Prison - Shane Bauer
Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller

Spoiler: Other books, 15/0 (click to show/hide)

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
The City We Became - NK Jemisin
Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard
Ping Pong Omnibus, Vol. 1 - Taiyo Matsumoto

I still feel good about my current progress, since I have only one more education theory book to go and it's summer, a good time to read Chinese Classics and math textbooks.

[Vector]

I read a whole fuckton this month. I'm updating a little early but I'll edit the post on August 1. I've decided to go through the books I read at the end of the year and decide which best match the "12 awesome fiction/nonfiction books" category.

This month I finished:

Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of our Time - James Kilgore
The Echo Wife - Sarah Gailey
Cetaganda - Lois McMaster Bujold
Magic for Liars - Sarah Gailey
How to kill a city - Peter Moskowitz
Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri
Leviathan - Boris Akunin
The Psychology of Learning Mathematics - Skemp
Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
An Indigenous People's History of the United States - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

I am also most of the way through:
Persuasion - Jane Austen
Hexarchate Stories - Yoon Ha Lee

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)

-snip-

Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 1/4 (click to show/hide)

The Shape of Space - Weeks

Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love
Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it can Transform Schools and Classrooms - Feldman
Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation - Ebony Omotola McGee
The Psychology of Learning Mathematics - Skemp

Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
American Prison - Shane Bauer
Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller
Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of our Time - James Kilgore

Spoiler: Other books, 30/0 (click to show/hide)

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
The City We Became - NK Jemisin
Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard
Ping Pong Omnibus, Vol. 1 - Taiyo Matsumoto
Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua
The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
The Echo Wife - Sarah Gailey
Cetaganda - Lois McMaster Bujold
Magic for Liars - Sarah Gailey
How to kill a city - Peter Moskowitz
Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri
Leviathan - Boris Akunin
Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
An Indigenous People's History of the United States - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

It's a little bit shocking to me that I've already finished 40 books this year, especially given how much I have been struggling to concentrate on anything at all.

I'm pretty sure now that I'll stick the landing on the "12 awesome books" challenge, so this month I want to phase in daily mathematics and non-English language reading, and plan for sessions reading Chinese classics on Saturdays. I have been reading some of Romance of the Three Kingdoms but I think I would enjoy it more if I tried a little harder to be consistent, and to read in big chunks.

[Frumple]

Oh hey, I cataloged Magic for Liars at... some point. Going by the publish date probably sometime in 2019 or early 2020. Pretty sure I stuffed a new (well, for our collection, book itself was an older donation, iirc) copy of persuasion somewhere this year, too.

[Vector]

Updates for the month of August.

Raven Strategem - Yoon Ha Lee
Ethan of Athos - Lois McMaster Bujold
Double Take - Kevin Michael Connolly
Revenant Gun - Yoon Ha Lee
The Rise of Kyoshi - FC Yee
Beartown - Fredrik Backman
Girls' Last Tour vol. 3
The Factory - Hiroko Oyamada
Functions and Graphs - Gelfand, Glagoleva, Schnol
Invincible, Ultimate collection vol. 1-8
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)

-snip-

Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0.33/6 (click to show/hide)

Girls' Last Tour vol. 3

Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 2/4 (click to show/hide)

The Shape of Space - Weeks
Functions and Graphs - Gelfand, Glagoleva, Schnol

Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love
Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it can Transform Schools and Classrooms - Feldman
Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation - Ebony Omotola McGee
The Psychology of Learning Mathematics - Skemp

Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
American Prison - Shane Bauer
Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller
Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of our Time - James Kilgore

Spoiler: Other books, 48/0 (click to show/hide)

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
The City We Became - NK Jemisin
Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard
Ping Pong Omnibus, Vol. 1 - Taiyo Matsumoto
Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua
The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
The Echo Wife - Sarah Gailey
Cetaganda - Lois McMaster Bujold
Magic for Liars - Sarah Gailey
How to kill a city - Peter Moskowitz
Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri
Leviathan - Boris Akunin
Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
An Indigenous People's History of the United States - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Hexarchate Stories - Yoon Ha Lee
Raven Strategem - Yoon Ha Lee
Ethan of Athos - Lois McMaster Bujold
Double Take - Kevin Michael Connolly
Revenant Gun - Yoon Ha Lee
The Rise of Kyoshi - FC Yee
Beartown - Fredrik Backman
The Factory - Hiroko Oyamada
Invincible, Ultimate collection vol. 1-8
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks

Feeling pretty good about my reading this month, especially having finished a Japanese book and a math book. I'm also partway through a number of other books and am working on getting through The Scholars.

[Vector]

Update for the month of September.

Komi Can't Communicate Vol. 1
Girls' Last Tour Vol. 4
"Borders of Infinity" - Lois McMaster Bujold
Brothers in Arms - Lois McMaster Bujold
Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold
Shards of Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold
Barrayar - Lois McMaster Bujold
Hunt, Gather, Parent - Michaeleen Doucleff
Bowling Alone - Robert Putnam

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)

-snip-

Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0.66/6 (click to show/hide)

Girls' Last Tour vol. 3
Girls' Last Tour Vol. 4

Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 2/4 (click to show/hide)

The Shape of Space - Weeks
Functions and Graphs - Gelfand, Glagoleva, Schnol

Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love
Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it can Transform Schools and Classrooms - Feldman
Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation - Ebony Omotola McGee
The Psychology of Learning Mathematics - Skemp

Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
American Prison - Shane Bauer
Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller
Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of our Time - James Kilgore

Spoiler: Other books, 56/0 (click to show/hide)

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
The City We Became - NK Jemisin
Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard
Ping Pong Omnibus, Vol. 1 - Taiyo Matsumoto
Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua
The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
The Echo Wife - Sarah Gailey
Cetaganda - Lois McMaster Bujold
Magic for Liars - Sarah Gailey
How to kill a city - Peter Moskowitz
Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri
Leviathan - Boris Akunin
Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
An Indigenous People's History of the United States - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Hexarchate Stories - Yoon Ha Lee
Raven Strategem - Yoon Ha Lee
Ethan of Athos - Lois McMaster Bujold
Double Take - Kevin Michael Connolly
Revenant Gun - Yoon Ha Lee
The Rise of Kyoshi - FC Yee
Beartown - Fredrik Backman
The Factory - Hiroko Oyamada
Invincible, Ultimate collection vol. 1-8
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
Komi Can't Communicate Vol. 1
"Borders of Infinity" - Lois McMaster Bujold
Brothers in Arms - Lois McMaster Bujold
Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold
Shards of Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold
Barrayar - Lois McMaster Bujold
Hunt, Gather, Parent - Michaeleen Doucleff
Bowling Alone - Robert Putnam

whoo.

I'm definitely not going to make my yearly goals, and I guess that has to be ok.

[Vector]

Update for the month of October.

The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo
Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold
Komarr, Lois McMaster Bujold
Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony, Mira Ong Chua
A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)

-snip-

Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)

-zip-

Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0.66/6 (click to show/hide)

Girls' Last Tour vol. 3
Girls' Last Tour Vol. 4

Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 2/4 (click to show/hide)

The Shape of Space - Weeks
Functions and Graphs - Gelfand, Glagoleva, Schnol

Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love
Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it can Transform Schools and Classrooms - Feldman
Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation - Ebony Omotola McGee
The Psychology of Learning Mathematics - Skemp

Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
American Prison - Shane Bauer
Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller
Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of our Time - James Kilgore

Spoiler: Other books, 61/0 (click to show/hide)

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho
Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
The City We Became - NK Jemisin
Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard
Ping Pong Omnibus, Vol. 1 - Taiyo Matsumoto
Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua
The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
The Echo Wife - Sarah Gailey
Cetaganda - Lois McMaster Bujold
Magic for Liars - Sarah Gailey
How to kill a city - Peter Moskowitz
Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri
Leviathan - Boris Akunin
Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
An Indigenous People's History of the United States - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Hexarchate Stories - Yoon Ha Lee
Raven Strategem - Yoon Ha Lee
Ethan of Athos - Lois McMaster Bujold
Double Take - Kevin Michael Connolly
Revenant Gun - Yoon Ha Lee
The Rise of Kyoshi - FC Yee
Beartown - Fredrik Backman
The Factory - Hiroko Oyamada
Invincible, Ultimate collection vol. 1-8
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
Komi Can't Communicate Vol. 1
"Borders of Infinity" - Lois McMaster Bujold
Brothers in Arms - Lois McMaster Bujold
Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold
Shards of Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold
Barrayar - Lois McMaster Bujold
Hunt, Gather, Parent - Michaeleen Doucleff
Bowling Alone - Robert Putnam
The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo
Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold
Komarr, Lois McMaster Bujold
Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony, Mira Ong Chua
A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold

74 books read so far this year ...

I don't know how I'm going to rejigger my reading goals for next year, but it's clear to me that this didn't exactly work. That's OK. I learned enough about prison to put my knowledge into practice, and I'm definitely doing better at reading books I like instead of just. Plowing through books because they're ~around~.

Next year, I want to do regular Japanese reading as part of preparation for the JLPT, but it's clear to me that I need to master more kanji and vocab first to make that a reasonable habit; getting through the rest of Wanikani first would really help. I also think it needs to be more about the regular habit and less about the absolute number of books.

I want to read more challenging texts -- not meaning hard, but ones that I will have to change my perspective in order to accommodate. And I want to engage with them more. Write about them maybe, think about what they have to say.

I want to keep reading down my paper TBR list and read more books that I really enjoy, not just MFA program detritus.

I want to read another batch of educational texts next year. Four texts seemed reasonable to me for a year's goal.

I think I might wait on the Great Chinese Classics. They're very long and unwieldy. I might try to just read one next year. On the other hand, this year was very hard on a lot of levels and January through August were basically a wash. I'm not sure what's possible.

It would be neat to translate some poetry ...

[Caz]

i dont think i read a book in 3 months except for bits of journey to ixtlan

[Cthulhu]

Been reading mostly non-fiction lately, important to note I rarely finish nonfiction books.

Finished:
The first two earthsea books and Lathe of Heaven, all good.

The F-Word, a book arguing the US is fascist.  Good.  This one's weird cause it seems like a common line of argument nowadays but it's by David McGowan the conspiracy guy and it goes in that direction.  A lot of strange or verifiably wrong shit but some interesting thoughts.  His thoughts on WW2 are especially interesting, he basically argues that the war was Germany vs the USSR with western europe as an afterthought, and that America entered the war entirely to contain the USSR and preserve as much of Nazi Germany as possible, which mostly tracks.  Generally a lot of false things, and a lot of speculation and extrapolation of true things, until it's hard to tell what's real and what's not.  Fun book though, also interesting because it's a book on the American police state and global imperialism published like three months before 9/11.  The author was one of the first, maybe the first person to publish inside job theories online. 

Death Wish by some guy.  The book the movie is based on.  Weird.  Looking at the author apparently he intended a celebration of vigilantism and lots of racially-coded stuff about "thugs" and "gangs" etc. but it seemed critical to me.  A book about a guy whose feelings of helplessness and emasculation boil over until he lashes out and becomes the same kind of psycho criminal his family was victimized by.  Notably early on he's enraged when someone implies it was his wife's fault for trusting her attackers when they knocked on the door.  Later he sees some teens walking by and thinks to himself they shouldn't dress like hoodlums because he might shoot them.  The way his viewpoint inverts like this made me feel like the book was more nuanced than "it's good to go out and murder criminals" but with the author it's hard to say.

Currently Reading:  Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  This one's kind of impossible to briefly summarize, but I think most people have heard of it.  A group of seven people journey to the backwater colony world of Hyperion on a pilgrimage to its mysterious "time tombs."  These pilgrimages happen periodically but this will probably be the last one because of Circumstances.  Along the way each one tells a story about their connections to Hyperion.  It's the Decameron but in space, and this description doesn't really do it justice, it's a Dune-tier weird sci-fi epic.

Books I partly read but didn't finish:

A shitload of them, can't remember all of them and don't feel like summarizing.  Most recently Hannah Arendt's book on antisemitism, Seeing Like a State, a book on Afghanistan, a bunch of stuff.