In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 38/52

I read the first two 500 Kingdoms books last week, The Fairy Godmother and One Good Knight.  I love this series.  They're set in a world that runs on narrativium.  The first one is about Elena Kovis - who would have been a Cinderella if her prince hadn't been too young - becoming a Fairy Godmother and rehabilitating a spoiled failed-quester, second-son Prince.

The sequel, One Good Knight is about a princess in a Kingdom invaded by a Dragon.  I don't find it as gripping, but it's a pretty solid sequel.

I'd be carrying on with this series, but I'm moving in two weeks.  This means I should really finish my friend's copy of NOS4R2 so I can return it and not risk it going missing.  I'm also trying to finish Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep for a bookclub I'm hosting next week.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 37/52

I finished two books last week; the second part of Maus and Figure Drawing.  Both were library books.

Maus was utterly harrowing.  I was very glad to be looking at mice rather a realistic depiction of the human beings involved in the holocaust, because this was about as much as I could handle.  I'm glad that I read it, though.

Figure Drawing is a book I've been reading through for a while, which has lots of tips on drawing people.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 36/52

The guy who came to my birthday party 36 weeks ago is now the guy I'm moving in with.  Funny how that works.

Three books last week; Maus, Jinian Footseer and The Season of Passage.

Season of Passage is a Christopher Pike book for adults, which means it has all of the excellent drama, and blonde, blue-eyed hindus, and dramatic sci-fi/fantasy, but how his characters get to swear and have sex.  Excellent.

Maus is a true story; the author's father tells him about living through WW2 as a Jew.  Jewish people are presented as mice, Germans are cats, Polish people are pigs and Americans are dogs.  I understood why when four people were hung and I really appreciated that I was looking at mice and not humans.

Jinian Footseer is my favourite book, which I've discussed multiple times before.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 35/52

Another late post!

I finished three audiobooks last week; seasons 6 & 7 of Clare in the Community and Lorna Doone.

Did you know that there's a dirty joke about cucumbers in chapter 53 of Lorna Doone?

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 34/52

Three books last week.

Unwanted, I liked.  I saw the twist coming, but then I was privy to information that the main characters weren't.  Made the last hundred and fifty pages or so more frustrating.

Abandon is a modern retelling of the myth of Persephone.  I liked it, but I've yet to pick up the sequels so maybe not that much.

Finally, Her.  I have one question.  What the hell is up with one of the characters constantly taking off his pants, getting down on all fours and barking like a dog?  This is calmly described by other characters who do not seem to consider it at all unusual.  What the hell?

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 33/52

Only two books this week!

The Night Circus  was an interesting one.  All very fantastical and dramatic, which is nice.  But, also has a big logical flaw, to whit; why don't they just stop competing?  Very silly.

The Girl on the Train was an interesting mystery, almost reminiscent of Sophie Hannah or Gillian Flynn.  About a woman who witnesses something from a train window, and three very flawed women who need to sort through what's true or not.

This is a week late, so feel lucky I wrote it at all.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 32/52

Three books last week, all new.  Raising Steam, The Girl Who Just Appeared, and The Steerswoman.  Two of them I bought very recently.  The third, Raising Steam has been on my to-read list for a while.  I read it last week because it seemed like the right time.

Knowing the circumstances under which it was written may be affecting my opinion, but it seems somewhat flimsy at times.  The jokes are cruder and more obvious.  It feels like the tone of the book is trying too hard to mimic earlier instalments.

The Girl Who Just Appeared is about a woman who was adopted.  The only hint to her birth family is the name and address on her birth certificate.  When that address comes up for rent she decides to move in and finds an old diary under the floorboards.  Great beginning, interesting book.

The Steerswoman is about a guild of truthtellers.  A steerswoman - or man, though they are rarer - is bound to truthfully answer any question they are ask, as long as their questions are answered in return.  The second you refuse to answer a steerswoman's question, you are under their ban and they will never answer a question for you again.  The book follows one specific steerswoman, who is investigating strange crystals that were strewn across the landscape some thirty-thirty-five years before.  Late eighties feminist hard sci-fi heavily disguised as fantasy, which happens to be my favourite genre (see Jinian Footseer).