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Books read, early June
Isa Arsén, The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf. Look, when a character tells you that their favorite Shakespearean character (as an actress) is Lady Macbeth and then another major character says their favorite play is Titus Andronicus--whose favorite play is Titus Andronicus? I demanded when I first got to that part. And then the book went on and OH NO OH GOD OH NO. Anyway, from the beginning you will get a clear sense that this is a setting that will tear people to shreds (1950s theater world!) and that some of the people in question will assist their milieu in their own destruction. Be forewarned on that. For me the prose voice made all the difference in the world, for you it might not make enough difference to be worth that shape of book if you're really not in a good place for it. This book goes hard, but uh...not any more pleasantly than my first sentence there would lead you to expect.
Andrea Barrett, Dust and Light: On the Art of Fact in Fiction. I was a little disappointed in this, I think because I was expecting more/broader theory. It was in a lot of places a process case study, which is interesting too, and I'm not sorry I read it, I was just expecting something grander, I think.
Agatha Christie, Hickory Dickory Dock and Peril at End House. These sure were mysteries by Agatha Christie.
Justene Hill Edwards, Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank. Very straightforwardly does what it says on the tin. A thing we should all know happened, in terms of Black Americans and finance, this book gets in and gets out and does what it needs to do.
Kate Elliott, The Witch Roads. Discussed elsewhere.
Margaret Frazer, The Witch's Tale. Kindle. This is one of the short stories, and it was clearly something Frazer needed to say about justice and community, and it got in and said it and got out. For heaven's sake do not start here, this is a series story that's leaning heavily on you already caring about this place and these people and not spending many of its quite few words in introducing them to you.
Max Gladstone, Last Exit. Reread. This book made me cry four times on the reread. I knew it was coming, I knew what was going to happen, I had not forgotten many (on some cellular level: any) of the details, and yet, dammit, Gladstone, ya did it to me again. With my own connivance this time. Anyway gosh this is good, this is doing all sorts of things with power and community and priorities and old friendships and adulthood and, the reason I read it: American road trips. Oh, and weather! I read it for my road trip panel, it also related to my weather panel, frankly I brought it up during a couple of other panels as well. This booook.
Reginald Hill, On Beulah Height. Reread. Back to back reread bangers, although this one only made me cry once. I am not a big crier over books. Such a good series mystery, by which I mean that it works as a mystery but also, and more crucially, as a novel about some people you've already had a chance to know, so you know what their reactions mean even when they're not in your home register. (Or, if you're from Yorkshire, even if they are.)
Jordan Ifueko, The Maid and the Crocodile. Magical and fun and full of textured worldbuilding and clear character motivation, I really liked this.
Sarah Kay, A Little Daylight Left. The sort of deeply gripping volume of poetry that makes me add everything else the poet has written to my reading list.
Nnedi Okorafor, One Way Witch. A prequel, a mother's story, which is not something we see often. Interesting, not long.
Rebecca Roanhorse, Trail of Lightning. Reread. Also reread for my road trip panel, also pertained to my weather panel--are there any road trip novels that's not true for? Is a road trip in part a way to make modern people vulnerable to smaller-scale weather forces? In any case, I liked the ragged edges here, I liked the things she tied up neatly but also the things she refused to.
Sean Stewart, Galveston. Reread. To my relief, this holds up 25 years after I first read it: storms of magic, layers of history, weird alternate worlds overlapping with this one, hurrah.
Greg van Eekhout, Cog. Reread. A charming and delightful sto
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in re: road trips and the weather, I think often of the part in Sherwood Smith's Wren's Quest where Wren and Connor lovingly channel all their Realistic Road Trip Problems into their co-written play and are told at the end that it is in fact too realistic and there's far too much dull business with weather. (that said, Ren Hutchings' forthcoming The Legend Liminal is a road trip book with no weather in it due to the premise of being trapped on a highway outside of time, space, and real-world weather forces.)
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Although frankly I did allude to the tradition of the weather being a safe topic when you didn't know what else to say, when I opened the panel, because it was only a few hours after the unspeakable political assassination that happened in our state.
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