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I am all Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear all the time these days. Why did this happen? I don't even know. But damn, I love these games. When I have surfaced to read, I've read these books:
What I Just Finished Reading
The Hazel Wood – Melissa Albert
This book was the palette cleanser I needed after The Ten Thousand Doors of January. The story centers on Alice Proserpine, whose grandmother Althea is the author of a book of fairy tales that’s amassed a cult following despite it's being almost impossible to find. Mother and daughter, estranged from Grandma, lead a peripatetic life to avoid the bad luck that’s always nipping at their heels. Then one morning, Alice thinks she sees a man—a crazy who abducted her as a small child to try to bribe his way onto reclusive Althea’s estate—in the coffee shop where she works. From there, Things Start to Happen.
Albert has a knack for writing old school fairy tales—pre-Brothers Grimm things as full of menace as they are lacking in logic or and-justice-for-all conclusions—and her creations are creepy and delicious. She also deftly side-steps trope after YA trope in ways I found incredibly refreshing. One section of the book is rushed compared to the rest of the narrative but I’m on the fence about whether this is a bad thing. The alternative would have been to make readers slog through a character’s ignorance when they already know what’s going on (which I often find the most tedious part of books that take this route instead). But oh man, good characters, good atmosphere, good plot, good book.
What I Am Currently Reading
Intermediate Korean – Andrew Sangpil Byon
I have finished the third chapter on auxiliary verbs and the first on clausal conjunctives.
The Raven Strategem – Yoon Ha Lee
Khiruev, you are hitting all my narrative kinks right now.
Dealing With Dragons – Patricia Wrede
I never got around to reading Wrede as a kid, which is a shame because this book is great fun as an adult, and would have been that much more luminous were I younger.
片づける 禅の作法 – 枡野 俊明 (Katazukeru Zen no Saho – Masuno Shunmyo)
A reread for me.
What I'm Reading Next
Tor has provided an e-copy of S. J. Day’s Eve of Darkness.
これで以上です。
What I Just Finished Reading
The Hazel Wood – Melissa Albert
This book was the palette cleanser I needed after The Ten Thousand Doors of January. The story centers on Alice Proserpine, whose grandmother Althea is the author of a book of fairy tales that’s amassed a cult following despite it's being almost impossible to find. Mother and daughter, estranged from Grandma, lead a peripatetic life to avoid the bad luck that’s always nipping at their heels. Then one morning, Alice thinks she sees a man—a crazy who abducted her as a small child to try to bribe his way onto reclusive Althea’s estate—in the coffee shop where she works. From there, Things Start to Happen.
Albert has a knack for writing old school fairy tales—pre-Brothers Grimm things as full of menace as they are lacking in logic or and-justice-for-all conclusions—and her creations are creepy and delicious. She also deftly side-steps trope after YA trope in ways I found incredibly refreshing. One section of the book is rushed compared to the rest of the narrative but I’m on the fence about whether this is a bad thing. The alternative would have been to make readers slog through a character’s ignorance when they already know what’s going on (which I often find the most tedious part of books that take this route instead). But oh man, good characters, good atmosphere, good plot, good book.
What I Am Currently Reading
Intermediate Korean – Andrew Sangpil Byon
I have finished the third chapter on auxiliary verbs and the first on clausal conjunctives.
The Raven Strategem – Yoon Ha Lee
Khiruev, you are hitting all my narrative kinks right now.
Dealing With Dragons – Patricia Wrede
I never got around to reading Wrede as a kid, which is a shame because this book is great fun as an adult, and would have been that much more luminous were I younger.
片づける 禅の作法 – 枡野 俊明 (Katazukeru Zen no Saho – Masuno Shunmyo)
A reread for me.
What I'm Reading Next
Tor has provided an e-copy of S. J. Day’s Eve of Darkness.
これで以上です。
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