Marion: I’m about one third of the way through Matthew Pearl’s 18-year-old novel The Bookaneer, which I’m liking more now that our narrator has arrived in Samoa and we’ve met Robert Louis Stevenson and his family.
Bill: Since our last update I read:
- The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence: sure to be on my Best of ‘23 list
- The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II by Peter S. Beagle: an excellent (no surprise) collection of Beagle’s short stories
- Witch King by Martha Wells: A good fantasy with an intriguing set of characters
- The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castell: admittedly a bit disappointing though enjoyed parts
- For the Love of Mars by Matthew Shindell: an interesting look at our changing thoughts about the Red Planet over time
- The Ugly History of Beautiful Things, a wide-ranging collection of exploratory personal essays by Katy Kelleher
- Two solid poetry collections: Brown by Kevin Young and All at a Glance by C.K. Williams
Sandy: Moi? I recently finished reading J. W. Brodie-Innes’ classic supernatural novel The Devil’s Mistress, which was originally released in 1915 and is set in the Highlands of Scotland of the mid-17th century. I found it a rather remarkable book, indeed. And currently, I am reading another historical chiller, this one set in the early 19th century in the Tyrol; namely, Paul Busson’s highly regarded The Fire Spirits (1923). I look forward to sharing some thoughts on both of these books with you all in the not-too-distant future….
Terry: I finished the wonderful, and wonderfully funny, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus; I recommend it highly. I also read C.L. Polk’s Nebula Award winner, Even Though I Knew the End, which highly deserved the award. It’s a Marlowe-flavored fantastical mystery set in Chicago, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Novellas really are the best! Now I’m back to finishing up Daniel Abraham’s Age of Ash, which is glacially slow but still lovely to read.
I’m coming off a week of less than satisfying reads, including Kate Elliott’s Furious Heaven (exciting but eventually wearying tale of interstellar conquest: too long, with too many thin characters and convoluted plot threads), Iris Murdoch’s The Unicorn (non-genre about ultra-civilized Brits dragging out an untenable situation at an isolated manor till murder solves everything), Victor LaValle’s Lone Women (a woman lured by the promise of “dryland farming” in 1915 Montana brings something monstrous with her, started very strong but a disappointing finish where even more murder solves everything), and Kelly Robson’s High Times in the Low Parliament (an early Victorian era Europe with fairies bullying the fractious humans into being peaceable, short and somewhat pleasant but kind of pointless).