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Yuletide assignments are out (yay!) and it occurs to me that I better get current on my review backlog so I can start writing my gift.
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Manningtree Witches – A.K. Blakemore
This novel is the fictionalized account of the first seven women to be accused as witches during the witch hunts of the English Civil War. Blakemore's prose is beautiful, spare and poetic, and an absolute joy to read. It was, at some points, the sole thing that helped me make it through the novel's unsparing depictions of the horrors visited on innocent women by sadistic men who claimed to be carrying out god's work. Blakemore knows her history and period language inside out; there are no anachronisms here, and her genius is in conveying to modern readers the injustice visited on the victims without straying from the modes of thought and speech those victims–or those who victimized them–would have used.
There are a few missteps.( Read more... ) But these are small quibbles with an overall excellent novel, one I very much recommend.
The King of Attolia – Megan Whalen Turner
I read this one once more before starting The Return of the Thief and finishing the series forever. (Forever!!) It is as good during every subsequent read as it was during the first one: Turner is unparalleled at writing books you enjoy for the page-turning drama and suspense the first time, and for all the subtle detail and narrative complexity every read thereafter.
And The King of Attolia is a different book every time I read it. I loved it at first for the outsider view it gave me into Gen-as-King and Gen and Attolia’s relationship while side-eying Costis the entire time. Who asked for your perspective, narrative interloper! And it’s still great for that, but now it’s also great for seeing Costis’s transformation from the straightforward, man-of-simple-pleasures soldier we meet at the start of this volume to the steady, dependable, Zen-nerves-of-steel-behind-enemy-lines operative he is at the beginning of Thick as Thieves.
The Return of the Thief
I loved it. ( Cut for All The Thoughts And Feels. ) Guys, I love Megan Whalen Turner so much. Oh my gosh, what a great ending to this series. I’m so sad it’s over but also so happy and satisfied.
What I Finished Reading At Some Point In The Past Four Months
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 – P. Djeli Clark
I needed some light commute reading a few weeks ago and this fit the bill. Clark’s alternate 19th century steampunk Cairo—in an Egypt that has outstripped Europe in technologies both mechanical and supernatural, and that is moving fitfully toward political enfranchisement and gender equality—is a fantastic setting, one I would have explored for days. The characters, unfortunately, are uninspired: the obsequiously oily corrupt bureaucrat, the brusque, world-weary veteran detective with a soft underside and his naive, eager beaver rookie assistant. There’s nothing wrong with utilizing genre conventions, but a good author at least fills in the outlines; Clark, alas, is content to keep his characters as cardboard cutouts. Coupled with the typical Tor lack of copy editing, the book served well enough as a diversion but didn’t offer enough to convince me to pick up Clark’s subsequent offerings any time soon.
Cork Folk Tales – Kate Corkery
This was a delightful read from start to finish. The volume collects several dozen folktales, spanning Ireland’s pre-Christian past to recent decades, along with historical notes on their context, geography, and sources. The language is lively and engaging and the subject matter humorous, dramatic, eerie, and whimsical by turns. The decidedly amateur illustrations are the book’s only weak point, but easy enough to ignore. It looks like Cork Folk Tales is one volume of a series that collects folklore from various locations in the British Isles, and I’ll definitely seek out the other books on the strength of this one.
The Book of Spells – Jaime Della
From the Little Free Library it came, and to the Little Free Library it returned.( Read more... )
Eat the Buddha – Barbara Demick
I very much liked Demick’s Nothing To Envy, about residents of the most impoverished region in North Korea. Demick brings the same perception and narrative skill to this book, about the history and contemporary conditions that drove hundreds of Tibetan residents of Sichuan to burn themselves to death starting in 2008. It’s an extremely well-written book that’s equally difficult to read due to its subject matter.
Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett
It’s wild to go back and reread these novels after so many decades. One, it doesn’t feel like decades have passed, and two, oh my gosh these characters were such different people when they debuted. ( Read more... ) Still, Equal Rites is the first Discworld novel where I felt the plot stood on its own, and it's fascinating in hindsight to see glimmers of Pratchett's incipient world view starting to peek through.
The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin
The Westing Game was one of those books from my childhood that I somehow never read, even though virtually everyone I knew had. And I wish I had read it as a kid, because I really liked it as an adult, and as a kid I would have loved it. There's a clever mystery with clues that attentive readers can puzzle out alongside–or ahead of–the characters. There's a racially, culturally, and developmentally diverse ensemble cast. There's a clever female protagonist who outwits everyone and carries the day. There are gimlet-eyed takedowns of sexism, racism, ableism, classism, and consumerism/capitalism from an author who assumes readers are smart enough to figure these messages out without having their noses rubbed in the mess. Written before the advent of smartphones, or the Internet, or computers, or even cable television, The Westing Game is probably on the edge of becoming too antiquated for the target age group to relate to, which is a shame because this is a really good book. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.
The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker
I’d forgotten, in the 8 years since it came out, how much of a Rubin's vase reading this book is: the story is either meditative or plodding, depending on my headspace when I pick it up. After having plodded through the first 100 pages over the course of half a year, I was finally in the appropriately meditative headspace to finish the remaining 400 in a couple of days. I enjoy this novel for its vivid scene setting, its protagonists and the sweet friendship that develops between them, the philosophical questions the story raises, and the way Wecker refuses to opt for pat “and they all lived 100 percent happily ever after” resolutions for any of the characters. It's by no means a perfect book, but when I'm in the right space to enjoy reading it, I enjoy it indeed.
What I Am Currently Reading
Dharma Punx - Noah Levine
I started reading this back in March but stalled out. I needed something hopeful after The Manningtree Witches, so this week seemed like a good time to pick it back up again.
The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
The first of my Yuletide request rereads.
Isolde – Rosalind Miles
I never got around to reading Miles' Guinevere Trilogy during the height of my Arthuriana phase, largely because I don't care about Guinevere or Lancelot as characters. The same can be said for Iseult and Tristan, but as this was in a Little Free Library, I thought, Why not? Forty-five pages in, I have determined that Miles writes stunning, Tolkienesque high fantasy descriptive language, and horrifically purple bodice ripper dialogue.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I picked up a copy of The Everyday Tarot.
What I Still Have Left To Review
The Crone ・ Girl, Wash Your Face ・ The Kingdoms ・ The Last Graduate ・ A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ・ M, King’s Bodyguard ・ The Northern Fiddler ・ Senlin Ascends ・ The Silver Bough vol. 2 ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (1) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (2) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (3)
これで以上です。
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Manningtree Witches – A.K. Blakemore
This novel is the fictionalized account of the first seven women to be accused as witches during the witch hunts of the English Civil War. Blakemore's prose is beautiful, spare and poetic, and an absolute joy to read. It was, at some points, the sole thing that helped me make it through the novel's unsparing depictions of the horrors visited on innocent women by sadistic men who claimed to be carrying out god's work. Blakemore knows her history and period language inside out; there are no anachronisms here, and her genius is in conveying to modern readers the injustice visited on the victims without straying from the modes of thought and speech those victims–or those who victimized them–would have used.
There are a few missteps.( Read more... ) But these are small quibbles with an overall excellent novel, one I very much recommend.
The King of Attolia – Megan Whalen Turner
I read this one once more before starting The Return of the Thief and finishing the series forever. (Forever!!) It is as good during every subsequent read as it was during the first one: Turner is unparalleled at writing books you enjoy for the page-turning drama and suspense the first time, and for all the subtle detail and narrative complexity every read thereafter.
And The King of Attolia is a different book every time I read it. I loved it at first for the outsider view it gave me into Gen-as-King and Gen and Attolia’s relationship while side-eying Costis the entire time. Who asked for your perspective, narrative interloper! And it’s still great for that, but now it’s also great for seeing Costis’s transformation from the straightforward, man-of-simple-pleasures soldier we meet at the start of this volume to the steady, dependable, Zen-nerves-of-steel-behind-enemy-lines operative he is at the beginning of Thick as Thieves.
The Return of the Thief
I loved it. ( Cut for All The Thoughts And Feels. ) Guys, I love Megan Whalen Turner so much. Oh my gosh, what a great ending to this series. I’m so sad it’s over but also so happy and satisfied.
What I Finished Reading At Some Point In The Past Four Months
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 – P. Djeli Clark
I needed some light commute reading a few weeks ago and this fit the bill. Clark’s alternate 19th century steampunk Cairo—in an Egypt that has outstripped Europe in technologies both mechanical and supernatural, and that is moving fitfully toward political enfranchisement and gender equality—is a fantastic setting, one I would have explored for days. The characters, unfortunately, are uninspired: the obsequiously oily corrupt bureaucrat, the brusque, world-weary veteran detective with a soft underside and his naive, eager beaver rookie assistant. There’s nothing wrong with utilizing genre conventions, but a good author at least fills in the outlines; Clark, alas, is content to keep his characters as cardboard cutouts. Coupled with the typical Tor lack of copy editing, the book served well enough as a diversion but didn’t offer enough to convince me to pick up Clark’s subsequent offerings any time soon.
Cork Folk Tales – Kate Corkery
This was a delightful read from start to finish. The volume collects several dozen folktales, spanning Ireland’s pre-Christian past to recent decades, along with historical notes on their context, geography, and sources. The language is lively and engaging and the subject matter humorous, dramatic, eerie, and whimsical by turns. The decidedly amateur illustrations are the book’s only weak point, but easy enough to ignore. It looks like Cork Folk Tales is one volume of a series that collects folklore from various locations in the British Isles, and I’ll definitely seek out the other books on the strength of this one.
The Book of Spells – Jaime Della
From the Little Free Library it came, and to the Little Free Library it returned.( Read more... )
Eat the Buddha – Barbara Demick
I very much liked Demick’s Nothing To Envy, about residents of the most impoverished region in North Korea. Demick brings the same perception and narrative skill to this book, about the history and contemporary conditions that drove hundreds of Tibetan residents of Sichuan to burn themselves to death starting in 2008. It’s an extremely well-written book that’s equally difficult to read due to its subject matter.
Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett
It’s wild to go back and reread these novels after so many decades. One, it doesn’t feel like decades have passed, and two, oh my gosh these characters were such different people when they debuted. ( Read more... ) Still, Equal Rites is the first Discworld novel where I felt the plot stood on its own, and it's fascinating in hindsight to see glimmers of Pratchett's incipient world view starting to peek through.
The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin
The Westing Game was one of those books from my childhood that I somehow never read, even though virtually everyone I knew had. And I wish I had read it as a kid, because I really liked it as an adult, and as a kid I would have loved it. There's a clever mystery with clues that attentive readers can puzzle out alongside–or ahead of–the characters. There's a racially, culturally, and developmentally diverse ensemble cast. There's a clever female protagonist who outwits everyone and carries the day. There are gimlet-eyed takedowns of sexism, racism, ableism, classism, and consumerism/capitalism from an author who assumes readers are smart enough to figure these messages out without having their noses rubbed in the mess. Written before the advent of smartphones, or the Internet, or computers, or even cable television, The Westing Game is probably on the edge of becoming too antiquated for the target age group to relate to, which is a shame because this is a really good book. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.
The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker
I’d forgotten, in the 8 years since it came out, how much of a Rubin's vase reading this book is: the story is either meditative or plodding, depending on my headspace when I pick it up. After having plodded through the first 100 pages over the course of half a year, I was finally in the appropriately meditative headspace to finish the remaining 400 in a couple of days. I enjoy this novel for its vivid scene setting, its protagonists and the sweet friendship that develops between them, the philosophical questions the story raises, and the way Wecker refuses to opt for pat “and they all lived 100 percent happily ever after” resolutions for any of the characters. It's by no means a perfect book, but when I'm in the right space to enjoy reading it, I enjoy it indeed.
What I Am Currently Reading
Dharma Punx - Noah Levine
I started reading this back in March but stalled out. I needed something hopeful after The Manningtree Witches, so this week seemed like a good time to pick it back up again.
The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
The first of my Yuletide request rereads.
Isolde – Rosalind Miles
I never got around to reading Miles' Guinevere Trilogy during the height of my Arthuriana phase, largely because I don't care about Guinevere or Lancelot as characters. The same can be said for Iseult and Tristan, but as this was in a Little Free Library, I thought, Why not? Forty-five pages in, I have determined that Miles writes stunning, Tolkienesque high fantasy descriptive language, and horrifically purple bodice ripper dialogue.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I picked up a copy of The Everyday Tarot.
What I Still Have Left To Review
The Crone ・ Girl, Wash Your Face ・ The Kingdoms ・ The Last Graduate ・ A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ・ M, King’s Bodyguard ・ The Northern Fiddler ・ Senlin Ascends ・ The Silver Bough vol. 2 ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (1) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (2) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (3)
これで以上です。
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