Juneblog #5 - Wednesday reads, 10th June

What I've just finished reading:
Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubenstein (re-read)
Ms Marvel vol 2: Generation Why by G Willow Wilson

What I'm reading now:
Buried in the Sky, by Zuckerman and Padoan
Into Thin Air, by Krakauer (re-read)
Cranky Ladies of History, edited by Wessely and Roberts,

What I plan to read next:
The Disappearance of Ember Crow, by Kwaymullina
Mastiff, by Pierce
Downbelow Station, by Cherryh.

... there's a lot more SFF there than historicals, isn't there?

Juneblog #4 - a read/re-read challenge

This was sort of buried in my post about Halfway Across the Galaxy, so I'm putting it out again here and will tweet it and see if anyone joins me.

Speaking of re-reads:  I've (just) decided to do one new read and one re-read of Australian YA Spec Fic this month, and I'd love for you to join me.

My new read is going to be The Disappearance of Ember Crow, second in Ambelin Kwaymullina's awesome Tribe trilogy.  If you haven't read the first, The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, you really must!  Because it's amazing.  (I don't yet know whether you need to have read it before Ember in order to make sense. 

My re-read is going to be Galax-Arena, by Gillian Rubenstein.  It's currently $5 on Kindle, so you can all join in, even if you're living on the other side of the world.  I'm really hoping it lives up to my memories of it.  If it doesn't I'll be devastated - but I will also have killed a bogeyman in the process.

I'm going to do spoiler and non-spoiler posts for both of these: hopefully the non-spoiler post for Galax-Arena will go up tomorrow.

#Juneblog 3 - a random update

And then I went away for the long weekend.

So hi, all.  I'm back.  Was away in Sydney for a wedding and a Sydney Film Festival film and some other things, and although I knew it was going to be busy I guess I didn't realise just how busy.  (I've had to give up my plan of contributing to Twelfth Planet Press's "Letters to Tiptree" because I didn't plan ahead well enough.)

As to bookish things: on Sunday we went into the CBD to do some shopping - and ran into book sales at Dymocks, the ABC Shop and Abbeys/Galaxy.  Our actual goal was Kinokuniya (I wanted to - and did - get Volume 2 of Ms Marvel).  We didn't go too overthetop at the sales - I got a book about Antarctica for my mother, M got a WWII diary and a few books for her classroom library, but book sales are always dangerous.

Our flight home was delayed (in the air) due to fog at our home airport, but this gave me the chance to finish Galax-Arena, vol 2 of Ms Marvel, and another couple of stories from Cranky Ladies of History.  (Galax and Cranky Ladies were on my iPad.)

(I also spent the weekend following the Continuum Con #con11 hashtag.  I really wanted to be there, but the wedding was a commitment that overrode that, and the wedding was awesome.)

Juneblog #2 - Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left

My good friend Subversive Reader wrote a post yesterday about being a Speculative Fiction fan, and in doing so she jolted me into the realization that I had left a very important book off my list of Top Ten SFF books: Robin Klein's Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left.  I quite possibly read that one before I'd even read Beatie Bow, and certainly before the gut-punch of Galaxarena and A Cage of Butterflies.

<--  This is the real cover of HAtGaTL.  It would not convince any current teenager to read it, but most of the modern covers... wouldn't convince me to read it, and that's the important thing, right?

I've just gone and looked on my shelves and although I have two other Robin Klein books there (other favourites, non SFF), I don't have Halfway!  I am shocked!  There was also a sequel, which I'm not sure was released until the TV series was made (which I never watched, so it didn't really exist).  I didn't like the sequel as much, although I can't imagine that I would ever have thrown it - let alone Halfway out.

I probably first read this book when I was younger than X - she was never really "Charlotte" to me.  And now I badly want to re-read it, and will have to see if it's either on a shelf or in a box at my parents' house.  

Speaking of re-reads:  I've (just) decided to do one new read and one re-read of Australian YA Spec Fic this month, and I'd love for you to join me.

My new read is going to be The Disappearance of Ember Crow, second in Ambelin Kwaymullina's awesome Tribe trilogy.  If you haven't read the first, The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, you really must!  Because it's amazing.  (I don't yet know whether you need to have read it before Ember in order to make sense. 

My re-read is going to be Galaxarena, by Gillian Rubenstein.  It's currently $5 on Kindle, so you can all join in, even if you're living on the other side of the world.  I'm really hoping it lives up to my memories of it.  If it doesn't I'll be devastated - but I will also have killed a bogeyman in the process.

Introducing #Juneblog

There is apparently a 'thing' called #blogjune in the Library blogging community.  Personally, I think it would sound far better as #juneblog, like a junebug :-)  And I never was really a library blogger anyway.

But I've neglected this blog for far too long, and my own little #juneblog challenge might be a good way to get back into it.

Honestly, I don't have a particular theme in mind.  I just want to get back into regular blogging.  I'm thinking that I'll try to alternate between SFF (what is at the top of my head right now) and historicals (what this blog is meant to be mostly about.)

Because I didn't get around to posting last night, this is going to be my June 1 post, and there'll be an actual, substantive post this afternoon for June 2.  And I'll go on from there.

So - welcome to Juneblog!