Books read, late March

[mrissa]

So there was a big chunk of comfort rereads in March, but I seem to be past that, and all for the best, probably. Not that there will be no rereading in the future. Just that it might not be quite so concentrated.

Joan Aiken, Nightbirds on Nantucket. I just finished this one, and I wanted to say -- finally! Finally I get why the Dido Twite books are so well-beloved by so many people I respect! I'd read two others, and they were fine, but I didn't really get into them. I'm not even sure why I was this persistent, because I've also read a couple of Aiken's other books, and my response was generally, "Huh. Well, that was fine, I guess." But I really liked this one. Part of it was that I slipped rather easily into the perspective of an extremely practical 11-year-old whose dear friend is a total fraidy-cat, because I had one of those. Bec, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, and you know I loved you dearly and the part of me that's still 11 will always love the part of you that's still 11, even if we haven't talked for years, but when we spent the night at each other's houses you made me sit in the bathroom while you took a shower because you were afraid of fictional clowns in plumbing, and then you made me throw your clothes over the shower curtain to you because you were afraid of being seen naked. Afraid of everything. Yes. I don't know what the rest of it was, why this book and not the previous ones in the series. But I expect I'll read the rest from here, rather more quickly.

Margery Allingham, The Mind Readers. On my comfort reading post awhile back, one of you mentioned Allingham, so I got one from the library. It read a bit like early Kate Wilhelm, I guess: 1960s technothriller. I didn't cotton to any of the characters the way I did to Kate Wilhelm's, and I think there were some things I read as clues that weren't even intended to be red herrings. Is this typical Allingham? or better or worse or different in direction?

Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honor and Barrayar. Finishing off the Vorkosigan comfort rereads. I liked the ending of Shards of Honor not so well as I'd remembered, because it felt like it was putting the pieces into position for the rest of where we'd run into people once Miles was an adult, rather than ending the book it actually was. But Barrayar didn't suffer from that problem, in my opinion. And anyway we all know my weakness for political unrest.

Tove Jansson, Finn Family Moomintroll. I suppose you could call this a comfort reread, but I know I didn't read it when we lived in Kansas or after, and I'm pretty sure I didn't read it the year we lived on 104th St., which was after we'd been to Finland. Rereads after 20 years are a bit different. Among other things, 20 years ago I didn't know to say, "Oh, why doesn't Studio Ghibli do something with this?" But now I do. More Moomins in my future, I expect.

Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock. Comfort reread. I want more of the rest of the string quartet.

James A. Owen (coppervale), The Search for the Red Dragon. Gorgeously illustrated sequel to Here, There Be Dragons. I had a few problems early on with the author characters. Specifically, the historical James Barrie creeps me out no small amount, and the post-Great War stuff with Tolkien and Lewis seemed like it was going to be hard to fit into what's primarily a children's book and still satisfy me as an adult. (And not just in terms of how dark things got, either -- just in terms of overexplaining things that don't have much directly to do with the story at hand.) Without going into a plot spoiler, something Jack did in the mid-to-late book that helped a great deal with this for me, without being intrusive to a child reader. Looking forward to the next, but also thinking of the problems of using historical adult figures in children's books.

Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, Carpe Jugulum, The Last Hero, and Equal Rites. Err, yes. Comfort rereads. Witch books good.

Charles Stross (autopope), Halting State. Now look. You don't like the second person. You didn't like it when willshetterly did it in The Gospel of the Knife, and you don't like it any better now. You understand why it was done in a book this focused on gaming, for heaven's sake; you still find it intrusive and offputting, and the more so every time you really find yourself getting immersed in the book and get jolted out by the damn second person. You really begin to think that "unless it's for a really good reason" needs to be amended with "no, a better reason than that one." You liked, among other things, the use of the zombie flash mobs for evil. You just can't imagine you'll be rereading this any time soon, despite having fun with it, because you are just too narrow-minded on the subject of writing entire books in the second person. You can't help it. It's how you're made.

Comments

[oursin.livejournal.com]

That Allingham is very late in her career and distinctly atypical if it's the one I remember. The earlier Albert Campion mysteries - 1930s to early 1950s or so - I find are reasonable comfort reading in their mannered way, if tending rather too much towards eccentric and inward-turning families or quasi-familial groups as the locus for the crime. In the mid-50s to 60s one feels that Allingham was possibly striving somewhat against the grain to be contemporary and relevant, with Campion tending to fade in to the background in favour of Inspector Charlie Luke.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is useful to know; thanks.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

The Mind Readers is late Allingham, so probably not entirely typical, no. (Haven't read it recently, and came to it late, so haven't read it as often as some).

Try Dancers in Mourning or The Beckoning Lade, perhaps? I'm also enormously fond of Traitors Purse, but that might work better if you were already familiar with the main characters.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The only problem I'm having with getting library books online is that with older mystery writers, there are a lot of collected editions. I did finally manage to figure out that Dancers in Mourning was in one of them and order a hold on it, but that required leaving the library webpage. Sigh. I know they don't do everything for my convenience, but it really would be nice if I could see what I was getting in that regard. I think very few people keep track of both the name of the omnibus and the name of its contents very obsessively.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I hadn't thought of that. Also, titles seem to be changed quite randomly between the UK and the US (the Allingham Society's bibliography (http://www.margeryallingham.org.uk/bibliography.htm) is useful in this respect).

[aedifica]

Nightbirds on Nantucket is special for me. When I was just starting to explore the library for myself, I found it on the shelf and recognized the cover because my parents had read it to me (long enough beforehand that I didn't remember the title, but the spine looked familiar). After that I read all the other Joan Aiken books I could get my hands on, and oh, have you read her Armitage books, or the Arabel and Mortimer ones? I really like them, and her short story collection Not What You Expected is on my list of Very Favorite Books.

I just picked up a couple of Moomin books at Half Price Books recently and they're working their way up my to-read stack. And Fire and Hemlock is one of my favorites by DWJ.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have not read Aiken's other series. I'm more likely to now than I was before!

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I second Arabel & Mortimer.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I had the same response to HALTING STATE. Yes, I know why Charlie did it. It still interfered with the story, at least for me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think it's one of the biggest fallacies of our culture that we will all agree if we only really understand each other.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Heretic.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Probably I only think it's a fallacy because I don't really understand what they're getting at.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

And maybe, as Dan points out, you don't want to...

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Preached in sf by Theodore Sturgeon, Everett B. Cole, Spider Robinson, and others. We become telepathic, and we all love, trust, and respect each other.

My take: Telepathic spam would be the least of the problems. There are people I don't want to understand.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Fictional clowns in plumbing? That sounds like there's a story there?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, and Mr. King already wrote it.

[keilexandra]

I suspect that I have the opposite reaction to second-person, because I didn't realize you wrote that last paragraph in second person 'til I thought about it. It just sounds...natural to my ear, in a quirky sort of way.

Second person fiction

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I read and enjoyed Keith Roberts's Molly Zero. On the other hand, I couldn't get through Tom Robbins's Half Awake in Silk Pajamas.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I liked the movie better.

[wordswoman.livejournal.com]

I'm a big re-reader, often in times of stress. I have comfort books and comfort food, but only one of those is fattening. :)

I see from your profile that you live in Eagan. Me too!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I probably shouldn't admit that the scansion of "I see from your profile that you live in Eagan," got me singing the Smothers Brothers' about cowboys. But apparently I admit to all sorts of things I shouldn't.

Anyway, hi! We're not far from Yankee Doodle and Pilot Knob here.

[wordswoman.livejournal.com]

Wow, we really are neighbors. We're between Lexington & Pilot Knob, not far from the library.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So are we. Right off Duckwood.

(I know that there are people who may be nervous about me indicating my location on the internet, but 1) the phone book has existed for years, and 2) one of the first things people find out about me is that I live with two big, protective men, with more such close at hand. So.)

[coppervale.livejournal.com]

You're going to like where I'm going (starting 2/3rds of the way in Book Three, and coming to the fore in the book after that.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was trying not to spoil it for others; was it clear to you what action of Jack's made me happy with the book?

[coppervale.livejournal.com]

At Echo's Well?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[coppervale.livejournal.com]

LOL...cool.

Here's the secret - everyone thinks John is the central character. But Jack is the one who changes the most through the series. And that scene was pivotal to my (and the reader's) perception of him.