Weird and meta and very very tasty.
(40, 41; O6, O7)
8, by Dustin Lance Black (full-cast unabridged audio)
This was... a bit odd. Very well-read by the very famous full cast, and it made its points clearly and movingly. But it's an odd experience to listen to a play that is mostly based on court transcripts - really blurs the fiction/non-fiction divide.
(42)
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese (ARC)
A marvelous and delightful book, with fascinating characters and lots of plot. It felt like magical realism, but it almost never was. I can't imagine why I didn't read this when it came out!! (Oh, wait, yes I can, it's because I started studying for the GREs only a little while after I received the ARC...)
(43, A2)
Second Nature, by Michael Pollan
One of his pre-famous books - a collection of essays. Slow and thinky and occasionally overwrought, but there was a lot to like in it too.
(44, O8)
Lucifer, vol. 3: A Dalliance with the Damned, vol. 4: The Divine Comedy, vol. 5: Inferno, vol. 6: Mansions of the Silence, vol. 7: Exodus, vol. 8: The Wolf Beneath the Tree, vol. 9: Crux, vol. 10: Morningstar, and vol. 11: Evensong, by Mike Carey et al
Generally speaking, if you see that I've read an entire run of comic trades in a very short time, it's a good sign that I loved them. That is definitely the case here. Not AMAZING, but very very satisfying indeed. I will be buying these to keep when the trade paperbacks start coming out next summer, because I expect to reread them more than once.
(45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53)
The Antagonist, by Lynn Coady
As Important Literary Novels go, this one surprised me by being both an easy read and quite funny. And then once it'd slipped its way past my defenses, it got down to Serious Emotional Business. Very good indeed.
(54)
Canadian Railroad Trilogy, song by Gordon Lightfoot, illustrations by Ian Wallace
Charming, and the art was lovely, but... it won't stick with me, to be honest. I was gratified to be reminded of my favorite line from this song, "livin' on stew and drinking bad whiskey," which, at some point in my past (high school maybe?) was my stock response to "How are you?"
(55)
Guard Your Daughters, by Diana Tutton
Sometimes charming, sometimes hilarious, sometimes profound, sometimes moving. It was too clunky, awkward, or emotionally implausible at other times for me to love it, but I'm awfully glad I read it anyway.
(56)
