Author Archives: Duff

Books Read in 2013

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date refers to date finished; i.e., just b/c I finished two books in a given day doesn’t mean I read two entire books that day!

  • An Unwilling Bride, by Jo Beverly (12/31)
  • An Arranged Marriage, by Jo Beverly (12/30)
  • Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers (12/30)
  • Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell (12/29)
  • Lady Beware, by Jo Beverly (12/27)
  • Deadline, by Sandra Brown (12/26)
  • Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor (12/25)
  • Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell (12/24)
  • Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception, by Maggie Stiefvater (12/23)
  • Beautiful Wreck, by Larissa Brown (12/22)
  • Froi of the Exiles, by Melina Marchetta (12/22)
  • Finnikin of the Rock, by Melina Marchetta (12/6)
  • The Panopticon, by Jenni Fagan (11/30)
  • Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell (11/27)
  • Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu (11/23)
  • Doll Bones, by Holly Black (11/17)
  • Reading in the Wild, by Donalyn Miller (11/10) (teaching)
  • The Dream Thieves, by Maggie Stiefvater (11/10)
  • The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater (11/9) (reread)
  • This Song Will Save Your Life, by Leila Sales (10/19)
  • How to Love, by Katie Cotugno (10/19)
  • Endgame, by Ann Aguirre (9/13)
  • Aftermath, by Ann Aguirre (9/13)
  • The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker (8/31)
  • One Crazy Summer, by Rita Garcia-Williams (8/31)
  • Magic for a Price, by Devon Monk (8/31)
  • The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes (8/16)
  • The Faraway Nearby, by Rebecca Solnit (8/16)
  • All Hands Stand by to Repel Boarders: Tales from Life as a Lutheran Pastor, by Cordell Strug (8/16)
  • Let Me Go (Archie Sheridan and Gretchen Lowell #6), by Chelsea Cain (8/14)
  • Kill Me Twice (Archie Sheridan and Gretchen Lowell #5), by Chelsea Cain (8/14)
  • Wishes and Stitches, by Rachael Herron (7/20)
  • Vampires in the Lemon Grove, by Karen Russell (7/6)
  • The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson (7/1)
  • Shades of Earth, by Beth Revis (6/23)
  • A Million Suns, by Beth Revis (6/22)
  • Across the Universe, by Beth Revis (6/21) (reread)
  • Saving Zasha, by Randi Barrow (6/1)
  • Blood Magic, by Tessa Gratton (5/25)
  • Paper Valentine, by Brenna Yovanoff (5/4)
  • Frost Burned (Mercy Thompson #7), by Patricia Briggs (5/1)
  • The Rook, by Daniel O’Malley (4/29)
  • The River of No Return, by Bee Ridgway (4/28)
  • The Curiosities, by Maggie Stiefvater, Brenna Yovanoff and Tessa Gratton (4/20)
  • Big Jack, by J.D. Robb (3/31)
  • Sarah, Plain & Tall, by Patricia McLachlan (3/31)
  • Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger (3/28)
  • Choice Words, by Peter H. Johnston (3/25)
  • The Giver, by Lois Lowry (3/18)
  • Suspect, by Robert Crais (3/10)
  • The Order of Odd Fish, by James Kennedy (3/10)
  • Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein (2/25)
  • Blood Song, by Anthony Ryan (1/18)
  • Touch of Frost, by Jennifer Estep (1/5)
  • Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman (1/4)

First/Multiple Listens: Rhye “Woman”

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This is my favorite album I bought yesterday, even though I also bought Beyonce. I love them both but this one? This is anytime, anywhere music. Also there is a serious ’70s vibe to my ear and I just dig dig dig it.

I know everyone else hears Sade when they listen to this. I hear Julia Fordham. AND I LOVE IT.

Another Stephen Thompson recommendation. Geez, that guy.

Fundamental Oppression.

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This article really hit home for me, especially the first and last sections.

Artistic expression poses an inherent challenge to fundamentalists because it offers the ultimate manifestation of the temporal and the heterodox. It embodies freedom of thought. Art suggests that mere human beings may also be Creators. As a result, in Muslim majority contexts many artists have faced profound risks for the content of their work, or simply for producing art whatever its content, but they have continued nonetheless.

Summer Television: The Glades

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Wouldn’t you stop being that arrogant the 59th time you accused the wrong person of murder?

I try to like the Glades; Matt Saracen*’s [so to speak] wife plays the main female character, after all. But every week it is insufferably the same (and also: insufferable).

The lead detective, otherwise known as most arrogant portrayal of a cop ever in the universe, seems to accuse each and every single person he meets as he investigates the crime. He is 100% positive they are the killer, tells them that repeatedly, then gets a phone call while interrogating them, leaves the room and goes straight to accusing someone else of being the killer (now 100% positive it’s them). Somehow I fail to see that as an effective method of policework.

Every week, with every person, after he tells them “I KNOW you’re the killer,” he then tells them not to leave town in what sounds like the same exact wording every.single.time. Even Law & Order doesn’t make the audience listen to the Miranda rights with every single arrest.

It’s as formulaic as episodes of House, and quite reminiscent of them in fact. House decides it’s X insane disease no one’s ever heard of, gives the patient some horribly intense medicine, then figures out it’s actually X completely ordinary disease that the previous medicine actually makes much, much worse and he’s basically either killed or almost killed them by his overthinking of their possible illness.

In the Glades, he thinks A is the killer, nope it’s B, nope it’s A again, nope it’s C, nope it’s A again, nope B…ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Sure, it’s fictional, and I need to work on suspending my disbelief. But seriously: Wouldn’t you be less cocky after being wrong so many times in so many episodes?

*Zach Gilford, the actor who played Matt Saracen on Friday Night Lights, is married to the female lead on The Glades. See some incredibly lovely photos of their wedding over here.

Deep thoughts, with books and blogs.

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I have an ongoing fascination with the way things intersect in our lives — how you do a new thing you’ve never done but Oh! completely unexpectedly it overlaps or intersects or has some deep resonance with something else you just did. I am particularly obsessed with this when it comes to reading (see “Good Things Come in Pairs” on this page) — it always feels like you somehow came to exactly the right thing at the right moment when those resonances happen.

Right now I am reading The Faraway Nearby, by Rebecca Solnit and yesterday I read this quote that just dug deep down into the heart of me:

The things that make our lives are so tenuous, so unlikely, that we barely come into being, barely meet the people we’re meant to love, barely find our way in the woods, barely survive catastrophe everyday.

Today I was reading Lizzy House‘s blog and saw this:

Also, I just want to say, that maybe I would have met these people another way, that somehow we all would have come together in whatever way, because we were supposed to. Or that my hard work and merit would have positioned me for all of this good, but I do not believe that that’s how the world works, otherwise we’d all live on islands that were having parades in our own honor everyday.

Dang, world.