Shelly Bryant

I think all of my reading lists will be smaller than usual for the rest of this year, or at least through August.  I’ve got several projects going on, and all my reading seems focused on those, for now.

This list is also a little later than I like to be. Maybe I’ll be able to get back on schedule with next month’s. (But no promises!)

Hits

• Treason (Orson Scott Card)
• Letters from the Earth (Mark Twain)
• Der Kontrabass (onstage)
• Dislocations (Chew Kok Chang)

Along with back issues of Aoife’s Kiss

Misses

• no misses!

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• none for this part of the list either

I always like the all-hit list, even if it is a shorter list than usual.

So how was April reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  It’s a smallish list this time round, mostly because I have several projects going on that require a lot of reading, and at a very slow pace.  I’m also very late in posting my March reading list!

Hits

• Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
• War Poems (Carl Sandburg)
• When Dogs Cry (Markus Zusak)
• The Hidden Reality (Brian Greene)
• Other Voices, Other Worlds (Bruce Boston)
• No Exit (onstage)

Along with the most recent issue of In Other Words

Misses

• Startling Moon (Liu Hong)

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• None

So how was March reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  It’s a smallish list this time round, mostly because I have several projects going on that require a lot of reading, and at a very slow pace.

Hits

• Spectre (Verena Tay)
• from within the marrow (Yong Shu Hoong)
• Future Cop (movie)
• Twenty-One Novel Poems (Suzette Elgin Haden)
• Cloud Atlas (movie)
• Hiss of Leaves (T. D. Ingram)

Along with the most recent issues of Star*Line and Illumen

Misses

• no misses!

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• Rush Hour 2 (movie)

So how was February reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  It’s a smallish list this time round, mostly because I have several projects going on that require a lot of reading, and at a very slow pace.

Hits

• Blood of Heaven (Bill Meyers)
• Dreaming in the Days of Astophel (Lyn C. A. Gardner)
• Les Miserables (movie)
• Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)

Along with some back issues of the magazine Knowledge

Misses

• no misses!

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• Flesh and Blood (Michael Cunningham)

(There was a lot I liked in Flesh and Blood, but also just enough that didn’t quite grab me to prevent it from landing on the Hit portion of the list.)

So how was January reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.

Hits

• The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan Twan Eng)
• Unearthly Delights (Marge Simon)
• 《死亡赋格》（盛可以，Sheng Keyi)
• My Friend, the Poet (Terrie Leigh Relf)
• Fish Eats Lion (Jason Erik Lundberg, ed.)
• The Dragon Dictionary (Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo)
• The Japanese Haiku (Kenneth Yasuda)
• Dragon Soup (Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo)

Along with the most recent issues and several back issues of the magazines Illumen, Knowledge, The Martian Wave

Misses

• no all-out misses

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• Rising Sun (Michael Crichton)
• The Hobbit (movie)
• Men in Black II (movie)

So how was December reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Hits

• The Master (Colm Toibin)
• The Sun is Not for Us (onstage)
• The Craft of Gardens (Ji Cheng)
• Lao She in London (Anne Witchard)
• Continuous Growth (onstage)
• Interpreting Another Culture (an unpublished dissertation by Betty Barr)
• In the Company of Heroes (Verena Tay)

Along with the most recent issues and several back issues of the magazines Scifaikuest, Star*Line, Micro Art, The World of Chinese

Misses

• All My Sons (onstage)

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
• 《驴得水》

(both of these two got mixed reviews from me)

So how was October reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Hits

• The Casual Vacancy (J. K. Rowling)
• Van Helsing (movie)
• Lust, Caution and other short stories (Eileen Chang)
• Finding Neverland (movie)
• Crossing Over (movie)
• The Other Side of Light (Mishi Saran)
• The Sheckley Trilogy
• The Master (Colm Toibin) – not finished yet, but really enjoying it

Along with the most recent issues of several back issues of the magazine The World of Chinese

Misses

• Friends with Benefits (movie)

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• Material Witness (Vanetta Chapman)  - it was OK, but not a real favorite with me

So how was October reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Hits

• Zoheleth (J. Francis Hudson)
• Northern Girls (Sheng Keyi)
• A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)
• Icarus Airlines (Taylor Mali)
• Vulcan’s Workshop (Harl Vincent)
• The Plague (Albert Camus)
• Hachi (movie)
• From the Cables of Genoside (Lorna Dee Cerventes)
• Source Code (movie)
• Moneyball (movie)
• Player Piano (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)
• White Deer Plain (movie)
• Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (onstage)
• Orlando (Virginia Woolf)
• Edgar Allan Poe Collection
• Six Degrees of Separation (John Guare)

Along with the most recent issues of several magazines, including:  Beyond Centauri, Star*Line

Misses

• none!

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• The Future of Ice (Gretel Ehrlich) – this one is hard to rate, because there were things I loved and things I loathed

So how was September reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Hits

• Winterflight (Joseph Bayly)
• Vamps (James S. Dorr)
• Falling Through Nothing (Scott Nicolay)
• The Commentaries and The Gallic Wars (Julius Caesar)
• Edible Zoo (David C. Kopaska-Merkel)
• The City of a Thousand Gods (Marge Simon and Malcolm Deeley)
• Wild Hunt of the Stars (Ann K. Schwader)
• The Devil’s Disciples (George Bernard Shaw)
• 《独自上场》 李娜
• Self-Reliance (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Along with the most recent issues of several magazines, including:  Beyond Centauri, Star*Line

Misses

• Bene Ha Elohim:  Sons of God (K. T. & C. J. Hehir)

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)

So how was August reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Hits

• A Distant Shore (John Houghton)
• A Prisoner of Birth (Jeffrey Archer)
• The Amazing Spiderman (movie)
• The 2012 Rhysling Anthology
• Signs & Wonders (Jennifer Crow)
• How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction (J. N. Williamson, ed.)
• Virgin of the Apocalypse (Corrine de Winter)
• The Tortilla Curtain (T. C. Boyle)
• The Poetry Home Repair Manual (Ted Kooser)

Along with the most recent issue of Dreams & Nightmares

Misses

• There were no misses

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• None here either!

It’s always a good thing to post an all-hit list!

So how was July reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Hits

• The Cyberiad (Stanislaw Lem)
• The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
• Shakespeare in Love (movie)
• Puss in Boots (movie)
• Black Maria (Kevin Young)
• 《我的心中每天开出一朵花》畿米
• The Personifid Project (R. E. Bartlett)
• Snow White and the Huntsman
• Legends of the Fallen Sky (Marge Simon and Malcolm Deeley)
• The Civil Servant’s Notebook (Wang Xiaofang)
• The Phantom World (Gary William Crawford)

Along with the most recent issues of several magazines, including:  parABnormal Digest, Scifaikuest

Misses

• There were no all-out misses

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• 《贴身感觉》张小娴
• American Empire:  Blood and Iron (Harry Turtledove)

So how was June reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Hits

• The Mark of a Christian (Francis A. Schaffer)
• The Avengers (movie)
• 《下面，我该干些什么》（阿乙）(What Should I do Next, by A Yi)
• Beast (Erin Donahoe)
• Selected Poems (Tony Harrison)
• Through the Woods (Erin Donahoe)
• Big Shot’s Funeral (movie)
• Stellar Possibilities (John Dunphy)
• Up is Down (Mikal Trimm)
• Contemporary Haibun, vol. 13 (Edited by Jim Kacian, Bruce Ross, and Ken Jones)
• Pitch (Todd Boss)
• Men in Black 3 (movie)
• The Case for Working with Your Hands (Matthew Crawford)

Along with back issues of several magazines, including:  Scifaikuest, The World of Chinese (x2), Star*Line (x2)

Misses

• There were no all-out misses

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• 《1988： 我想和这个世界谈》韩寒 (1988:  I Want to Talk with the World, by Han Han)
• The Curious Lore of Precious Stones (George Frederick Kunz)

So how was May reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Several were close calls for me, with a few of the things I ultimately ranked “Hits” being fairly borderline calls, and one of the “Neither Hit nor Miss” reads being a good candidate for an all-out miss.

Hits

• The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)
• David Copperfield (onstage)
• Far from the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy)
• 四世同堂 (onstage)
• 贾宝玉 / Awakening (onstage)
• Oleanna (onstage)
• The Empty Family (Colm Toibin)
• Benjamin Franklin:  An American Life (Walter Isaacson)

Along with back issues of several magazines, including:  Chinese Newsweek, Aoife’s Kiss

Misses

• There were no all-out misses

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• Gypsy’s Game (Delia Latham)
• Breathless (Kathryn J. Bain)

So how was April reading and viewing for you?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and viewing for the past month.  (You can click on the links for short reviews or comments I’ve left elsewhere.)

Several were close calls for me, with a few of the things I ultimately ranked “Hits” being fairly borderline calls, and one of the “Neither Hit nor Miss” reads being a good candidate for an all-out miss.

Hits

• The Red Room (H. G. Wells)
• Kylie’s Kiss (Delia Latham)
• Nanjing 1937 (Ye Zhaoyan)
• The Dream of Reason (Anthony Gottlieb)
• Becoming Madame Mao (Anchee Min)
• The Apartment (Greg Baxter)
• Much Ado About Nothing (onstage)

Along with back issues of several magazines, including:  The World of Chinese, Newsweek, Aoife’s Kiss

Misses

• There were no real misses, though “The Ice Palace” came close.

Neither Hit Nor Miss

• The Ice Palace (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• The Name (onstage)

So how was March reading and viewing for you?