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3. Diana Wynne Jones, Hexwood – I was intrigued about Hexwood since hearing that several flisters are big fans, and when I was in the UK, cafemassolit presented me with a beautiful UK cover copy – very forestry and mysterious – because the non-Chrestomanci DWJs are hard to find in the US. With the 8dodwj podcast getting to Hexwood in late January, and having figured out some kind of reading schedule with the sync read – what seems to work well is, I read during the BART portions of my commute, which is a solid hour+ chunk, and requires the least attention from me, because the station announcements are hard to miss, and listen to podcasts for the bus and waiting portions, which is allowing me to keep up with new podcasts and make some adequate progress on the E&J retro dive – I now actually read it. And it’s definitely unlike anything by DWJ I’ve read! Early on, when I had finished part 1 or 2 of 9, Best Chat asked which one that was, and I said, all I can say about it is that it’s a non-Chrestomanci DWJ, because I have no clue what’s going on – but neither does anyone else in this book, so that’s cool. Once I’d finished, I said, “At basically no point could I predict what was going to happen next, and this is like five or six books in one, matryoshka style except less linear. But I definitely liked it!” Which I think is a pretty good summary both of the book and my reading experience. And the rest goes under ( the SPOILER CUT )

And hereby I have finally read Hexwood, after talking vaguely about doing so for several years. Having done the same with Fire and Hemlock about two years ago, I should probably now pick a next target to read – I’m thinking Black Maria/Aunt Maria or Homeward Bounders probably… Although I do actually have a copy of Archer’s Goon, unlike these other two, so, sensibly, I should read THAT.

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Week 3 of Stuff I Love: Top 10 Edition (hosted by dreamersdare here) is Music Picks.

I’m not fannish about music, and my favorite songs would be heavily weighed towards Russian and they are my favorite because of the lyrics, so that’s not going to be interesting to most of my flist. So instead, I’m doing top 10 songs that I’ve seen used in fanvids that I’ve loved. These have to be songs I actually like, and fanvids I actually like/love, which restricted this to a manageable and relatively easy to track down set.

( 13 fanvids to 11 songs – because I had to add some bonus ones and prime numbers are cool )

And this is not part of the above list, because I just discovered it while searching for something else and stumbling on the playlist of someone with very compatible tastes to me, but there’s a The Goes Wrong Show fanvid to “Odds Are” by the Barenaked Ladies (who have several songs I really enjoy, but I think this is the first time I’ve found one paired with a vid for something I also really like), and it was a lot of fun to revisit a bunch of my favorite disasters to such a jaunty and optimistic song.