Sunday, August 31, 2014

Murchie Plus Books: August 24th to August 30th

The premise: I love my dog. I love books. I bring the two together by photographing my dog with every book I read (except the stuff I get through Marvel Unlimited. Last week, that was War of Kings and the beginning of Realm of Kings. Maybe I should do a separate "Here's what I read on Marvel Unlimited" feature...).

The photos: go live on Instagram as I take 'em and appear here in digest form on Sundays.

A small grey poodle with short hair--Murchie--peeks out from a cave made of a folded-over dark red duvet cover with gold piping. Beside him, diagonally across the bottom right hand corner, is an e-reader with The Door in the Mountain displayed on it. The cover depicts a minotaur kneeling before a green-tinged mountain.

Murchie became camera shy again during the week I spent with THE UNCROWNED KING by Michelle West, so I had to corner him nice and early to get this picture. He uses my duvet to make himself a blanket cave every morning of his life. It's frickin' adorable.

Alas, the book itself--THE DOOR IN THE MOUNTAIN by Caitlin Sweet--didn't quite grab me. After I'd spent somewhat more than two days with the first six chapters, I decided to put it aside. It's by no means a bad book, but I suspect I read it at the wrong time. Bookish withdrawal can be a bitch, even when you know you aren't physically or emotionally ready to dive back in.

Which is to say, I desperately needed to read some short, quick books after my week with THE UNCROWNED KING--except I was also desperate to read more Michelle West. These two conflicting desperations ensured I didn't read much of anything last week.

Sigh.

Murchie sprawls on his side from the upper right and corner diagonally downwards. His front paws are side by side below his chin, and his left ear is flopped upwards. In the opposite corner is the edge of A Fantasy Medley, a small hardcover with a blue-toned forest for cover art.

In fact, the only non-comics, non-audio thing I finished last week was A FANTASY MEDLEY, an anthology edited by Yanni Kuznia. It's 130 pages long and it took me more than two days to read it.

Argh.

I know some of y'all are big on reading slowly, but I hate it. I feel like I'm stagnating if I don't get a good dose of story down me in a timely fashion. The comics helped, but comics offer a different experience than prose fiction. It's the prose fiction experience I'm craving right now, except I can't seem to focus on the printed word well enough to actually drink it in. Talk about frustrating.

Murchie lies on a red tapestry duvet with his head on his paws. In front of him sits an e-reader with Prosperity's cover on its screen. The cover depicts a young black man smiling as he displays two jacks and two aces as well as two more cards tucked up his sleeve. Two other figures of ambiguous ethnicity and gender hover in the background. The cover is primarily in tones of muted purple.

Case in point: PROSPERITY by Alexis Hall. It's great. The writing is dense, allusive, and a ton of fun, while the plot is strongly reminiscent of your standard nineteenth century serial--if your standard nineteenth century serial featured queer folks, airships, and lawless towns suspended miles above the ground.

I started it on Thursday. As of Saturday afternoon, I'm ninety pages in.

That thunking sound? Was my forehead connecting with my desk.

To make matters worse, I could not get Murchie to do anything interesting while the book was near him. He insisted on moping.

Next Week: assuming I ever finish PROSPERITY (and I will finish it; as I said, it's great), I'll read a highly anticipated library book and another volume of the Wheel of Time, at the very least. I'll have a new audiobook to show y'all, too; for real this time! I should be in a position to start some new nonfiction, too.

4 comments:

  1. Awwwwwww. What a cute puppy! He's still cute when he's moping. If anything, cuter!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I call him Puddledog because he reminds me of Puddleglum; which is to say, his moping is adorable. It makes me want to cuddle his face (though to be fair, I always want to cuddle his face).

      Delete
  2. Ugh, I feel you on the reading at a slug's pace! I'm floating between not reading at all and reading SUPER SLOW (I'm three days into The Headless Cupid and it's less than 200 pages wtf) and I hate ittttttt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's me exactly. Part of me is like, "Well, I'm reading a chunkster, so of course it's going to take longer." Except I don't seem to be able to read short books any more quickly. :( I've even slowed down on the comics front.

      Delete