Still hibernating. Book recommendations, please.
I didn’t do an old year wrap-up because December 31 was a Really Bad Day mental-health-wise for reasons that have nothing to do with Life In General.
The new year isn’t starting off so swell either, what with a “We know you signed up for the same health insurance as always but we changed it on you anyway” surprise email, which throws a Big Ol’ monkey wrench into General Life Engine. (We are insured. It’s all good. It’s just all the questions of is my doctor covered, hunting down a new doc if he isn’t, how does this new plan work with deductibles, etc etc, etc. Unknowns suck.)
So I’m not in the headspace to do a “My big plans for 2025!” post either.
Instead, I’m gonna ask you to look at this sad, blank blackboard & help me find happy, new books to list on it.
This lovely blackboard easel with a roll of butcher paper at the top is my TBR list. It is empty. I would like to change that.
I don’t have a physical To-Read pile, since I only read on tablets & other screens. (my eyes stubbornly refuse to get better with age, much to my annoyance)
Now, I love my ereader. Carrying a whole library in my backpack at the low. low weight of 8 oz. is a wonder of the modern world.
But there is a downside. Okay, lots of downsides, although most are enshittification ones, not tech ones. The issue I’m focusing on right now is the human one of “out of sight out of mind,” combined with the ebook one of less-than-robust sorting options/no easy way to flag specific titles to the top of the library list.
One good thing about a physical TBR stack is that it’s VISIBLE.
So. A couple of times a year, more or less, I write the names of new books I want to read — not the Nebula & Hugo award nominees for the year, or not necessarily those, as they are already on lists — but titles I’m afraid I will forget if I don’t write them somewhere that I can’t lose.
Once I’ve read the book, I can cross it off & move on to another one. And I can rewrite the list & add new titles once it’s mostly complete.
Crossing things off lists is exceedingly satisfying. I started using the board after I did a “new year, let’s do some electronic tidying up for funnies” session and discovered I had collected a couple dozen unread books in my reader that I really, really had wanted to read…only I forgot about the new one
And just so y’all know I didn’t ONLY read/reread Grace Burrows regency romance novels last year, here’s an incomplete list of the new books I read, according to my records. Not all SFF, but mostly. Not all from my library, but mostly.
All of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series (9 urban fantasy novels + sundry shorts)
Hard Magic by Laura Anne Gilman (if you aren’t reading her urban fantasy yet, you should try one)
All of C. J. Cherryh’s Foreigner Scifi series (22 novels)
South Breaks by Hannah Steenbock. Epic fantasy lusciousness.
The first 3 of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series. There are more, but it got repetitive. Cozy-ish. Think Only Murder In the Building but in a British retirement community.
All of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion books (3 novels, 13 novellas, mostly re-reads, except for the 2 most recent Penric & Desdemona entries)
Bride Of the Tornado, came recommended, well-written, but I cannot say I enjoyed.
Herald Petrel by Strange Seawolf, a fresh, hopeful but gritty space opera.
Books 8-12 of Jennifer Blackstream’s Blood Trails series, which does not get me caught up, but she writes good books fast, dangit, and budget, ya know? I haven’t been able to get my library to buy the ebooks.
The Way Of The Wielder by Sarah J. Hoodlet. Solid, entertaining, original fantasy.
Almost all the Liaden Universe books by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Upwards of 16 novels. Ribbon Dance was the only new entry.
I know I’ve missed a few titles, but that’s all I have patience for typing up today.
So.
Help me grow my TBR stack up again. It doesn’t have to be new last year, it doesn’t have to be fantasy or scifi. Just something you loved that I might enjoy too.
Wrapping up with two pics of Pippin being happy he’s allowed to sleep on the bed with me again. He does love to lounge on the blankets.
What’s on your bookshelf?
This is the part where I talk about my books.
Relics From A Traveling Show
The newest of the new! A collection of all my short fictions in one handy volume, available now from your favorite booksite or local shop.
Or! OR! if you like your local library, you could request a purchase. Free for you, sale for me, everyone wins.
Most libraries need the following info for ordering print books:
Title: Relics From A Traveling Show
Author: K. M. Herkes
ISBN: 9781945745201 (paperback)
Every library system does things a little differently, but most want their collections to serve their communities, so most of them are very responsive to patron requests.
If you like novels more than short stories, I recommend my series The Rollover Files for hopepunk tales of about an alternate world where moms with midlife crisis superpowers have been saving the world and making the military nervous since 1943.
I also have a completed, quirky slow-burn science fiction thriller duology with a romance chaser: The Stories Of The Restoration.
All my titles are available from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Overdrive and many other fine booksellers.
Support your favorite independent bookseller! Find a local shop via Indiebound
Be a potato.
" Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground."
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)