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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
May 20 2023, 2:58pm
Post #1 of 8
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It's the occasional reading thread!
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Time has passed but, with only one exception, I'm still reading the same books I was reading the last time I posted. I'm both being distracted by real-life matters (we now live only five minutes from our older son and his family) and am working my way through long books.
The exception was the library ebook of Anne Hillerman's latest Chee and Manuelito mystery, Bears Ears. (Like the other books in the series, the title comes from a site revered by the Navajo people.) I'd hoped that Anne would eventually learn her father Tony's writing skills, but no. While I still like the characters and the settings of her sequels to Tony's series, when it comes to plot she's running on fumes. This installment in particular was, sadly, repetitive and disjointed. There's a reason I've gone from buying a paperback copy to borrowing an electronic copy from the library.
I set aside my own ebook of Terry Pratchett's Night Watch to read the Hillerman but am now back to it, luxuriating in Prachett's voice and prose. He can go from tragic to funny to philosophically profound on the same page. This particular book, a time-travel story, is a bit of an anomaly in the splendid Guards series, but heck, I'd read Sam Vimes's grocery list! And this installment has some unforgettable moments.
I'm still enjoying the audio of Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages, written and narrated by British historian Dan Jones. He's now considered the rise of monasticism and moved on to the development of knights and through them the feudal system, using Spain's El Cid as an example. My only problem with the book is that Jones seems to have forgotten that half the population of the time period was female. I admit that few women were movers and shakers then, but still, I'm hoping that as he moves into the tropes and traditions of chivalry he'll recognize the women who influenced their development.
I'm also still listening to the complete Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, narrated by Stephen Fry. Fry not only skillfully reads the stories with their varieties of voices, he has written introductions to the novels and the collections. Who knew that a meeting with Oscar Wilde may have influenced Conan Doyle's description of Holmes? This entire audiobook lasts about 61 hours  and I'm not even halfway through, but I'll soon be setting it aside for something else and will return to it later. There can be, after all, too much of a good thing.
On paper I'm now nearing the end of London Lore: The Legends and Traditions of the World's Most Vibrant City, by Steve Roud. I'm still enjoying the anecdotes, which include ghost stories, quirky historical events, architectural oddities, and more, not least because Roud not only narrates them, he also comments on how the stories might have originated.
So what have you been reading?
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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Annael
Elvenhome
May 20 2023, 3:37pm
Post #2 of 8
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Re-reading The Big House by George Howe Colt
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Growing up on the West Coast of the USA I always felt like i had no culture to speak of, not like my Jewish or Latino friends had, anyway. But reading The Big House was a window into the Boston Brahmin culture that my mother came from and that colored my childhood. Everything he describes about his family's summers on Cape Cod was familiar to me: the daily rituals, the way children were treated, the pursuits that were deemed acceptable, political views, the food, certain phrases - even a specific card game that the women of my family play for hours. I just didn't know it because I wasn't living where everyone else was doing the same things. Now that my parents are dead, reading this book was traveling back in time to our summer vacations (some of which we traveled East to spend on the Cape).
I also unearthed Men Without Women by Hemingway in my nephew's bookcase and read it - mostly to take notice once again of Hemingway's style, because I can't say I enjoyed a single story.
And I got the Berlitz Self-Teacher for French, which is very helpful.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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DwellerInDale
Rohan
May 21 2023, 12:39am
Post #3 of 8
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Agreed LF, The Way of the Bear was a major letdown, and I had waited for over a year for its release. IMO her first try, Spider Woman's Daughter, was very good. But this latest book had very little to offer. I think she should take more time between novels and get back to the basics of mystery writing instead of concentrating on contemporary settings of interest (Lake Powell in The Sacred Bridge and Bears Ears National Monument in The Way of the Bear).
Reading: physicist Carlo Rovelli's book Helgoland about the meaning of quantum mechanics is very worthwhile, especially for the discussion of how his interpretation of quantum theory dovetails with the ancient Buddhist text Mulamadhymakakarika by Nagarjuna.
Don't mess with my favorite female elf.
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Greenwood Hobbit
Valinor
May 21 2023, 9:20am
Post #4 of 8
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Sam Vimes's grocery list? Hah!
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Bacon would definitely feature, as long as Sibyl didn't get to it first. In the case of Night Watch, a hard-boiled egg also! I agree about Anne Hillerman. I loved her father's Leaphorn and Chee books and tried a couple of her books but they just didn't do it for me. The magic wasn't there. I like the sound of London Lore - might have to look that one up! [A few moments later...] In fact I just have. My favourite second hand online bookstore (World of Books) had just one copy available, in very good condition - it obviously had my name on it. Thanks for the recommendation!
I'm not sure if reading is the right term, enjoying might be better, but I was given 'A Year Unfolding, a printmaker's view' by Angela Harding. It's mostly a picture book of prints she has created following the seasons in different places around Britain, with explanations for some of them. Very soothing. Her work pops up as jigsaws, greetings cards, notebook covers and all sorts of things. My first love as far as printing is concerned is Angie Lewin - check out her 'Plants and Places' - but Angela comes a close second. Sometimes you don't want to be challenged by plots, you just want something pleasing to look at, a skill to admire.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 22 2023, 2:21pm
Post #5 of 8
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Shire Adventures (The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying)
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After finishing with the Caleb York novels (unless Max Collins as another one in the pipe) I've started on the Shire Adventures sourcebook for The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying for Dungeons & Dragons 5E. The book might be of interest, even if one is not into tabletop role-playing games, just as a handsomely illustrated sourcebook on the Shire and Shire-hobbits circa 1360 (Shire Reckoning). The book includes:
- A map of the Shire on the inside front and back cover
- An excerpt from a letter to Balin the Dwarf from Mr. Bilbo Baggins
- A Prologue
- A Brief History of the Shire
- The Geography of the Shire
- The Westfarthing
- The Southfarthing
- The Northfarthing
- The Eastfarthing
- Buckland
- The Old Forest
- Five adventures set within the Shire (A Conspiracy Most Cracked; Expert Treasure Hunters; Most Excellent Fireworks; Involuntary Postmen; and To Soothe a Savage Beast) that can be played as a campaign.
- Pre-generated Character Sheets (Drogo Baggins; Esmeralda Took; Lobelia Bracegirdle; Paladin Took; Primula Brandybook; Rorimac Brandybuck; and Bilbo Baggins)
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Tony Isabella
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on May 22 2023, 2:28pm)
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Ioreth
Rivendell
May 29 2023, 11:50am
Post #6 of 8
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I have read this past days is Austenland by Hale Shannon - and rewatching the movie Austenland in between LOL.
(I started reading LOTR at 10 and Jane Austen at around 17 so I have been a fan for some decades of both).
Trying to trace the differences between book and movie and decide what I like and what not (am no movie fan in general but the movies I love I can endlessly rewatch and find new details every time - same with my favorite books).
And enjoying the similarity in structure between the book and the Jane Austen canon :P
Should read a lot of other things now that I will have some days at home before another catsitting on the weekend (and finally again an SCA meeting, I last was active in the SCA like 2013, had to give most evening things in Stockholm up when moving north of Stockholm 2016). Will be fun :)
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Annael
Elvenhome
May 29 2023, 3:29pm
Post #7 of 8
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I did not care for the movie. Is the book different?
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I completely expected to love the movie, but I thought the film-makers were actually sneering at Austen fans. Also, the message seemed to be that although the protagonist had a good job, plenty of money, a great apartment, and lots of friends, she was a loser because she was not married and having babies. Which is a pretty odd message for a film about Jane Austen, who never married or had children. I'm curious if the book does or does not convey the same messages.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 29 2023, 7:35pm
Post #8 of 8
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I've set aside Shire Adventures for a while in favor of a couple of books delivered by Amazon. The one I'm presently reading is Hellboy: An Assortment of Horrors,
a prose anthology of 15 short stories by various modern writers of weird fiction.
The second book is The Big Bundle, the latest Nathan Heller historical detective novel by Max Allen Collins. The novel connects the kidnapped son of a millionaire
to Bobby Kennedy' s campaign to bring down Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Tony Isabella
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on May 29 2023, 7:35pm)
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