What've You Been Reading?

[sweet_sparrow]

I don't have a whole lot of time right now as it's Crunch Time with the semester's end and several nasty deadlines - for this week! - looming over me (so my apologies if replies are incredibly slow and/or just fall to the wayside altogether in advance). Please can someone have a talk with Time and have it freeze it until I get/feel caught up on stuff? *whinge*

I've managed to get a neat amount of reading done this month - about 15 books in all and a slew of short stories I haven't bothered to keep track of. The most notable reading of the month is no doubt the two thirds of N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy that are out so far: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Broken Kingdoms, both of which I really enjoyed.

Disappointments of the month were Emma by Jane Austen and Sabriel by Garth Nix, neither of which I finished. I may try them again at a later date.

What about you? What's your reading month been like? What stood out in any way?

Comments

[queen_ypolita]

I finished Temeraire: The Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik at the start of the month, which I really liked. Unfortunately, that high didn't last.

I then got hopelessly bogged down in the first 70 or so pages of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller for book group. As it was for book group, I was determined to finish it, but it was very hard at first--it felt like the book was purposefully aggressive in the beginning to put you off. It got a bit easier then, and had some passages with imagery that reminded me of surrealist paintings, which I liked, but for the most part, it just didn't do anything to me, which I found oddly disappointing--I think I was sort of hoping I'd hate it, but it didn't inspire any strong feelings in me.

Tried to find something different next, and picked up Desert of the Hearts by Jane Rule--I found it quick to read, and liked it a lot.

Then I picked up Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde, a couple of years since I read The Eyre Affair, and had clearly forgotten pretty much all about it, so it took a while to get into the story, but intertextuality is always fun, IMO, so it wasn't unenjoyable even if I didn't find it that engrossing.

[starlady]

Sabriel! That is one of my favorite books of all.

I just finished Kraken by China Miéville and LOVED it.

[sweet_sparrow]

I was really disappointed by Sabriel. I've heard so many good things about it! I promised a friend that I'd try Lirael some other time, though, to see if that breaks me into Nix' writing.

[holyschist]

I have read almost nothing this much:

89. Magic Lessons, by Justine Larbalestier (ya)
90. Magic's Child, by Justine Larbalestier (ya)

The conclusion to the Magic or Madness trilogy. I still really loved the magic setup in these (magic with a price!), but I felt the conclusion was a little too tidy and flat.

91. Liar, by Justine Larbalestier (ya)

This one was pretty amazing. Unreliable narrator to end all unreliable narrators, and all around-awesome. I originally wasn't planning on reading it because I'm mostly an SFF reader and it looked like contemporary, but I think there's a lot here to appeal to readers of any genre.

I'm currently reading Lois McMaster Bujold's Cryoburn (so far: eh) and a book about Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky's seminal Cold War chess match.

[sweet_sparrow]

One day I must get my hands on Liar...

Sounds like an enjoyable month, even if it didn't consist of a lot of books. ^-^ (Also, this is probably the first time your comment hasn't made me want books right this instant. O_O Liar doesn't count since I wanted that already anyway.)

[hyperbole]

In terms of leisurely reading, I finished off Pratchett's The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic (the film edition with both in the same volume), then read Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry until Sunday night, and now I've started on The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde).

I'm a Modern European Languages student so literature makes up two thirds of my studies this year. In November I read Javier Marías's All Souls (which I'm preparing to write an essay on in the next few days, ew), a few chapters of Feridun Zaimoglu's Kanak Sprak ('pologies about not even attempting the diacritics in his name - they are numerous and the book is currently out of sight), Ibsen's A Doll's House (for the second time: in English now, I've read it in Swedish before), Hauptmann's Lonely Lives, and Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard. This marks the end of this semester and finishing the last novel a week and a half ago was SUCH a relief. I now have a week or so to work on essays and exams, read my own books, and knit, and then it's time to start with next semester's eighteen works. *breathes*

[sweet_sparrow]

Oooh! How'd you find them? I remember really liking the Wilde. (Though Pratchett took me forever to get into. *sigh*)

That sounds like a wonderfully diverse set of books to read, though. ^-^ I'm an English student myself, so I don't get that much diversity in my course work.

[existence]

Things I can remember reading in the past month-or-so (rereads):
- Pegasus and Chalice by Robin McKinely
MY GOD, IF SHE WASN'T WRITING A SEQUEL TO PEGASUS, I WOULD BE IN REVOLT. REVOLT, I SAY. Still! As a shallow lover of talking horses and sword wielding princesses, I was p. happy with Pegasus until the ending (because I was reading it to read something not horribly bittersweet.)

Chalice reminded me a lot of Firewalk by Anne Logston, except in reverse.

- Curse of Chalion, Bjold
Chalion is kind of a comfort read: I do like the way it unfolds.

- all the Vorkosian things except Falling Free and Ethan of Athos, Bjold
This was just a "oh hey now I have a CD with ALL THE THINGS so I will reread. Still enjoyable. (Also, yes, I cried at the end of Cryoburn because I am a wuss.)

- Boneshaker, Dreadnaught, Cherie Priest
I liked Dreanaught a bitt better then Boneshaker, but I think Boneshaker had more interesting conceptual work. Still, I'm more of a sucker for the "I am a widow and I will shoot and logic my way through this" then the way Boneshaker played out.

- the newest Pratchet which name escapes me right now
Somehow, we ended up with the Corgi ed, not the US ed, and the cover? Is very clever.

- the Broken Kingdoms, NKJemison
I agree with my friends that this is the story I will like the least when the triloigy is done, despite it being done about my favorite god. While I liked the characters allright, I really wanted to see more around the plot then I did.

things I have on my to read pile that I have glanced at but haven't fully read (but will totally take nudges for reading):
- Paprika (the one the Satoishi Kon movie was based on: there's a UK translation!) : so far, I am digin' the prose and am sort of werided out by how visceral the cover is

- The Crow (Alison Groggon): seriously the prose here is what is killing my progress, although conceptually I dig it

- Small Jobs (Jim Butcher) : i've read most of these stories, I just need to stop flipping through and read.

- Empress (Karen Miller): I keep meaning to read this book! And I keep forgetting that!

- Leviathan (Scott Westerfield): picked this up last night, kind of stuck between if this is supposed to be cute or edgy

[feuervogel]

I knew the end of Cryoburn was coming, and it still made me cry.

Aside from that, all I've read recently was that and The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak. It was good, but it reminds me why I prefer sf/f to literary fiction.

[sweet_sparrow]

Is the newest Pratchett I Shall Wear Midnight?

And I'm really, really scared of the last Jemisin book. It'll be either glorious or fall flat on its face for me.

Have you managed to settle on any new books now?

[darlingfox]

With everything else I had to do, I only managed to read three books. ;____;

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris cemented my belief that only the first two Sookie books were worth reading for (for a certain definition of "worth", which is "silly popcorn for the brain") and I won't read the rest. The "all women who are attracted to the same men as Sookie are evil bitches" was disgusting. D:

Janet Evanovich's Finger Lickin' Fifteen, on the other hand, was the kind of popcorn I liked to read. The characters are still funny and I like that most of the important cast is female. And as a clear contrary to the Sookie novels, they're not horrible persons for thinking that Stephanie's squeezes are totally hot. Drooling after them is a shared hobby! :D

I also liked Margaret Atwood's The Year After the Flood. It did have elements I disliked, mostly related to the new-and-yet-so-typical post-apocalypse social structure (once again, women are prey for the predator men, and given a chance, most men are predators), but overall I was impressed by Atwood's worldbuilding. I liked Toby's story and point of view more than Ren's: maybe it was the relative maturity and her willingness to struggle on.

[sweet_sparrow]

Hopefully December will be nicer to you and give you more time to read! *sends good thoughts*

[double_take]

I loved Sabriel but I second your disappointment with Emma, it just never seemed as enjoyable as Persuasion or Pride and Prejudice...

I've recently finished The Complaints by Ian Rankin which wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be. I also read (and loved) The Algebraist by Iain M Banks, but I think I'll take a break before I attempt to tackle his new book - they take a lot of my concentration!

At the moment I'm part way through Kate Atkinson's latest book: Started Early, Took My Dog, weird title but good writing so far :)

PS I've never commented to this community before (I'm quite new to dreamwidth) so I hope it's okay to just jump in like this!

[sweet_sparrow]

Hi! Welcome! ^-^ Jumping in is highly encouraged. ^-^ I hope you'll enjoy DW!

I was really disappointed with Sabriel. I've heard so many good things about it! It may be a timing issue, though, so I've promised a friend to try Lirael some time later.

I'm glad you've loved at least one of your books last month! ^-^

[ellarien]

I had a lot of reading time this month, and for once circumstances conspired to let me read brand-new books: Stephen Donaldson's Against All Things Ending, which was ridiculously slow but still quite enjoyable in an angsty way; The Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, which was a very satisfactory penultimate entry in the long-running (twenty years and counting over thirteen books so far, I think) Wheel of Time series; and Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold, which was a long-awaited return to the Vorkosigan series, but not one of the great books in that series. Then I took advantage of the included CD to embark on an e-reread of the whole series, and am currently up to Mirror Dance. That universe seems a little darker to me now than it did twenty years ago, and the characters less admirable, but it's still a good read.

[sweet_sparrow]

So... Basically, if you buy the right edition of Cryoburn you get the entire series legally as ebook along with it? That's really generous!

I'm glad you enjoyed it, even if the books are darker and less admirable now.

[archersangel]

christina, queen of sweden by veronica buckley
cat in an orange twist by carole nelson douglas
people of the masks by kathleen o'neal gear and w. michael gear
the morpheus factor (sg-1) by ashely mcconnell
the children of henry VIII by alison weir Collapse

[chaobell]

I've been inhaling Discworld again. Finished Moving Pictures, Reaper Man, Witches Abroad, and Small Gods (which I now want to marry) and started Lords and Ladies.

Other things I finished: The Postman by David Brin, Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlen, and a handful of samples from B&N.

[sweet_sparrow]

Lords and Ladies is one of my favourite DW novels, though I still have a great many to go. I take it that Small Gods is one of your favourite Discworld novels? ^-^

[to_love_a_rose]

I tried to read Emma twice before I ever got through it. The third time I actually finished it, but it's still my least favorite of Austen's work.

I only make it through one book this month, and that was Hornblower and the Hotspur. It didn't take me all month to read the one book (in fact, it was a very quick read and I finished it in about three days), but all the rest of my reading time was spent poking at a lot of things but not focusing on any one of them. I read some essays by Charles Lamb, a bit of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, some additional Forrester, and some of the Memoir of Jane Austen by J.E. Austen-Leigh, but I read nothing but the Hornblower from cover to cover. Maybe next month.

[sweet_sparrow]

Always good to hear that you're not alone in something. ^-^ I want to give it another try eventually as I really do think there's a good chance it was just timing.

I'm sorry to hear you had trouble focusing on a book last month. I hope that December will make up for it!

[roundballnz]

Moved away from Sci-fi reading this month ....

Ghostwritten _ David Mitchell
Number9Dream - David Mitchell
The Weekend: A Novel -Bernhard Schlink

Dipped into Buried in Book- Julie Ruggs ( bibliophile ....)

Now reading Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ... But Mr Chartwell - Rebecca Hunt is tempting me to shift my focus

[sweet_sparrow]

What an awesome icon! And also kind of sad. *can't stop staring at it*

Did you enjoy the books?

[marshtide]

In October I read almost nothing (I finished the two books I mentioned as in progress in September, and I read a few chapters of sci-fi academia - that's it!) & therefore completely forgot to post. But November was more productive! Kind of.

Let's see...

Fiction in Swedish:

Sent i november by Tove Jansson (Moominvalley in November is the name of the English translation). Natural November reading and went very well with the mood of the month, which is to say, rather dark and bleak. It's the very last moomin book and really, really melancholy. I love it ridiculously much, I think it's one of the best of Tove Jansson's books.

Baby Jane by Sofi Oksanen (translated from Finnish - don't think there's an English translation yet). This was my first encounter with Sofi Oksanen, and I have to say I was really impressed. It's a thoroughly tragic story that is brilliantly well-told. The language is easy to read but still very interesting and the story is fascinating. It was a tough read psychologically; it deals a lot with abuse, anxiety and depression, for a start. But really great. Definitely going to read more by her, when I'm feeling mentally tough enough.

Att springa by Maria Sveland ("To run"). Also no English translation. This one was very... journalistic, I guess, and when I'd finished it I saw the author give a talk and understood exactly why it feels only quite nominally fictional; it's because it's based on stories she encountered as a journalist but which could never be published as journalism. Another really bleak one, about parents who abuse their children and about the justice system in Sweden which completely fails to take care of people in those situations. Did I mention bleak? Bleak.

Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster ("A new land outside my window") by Theodor Kallifatides. A book about being an immigrant, basically, extremely well-written, extremely interesting ideas about identity. Yup!

Lyssnerskan by Tove Jansson. A collection of short stories about situations which feel unreal, and maybe are. Or aren't. Obviously, I love Tove Jansson, and there were some great stories in here.


Non-fiction in Swedish:

Anteckningar från en ö by Tove Jansson, illustrated by Tuulikki Pietilä. Not released in English, alas, but the title means "Notes from an island". Misc notes and thoughts about the island the two of them lived on, from throughout the time they were there; really lovely and fascinating.

Simone och jag by Åsa Moberg. ("Simone and I") Part biography of Simone de Beauvoir and part thoughts inspired by her, thematically rather than chronologically arranged. Åsa Moberg is interesting but in a way that I often disagree with, and I'm more interested in the bits of the book where she talks about Simone - which often seem pretty insightful - than the bits where she talks about herself, but overall, this was pretty good & I learnt things.

Non-fiction in English:

Greta Garbo: A Life Apart by Karen Swenson. Biography. I'm easily annoyed by biographies, but this one was comparatively good, I felt. At least, I found it pretty easy to sift out the stuff I actually wanted from it.

Manga:

Solanin by Inio Asano. Realistic storyline about college graduates trying to find their way in life. Music! Depression! Uncertainty! It was pretty great. And sometimes really sad.

Flower of Life 1-3 by Fumi Yoshinaga. Ridiculous high school drama, but Fumi Yoshinaga does write it better than most.

Paradise Kiss 1-5 by Ai Yazawa. Fashion manga! Both completely stupid and oddly plausible, which is mostly down to the fact that Ai Yazawa's characters tend to have some kind of psychological believability. I really did enjoy this but I'm not absolutely sure why.

To Terra 1-3 by Keiko Takemiya. Brilliant classic sci-fi manga. Brilliant! Category-defying!

A, A' by Moto Hagio. More classic sci-fi, with a lot of exploration of gender and sexuality. Really interesting but I'm not sure it nailed it; I kind of love it anyway, but the gender stuff is obviously trying to get at an idea it doesn't quite have the language for.

The Aromatic Bitters by Erica Sakurazawa. Two women in dead-end relationships try to figure out their lives. I don't really know what I thought of this; it was probably pretty well-done but for some reason didn't really grab me, which is possibly down to the subject matter. I was interested but in quite a distant way.

Banana Fish 1-8 by Akimi Yoshida. Why did I read 8 volumes of this? It's stupid and more than usually racist. Gah. (Answer: I was sick and needed something with no brain at all.) I know it's meant to be classic shonen-ai but oh boy. Pretty representative of 80s manga in some ways, though.

Andromeda Stories 1 by Ryu Mitsuse and Keiko Takemiya. Some kind of sci-fi/fantasy hybrid which has interested me so far.

Jojo's bizarre adventure 1 by Hurohiko Araki. Title is accurate and descriptive. I honestly don't even know what to make of this manga. It's about the most homoerotic thing I think I have possibly ever read. I also genuinely wish that if it was going to be so inept at dealing with women it would just not try, to be honest. It's ridiculous. I guess one needs to approach it with a special sort of mindset.

Red Blinds the Foolish by est em. Yaoi, which I don't really tend to read, but was assured this one was actually interesting on a different level to the usual and yeah, it was, with interestingly constructed relationships. And no-one got raped. Amazing. See, yaoi! You can do it if you try! Good grief, when you type sentences like that you know you have problems with a genre.

Pet shop of horrors: Tokyo 1 by Matsuri Akino. I will now disappoint half my online friends: I really disliked this quite intensely.


...yeah, November was a month in which I didn't really have the energy to do much other than lie around and read. Ta-da.

[sweet_sparrow]

I'm sorry to hear you were so low on energy in November, but I'm glad you got so much reading done all the same. I hope you're feeling better now!

[cafeshree]

I had a great November (must mean no social life!)

Several historical mysteries: Sovereign and Revelation by C.J. Sansom (I really enjoyed this series)

The new J.D. Robb - Indulgence in Death (and then I reread the first 2 in that series)

A couple of mysteries set in Scotland - Blood on the Water by Galbraith and Kiss Her Goodbye by Guthrie

Moonlight Mile by Lehane and Blameless by Gail Carriger (which was tons of fun) and 2 graphic novels: Umbrella Academy v. 2 by Way and Exile by Gabaldon

[angrboda]

I'm reading David Eddings' Belgariad saga at the moment, only this time I decided to do it chronologically which means that I started with Belgarath the Sorcerer, one of the two prequel books. Although the plot of it takes place in the years leading up to what happens in the main series, it's actually meant to be read after. It's a good thing I've read these books once or twice before, because it's stuffed to the brim with spoilers.

I'm also reading C.S. Lewis' Perelandra which I'm finding more intersting than good, really. This is the second book of the trilogy and I don't think that it's one I'm going to be revisiting. It's interesting, but that's it, really. (Furthermore my copy is in Norwegian which is sort of like reading danish (I'm danish) with a lot of spelling errors. So it's slow going)

[sweet_sparrow]

Mmm. Do you think you might have liked Perelandra better if you'd read it in English or Danish? *curious* I'm Dutch, but can't read in it easily and often find myself enjoying English visits more than the Dutch one.

[slippy]

I've long been surprised by how popular Sabriel is. That book was largely dry and uninteresting to me.


The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson
Partly fascinating in how weird it is, and partly depressing in how obvious the topic actually is. People are looking for absolutely any kind of way to kill other people - well, standard practice.

The Scar, China Miéville
Certain concepts and the world-building were fascinating - the Ghosthead Empire, the Malarial Queendom, Armada - and I liked some of the characters a lot, as well as the deconstruction of the romanticisation of the ocean. On the other hand, some of the characters annoyed me so much I occasionally put the book down and did other things when they entered a scene (please shut your face forever, Uther Doul).

The King of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner
I really disliked some decisions taken with Eugenides' character, but nonetheless I still like the book. It's just good - well-constructed, funny, tense, and fun. Turner has some kind of gift.

Pennie se vuur, PH Nortje
Picked it up because I liked previous books by the author, but it seems I'm going to have to approach it from the POV of "ah, revelling in the patriarchy. When does the racism show up? Fascinating!"

The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Somehow Neil Gaiman's books generally don't it for me. Enjoyed the setting but there wasn't much that really grabbed me, except Ms Lupescu and the Jacks of All Trade.

Deep Magic & The Merlin Conspiracy (reread on the latter, on realising that Deep Magic was a preceding story in the same universe), Diana Wynne Jones
Fun harum-scarum cast-explosion 10-million plot threads romp, as Jones does. The Merlin Conspiracy is a lot more enjoyable on reread, possibly because now I have more backstory, or possibly just because the threads feel like they tie together a bit more because it was a reread. It would be nice if there were another book in this universe, to see how some of the character relationships turn out.

[sweet_sparrow]

I might revisit Sabriel at some point, but we'll see. Mostly I was bored and impatient. I'm trying to teach myself that putting down books that don't grab me in any way (even if they're otherwise an okay read) is perfectly acceptable. ^-^

I don't get on well with most of Gaiman's books either. (Nor, for that matter, his short stories.) I'm not sure why, but I'm reluctant to read more works to try and find an answer.

(DWJ, though, I adore.)

[thecutepolice]

November has been pretty slow for me, I read:

Bloody Bones by Laurel K. Hamilton
Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce
Emergence: Labeled Autistic by Temple Grandin
The Killing Dance by Laurel K. Hamilton
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

(I also realized I've been slacking very much on non-fiction type reads).

Best was probably Temple Grandin's book, I find her totally fascinating. Most disappointing was Eat Pray Love. It wasn't "bad" per se, but I expected to absolutely love it and be totally inspired by it, but was instead pretty annoyed.

[holyschist]

I have Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation, which is great so far! She's a fantastic writer.

[nerakrose]

i haven't had time to read anything at all, as i took part in NaNoWriMo this year (and won!). but i bought a bunch of books that i'm looking forward to read this month! :D

Wetlands - Charlotte Roche
Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson
Lady Windermere's Fanf and The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz

and i plan to re-read the entire Harry Potter series as i decided to treat myself to the Signature Edition as a sort of christmas gift to myself. ♥

[sweet_sparrow]

Eee! Congratulations on winning NaNo! Did you enjoy the experience? Was it the first time you participated?

I hope you'll be able to read all the books you're looking forward to! ^-^

[sherrold]

The best book of the month was definitely For The Win by Cory doctorow -- Wobblies of the Web, unite! It's a crazy premise, but it's set at breakneck speed, and it's all about chosen families coming together to change the world, which is my favorite narrative ever.

[sweet_sparrow]

Sounds like you and that book got along perfectly! Isn't it amazing when you find a book that works so well for you? ^-^