Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: A Wizard's Holiday, by Diane Duane. The seventh in the series. Again, this is the revised "New Millennium" edition.

I paused this briefly to read "Monday the Rabbi Took Off" by Harry Kemelman.

An excellent mystery with Rabbi Small going to Israel.

Back to A Wizard's Holiday...

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

I'm rather at loose ends about what I feel like reading next, so I pulled up the "Reading" list on my Aura H2O - all the books that show as having been opened but not completed - for inspiration. (All of those are "opened to first page and not marked unread again, for whatever reason," as opposed to "drifted away mid-story.") The first selection turned out to be a corrupt KEPUB file, so I've made a note to download, fix formatting if needed, and reinstall it. My second choice is another book I sideloaded a while back, before I made a habit of normalizing the formatting before doing so, and... well, it needs work. The table of contents is even out of order! I expect I'll run into a lot of those, but this one's particularly eye-grating.

I fixed both of those issues, and the second book... oof. Just from what I saw while making repairs, it's the poster child for "nice idea, but seriously needs an editor." Common nouns (like "pizza") are capitalized for no apparent reason, I saw several very basic wording issues, the text TOC only had real links for four out of forty-plus chapters, and worst of all, the appendix that showed a time-traveling character's path through the story got most of the chapter numbers wrong. That said, the story itself looks like it'll be fun if I can stop facepalming at the mechanical errors long enough to get into it. As a comparison, self-pub erotica has a bad reputation for being "unedited first draft" material, but this is much worse on that front... and I've seen some spectacularly awful smut. The good news for my sense of OCD is that fixing these books and reloading them cleared the "in progress" flag, removing them from that list.

So, all things considered, I changed course and am about a quarter of the way through With the Lightnings. So far, it's okay. The main character feels a lot like Dudley Moore's Arthur in space, but not quite so useless. Given that there are several more books about him, and that the series doesn't appear to be comedy, I'm hoping that he'll change his ways before the end of the book. If that's the plan, I can accept it as necessary that we see the "before" persona as a baseline to show his growth. Still lots of pages left for story and character development, after all...

[Dngrsone]

Finished Wicked Women: Notorious, Mischievous, and Wayward Ladies from the Old West by Chris Enss.

Starting on The Bourne Identity, I think.

[orlok]

Finished The North Water by Ian McGuire. Long-listed for the Man Booker, and subject of some discussion here because of it's dark nature. It was almost unremittingly bleak, but then I imagine that's a pretty true reflection of life on a whaling ship in the Artic back in the nineteenth century. To say I enjoyed it might be a bit strong, but it was an experience I'm glad to have had, and gave it a solid 4 out of 5 stars.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by orlok

Finished The North Water by Ian McGuire. Long-listed for the Man Booker, and subject of some discussion here because of it's dark nature. It was almost unremittingly bleak, but then I imagine that's a pretty true reflection of life on a whaling ship in the Artic back in the nineteenth century. To say I enjoyed it might be a bit strong, but it was an experience I'm glad to have had, and gave it a solid 4 out of 5 stars.

DiapDealer's description of the darkess was even stronger.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Currently reading The North Water by Ian McGuire. Longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.



It's a bit more seedy than I would have liked, but we'll see how it turns out. A very short novel.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

A talented author--no doubt. But wow! That's some of the darkest, foulest, bleakest, misanthropic stuff I've ever read. Not a single redeemable character; not a single ray of sunshine to be found. This was not a thriller set aboard a whaling vessel. It was not "Jack London on Crack." It was Black. Pitch. Freaking. Black.

Don't get me wrong: "Black" may have been exactly what the author was going for. Kudos if so--he nailed it. And he didn't do anything "wrong" (in fact I think his command of the language is vast). He just wrote a story that I couldn't take anything positive away from for myself. That doesn't happen very often.

Perhaps the Man Booker judges will love it. Good on Mr. McGuire, if so.

All in all, this is one I'm passing on!

[orlok]

Originally Posted by CRussel

DiapDealer's description of the darkess was even stronger.

All in all, this is one I'm passing on!

Not sure I entirely agree with that view. There was redemption of a sort for one character specifically, and a sort of happy ending, actually. Sure, there was deal of misanthropy and a lot of nastiness, but as I said before, probably a fairly accurate reflection of the time and place.

But not everyone's cup of tea, I concur.

PS. And now I'm reading a cosy Hamish Macbeth mystery by MC Beaton. The very antithesis to help me heal

[DiapDealer]

Everyone's entitled to their opinions, of course. I just found no redemption at all.

Spoiler:

The doctor was reduced to being a murderer and a thief on the run.

I agree that there was probably not much in the way of sunshine when it came to 19th century whaling vessels. I was fine with that portrayal, actually. But the author went way beyond an "accurate portrayal of the times" in my opinion. He was shoe-horning bizarrely grotesque minutiae (and not just about whaling) into every nook and cranny he could find.

All in all, though, I knew there were many people who took away something from the book they could appreciate. I respect the Man Booker longlist more than just about any other literary award (The Giller is right up there too). It made the list for a reason. But the bleakness, the misanthropy, and the grotesquerie just felt contrived, overdone and often unnecessary to me - a gimmick. I think McGuire's skills are good enough to not need a gimmick like that. *shrug*

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Starting Any Other Name - Tenth in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series.

Not one of my favorites in the series. The shine may be rubbing off for me. It IS unusual for me to stick with anything for double-digit installments.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Next up: Fablehaven by Brandon Mull. He guest lectured for Brandon Sanderson's writing class and I want to try this out. I also have Whispers Under Ground, book 3 of the Peter Grant series, reserved at my library.

Whispers Under Ground came in over the weekend so I ended up reading it first. I am really enjoying these. Now I need to convince my library to get the next couple books. Any suggestions on how to get them to do that? I have recommended them but no luck so far.

Now it is on to Fablehaven.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Whispers Under Ground came in over the weekend so I ended up reading it first. I am really enjoying these. Now I need to convince my library to get the next couple books. Any suggestions on how to get them to do that? I have recommended them but no luck so far.

Now it is on to Fablehaven.

Ask the Librarian directly. Tell him/her how much you enjoyed the others and how surprising they are. Using the recommend button isn't the same as talking directly.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Finished "Sheepfarmer's Daughter", by Elizabeth Moon. The first book in the Baen omnibus "The Deed of Paksenarrion", one of my all-time favourite fantasy books. This must be the 4th or 5th time I've read this book, and I love it every time. Superb fantasy. Can't recommend it highly enough.

That's the book that convinced me that I could enjoy reading fantasy. I agree that it (and its sequels) is superb indeed.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

That's the book that convinced me that I could enjoy reading fantasy. I agree that it (and its sequels) is superb indeed.

I thoroughly enjoyed that series as well. Of course, I am a fan of fantasy.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Finished "Sheepfarmer's Daughter", by Elizabeth Moon. The first book in the Baen omnibus "The Deed of Paksenarrion", one of my all-time favourite fantasy books. This must be the 4th or 5th time I've read this book, and I love it every time. Superb fantasy. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

That's the book that convinced me that I could enjoy reading fantasy. I agree that it (and its sequels) is superb indeed.

Not a generally a great fan of fantasy myself (I think Michael Moorcock finally killed the genre for me), but you are tempting me to give this a go.

[CRussel]

Oh, do, by all means. Easily one of my all time favourites.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Oh, do, by all means. Easily one of my all time favourites.

That settles it then. I'm not going to read it.

(kidding)