My recent reading seems to have been mostly fantasy and biographies – only one of which is typical!

My television watching has influenced my reading a bit lately.  I watched The Crown, which made me want to read a biography of Churchill, so I picked up Gretchen Rubin’s book, 40 Ways to Look at Winston Churchill.  I love her Happiness Project, but I’m sorry to report this concept didn’t work for me.  It’s more or less 40 brief essays on different aspects of Churchill, and since the whole idea is to present conflicting views, she doesn’t contextualize or give relative weight to different ideas enough.  There ended up being a lot of seemingly contradictory things and I didn’t know how to interpret them.  It is vaguely satisfying to have read this, though, after first seeing her mention it in The Happiness Project ten years or so ago.

I also read a biography of Mister Rogers, The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King.  My toddler is very into Mister Rogers at the moment, and I’ve been enjoying watching the show with him.  There were no huge revelations in here (Mister Rogers really was as he seems) but some interesting backstory, especially in how he developed the concept of his TV show and the principles behind it.

Over in the fantasy realm, I read a good duology, Spellbreaker and Spellmaker by Charlie N. Holmberg.  A late Victorian fantasy, it has the very distinctive feel of historical fiction set in that time, with a cool magic system and a good romance.

I started another fantasy series as well, Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim, which starts out as a kind of fantasy Project Runway and then turns into a quest story in the second half of the book.  It also had the very distinctive feel of a particular type of YA fantasy – very different from Victorian fantasy, but equally recognizable!  I have the sequel already from the library and plan to read it soon.

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree felt significantly more original.  It’s the story of an orc who gives up adventuring to open a coffee shop.  I love that premise and this was a fun, rather cozy book, although at times I wished the stakes were a little higher.  Three chapters on developing cinnamon rolls was maybe a little much, but mostly this was a lovely found family story, with a lot of discussion of coffee and pastries.

And finally, I did read one science fiction book, The Scavenger Door by Suzanne Palmer, finishing the Finder trilogy I’ve been reading.  This one seemed at times like a long scavenger hunt, but I enjoyed it, especially the further development of the characters.  As far as I know, there isn’t a fourth one planned, but I’ll read it if it turns up!

I’ve just started a new and very intriguing fantasy that’s somewhat similar in premise to The Sudden Appearance of Hope (where I liked the premise better than where it went), so hopefully I’ll have an interesting update for next month too!