Book Chain, weeks 37 & 38

#33: Read a book that is newer than the previous book.

If I wanted a sign that I should read the sequel to Imperium, there might not be a clearer one. However, there was a waiting list for it at the library, so I went with a book I could borrow straight away:

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang, art by Gurihiri. Also my pick for October ("Violence") in the Buzzwords challenge.( Read more... )

#34: Read a book that is shorter than the previous book.

The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho. Also my random book pick for February.( Read more... )

#35: Read a book whose cover matches the previous book.

The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop. Not a book it would ordinarily have occurred to me to look twice at, but the covers really are remarkably similar.( Read more... )

Week in review: Week to 29 November

. Having finished last week's post by saying I was feeling well-rested and energetic for the first time in a while, I immediately came down with the Dreaded Lurgi, which has been hanging around all week trying out various combinations of coughs, sneezes, and interesting mucus. ( Read more... )

. Consequently of the lurgi, I had to miss the weekly board game meet again this week.

I did, in the brief space on the weekend before the lurgi struck, get to play some board games with friends, including Hellboy: The Board Game. ( Read more... )

. On the plus side, I got a lot of reading done -- which is just as well, because I signed up for an unwise number of reading challenges this year, and had fallen badly behind on several of them. Apart from the progress on the Book Chain, I also caught up on the Buzzwords challenge and made up some ground on the monthly random challenge.

For the September Buzzwords prompt ("Events"), I read Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, an Australian classic I'd never read with a famous film adaptation I've never seen. ( Read more... )

For the November Buzzwords prompt ("Never"), I read The Man Who Never Was, Ewen Montagu's memoir of his involvement in Operation Mincemeat, a deception operation carried out during the Second World War ( Read more... )

This made me curious enough to check whether there were any more recent and complete accounts available, and Libby had Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat, so I went straight on and read that as well. ( Read more... )

For the October random book selection, I'm reading The Deeper Meaning of Liff, "a dictionary of things there aren't any words for yet, but there ought to be" by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. ( Read more... )

. I've been vaguely intending for some time to expand my exercise repertoire beyond a brisk walk, and one of the things I've been considering trying out is Zombies, Run!, an app which makes your exercise part of an ongoing story about a small group of humans trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.( Read more... )

. On an evening when I didn't feel like reading, I watched an episode of The Muppet Show -- which turned out to be the one where they have to try and keep the show going without Kermit because he's at home with the flu.