Favorite recent reads

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin (2015). One of the best and definitely most innovative fantasy novels I’ve read in ages. In the world of this novel every few hundred years a cataclysm so earth-shattering and violent occurs that it wipes out most of the planet’s population. Because of these “fifth seasons” the world […]

Favorite books from the last five years

A selection of the best books I’ve read in recent years, as logged in my most recent five-year diary. I looked back at the book log in my first five-year diary as well, but that book list reads more like a combination of things I barely remember and classic favorites I’m ready to revisit. Anyway […]

Notebooks and inspired writing

When inspiration is abundant writing is the easiest thing in the world for me. Not to mention the most fun. If I’m in an inspired groove the words can just flow out for hours and hours, NaNoWriMo days clocking in at 10k words, and the words are good. But sometimes, (often), getting there isn’t so easy […]

NaNoWriMo is coming

The very exciting month of November is almost upon us! Exciting for me because November is National Novel Writing Month. For those unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo is a writing challenge that was started nearly 20 years ago by some cool folks in San Francisco and has grown into an international event with over 400,000 participants each year. The […]

Some fun non-fiction I’ve been reading

The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family,by Mary S. Lovell. The most famous sister in this famous family was Nancy Mitford, author of Love in a Cold Climateand The Pursuit of Love,some of the funniest and most fun books I’ve read in recent years. Lots of the stories and humor in Nancy’s novels were […]

Pioneers and family history

I happen to have in my possession a copy of a family history account written by my great-grandaunt (my father’s mother’s father’s sister), that just kind of blew my mind. First off, it amazes me what a short distance I can go back in my family tree and find someone homesteading in “Indian country” and […]

Some interesting dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction

The Circle,by Dave Eggers. Definitely the most relevant dystopia as this is a future that is almost, hauntingly, already here. The main character goes to work at a Google-like company where everyone’s lives become ever more accessible and transparent, until it reaches an intolerable point. Transparency is a a good thing, but how much is […]

Books I’ve been reading (and recommendations)

I know I’m a little (very) late to this party, but The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World is fully mind-blowing. The introduction alone put new, exciting thoughts in my head that I’ve been mulling over ever since and that have made me look at plants in a whole new way (and I already […]