December 2021 Reading Thread

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Montero said:
Trying a sample of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and um..


How did others do with this?
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I liked it very much. It did take a while to get caught up in the story, but once it happened I was well and truly captured.

The TV mini-series I also found appealing. I've seen it at least three times, although I do agree with TJ that their casting and handling of the gentleman with the thistledown hair was not one of its strong points.

The period, as TJ says is Regency, although technically, since George III was still alive and George IV had yet to reign, Regency is Georgian, despite the fact that manners and style had changed significantly since the earlier part of that period. So either is correct, to refer to the period as Regency or Georgian, but definitely not Victorian.
 
Peter Deadman "Finding My Way. Memoirs and Short Stories" (2021)

Thought-provoking account of the author's life experience. Born in 1948, he was hitchhiking to Greece in 1965 and hanging out in Morocco in 1966 and 1969. Naturally there are a few weird experiences before he stumbles on first macrobiotics then acupuncture. psychotherapy, followed by playing in a band in his 50s (The Matzo Boys, playing Klezmer music) and qigong. He's well known in Brighton for founding the Infinity Foods Workers Coperative, and internationally as an acupuncturist (retired). There's one amusing vignette where in 1969 he gets into an argument with the pre-fame David Bowie, calling him a bread-head.
I wasn't that impressed with the short stories, but enjoyed the ones that were obviously derived from life experience.
 
Danny McG said:
Apocalypsis immortuos by Marco de Hoogh.

Books 1&2 of a zombie pandemic
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Wow!
It's actually caused by evil science nanobots getting into people's bodies and taking over their brain functions - I wasn't expecting this plot twist.
 
Parson said:
I read A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell.
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I wasn't going to say this earlier, so as not to colour your own view of it, but Orwell himself disliked ACD and later described it as "bollox". I gather that it was heavily influenced by James Joyce and was definitely "experimental". My understanding is that he was agnostic, verging on atheist, but had a strong liking for the traditions of the Anglican church. Orwell once said that, had things gone another way, he could have become a vicar, but I'm not sure how seriously he meant it. He was also pretty terrible at writing about women. I get the feeling that, like a lot of men in those days, he regarded them as almost beyond comprehension.
 
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Well, I could say more about this, but this doesn't seem to be the thread to do it. Suffice it to say that many older male writers didn't make any effort to see things from the other point of view, and seem to have considered women to be irrational to the point of near-delusion, like people who have taken LSD.
 
Toby Frost said:
I'm currently reading Spook Street by Mick Herron, the 4th or 5th in the Slough House series. They've been good so far but I wonder how long the series can keep up the quality.
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I've read them all, including the novellas, they get a bit formula-istic I'm afraid
 
Danny McG said:
Wow!
It's actually caused by evil science nanobots getting into people's bodies and taking over their brain functions - I wasn't expecting this plot twist.
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people brains beguin to work? i mean sice it was basically an app now
 
Toby Frost said:
but had a strong liking for the traditions of the Anglican church.
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I don't really doubt this. There are a couple of times the loss of the traditions are seen in some character's eyes as almost the same as the loss of Christian Faith itself. It struck me at the time that the author probably had some emotional connection to the "old" ways.

It sounds as if Orwell would not have disagreed with my feelings about his book, which I find rather re-assuring.
 
Montero said:
@HareBrain @The Judge, @Randy M. Thanks all.
I've got a bit past the statues in York Minster (or should I say cathedral as they prefer) becoming animated which was impressive.
Not yet reached the gentleman with the thistledown hair.
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That is very early in the story. Have you met Strange yet? I thought the story did pick up when it wasn't just focusing on Norrell.
Montero said:
Question - do you need to have read this before trying Piranesi, which is also being much admired?
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As HareBrain says there's no relationship between them. The writing style is different as well, it's not got the Regency inspiration and it doesn't have a single footnote.

The two books are very different, I thought they were both excellent in their own ways.
 
I’m doing a serious push on my allomantic copper mind and finishing up The Hero of Ages. I expect to finish it pretty soon, I’m on pg. 468/752.
 
Danny McG said:
I've read them all, including the novellas, they get a bit formula-istic I'm afraid
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I did think they would do, and he'd just cycle out characters and replace them with similar ones. Still, I enjoyed the end of the last one, with the strangely familiar villain's minion getting his just desserts. I've also got a book of his called Reconstruction, which seems to be a spin-off.
 
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