Reading ALL THE WEDNESDAYS
Feb. 21st, 2013 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanThis post will be a vast untidy heap of all the books I can remember reading since the one time I participated in Reading Wednesdays. Yes, I know it's Thursday. You got a problem with that?
What are you reading now?
Diane Duane's Stealing the Elf-King's Roses. I am reading this because I find almost all Diane Duane's books compulsively readable and re-readable, even if I have a problem with them on some other level, and I am out of Young Wizard books to reread until it's been longer since I reread them. I recall having a problem with this book, but it hasn't surfaced so far.
What did you just finish reading?
Diane Duane's A Wizard of Mars. The only books about Mars I really imprinted on as a child were Heinlein's Red Planet and Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, but Duane did such a good job with the manifestations of other classic Mars fiction and film that I didn't feel left out. I particularly love Nita and Carmela in this story, and I actually feel that Duane's own Martian history more than holds its own among the jostling classics. And, as I said above, compulsively readable.
What will you read next?
I don't know. Possibly a gardening book or a nature book; I often do this in February. Possibly I will go right through all Diane Duane's Star Trek novels. Or I could read one of the volumes of Players of Shakespeare to keep up the mood for writing the Liavek novel.
What did you read while failing to post on Wednesdays?
Steven Brust's Five Hundred Years After. I had lent it to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
carbonel, and when she returned it to me I absently took it upstairs instead of returning it to the Scribblies shelf downstairs. It was therefore to hand when I finished reading something else while my elderly cat was sitting on me, so that I didn't have to disturb him by getting up. I confess to having enjoyed reading the introduction more than I should have. As for the book, I continue to admire it enormously and to glory in all the Paarfiisms.
Steven Brust's The Viscount of Adrilankha. I think this is my first rereading of the published book. I still marvel at how the serious and the unserious are layered like a parfait -- Paarfi, parfait, never mind. And I love Tazendra so much. As for Khaavren, I would say the same of him except that, having spent so much time in his company, I feel he would be embarrassed at such a bald declaration from a stranger.
Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet. This was lent to me bybibliotech after I talked about Dora Carrington and she misheard me as talking about Leonora. It is an extremely weird book. The structure is classic and predictable, but the content is hilarious and all over the map. I can't think of many books that are narrated by nonagenarians. I got bored with some of the "historical" pieces where alleged members of the Catholic Church did scandalous things. Not that I mind for the Church's sake; it's just that the subject isn't as shocking as the author seemed to think it was at the time; it's practically a cliche. Very good cat values, however, and a really excellent loopy narrative voice. Also a gleeful dismantling of, well, practically everything; into which, I suppose, the antics of the Church fall.
Carol Berg, Transformation. This was like a plunge into cold water after the previous book. I almost put it down two or three times. I think, in addition to the contrast with the Carrington book, that I was tripping over some first-novel traits. I actually stopped reading at one point and looked at the back cover, which I usually avoid doing until I am finished with a book, because there are so often egregious spoilers thereon. Sure enough, one of the blurbs referred to the book as a debut novel. It wasn't clumsy and it didn't even really have that charming but sometimes overwhelming kitchen-sink quality of some first novels. It was just very, very careful. It's narrated in the first person by a man in a very circumscribed and dangerous situation; and I tried to attribute the care to him. Some of it probably was his character, but there was just a general strong feeling of being sure to get the sentences in the right place and remembering to appeal to several senses in any given space of pages. It's hard to describe. Goodness knows, my own first novel has a mort of failures in it. I also felt that the culture the narrator was in but not of had some cliched qualities. Eventually either the author relaxed, or I did, or the additional details showed that things were much more inventive than I had feared. Also, the women did show up; I was getting very impatient, though I did understand that their absence was part of the culture -- but it was also part of the author's choice of a male narrator. The book is really quite good, and I'll be picking up the rest of the series at some point.
Constance Sidles, In My Nature. I was given this as a Christmas present, a year ago. I had asked for it becausealexfandra did the watercolor illustrations, which are gorgeous. I also really loved the essays. Some of the first ones seemed to be reaching a bit to amalgamate their points with the birding that's the main focus, but as I read on I saw that the author's mind really works that way. The birding anecdotes were wonderful. I'll be rereading this in February for years to come.
Opera just crashed, and while LJ did not, miraculously, eat my post, I think I had better put this up before something else happens. I apologize for any typos or strangnesses -- LJ, or perhaps LJ in collusion with Opera, has returned to its habit of blurring the type as I make posts and comments, and it's clear that I rely heavily on actually seeing what I'm typing rather than being a proper touch typist. I failed typing in high school and I never have learned to do it right, just fairly quickly My regards to you all.
Pamela
What are you reading now?
Diane Duane's Stealing the Elf-King's Roses. I am reading this because I find almost all Diane Duane's books compulsively readable and re-readable, even if I have a problem with them on some other level, and I am out of Young Wizard books to reread until it's been longer since I reread them. I recall having a problem with this book, but it hasn't surfaced so far.
What did you just finish reading?
Diane Duane's A Wizard of Mars. The only books about Mars I really imprinted on as a child were Heinlein's Red Planet and Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, but Duane did such a good job with the manifestations of other classic Mars fiction and film that I didn't feel left out. I particularly love Nita and Carmela in this story, and I actually feel that Duane's own Martian history more than holds its own among the jostling classics. And, as I said above, compulsively readable.
What will you read next?
I don't know. Possibly a gardening book or a nature book; I often do this in February. Possibly I will go right through all Diane Duane's Star Trek novels. Or I could read one of the volumes of Players of Shakespeare to keep up the mood for writing the Liavek novel.
What did you read while failing to post on Wednesdays?
Steven Brust's Five Hundred Years After. I had lent it to
carbonel, and when she returned it to me I absently took it upstairs instead of returning it to the Scribblies shelf downstairs. It was therefore to hand when I finished reading something else while my elderly cat was sitting on me, so that I didn't have to disturb him by getting up. I confess to having enjoyed reading the introduction more than I should have. As for the book, I continue to admire it enormously and to glory in all the Paarfiisms.Steven Brust's The Viscount of Adrilankha. I think this is my first rereading of the published book. I still marvel at how the serious and the unserious are layered like a parfait -- Paarfi, parfait, never mind. And I love Tazendra so much. As for Khaavren, I would say the same of him except that, having spent so much time in his company, I feel he would be embarrassed at such a bald declaration from a stranger.
Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet. This was lent to me by
bibliotech after I talked about Dora Carrington and she misheard me as talking about Leonora. It is an extremely weird book. The structure is classic and predictable, but the content is hilarious and all over the map. I can't think of many books that are narrated by nonagenarians. I got bored with some of the "historical" pieces where alleged members of the Catholic Church did scandalous things. Not that I mind for the Church's sake; it's just that the subject isn't as shocking as the author seemed to think it was at the time; it's practically a cliche. Very good cat values, however, and a really excellent loopy narrative voice. Also a gleeful dismantling of, well, practically everything; into which, I suppose, the antics of the Church fall.Carol Berg, Transformation. This was like a plunge into cold water after the previous book. I almost put it down two or three times. I think, in addition to the contrast with the Carrington book, that I was tripping over some first-novel traits. I actually stopped reading at one point and looked at the back cover, which I usually avoid doing until I am finished with a book, because there are so often egregious spoilers thereon. Sure enough, one of the blurbs referred to the book as a debut novel. It wasn't clumsy and it didn't even really have that charming but sometimes overwhelming kitchen-sink quality of some first novels. It was just very, very careful. It's narrated in the first person by a man in a very circumscribed and dangerous situation; and I tried to attribute the care to him. Some of it probably was his character, but there was just a general strong feeling of being sure to get the sentences in the right place and remembering to appeal to several senses in any given space of pages. It's hard to describe. Goodness knows, my own first novel has a mort of failures in it. I also felt that the culture the narrator was in but not of had some cliched qualities. Eventually either the author relaxed, or I did, or the additional details showed that things were much more inventive than I had feared. Also, the women did show up; I was getting very impatient, though I did understand that their absence was part of the culture -- but it was also part of the author's choice of a male narrator. The book is really quite good, and I'll be picking up the rest of the series at some point.
Constance Sidles, In My Nature. I was given this as a Christmas present, a year ago. I had asked for it because
alexfandra did the watercolor illustrations, which are gorgeous. I also really loved the essays. Some of the first ones seemed to be reaching a bit to amalgamate their points with the birding that's the main focus, but as I read on I saw that the author's mind really works that way. The birding anecdotes were wonderful. I'll be rereading this in February for years to come.Opera just crashed, and while LJ did not, miraculously, eat my post, I think I had better put this up before something else happens. I apologize for any typos or strangnesses -- LJ, or perhaps LJ in collusion with Opera, has returned to its habit of blurring the type as I make posts and comments, and it's clear that I rely heavily on actually seeing what I'm typing rather than being a proper touch typist. I failed typing in high school and I never have learned to do it right, just fairly quickly My regards to you all.
Pamela
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Date: 2013-02-21 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 09:35 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-21 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 10:45 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-21 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 09:40 pm (UTC)Altogether it looks wonderful and very useful, as well.
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Date: 2013-02-21 10:17 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-22 01:19 am (UTC)I would love to see her live. I was distraught that I couldn't get to London to see her play Brutus in the all female Caesar the Donmar did last Fall.
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Date: 2013-02-23 07:14 am (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-21 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 10:15 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-21 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 10:15 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-21 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 10:46 pm (UTC)And there are few feelings quite like having one's books available after a period of deprivation.
P.
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Date: 2013-02-22 03:50 am (UTC)I've been getting by fairly well with ebooks, but it is very nice to have my physical books out again.
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Date: 2013-02-21 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 11:52 pm (UTC)I suspect the area has undergone some changes since 1931.
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Date: 2013-02-22 12:06 am (UTC)Then I will take my rage away for now, in case you're able to enjoy the thing. I am available for ranting if desired, though!
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Date: 2013-02-23 07:15 am (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-24 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 07:16 am (UTC)I spent literally minutes poring over some of your watercolors.
P.
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Date: 2013-02-22 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 07:16 am (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-22 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 07:17 am (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-23 12:06 am (UTC)I might actually suggest trying one of her other series' instead, though, as I think the Lighthouse Duet is the best thing she's done so far, and while the most recent series is flawed (and in some ways not entirely dissimilar to flaws in the first trilogy) there is more mastery in the writing and more women.
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Date: 2013-02-23 07:18 am (UTC)P.
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Date: 2013-02-25 04:02 pm (UTC)