Marion: In spite of internet issues and vehicle issues, I found time to read this week. I finished N.K. Jemisin’s second book in the GREAT CITIES duology, The World We Make. It’s vivid, action-packed and full of fun. I bought C.LPolk’s novella Even Though I Knew the End the day it came out. I love her depiction of 1940’s Chicago, especially the lesbian bar Helen the protagonist and her girlfriend Edith met at. The plot was familiar but the book is fast-paced and lovingly captures a detective-noir voice.
Sandy: Moi? After having had so much fun reading the Ramble House collections The Tongueless Horror and Other Stories: The Weird Tales of Wyatt Blassingame, Volume 1 and Lady of the Yellow Death and Other Stories: The Weird Tales of Wyatt Blassingame, Volume 2, where else could I possibly go next but on to the next installment in this flabbergasting series? Thus, I am currently in the middle of The Unholy Goddess and Other Stories: The Weird Tales of Wyatt Blassingame, Volume 3, and hope to be able to share some thoughts on this one with you all very shortly….
Terry: I’ve been spending a ridiculous amount of time with The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, and I keep asking myself why I’m going through those years a second time when they were bad enough the first time. Still, it’s very well-written, and despite the fact that I’m a political junkie, there’s lots of information that’s new to me. More happily, I’ve read Gardens by Benedict Jacka, a follow-up to his now-completed ALEX VERUS series, a nicely done novella. I greatly enjoyed No Plan B by Lee Child and Andrew Child, the latest JACK REACHER thriller, pretty much the same as all the rest, but that’s kind of the fun of it, isn’t it? Now I’m reading How To Marry a Viscount by Alyxandra Harvey, a quick-paced historical romance. I’m still working on a few others that reside in the “Currently Reading” folder in my Kindle and pile in my living room.
I’m not reading any books about the former occupant of the White House, but Baker and Glasser impressed me when I saw them interviewed on THE NEWS HOUR.
I might read the new Michelle Obama memoir though.
I have a hold at the library on American Psychosis, David Corn’s attempt to investigate how the former occupant’s party got progressively crazier over the years. You might be interested in that one too. To counterbalance that, someone needs to write a thorough history of how the current occupant’s party morphed from a working class party into one whose constituency is now primarily corporate elites and the haute bourgeoisie (while still being accused of “radical leftist extremism”). I suspect in both cases that changes in the media environment had a lot to do with it.
To return to the topic of SF, I just started reading Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji, about a fleet of generation ships arriving at Tau Ceti. Prior to that was Into the Riverlands, another good installment in Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills series of novellas.
Right, the Democratic Party’s long, strange trip is pretty interesting too. I wonder if the systematic weakening of labor unions had anything to do with it.
I must get my hands on those Nghi Vo novellas.