Weekend Reading Roundup (22 May 2017)

[nanila]

How did your weekend reading go? If you planned on anything specifically, did you read it?

Comments

[nanila]

I read some more of "A Closed and Common Orbit" by Becky Chambers, which is on loan from a friend, and am enjoying it very much (YAY PEPPER).

[heliopausa]

Waited ages for a copy of someone's paper that was to be an essential subsection of a longer thing I'm writing, and when it came, found they'd only sent me a scrappy, scrappy outline.

I don't suppose crossword puzzle clues count?

[nanila]

Oh, how annoying. I'm sorry.

Crossword puzzle clues totally count. I spent part of the weekend playing a silly anagram game because I was too full of cold to sleep but too tired to do anything else.

[alexseanchai]

I read the first chapter of Athenian Myths & Festivals: Aglauros, Erechtheus, Plynteria, Panathenaia, Dionysia by Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood.

What I need to do is read Greek Religion by Walter Burkert. (Like I should have done months ago, tbh.) Sourvinou-Inwood's in dialogue with Burkert here, she says so in so many words.

[nanila]

Well done on getting started on your TBR pile!

[nou]

Since last report, I have read:

• Dichronauts by Greg Egan. One of my favourite authors, but I found this one fell a bit flat for me. I love the fundamental idea of the book, and will likely re-read it in order to get my head round it a bit more, but I wanted more exploration of both the story at hand and of other ways the weird physics of the universe would impact people’s lives.
• Sugarbread by Balli Kaur Jaswal. I liked this better than her Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, partly because it had lots of mentions of delicious food. There was a similar holding-back of a central mystery, and again it didn’t really work for me (I think I just don’t really get on with that sort of structuring device). Also, there was annoying and pointless fatphobia which the book would have been much better without.
• Black Dog by Neil Gaiman. This was OK. I wouldn’t bother reading it again, even though it’s set in the American Gods universe (and I love American Gods, and have read it four times and listened to the audiobook twice). I just got to the end and it all felt a bit... pointless.
• Volume 11 of The Comfortable Courtesan.
• AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers, edited by Ivor W Hartmann. (I’ve been reading this slowly, bit by bit, for months, and finally got to the end.)
• Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome. Didn’t enjoy this as much as Three Men in a Boat — there was too much boring stuff in between the funny bits.
• The Bees by Laline Paull. A re-read because her new one (The Ice) coming out reminded me that this one exists. v.g., will probably re-read again.
• The Ice by Laline Paull. Major disappointment! I loved The Bees, but this one I just found to be a boring story of rich people doing rich-people things. My Kindle tells me I got 16% of the way through before giving up.

[nanila]

That is a tremendous variety of Things! I'm sorry that much of it was disappointing. Here's hoping for better luck henceforth.

[nou]

Thanks! I think my next report is likely to be more positive. It’s interesting that there seems to be little or no correlation between “reading authors I already like vs. reading authors new to me” and “how positive I feel about what I read”.

[singloom]

Finished Saturday Requiem by Nicci French and The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

[nanila]

Hooray! Congratulations on completion!

[singloom]

Thanks! I set myself a reading challenge every year, so I'm trying to catch up on lots of recommendations and new releases.

[fred_mouse]

I have started reading 'Fire Boy' by Sami Shah, which I downloaded on a whim from a free ebook link because of the non-Anglo sounding name (and the pretty cover). I'm about halfway through, and loving it. Set in Karachi, with lots of beautifully sketched details that show the setting without info dumping, urban fantasy involving Djinns. Somewhat dominated by the male characters, so far it appears to be a magical coming of age story.

I have also been reading my textbook, which is less fun, but more relevant.

Oh, and much reading of abstracts of articles already in my endnote library, looking for the ones that will make a coherent narrative without mentioning all of them and blowing my writing out to 30K words.

[nanila]

"Fire Boy" sounds excellent!

Congratulations on getting your study-related reading done, too.

[fred_mouse]

I will attempt to remember to finish Fire Boy while I still remember the beginning (this has been a consistent issue this last year or more), and review it when done.