Review - The Wood Burn Book: An Essential Guide to the Art of Pyrography (Rachel Strauss)

I received this free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very readable, well-illustrated book that covers general techniques of wood burning, provides example projects (with clear step-by-step instructions), and really walks the reader through the process from choosing equipment to understanding the options for adding color and various finishes. The example projects provide a taste of the broad range of artistic expression possible with pyrography, including many that never would have occurred to me--from cork trivets to leather to canvas.

Unlike many how-to books I've encountered on various crafts, this one offers snippets of advice from a variety of people who work in this medium in addition to the main author--which is a great strength. For those inclined to delve deeper online, many of these advice snippets include the social media handle of the contributor.

As I am very much a novice pyrographer, I cannot speak directly to what the book would offer someone with more experience--but from my perspective, it's a great introduction to a craft I had tried years ago but had not touched in years. It makes me want to get some wood and bring out my supplies and start trying things. I'm excited to try it out!

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Review: Collected Poems of Federico García Lorca, revised bilingual edition

I finished reading this anthology a few weeks ago, and apparently forgot to ever post a review. While García Lorca is one of the best-known Spanish poets, I was actually quite unfamiliar with his work before picking up this collection. Perhaps starting with an anthology of this size was jumping in off the deep end, but it was an enjoyable experience. Because this edition uses several different translators, there's a lot of variation even beyond what's inherent in the poems. Despite a very limited knowledge of Spanish, I found I enjoyed it being a dual language book--especially for sections where I didn't like some of the stylistic choices of the translations much and could then compare with the original. All in all, a very enjoyable collection of poetry.

Reading Challenges for 2021

I usually do set a numerical goal on the Goodreads reading challenges each year, and find them to be a great way to feel some sense of accomplishment in reading [x] number of books in a given year. Since I also started reviewing some digital ARCs through NetGalley last year, I've been writing more reviews in general (though the non-ARC books I read I may or may not review). I've toyed with the idea of doing some additional challenges before, but haven't--so I'm going to try for it this year! Because this is my first time doing this, I tried to choose challenges that mesh pretty well with what I already tend to read. This means, basically, that they're challenges I could have done okay on with books I read naturally over the course of a year. Yeah, that might not quite be in the "move out of your comfort zone" spirit of many challenges, but it seems like a way to ease into it. So, without further ado, I'm going to be trying the following: Rose City R...

Review - Strange Skies Over East Berlin (Jeff Loveness and Lisandro Estherren)

I really, really wanted to like this graphic novel more than I actually did. It touched on a number of themes I really enjoy in fiction: truth and lies, surveillance and (false) freedom, justice and mercy, idealism and disillusionment, identity and its loss. It featured a morally grey protagonist, and a setting that I tend to enjoy seeing in media. It drew subtle parallels between characters that could have been very poignant and thought-provoking. It had most of the elements that should have made me love it. And yet somehow, it read like a summary of itself. The pacing was too fast to evoke either the poignancy or the quiet horror of which it should have been capable; the art, while evocative and well suited to the story, never felt quite atmospheric enough to capture the suspense and sense of inevitable dread that never quite manifested. For a story that relies so much on the protagonist's sense of himself (or lack thereof) and his lies, I never felt that I knew Her...

Undirected Reading

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