Daily Reading (20th April)

[ironed_orchid]

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

Comments

[nou]

Since last report, I have read:

• Cargo of Eagles by Margery Allingham. I quite enjoyed her short stories in Mr Campion and Others, but really wasn’t all that keen on this one. It took me several tries to get started, and then I found myself alternately bored by the storyline and annoyed by the way the main characters treated women. I gave up about 15% of the way through.
• The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla. I’ve been making this one last, reading one or two essays at a time, but have sadly finally reached the end. Thoroughly recommended.
• Whispers Under Ground, Broken Homes, Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch. Third, fourth, and fifth in the series, still enjoying them.
• No Longer At Ease by Chinua Achebe. Still working my way through the Nigerian classics. This is sort-of part of a trilogy, and all three novels have depressing endings in very different ways. I’ll likely re-read all three though.
• Tempest In The Tea Room and Too Many Coins by Libi Astaire. These were OK. I liked that they were set in a Jewish context, but I did feel that the clue to the resolution of the mystery in Tempest In The Tea Room was made really really explicit over and over and over again, to the point where I wondered if it was going to be a red herring. I also found the conversational language very stilted. I probably won’t read more in the series, unless someone makes me a very enthusiastic recommendation.
• Brother’s Ruin by Emma Newman. I enjoyed this one, though I did feel it might have been better as a novel rather than a novella — it seemed to stop fairly abruptly, and since there’s clearly going to be more in the series, why not give us a bit more of the story?
• Savant by Nik Abnett. I really wanted to like this one, but there are not enough SF trappings in the world to make me enjoy a book about an inept-at-life mathematical genius and the selfless woman who teaches him how to love.
• The Corporation Wars trilogy by Ken MacLeod — well-written but not really my thing. I slogged my way to the end of the first book, made a start on the second, then decided life's too short.
• Various things with a polar theme: White Fang by Jack London, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Henson, and South! by Ernest Shackleton. I also re-read “Scott and Scurvy” at Idle Words (there’s a bunch more stuff there about Antarctica too).
• Lion’s Blood by Steven Barnes. Got about a third of the way through but wasn’t finding it particularly interesting, so stopped.
• Players by Paul McAuley. As above, except I only made it a quarter of the way through this one.
• In Order To Live by Yeonmi Park. This was OK, I suppose, but I wouldn’t see any need to read it again. It’s the memoir of a North Korean refugee who ended up in South Korea after some time in China, which could have been interesting but it was quite blandly written, pretty much just a recitation of “this happened, then this happened, then this happened”.

(Sorry this is so enormous! I will try to check in more often so things don’t pile up quite so much.)

[ironed_orchid]

I love The Rivers of London series! Although still haven't read The Hanging Tree, might have to borrow a copy if I can't wait for the paperback to come out.

Also heard good things about The Good Immigrant, might have to stick that on a wishlist.

Never apologize for reading!!! We'll just have to post more prompts so your lists don't build up ;-)

[nou]

<3