Finished reading The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, which was recommended by one of the owners of the new bookstore. I super-enjoyed this, based on Russian mythology, about a girl who can see spirits at a time when Christianity was driving them away. I wasn’t fully hooked until about halfway through, but then devoured the rest of the book.
Finished reading The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. This book managed the neat trick of being, simultaneously, a sci-fi novel, a thriller, and a romance novel, and pretty good at all three.
Sometimes I entertain myself by explaining today’s world to Samuel Pepys. This book has taken some of that work off my shoulders, for a little while.
Finished reading The Wordhord by Hana Videen. This was a fun amble through some Old English vocabulary, not especially deep or challenging, but fun and interesting.
Finished reading Polostan by Neal Stephenson. Even though I was warned that it was a surprisingly-normal-sized book, I was surprised by its very normal size. That turns out to be a bit deceptive though: The story is very clearly unfinished at the end of the book (though many parts are wrapped up nicely). Two more of these and it’ll feel like a more typical Stephenson opus.
The annual reading report.