You might want to track down the audiobook versions of the Temeraire novels - IMHO, they give a whole new appreciation of the story - Simon Vance is the narrator and he brings Temeraire and the rest of the cast to life.
Oh, I know–they are delightful, and I hear his Temeraire in my mind reading. Audiobooks are how I started with Temeraire; I’ve only abandoned them because I’m too impatient to get them from the NYPL.
Just finishing Slow Apocalypse by John Varley.
Started a couple of new history works: America’s Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By by Akhil Reed Amar and The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama by Nigel Cliff.
I read some more Ivanhoe, then got distracted by Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetary.
Finished Horns by Joe Hill.
Since it is Joe Hill it is often found in the horror section, but IMO it was a tragedy instead. I also felt that it ran out of steam and the ending was a little rushed.
Ignatius William Perrish wakes up, after some hard drinking, to find he has grown horns. The horns make everyone he meets confess their darker thoughts - making everyone we meet in the story unlikeable (hell, even hateful) for most of the book.
The only character that isn’t hateful is Ig’s murdered girlfriend.
The book is tragedy, it explores love, hate and ultimately, redemption. It was a well-written but (for me) depressing story.
How was it? I’ve got it on hold at the local library - the description didn’t really grab me, but am always willing to give Varley a try (tho I like his short stories best)
Just finished the audiobook of Louis A Meyer’s Bloody Jack #8: The Wake of the Lorelei Lee: Being an Account of the Adventures of Jacky Faber, on her Way to Botany Bay - yes, the title is a bit of a spoiler, as the novel starts with Jacky, assuming she’s finally cleared of her past sins against the Crown, having bought a lovely ship to start her passenger business. Of course, things go south (both metaphorically and literally!) and Miss Faber finds herself aboard a convict ship headed for the penal colony. However, she doesn’t take things lying down and works to improve her situation. Coincidences also play a large part in this story (as they have in previous installments) and Jacky’s path takes some interesting turns. Katherine Kellgren again does a smashing job with the narration - including many new characters like Captain Augustus “Gussie” Lawton, Ravi and Cheng Shih.
Almost finished with Collins’ The Moonstone.
I found Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies, a collection of essays about the differences between the movvies and the historical events they portray. I picked it up because I’d missed a cable TV series on this issue, and this seemed to cover much the same ground. I’m impressed by the essayists – Stephen JUay Gould (writing on Jurassic Park) , Gore Vidal, Antonia Fraser, Dee Brown, Stephen E. Ambrose, William Manchester, and many others. I devoured it.
I saw a copy of Christopher Logue’s War Music, his partial, offbeat translation of The Iliad. I’ve been curious about his “translation”* ever since I read his Patrocleia (book 16 of The Iliad) almost 40 years ago. Logue has been slowly adding to the overall translation since he published that. He died last year, so he’ll never finish it, but this has to be the longest running translation since The Dead Sea Scrolls. Worth reading.
*Logue didn’t know Greek, and had to rely on the work of others, like the Loeb Classical Library.(In this I can fully empathize) He was a poet, and has been praised for capturing the essential spirit of the piece better than others, while not trying to be scrupulously accurate. He leaves out all those repeated attributes, like “wine-datk sea”, for instance.
I decided it’s the perfect time of year for The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I’ve only read her short stories, the most famous of which is probably The Lottery.
The opening on that novel makes an awesomely demented real-estate listing. 
Just started David Frum’s Patriots. Can’t say much about it as I’m only one chapter in. Be the first new work of fiction I’ve read in a while.
It’s not heavy SF in comparison to most of his work. It’s an apocalypse novel like Alas, Babylon or Dies the Fire. (The apocalypse here is a designer bacteria that destroys oil. It was targeted against Saudi Arabia but goes out of control and destroys all the world’s oil. But this is actually a minor plotline in the book.) The main story is about one Los Angeles family living through the collapse of civilization.
It’s a decent read but you’d better turn off your believability meter. There are a number of highly implausible events:Among others:
*The protagonist is a TV writer. But through a contrived situation, he learns about the oil attack before everyone else and is able to buy up supplies and prepare for the collapse.
*The protagonist’s wife is portrayed in the early chapters as a complete bitch. But then suddenly she literally wakes up one morning with a complete change of personality.
*The protagonist is dithering over whether he should stay in his house or try to leave the city. A sudden fire decides the issue by forcing him to leave. But coincidentally, he had packed all his supplies into a truck and trailer while he was thinking about leaving so he was able to take off at a moment’s notice and still be fully prepared for the trip.
*The protagonist flees to a friend’s house after the fire. His friend is a fellow TV writer. But he had decided to stock up on emergency supplies before the collapse. And his children have come to live with him and they’re a doctor, an engineer, and a soldier - three skills that help the group.
Makes one wonder if it was written by two people…
As far as I know it was all written by Varley. The writing seems consistent throughout the book. I think it’s just kind of the nature of this genre - apocalypse novels are about characters having problems thrown at them and finding (or failing to find) the solutions to these problems. Varley just seems to have been a little lazy about his solutions - they feel a little deus ex machina.
Currently reading:
1636: The Saxon Uprising - AH, by Eric Flint
Plutonia - sf, by Vladimir Obruchev
Under the Andes - lost-race adventure, by Rex Stout
The Obruchev is a reread, but I last read it around 43 years ago so I don’t remember much beside the basic plot…
Don’t know what’s next - I have Caravan to Vaccares, by Alistair MacLean, and A Civil Campaign, by Lois McMaster Bujold, sitting here waiting to be reread. Or maybe I’ll read another of the “1632” books…
I’m waiting for her next book, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, which is being released on November 6.
I’m still on the same book I was on last month, London. It’s very thick and quite boring, so I only read a few pages at a time. But I’m up to my favorite part of history, the time of Henry VIII, so it’s looking up. Next up will be J. K. Rowling’s Casual Vacancy, and I’m looking forward to that.
Started and finished David Moody’s Autumn yesterday. I liked the book’s take on the zombie apocalypse, with the dead first rising as helpless mindless things, then gradually they seem to regain the function of their senses and gravitate toward noise. That said, however, it was very very slow for the first 200 or so pages. Gonna start the second book in the series soon.
I’m glad! The Hobbit was a very popular read in my book club, too. And as I’ve mentioned before, The Annotated Hobbit is a great resource. Lots of cool background stuff, illustrations, inspirations, etc.
Just finished Steve Moore’s novelization of the movie V for Vendetta. Not bad, but not wonderful. Quite different from the graphic novel, of course, but provided some added context to the movie, which is as rooted in the post-9/11 world as the graphic novel was rooted in Thatcherite Britain.
Now reading Marina and Lee by Priscilla Johnson McMillan, generally interesting and based on the author’s extensive interviews with Lee Harvey Oswald’s widow, and the horror short story collection Stay Awake by Dan Chaon, which isn’t all that great so far (just 43 pages into it).
I’m about a third of the way through Richard Dawkins’ The Magic of Reality. Thoroughly enjoying his writing style. It is the book I would give someone who asks me what I believe in and why.
Also about a quarter finished with Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. While I enjoy the story as well as the style, I’m having a more difficult time getting engaged with it.
I have been working my way through The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements one delicious chapter at a time. It is so enjoyable that I don’t want it to end, so I dole out one tasty chunk to myself every night at bedtime. My, how I love this book! But just try telling people that the best book you’ve read recently is about the Periodic Table of the Elements.