it's the wrong time for somebody new

[hawkwing_lb]

Coming home - it's a dislocation. Nothing's changed, except the cat is gone. But I feel rather different: coming home by train and ferry, across Wales, into Dublin Bay... the evening sunlight on Howth Head and Ireland's eye made my chest tight enough to hurt.

Even very small parts of the world are very wide. It amazes me that we cross them without thinking.

This is the list of books I read while I was away. I went rather overboard in the Waterstones in Reading.


Books 2009: 54-65

fiction.


54. Karl Schroeder, Sun of Suns.

An interesting book, but I found the world rather more interesting than the characters, who were in general rather bland and uncompelling. The world, however, was fascinating, with the only gravity created by means of centrifugal force, and suns brought to life by human endeavour. Very sciency. But not a riveting read.


55. Stephen Hunt, The Court of the Air.

An interesting world, with steammen, and crabmen, and parliamentarians who beat each other with debating sticks, and if the characters had come a little bit more alive I would've enjoyed it far better.


56. Linnea Sinclair, Shades of Dark.

Reasonably engaging romantic space opera.


57-60. Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors, Murder Must Advertise, Unnatural Death and Strong Poison.

I always enjoy Sayers' work, but I'd forgotten how unpleasantly racist and anti-Semitic Unnatural Death is in parts. Decent Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.


61. Laurel K. Hamilton, Skin Trade.

This is almost a real book, with a decent attempt at a murder plot. And less bad sex than usual.


62. Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie.

The sequel to Midnight Never Come. A 17th century novel of Faerie, politics, fire, plague, and all the other interesting things that happen in good books. I'm impressed, not only with the degree of historical research, but with the step up in terms of complexity of storytelling and character development. It's a very good book. I really enjoyed it.


nonfiction.


63. Robin Waterfield, Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age.

The subtitle's a little misleading, seeing as it's more a discussion of the Anabasis of Xenophon - logistics and realities of the campaign, discussions of Xenophon's character, motivations, and the themes of his writing: the idea of a "Golden Age" is hardly touched on. I found it rather interesting, but it needs footnotes. Not endnotes.


64. G.E.R. Lloyd, Greek Science After Aristotle (1973).

An interesting book, talking about the influential ancient philosophers, doctors and astronomers such as Aristarchos of Samos, Archimedes, Hipparchos, Ptolemy, Galen etc; what they thought about the world, and how and why they thought as they did.


65. Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (1990).

This book had rather less involvement with the indigenous cultures than I was hoping for, and rather too much sympathy for imperialism. It also rather troubled me by unnecessarily qualifying certain words like "flattery" and "treachery" with the adjective "oriental".

But flaws aside, still an interesting book.

Comments

[jennygadget.livejournal.com]

"This is almost a real book, with a decent attempt at a murder plot. And less bad sex than usual."

*snort*

****

I am glad you are back. :D

And I'm very sorry that your cat is no longer with you. :.-(

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I'm still reading Anita Blake out of a)forlorn hope, and b)that trainwreck feeling. But Skin Trade is almost, almost, like a real book.

So close, and it still misses. :P

We shall have another cat within the fortnight, I am sure, as the house is too empty without him. And there are too many homeless cats in the world.