Some books
Oct. 1st, 2006 01:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbNext week is Freshers' Week at college.
So I suppose I ought to do this now, else it will never get done.
Books:
Farthing, Jo Walton.
Welcome to the 1949 that might have been. England made peace with Germany early in the war. The European continent is all Nazi, and the appeasers are all big names in English politics - the Farthing set.
The book is narrated in turns by Lucy Kahn, née Eversley, a daughter of one of the Farthing set's most prominent families who had the poor taste to marry a Jew, and Carmichael, a police inspector investigating the murder of an important politician which took place at the Eversley country. It's structured as a mystery, but subverts those conventions quite admirably.
It's a good book. It may, in fact, be one of those rare books that are not only good and interesting (and very much spot-on in their worldbuilding) and thought-provoking, but are also important on more than a purely personal level.
Lucy Kahn, btw, is someone whom I would be very tempted to murder if I was ever trapped in a lift with her, but somehow I ended up admiring her anyway.
It's on my shelf. It's staying there. I may even, if I suddenly come into wealth, buy a copy to donate to a) my old school's library and/or b) my local library.
Because this is a book that deserves to be read.
The Secrets of Jin-Shei, Alma Alexander.
Another book that deserves to be read. It's entirely different to Farthing, and reading them back-to-back provoked some... ah, interesting... reactions in my brain.
It's beautiful. It's powerful. So much so, in fact, that sweet bloody gods and fishes, it hurts.
There are perhaps a dozen books I remember that made me cry. This one - I sniffled my way through the last hundred pages or so. I'm not sure whether this is an entirely personal quirk or not - I have a special quirk for doomed heroics and grace notes, and the last fifty pages -
Well. Read it.
Also Alexander: The Hidden Queen and Changer of Days.
Really, really good fantasy. Intelligent, too.
As a child, Anghara Kir Hama is forced to flee and live in hiding when her half-brother usurps the throne that should be hers by right. Travels and travails ensue. There is overcoming of Really Bad Odds(tm), some doomed heroics, moments of grace -
- can I just say these are good? I mean, really.
Naomi Kritzer, Fires of the Faithful.
I read this after reading its sequel, Turning the Storm, because when it comes to books I'm an impatient young thing. Storm was excellent, in a I'll-reread-my-favourite-parts-often way - it sits in place of honour on the 'comfort rereading' shelf* - and Fires is, well, better.
Not least because I got my context - at last - for all the stuff I didn't quite figure out first time 'round in Storm.
In other news, I've noticed that my cat, who got drenched when he went out, is now sitting on my bed.
Dry bed. Wet cat.
It's not such a dry bed anymore.
---
*Or, I should say, shelves.
So I suppose I ought to do this now, else it will never get done.
Books:
Farthing, Jo Walton.
Welcome to the 1949 that might have been. England made peace with Germany early in the war. The European continent is all Nazi, and the appeasers are all big names in English politics - the Farthing set.
The book is narrated in turns by Lucy Kahn, née Eversley, a daughter of one of the Farthing set's most prominent families who had the poor taste to marry a Jew, and Carmichael, a police inspector investigating the murder of an important politician which took place at the Eversley country. It's structured as a mystery, but subverts those conventions quite admirably.
It's a good book. It may, in fact, be one of those rare books that are not only good and interesting (and very much spot-on in their worldbuilding) and thought-provoking, but are also important on more than a purely personal level.
Lucy Kahn, btw, is someone whom I would be very tempted to murder if I was ever trapped in a lift with her, but somehow I ended up admiring her anyway.
It's on my shelf. It's staying there. I may even, if I suddenly come into wealth, buy a copy to donate to a) my old school's library and/or b) my local library.
Because this is a book that deserves to be read.
The Secrets of Jin-Shei, Alma Alexander.
Another book that deserves to be read. It's entirely different to Farthing, and reading them back-to-back provoked some... ah, interesting... reactions in my brain.
It's beautiful. It's powerful. So much so, in fact, that sweet bloody gods and fishes, it hurts.
There are perhaps a dozen books I remember that made me cry. This one - I sniffled my way through the last hundred pages or so. I'm not sure whether this is an entirely personal quirk or not - I have a special quirk for doomed heroics and grace notes, and the last fifty pages -
Well. Read it.
Also Alexander: The Hidden Queen and Changer of Days.
Really, really good fantasy. Intelligent, too.
As a child, Anghara Kir Hama is forced to flee and live in hiding when her half-brother usurps the throne that should be hers by right. Travels and travails ensue. There is overcoming of Really Bad Odds(tm), some doomed heroics, moments of grace -
- can I just say these are good? I mean, really.
Naomi Kritzer, Fires of the Faithful.
I read this after reading its sequel, Turning the Storm, because when it comes to books I'm an impatient young thing. Storm was excellent, in a I'll-reread-my-favourite-parts-often way - it sits in place of honour on the 'comfort rereading' shelf* - and Fires is, well, better.
Not least because I got my context - at last - for all the stuff I didn't quite figure out first time 'round in Storm.
In other news, I've noticed that my cat, who got drenched when he went out, is now sitting on my bed.
Dry bed. Wet cat.
It's not such a dry bed anymore.
---
*Or, I should say, shelves.
