Starting today on the new YA from Patrick Ness, The Rest of Us Just Live Here. 
A good recent run …
We Are Not Ourselves, by Matthew Thomas, novel about an Irish-American woman and her family. I liked this a lot, although a caution that it’s very slow-going and rambling. It’s not so much about the events of her life, but about the rhythms and patterns over the years.
In non-fiction, The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery. Tons of fascinating information about octopuses, although there was maybe a little too much musing on the philosophy of octopuses for my taste (although I have no one to blame but myself, as I think this author is known for that approach to writing about nature).
In YA, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, by Patrick Ness. Really, really solid book about the kids in a sort of Buffyverse who are NOT the supernatural ones.
I finished Precious Bane a few days ago. I’m so happy I read it. Love it. Love Prue Sarn. It makes some errors which explain, I think, why it isn’t more widely known than it is, but I love it anyway. And HOLY CATS if ever a novel begged for a sequel, this was it.
Moving on to more Mary Webb now: Gone to Earth.
I just started reading Paradise Lost and all I can think is* holy hell* why didn’t I do this years ago*? This is wonderful! Philip Pullman’s introductions are great as well. His love for the poem really shines through and it’s infectious.
*pun intentional
The Fetterman Massacre, by Dee Brown. Ten years before Little Bighorn, all 81 members of a military unit were killed by a large party of Sioux and Cheyenne, led by a number of war chiefs that included Red Cloud. This is the story of what led up to it.
In Kennedy, Theodore Sorensen writes of JFK considering a number of historic names for U.S. nuclear submarines, including Red Cloud, which the Joint Chiefs weren’t crazy about because (a) he killed U.S. troops and (b) it sounded to them like a Commie name.
Thanks for mentioning this; I’ve just ordered a copy!
I read Luna by Ian McDonald but was a bit disappointed. Nowhere nearly as good as The Dervish House. I shan’t be reading the rest of the trilogy when it appears.
But I am thoroughly enjoying The Watchmaker of Filligree Street by Natasha Pulley. A minor government telegraphist gets caught up in the investigation of a terrorist bombing in London in 1883 and ends up making friends with one of the suspected bombmakers. Meanwhile, he also makes the acquaintance of a young lady scientist hoping to prove the existence of Aether. Good, fairly light fun, well written.
I’ve enjoyed Hillerman a lot, particularly in anything from Chee’s perspective. I tried the series continuation by his daughter, Anne Hillerman in Spider Woman’s Daughter, but it left me pretty flat. It’s from a different officer’s perspective - Bernadette Manuelito, whom I liked in the original Hillerman books - but Chee and Leaphorn both felt like cardboard cutouts in Anne’s work. 
Delphica, I read & enjoyed Soul of an Octopus too. I did truly loved all the octopus-based info but less, as you said, the musings.
I’ve been rereading a lot of books I loved as a child/teen. Some have held up pretty well over 40+ years and some have not. Sadly Mystery of the Red Tide by Frank Bonham is one of the nots. The casual racism towards Native Americans is appalling, with one character saying “The Indians in this area were as civilized as squirrels.” Not to mention the repeated and over use of the word stolen to describe junk picked up off the beach, supposedly picked up by “an Indian boy”, junk even the author deems “not worth stealing”.
Moreover, would a marine biologist REALLY turn his lab over to a trio of 11 year old kids? Even with him supervising? And this is his business? How in California can he NOT find college students willing to work for little to have the opportunity to hang out on the beach?
That’s sad, I did wonder…
I haven’t even heard of that. Regardless of the quality, I may have to take a look anyway. I miss Leaphorn and Chee. When I lived in Albuquerque, his books were phenomenal. You’d get off the plane at the airport to be met by a wall of his books for sale. Walk into any cafe in New Mexico at any given moment, and it seemed like half the patrons were reading a Hillerman novel.
I finished reading Thackeray’s novella Rebecca and Rowena, a tongue-in-cheek sequel to Ivanhoe. It was light and frothy and quite funny (with plenty of waggish comments on historical romance), and finally (spoiler alert) Ivanhoe ends up with Rebecca!
Finished this today. Solid’s a good word for it. I don’t know if Mr. Ness will ever reach the heights of the Chaos Walking books again, but everything he writes is at least dependably decent.
Got 5% into Gone to Earth by Mary Webb and gave it up as a bad job. I could have overlooked the pacing problems, telling-not-showing problems, Mary Sue protagonist and unnecessary flowery descriptive passages that go on for pages and pages and pages … after all, I overlooked all that in Precious Bane … but I just don’t *like *any of the characters, especially Hazel. Too bad. And I’m 95% sure I know exactly how the story will develop and end.
This makes me hesitant to try Seven for a Secret or The Golden Arrow, as they also came before Precious Bane, which seems to have marked the height of her achievement. Disappointing.
Finally getting around to The Origin of Species. I think that whippersnapper Chuck Darwin might be onto something!
Just figured that since I am SO nonreligious, and so interested in natural history, that I ought to read one of the bedrock works on evolution. I’ve read plenty ABOUT Darwin and evolution, might as well read some of his work.
Not exactly a quick read, but pretty straightforward. Interesting reading it and wrapping my head around the fact that he knew nothing about genetics - when he says things like “We do not know how these characteristics are passed down…”
I finished “The Secret in Their Eyes” by Eduardo Sacheri, an police procedural from Argentina that was the basis for the Oscar-winning movie (Best Foreign Picture) which is also being remade into an American version starring Julia Roberts.
The book was decent but not exceptional. It’s nice to read a police procedural from a nation with investigating judges (the protagonist isn’t a detective but rather a judicial clerk) but there weren’t too many surprises. The final twist was particularly obvious such that even a brain-dead reader would have spotted it coming a hundred pages early.
I happened to see the trailer for the Julia Roberts movie and it looks like they changed everything except for the title. I don’t know why they even bothered calling it an adaptation.
This movie got mixed reviews, but you might want to check it out: Creation (2009 film) - Wikipedia
I found that to be a decent film.
I finished Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson. Wow, that felt like a long book. It seemed more like the kind of thing that would be incredibly interesting to sit around in a bar and talk about the scenario and all the kooky things that could be spun out from it … but it was a lot to read in one, long, linear story. And there were a lot of points that made me want to argue with the author.
I’m about halfway through The Silence, by Sarah Rayne. Now, I like ol’ Sarah…she writes spooky tales and generally does a workmanlike job of it…but this one makes me giggle a little. There’s this haunted house, see? And everyone who’s ever been there has just happened to write out a detailed document about their experiences there (regardless of their education, or the circumstances they were writing under). These documents are lying about all over the damn place! The protagonists barely have time to be haunted, what with stumbling across another letter or diary or what have you. And the ghosts themselves? Well, they’re around pretty much all the time, spookin’ up a storm. Hell, the FedEx guy probably can’t leave a box on the doorstep without running into one. And then of course, he’d likely have to write up a report for his supervisor and mail a copy to the homeowners…sheesh.