The Mom Stays in the Picture On Mystic Lake; Kristin Hannah (1999)

On strength of The Women, I picked up a few Kristin Hannah books at a Fletcher Free Library book sale, and decided to start with the oldest of the three, On Mystic Lake, which in turn, according to the "Other books by" page, her eighth book.  The dust jacket proclaimed, "Kristin Hannah makes her hardcover debut" which initially surprised me -- I hadn't realized Hannah started as a softcover romance novelist and was now a little worried about my purchases. 😅

As it turns out, while On Mystic Lake has many of the earmarks of a standard romance novel, the kernel of the author who would write The Women is present, and it's an enjoyable read with (mostly) well-rounded characters and tackles thorny relationship complications.  

And wonderfully, on page 29, I was reminded of "The Mom Stays in the Picture": 

"There were almost no pictures of her.  Like most mothers, she was always behind the camera, and when she thought she looked tired, or fat, or thin, or ugly ... she ripped the photo in half and ditched it." 

... and then again later in the book:

"We're like that, we moms.  We take the pictures, but we don't record our own lives very well.  It's a mistake we never realize until it's too late..."

Lines; Sung J. Woo; 2024

Sung J. Woo's Lines begins as a Sliding Doors-style story and follows the trope of showing us two very different paths that a couple's relationship takes after they literally collide in Washington Park, or have a near miss.

What Sung does so beautifully is that the two paths of the relationship are not different purely because of some mechanistic reason (e.g., like in the movie, catching the train leads to finding your husband is cheating); instead he taps an essential truth of human relationships.  I am afraid to spoil anything further, will stop there, and simply recommend reading.

What Grows From the Dead; Dave Dobson; 2024

Note: this was actually published on 4/6/25; I backdated to 3/24/25, when I finished the book 

This is a short recommendation for friend Dave Dobson's What Grows from the Dead.  In the author's note Dave says his premise with the novel was to "merely start him out about as low as he thought he could possibly be, and then to start to make things worse for him."  Bujoldian in approach and tone!  Things are grim, but never grimdark, in this thriller / mystery / crime(?) novel set in modern day western NC.

2024 in Reading

I've logged 42 titles in my spreadsheet for 2024 so far, a big drop from 2023, and back to the levels of the previous few years.  What happened?  Well, my library dropped Hoopla, so all the graphic novel reading that drove the increase in 2023 mostly went away.  Once again I was part of a Hugo awards reading group and read all the short story, novelette, novella, and novel finalists.

What stood out this year?

Are You My Mother?  Alison Bechdel's 2012 graphic memoir about her relationship with her mother, and companion to 2006's Fun Home, about her relationship with her father.  I think they should be read in order, but it's possible to read Are You My Mother? first.

Clementine, parts 1 and 2.  These were the last titles I got from the library through Hoopla.  This is Tillie Walden's graphic novel about the zombie apocalypse, specifically a character from the Walking Dead video game (which I haven't played, and I haven't seen the TV show, either).  Despite not having any background knowledge of the character, and despite Hoopla screwing up the titling so that I read book 2 before book 1, Walden's illustrations and storytelling made it possible for me to pick up a character in the middle of their story and enjoy it.

Menewood.  Nicola Griffith's 2023 sequel to the 2013 Hild (which I finally read in 2023).  Like Hild, Menewood is a fiercesome tome about the semi-fictional life of St. Hilda.  You really should read this series in order; it is worth the effort.     

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands.  Kate Beaton's 2022 graphic memoir about the individual, community, and cultural harm caused by the way corporations run the extraction of oil in rural Canada.  There are no moustache-twirling villains, but you'll still be filled with rage that such conditions are acceptable just so we can have slightly cheaper fuel.

Some Desperate Glory.  Emily Tesh's 2023 debut novel won the 2024 Hugo Award.  It begins as a story about growing up in a cult and trying to shake off the brainwashing, and quickly reveals much greater ambitions.  What I liked most was how characters have conversations in which they don't hold back information to cause misunderstanding; they're just incapable of understanding each other b/c they've had warped experiences.  I don't know what they are gong to do next at any given moment (in a good way, not a completely chaotic "these characters will do random stuff" way) and that's compelling to read about.

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?  Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's 2023 graphic novel.  With recent billionaire obsession with escaping to Mars, this is a timely and well-researched read.  Zach also writes Saturday Morning Breakfast Comics, which is a staple of my Feedly reading list.  

Braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants.  Robin Wall Kimmerer's 2013 cross-disciplinary book on "western" and indigenous botany and environmental science.  I heard on NPR the other day that this was one of the most-borrowed nonfiction books of 2024.  Our CSA farm has had the corn and squash washed out the last couple of summers in the VT floodings; this helped inspire me to plant a 3 sisters garden in 2025 (I've known about 3 sisters gardens for years, but it never made sense to grow one before b/c we were part of a CSA).  

Arboreality.  Rebecca Campbell's 2022 collection of interwoven short stories about how climate crises could affect the people and landscape of British Columbia over the next 75 years.  Heartbreaking and hopeful.

T. Kingfisher.  Yes, this is an author, not a book, but my 2024 in reading was dominated by Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher.  I first got introduced to her work in 2023 with What Moves the Dead and Nettle & Bone for the Hugo finalist reading group, and continued this year with Thornhedge (2024 Hugo Novella winner), A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (2020, won all the YA fantasy awards), and A Sorceress Comes to Call (2024).  I love her characters's voices and the stories she tells.  They're not exactly *cozy* in that there is real danger our heroes must struggle against, but it's also not grimdark.  I think there's a lot of what I liked about Bujold in Vernon's writing.  

A House of Sky and Breath (Sarah J. Maas)

Five years ago I reported on the frequency of throat bobs in Sarah J. Maas's books. She has since published four more books.  I've read three of them and am happy to share an updated chart of the progression of throat bobs across Maas's ouevre.  The steady rate since page 4800 has continued, with a few runs here and there during especially emotional moments.

One major change is the number of unnamed characters whose throats bob.  For the first 7000 pages or so, only named characters throats bobbed, and now four unnamed characters' throats have bobbed in the last 2000+ pages (though I suspect that the unnamed alpha mystic will get a name in House of Flame and Shadow).

  

House of Sky and Breath boasts the third-most throat bobs among the novels:

... and Bryce is now tied with Aelin as the queen of throat bobbing, with a whole book to take first place.

Makt Myrkranna (Valdimar Asmundsson, 1901)

I read the 2016 English translation by Hans Corneel De Roos of Valdimar Asmundsson's 1901 Icelandic "translation" of Bram Stoker's Dracula, serialized into his weekly publication Fjallkonan.  It is significant because the Icelandic text differs quite a lot from the original text: the scenes in Transylvania are expanded, and the scenes in England are cut to 10% of the text in Dracula.  They are really little more than an outline, which is a shame.  It's unclear why Asmundsson cut the story short, but I can't really recommend it as a story, only for the curious. 

Some years ago I read the Icelandic sagas, so I found it interesting early on in Makt Myrkranna where Harker self deprecatingly notes, "I am too much the lawyer." (translator's note says it could also be read as "completely the lawyer")  In the sagas, poets, warriors, and those who knew the law were held in the highest regard, so this would read a little weirdly for someone coming from that tradition.

The foreward of the translation also mentions the Thames Torso Murders, which I had not heard of before.  I guess Jack the Ripper was the more acceptable serial killer for late 20th century kids to learn about?  

2023 in Reading

I've logged 61 titles in my spreadsheet for 2023 so far, way up over the mid-40's of the last few years.  What drove the increase?  Last Christmas I got a tablet sized for comic books (mentioned at the end of last year's post) and have read a bunch of graphic novels from my library through Hoopla.  Once again I was part of a Hugo awards reading group and read all the short story, novelette, novella, and novel finalists.

What stood out this year?

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.  Especially during Erica Henderson's run as the artist.  The whole run showcases Ryan North's talent for irreverant + relevant story and dialogue, and paired with Henderson's character designs, layout, spacing... it's a beautiful thing.  

The Goblin Emperor.  Sarah Monette's first novel published under the pseudonym Katherine Addison is a story of court intrigue that could have taken place in any setting, but I enjoyed this slightly new look at what Faerieland could be like.

Bea Wolf. Beautiful art and a faithful retelling of the Beowulf story for kids.  

Hild. As mentioned in last year's post, I had been avoiding Hild because it's a big, big, book.  Then I read Spear last year and finally tackled Hild, and it is formidably rich and dense and worth every minute.  As an extra benefit, Nicola Griffith published Menewood, the sequel to Hild, this year, and I have it queued up to read early in 2024.  

Babel: or the necessity of violence : an arcane history of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.  The winner of the Nebula award for Best Novel this year.  Be prepared to spend a lot of time with it.  Over the first half of the novel, it lays its groundwork very carefully, but also effeciently, spending time on certain moments that drive its points home with no passages wasted.  There's a great short bit with the daguerrotype (p171-172) where Robin thinks of how the photograph is similar to their own work of translation, and a nice in-world aphorism: "Silver accrues where it's already in use" (p175) like how any kind of wealth gets funneled to the top, and great efforts are needed to unseat it.  The style changes in the second half of the novel, which becomes more action-packed (we get to the stage of "the necessity of violence").  

Even Though I Knew the End.  There was a strong slate of novellas this year, and C.L. Polk's magical detective noir hits all the right notes as an homage and alternative to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.  The title comes from a moment when our protagonist is re-reading some F. Scott Fitzgerald, which made me want to re-read The Great Gatsby.  I was in luck, because while looking for Nghi Vo's Into the Riverlands (another Hugo novella finalist), I discovered...   

The Chosen and the Beautiful.  Nghi Vo's first novel is a retelling of The Great Gatsby from the POV of Daisy's friend Jordan Baker, instead of Nick Caraway.  In this version, Jordan was adopted from Tonkin by the Bakers.  Loved this.  Vo does a wonderful job of feeling authentically roaring 20's while doing some things stylistically that would be a no-go in publishing in the 20's.  It feels like how people might actually talk and act, rather than filtered through the publishing industry of the era.  I also loved the title playing on The Beautiful and the Damned.

Nettle & Bone.  There was also a strong slate of novels, and Ursula Vernon (writing as T. Kingfisher) took home the rocketship.  Marra has such a strong internal dialogue, and her "team" are such decent people, each struggling with their own problems but willing to work together, that it was impossible not to be charmed.  It's true I took lots more notes while reading (honorable mention) Nona the Ninth, and Nettle & Bone has a more straightforward plot, but both have a great mix of laugh-out-loud moments and human drama.

Gardner Dozois really disliked Return of the Jedi

The stories in The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection were published 40 years ago, so I decided to read the collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.  The biggest omission has to be Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds", but by and large I enjoyed it.

As interesting as the stories to me (since, by and large, I was already familiar with some of the work of nearly all the authors represented) was the forward to the edition, which begins with a short history leading up to the current state of the business of SFF publishing.  The forward wanders on from here and into a variety of other topics, until Dozois starts in on the film industry.

The SF movies of 1983 were generally lackluster at best.  Return of the Jedi brought the famous Star Wars saga to a disappointing end**.  Jedi is ineptly directed, poorly paced and edited, filled with energyless wooden performances (Harrison Ford in particular stumbling through the film like one of the living dead), and marred by an impactless anticlimax which simply rehashes the big Death Star scene from Star Wars.  At the end the Good Ghosts all go to a party and sing campfire songs with the teddy bears, and everyone looks relieved that it's over.

I'm not going to argue with most of this, except to note that RotJ had three separate threads in the climax.  One is a bit of rehash of the raid on the Death Star from the first movie, and another sadly takes place on Endor instead of Kashyyyk, but the scenes in the throne room between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor did have an impact, and were a worthy conclusion to Luke's journey.

** LOL the joke was on all of us.  Dozois lived to see the next end of the saga in 2005, but died before The Rise of Skywalker.

Favorite reads of 2022

A good year.  43 books recorded, and only 1 put down without finishing.  A lot of very recent books.  Some brief thoughts:

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson (2010).  During the 20th century, 6 million black Americans moved out of the South in search of a better life.  Wilkerson focuses on the stories of three individuals to provide narratives to follow, and expertly distills her interviews with 1,200 people into sections that place these three stories into the context of the greater migration.

The Midnight Bargain, by C.L. Polk (2020).  I enjoyed how magic worked in this world, and how it highlighted the kinds of sacrifices women are expected to make, and how men often quail when asked to make the same sacrifices.

The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey (2021).  After reading this, I had kinda expected it to be on the Hugo or Nebula shortlist for best novel.  It's a very effective near future novel because you can see something like it happening.

The Prophets, by Robert Jones, Jr.  (2021).  This was painful to read, but well worth it.

The Language of Thorns, by Leigh Bardugo (2017).  A wonderful set of short stories that are tales from Bardugo's Grishaverse.  Like Tales of Beedle the Bard, but better.

A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlí Clark (2021).  Now we get to the 2022 Hugo finalists.  I had really enjoyed the Haunting of Tram Car 015, also set in the world, and it was fun to return to that setting.

Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki (2021).  I think this was my favorite read this year.  It shouldn't work; it breaks too many rules of SFF storytelling, but everything comes together, and it's funny and sad and serious and silly and trying to be everything all at once and succeeding. 

She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan (2021).  Or... She Who Became the Son?  I liked this a lot.  Lots of juicy themes about ambition and what various characters are willing to do to get their desires.  Shades of the Empress of Salt & Fortune (locale + revenge) and The Black Sun (on the theme of one's destiny).  It's very light historical fantasy -- I was expecting a little more fantastical elements and more literal "becoming the sun", but the political maneuverings are the star of the novel.

A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine (2021).  The Hugo award-winning sequel to her Hugo award-winning A Memory Called Empire.  In the two years since reading the first book, I had forgotten how much I'd missed Three Seagrass.

Binti: The Complete Trilogy, by Nnedi Okorafor (2019).  I actually read the Binti novella some time ago, but it wasn't until 2022 that I finished the other two novellas.  I love Binti as a character because she feels very real and yet not quite like anyone else.  

If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin (1974).  By far the oldest book on the list, it was interesting to compare and contrast how styles of writing have changed in 50 years.  When Baldwin is writing about what his characters and saying, doing, and feeling, it's excellent.  There are a few times when he goes off talking very generally what it's like to be a woman or on the nature of things and I'm rolling my eyes, but I need to read some more Baldwin.  And I'm interested in the recent film adaptation.

Spear, by Nicola Griffith (2022).  I first read Slow River in 2003, and then the Aud Torvingen series and Ammonite.  I've been putting off reading Hild because it's a tome.  Spear is so wonderfully done that it makes me want to start Hild.  I'm a little worried that part of what I like about Spear is that it's a very efficient story, clocking in < 200 pages, and I'll get mired in Hild, but... it's time.

It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth, by Zoe Thorogood (2022)  My big present this year was a new 10" tablet.  This was my first read through Hoopla on it, and there is an excellent use of variations in style, framing, page layouts, and storytelling.  I'm reminded a little of Hyperbole and a Half, but with much richer artwork.  It's a comic book and the interface is perfect for this, so I'll be doing it a lot more in 2023.

Bad Reviewer Quotes, Bad Days in History Edition

We have a copy of Michael Farquhar's Bad Days in History: A Gleefully Grim Chronicle of Misfortune, Mayhem, and Misery for Every Day of the Year, which I had intended to read one day at a time over the course of 2021, but it was engrossing and I quickly got too far ahead (was at mid-March in mid-January), so I put it aside to pick up again in March, but forgot to put in a calendar reminder, and so here I am on December 31 trying to power through it.  

It's... good, I guess?  but I'm not entirely certain it's that much better than looking through the Wikipedia entries for "on this day".  Part of my hesitation comes from the fact that entries vary from a couple sentences to a couple pages.  I know they can't all be particularly detailed, because Farquhar is writing a sub-500 page book and not a 732 page book.  And sometimes the short ones work well, like the day Joan of Arc's death sentence was nullified, 25 years after she was burned at the stake.  

That sort of tale seems to fit the "Gleefully Grim" part of the subtitle, and the quote from the Washington Post's review on the front cover leans into this: "An upbeat catalog of defeats, faux pas[,**] and falls from grace that contributed to some very crummy moments."  Similarly, the Portland Book Review*** quote on the back cover states, "A wonderful morbid and entertaining collection."

A lot of the entries are morbidly entertaining.  Then there are entries like July 30, 1865, when Ignaz Semmelweis was committed to an asylum.  This is not merely a morbidly entertaining "crummy moment", but the culmination of nearly 20 years of trying to get fellow doctors to wash their hands before examining patients -- especially in the obstetrics department.  There are many more entries like this, which I think are important, but they are sobering tragedies, not "upbeat defeats". 

** Fixing the lack of Oxford comma

*** Note that the full review is more measured; this is just a bad choice of quote for the book cover.  

The Trials of Apollo, Book Four: The Tyrant's Tomb; Rick Riordan; 2019

In this edition of the annals of bad editing:

Reyna conceded this with a nod.  "For years, I was supposed to be a good little sister to Hylla in a tough family situation.  Then, on Calypso's island, I was supposed to be an obedient servant. [...]"

Calypso, of course, was alone on her island.  Reyna and Hylla were Circe's servants.

Vergil in Averno; Avram Davidson; 1987

This edition of adventures in bad editing:

Armin, all eyes at the work of sorting the jewel-stone, and at the show of the sparkles themselves, seemed to have heard nor seen nothing of this brief scene.

Page 39 of the 1987 Doubleday hardcover.  This is a shame, because there's a nice bit higher up the page.  Vergil has spent this evening talking to a man, who tells him of the blind jeweler of Averno, and soon the two are beating on the jeweler's door at a late hour.

At the exact moment his outburst ceased, one half of the upper half of the door (they were not notably trusting in Averno) was opened; there stood a man with a lamp in his hand and in the other he held a polished plate to magnify and reflect the light.  "Come now, Messer Armin," said this one, "is all this clamor and commotion needed?  Will not morning--"

Armin (at last! the man's name!  Vergil had had a sort of shyness in asking to begin with, and then the longer the time had passed without his being told it . . . ah well: "Armin."  So.) [...]

From the perspective of someone who is bad with names, this beautifully captures the embarrassment of not knowing, and eventual release of discomfort when a name is finally revealed.

But... "[He] seemed to have heard nor seen nothing".  I had been struggling to engage with the story up to this point, and so this provided the excuse not to continue.

Among Others (Jo Walton) 2010

This might not be the best book I read this year, but it might be my favorite.  Suzy McKee Charnas's back cover blurb beautifully explains its charms:

I don't know when I've seen such an intense, heartfelt exploration in fiction of what it is to struggle with being an outsider as a young person.... This is a love letter, laced with sharp-edged anguish and triumph, from within the SF/F genres to the SF/F genres.  Among Others shows just how such books are not only entertaining stories but social lifelines.

Ironically, Charnas's The Vampire Tapestry was not published in time to be name dropped in Among Others (the narrative of which ends in February 1980), but I like to think that Mor reads it soon.

I'm even more overjoyed to have been recommended this book because I read Farthing seven years ago, based on the strength of it being a finalist for the Nebula award, and was so put off that I didn't bother looking up any of Walton's other books.  Now I might have to go look up Tooth and Claw... and since Fletcher Free doesn't have it, I'll make like Mor and fill out an inter-library loan slip.

The Marshals of Alexander's Empire; Waldemar Heckel; 1992

I have been stalking the 2000 reprint of this book for a number of years, but its high price has always caused me to talk myself down from the brink of buying it.  Well... Sarahmac found a copy for well under three figures and snatched it up as a Christmas present, and I spent all of January reading it.

I didn't realize this had started out as Heckel's dissertation, and because I don't know ancient Greek or Latin (and my German is out of shape**), his direct quotes of others' works are mostly Greek to me.  Following up all of the footnotes would require having Arrian, Plutarch, Curtius, Justin, and Diodorus on hand (ideally in the original languages, and not in translation, like my copies), and I didn't want to stop in the middle of Heckel's narrative, so I left those on the shelf. 

In the end, despite the fact that I couldn't take full advantage of the information inside, this is a fabulous reference book full of biographies of the major and minor officers from Alexander's accession to the throne to his death.  It's a useful entry in the library of even the casual Alexander historian, so I'm keeping it. 

As it's about the "marshals" of the empire, there's very little on the women; for that, you'd need to read Carney's possibly even more fabulous (and more reasonably priced) Women and Monarchy in Macedonia.


** there are a lot of German historians of Alexander the Great.  I'll leave as an exercise to the reader whether this Teutonic obsession with a "superman" is disturbing.  My excuse is that I'm a redhead named Alex.

Daphne awards

Bookslut, which I had not heard of before, wants to correct the major book awards from 50 years ago. 

According to my records, I've read six books published in 1963:

• The Graduate, which I hated; it's not on their short list
• Cat's Cradle, which is on their original short list.  I remember liking it, but don't remember any details of the book.  That's not a particularly good sign.
• The Game Players of Titan, which is not on their list, but I don't remember particularly liking it; at least, not as much as Cat's Cradle; I don't think it warrants a suggestion.
• V., which is on their original short list.  I kinda liked it, but not nearly as much as Gravity's Rainbow or The Crying of Lot 49.
• Way Station, not on their list; like The Game Players of Titan above, it can be left off
• The Girls of Slender Means, which is on their original short list.  I kinda liked it, but not nearly as much as Memento Mori or Loitering with Intent.

I would have sworn I'd read Hopscotch and The Bell Jar.  In the case of Hopscotch, I think I started it and put it down, but that was in the days before I recorded my DNFs.  I will now go read The Bell Jar.  

I'm torn about the last book on their original short list, The Man Who Fell to Earth.  I've read two of Tevis's other books, Queen's Gambit and Mockingbird, and liked them both very much, but neither struck me as written by an author who could produce a novel worthy of "Best book of 1963".  Then again, unless The Bell Jar knocks me out, I'm not too crazy about any of the other books on the short list.

2013 in reading

2013 was a good year; I read a lot of great books.  Top three in the order in which I read them:

1. Night, by Elie Wiesel (first in a series; I didn't like Dawn and Day nearly as much, but they are still affecting)
2. Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld (second in a trilogy; the others are worth reading, too)
3. Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner

Other highlights/favorites:

• The new Bujold novel
• Catching up on  Kelley Eskridge's collection of stories, Dangerous Space, and feeling sad that it's been 11 years since her wonderful novel Solitaire.
• Discovering Mary Robinette Kowal's "Glamourist Histories", starting with Shades of Milk and Honey
• Finally getting around to reading Lan Samantha Chang's collection of stories, Hunger
• Being introduced to Nancy Mitford's books by my SIL 
• Finishing the year with Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and "A Christmas Memory".  Regardless of his later output, he was a fabulous writer at this point in his career.

Muriel Spark

I've been thinking about how sequencing affects our impression of an author.

About a year and a half ago, I picked up Memento Mori, and immediately became a Muriel Spark fan.    Loitering with Intent confirmed that belief, and I followed it with Aiding and Abetting, The Finishing School, and A Far Cry From Kensington**, around the holidays, but none of these were as good as the first two I'd read.  Also somewhere in there, I started but couldn't finish The Mandelbaum Gate.

Over the course of this year, I've gone through Territorial Rights (April), The Abbess of Crewe (July), and The Ballad of Peckham Rye (September) with the same "these are all right, but not nearly as good as Memento Mori" impressions.  Why do I keep reading after seven relative disappointments?  Well, they're short.  I could complete each of these in no more than a few hours of reading (with the exception of The Mandelbaum Gate, which is why I dropped it), so there isn't a lot of risk in hoping for another Loitering with Intent.  Still, if I had read any of these other books first, I might never have discovered the ones I really like, and would have a lesser impression of Spark's abilities.

Now I finally came to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (yay!  it was in the library!) and The Girls of Slender Means.  I can't say that I *enjoyed* these as much as I enjoyed the first two Spark books I read, but they are effective and affecting tales of British women in the aftermath of WWI and WWII, respectively.  

** To be fair, A Far Cry From Kensington may be much better if read after The Girls of Slender Means

Room at the Top; John Braine; 1957

I want to like this book for the good parts, but there's a vast cultural chasm of casual violence against women that simply cannot be bridged.

There's a love scene that begins well with a line from Alice:

"I'm all twisted.  This is a terribly moral kind of car."

...and as she and Joe are getting out of the vehicle:

She kissed my hands. "They're beautiful," she said.  "Big and red and brutal... Will you keep me warm?"

Hands that can do violence to you are sexy, Alice?!  Later, Susan and Joe have the following exchange:

"I'm not cold, so there."

"Don't argue. Or I'll beat you black and blue."

"I'd like that."

Susan would really like to be beaten?!  Or she thinks he'd like to beat her and by acquiescing to that he'll be sweet on her?!  Or they're just joking?  I'd like to think it's just a bad joke, but later Alice and Joe, in what I can only imagine was intended as part of a longer romantic passage:  

"This is the country for passion, darling."

I bit her ear gently.  "Is that a promise?"

"Anything you want," she said in a whisper.  "You can beat me if you like."

What the hell??!  If this were BDSM, I wouldn't "get it" but at least could accept it.  This feels like a complete mischaracterization of male-female relations.

Dilemma (Orson Scott Card division)

You may have heard of the controversy around the upcoming movie Ender's Game.

Here's my dilemma: Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, at their core, are all about man's inhumanity to other sentient life due to a massive misunderstanding of the Other.  These works have messages that should be celebrated, and run completely counter to Orson Scott Card's publicly stated beliefs.  It seems to me that we should definitely read and discuss the first two books (get them out of the library), and educate the populace to be like Ender, not like Card.

The Heroes; Joe Abercrombie; 2011

The Heroes is a writing exercise gone incredibly well.  Abercrombie masterfully orchestrates the movements of a cast of dozens (even the minor characters were distinct enough that I never needed to refer to the character index) through a 3-day battle** in a highly satisfying way.  It's truly impressive and should be required reading for writers.

Just don't expect a particularly satisfying, central, overarching plot.  

I also found that there was no one I really cared about, in the sense that anyone and everyone could have died, and it wouldn't really make a difference to the events.  While one could argue that's the point the author is driving toward, it doesn't make for a great story.  There's a reason why the red wedding is so powerful. 


** plus some preface time to establish characters and epilogue time so that we come full circle


Note: published 11/15/2013, backdated to 10/27/13 when I finished the book.