i can't really sing, so

I actually read a lot in these two months, despite it being the end of of my first semester as a PhD student and then the holidays, and I'm glad I did so. Here's what I read to finish out 2015: A True History of the Captivation, Transport to Strange Lands, & Deliverance of Hannah Guttentag by Josh Russell This was a text we read for one of my classes since it's "about" a grad student. It was good; it had its flaws, some of which we discussed in class. I liked the characters I was supposed to like; I didn't like the characters I wasn't supposed to like. I was surprised where I was supposed to be surprised. I definitely enjoyed reading it, but I can't help but read "like an editor" at times, and there were things, had I been on the other side of this book, that I would have liked to ask the writer to reconsider. Sometimes I wonder if the things I dislike are things an editor had a hand in moving in the direction that they wound up in--li...

As promised, back in action this May. I read a whole bunch. I "caught up" with my Goodreads Challenge and then some. And that's not even including all the rereads! I was the reread Queen this April and am still going strong-- I'm not going to blog about them, but I'm in the middle of rereading the Harry Potter series. I read most of the books each a couple times back in the day, but it's been at least since the summer of 2007 since I read any of them-- so that's a good 7 years ago. I forget if I wanted to wait 10 or what until I reread, but my husband and I have been watching the movies. I really felt a strong need to reread the books to "get straight" a lot of what the movie ruins/gets wrong. The deeper into the series I go, the more I notice the movie's lack of that UMPH that makes the books The Best. They really are so fucking good. But I digress. Back to what I read  this month outside of being in the throes of the HP series as the month ...

I began doing this every two months because at one point I was reading very little & had very little time to shout about the very little I was reading. I always want to blog more than I actually do, to turn my blog into a better way to communicate my ideas, especially on the culture that I consume. But it isn't something I prioritize. I'm not sure why. Anyway, as usual, the writing about each book below shouldn't be read as reviews of these titles, but thoughts/feelings on them generally. JULY Darling Beastlettes by Gina Abelkop :: Gina sent me this book in the mail, and I read it this summer because it has been sitting on my bedside table for awhile. It was under a couple of other books that are still on my bedside table that I haven't begun or started, including a tome of Joseph Brodsky's poem, for which I have one poem left to read but it's very long and I can't bring myself to find time to really concentrate on it. I'm not sure why I didn...