December Reading Thread

Extollager said:
I started today “The Study of Words: Lectures Addressed (Originally) to the Pupils at the Diocesan Training School, Winchester by Richard Chevenix Trench, B. D., Vicar of Itchenstoke [sic], Hants; Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Oxford; and Professor of Divinity, King’s College, Oxford.”

I really like it so far. It reminds me of the philological-philosophical thought of Owen Barfield, e.g. his Poetic Diction, and who mentions this book by Trench in an interview.

But "Itchenstoke"! Perhaps someone here knows that small village. What a name. I found myself writing the opening of a pseudo-Wodehouse story:

Bertie Wooster, his face a study in dismay, put the letter down by the small mass of duns from local merchants. “Hang it, Jeeves, Bunty Sidebottom wants me to stay with him for a spot of poultry hunting at his pater’s place in Hampshire, dreadful hole called Itchenstoke, main attraction a bog famous for Anglo-Saxon skeletons and infested with blood-lusting midges. How can I put him off?”
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"Sir, Mr. Sidebottom's invitation does provide you with a convenient and timely engagement, the keeping of which would preclude your accepting the summons of your Aunt Gertrude for a spell at Hedera Helix Lodge."
"By jove, Jeeves, that's a real brainwave!"
""Sir, as I recall Mr. Sidebottom communicated to you this summer that he was in receipt of a punt gun capable of depriving 90 waterfowl of their lives with one shot. The water providing buoyancy for the craft removes the danger of painful recoils, which, if memory serves, has sometimes been a feature of these expeditions."
"Jeeves, the gods have been at work on my behalf! I shall accept by return post! Pack my bags!"
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I finished Snowed In For Christmas by Sarah Morgan. Really enjoyed it and it was exactly what I was looking for, a cozy Christmas read with a happy ending.

I also finished London's Number One Dog-Walking Agency by Kate MacDougall on audiobook. This was a memoir about a woman who quit her job at Sotheby's to start a dog walking agency. I really enjoyed it and the narrator (not read by the author) was great.

After that I listened to and finished On Being 40(ish), a collection of essays from 15 women about what it's like to be in your 40's. I was told in the synopsis "It will leave you inspired, entertained, and comforted that the best is truly yet to come." It did none of these things. There was no 'comfort' to be found in these stories, and I did not feel like the best is yet to come. Thankfully it was short.

I don't currently have an audiobook going, but now I'm reading through the Heartstopper graphic novel series by Alice Oseman.
 
I finished Salvation’s Reach. Just finishing off the short stories at the end (Family, You Never Know, Bad Shadows and currently on Kill Box)

Now on to The Vincula Insurgency.

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I’ve not read this yet and I’m really looking forward to it.
 
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Extollager said:
"Sir, Mr. Sidebottom's invitation does provide you with a convenient and timely engagement, the keeping of which would preclude your accepting the summons of your Aunt Gertrude for a spell at Hedera Helix Lodge."
"By jove, Jeeves, that's a real brainwave!"
""Sir, as I recall Mr. Sidebottom communicated to you this summer that he was in receipt of a punt gun capable of depriving 90 waterfowl of their lives with one shot. The water providing buoyancy for the craft removes the danger of painful recoils, which, if memory serves, has sometimes been a feature of these expeditions."
"Jeeves, the gods have been at work on my behalf! I shall accept by return post! Pack my bags!"
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Heh. I have a colleague who could almost have stepped out of a Blandings story. Grew up on a wildfowl estate shooting birds from the pram. I suspect his babygrows were made from Harris tweed. He talks about trying out a punt gun with his father, with roughly the results you describe above.
 
Death Threats: And Other Stories (Inspector Maigret Short Stories) by Georges Simenon
This collection of stories featuring Inspector Maigret were written during the Second World War, a few years after Simenon had published what was intended to be his last Inspector Maigret novel. These stories all have a distinct French "Sherlock Holmes" vibe. Not really my thing.
 
I'm having a try at The Salvage Crew by someone called Yudhanjaya Wijeratne (never heard of him)
It's yet another one narrated by the starship's AI, so far it's mildly interesting,
However there's a tedious poem every couple of chapters - according to the author blurb these poems were created by AIs and then incorporated into the story.

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Salvage Crew - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
 
hitmouse said:
Count Zero (1986) William Gibson. Continuing my re-read of the Sprawl trilogy. I had forgotten almost everything about this noirish cyberpunk thriller. Three parallel narratives whose relationship starts to become clear about 2/3 of the way through. Engaging, but not as good as Neuromancer.
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One of my favourite books and, I think, the best of the three. To me, it feels more mature and fully-realised than Neuromancer (and all the words seem to be there). The opening paragraph is a great bit of SF writing.
 
Toby Frost said:
One of my favourite books and, I think, the best of the three. To me, it feels more mature and fully-realised than Neuromancer (and all the words seem to be there). The opening paragraph is a great bit of SF writing.
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He certainly matured as a writer after Neuromancer. Despite its faults, that book contained multitudes of really fresh stuff and is difficult to follow up.
 
Finally abandoned Liu Cixin's short story collection To Hold Up the Sky, without finding anything I'd like to recommend to you. Yesterday evening I began listening to vol. 3 of A. C. Clarke's collected short stories, from the 1940s and 50s. Many I have read - though not for decades - but many are new to me. As ever I'm loving Clarke's writing. And I have all FIVE volumes.
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hitmouse said:
He certainly matured as a writer after Neuromancer. Despite its faults, that book contained multitudes of really fresh stuff and is difficult to follow up.
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The Sprawl Trilogy deserves to be called iconic. Very influential on my early work. I also though Count Zero was the best novel, though Neuromancer had the most impact.
 
While away from the computer, I read Atlas Obscura (2nd edition, 2019) and Atlas Obscura Wild Life (2024), both large, thick, books with multiple authors and lots of photographs. The first deals with unusual places around the world and the second with living things all over the planet.

I am about to start Dialogues by Stanislaw Lem. The provenance of this volume is complicated. The first version, in Polish, was from 1957. An expanded Polish edition appeared in 1972. The book adds two essays, but I have no date for these. The whole thing, in Polish, has a 2006 copyright date by Tomasz Lem, the author's son. (Stanislaw Lem died the same year.) The present, English edition (2021) is translated by Peter Butko. The whole thing is a meditation upon cybernetics and related topics.
 
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