![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chicafrom3According to Goodreads, I read 45 books in May. Also according to Goodreads, I currently stand at 240 books for 2017. According to my own record keeping, of those 45 books, 22 were books I was reading for the first time. My ratio remains pretty stable at roughly half new. Of those 22 first-reads, 1 was a comic book; 11 were Doctor Who related; 2 were Dresden Files related.
Of the 23 rereads, 7 were Animorphs; 7 were The Baby-Sitters Club; 7 were The Saddle Club.
According to my records, I watched 118 episodes of television in May, which is a further drop from April's 175. 58 of those episodes were new to me. There were 3 new-to-me series, consisting of 9 episodes, a significant decrease from April's 25. Almost half of my TV consmption was new material, with only about 7% being completely new.
I watched 5 new-to-me movies and rewatched 2.
According to last.fm's 30-day tracker, I listened to 916 tracks in May, an average of 30 tracks per day. The top artist was The Pogues back with a venegeance with 328 scrobbles, followed by Alan Menken* (73), Jonathan Coulton (51), The Swell Season (38), and a tie between Ryan Shore* and The Plough And The Stars* (26). A total of 137 artists and 25 albums, with the Beauty And The Beast (2017) deluxe soundtrack being the most-played album (204 scrobbles) and the most-played track being a tie between Dirty Old Town and Sally MacLennane, both by The Pogues. Away from things that last.fm tracks, I finally got caught up on all those Hamilton audios! So it's been a more varied collection of musical theatre this month.
Individual thoughts:
Books:
I've finally reached the first two-star Animorphs books in my reread. (It's the first Alternamorphs book, for the record. What is even the point of that book.) I know there's a couple more coming up, but I felt like this was a thing that bore noting.
My Doctor Who Target readthrough had brought me up to Victoria Waterfield's arrival. She's not very well-served by her first serial, but so many companions aren't. I am going to miss Ben and Polly a while longer; I'm very fond of the two of them.
This month I read the Dresden Files short story "Restoration of Faith" and the short story collection "Working For Bigfoot". I think I may have read the former before, but long enough ago that I can't remember for sure, so I treated it as a new read. They're both solid Dresden Files stories and there's really not much else to say about them.
Contemporary romance with no SF/F elements isn't usually my thing, but Everything Leads To You by Nina LaCour is really cute and I recommend it. The main character/narrator is an aspiring set designer and I feel like that's a niche that isn't represented in fiction often enough. Her love interest is in an aspiring actress and very likable. It just left me feeling really satisfied and pleased.
The Fox and the Hound, on the other hand, is an incredibly depressing novel. It's not bad by any means -- I gave it four stars and it probably deserves five -- but it's so. depressing.
TV:
My TV-watching numbers have been dropping and I'm honestly not sure why. It's probably a good thing and frankly even with the drop they're still very high, I'm just not sure of the root cause.
Anyway.
American Gods officially started airing at the end of April but I technically started watching it in May. I'm so pleased with it so far. There's been a couple small changes from the book I disagree with, but most of the changes work really well and I'm so delighted whenever a scene from the book plays out exactly the way it was in my head. Or better, in a couple cases. (Best episode so far: Git Gone. Lauraaaa.)
I've started watching Bill Nye Saves The World on Netflix. It's the show we as a culture (I'm talking specifically about the US here) needs right now. There are just so many people in power I want to make sit down and listen to Bill Nye yell at them about how their ideas are wrong and they should feel bad. "You thought I was gonna get a new TV show and not talk about climate change?"
And then the last of my new-to-me shows is Still Star-Crossed which has aired one episode so far. I'm a sucker for costume dramas and Shakespeare retellings, so it doesn't matter that it's not very good so far. (Lashana Lynch as Rosaline is wonderful, though, I love her already.)
I binge-watched Sense8 season two and loved it and was planning to write up a section in here about how much I loved it, and then this morning found out the news that Netflix has canceled it and the massive cliffhanger ending will remain unresolved, which kind of took the wind out of my sails for the squee. Maybe another time. (DAMMIT NETFLIX.)
Once Upon A Time wrapped up season six, presumably its penultimate season. I'm so annoyed by this show at this point and I'm hoping the fact that most of my favorites will not be returning for season seven will let me cut it loose. (I'm worried that after six years of emotional investment on my part I'll feel like I have to stick out the probably-final season, and I'm worried if I do that the writers will try even harder to kick me while I'm down.)
Doctor Who continues to delight me, and since I've been doing episode reviews, the only thing I Feel the need to say here is: BILLLLLLL.
Movies:
Five new-to-me movies this month! Three of them were American Girls movies on Amazon Prime and should probably not count. I also watched Kubo And The Two Strings (and loved it a lot -- I knew very little about it going in but it was emotionally rewarding and made me cry), and Newsies: The Broadway Musical, the official recording of the stage musical. Newsies isn't one of my favorite shows but I like it a lot, it's a lot of fun and most of the appeal is in the choreography, so it's really great to have an official record. And I'm so glad they got most of the original cast involved.
Music:
I picked up some really good albums this month, including but not limited to the cast recordings of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 and the new revival of Hello, Dolly!, Jonathan Coulton's new album Solid State, and the Unreleased Collection for the TV show Galavant. Oh, and a couple of Postmodern Jukebox albums. It was a pretty good month for music.
Flogging Molly released a few more songs off their new album Life Is Good, including the title track, Welcome To Adamston, and The Days We've Yet To Meet; the third of those is my favorite of the month's new releases, although I think Reptiles (We Woke Up) edges it out for my favorite off the new album so far.
(I also picked up Endway's Go Fast, and I really hope that I now have their complete discography to date because if they're concealing MORE music from me we're gonna have to have words.)
Of the 23 rereads, 7 were Animorphs; 7 were The Baby-Sitters Club; 7 were The Saddle Club.
According to my records, I watched 118 episodes of television in May, which is a further drop from April's 175. 58 of those episodes were new to me. There were 3 new-to-me series, consisting of 9 episodes, a significant decrease from April's 25. Almost half of my TV consmption was new material, with only about 7% being completely new.
I watched 5 new-to-me movies and rewatched 2.
According to last.fm's 30-day tracker, I listened to 916 tracks in May, an average of 30 tracks per day. The top artist was The Pogues back with a venegeance with 328 scrobbles, followed by Alan Menken* (73), Jonathan Coulton (51), The Swell Season (38), and a tie between Ryan Shore* and The Plough And The Stars* (26). A total of 137 artists and 25 albums, with the Beauty And The Beast (2017) deluxe soundtrack being the most-played album (204 scrobbles) and the most-played track being a tie between Dirty Old Town and Sally MacLennane, both by The Pogues. Away from things that last.fm tracks, I finally got caught up on all those Hamilton audios! So it's been a more varied collection of musical theatre this month.
Individual thoughts:
Books:
I've finally reached the first two-star Animorphs books in my reread. (It's the first Alternamorphs book, for the record. What is even the point of that book.) I know there's a couple more coming up, but I felt like this was a thing that bore noting.
My Doctor Who Target readthrough had brought me up to Victoria Waterfield's arrival. She's not very well-served by her first serial, but so many companions aren't. I am going to miss Ben and Polly a while longer; I'm very fond of the two of them.
This month I read the Dresden Files short story "Restoration of Faith" and the short story collection "Working For Bigfoot". I think I may have read the former before, but long enough ago that I can't remember for sure, so I treated it as a new read. They're both solid Dresden Files stories and there's really not much else to say about them.
Contemporary romance with no SF/F elements isn't usually my thing, but Everything Leads To You by Nina LaCour is really cute and I recommend it. The main character/narrator is an aspiring set designer and I feel like that's a niche that isn't represented in fiction often enough. Her love interest is in an aspiring actress and very likable. It just left me feeling really satisfied and pleased.
The Fox and the Hound, on the other hand, is an incredibly depressing novel. It's not bad by any means -- I gave it four stars and it probably deserves five -- but it's so. depressing.
TV:
My TV-watching numbers have been dropping and I'm honestly not sure why. It's probably a good thing and frankly even with the drop they're still very high, I'm just not sure of the root cause.
Anyway.
American Gods officially started airing at the end of April but I technically started watching it in May. I'm so pleased with it so far. There's been a couple small changes from the book I disagree with, but most of the changes work really well and I'm so delighted whenever a scene from the book plays out exactly the way it was in my head. Or better, in a couple cases. (Best episode so far: Git Gone. Lauraaaa.)
I've started watching Bill Nye Saves The World on Netflix. It's the show we as a culture (I'm talking specifically about the US here) needs right now. There are just so many people in power I want to make sit down and listen to Bill Nye yell at them about how their ideas are wrong and they should feel bad. "You thought I was gonna get a new TV show and not talk about climate change?"
And then the last of my new-to-me shows is Still Star-Crossed which has aired one episode so far. I'm a sucker for costume dramas and Shakespeare retellings, so it doesn't matter that it's not very good so far. (Lashana Lynch as Rosaline is wonderful, though, I love her already.)
I binge-watched Sense8 season two and loved it and was planning to write up a section in here about how much I loved it, and then this morning found out the news that Netflix has canceled it and the massive cliffhanger ending will remain unresolved, which kind of took the wind out of my sails for the squee. Maybe another time. (DAMMIT NETFLIX.)
Once Upon A Time wrapped up season six, presumably its penultimate season. I'm so annoyed by this show at this point and I'm hoping the fact that most of my favorites will not be returning for season seven will let me cut it loose. (I'm worried that after six years of emotional investment on my part I'll feel like I have to stick out the probably-final season, and I'm worried if I do that the writers will try even harder to kick me while I'm down.)
Doctor Who continues to delight me, and since I've been doing episode reviews, the only thing I Feel the need to say here is: BILLLLLLL.
Movies:
Five new-to-me movies this month! Three of them were American Girls movies on Amazon Prime and should probably not count. I also watched Kubo And The Two Strings (and loved it a lot -- I knew very little about it going in but it was emotionally rewarding and made me cry), and Newsies: The Broadway Musical, the official recording of the stage musical. Newsies isn't one of my favorite shows but I like it a lot, it's a lot of fun and most of the appeal is in the choreography, so it's really great to have an official record. And I'm so glad they got most of the original cast involved.
Music:
I picked up some really good albums this month, including but not limited to the cast recordings of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 and the new revival of Hello, Dolly!, Jonathan Coulton's new album Solid State, and the Unreleased Collection for the TV show Galavant. Oh, and a couple of Postmodern Jukebox albums. It was a pretty good month for music.
Flogging Molly released a few more songs off their new album Life Is Good, including the title track, Welcome To Adamston, and The Days We've Yet To Meet; the third of those is my favorite of the month's new releases, although I think Reptiles (We Woke Up) edges it out for my favorite off the new album so far.
(I also picked up Endway's Go Fast, and I really hope that I now have their complete discography to date because if they're concealing MORE music from me we're gonna have to have words.)
