Books 2010: don't say I didn't warn you
Dec. 17th, 2010 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBooks 2010: 152-161
152-156. Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters, Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth, Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse, and Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian.
I confess, I'm actually deeply impressed with these books. Riordan takes Greek myth and transposes it to the modern day, remaining aware not only of its contradictions and its inherent, amoral brutality, but also of its humour and, well, glory. The Percy Jackson books are tightly-written and highly entertaining, with compelling characters and a distinctive voice. There is much to love here.
They're YA, in case the titles weren't a clue, and the book Lightning Thief? Much smarter and more entertaining than the film of the same name.
Humorous highlights include an Apollo with appalling haiku, a Demeter who is obsessed with cereal, and an evil-school-teacher-esque Sphinx with an automated marking machine.
Dramatic highlights - but that would be spoiler territory. Well worth reading.
157. Celine Kiernan, The Rebel Prince.
The concluding volume in the Moorehawke trilogy, seen through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Iseult "Wynter" Moorehawke. YA set in a kingdom in the south of a medieval Europe-analogue. The tone is fairly but not unremittingly grim, as befits a story set around the possibility of a civil war between the king and his only legitimate son, and both character and story remain compelling to the last.
158. Daniel Fox, Hidden Cities. ARC.
To be spoken of in another venue closer to its release date. One word: ἀρετή.
nonfiction
159. Ovid, Metamorphoses. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986. Translated by A.D. Melville.
Ovid's famous treatment of Greek and Roman myths about human and animal transformation is startlingly entertaining. Melville's translation is in blank verse, and is both readable and accessible.
I enjoyed reading this far, far more than I expected to. It's good.
160. Aristophanes, Lysistrata and Other Plays. Penguin Classics, London, 1973. Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein.
Being a translation of "Archarnians," "Clouds," and "Lysistrata." Which are all bloody hilarious.
161. Amanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009.
This is a brilliant and very readable book about what was a "home" in Georgian England. Men, women, bachelors, spinsters, lodgers and householders, gendered space and how people lived: lucid and fascinating and concerning the gentry, comprehensive.
It fails to assess the really poor, but it is already a large book.
152-156. Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters, Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth, Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse, and Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian.
I confess, I'm actually deeply impressed with these books. Riordan takes Greek myth and transposes it to the modern day, remaining aware not only of its contradictions and its inherent, amoral brutality, but also of its humour and, well, glory. The Percy Jackson books are tightly-written and highly entertaining, with compelling characters and a distinctive voice. There is much to love here.
They're YA, in case the titles weren't a clue, and the book Lightning Thief? Much smarter and more entertaining than the film of the same name.
Humorous highlights include an Apollo with appalling haiku, a Demeter who is obsessed with cereal, and an evil-school-teacher-esque Sphinx with an automated marking machine.
Dramatic highlights - but that would be spoiler territory. Well worth reading.
157. Celine Kiernan, The Rebel Prince.
The concluding volume in the Moorehawke trilogy, seen through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Iseult "Wynter" Moorehawke. YA set in a kingdom in the south of a medieval Europe-analogue. The tone is fairly but not unremittingly grim, as befits a story set around the possibility of a civil war between the king and his only legitimate son, and both character and story remain compelling to the last.
158. Daniel Fox, Hidden Cities. ARC.
To be spoken of in another venue closer to its release date. One word: ἀρετή.
nonfiction
159. Ovid, Metamorphoses. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986. Translated by A.D. Melville.
Ovid's famous treatment of Greek and Roman myths about human and animal transformation is startlingly entertaining. Melville's translation is in blank verse, and is both readable and accessible.
I enjoyed reading this far, far more than I expected to. It's good.
160. Aristophanes, Lysistrata and Other Plays. Penguin Classics, London, 1973. Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein.
Being a translation of "Archarnians," "Clouds," and "Lysistrata." Which are all bloody hilarious.
161. Amanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009.
This is a brilliant and very readable book about what was a "home" in Georgian England. Men, women, bachelors, spinsters, lodgers and householders, gendered space and how people lived: lucid and fascinating and concerning the gentry, comprehensive.
It fails to assess the really poor, but it is already a large book.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-17 10:04 pm (UTC)Oof. That's ... quite a review.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-17 10:07 pm (UTC)You did a kind of painfully brilliant thing there, in those three books.