Another week has passed, which means…
Bill: This week I read Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, a debut YA novel that in many ways was overly-familiar in plotting and character, but that I’m still recommending due to its excellent presentation of theme and its relatively unique setting and background mythos, which are both African-based. I also finished Menno Schithuizen’s Darwin Comes to Town, an excellent examination of urban eco-systems and how cities are driving a fast-paced evolution of creatures and plants. And I’m just about three-quarters of the way through Catherine Nixey’s The Darkening Age, which looks at early Christians’ physical destruction of the classical world — its statues, writings, temples, etc. It’s vividly told, though a bit repetitive. Finally, I also read a few graphic YA books: two bios — Marie Curie: The Radium Fairy by Montellier and Gaugin: Off the Beaten Track by Maximillian Le Roy — and a dramatized/fictionalized look at three early women aviators inSkyward, by Sally Deng.
Jana: This week was extremely light on reading time, but I did finish Lara Elena Donnelly‘s Armistice, and I’m excited to see what will happen next to her characters and their revolution. That was the only book I managed to finish — I’m still working my way through Peter S. Beagle‘s The Overneath and have what feels like half a million other books waiting for me. With any luck, next week will be less hectic, and I won’t feel quite so much at sixes and sevens.
Marion: I’m working on a project with a deadline so I haven’t read much. I’m about a quarter of the way through Ton Reiss’s book The Black Count, the biography of Alexandre Dumas’s father Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the mixed-race son of an enslaved woman on a sugar plantation and a wastrel French aristocrat. Dumas Senior became a general in the French army – and later, the genesis for his son’s character The Count of Monte Cristo.
Rachael: This week I finished rereading Madeline Miller‘s The Song of Achilles, in the wake of her new release Circe (which I’m intending to get my hands on soon…). It’s a bold retelling that seems to have divided opinion. On the non-fiction side of things I finished Harari’s Sapiens, which made me think we all need to go back to living in the wild.
Terry: Once again, I’m still reading everything I was reading last week, though I’ll finish The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch today. I’ve also read about half of Off the Grid by P.J. Tracey, one of the MONKEEWRENCH mysteries, for a little break from my steady diet of SF/F/H.
Terry, Dave reads P.J. Tracey and I don’t think we’ve seen OFF THE GRID. How recent is it? And it looks like it’s a different series than the one he’s reading. Tell me more, please!
OFF THE GRID is definitely a Monkeywrench novel, published in 2012. It’s apparently also sold with the title TWO EVILS. A great website for finding out what books you’re missing from a mystery series: http://www.stopyourekillingme.com.