Heh. Her wacky father was also a highlight.
Posted this in the wrong thread! Sorry…
There are a couple of books cracked upon right now or just finished:
Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craynor’s Welcome to Night Vale, which is a novel set in the town of the duo’s podcast. I’d not heard of the podcast at all, and just bought this because I’ve grown interested in novels produced from internet phenomena (like blogs and such). It’s…weird. Like the podcast, apparently. Utterly fantastically weird, but very intriguing. Will definitely get through this.
Finished already: Roger Luckhurst’s Zombies: A Cultural History. I think I’ve read about everything written on the zombie by now, so I can fairly evaluate this one. It’s very strong early on: the connections between U.S. popular culture and Haiti, the first introduction of a zombie, and then the 1950s and the parallels between post-war evangelical millenialism and the zombie figure. But I think he suffers from having a narrative to tell, namely that the Caribbean/African/vodoun zombie remains the most crucial lynchpin of the zombie narrative, and this clouds his readings of later texts such as Romero’s films and, more especially, the 2000s boom. He’s not wrong to suggest that there’s always Haiti underneath these texts, but it’s just not very helpful for his readings. And he doesn’t really add much to the discussion of either Romero or the 2000s films, comics, games, and books. So great book in the first half, decent summary with clear opinions leaving much room for disagreement in the second.
Finally, I finished Mary Beard’s SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, which was excellent, with a few caveats. First, it’s not a narrative, chronological history of Rome’s rise and fall so much as a history of its…well, its citizens, maybe–the way the Roman empire constituted power, how live was lived, what sort of place it was, and so on. So it’ll talk about Julius Caeser being in Gaul, but it won’t tell you why he is there, what he’s doing there, and so on. You need a little bit of background on Roman history, I think, to fully appreciate this book. Second, if you’ve seen Beard’s BBC shows, much will seem familiar: some of the same anecdotes. Finally, it could have used a little bit more care in editing: about a dozen times, it will tell you that it ends with the Emperor Caracalla’s granting of citizenship to all people in the Roman empire, and by the third time, I thought to myself, yes, I know. In other words, the book still shows the cracks were it was glued together (as all books are). Still, very very worthwhile, and just a joy to read.
Just finished the first book of the new year, William Gay’s Little Sister Death. I picked it up because it was on a list of recommendations by Michael Koryta, and it was well worth it. Apparently this was an unfinished book found after his death, and it does peter out at the end, but wow, the writing! I am going to read more by this author.
My first read of 2016 ended up being the new Sarah Vowell, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States. I like her narrative voice and always enjoy her take on historical events. I have less patience with her connecting the historical events to current politics, which probably isn’t fair because that is her shtick. And I agree with her politically, it’s just that it always seems shrill to me. But, that is a small part of the work overall, and doesn’t take much away from fascinating stories about the Revolutionary War.
You might like this, written as if it were a manual for new Roman soldiers. I found it quite interesting: Amazon.com
I’m reading this one too, but like it less than you do (so far). I agree about the shrillness with regard to current politics (though like you I agree with her). And her take on historic events is indeed interesting, as is her insight into the Revolution and its odd cast of characters.
But I find the book difficult to follow; -it seems as if she’s always taking detours (oh, and speaking of this event, here’s a few fun factoids about it), which interrupts the narrative. And I’m finding myself a little turned off by the narrative voice (which was not the case in her book Assassination Vacation). Not sure whether it’s too snarky for me or whether I just don’t think the snark is very funny.
Oh well, I’m still enjoying it more than not and plan to finish it.
Also read Oliver Sacks’s book The Mind’s Eye, published in 2010. I enjoy his stuff, in part because he writes with such understanding and compassion about people, and in part because he approaches everything like a detective story. This book is mostly about the visual world: people who can’t visualize, can see but can’t read, can’t recognize faces, etc. I’m not much of a visualizer, and my ability to recognize faces is poor (but nowhere near as bad as some of the people, including Sacks himself, that are described in the text), so it was of particular interest to me. I liked it quite a bit.
Finished The Drawing of the Three, by Stephen King, the second novel in his Dark Tower series. Very good. I see now what King meant when he said the series did not find its voice until this installment. But you really do need to have read the first one.
I thought I might take a short break from the series – I have a boxed set of the first four novels – but am compelled to continue and so will now start the third in the series, The Waste Lands.
Lafayette won early fame, in part, for his gallant service during the Battle of Brandywine. It may interest you to know that Campaign 1776 is now trying save a portion of the battlefield: http://www.campaign1776.org/battlefields/brandywine/brandywine-2015/letter-from-jim-lighthizer.html
I just finished Dan Simmons’ most recent book (I think, at least it was published in 2015), The Fifth Heart. Historical “metafiction” pairing novelist Henry James with Sherlock Holmes (as a character who is not sure he is real) solving a case in 1893 America. Many real historical characters play supporting roles, including John Hay and his wife Clara, Henry Adams (and his dead wife Clover), Samuel Clemens and Teddy Roosevelt. Also briefly mentioned a very young Belgian policeman Hercule Poirot, who I suspect will show up in a future sequel (the intent for this to start a series is quite clear). I recommend it, even if it is a trifle formulaic and one of the big surprises is telegraphed a mile off. Still, literate and well written, and mostly satisfying. Henry James is a really good foil for Holmes.
Then I started a book by Jonathan Carroll called Bathing The Lion. It is immediately riveting, I read through half of it in a sitting before I had to go to sleep last night. Blurbs on the cover compare Carroll to Philip K. Dick, Kafka, Updike and the Brothers Grimm. Highly recommended (provisionally, since I haven’t finished it yet).
The Drawing of the Three is my favorite of the series. I’ve read it several times more than I have the others. And then parts of The Waste Land are dearest to my heart, among everything King has written…
I started today on Slade House by David Mitchell. It’s my first book by this author. I know some of his other stuff has been very popular, but suspected I would just find it annoying. Now this one is about a haunted house, so I’ve got to try it. Hopefully it’ll be great and then I’ll try the other stuff and it’ll be great too.
I’d have started with Cloud Atlas - to my mind, his masterpiece. Of, if you find such literary trickery annoying, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
Slade House is okay as a haunted house story, but it feels like just a spin-off of the Bone Clocks universe - from this author, it’s a bit of a disappointment, to be honest.
I’m a big fan and I thought this one got off to a great start but became too confused and disjointed in the middle, although it came together again in the last 50 or 60 pages.
His new novella Teaching the Dog to Read was better, I thought!
I’ve finally plodded to the end of The Master of the Prado by Javier Sierra. It’s presented as autobiographical notes, etc. he made as a student in Madrid in the 1990s.
In it, he falls in with a mysterious stranger in the Prado who then spends much of the book lecturing him about how to interpret the hidden esoteric meanings in many of the gallery’s great Renaissance paintings. Other parties become interested and it all ends rather unsatisfactorily as he keeps re-visiting the galleries wanting one last confrontation with the Hidden Master, who never reappears to reveal the great secret.
As a book, it’s very attractive, with full colour fold out pages with reproductions of the main works discussed so the reader can see what they’re discussing. But that doesn’t really make up for just how dull the book is unless you’re fascinated by medieval secret sects, Rosicrucians, etc!
Now that I’ve finished it, I still recommend *Bathing the Lion *but your evaluation is pretty much spot on.
I think I’ll be reading Murakami’s After Dark next; I also have a Peter Lovesey (I’m trying to read them in order) and a Charles Todd waiting for me.
Just started The Wast Lands, and it’s good so far. But the more King I read, the more I understand all the complaints about his continuity problems. In The Drawing of the Three at least twice, maybe three or even four times, he’s come from the east, has hit the Western Sea, is traveling north along the coast … but the mountains are on his left and the ocean his right. :smack: Plus one minor character toward the end, one of the cops he encounters, suddenly gets a surname change.
But I can ignore these, especially after learning of the complaints. Rather then being confused, I just remember the complaints and continue on.
Finished Slade House and “okay” is how I’d describe it too. I enjoyed passing the time with it. There were some blatantly expository parts, but I appreciated the spoon-feeding, since all that orison and lacuna stuff would have been a pain to have to figure out. I feel it is my duty now to go and read The Bone Clocks, or *Cloud Atlas…*whether I will actually do so remains to be seen.
I highly recommend Cloud Atlas. I’ve not read anything else by him, but from what I can gather it’s his magnum opus, akin to Tom Robbins and Jitterbug Perfume.
I loved Cloud Atlas, and liked the movie of it very much, too. Haven’t read any of his other books either.
I finished reading L’Île des Pingouins (Penguin Island) by Anatole France. I can’t read anything more complicated than a simple newspaper article in French, so I read it in English translation.
My first reaction was: It would have benefited greatly from a bunch of footnotes. The version I grabbed from Project Gutenberg was just a plain vanilla translation, but it was clear that there was a whole bunch of wordplay in the names of people and places that I was missing. Likewise, the satires on boulangisme and the Dreyfus Affair were clearly referring to real people and events; some of the connections I was able to figure out by reading Wikipedia, but there were other things that I missed.
Overall, I preferred the silly first half (satirizing the Dark Ages and the Renaissance) to the more pointed satire of the second half (satirising the Troisième République). My favourite part was where Jehovah and the saints were debating whether accidentally baptising a penguin resulted in a valid baptism or not – good points on both sides of the issue! The “modern” section was certainly more educational, though.
Just read a very good, very odd graphic novel. No-one I know would possibly be interested in it except my mathematician brother, but maybe some of you folks would be.
It’s The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage–The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua.
It is about the ultimate Victorian odd couple - Lady Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate child of “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” Lord Byron, and Charles Babbage, genius inventor and eccentric (the author describes him as being a cross between Da Vinci and Mr. Toad :D). Babbage invented, but did not build, a mechanical computer made of gears and powered by steam; his friend Lovelace (he described her as his “enchanted fairy of numbers”) allegedly wrote the very first software for it.
Their story is odd and enchanting but ends sadly - shortly after writing her paper, Lovelace dies young of cancer; Babbage lives on, but never makes his machine, and dies a cantankerous and disappointed old man. The author goes on to imagine adventures for them in an alternate universe.
The author’s method is what makes this so obsessively cool - she literally references everything. Pretty well each line of dialogue in their story is referenced to original sources, such as their correspondence. This continues into their purely imaginary adventures. The pair emerge as fully formed, very appealing characters. Why did Lovelace get into mathematics? Because her mom was terrified that her kid would inherit Lord Byron’s “poetical” nature and insanity, and though that math was the antidote! (Later tutors in math grew concerned that Lovelace was growing too interested in math, and would ‘overtax her female body’!).
As the author notes, “It’s not easy being the daughter of a celebrity mad genius deviant sex god, and Ada was monitored by the entire country, it sometimes seemed, for signs of madness, genius, and deviant sex. She would gratify expectations on all of the above.”
There is controversy over Ada’s contributions to computing; the author makes a convincing case that these contributions are genuine. It’s not often that one it treated to a rollicking read on the history of mathematics …
My current fiction pick is The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. It’s weird and intriguing, but I have no idea what’s going on in the story. I’ve read some reviews of the book, though, and the reviews say that you’re confused for the first hundred pages but if you hang around you do finally find your footing and it does end up being a good book.
My non-fiction pick Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi. It’s very heavy on the genetics, and tbh, much of it goes completely over my head. I find the parts I understand interesting, though. (I don’t know why I did this to myself, reading two books that go over my head at the same time!)
My audio book pick is The Quaker Cafe by Brenda Bevan Remmes. It’s unremarkable. Good enough to keep reading, though.