Rest of February books

I read the book The Internet Is a Playground by David Thorne throughout the month of February. It is the perfect bathroom book because it's a bunch of essays and email conversations, so you can pick up and put down the book at any point. You can read the synopsis here. I had heard of the blog/website, and I'm pretty sure my brother sent me some of the greatest hits from it (as well as seeing some on tumblr), so I was somewhat familiar with a few of the chapters. One of David Thorne's viral email conversations is credited with "inventing" NFTs (the spider). It is a very funny book, but the humor is mean and problematic. The tagline includes the blog's name, Evil Online Genius, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I couldn't help laughing anyway, although I did find it less funny than I would have/did ten+ years ago. I consider this a good time capsule of mid-2000s to mid-2010s online humor. 3.5 stars, giving to my brother since I know he'll find it funny. Source: BookOutlet. Trigger warnings for this book: fatphobia, sizeism, ableism, the r*tard slur is used multiple times, sexism, homophobia, homophobic slurs (directed by others towards author), child endangerment jokes, animal death & cruelty jokes, probably other stuff I can't think of

Continuing my TCON reread, I read Prince Caspian on the 27th. I had fewer problems reading this book vis-a-vis thinking of reading it out loud (I'd stick with the original vaguely Spanish accents for the Telmarines. It fits with the names). It's such a good book, and a good continuation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Having the kids go back when they do adds such a fascinating, mysterious element. Memorable characters, wilderness survival, and battle scenes, not to mention magical creatures and happenings. What more do you want? I'd also try to eat the chocolate-looking soil. The copy I read was from my trusty set with the Leo & Diane Dillon cover art, since I don't yet have a full-color illustrations edition of Prince Caspian. 5 stars, permanent collection. Source: gift. Trigger warnings for this book: war, death, murder, threats of the above (including to children), blood, children fighting duels and battles against adults, child soldiers, bear attack, children using weapons, animal death, children shot at with arrows, scary fantastical characters, evil magic, fatphobia, people turned into animals, magic referred to as dark or light when we now know that's racist, suspense (mostly kid-friendly)