April Reading Thread

[hitmouse]

Lady Sapiens - breaking stereotypes about prehistoric women.

Is 1 Million BC inaccurate?

 

[Danny McG]

Meru by SB Divya.
The blurb:-
One woman and her pilot are about to change the future of the species in an epic space opera about aspiration, compassion, and redemption by Hugo and Nebula Award finalist S. B. Divya.
For five centuries, human life has been restricted to Earth, while posthuman descendants called alloys freely explore the galaxy. But when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, two unlikely companions venture forth to test the habitability of this unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations.

 

[Parson]

Is 1 Million BC inaccurate?

Well, it is "revealing."

 

[Parson]

Meru by SB Divya.
The blurb:-
One woman and her pilot are about to change the future of the species in an epic space opera about aspiration, compassion, and redemption by Hugo and Nebula Award finalist S. B. Divya.
For five centuries, human life has been restricted to Earth, while posthuman descendants called alloys freely explore the galaxy. But when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, two unlikely companions venture forth to test the habitability of this unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations.

Decent, not spectacular. I finished it but wasn't overly impressed.

 

[Rodders]

Whiteout by James Swallow.

Another Judge Dredd story.

 

[Danny McG]

Decent, not spectacular. I finished it but wasn't overly impressed.

I'm dithering now, I've only got a few pages into it because I got a long phone call.
Is it worth continuing or should I look for something better?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's Embroidering Her Truth: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Language of Power by Clare Hunter, published by Sceptre, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton in 2022, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it.

Thanks, TJ. It touches on subjects of interest to me (symbolism and textile arts, etc.), so I thought I'd give it a look, in spite of the faults you mention. Downloaded the sample, and decided it has a lot of information that may prove useful, and since it's not an expensive book, I bought it, to read after I finish reading Made Things, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which I have just started.

 

[Parson]

I'm dithering now, I've only got a few pages into it because I got a long phone call.
Is it worth continuing or should I look for something better?

Give it a shot @Danny McG .... You and I like a lot of the same stuff but we are not identical in our likes. It might hit the right nerve for you.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Annotated Alice, by the same author, is very good.

Indeed. I have a copy at home. I don't consider myself an expert, but I do appreciate Carroll/Dodgson. His collections of mathematical recreations A Tangled Tale (1885) and Pillow Problems (1893) are worth a look for those who enjoy such things. His seemingly whimsical essay "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" (1895) actually raises profound questions of the nature of proof.

I suspect that he considered his two-volume novel Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1890; not a sequel, but simply the second half of a single work) to be his magnum opus. It's a very strange work. Part fairy tale, apparently aimed at very young children; part sentimental Victorian novel; partly filled with the sorts of mathematical and logical jokes and paradoxes you'd expect from the author; part gentle social satire; and partly full of oddly post-modern touches. (The novel begins in the middle of a sentence.) I can't imagine anybody enjoying all of it. Somebody or other called it something like "one of the most interesting failures in English literature." (Beware of a one-volume abridged version, which contains only the fairy tale part of it, which is the worse part, made nearly intolerable by the cloying baby talk in which one character speaks.)

Meanwhile:

I have started a slim volume from 1959 which combines two much older pieces. About three-quarters of the book consists of The Philosophy of Style (1852) by Herbert Spencer. The remaining pages are filled up with the essay "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) by Edgar Allan Poe. Should be interesting for mid-Nineteenth Century ideas about writing.

 

[Elentarri]

Salt Water Tears by Brian A. Hopkins: I suppose you would call it a horror anthology, though not all the stories in the collection are horror. Not bad. I might have to give one of his novels a try.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Could you say more? The reviews I've found are singularly unhelpful --- One complained that it was a paperback, another said it was a "beautiful book" whatever that meant. (I had the feeling he was talking about the cover.) -- One frustration is that it is available as an ebook only in French.

It's quite a short book and some of the material is known to me, but there's plenty of new stuff, and it's shaping up to be a really good overall view. I'm really enjoying it.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Is 1 Million BC inaccurate?

Entirely!
I have to say though, the section on prehistoric clothes was particularly interesting. Needles are a very ancient invention.

 

[Toby Frost]

I finished A Natural History of Ghosts, which was an interesting, but slightly underwhelming book. I found it disappointing that the author never properly discussed the actual case for ghosts existing. As a history book it was pretty good, but something was missing. Incidentally, my copy has a quote on the front from the Sunday Times, which describes it as, among other things, "lithe". What the heck is that supposed to mean?

 

[Elentarri]

I finished A Natural History of Ghosts, which was an interesting, but slightly underwhelming book. I found it disappointing that the author never properly discussed the actual case for ghosts existing. As a history book it was pretty good, but something was missing. Incidentally, my copy has a quote on the front from the Sunday Times, which describes it as, among other things, "lithe". What the heck is that supposed to mean?

Thin? Not much substance? A fast read? The dictionary definition includes "flexible", so was the book particularly flexible? A bit strange to describe a book like that.

 

[Toby Frost]

It was definitely meant as a compliment, but I've only ever seen it as an antiquated and slightly pervy-sounding description of a young woman. Perhaps it meant that the book was flexible enough to cover its topics and make its argument skillfully?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've just finished the Tchaikovsky, Made Things. It was short but I thought it quite good. I'd become fed up with heroines who are either thieves or assassins, and with heist novels generally, but this story had enough that was original and that charmed me (the various sorts of homunculi, for instance) that I liked it very well. There was really more focus on the heroine, Coppelia (aka Moppet), as a puppet maker and artisan than on her being a thief. (I have a soft spot for puppets.) I liked the use of magic, both the magic that was slight and subtle and related to craftsmanship, and the more overt magecraft.

So, since there is a prequel, and it's just a short story, I've decided to read that before I go on to Mary, Queen of Scots.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am about to start The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957) by John Steinbeck.

 

[Extollager]

Just began Walter de la Mare's short story collection The Connoisseur with a fine first story, "Mr. Kempe," which somehow reminded me of Robert Louis Stevenson -- not Treasure Island -- as well as of de la Mare's own (later) story "The Recluse." This has an element of physical excitement one might not usually expect from this author, with the storyteller recounting his crawl across a narrow path above sea-waves.

My wife and I have begun to listen to audio books, and are now finishing Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile, which I'd already read.

In recent years I've tried to reread some books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who was a favorite author back around 1969-1970. Usually now ERB doesn't hold my interest, and that was the case with this one, Llana of Gathol. I think the only ERBs that I have finished in the past ten years or so were At the Earth's Core, The Land That Time Forgot, and A Fighting Man of Mars, which, perhaps significantly, were all among the first I revisited. Couldn't stick it out later on with A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, Pellucidar -- was there anything else? I'd not read Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar before, but when I tried it within the past few years, nope, it didn't hold my interest. I think part of the problem is that I habitually read things that take a degree of concentration, attention. I might be able to finish an ERB novel if I read rapidly. I don't know. Anyway, I think I'm probably done with trying to read again this old favorite, although I might have a go at the first Tarzan book. (Even when I was reading lots of ERB, I didn't try to collect all of those books, and in fact probably didn't read more than about four out of -- what is it, 24 books?)

I have started Ruth Downie's Medicus. I think I will stick with it. But it seems I'm reading less fiction these days, especially novels, and relatively more short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. However, I have little doubt of finishing the Aubrey and Maturin books (The Wine-Dark Sea is next up) and C. P. Snow's Brothers and Strangers sequence -- I have about three of those to go. I'll probably read another Vorkosigan book within the next few months.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Currently Patricia Cornwell novel.ALL THAT REMAINS 1992.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I'm currently reading The Call of the Dead, by John le Carre.