bitesizedreading | Daily Reading (27th October)

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bitesizedreading

What have you been reading today? Everything counts, from the user's manual to the back of the cereal box!

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From:

nou

Since last report (which was, gosh, over a month ago) I have read:

Callaloo and Other Lesbian Love Tales by LaShonda K Barnett. Short stories and vignettes. She has a novel out now too but I can’t seem to find a Kindle edition.
Between Two Thorns, Any Other Name, All Is Fair, and A Little Knowledge by Emma Newman. The first four books in a series (the final one is yet to be published). I wished these had been better copyedited, but I still enjoyed them.
“Road To Wingo”, “Graf”, “Ezekiel Saw The Wheel”, and “533” by LaShonda K Barnett. The last of these also introduced me to Carmen McRae, who is excellent.
Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh. The first two of these were re-reads, the third was my first time. I love these books — all the different Englishes, the descriptions of food, and the way the characters are drawn so distinctively. This also introduced me to something excellent I’d not been aware of before, namely akuri (the version in the book just used eggs, spring onions, green chillies, and fresh coriander, which is what I used when I made it).
Beyond This Place by A J Cronin. My first Cronin was The Citadel, which although depressing ended well, so then I read The Stars Look Down, which was depressing enough that I avoided him for a couple of years. This was less depressing! And also not overly preachy - the author does like to make Important Social Points in his writing, but it works with the story rather than being bolted on.
One Of Us by Michael Marshall Smith. This was OK; a somewhat uneven blend of satire, noir, and cod philosophy. I made it to the end but am unlikely to re-read.
Neuromancer by William Gibson. I wanted to see how well this had aged, given that it’s a futuristic novel published over 30 years ago. The answer is: pretty well!
Aberfan — 50 years on, in the survivors’ own words. This happened 9 years before I was born, 9 miles from where I grew up. I learned about it in a school not dissimilar from the one that was buried by the tip. This piece was very hard to read, but I’m glad I did.
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson. Of this year’s reading, this is certainly my favourite novella, and possibly my favourite book.

From:

ironed_orchid

Wow, that's many!

From:

nou

Much of it is due to insomnia and illness :( But it also looks like a lot because it's a while since I last reported :)

Today I have mainly read more CSS than I really wanted to.

From:

ironed_orchid

I know that feel.

From:

nanila

A gigantic e-mail backlog and technical documents!

From:

ironed_orchid

Today one of my plans was to go through email from the last few weeks and find all the ones relating to a certain issue. I got as far as creating and naming the folder for them to go into before other things happened that needed attention.

From:

ironed_orchid

I'm re-reading The Girl with All the Gifts and paying more attention to how it's structure. It really is a great book, and not just because of its new approach to the zombie genre.

Edited (icon) Date: 2016-10-27 11:53 am (UTC)

From:

fred_mouse

Too much about the US election. Including one lovely piece by the ?Yale Review? about how they weren't endorsing a candidate because of their tax status.