Three Monkeys, Ten Minutes

I've been doing a lot of staring at bookshelves (bookshops, libraries), online library catalogues, publishers websites, book recommendation sites, online book retail sites and a range of other places that seemed like a good idea at the time. I have not completed the full systematic search I want to have done, but I'm allowing that some of that is going to happen during the writing phase, because I do not actually expect to find the kinds of books I'm after in most of those places.

My spreadsheet of books now has over 150 entries. Quite a lot fail one or more of the inclusion criteria, and some of those are duplicates because I'm attempting to capture the sources as well (will I analyse that? no, probably not. Am I capturing it anyway because I think it will have the potential for me to talk about? yes). Several I've already started reading. I'm most excited about Attack of the Smart Speakers, which I'm halfway through, and as I'm writing my reading notes I keep writing enthusiastic commentary. This one is a bit frustrating because it is a library copy, and so I'm writing more than I would if I could just mark up my copy -- I've now ordered a me copy to annotate.

I'm also really happy with Orion Lost, although I'm not sure how much that one is going to fall in a heap in terms of getting done, because the next set of plot beats have the potential to go places I'm not comfortable following. Yes, it is middle grade fiction, and it will be resolved, but some of where it has already gone has required a few breaks. (I'm aware that these are me specific emotional land mines and that they aren't affecting my interpretation, just how fast I can cope with it). Plus, I put it aside to deal with library books that are due next week (I found three possibles of which two are yeses).

Which brings me to my evening -- I have spent some hours on The Nile and Fishpond websites looking for books that might suit my parameters. On The Nile, I found searching for 'AI' and then filtering to books / fiction / children and young adult did a reasonable job; on Fishpond I found no search that was useful. And then at the end of that I looked through my spreadsheet, picked what was reasonably priced and high in my priority rankings and was a variety of options, and ordered Slightly Too Many Books. Including one co-authored by Farah Mendelsohn, which was has been in my wishlist for multiple years and was about half the price I remember it being (Farah is going to be the GUFF delegate to the local con this year, so I'm extra motivated. Will I take everything I own of theirs to be signed? probably not. But I'm not ruling out the possibility).

And now I have to wait. The original delivery date range when I looked was mid May, and when I checked out it was early to mid June, so who knows when I'll get any of them. I have no shortage of things to be getting on with, but I'm presenting my initial findings at the end of May!