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What I Just Finished Reading
The Binding – Bridget Collins
Collins starts with a fantastic premise: a world in which books are filled with the actual memories of human beings, transferred from their minds to the written page by artisans known as binders. Collins does a fabulous job of fleshing out the implications: how a binding can be a mercy for someone who would otherwise be crushed by the weight of traumatic memories. How undergoing too many of them can hollow a person out until there's almost nothing left. How the ability creates tension between those who practice it as an art and those who are out to make a quick buck. How the procedure lets those with the money and influence to buy it facilitate their own comfort by exploiting the less fortunate. How the procedure interacts with the misogyny and homophobia of Collins’ pseudo-Victorian world. How it enflames the superstitious and religiously fanatic. Imagine a world where politicians could simply—and completely—erase every memory of a political misstep, not matter how trivial. Collins has, and she does it very well indeed.
And yet.( Spoilers. )
And yet.
And yet, I ended up liking—or rather, not disliking—this book far more than the majority of YA novels I’ve read recently, for reasons I can’t entirely explain, even having mulled them over for the past two days. I’ve been angrier at books I’ve borrowed from the library, and I paid cover price for this one. Maybe it’s Collins’ talent for evocative scene setting. Maybe it’s the internal consistency of her characters’ emotions and motivations. I really have no clue, but there you have it.
What I Am Currently Reading
Witches Of America – Bridget Collins
This week’s chapters outline Gerard Gardner and Raymond Buckland’s invention of modern Paganism in the fifties and sixties. They’re also exactly what I’m looking for in my popular nonfiction reads: clearly written in snappy, intelligent prose, with doses of humor as warranted. This one is shaping up to be a recommend.
Desdemona and the Deep – C.S.E. Cooney
I picked this novel up on a whim at the library expecting not to like it very much. But as it turns out, Desdemona and the Deep is exactly the novel I’ve been looking for these past few weeks. Our titular character is the spoiled dilettante daughter of a Rockefeller-esque industrialist who, having chanced upon the knowledge that her father has done something unspeakably awful, sets out into the realms of faerie to make it right. In a blind taste test, I would have sworn that this had to have been written by Martin Millar. It’s that good, and fast shaping up to be one of the best things I’ve read this year.
The Ninefox Gambit – Yoon Ha Lee
Chapters three and four this week. The plot thickens for our hero.
What I'm Reading Next
No book purchases this week, but I did acquire Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown from the library.
これで以上です。
The Binding – Bridget Collins
Collins starts with a fantastic premise: a world in which books are filled with the actual memories of human beings, transferred from their minds to the written page by artisans known as binders. Collins does a fabulous job of fleshing out the implications: how a binding can be a mercy for someone who would otherwise be crushed by the weight of traumatic memories. How undergoing too many of them can hollow a person out until there's almost nothing left. How the ability creates tension between those who practice it as an art and those who are out to make a quick buck. How the procedure lets those with the money and influence to buy it facilitate their own comfort by exploiting the less fortunate. How the procedure interacts with the misogyny and homophobia of Collins’ pseudo-Victorian world. How it enflames the superstitious and religiously fanatic. Imagine a world where politicians could simply—and completely—erase every memory of a political misstep, not matter how trivial. Collins has, and she does it very well indeed.
And yet.( Spoilers. )
And yet.
And yet, I ended up liking—or rather, not disliking—this book far more than the majority of YA novels I’ve read recently, for reasons I can’t entirely explain, even having mulled them over for the past two days. I’ve been angrier at books I’ve borrowed from the library, and I paid cover price for this one. Maybe it’s Collins’ talent for evocative scene setting. Maybe it’s the internal consistency of her characters’ emotions and motivations. I really have no clue, but there you have it.
What I Am Currently Reading
Witches Of America – Bridget Collins
This week’s chapters outline Gerard Gardner and Raymond Buckland’s invention of modern Paganism in the fifties and sixties. They’re also exactly what I’m looking for in my popular nonfiction reads: clearly written in snappy, intelligent prose, with doses of humor as warranted. This one is shaping up to be a recommend.
Desdemona and the Deep – C.S.E. Cooney
I picked this novel up on a whim at the library expecting not to like it very much. But as it turns out, Desdemona and the Deep is exactly the novel I’ve been looking for these past few weeks. Our titular character is the spoiled dilettante daughter of a Rockefeller-esque industrialist who, having chanced upon the knowledge that her father has done something unspeakably awful, sets out into the realms of faerie to make it right. In a blind taste test, I would have sworn that this had to have been written by Martin Millar. It’s that good, and fast shaping up to be one of the best things I’ve read this year.
The Ninefox Gambit – Yoon Ha Lee
Chapters three and four this week. The plot thickens for our hero.
What I'm Reading Next
No book purchases this week, but I did acquire Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown from the library.
これで以上です。
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