2017 Book list

I read. A lot. This year I hit a personal goal of an average of four books a week. I had wanted to draw way more book reviews. However, the one above is the only one I finished. Ah well, tomorrow is another year.

1. Forest of Memory - Mary Robinette Kowal. A great novella from one of my penpals.
2. Once Broken Faith - Seannan McGuire. 10th in a great series.
3. The Spaceship Next Door - Gene Doucette.
4. True Story #3 Muzzled - Gabriela Denise Frank. Chilling.
5. The Heart Goes Last - Margaret Atwood. Creepy dystopia goes wrong.
6. Tides, Surges and Mean Sea-Level - David Pugh. Yay, tidal research!
7. The Reason I Jump - Naoki Higashida. Excellent book written by an autistic individual explaining life from inside their head. Highly recommend.

Looking back at Inktober

Friends added me into their Inktober challenge this year. I did a variation on it. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Inktober is organized with prompts for drawing and some basic rules (try this link). I decided that it fit my life better to just draw something in ink every day. I would take a photo of the one drawing I did in my sketchbook, or the best of the lot if I did more than one, maybe adjust the lighting (since I am pretty crappy at taking photos), and post them in a shared album so that my friends could view them. This also allowed us to make comments. 

These are a few of my favorites. The rest can be seen here. Overall I found it fun. I was pretty burnt out by the 27th. I don't think I've drawn all that much since then. I prefer my usual sketchbook approach. I aim for one drawing a week. When weeks are stressful - work, kids, house repairs - I draw less. I don't berate myself when this happens. I continue to carry my sketchbook everywhere. I remind myself to slow down and look. Eventually the lighting or a series of shapes grabs me, and then I grab a pen.

Annual book post

I like to read. A lot. This year's list is different in a couple of ways. First, inspired by my good friend, Elaine, this year there is a short description of each one to help you decide if you want to read it as well. This means that the list is longer than usual - or maybe it just seems so. Secondly, I have introduced illustrated book reviews. There are less of these than I had hoped, but only because I seriously injured my drawing arm and lost 3-4 months of potential productivity. Anywho, the whole series of illustrated book reviews can be found here. I hope to have more in 2017. Enjoy!

1. Bats of the Republic - Zachary Thomas Dodson. An illuminated novel, the drawings being one of the main reasons I bought the book. Odd, surreal. Honesty, I thought there would be more about bats in it.
2. The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B - Teresa Toten. Good at capturing confusing emotions and working some of them out. Two pages were ripped from the volume I read. The book made sense anyway.
3. The Golden Age of Death - Amber Benson. #5 in a series
4. The Edge of Lost - Kristina McMorris. Through loss of family, immigrating, assimilating and adventure, an Irish boy is constantly reinventing himself. The tie-in to SF Bay is what made me pick it up.