September 2021 Reading Wrap-Up

Twenty. Four. Things. Let's do this.

THINGS MENTIONED

MAGICAL READATHON BOOKS

01:25 Conspirator by C.J. Cherryh

02:39 A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

05:30 Succulents and Spells by Andi C. Buchanan

06:37 The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison

08:23 The Day of the Triffids

The Chrysalids (both by John Wyndham)

08:57 Star Nomad by Lindsay Buroker

OTHER FICTION / NON-FICTION

10:14 Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems

11:48 Defying Doomsday and Rebuilding Tomorrow

12:43 Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh

14:49 Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge (translated by Jeremy Tiang)

16:40 Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

17:14 Diamonds and Daggers
Herringbones and Hexes
Ribbing and Runes (all by Nancy Warren)

THE ROMANCE NOVEL BINGE

19:12 The Princess Trap by Talia Hibbert

21:16 The Love Study by Kris Ripper

23:38 The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

26:59 The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by K.J. Charles

29:05 Something Human by A.J. Demas

31:10 Sword Dance
Saffron Alley
Strong Wine (all by A.J. Demas)

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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[TheBookFinch]

I really need to get my hands on A Psalm for the Wild-Built! It sounds delightful.

[bethd]

One of the things I love about following this channel is that I feel like we have very similar tastes in books. I also *loved* A Psalm for the Wild-Built, The Goblin Emperor, and The Witness for the Dead! Psalm made me cry, mostly because the concept of "My existence is enough" was something I needed to read. Your recommendations are very helpful to me, especially in terms of romances! I'm also very interested in both anthologies, and will note them down for the future.

Thank you so much for this channel and your reactions and reviews!

[Kim_Traveling_in_Books]

I reread The Goblin Emperor this month, and I loved it just as much as the first couple of times I read it. It's just so warm, and I want to give Maia a hug. I can never put it down when I start.

[TheSkepticalCat]

I saw on Goodreads that you had read Sword Dance, so I clicked on the synopsis, bought it, and read the whole trilogy in less than a week. I loved it!

[SongWitch]

I listen to The Goblin Emperor on audio every year, so A Witness For The Dead was such an incredible gift - it felt like coming home. It reminded me of a book from Discworld set in Ankh-Morpork. I also LOVED A Psalm for the Wildbuilt as well.

[ThatsSoPoe]

It looks like Sword Dance is currently free on Kindle, so I've gone ahead and picked that first book up to try it. And yay for all the great books this month! Btw, I love your earrings and how they go with your cardigan. So sophisticated and cozy at the same time!

[ReadBecca]

I just read Psalm as well, I really enjoyed the dissatisfaction with work\success, as well as how much it had a commentary on the problems of approaching social justice making assumptions about the affected group.

[FinalBlowJoe]

It's a shame to hear October isn't working out as super productive but having such a great month gives you something really fun to look back on and hope to replicate again. As always there's so many books in this I either have read or, more frequently, want to read. I'm glad you've finished the Vampire Knitting Club series. They were the right book to read at the exact right time; light and easy going and just calm somehow. I suspect I will try something by KJ Charles rather soon. Also I was happy to see Ava wandering about in the background.

[samsonodhiambo]

Hello Rachel, nice video as always and congratulations on a good month of reading. Seeing that you mainly deal in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, I wanted to request if you could do a review of the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin, particularly the first book, A Game of Thrones. It would be nice if we could get your take on the famous fantasy series before Martin releases the penultimate book of the franchise

[LiteratureScienceAlliance]

I feel like if I am going to click with a cozy mystery its going to be with this Vampire Knitting Club series so going to request that my library get the audiobooks so I can try them out!

[johnhaggerty]

I am glad you read the Sonnets aloud : Denise Levertov would tap out the beat or metre of a poem with her students.
YouTube has great actors reciting the Sonnets : Harriet Walter (18) Rebecca Hare (27) John Gielgud (73) Rebecca Night (79)
Juliet Stevenson, Patrick Stewart (116) Alan Rickman, Mairin O'Hagan.

[igorkhavkine]

Hi Rachel. Probably others have also pointed you to _Fermat's Enigma_, but certainly I mentioned it in some older comment. I'm glad to hear that you liked it, and that you were not scared away by some of the technical details in it! If I may, I'll make a couple more recommendations for books that describe great scientific achievements (though not nearly as famous as the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem) while striking a delicate balance between speaking to a general audience and not talking down to it.

The first is _Symmetry and the Monster_ by Mark Ronan, again about mathematics. The general topic is symmetry and how mathematicians understand it. More specifically, it talks about the solution to the problem of "classifying finite simple groups, " of course taking the time to describe what all of that means. But even more, it talks about mathematicians as colorful characters, collectively working on a problem whose history spans centuries.

The second is _Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics_ by Martinus Veltman. This book talks about how physicists have arrived at the modern classification of elementary particles (the famous Standard Model of particle physics), the author having been one of the participants late in that game. I personally like it because it tells this interesting story in an accessible way, sprinkled with a few personal anecdotes, and clearly separates itself from still unconfirmed speculative ideas about fundamental physics that you get for example from books by Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene.

If you ever get to these, I hope you enjoy them too! :-)

[MusingsofaCat]

Have you read the play Proof? If not, I think you might enjoy it 💜

[theyarnnerd]

I love love hypothesis! It was amazing I read it twice in a week lol. Though if you sign up for the authors newsletter she’s sending out the one spicy scene from Adams point of view.

[wordsofclover]

I always find unprotective sex in books so weird. Like WHY! It actually feels madly unrealistic, haha.

[aliciacampos]

Rachel, when I saw the cover of The Love Hypothesis, I thought, yes! A romance with a female lead who is a scientist! I really dislike the fake dating trope, but thought I would give it a try anyway. And then the synopsis says she “kisses the first man she sees”, which just turned me off. Like you, I like stories where competent people behave in rational, competent ways and this sounded like the opposite. I know it’s fluffy romance, but I lost interest. I’m glad you liked it, though. Do you know of any romances with a female scientist protagonist who behaves in a competent way? If you do, I would love your recommendations.

[AccipiterF]

So I don't think A Psalm for the Wild Built is a particularly Millennial story—most generations go through something like this—it's just that in the zeitgeist of Millennial lives, this story is currently very relevant. Anyway, I loved the book too. Really looking forward to the next one, which is way too far away, and like you I hope it is expanded beyond a duology.