Audely Bensen Writes

Here's a delayed report-out of what I've been reading from October through December, outside of the speculative books that I usually discuss on this blog.   Mutualism by Sara Horowitz. This book is about the history of unions, churches, and other mutual aid groups in relation to the history of the social safety net, and an argument for why we need to return to hyper-local, community-focused solutions to save us from the next wave of economic crises. It was an interesting argument, but I'm not sure that I buy it entirely. I agree that without a sense of community, our sense of responsibility to the whole, and thus our desire to act outside of our own needs, can only continue deteriorating. At the same time, a lack of federal action risks leaving people outside of the network of care (and we all know who that's been historically), and I think that's a risk we shouldn't accept.  Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison (not pictured). I really enjoyed this book. It ...

I received a copy of Jacqueline Carey's Cassiel's Servant , a retelling of Kushiel's Dart from the love interest's point of view, from the World Fantasy Convention's book bags. On the advice of my writing group, I read the Kushiel's Dart trilogy a couple winters ago and really enjoyed them, but I was apprehensive about reading a re-telling by the same author. I shouldn't have worried. I fell into this book so easily, and finished wanting to re-read all of the Kushiel books all over again.  As I've mentioned over a few other book reviews, I've been struggling to finish epic fantasy novels over the last couple years. It's concerning: who am I, as a nerd, if I no longer enjoy fantasy epics? This book gave me the answer. I don't dislike fantasy, and I'm not growing out of my reader's roots. As the world around us has grown more full of fear and unease, I've increasingly struggled to read through tension in books that often have life ...

My reading habits shifted a lot from 2022 to 2023. I read a similar number of books, but expanded into reading more genres.  Three main trends drove this change:  Horror. This year I started reading horror. In nearly every case, I thought I was picking up a fantasy or sci-fi book with an edgy cover, only to learn after I'd finished that it was horror. And despite my firm stance as a scaredy cat, some of those horror books were my most-enjoyed novels! This opened my eyes to a whole new genre that I'm excited to continue exploring in 2024.  Beta-reads. I did a lot more beta-reading in 2023 than in 2024. This was intentional and part of my writing goals for the year, and it's cool to see how much of my reading pie those books take up. What's not cool is that none of those count for my goodreads total...yet.  Non-fiction. This year I brought back the early-pandemic habit of reading a non-fiction book for 30 minutes at the end of the work day, during what used to be trans...