Jasper Was Here

Yeah yeah yeah, I need to write up a summary before posting this, I know. I brag about how many books I've read this year (90 books total) and how many pages that equals (19,731 pages total) and whatever else. It's the same spiel I give at the end of every year now. The important part here is that I overhauled how I sorted and categorized my books, which will hopefully help with conveying the finishing numbers. I've combined and removed categories - we are no longer separating things based on sci-fi or fantasy being Earth-based or secondary world, western and historical and contemporary are all in the same chunk, and somehow the science fantasy category is still alive. As usual, I will only be listing my 9s and 10s from my 10 point ranking system, giving us 42 books (which is 35 unique entries thanks to the few manga volumes I picked up for various series). Most of my thoughts on books I've been reading can be found on my jasper-book-stash Tumblr blog . Scie...

Sooo, I didn't read as many books this year as I did last year (103 compared to 130), but I still read a significant number of books. Once again, we're here to talk about my 9 or 10 out of 10 books, and each book is broken down into a personal category that I use on my spreadsheet, which does not reflect every genre a book could fall under. I chose what I believed to be the stronger presence of any particular category to determine where the book goes. I actually had to add a few more categories than I had last year! NONFICTION Ancient Egyptian Literature, volume I: The Old And Middle Kingdoms & Ancient Egyptian Literature, volume II: The New Kingdom | Miriam Lichtheim (two parts of a trilogy) Braiding Sweetgrass For Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, And The Teachings Of Plants | Robin Wall Kimmerer, Monique Gray Smith, Nicole Neidhardt Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts On Crime, Punishment, And The Rule Of Law | Preet Bharara Feng Shui Mode...

So here's the thing. I've read a lot of books this year. 130, to be exact. But not all of them were...good. I read a bunch of books that I consider "good with caveats" books, a bunch of middling books, and then some absolute shits. But we're not here about the dumpster fires, we're here about the ones I actually like.   This is a great place to kick off 2024, considering I'm diving into a reading challenge for January and February. Each book is broken down into a personal category that I use on my spreadsheet, which does not reflect every genre a book could fall under (e.g. Legends & Lattes falling under both "second world fantasy" and "romance" or Snow White with the Red Hair also falling under both). I chose what I believed to be the stronger presence of any particular category to determine where the book goes. Every book here has earned either a 9 or 10 on my spreadsheet. NONFICTION 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do | Kate Sloa...