The Geekiest Geek to Ever Geek Down the Pike, and Other Tales

I just finished The Pagan Lord , Book 7 of the Saxon Tales (or the Saxon Chronicles, or The Last Kingdom series, or whatever the series name is on the version you have).  I was reluctant to start it, because no matter how much I am fascinated by the Anglo-Saxons, I just felt like it would be another story with weird names and a shield wall and Uhtred calling someone a turd and then saving the day.  Of course, I was right, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  It's usually what I love about The Last Kingdom.  And so once I dug in, I was hooked, as per usual.  Uhtred, of course, does save the day, and he does call a lot of people turds.   This one picks up ten years after the events in Death of Kings , during the uneasy peace following the great battle (at an undetermined location, somewhere in East Anglia) that closes that book.  Edward is still king of Wessex, Alfred having died in Death of Kings , and Aethelred and Aethelflaed still maintain ...

Well, it's the end of 2018, and despite working significantly more hours than last year (my department is slowly collapsing like a flan in a cupboard - bonus points if you remember that as a reference to the Austro-Hungarian Empire), I managed to beat my Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge goals, and actually read more books and more pages than I have since I started keeping track on Goodreads in 2012.  My stats for the year were 37 books and 13,985 pages.  I attribute to my seeming success to the fact that I quit Facebook in late January (I say "seeming success" because, in retrospect, maybe those numbers are a little sad.  Like, maybe I should have been off having actual adventures, instead of reading. However, I made somewhere around $8,000 in overtime this year and I am counting the fact that I was able to spend any time at all not working as a victory).  I actually suspended my Facebook account because of reading.  I always bitched and moaned that I didn't hav...