Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejide and I am loving it.

Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying ill-fated passengers in a haunted car: a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River.

Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, ten-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash–reeling from having witnessed an act of molestation at his school, but still questioning what and who he saw–has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the “River Man,” who somehow appears each time he goes there.

When Dash arrives unexpectedly at Nephthys’s door one day bearing a cryptic note about his unusual conversations with the River Man, Nephthys must face both the family she abandoned and what frightens her most when she looks in the mirror.

Creatures of Passage beautifully threads together the stories of Nephthys, Dash, and others both living and dead. Morowa Yejidé’s deeply captivating novel shows us an unseen Washington filled with otherworldly landscapes, flawed super-humans, and reluctant ghosts, and brings together a community intent on saving one young boy in order to reclaim themselves.

I’m a Type A personality in a Type B body.

Tony Stark created likeability with a box of scraps in a cave!

I’m I’m the middle of a 30 day challenge to eat a fermented food every day. Doing pretty good so far.

Good for you on the soda! It’s really one of the worst things you can consume, even the sugar free. I was blessed with a distaste for carbonation from birth, but I have plenty of other vices.

Is incentivates a word? I better check my dictionotomy.

Is there a new age store in your area? They often sell jewelry.

See also Emergency Skin by NK Jemison.

Probably doesn’t answer your question completely, but I’m a big fan of the phrase "my understanding is . . . " In other words, this is what I “know” as fact, but I’m aware that my knowledge could be wrong or insufficient and I’m willing to be corrected or updated. I use this phrase almost any time I’m asserting something as fact, as a kind of cya.

The sequel was published this year and it was . . . disappointing. You won’t be disappointed with Thursday Next.

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde. I loved his Thursday Next series, the Nursery Crimes books were good, and Shades of Grey was fantastic. I’m having trouble getting into this one, but it might be worth it if I can stick it out.

Idk why the following description is written in second person, when the book is in first person. If you’re a fan of Douglas Adams, I recommend Jasper Fforde.

Every Winter, the human population hibernates.

During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity.

Well, not quite.

Your name is Charlie Worthing and it’s your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses.

You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind.

When the dreams start to kill people, it’s unsettling.

When you get the dreams too, it’s weird.

When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.

But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren’t eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.

But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you’ll be fine.

Was at a church yard sale yesterday and they had the same setup. Pretty sure it was not a progressive church.

I will gladly go to hell for a continuous supply of pomegranates.

The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein, though sadly she never finished it.

for October 31

…right.

Your self-destruction doesn’t hurt them. Your chaos won’t convert them. They’re so happy to rebuild it. You never really killed it. Excess ain’t rebellion. You’re drinking what they’re selling.

Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton is amazing, although the follow up isn’t as good.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time is also amazing, though, again, the follow up isn’t as good.

If singular books are OK, there’s Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley.

I could give more titles because I love books from the animal perspective, but these are my sci-fi/fantasy recs. I also second Watership Down.

I’m not even going to try to type the name of this one. It’s Estonia’s contribution to this year’s Eurovision and it makes me happy every time I hear it.

Apparently the chorus translates roughly to “Why no, officer, those are not our drugs.”

In one of my best photos 10 years ago I vaguely looked like Lana Parilla, so that would be awesome. Realistically, someone fat.

If I ever meet someone with my same (rare) name, I will suggest we team up and do crimes.

The Postman by David Brin.

He was a survivor—a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter’s day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery.

I’ve never seen the movie, so I plan to watch it after.