🍀🐇Second Sundays - March 2023🐇🍀

Happy Second Sunday!

Spring is so close I can almost smell it (almost literally. Allergies have definitely been a thing 😶). I definitely feel a need to surround myself with green and growing things, and this month's newsletter has a bit of both. 🤗🌱

Thank you for joining me on this adventure. I hope you enjoy!

The archiving expedition I'm starting to dub "The Quest" is still ongoing, and at this point, I'm anticipating possibly several months more of work before I get through the rest of the notebooks. But, the pieces are definitely coming together and I am truly appreciating the wealth of knowledge I've created for the world of Quaison.

Here is one of the first, if not the very first, Quaison world map I drew.

Per what seems to be becoming usual, I deviated from my original tbr list last month. 😅 A coworker decided that she wanted to read The Wheel of Time series with me, but she wasn't quite ready to start the books yet, so I've delayed that one to this month. The second book I didn't so much as skip as I just couldn't get into it. The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi sounded interesting, but after two chapters I still wasn't investing in the first character point of view the author introduces. Even though this is categorized as adult speculative fiction (i.e. fantasy), it was reading too much like the setup of a modern young adult tv drama, which is generally not my thing when it comes to reading, so I decided to put it on my dnf (did not finish) list.

But, skipping those two books opened up the opportunity for me to read two others that I thoroughly enjoyed. I've lumped them together for this review because they are part of the same series.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy are actually novellas, so they were a very quick read - only about 140 pages each. They tell a simple, low-stakes science-fiction story about a monk who leaves their monastery to try a new life providing tea service for all of the villages on this small planet, and they encounter one of the robots that have been living in the wild.

The warm friendship between these two characters, coupled with simple but thoroughly enjoyable storytelling and world-building reminds me a lot of Legends and Lattes (which Travis Baldree is writing another book by the way! 😍) while the gentle but poignant existential questions presented by the robot remind me of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse. My favorite scene from both of these books is the way the monk decides to share his meals with the robot. It was so funny and heartwarming! 🥰

I would wholeheartedly recommend reading these books and I'm keeping my fingers crossed Becky Chambers writes another one! 🤞

But while I wait for that, here's my next tentative tbr list. I am beyond jazzed for several of these books, so I'm confident I'll breeze through at least all but one or two of them.

I've been following this unique creator for a while on Instagram. I love their little nature critters and they often make short videos of them adventuring out in the wild or doing activities like cooking and wrapping presents. You can follow them at Keepers of Nature and purchase their creatures in their shop here.

Months ago a friend of mine introduced me to Ambient Worlds on YouTube. They remix soundtracks with ambiance videos and it is magic. My favorites of course are The Lord of the Rings, especially the Shire, but honestly, all of them provide nice backdrops for writing, reading, drawing, or just relaxing with a cup of something warm.

I'll also leave you with this fun little riff on that epic prologue from The Fellowship of the Ring. Bonus points if you read it with Cate Blanchet's voice in your head. 😉