January 2021 Reading Thread.

[Hugh]

Sumner Carnahan "In the Presence of My Enemies: Memoirs of Tibetan Nobleman Tsipon Shuguba"
Well worth reading if you have an interest in Tibet before the Chinese took full control in 1959. Shuguba was born in 1904 into a wealthy landed family and so was 55 at the time of the events of 1959, when he was captured during the shelling of the Norbulingka Palace. He was then imprisoned for 19 years until his release in 1978. In 1979 his sons (three sons, all lamas, had managed to escape to India, and then to Europe and the USA) were able to arrange for him to move to California where he lived a further 11 years before dying in 1991.
This is a vivid warts-and-all account in which the factionalism, nepotism, and, at times, brutality of old Tibet is evident and yet a deep sense of the sacred permeates throughout.

 

[Danny McG]

First published this month!

It's just revealed that our lady vicar 'Jack' was, in her youth, known as Merry..... getting even closer to the Phil Rickman theme

 

[Parson]

I'm starting a crime thriller, The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor.
It seems (in the first couple of chapters) to have a very Phil Rickman feel about it...

I read: "Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping for a fresh start. Instead, Jack finds a town rife with conspiracies and secrets, and is greeted with a strange welcome package: an exorcism kit and a note that warns, “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.” in the Amazon blurb.

I was first going to ask if this was the same book because of the name "Jack" and at least in my blurb the sex of the parent is not revealed. The $14 price made me gulp. It is not available in the U.S. yet, it's on "pre-order." When you finish I'd like to know was it just a thriller or did it move into the "horror" realm. I don't mean simply ghastly deeds, any crime thriller is likely to have those, I mean something which glorifies and idolizes the horrific crime, or the occult. With a Vicar as the leading character, I am interested in this book. But not if it is "horror" based.

 

[Danny McG]

I read: "Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping for a fresh start. Instead, Jack finds a town rife with conspiracies and secrets, and is greeted with a strange welcome package: an exorcism kit and a note that warns, “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.” in the Amazon blurb.

I was first going to ask if this was the same book because of the name "Jack" and at least in my blurb the sex of the parent is not revealed. The $14 price made me gulp. It is not available in the U.S. yet, it's on "pre-order." When you finish I'd like to know was it just a thriller or did it move into the "horror" realm. I don't mean simply ghastly deeds, any crime thriller is likely to have those, I mean something which glorifies and idolizes the horrific crime, or the occult. With a Vicar as the leading character, I am interested in this book. But not if it is "horror" based.

Yeah, it's the same book, the reverend is actually Jacqui but she gets called Jack.
I'll do a little review when I finish it.

 

[Toby Frost]

The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow

This is a high-speed, exceedingly violent story about organised crime and drug-running in Mexico. It's somewhat epic and reads like early (good) James Ellroy, as if you're listening to someone telling it in a bar. The lingering feeling is how corruption, once allowed in, completely ruins a country.

As with quite a lot of this sort of crime, it was an entertaining read and I ploughed through it very quickly, but I'm not sure how long I'll remember it for. I'll probably give the sequel a look, though.

 

[AE35Unit]

Enjoying Nerves by Lester Del Rey in the mammoth anthology, about an accident in a nuclear power plant, and I believe the first piece of del Rey I've read.

 

[Danny McG]

Yeah, it's the same book, the reverend is actually Jacqui but she gets called Jack.
I'll do a little review when I finish it.

@Parson

The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor

The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor This story sets off as what appears to be a Phil Rickman rip-off of the Merrilly Watkins stories. Soon, however, it thankfully goes it’s own route and is a fairly interesting crime thriller. As in most small village stories there are a lot of secrets, indeed...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[Danny McG]

Now I'm looking at yet another James Patterson crime thriller.
The coast to coast murders

 

[Dave Vicks]

Finished an Art book by John Harris :BEYOND THE HORIZON. It was good.

For some reason it reminded me of the New BattleStar Galatica TV Show.

He does a lot of Art for John Scalzi.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Up next either The Ghost in the MACHINE by Arthur Koestler or Ninefox Gambit by Lee.

 

[Paul_C]

Finished Ragged Alice. Short and sweet but not a bad little story.

I then re-read the epilogue from Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead to refresh my memory before starting on the second book in the Craft Sequence, Two Serpents Rise.

 

[williamjm]

I read Ursula Le Guin's The Farthest Shore. I did like it, but I also think it was my least favourite of the first three Earthsea books. I thought it did work well as the final part in a loose trilogy showing Ged at different stages in his life, as a teenage, an adult and now in middle age and it does a good job of showing how Ged has changed over the years and how he has been shaped by his experiences in the previous books. However, I found Arren to be a less compelling protagonist than Ged or Tenar in the previous instalments. It felt as if the book was telling us a lot that Arren was someone destined for greatness but didn't necessarily show that, he might show plenty of determination and courage but other than that didn't seem particularly special. The plot was decent but again not as compelling as in the first two books, and while it does have the most traditional antagonist of the books so far they don't appear enough in the book to be memorable. I think my favourite bit may have been the interlude with the 'children of the sea' which had the most interesting world-building in the book.

I then re-read the epilogue from Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead to refresh my memory before starting on the second book in the Craft Sequence, Two Serpents Rise.

The events in the epilogue will be relevant later in the series, but Two Serpents Rise is set before Three Parts Dead - the numbers in the titles of the first five books indicate how they fit in chronological order.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

I read Ursula Le Guin's The Farthest Shore. I did like it, but I also think it was my least favourite of the first three Earthsea books.

I think my only rebuttal at this moment in time is:

Spoiler

Dragons.

 

[Danny McG]

Into the light by David Weber, the sequel to Out of the Dark.
I've started it but I'm finding it a bit confusing, it's about 8 years since I read the first book, so I might have to reread it before proceeding

 

[williamjm]

I think my only rebuttal at this moment in time is:

Spoiler

Dragons.

I did really like this quote from it:

“And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet I would remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.”

 

[tobl]

Into the light by David Weber, the sequel to Out of the Dark.
I've started it but I'm finding it a bit confusing, it's about 8 years since I read the first book, so I might have to reread it before proceeding

yeah i tried but since i hated the first...

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I'm currently reading Lavinia, by Ursula Le Guin. A very different read for me.

 

[Hugh]

Tolkien "Letters from Father Christmas: the Centenary Edition"
This has been a real joy for me. My previous copy was the 1978 Unwin paperback and that now seems a complete travesty. This lovely edition has every letter and envelope reproduced in full colour from 1920 to 1943 (no letters in 1921 and 1922) and I've really savoured reading a letter a night over the past three or four weeks, to the extent that I'm sad to have reached the end. The quality of the reproduction is sufficiently good that I can read the beautiful originals first before looking through the text.
It's been very touching to get a sense of Tolkien's relationship with his children and how much they entered into the spirit of the fun, writing their own letters to Father Christmas (not reproduced here) with their Christmas requests and personal news. Of the four children, Christopher (born 1924) and Priscilla (1929) seem to have played the game most fully - for example in his 1934 letter Father Christmas thanks Christopher (then ten years old) for his "many letters". I note the Bingo teddy bear makes an appearance - Bingo of course being the original lead character in the LOTR.
One curious matter: there are a number of instances where portions of the original letters have not been included in the typed text, but fortunately the originals can be read easily enough.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

I've just started The World of Null-A by AE Van Vogt. So far it's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting... pretty enjoyable and readable really. I read in the introduction that Van Vogt was heavily drawing on General Semantics for the premise, which I think I've only loosely grasped the concept of from reading up on it a bit. I understand that some of the criticism of the book is that the concept is needlessly complicated and barely relevant to the plot..?

 

[AE35Unit]

I've just started The World of Null-A by AE Van Vogt. So far it's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting... pretty enjoyable and readable really. I read in the introduction that Van Vogt was heavily drawing on General Semantics for the premise, which I think I've only loosely grasped the concept of from reading up on it a bit. I understand that some of the criticism of the book is that the concept is needlessly complicated and barely relevant to the plot..?

I had to Google General Semantics. Whenever I read about something like that it comes across as nonsensical, in as much as its too esoteric for my feeble mind to make sense of it.