Month 41 of 260 (15.77 percent)
Size of list: 89,152 pages (14.63 percent above start)
Pages read: 21,453 (24.06 percent)
H-list: 5,943/23,530 (25.26 percent)
N-list: 8,475/36,960 (22.93 percent)
O-list: 7,0355/28,662 (24.06 percent)
Finished: Swords Against Death, Educated: A Memoir
Reading: Empire's End
I finished two books this month, fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and reality. But a common thread running through Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (especially volume 1, which I read last month) and Educated is how someone raised in the wilderness among an insular people then associates with the alien life of the city. Honestly, this is a stretch — a wilderness barbarian facing the thieves' guild actually has a much easier time than a girl homeschooled (only not actually schooled) facing college.
I read the first two Lankhmar collections because volume 1, Swords and Deviltry, was actually a prequel, a collection written 30 years after the real first stories that appeared in volume 2, Swords Against Death. While the early stories were tales of adventure in and around the city of Lankhmar in the world of Nehwon, the prequel stories tell what the two protagonists were doing before they met, then how they met, then set up an enemy for them. I liked the older stories better, because it put the protagonists up against interesting enemies — seven priests on an island, or a mysterious ship, or a magical shop. The personalities of the characters slowly bubble out, but they're not much more than tropes. The stories are an easy read, and maybe I'll go back for volumes 3 to 7 later. There are worse ways to spend one's time.
Educated: A Memoir is the true story of Tara Westover, who was raised by religious fundamentalist, survivalist, apocalypse-preparing Mormons in southern Idaho, then went to college and discovered the world. It was the most stressful thing I can remember reading. The abuse she suffered — from an older brother who was just mean, from a father who meant well but just did not understand things like safety or medicine — made for a gripping read, but in part because I kept waiting for even worse to happen. There's so much to explore there, especially, from my point of view, about the father. Would he have been this way if the government hadn't been such destructive, murderous assholes at Ruby Ridge? Why did he not adjust any of his thinking when the Y2K crisis didn't come to pass? And of course, my view is colored by my own circumstances — someone I have to deal with more than I would like also has similar views about vaccines and about the government, and I worry that this insanity will hurt people I love.
So I'm gonna focus on Star Wars next.
