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Jan 15, 2025 | 
reactormag.com | Jo Anne Walton |James Davis Nicoll |Alexandra Rowland
“You want stories?" Thom Merrilin declaimed. "I have stories, and I will give them to you. I will make them come alive before your eyes.”Robert Jordan, The Eye Of The World
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Dec 4, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Jo Anne Walton |with Ada Palmer
November began in Chicago with friends, and I took the train to Plymouth, Massachusetts, where I saw some Boston friends, and then I came home to Montreal, where I still am. I was writing in Chicago and Plymouth and have been writing a bit at home too, and I have high hopes of finishing this novel this year. I read twelve books, and they were an assorted lot, as usual. Alliance Rising — C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher (2019) Re-read, because the sequel came out.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Jo Anne Walton |with Ada Palmer
September was an excellent month, I was in Florence the whole time. The first few weeks were very packed with museum visits and dashing about, and since then I’ve been writing. So I only finished eight books this month, but they’re very interesting ones. The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume 3, 1854-1861 — Queen Victoria (1908) The thing that would surprise you about Queen Victoria’s letters is what a passionate person she was. She cared so much.
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Mar 8, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Jo Anne Walton |with Ada Palmer
February was slightly longer than last year, but I didn’t read more. I was in Florence all month, reading and writing, eating gelato and looking at art. I read twelve books, the vast majority of them were excellent and I’m excited to share them with you. (I’d share the gelato too, if you were here.)Derring-Do For Beginners, Victoria Goddard (2023) Gosh this was such fun. It’s fantasy, set in the same universe as her Hands of the Emperor series.
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Jan 26, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Jo Anne Walton |Chris Lough |Jonathan Thornton |Charlie Jane Anders
I’ve written here before about the quality of “I-want-to-read-it-osity” that some books have, a hard to define but easy to see quality which I am going to refer to as “grabbyness.” There are books you can pick up and put down and happily pick up again, and then there are books that seem to glue themselves to your brain, that utterly absorb you. There are books that are great when you’re halfway through them but that take work to get into.
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Jan 4, 2024 | 
tor.com | Jo Anne Walton
Oh my goodness, 2024 already! I was home in December, writing, and over the holidays I had friends to stay in a Covid-cautious bubble that let me have fun and see people in a relatively safe way, though my son and other friends got sick—which meant that the present-opening part of Christmas got postponed several days after the traditional 25th. Stay safe out there. I finished thirteen books in December, some of them great.
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Dec 11, 2023 | 
tor.com | Jo Anne Walton
November was a dark cold month spent entirely at home, reading and trying to write. Whose idea was this? Oh all right, mine, but having the clocks go back wasn’t my idea. Anyway, I read 26 books in November, and some of them were great and some of them were interesting, and one or two I hated, but they’re very varied.
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Nov 17, 2023 | 
tor.com | Jo Anne Walton
I was in Chicago for the first few weeks of October and then home in Montreal for the last week. I read eighteen books. I’m sorry this is late, but some of these were surprisingly difficult to talk about. Murder While You Work, Susan Scarlett (Noel Streatfeild) (1944)Re-read. Very slight romance, set during the end of WWII, essentially when it was published. A woman trained as a nurse goes to work in a factory, and gets billeted in a place of mysterious murders, which her boyfriend solves.
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Oct 4, 2023 | 
tor.com | Jo Anne Walton
September was an excellent month, I was in Florence the whole time until right at the end when I flew to Chicago. I read eleven books, and it’s only now seeing them together as a list that I realise they’re kind of an odd bunch. But some of them were outstanding. Five Windows, D.E. Stevenson (1953)The conceit of this book is the view from five windows in five places that the central character lives in as he grows from a small boy in Scotland to a writer with a house of his own.
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Sep 13, 2023 | 
tor.com | Jo Anne Walton
August was a wonderful but very busy month. I was in Florence the whole time, mostly having an excellent time dashing around with friends looking at beautiful art and eating great food. I read only seven books. Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Malinda Lo (2021)Everyone told me this was great, and you were all absolutely right.
