Mr. Burke's Reading List

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, January 1973 Update the photo I am trying this again. I gave up in July because I couldn't keep up with it and read other things -- in particular, I started the Expanse series. And if there's a double whammy to be found, it's this: I currently have a 500+ day streak of reading on my Kindle app. I know, it's stupid to track this, but it is being tracked and I want to see how long I can keep it up. Keep in mind, I have be away to weekend conventions and keep the streak going. However, the app doesn't seem to count reading PDF files as reading. I thought that had changed, but I found out a few days ago that I was mistaken. Luckily, I discovered this by 11:30 pm, so I had some time left. As for the issues that I missed, I imagine that they are going to stay missed. The most likely -- and it isn't very likely -- is that I skim through for familiar names and read a handful of stories from the six previo...

The Sea Beast Takes a Lover: Stories by Michael Andreasen (2018) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This was a book club selection. On Good Reads, I gave this three stars. I would've gven it 2 but it's written better than any of the dreck I've given 2 stars to. But it sits in the "What the Hell Did I Just Read?" pile. Here's what I remember of the stories (after refreshing my memories with the Good Reads reviews): The lead-off story is "Our Fathers At Sea", which I was reading thinking it had something to do with the Sea Beast of the book's title. It does not. Once I got past that, I was just trying to comprehend the whole "crating" ceremony, which turned out to be exactly what it sounded like. When men get to a certain age, they are boxed up and dropped into the sea "in an u...

Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them by Dan Saladino (2022) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) Note that this was finished a couple months ago, in 2022, but for some reason didn't write the blog entry. WOW I actually read a 2022 book in 2022. It must've been brand-new when I heard about it on NPR and first got it from the library. I heard Saladino interviewed on NPR on Saturday morning (on The Splendid Table , I believe -- I was out walking). THe book sounded interesting so I reserved a copy. The ebook might not have been available yet, so I had the hardcover, which I carried back and forth to work for a while and even sat in my yard over the summer reading it. Then I learned that the ebook existed, and I finished the book faster after that. Basically, the book traces the hist...

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum (1902) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) Note that this was finished in 2022, but I didn't catch up on the final reviews of the year. I grew up at the perfect time to watch all the Rankin/Bass Christmas (and other holiday) specials. And yet despit that, I only saw The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus for the first time just a few years ago. It's the pinnacle of their storytelling ability. No songs, just pure fantasy. Some time after this, I discovered that it was based on a book by L. Frank Baum (the Oz guy, don't you know). This year I decided to get a copy. It's been in public domain for a while. A baby is found by Forest of Burzee by Ak, the Master Woodsman of the World. Burzee is home to immortals and no human has ever set foot there. He places ...

It was an interesting year for reading. It started one way and morphed into something else. I read a lot of short stories early on, and moved on to more novels. And there were things from the past that came back, some of which weren't listed in the blog last year, but will get a mention here. Novels, Novellas, and Short Story Collections/Anthologies Of the 25 books listed below, all but 1 was read to completion. And one was utter garbage. A few were anthologies and a couple were novellas in book form. I think every single one of them was an e-book, except for The Dream Peddler which was partly read in paperback and mostly listened to as an audiobook. Surprisingly, only 8 of them are Book club selections, and one was the runner up for a book from the previous year. I don't know why it's only 8. The Expanse series mucked up my schedule a little bit. Miracle of Deck 34 and Other Yuletide Tales (Olsen/Ashby) The Witch of the North Pole (Snow) Beyond the Waterfa...