October is in the Chair: October 2011 Reads

[Zach H]

Almost done with K.W. Jeter's Infernal Devices. Haven't really read that much steampunk, but this one is really fun. Also think it hangs quite well with the weird label stuff as well given the surprisingly good prose and some strange interworldly concoctions and ideas that could feel at home in a VanderMeer or Mieville novel. The Angry Robot edition I'm reading does have more typos than I've ever encountered in a published book before, though. At times it's really distracting.

After that it's back to the Collected Fictions of Borges. I'm on the The Maker section/collection.

[Bellis]

I finished River of Smoke, Amitav Ghosh's sequel to Sea of Poppies. This one follows a partly new set of characters to the merchant enclaves of South China, at a time when the Chinese government (and other parties) are deciding to finally do something about those peoples to the west who are smuggling opium into the country despite the fact that their own countries have seen fit to ban the drug. Great cameo appearance by Napoleon (post-exile, plotting the fall of English trade) of all random contemporaneous figures! I love Ghosh's globalized, multicultural, multilingual writings. However, the plot itself is very slow to move, and overall, I liked Sea of Poppies much better.

My mother recommended to me Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman. It's a sweet little YA story about a girl in WWII/Independence movement era India, and her own journey towards self-fullfillment and independence from her traditional family. My mom thought the main character reminded her of me as a kid, but I liked to imagine it as her childhood :)

[Datepalm]

I want to read River of Smoke, but I thought the plot in Sea of Poppies was a bit on the slow side, so i'm a bit hesitant now.

Reading The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. Its really good so far, the kind of awesome ideas-sf i've been missing lately.

[Tammy]

I'm reading Lydgate's Siege of Thebes this afternoon. Guess I should bust out my middle English dictionary...it's been awhile.

[nickg]

Still reading Blackdog, and about halfway into Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. Both are good. Warbreaker is better than I expected and very easy to read prose wise. Nothing fancy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Larry.]

Finished ODD? yesterday, but my positive thoughts are biased ones because of one of my translations appearing there. Should appeal to those who like a mixture of various literary styles that never would be considered "stuffy" or even "conventional." Also read some short fiction (in Spanish) and poetry by Evaristo Carriego and Leopoldo Lugones; both are often cited as influences on Borges.

Currently reading two short novels that arrived today: the new English translation of Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar's Kafka's Leopards and Julian Barnes' Booker-shortlisted The Sense of an Ending.

Will likely buy some new and used books tomorrow when I visit Nashville and attend the first (and maybe second) day of the 2011 Southern Festival of Books. Justin Torres, Chad Harbach, Stewart O'Nan, and Erin Morgenstern will be there those two days (the first three on Friday, Morgenstern on Saturday, and I think Torres and Harbach also on Saturday).

[kcf]

Well I finally got my review of The Edinburgh Dead by Brian Ruckley up - it's quite good, much better than his earlier stuff. I've also finished up The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson and need to get a review done for it - it's also very good, in a different sort of way. Now I'm reading Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey.

[mashiara]

Can I get a round of applause, please? I managed to finish a second book since I gave birth to the twins nearly 3 months ago -and some of you will know why this is quite an accomplishment. I read and enjoyed Stephen Kings Full Dark, No Stars. One thing to say about King, when he is good, he IS good. Those 4 stories were for me some of the best writing he's done in years.

I've started rereading Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. When I first read this book years ago it made me cry several times because I was going through a very emotional period and anything to do with babies/having them/losing them had me in tears. It will be interesting to see how I react to it now, when my situation is so much different.

[Larry.]

Going to write a summary of the 2011 Booker Prize finalists later, but Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending is one of those stories that a reader can love at the phrase/sentence level but end up being dissatisfied with at the narrative level because the excellent turns of phrase and reflective thoughts barely prop up a storyline that is much weaker than the sum of its part. Very frustrating when that happens.

Went to the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville yesterday and came away with several books, including Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan (sequel to Wish You Were Here), David Halperin's Journal of a UFO Investigator, and Donald Ray Pollock's 2008 debut collection, Knockemstiff. I have very high expectations for these books and the others I've been dipping into the past week, including a dual re-read of Umberto Eco's Prague Cemetery in the original Italian and in the Spanish translation.

[Starkess]

Finished And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer. In general, I think Mr. Colfer did a decent job of recreating the atmosphere of the Hitchhiker books, but it still was very jarringly obvious that he was trying to imitate another writer's style. It took me probably about half the book to get used to it. But obviously no one can really re-create Douglas Adams and I understand that he had to try. It would be even MORE jarring to read a Hitchhiker book that wasn't even close to the same style. Overall, I enjoyed it, but next time I re-read the series, I'll probably stop with Mostly Harmless.

Also, I kind of hated the ending. It seemed everyone got their happy ending...except Arthur!! Come ON, you are really trying to tell me that after 6 freaking books he can't end up on a beach with Fenchurch? Random, Trillian, Ford, Zaphod, even freaking Wowbagger get what they want, but not Arthur. Made me pretty angry, actually, especially after the seeming heavy foreshadowing that he would get Fenchurch back.

Next up is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I think the only book I ever tried to read by him was American Gods and it is one of the few books I've never finished. Bored me quite a bit. But I did like his collaboration with Terry Pratchett, so I'm willing to give him another shot. Plus this is short. :)

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Being a Theo Fleury fan growing up as a kid makes me hard not like his autobiography Playing With Fire. A feel good story about him getting his life back on track after being sexually abused as a boy and using alcohol, drugs and near suicide to deal with it despite his very successful career in ice hockey. Recommended!

Up next is Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman. I wasn't a huge fan of The Coldfire Trilogy but I'm willing to give her another shot.

[dornish prince]

started use of weapons by banks; too early to say but i liked consider phlebas. i've been reading a few at a time so i believe i'll add fool by christopher moore and the winter of our discontent by steinbeck. i've set a lofty goal for books to be read by the end of the year and i'm never gonna get there reading one at a time ;)

[Bellis]

Someone on Facebook was talking about Craig Thompson's new graphic novel, Habibi. Not following graphic novels, I hadn't heard of it, but it looked fascinating, so I picked it up out of the library. It's amazing, a lush mixture of Arabic calligraphy lessons, and stories out of Judeo-Christian-Islamic myth as well as Arab folklore, intertwined with the tale of two orphans in a timeless Arabia. Everything a graphic novel should be, I recommend it to anyone. Unfortunately, the whole is somewhat less than the sum of its parts, and the story often veers into Orientalist cliche. This may be a deliberate choice by the author, but it's also an uncomfortable one. It's also very bleak.

See http://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/10/can-the-subaltern-draw-the-spectre-of-orientalism-in-craig-thompsons-habibi/ for a critical review of the more problematic issues of this otherwise well-meaning and amazing work.

I can't wait to read Thompson's Blankets.

[Jojen]

Just finished Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt, an inspiring little tale of fighting off depression. It's a quick read that starts well and ends strong, but the middle felt a bit thin and the language was often overwrought--Hunt's description alternate between colorful, fun, and confusing. Yet despite those few flaws, the character of Mr. Chartwell himself stands out as brilliant and memorable.

[aschwiig]

Reading The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. Its really good so far, the kind of awesome ideas-sf i've been missing lately.

I too liked this a lot. I remember reading a discussion somewhere where the science bits were absolutely slaughtered, but I didn't mind too much.

The seque, Children of God, left a weaker impression.

[Datepalm]

The science-engineering bits do seem kind of...implausible and off the cuff, but they're so clearly not at all the point, and the ease of them reinforces the hubris of the characters.

[Lummel]

Just finished Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt, an inspiring little tale of fighting off depression. It's a quick read that starts well and ends strong, but the middle felt a bit thin and the language was often overwrought--Hunt's description alternate between colorful, fun, and confusing. Yet despite those few flaws, the character of Mr. Chartwell himself stands out as brilliant and memorable.

I wonder if this was based on Churchill? He had incidences of depression throughout his life which he called his 'black dog' and his house in Kent was/is called Chartwell.

[aschwiig]

The science-engineering bits do seem kind of...implausible and off the cuff, but they're so clearly not at all the point, and the ease of them reinforces the hubris of the characters.

I agree completely.

[Jojen]

I wonder if this was based on Churchill? He had incidences of depression throughout his life which he called his 'black dog' and his house in Kent was/is called Chartwell.

Good guess. Not only is it based on Churchill, it's about him. Not entirely, but he's definitely a big chunk of it.

[Grack21]

Weird, I was just going to start a topic asking about The Sparrow. Saw it in the store and the back blurb gave me a leibowitz/Long Sun vibe. So, worth reading?