Books read, August
Oct. 27th, 2017 10:29 pmBest this month was Insomniac City (recced by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija), and Kurosagi v13, which I recently found after losing it somewhere in my house and having to read v14 without it.
Nicholas Stuart Gray, The Wardens of the Weir. Re-read. Toby & his friend Fran (and two extremely annoying small children) meet Avatar, who takes them to key moments in time in the hope of changing the past. Totally brilliant opening - "My father came into the room briskly and asked if I'd murdered the Tonkins children. I said no, but I'd often thought of it. The perfect chance had not yet presented itself…" - and solidly good writing throughout, but not quite as good as The Applestone. Thematically very similar to Diane Duane's Young Wizards books, although quite a different feel.
Emily Adrian, Like It Never Happened. First novel, YA; Rebecca Rivers lands the lead in her school production of The Crucible; this brings her into contact with a new group of friends, the Essential Five, who promise not to date each other (this goes about as well as might be expected) as well as her drama teacher, Mr McFadden, who Rebecca develops an (unreciprocated) crush on. The strength of this book is the relatively large and well-developed cast - Rebecca's sister Mary is a standout - and it's doing a lot of things I liked, about friendships and how you let people down, but it's also a bit all over the place in terms of plot (the summer camp and the crush itself both don't feel entirely integrated into the story). I would read another by the author to see what she does next.
Zoe Chant, Fire Fighter Griffin (re-read) and The Master Shark's Mate. First and latest in the Fire & Rescue Shifters series. A lot of fun.
Anne Gracie, The Autumn Bride, The Winter Bride, The Spring Bride, The Summer Bride. Oddly enough, all in the same series (Chance Sisters). Abigail Chantry, a governess, loses her job saving her sister from imminent ruin, acquiring two other friends in the process; they are struggling to survive when Abby breaks into a neighbouring house and discovers Lady Beatrice Davenham, neglected and isolated by her servants. They rescue her, she provides them all with resources and social support, and, one by one, they all make fabulous marriages. These were light and frothy and not terribly convincing; I don't think I'd re-read any of them.
Ann Patchett, Commonwealth. This starts with an illicit kiss at a christening party and then follows the blended and broken families that result across fifty years; the novel slips decades and circles back, revisiting one particular key event again and again, from different points of view. It's very well written and I like Franny, one of the kids, a lot; on the other hand, the key event is implausible (some of this is because it touches on a specialist field of mine, but it's still irritating) and becomes more so with every revisiting, until we get the final revelation in an extremely specific dream sequence. It's also oddly unhinged from anything outside the characters' lives - there are very few references to pop culture, politics, technology; anything that might change. I have been meaning to read Bel Canto for years and while this didn't put me off it hasn't made me hurry it up either.
Bill Hayes, Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me. As it says on the tin (and it's a gorgeous production of the tin - tiny windows cut into the dustjacket reveal glimpses of the street photograph underneath), a memoir about Bill's love for and relationship with Oliver Sacks, in the last decade of Sacks' life, as well as being about New York and Hayes' photographs of it and its inhabitants. This was my favourite book this month; it's delightful and touching, but there's an edge to it as well. ,
Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures: the story of the African-American women who helped win the space race. Read after I'd seen the movie. Shetterly's father worked for NASA-Langley, as did many in Shetterly's wider community; the book is a much broader history of NASA, from WWII onwards, as well as covering characters who didn't get much play in the film. It is a fascinating story and Shetterly has a lot of interesting material, although sometimes I got confused about characters (similar names, who had which job etc) and the chronological history didn't always help. The film (which I really liked) also simplifies things (Costner's character is a composite), but it's still a great story.
Eiji Ōtsuka & Housui Yamazaki, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, volume 13. I continue to love this series (best translation notes ever!). In this volume there's a mind-control cap used to turn the tables on men who prey on runaway teenage girls, a glimpse into Japan's rather disconcerting justice system, and a dismembered corpse on a construction site. English volumes of this series have been coming out increasingly slowly, but Dark Horse is now doing omnibus editions and sales have picked up, so I hope they keep going. It is gory but it's also very funny, and it's very sharp; quite a different view of Japan than the standard media representations.
rachelmanija), and Kurosagi v13, which I recently found after losing it somewhere in my house and having to read v14 without it. Nicholas Stuart Gray, The Wardens of the Weir. Re-read. Toby & his friend Fran (and two extremely annoying small children) meet Avatar, who takes them to key moments in time in the hope of changing the past. Totally brilliant opening - "My father came into the room briskly and asked if I'd murdered the Tonkins children. I said no, but I'd often thought of it. The perfect chance had not yet presented itself…" - and solidly good writing throughout, but not quite as good as The Applestone. Thematically very similar to Diane Duane's Young Wizards books, although quite a different feel.
Emily Adrian, Like It Never Happened. First novel, YA; Rebecca Rivers lands the lead in her school production of The Crucible; this brings her into contact with a new group of friends, the Essential Five, who promise not to date each other (this goes about as well as might be expected) as well as her drama teacher, Mr McFadden, who Rebecca develops an (unreciprocated) crush on. The strength of this book is the relatively large and well-developed cast - Rebecca's sister Mary is a standout - and it's doing a lot of things I liked, about friendships and how you let people down, but it's also a bit all over the place in terms of plot (the summer camp and the crush itself both don't feel entirely integrated into the story). I would read another by the author to see what she does next.
Zoe Chant, Fire Fighter Griffin (re-read) and The Master Shark's Mate. First and latest in the Fire & Rescue Shifters series. A lot of fun.
Anne Gracie, The Autumn Bride, The Winter Bride, The Spring Bride, The Summer Bride. Oddly enough, all in the same series (Chance Sisters). Abigail Chantry, a governess, loses her job saving her sister from imminent ruin, acquiring two other friends in the process; they are struggling to survive when Abby breaks into a neighbouring house and discovers Lady Beatrice Davenham, neglected and isolated by her servants. They rescue her, she provides them all with resources and social support, and, one by one, they all make fabulous marriages. These were light and frothy and not terribly convincing; I don't think I'd re-read any of them.
Ann Patchett, Commonwealth. This starts with an illicit kiss at a christening party and then follows the blended and broken families that result across fifty years; the novel slips decades and circles back, revisiting one particular key event again and again, from different points of view. It's very well written and I like Franny, one of the kids, a lot; on the other hand, the key event is implausible (some of this is because it touches on a specialist field of mine, but it's still irritating) and becomes more so with every revisiting, until we get the final revelation in an extremely specific dream sequence. It's also oddly unhinged from anything outside the characters' lives - there are very few references to pop culture, politics, technology; anything that might change. I have been meaning to read Bel Canto for years and while this didn't put me off it hasn't made me hurry it up either.
Bill Hayes, Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me. As it says on the tin (and it's a gorgeous production of the tin - tiny windows cut into the dustjacket reveal glimpses of the street photograph underneath), a memoir about Bill's love for and relationship with Oliver Sacks, in the last decade of Sacks' life, as well as being about New York and Hayes' photographs of it and its inhabitants. This was my favourite book this month; it's delightful and touching, but there's an edge to it as well. ,
Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures: the story of the African-American women who helped win the space race. Read after I'd seen the movie. Shetterly's father worked for NASA-Langley, as did many in Shetterly's wider community; the book is a much broader history of NASA, from WWII onwards, as well as covering characters who didn't get much play in the film. It is a fascinating story and Shetterly has a lot of interesting material, although sometimes I got confused about characters (similar names, who had which job etc) and the chronological history didn't always help. The film (which I really liked) also simplifies things (Costner's character is a composite), but it's still a great story.
Eiji Ōtsuka & Housui Yamazaki, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, volume 13. I continue to love this series (best translation notes ever!). In this volume there's a mind-control cap used to turn the tables on men who prey on runaway teenage girls, a glimpse into Japan's rather disconcerting justice system, and a dismembered corpse on a construction site. English volumes of this series have been coming out increasingly slowly, but Dark Horse is now doing omnibus editions and sales have picked up, so I hope they keep going. It is gory but it's also very funny, and it's very sharp; quite a different view of Japan than the standard media representations.
