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Books read so far this year: January
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girliejones queries about what people read, how they chose the books and so on. For me this is partly guided by what I feel like and partly what’s available. If I’m following a series via the library and the next book is out, I’ll pick something else pretty much at random while I wait for it, if I don't see anything I particularly want. Though in a couple of cases I’m wondering whether the library actually has the missing books or even realises it needs them! I’m now going to waffle thoughtfully about everything I’ve read so far this year, devoting one lj entry to each month.
I read a lot of sf and fantasy but also historicals, particularly crime fiction. It seems I’m interested in any other times than my own, be they past or future. I also enjoy alternate history and will give an unknown book or author a try based on no more than that it is of this genre.
January being my month off, I naturally get more read then than usual. This year I kicked off with Lian Hearn’s Grass For His Pillow, a fantasy based on medieval Japan. I’d read the first book last year after being assigned the third book as an Aurealis judge. It made much more sense this way… I followed this with Marianne de Pierres’ Code Noir, Incurable by John Marsden which is a follow-on to the Tomorrow series and The Game by Laurie R. King, who writes original Sherlock Holmes books, teaming the now retired detective with a Mary-Sue like character called Mary Russell. If you need more explanation of the character type than that, you obviously didn’t read enough Star Trek fanfiction in your youth :-)
I’ve also noticed a newish writer named Kim Harrison who writes a form of alternate-world stories, this a fairly popular type where magic works and there are vampires, witches, pixies etc. Humans have been decimated due to a virus carried by tomatoes, so along with the problems associated with several sentient species sharing a world on newly equal terms, there is also mass tomato phobia. So my next read was Kim’s third book, Every Which Way But Dead.
I must have been out of things to read for a while after that. The next thing I read was a fairly standard present day thing which I read more as a way to know your enemy, since it was written by a couple of diehard fundamentalist Christians and it was weirdly intriguing to see how they thought. Almost an alternate history itself, i.e a world where the fundie worldview is correct! Anyway, that book was Showers in Season. After it, the novelisation of 12 Monkeys. I said I was hard up for reading. This book by Elizabeth Hand really wasn’t worth it and didn’t make much more sense than the movie did. I’d hoped it would. This kicked off a wish for some decent hard sf and I found Saturn’s Race by Larry Niven/Steven Barnes in the library. Not great but interesting. At the same time I also took out the Year’s Best SF 2005 to catch up on short fiction which isn't usually my reading matter of choice because they're over too fast. I would like to be a slower reader sometimes because then the books would last longer!
stephen_dedman is responsible for handing me a copy of Kerrelyn Sparks’ How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire which like Kim Harris’ books is crossover fantasy/romance but this book is more strongly a romance than Harris. Its saving grace was that it was screamingly funny, involving the heroine, a dental nurse, having to operate on the hero, who is of course a vampire, when he damages one of his precious fangs.
I rescued my brain after this by treating it to A Short History of the 20th Century by Geoffrey Blainey, who comes closer than most in helping this planet appear to make sense. I choose the words with care. I got this book and the companion A Short History of the World, for Christmas so I was going to read them or perish in the attempt. They are surprisingly easy to read, clearly written and with indexes full of more detailed works if you want to follow something up more closely.
Last January book was by Barbara Hambly but not at all what I’d come to expect. No alternate earths and wizards and techogeek heroines who fall in love with them. This was The Emancipator’s Wife, telling the rather grim history of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham. This was well written and featured enough of Hambly’s usual style to be recognisable but even so, not a cheerful book. Don’t read it if you’re behind in taking your medications. I have Hambly’s detective series featuring a freed slave, beginning with A Free Man of Color, up next but so far the first book has not made its way back to the library. It does look as though one needs to read them in order.
This is prompted by
girliejones queries about what people read, how they chose the books and so on. For me this is partly guided by what I feel like and partly what’s available. If I’m following a series via the library and the next book is out, I’ll pick something else pretty much at random while I wait for it, if I don't see anything I particularly want. Though in a couple of cases I’m wondering whether the library actually has the missing books or even realises it needs them! I’m now going to waffle thoughtfully about everything I’ve read so far this year, devoting one lj entry to each month. I read a lot of sf and fantasy but also historicals, particularly crime fiction. It seems I’m interested in any other times than my own, be they past or future. I also enjoy alternate history and will give an unknown book or author a try based on no more than that it is of this genre.
January being my month off, I naturally get more read then than usual. This year I kicked off with Lian Hearn’s Grass For His Pillow, a fantasy based on medieval Japan. I’d read the first book last year after being assigned the third book as an Aurealis judge. It made much more sense this way… I followed this with Marianne de Pierres’ Code Noir, Incurable by John Marsden which is a follow-on to the Tomorrow series and The Game by Laurie R. King, who writes original Sherlock Holmes books, teaming the now retired detective with a Mary-Sue like character called Mary Russell. If you need more explanation of the character type than that, you obviously didn’t read enough Star Trek fanfiction in your youth :-)
I’ve also noticed a newish writer named Kim Harrison who writes a form of alternate-world stories, this a fairly popular type where magic works and there are vampires, witches, pixies etc. Humans have been decimated due to a virus carried by tomatoes, so along with the problems associated with several sentient species sharing a world on newly equal terms, there is also mass tomato phobia. So my next read was Kim’s third book, Every Which Way But Dead.
I must have been out of things to read for a while after that. The next thing I read was a fairly standard present day thing which I read more as a way to know your enemy, since it was written by a couple of diehard fundamentalist Christians and it was weirdly intriguing to see how they thought. Almost an alternate history itself, i.e a world where the fundie worldview is correct! Anyway, that book was Showers in Season. After it, the novelisation of 12 Monkeys. I said I was hard up for reading. This book by Elizabeth Hand really wasn’t worth it and didn’t make much more sense than the movie did. I’d hoped it would. This kicked off a wish for some decent hard sf and I found Saturn’s Race by Larry Niven/Steven Barnes in the library. Not great but interesting. At the same time I also took out the Year’s Best SF 2005 to catch up on short fiction which isn't usually my reading matter of choice because they're over too fast. I would like to be a slower reader sometimes because then the books would last longer!
stephen_dedman is responsible for handing me a copy of Kerrelyn Sparks’ How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire which like Kim Harris’ books is crossover fantasy/romance but this book is more strongly a romance than Harris. Its saving grace was that it was screamingly funny, involving the heroine, a dental nurse, having to operate on the hero, who is of course a vampire, when he damages one of his precious fangs.I rescued my brain after this by treating it to A Short History of the 20th Century by Geoffrey Blainey, who comes closer than most in helping this planet appear to make sense. I choose the words with care. I got this book and the companion A Short History of the World, for Christmas so I was going to read them or perish in the attempt. They are surprisingly easy to read, clearly written and with indexes full of more detailed works if you want to follow something up more closely.
Last January book was by Barbara Hambly but not at all what I’d come to expect. No alternate earths and wizards and techogeek heroines who fall in love with them. This was The Emancipator’s Wife, telling the rather grim history of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham. This was well written and featured enough of Hambly’s usual style to be recognisable but even so, not a cheerful book. Don’t read it if you’re behind in taking your medications. I have Hambly’s detective series featuring a freed slave, beginning with A Free Man of Color, up next but so far the first book has not made its way back to the library. It does look as though one needs to read them in order.
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I'd recommend that. I'd lend you book two, but I lent it to a friend who's gone back to Wales without returning it. (Have later books in the series, though.)
And congratulations on your memory and organizational skills. I used to pencil in the dates I'd last read a book, mostly to keep track on how often I re-read my favourites. Since I no longer do this, I have no idea of what I read in January, and would have to do some serious research to find out what I read in June!
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