Howling Frog Books

Dawn , by Octavia Butler When I looked through the library SF collection for older books to read in January, I came across this too, and I remembered that somebody in the book blogger universe had reviewed it very positively a little while ago, so I grabbed it too.   Dawn is the first book in the "Xenogenesis" series, and I'm really interested to see how it goes; this was a fascinating read. Lilith is one of the few survivors of an all-Earth war that rendered the planet uninhabitable.  She wakes up alone, in the cell of a spaceship.  Aliens have taken her and some few hundred other survivors and kept them in hibernation for long years, until Earth is again ready for habitation.  Their species survives by trading DNA with other species every so often, and they plan to help humans re-establish life on earth -- but human children will no longer be quite human.  Lilith is expected to learn survival skills and become the leader of a group, but she's also exp...

Well, the world might not be going too well just now but my reading year was pretty good, so let's focus on that for a bit. I read about 145 books , not counting fluffy mysteries and such.  I don't keep track of fiction vs. non-fiction or male vs. female authors or anything, so I haven't got any more statistics.  Literary highlights of the year included real-life events like a trip to the UK and meeting a favorite author, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I have a terrible time picking favorites, but a few great reads this year were: Something Wicked This Way Comes The Invisible Library Gentian Hill Our Town The Big Green Tent Before We Visit the Goddess The Shepherd's Crown Outwitting History Stonehenge The Importance of Being Little How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind The History of the Franks  The World Between Two Covers The Lost Art of Dress The Broken Road Home Fires Up From Slavery With challenges , I am pretty happy with how I did...

The Scorpion Rules , by Erin Bow I really liked Erin Bow's first book, Plain Kate , so when I figured out that this book everyone was talking about was by Erin Bow, I finally went and got it.  It lived up to the hype, too! Hundreds of years in the future, the world is kept mostly at peace by a hostage system: if you plan to rule a country, you must give up your child.  If you go to war (or are attacked), the child dies.  Talis, the super-computer that took over ruling the world when it decided that people were no good at it, is very strict about this. Greta is the crown princess of the Pan-Polar Confederation (mostly Canada) and she has lived most of her life at the Precepture school with the other hostage children.  She is prepared to die if necessary, but hopes that with her 18th birthday only months away, she'll live to leave the school and become an adult.  When a new hostage, Elian, arrives, he is in no way accustomed to living according to the stri...

*Deep breath*  OK, are you ready for a completely insane idea?  This is not a challenge; this is a long project.  Here we go.... There are nearly 200 countries on our planet; let's see if we can read books from all of them!  Or, since that's a large commitment, pick 50, 100, or whatever, as long as you have a minimum of 50. I've been wishing for a while for some sort of project that involves reading something from every country, but this is a tricky prospect, since it is not always easy to find books from some countries.  Clearly this isn't something that will fit into a year-long challenge -- not for most of us!  So Esther of Chapter Adventures and I got together and thought a more long-term, open-ended project would be a good plan.  Esther designed this brilliant image! The basic rules:  Pick 50+ countries or go for the gold with all of them! The number depends on you. Sign up at the project page here. Read either fiction by a wr...

Karen at Books and Chocolate hosts the Back to the Classics challenge!  A wrap-up post is required, so here we go. I completed all twelve categories!  So I get three entries into the prize drawing, woohoo.  Here is my list: 1.   A 19th Century Classic-- Great Speeches of Frederick Douglass 2.   A 20th Century Classic -- Man's Search for Meaning , by Viktor Frankl   3.   A Classic by a Woman Author . Northanger Abbey , by Jane Austen 4.   A Classic in Translation .  My Childhood , by Maxim Gorky 5.   A classic by a non-white author . Up From Slavery , by Booker T. Washington 6.   An adventure classic   Under the Y oke , by Ivan Vazov 7.   A fantasy, science fiction, or dystopian classic. Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay 8.   A classic detective novel. Brat Farrar , by Jo sephine Tey 9.   A classic which includes the name of a place in the title.   Pi cnic at Hanging Rock , by...

Time for a flurry of challenge wrap-up posts!  Bev at My Reader's Block hosts a TBR challenge every year, and says: Wow. We're almost done with 2016 and it's time to get ready for the Final Mountaineering Checkpoint. Where does the time go? I'm ready to hear how all our mountain-climbing team members have done out there on Pike's Peak, Mt. Ararat, Mt. Everest....whichever peak you've chosen. Checkpoint participation is absolutely voluntary and is not considered necessary for challenge completion. For those who would like to participate in this checkpoint post, I'd like you to at least complete the first of these two things. And if you feel particularly inspired (or generous about humoring me during the holiday season), then please do both. 1. Tell us how many miles you made it up your mountain (# of books read). If you've planted your flag on the peak, then tell us, take a selfie, and celebrate (and wave!). Even if you were especially athletic a...

Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky Gogol wrote a whole lot of short stories, and he kind of did it in two phases of his career.  He started off in Ukraine, so the first half of the stories are called "Ukrainian Tales."  The second half are the "Petersburg Tales," written in the city. Ukrainian tales are mostly pastoral; they take place in villages and on farms, unless someone treks off to Kiev.  They're a bit folky in flavor, and frequently have some supernatural element.  I really enjoyed most of these stories, especially "The Night Before Christmas," where a proud village girl tells her swain that she won't marry him unless he brings her a pair of boots just like the tsaritsa wears -- and so off he goes to do it.  And there was a melancholy, highly realistic story about two neighbors who were the best of friends, until a chance word causes offense, and every time they get close to reconciling, they choose ...