Readers

“I sincerely believe that books don’t live until they’re read. While I think I’d write even if nobody was reading - it’s who I am - I thrive because I know the stories are being brought to life by all of you. In this, stories are a special kind of art, particularly ones written down. Each of you imagines this book, and its characters, a little differently - each of you puts your own stamp on it, making it yours. I don’t think a story is quite finished until that has happened to it - until the dream in my head has become a reality (even if briefly) in yours.

And so this book is yours, as are all of them once you read them. Thank you so much for bringing life to my work, and to the Cosmere.”

Brandon Sanderson, The Sunlit Man, Postscript

2023 Reading Wrap Up

I read a lot of Fantasy this year. A lot of Sanderson and Pratchett and I also discovered Jason Denzel’s work.

Here are screencaps of my stats from Storygraph.

* I’m pretty sure the longest book was also something by Jordan or Sanderson, but the page count stats got mixed up somehow.

I was enjoying this read, but something else took over. Maybe I’ll come back to it sometime.

Along with this being the Year of Sanderson (5 new books from Brandon Sanderson this year) I also decided to start Discworld again. I reread the first few Discworld books and then started working my way forward chronologically..

The Christmasaurus

Our bedtime story game has rapidly leveled up from board books to chapter books.

Right now we’re listening to The Christmasaurus audiobook on Davy’s Yoto radio and reading along in the hardcover.

The audiobook is British and the hardcover we have has been Americanized. I’ve texted changes I’ve noticed to a few friends and realized that this is just the sort of pedantic obsession that should live on the chronofile.

What follows is not an exhaustive list of changes, but those that stick in my mind without taking active notes at bedtime. There is a possibility of human error.

I’ll update this post as we read, but I’ve already ordered a UK hardcover (from Blackwells who offer free shipping to the US.) I find these changes really remove so much British charm.

Ok, time for the pedantry.

• mum → mom

• millimetres → inches

• rubbish → terrible

• tastes like marmite → tastes like chicken

• tele → TV

• school dinner → lunch

• dinner ladies → lunch ladies

• chips → French Fries

• car park → parking lot

• flask → cup

• cutlery → silverware

• wardrobe → closet*

• loo → restroom

• jumper → sweater

• loony → strange

• no mates → (completely cut)

• hell → horrible

• nattering → chattering

• plug hole → drain

• barmy →

• red post box → mailbox

• post → mail

• ickle → little

• it wasn’t anything to do with → it had nothing to do with

• goose pimply → goose bumpy

• cracker in the works → wrench in the plan

• handmade → made

• → horrible

• upon → on

• cinema → theater

• spotty → polka dot

• whilst → while

• pound notes → dollar bills

• holidays → vacations

• takeaway → takeout

• snooker → pool

• dreamt → dreamed

• fairy lights → Christmas lights

• stroppy → spoiled

• opening hours → regular hours

• GET ON! → HURRY UP!

• I guess we should start at the beginning. → Let’s give it a try.

• dressing gown → bathrobe

• the shudders → the shivers

• gawping → gaping

• a maniac with a gun → saving a dinosaur from a hunter

• barmy → out of his mind

• absolutely potty → absolutely zany

• scrummy → scrumptious

• pool → pond

• can’t make people die → can’t hurt people

• take out a teacher → take down a teacher

• said from somewhere → came from somewhere

• they → the boys

• whilst → while

Honestly I was fascinated by this little linguistic differences when I lived in London for a year. Chips to fries and jumper to sweater is almost understandable. And I can’t imagine including hell in a middle grade novel. 🤯 But all together the changes break the story’s sense of place.

The marmite one is particularly worrisome as it completely changes the meaning.

British terms the editor didn’t spot included:

• fairy liquid (a brand of UK dish soap)

• pants (meaning underpants)

There were also some sentence structure changes. Words swapped round.

And there seem to be opposing editorial stances on how often to repeat a character’s name. I found most of these changes ruined the rhythm.

It was clear straightaway that this must be the reason this book (and many others) do not have audiobooks for sale in American Audible. They’ve made too many changes to the text they would have to re-record it. And it wouldn’t even work with an American narrator or a British one by this point. It’s all muddled up.

* Imagine if they’d rewritten Narnia as The Lion, The Witch, and The Closet?! 😡

Wyrd Sisters

On the way to Charleston I read Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.

I loved this quote about the theatre,

“Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact, said Granny.”

and

“Actors had a habit of filling all the space around them.”

Spaceship Earth

I have a long history with Buckminster Fuller (“Bucky”) which I should probably write a blog post about. Learning that he taught at Black Mountain College has brought me full circle and I’ve started reading this book which I bought at a library sale. It’s been on my shelf for years.

Here are some favorite bits from the first chapter.

This is probably more true now than when he wrote this in 1969. We are stuck with so many outdated systems and the process of updating them seems painfully slow.

This first sentence:

My new project, the one this research is driving, is a bit “grand.” This felt like a mentor telling me I wasn’t dreaming too big. That the world is thinking to small (narrowly.)

I think he’s talking about Paulo Freire here who, “introduced the 'banking' concept of education whereby he equated teachers with bank clerks and saw them as 'depositing' information into students rather than drawing out knowledge from individual students or creating inquisitive beings with a thirst for knowledge”. (University of Bedfordshire)

I’ve done a lot of reading on educational theory and pedagogy and all the good stuff points here. (As a nerdy sidebar it’s also an approach that feels very Merlin, “Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.")

Everything comes back to kindling our own curiosity. Even as society wants to stamp it out.

The last part reminds me of submitting my piece about Asynchronous Friendship to an academic journal The editor told me I was neither “fish nor fowl” (solely academic or solely creative).

Why do we have to be one thing or another? Why can’t artists draw from academic studies? Why can’t academics include creative works?

In the end there was more flexibility considering my work a creative piece, but it shows a weakness in academia from my perspective. And I think both Bucky and Black Mountain College would agree.

Together

Vintage Sesame Street books are so wonderful.

These are two pages from The Together Book (1971.)

There’s so much life in the line work. Also I love how you can see it was traditionally illustrated because the yellow paint overlaps the lines on Big Bird and hasn’t been touched up.

WoT & Grishaverse

A couple months ago I finally finished my massive re-read of The Wheel of Time.

Since then I’ve been binge reading the Grishaverse series by Leigh Bardugo. It’s darker than I usually read, but I love her characters. As the cast grows I really relate to so many neurodivergent traits. So that has kept me reading even when the circumstances are grim.

*Content warning, although most of the darkness is not explicit. If you’re a sensitive reader you may want to check out content warnings for each book on Storygraph.

You can get a taste of it via the Netflix series which is rated TV-14.

The storybook Language of Thorns was absolutely gorgeous, and used a clever illustrative style where the images slowly developed over each page. But some of the stories were so traumatic* I left mine in a Little Free Library and I’m not sure if I regret it or not.

*as are many traditional fairy tales to be fair.

Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods

I’ve been reading Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods by Catherynne M. Valente

This is the newest book by author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (one of my all time favorites!) It’s a middle grade book, but equally delightful for adults.

Have a peek…

2017 Reading Wrap Up