Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

2019 Reading challenge

2020-01-03T00:08:11Z

A year ago, the King County Library System posted a reading challenge, the goal of which is to broaden what kinds of books, and what kinds of authors, you read. I decided to give it a try, not counting rereading. (In categories where I have more than one book, these are mostly selected based on having been read first. These are the first I read in each category, or the first :

Read a book about history: The Glass Universe, by Dana Sobel (about pioneering women astronomers who did a lot of the early work on variable stars) .
Read a children’s book: Minor Mage, by T. Kingfisher. I agree with the author that this is a children's book; the editors disagreed, which is why this is listed as by T. Kingfisher instead of Ursula Vernon. (I read a moderate amount of YA, mostly where it overlaps with sf and fantasy.).
Read a book about a subject that can be difficult to discuss: White Fragility: Why It's So Hard to Talk about Race, by Robin DiAngelo.
Read a book of poetry: So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014-2018. (I'd hoped to make this a book by a poet I hadn't read before, but didn't manage that.)
Read a book by a journalist: This was trickier than I expected it to be; Unthinkable, by Helen Thompson, fits here, I think.
Read a book recommended by KCLS library staff: I found Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain, on a KCLS recommended list from a few years ago.
Read a book by an LGBTQ author: This was the easy one, except I needed my first two answers for other categories, leaving That Ain't Witchcraft, by Seanan McGuire.
Read a book about a crime: OK, another easy one. The Poisoner's Handbook, by Deborah Bloom, for nonfiction, and Honest Doubt by Amanda Cross for mystery fiction. (A lot of my 2019 reading was mysteries, but a lot of that was rereading.)
Read a book about family: Deep Roots, by Ruthanna Emrys, is about family, including both birth and chosen families. (This is also by an LGBT author, but I decided that I wouldn't count the same book twice.)
Read a book by an immigrant author: Becky Chambers's Record of a Spaceborn Few.

Conclusion: This didn't work as well as I might have hoped at getting me to read things I otherwise would have. I would have read most of these anyhow: in particular, Deep Roots, Record of a Spaceborn Few, and That Ain't Witchcraft are all continuations of series I was reading and enjoying more or less as they're being published. I also note that if I was asked for a book with LGBTQ themes and/or major characters, I might have picked Catfishing on Catnet or The Raven and the Reindeer, but as far as I know Kritzer and Kingfisher are both heterosexual.

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persimmon, and winter prep (two things make a post?)

2019-11-04T01:35:07Z

I have now tried persimmons (or a persimmon). It was nice but not astonishing; on the other hand, it may not have been entirely ripe. (adrian_turtle tried and like one a few days ago, so bought two at one of the Armenian groceries in Watertown.)

I may get a few, ripen them, and see what I think. (*The Joy of Cooking* confirms that persimmons are always picked unripe.) They're not hard to find, in season. I had been avoiding them out of a vague sense of resentment, I think: Persimmon season is just before clementine season, and from across the street a pile of persimmons on a sidewalk fruit stand looks like clementines, at least to someone who is eager for the latter.

This afternoon I sorted out how we'll handle snow removal here. I had hoped that we could continue whatever arrangement the previous tenants here had with the upstairs neighbor. Valerie came outside this afternoon while I was out there exercising, and I asked her about it. She's entirely happy to keep doing what we have been, and agreed to buy a bag of road salt the next time she's at Home Depot and they have it in stock, since she has a car and we don't.

The plans are for her, or possibly me, to shovel if the snow is very light (she has a snow shovel), for heavier snow to hire a high school student through the town, and if it's very heavy also pay someone with a plow to clear the driveway. The cost of hiring the plow truck is shared with the house next door, because we share a driveway. (I volunteered that cattitude and I would pay a share of that, even though we don't have a car.)

(Our lease says that we and the other apartment are jointly responsible for snow removal; the town of Belmont requires the sidewalks to be cleared, a rule I strongly approve of.

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food: camu camu

2019-05-11T18:38:23Z

cattitude noticed a camu camu flavored soda while we were shopping today, and bought it because we had no idea what it was.

The flavor (at least in this soda) is pleasant and mild, in a vaguely orangey way; Wikipedia says it's a fruit in the rose family. I'm counting this as a new food.

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A reading challenge I may try

2019-01-04T18:35:49Z

The King County library system has posted a "ten to try" challenge for 2019, and it feels like a shape of thing that might work for me:

Read a book about history

Read a children’s book

Read a book about a subject that can be difficult to discuss

Read a book of poetry

Read a book by a journalist

Read a book recommended by KCLS Staff

Read a book by an LGBTQ author

Read a book about a crime

Read a book about family

Read a book by an immigrant author

I'm going to modify/expand the sixth one to "read a book recommended by library staff," for any of the libraries I'm currently using: King County, Minuteman, Boston, or Seattle (in the rough order of how much I'm using each system). Yes, I have four active library cards; at some point King County and Seattle will probably notice I don't live there anymore and stop lending me ebooks, but for now I get monthly emails from KCLS.

Since this is about reading new books, rereads don't count, but I am counting new books by authors I've read before. (I think I've read all of Pablo Neruda, but not all of Le Guin's books of poetry.)

I have just followed a link from KCLS recommends and reserved (in Boston) what appears to be a book of poetry by an immigrant author. I hereby give myself permission to decide which category to count a book in later, if it fits into more than one, but not to count the same book twice. Also, I hope to use this as a sort of guide when looking for things to read, not a constraint: I don't expect all of the next ten books I read to fit these guidelines.

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