That part hung me up too and also made me a little furious.
Every time I see a book that includes Questions For Your Reading Group, an alarm goes off. The Sparrow was SF written by somebody who doesn’t know much about SF. And for people who would never stoop to reading SF…
I was beginning to re-read The Knight by Gene Wolfe, although his “unreliable narrator” thing can get irritating. Wolfe has never claimed his stuff is anything but Fantasy or SF, but he sure uses some serious literary techniques.
However, the advance-ordered paperback edition of the latest Temeraire novel was on my porch yesterday. Thanks, Amazon! Even in the last one, I could tell the series had stopped being such innocent fun. But our dragon is growing up…
Very cool idea. I’ve been playing that game, too…now off to put some Phillip Marlowe on my library list.
I’ve just picked up mysteries again after more heavy reading, and am currently reading Seven Dials by Anne Perry.
I finally finished the beast that is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I’ve already made my dislike for it known, so I will not comment further (much as I could) other than to say that I still would not recommend it.
I think I’ll follow Little Nemo’s lead and embark upon a journey through classic SciFi (and maybe some fantasy) starting with *The Left Hand of Darkness *by Ursula K. LeGuin. It’s one of a few classics I recently picked up used and wondered why I’ve not read it yet.
I’m reading some recent noir that I like very much - Philip Kerr’s series (the most recent is Field Grey, published this year).
Great stuff - noir set in WW2 and post-WW2, Nazis and the Cold War.
Yes, it’s very obviously written by someone who hasn’t read much science fiction. There’s some really dumb stuff you have to overlook, but I liked the book anyway. I love the way Russell writes, although her work is very, very depressing. After The Sparrow and its sequel she went on to write A Thread of Grace, a novel about Jewish refugees in Italy towards the end of WWII. It’s a great book, but will leave you feeling positively suicidal.
I finished Woken Furies, the last book in Richard K. Morgan’s science fiction trilogy about Takeshi Kovacs. I liked these books very much. They’re hardboiled, dystopian and cyber-punkish, and very well written.
I’ve started a re-read of A Feast for Crows. Getting ready for the new book next month.
I’ve heard similar criticisms of The Sparrow. I know no one else who liked the sequel, though.
Barkis, do you think you might like to try Clarke’s magical-England short story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu, or are you totally soured on her after Strange & Norrell?
My wife’s book club read that and liked it. It’s been on my back burner for a loooong time.
I already read her other short story collection, called The Footnotes of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. But seriously, I could give The Ladies of Grace Adieu a chance someday, but I wouldn’t pick up another 800+ page novel of hers. Her ramblings seem better suited to short stories and her style is entertaining in short bursts, so yeah, I’d crack it open if I found it on my nightstand.
I hope you will. When you do, the title story, “The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse” and “Mr Simonelli, or the Fairy Widower” are particularly good.
Just started on Other Kingdoms, by Richard Matheson, a great but uneven writer. This book is told from the point of view of an old man who is writing down events that happened to him when he was young. I haven’t made up my mind whether the writing is just poor quality or supposed to be part of the old man’s character. The plot is interesting enough so far.
I remember liking the book, even while finding it frustrating for the reasons cited by other Dopers - the fundamental bones of the story stick with you. I read the sequel and remember thinking it was good, but it hasn’t stuck with me as much.
If you like the writing in The Sparrow, and the type of tension created in the plot, I strongly recommend Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis Series, starting with the book Dawn. Earth is shattered by a cataclysm (I want to say a war) and humanity is all but extinct, but then an alien species arrives to help - but it involves combining their DNA with ours. So what are we now as a species? A great story, well-written and a powerful metaphor for race and miscegenation.
I just finished David Liss’ A Conspiracy of Paperand the sequel, A Spectacle of Corruption. Fun romps - basically hard-boiled detective fiction but set in 1719 London - the prose is “flowery” to reflect the setting, but it is an easy, page-turning read. I would equate it to that series of books set in ancient rome featuring a would-be-detective Marcus Didius Falco.
I am now reading Out of the Vinyl Deeps - a new collection of articles by an under-recognized female rock critic, Ellen Willis. She was the first pop music critic for the New Yorker. Damn, she is good, good, good. The first piece is an essay on Bob Dylan - it was this essay that brought her to the attention of The New Yorker and got her the job - for being written in the late 60’s, she reflects a perspective on Dylan that still holds today; I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the commonly-held perceptions about Dylan can be traced back to this article. Deeply insightful and very, very well-written. It is my understanding that she devoted her later writing to feminism and other topics and therefore didn’t invest time or energy in keeping her profile up as a rock critic. It is great to see her work get new light.
Finished The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill, author of the Dalziel-Pascoe series. This one’s a stand-alone, about a man framed for pedophilia and financial fraud. I liked it a lot, but an unnecessary “twist” at the end takes it down a notch.
Went to the library. They didn’t have Dodsworth (or anything else by Sinclair Lewis – for shame!) so I picked up The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton and something by Thomas Cook.
I also loved “The Sparrow” and “Thread of Grace” by Mary Doria Russell, and I agree they were both devastating reads. I’m currently reading the USA trilogy by John Dos Passos. I’m only about 100 or so pages into the 42nd parallel, but am thoroughly enjoying it so far.
I read that not too long ago and liked it too. Some of the story lines sort of peter out, but it’s still good.
shudder Ugh, I can’t do it. I got through over a hundred pages, but it just sucks.
Well, I finished The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet and have to say that pace really picked up in the final third of the book. I’m glad I stuck with it and would rate it 3.5 out of 5. I suspect that rating may improve over time, though, as it seems like the kind of book that needs to percolate in the mind for a while.
Anyway, I am now reading The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo. Norwegian detective fiction. Only a few pages in, but I like the writing style, which is very direct and straightforward (a radical change from Mitchell’s prose in De Zoet).
Finished books 2,3 and 4 in the Persephone Alcmedi series. Mind candy that is OK for me to pass the time with at this point, but I can’t say that it stands out. I won’t recommend it, but won’t recommend against. She turns up the ookie a little with some graphic sex, but doesn’t obsess over it. She tends to focus more on the various relationship issues Persephone has and less on plot - making it a page flipper for me.
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Hounded: The Iron Druid Chronicles which has the potential to be fun (finally urban fantasy with a male protagonist!)
I am reading Erik Larson’s In The Garden Of Beasts, about Ambassador Dodd and his family living in pre-WWII Berlin shortly after the ascension of Hitler to the chancellorship. Its a non-fiction narrative that reads like a novel.
Its pretty engaging, I must say.
And I am still not smoking!
Yay me!
Indeed! My husband quit smoking when he was going through a divorce too. It seemed odd to me, to quit at such a stressful time, but he did it.
I’m reading The Last Talk with Lola Faye by Thomas Cook. A man has a conversation with his murdered father’s mistress, realizes that – cliche alert! – things aren’t always what they seem. It’s intriguing.
I had quit prior to knowing for sure that I was going to get a divorce, but if there was ever a time to start back up again it was recently.
I stocked up on lozenges and patches instead. Those things cost a fortune up front.