Reading List - 2019
Jan. 1st, 2019 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
askygoneonfire Last year I made it to 25 books! This was a big step up from the last couple of years and I'm really pleased I managed it and am back to my more-or-less-average. Mostly, it was not a good year of books and I slogged through more than a couple of ropey offerings. I'm hoping that even if I have the same bad luck this year, I'll still get through a good number. I need to ensure I get my book out when I get on the train instead of sitting there scolling aimlessly through my phone.
January
1. Ancillary Sword - Ann Leckie I couldn't get Ancillary Justice out of my head so I just gave in and, rather than saving it, went straight on to this one. A lot of the issues I had had with Ancillary Justice - the confusing deployment of pronouns, the complexity of the structure of the military, the naming conventions - were gone in this book and it felt much more open and easy to enjoy. This was reflected in how quickly I read it - and I ended up staying up to 3am two nights just to read it which I haven't done for ages. I have a niggling discomfort with the overall handling of the fact the Radch empire is founded on, and sustained by slavery. This was particularly stark with the transported slaves working on the tea plantation in this one. Whilst there was character/universe-integrity to how this was handled, I'm not going to be happy unless that system of slavery is utterly destroyed in the third book. There isn't enough horror within the book at the meaning of such a system.
2. Ancillary Mercy - Ann Leckie Was never going to read anything else next, really. Read it in 3 nights and was properly gripped again - even woke up repeatedly on the second night because I was thinking about it. I really liked the character arc of lots of people - and the integrity of depiction of addiction recovery - and finally realised why I was so drawn to Breq (can't imagine anyone will love her, demands stuff from people as part of professional role but doesn't necessarily consider feelings in that equation) and I'm so, so jealous of the idea you can monitor people's thoughts and emotions via an AI, rather than necessarily having to decode everything from the outside. Adored the way the Presger worked - made me reflect on how sci-fi can never present a truly 'alien' race because you can't communicate a totally different way of thinking about life in the confines of coherent narrative structure, but the translators were excellent at bridging that and allowing a truly alien alien race into the world-building. Really satisfied with the conclusion, going to buy the other one she's written set in the same universe.
February
3. The Long Habit of Living - Joe Haldeman This was a bit hit and miss. In some ways it was hard boiled crime in space - complete with sexism. The timeline didn't make loads of sense - written in 1990 and only projected 15 years into the future for a fairly radical change in technology. Despite best efforts I wasn't that convinced by how much/little society was changed by access to immortality technology. The supposed chapters written from first person perspective of the two key characters in turn were incredibly inconsistent and kept flipping narrator and going back to omniscient narrator which was annoying - if only because it wouldn't have been annoying if it hadn't been flagged as being something it wasn't. Satisfying enough and engaging enough. Just a bit flat overall.
March
4. Provenance - Ann Leckie I bought this because it was in the same universe as the Ancillary series. But it's literally only *technically* in the same universe - it doesn't even take place in the same empire/nation (Radchaai). The lead character is incredibly wet, and rich, and cries seemingly ALL THE TIME. I felt absolutely no sense of attachment to her and frequently was just bored by her endless whining about injustice and not being loved. The plot was very thin and there were weird narrative markers which didn't function properly (what was the meaning of the shoes that weren't hers at the end? It was bizarre). Disappointing, and a slog.
5. Peril at End House - Agatha Christie This was a great read. Full, rounded characters. Great pace. Loads of clues which I couldn't help but try and decode even though I've never correctly guessed a Christie murderer/or guessed in full. I got halfway right on this one, but with wrong explanation. And properly gasped at the final reveal. Super satisfying, and with all the texture of real lives with sex, drugs, extortion and lies. Marvellous.
6. Record of a Spaceborn Few - Becky Chambers oh god I love it. I feel like she is one of few living writers who understands what the intrinsic value of storytelling is. There's such depth and texture to her characters. Such richness to the world. This one has more in common in tone and pace with the first book than the second which is also really welcome. Oh god I feel exhausted and satisfied and sad I can't stay there forever.
April
7. The Subtle Knife - Phillip Pullman I somehow got the events of this one muddled with the events of the Amber Spyglass in my memory, which is ok because I'm excited about Dr Malone's story in the next one, as I remember loving that. Somehow also my recollection of Hester and Lee's last stand was much more dramatic and protracted than it seemed in this re-reading, perhaps I was reading less carefully this time. I'm still struggling to pull back into memorythe basics of Milton and what I remember from my CofE upbringing and education on Genesis to untangle where the story is going, which frustrated me last time. I just don't know enough about the mythology. Also: dementors and spectres are the same? Is that from the Bible too? I can't remember. Bad ex-Christian.
May
8. Synners - Pat Cardigan This was so disappointing. It was utterly unispired and over long. Slogging through endless introductions of two dimensional characters, written in a deliberately 'abstract' way which offered nothing to the narrative and seemed to only serve to obscure the paper thin plot. The final 'reveal' of threat/fight was dull and lacked any sort of emotional or dramatic resonance. It was like a weird impression of quality cyberpunk - cyperpunk by numbers with no sense of what those elements are meant to do or communicate. There was a deep vein of distrust for technology - as though it is an uncomplicated bad rather than subject to reproduce all the grey areas of humanity. What a mess.
June
9. Saga Volume 1-3 - Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples I finally managed to convince a friend to read this series and as I didn't own physical copies of Vol 1-3 she bought them and I offered to lend her 4-9 if I could borrow 1-3 so I can do a full re-read. The coherence is even greater than I realised, having read them over 4 years now, and the hint from Hazel about her heart being broken in the first volume took me by surprise as I tried to put it into place with what happens in vol.9. Eeek!
10. Saga Volume 4-6 - Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples I remember not liking vol.5 that much but rereading close to the others has given me a new appreciation for it and I really, really liked that texture of stories for the side characters and totally sold on Gwendolyn, Sophie and The Brand which I think I didn't really connect with last time.
11. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chobsky I had a friend at uni who loved this book and as a result for the last 16 years I've been "getting around" to reading it. It's nice enough but the narrative choices are a bit strange: for a kid reading widely the narrative voice is very juvenile in linguistic choices and scope. I wasn't writing like that at 15 and it was nonsensical Charlie was. It felt like Chobsky did it to ensure his reader felt superior to Charlie in order to make his 'life lessons' land without being preachy, which I'm not sure came off. I couldn't help but compare to the sophistication and tone of Judy Blume who inserts the same sort of lessons without having strange issues with her character's relationship to the reader. Also the characterisation of the sister was crap.
12. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia - Peter Pomerantsev This was a series of vignettes of life in Russia. It gave some interesting impressions and insights but lacked, for me, a consistent thread to hold it all together. The way it was presented also made it difficult to identify personal impressions and opinions of the author, and material collected through his investigative journalism which, given the theme, is slightly ironic. Good but not great.
July
13. Tentacle - Rita Indiana It's hard to know what to say about this. At times I wondered if the translation was letting it down but I think that doesn't explain everything. The description of women ("her ample breasts bounced into the room before her svelte figure" style) and casual discussion of sexual violence ("I wanted to rape her and strangle her" is legit a line, thrown in and not used to say anything critical) was awful and I was surprised a woman wrote like that. The themes were confused and deployed without an overarching sense they were building to anything - it was a collection of ideas without any coherence. The significance of Argenis' sex change was never really gotten to grips with, other than appearing to uncritically confirm the centrality of men in affecting change in the world.
14. Saga Volume 7-9 - Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples I checked my previous reviews and last time found volume 7 to be "not as good" but fuck knows what I was thinking because it's brutal and utterly captivating. As are 8 and 9 - and 9 is amazing for the pacing and that horrible mix of hope and inevtably cruel fate. I really hope the haitus ends soon.
15. Lord of the Flies - William Golding Like so many people, I read this at schol. Unlike so many people, I loved it. I wanted to revisit it as an adult and it was really rewading for this. I had completely forgotten - or simply not ever noticed - the poetic language and style which bowled me over. It's impossible not to read it as a political allegory in the current climate, so that was really interesting. I think I most strrongly identified with Piggy when I first read it but rereading now, it was Simon who resonated with me. And I had a very different appreciation of Ralph this time - finding him desperately naive in a way I just didn't have the experience to understand or recognise when I first read it.
August
16. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - JK Rowling I decided to reread this as I moved house and wanted something comforting and familiar whilst I settled. I have been taking it slow so far and I forgot how careful this first book is, and how cruel and dark the Dursleys are. Also, nerd details; the horseless carraiges/thestrals don't exist in this book, everyone returns to the Hogwarts Express across the lake.
17. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling My only memory of this was how infuriating Harry and Ron's decision to steal a flying car to get to school, is. That was sort of an unfair recollection because there's a real richness here - and nice that Hermoine doesn't just tell Harry and Ron how to suceed and Harry puzzles it out, a fact I had forgotten. Lockhart seems more and more like a person I meet in my professional life as the years go by.
18. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JK Rowling This is still my favourite. It's so beautifully plotted and I really, really appreciate that, at 13, Harry has that shattering moment so many of us experience around that age of realising someone you admire/love isn't invincible and can't turn back the tide. It's a profound moment of growth from childhood to adulthood and it's appropriately agonising.
September
19. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - JK Rowling I think this is the slowest I've read this one - including when it was first released. With a slower speed comes a different reflection on it. I think it's too long - not because the action starts in July at the Quidditch World Cup rather than the end of the autumn term as in other books - but because in between the QWC, and each of the Triwizard Tournament tasks, nothing happens. There are these huge long tracts of life at Hogwarts which don't drive the story forward, don't give us any key information, don't drop any clues or red herrings. It's very meandering. For what is essentially a mystery story of the same magnitude as Prisoner of Azkaban, there is very little in the way of tension building. It's quite uneven. The death, grief, and conclusion are all excellently written, and I think more than ever the pathos of Harry walking away from the Hogwarts Express and his friends at the end, knowing what will be will be, is really acute. That is the key strength in the whole book, I think.
20. Murder on the Links - Agatha Christie I found this really hard to get into and overall felt the story lacked the depth and twists which I most like in a Christie. There seemed to be no other possible killer than who it turned out to be and whilst Poirot and Hastings were running about a lot their dashes back and forth across the channel didn't seem to move the story forward in any way. Bit disappointing.
21. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - JK Rowling I don't think, during a full re-read, I've ever interrupted it with a different book, as I did here. I'm glad I did because I came to this really ready and it felt fresh. I got quite annoyed when reading this because a friend had echoed something I hear a lot; "Harry is so annoying and whiny in this book". And I suddenly realised why it pisses me off so much; Harry is suffering pretty textbook PTSD. Everything to do with him not being believed and traumatised is also a fairly solid allegory for child sexual abuse; including one of the people who believes him not knowing how to talk to him anymore. And those people who seek to suppress his story (Umbridge) literally inflict further damage on him as a result. It's one of the most emotionally 'fair' books, I think. Harry behaves like a child and not a hero in a book. And I find it really affecting - particularly when it's compounded by his grief over Sirius. As usual, I wept at that death.
22. Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett I remembered this as one of my favourites - as indeed it was when I first read it. But I don't know, either I wasn't in the right mood or I've just moved on emotionally or intellectually or whatever and it didn't land that well. A lot of it was good but a lot of it felt needlessly dense and I struggled to keep up momentum with reading it. Its a good ending, that's still true.
October
23. A Slip of the Keyboard - Terry Pratchett I started this in August sometime with moving stress knowing I couldn't commit to anything requiring prolonged concentration so that was nice. But then it was, as I anticipated, really repetative - which is sort of nice to see. You can be a very successful writer with a small stable of jokes, topics, and turns. It was enjoyable enough - reminded me I don't really have loads in common politically with Pratchett which is always odd when I have so much in common politically with his characters (I know, I know, but it's still hard to remember that separation) but then that felt good to be confronted with.
24. Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince I find this an odd book. It's the only one where Harry manages to complete an ordinary year at school - everything that happens, happens around the coherent structure of the year rather than within the events of a term. It's also quite a cruel book - the relationship between Dumbledore and Harry is most troubling in this one, I think. There's such disregard for Harry's feelings and such huge demands on what he must do. The 'use' of Harry by Dumbledore is obviously mirrored in Scrimgeour's attempts to use Harry and I think that's sadly under developed. I think also the copy-editing is amongst the worst in the series in this book. There's some hideous sentences.
November
Nope - just reading incredibly, incredibly slowly all month.
December
25. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman I really slogged through this but it didn't have anything to do with my enjoyment of reading this, and everything to do with my stress levels and poor work/life balance meaning I fell into bed each night, fiddled around on the internet for 40 mins then fell dead asleep for 6 hours. I remember enjoying this one more than the Subtle Knife, last time I read it, but not feeling like I fully 'got' it. This time I felt a lot more intellectually confident with it (and kept reflecting on how much it's not a children's book) and feel I got a lot more out of it. It felt particularly significant to conclude it the day after the election results when I was feeling hopeless. It's a story of hopelessness in many ways, unbelievable odds and an equivocal sort of resolution/vision of what comes next. But the core message is one of pessimistic fight inflected with optimistic values. I found that really valuable.
January
1. Ancillary Sword - Ann Leckie I couldn't get Ancillary Justice out of my head so I just gave in and, rather than saving it, went straight on to this one. A lot of the issues I had had with Ancillary Justice - the confusing deployment of pronouns, the complexity of the structure of the military, the naming conventions - were gone in this book and it felt much more open and easy to enjoy. This was reflected in how quickly I read it - and I ended up staying up to 3am two nights just to read it which I haven't done for ages. I have a niggling discomfort with the overall handling of the fact the Radch empire is founded on, and sustained by slavery. This was particularly stark with the transported slaves working on the tea plantation in this one. Whilst there was character/universe-integrity to how this was handled, I'm not going to be happy unless that system of slavery is utterly destroyed in the third book. There isn't enough horror within the book at the meaning of such a system.
2. Ancillary Mercy - Ann Leckie Was never going to read anything else next, really. Read it in 3 nights and was properly gripped again - even woke up repeatedly on the second night because I was thinking about it. I really liked the character arc of lots of people - and the integrity of depiction of addiction recovery - and finally realised why I was so drawn to Breq (can't imagine anyone will love her, demands stuff from people as part of professional role but doesn't necessarily consider feelings in that equation) and I'm so, so jealous of the idea you can monitor people's thoughts and emotions via an AI, rather than necessarily having to decode everything from the outside. Adored the way the Presger worked - made me reflect on how sci-fi can never present a truly 'alien' race because you can't communicate a totally different way of thinking about life in the confines of coherent narrative structure, but the translators were excellent at bridging that and allowing a truly alien alien race into the world-building. Really satisfied with the conclusion, going to buy the other one she's written set in the same universe.
February
3. The Long Habit of Living - Joe Haldeman This was a bit hit and miss. In some ways it was hard boiled crime in space - complete with sexism. The timeline didn't make loads of sense - written in 1990 and only projected 15 years into the future for a fairly radical change in technology. Despite best efforts I wasn't that convinced by how much/little society was changed by access to immortality technology. The supposed chapters written from first person perspective of the two key characters in turn were incredibly inconsistent and kept flipping narrator and going back to omniscient narrator which was annoying - if only because it wouldn't have been annoying if it hadn't been flagged as being something it wasn't. Satisfying enough and engaging enough. Just a bit flat overall.
March
4. Provenance - Ann Leckie I bought this because it was in the same universe as the Ancillary series. But it's literally only *technically* in the same universe - it doesn't even take place in the same empire/nation (Radchaai). The lead character is incredibly wet, and rich, and cries seemingly ALL THE TIME. I felt absolutely no sense of attachment to her and frequently was just bored by her endless whining about injustice and not being loved. The plot was very thin and there were weird narrative markers which didn't function properly (what was the meaning of the shoes that weren't hers at the end? It was bizarre). Disappointing, and a slog.
5. Peril at End House - Agatha Christie This was a great read. Full, rounded characters. Great pace. Loads of clues which I couldn't help but try and decode even though I've never correctly guessed a Christie murderer/or guessed in full. I got halfway right on this one, but with wrong explanation. And properly gasped at the final reveal. Super satisfying, and with all the texture of real lives with sex, drugs, extortion and lies. Marvellous.
6. Record of a Spaceborn Few - Becky Chambers oh god I love it. I feel like she is one of few living writers who understands what the intrinsic value of storytelling is. There's such depth and texture to her characters. Such richness to the world. This one has more in common in tone and pace with the first book than the second which is also really welcome. Oh god I feel exhausted and satisfied and sad I can't stay there forever.
April
7. The Subtle Knife - Phillip Pullman I somehow got the events of this one muddled with the events of the Amber Spyglass in my memory, which is ok because I'm excited about Dr Malone's story in the next one, as I remember loving that. Somehow also my recollection of Hester and Lee's last stand was much more dramatic and protracted than it seemed in this re-reading, perhaps I was reading less carefully this time. I'm still struggling to pull back into memorythe basics of Milton and what I remember from my CofE upbringing and education on Genesis to untangle where the story is going, which frustrated me last time. I just don't know enough about the mythology. Also: dementors and spectres are the same? Is that from the Bible too? I can't remember. Bad ex-Christian.
May
8. Synners - Pat Cardigan This was so disappointing. It was utterly unispired and over long. Slogging through endless introductions of two dimensional characters, written in a deliberately 'abstract' way which offered nothing to the narrative and seemed to only serve to obscure the paper thin plot. The final 'reveal' of threat/fight was dull and lacked any sort of emotional or dramatic resonance. It was like a weird impression of quality cyberpunk - cyperpunk by numbers with no sense of what those elements are meant to do or communicate. There was a deep vein of distrust for technology - as though it is an uncomplicated bad rather than subject to reproduce all the grey areas of humanity. What a mess.
June
9. Saga Volume 1-3 - Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples I finally managed to convince a friend to read this series and as I didn't own physical copies of Vol 1-3 she bought them and I offered to lend her 4-9 if I could borrow 1-3 so I can do a full re-read. The coherence is even greater than I realised, having read them over 4 years now, and the hint from Hazel about her heart being broken in the first volume took me by surprise as I tried to put it into place with what happens in vol.9. Eeek!
10. Saga Volume 4-6 - Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples I remember not liking vol.5 that much but rereading close to the others has given me a new appreciation for it and I really, really liked that texture of stories for the side characters and totally sold on Gwendolyn, Sophie and The Brand which I think I didn't really connect with last time.
11. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chobsky I had a friend at uni who loved this book and as a result for the last 16 years I've been "getting around" to reading it. It's nice enough but the narrative choices are a bit strange: for a kid reading widely the narrative voice is very juvenile in linguistic choices and scope. I wasn't writing like that at 15 and it was nonsensical Charlie was. It felt like Chobsky did it to ensure his reader felt superior to Charlie in order to make his 'life lessons' land without being preachy, which I'm not sure came off. I couldn't help but compare to the sophistication and tone of Judy Blume who inserts the same sort of lessons without having strange issues with her character's relationship to the reader. Also the characterisation of the sister was crap.
12. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia - Peter Pomerantsev This was a series of vignettes of life in Russia. It gave some interesting impressions and insights but lacked, for me, a consistent thread to hold it all together. The way it was presented also made it difficult to identify personal impressions and opinions of the author, and material collected through his investigative journalism which, given the theme, is slightly ironic. Good but not great.
July
13. Tentacle - Rita Indiana It's hard to know what to say about this. At times I wondered if the translation was letting it down but I think that doesn't explain everything. The description of women ("her ample breasts bounced into the room before her svelte figure" style) and casual discussion of sexual violence ("I wanted to rape her and strangle her" is legit a line, thrown in and not used to say anything critical) was awful and I was surprised a woman wrote like that. The themes were confused and deployed without an overarching sense they were building to anything - it was a collection of ideas without any coherence. The significance of Argenis' sex change was never really gotten to grips with, other than appearing to uncritically confirm the centrality of men in affecting change in the world.
14. Saga Volume 7-9 - Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples I checked my previous reviews and last time found volume 7 to be "not as good" but fuck knows what I was thinking because it's brutal and utterly captivating. As are 8 and 9 - and 9 is amazing for the pacing and that horrible mix of hope and inevtably cruel fate. I really hope the haitus ends soon.
15. Lord of the Flies - William Golding Like so many people, I read this at schol. Unlike so many people, I loved it. I wanted to revisit it as an adult and it was really rewading for this. I had completely forgotten - or simply not ever noticed - the poetic language and style which bowled me over. It's impossible not to read it as a political allegory in the current climate, so that was really interesting. I think I most strrongly identified with Piggy when I first read it but rereading now, it was Simon who resonated with me. And I had a very different appreciation of Ralph this time - finding him desperately naive in a way I just didn't have the experience to understand or recognise when I first read it.
August
16. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - JK Rowling I decided to reread this as I moved house and wanted something comforting and familiar whilst I settled. I have been taking it slow so far and I forgot how careful this first book is, and how cruel and dark the Dursleys are. Also, nerd details; the horseless carraiges/thestrals don't exist in this book, everyone returns to the Hogwarts Express across the lake.
17. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling My only memory of this was how infuriating Harry and Ron's decision to steal a flying car to get to school, is. That was sort of an unfair recollection because there's a real richness here - and nice that Hermoine doesn't just tell Harry and Ron how to suceed and Harry puzzles it out, a fact I had forgotten. Lockhart seems more and more like a person I meet in my professional life as the years go by.
18. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JK Rowling This is still my favourite. It's so beautifully plotted and I really, really appreciate that, at 13, Harry has that shattering moment so many of us experience around that age of realising someone you admire/love isn't invincible and can't turn back the tide. It's a profound moment of growth from childhood to adulthood and it's appropriately agonising.
September
19. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - JK Rowling I think this is the slowest I've read this one - including when it was first released. With a slower speed comes a different reflection on it. I think it's too long - not because the action starts in July at the Quidditch World Cup rather than the end of the autumn term as in other books - but because in between the QWC, and each of the Triwizard Tournament tasks, nothing happens. There are these huge long tracts of life at Hogwarts which don't drive the story forward, don't give us any key information, don't drop any clues or red herrings. It's very meandering. For what is essentially a mystery story of the same magnitude as Prisoner of Azkaban, there is very little in the way of tension building. It's quite uneven. The death, grief, and conclusion are all excellently written, and I think more than ever the pathos of Harry walking away from the Hogwarts Express and his friends at the end, knowing what will be will be, is really acute. That is the key strength in the whole book, I think.
20. Murder on the Links - Agatha Christie I found this really hard to get into and overall felt the story lacked the depth and twists which I most like in a Christie. There seemed to be no other possible killer than who it turned out to be and whilst Poirot and Hastings were running about a lot their dashes back and forth across the channel didn't seem to move the story forward in any way. Bit disappointing.
21. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - JK Rowling I don't think, during a full re-read, I've ever interrupted it with a different book, as I did here. I'm glad I did because I came to this really ready and it felt fresh. I got quite annoyed when reading this because a friend had echoed something I hear a lot; "Harry is so annoying and whiny in this book". And I suddenly realised why it pisses me off so much; Harry is suffering pretty textbook PTSD. Everything to do with him not being believed and traumatised is also a fairly solid allegory for child sexual abuse; including one of the people who believes him not knowing how to talk to him anymore. And those people who seek to suppress his story (Umbridge) literally inflict further damage on him as a result. It's one of the most emotionally 'fair' books, I think. Harry behaves like a child and not a hero in a book. And I find it really affecting - particularly when it's compounded by his grief over Sirius. As usual, I wept at that death.
22. Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett I remembered this as one of my favourites - as indeed it was when I first read it. But I don't know, either I wasn't in the right mood or I've just moved on emotionally or intellectually or whatever and it didn't land that well. A lot of it was good but a lot of it felt needlessly dense and I struggled to keep up momentum with reading it. Its a good ending, that's still true.
October
23. A Slip of the Keyboard - Terry Pratchett I started this in August sometime with moving stress knowing I couldn't commit to anything requiring prolonged concentration so that was nice. But then it was, as I anticipated, really repetative - which is sort of nice to see. You can be a very successful writer with a small stable of jokes, topics, and turns. It was enjoyable enough - reminded me I don't really have loads in common politically with Pratchett which is always odd when I have so much in common politically with his characters (I know, I know, but it's still hard to remember that separation) but then that felt good to be confronted with.
24. Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince I find this an odd book. It's the only one where Harry manages to complete an ordinary year at school - everything that happens, happens around the coherent structure of the year rather than within the events of a term. It's also quite a cruel book - the relationship between Dumbledore and Harry is most troubling in this one, I think. There's such disregard for Harry's feelings and such huge demands on what he must do. The 'use' of Harry by Dumbledore is obviously mirrored in Scrimgeour's attempts to use Harry and I think that's sadly under developed. I think also the copy-editing is amongst the worst in the series in this book. There's some hideous sentences.
November
Nope - just reading incredibly, incredibly slowly all month.
December
25. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman I really slogged through this but it didn't have anything to do with my enjoyment of reading this, and everything to do with my stress levels and poor work/life balance meaning I fell into bed each night, fiddled around on the internet for 40 mins then fell dead asleep for 6 hours. I remember enjoying this one more than the Subtle Knife, last time I read it, but not feeling like I fully 'got' it. This time I felt a lot more intellectually confident with it (and kept reflecting on how much it's not a children's book) and feel I got a lot more out of it. It felt particularly significant to conclude it the day after the election results when I was feeling hopeless. It's a story of hopelessness in many ways, unbelievable odds and an equivocal sort of resolution/vision of what comes next. But the core message is one of pessimistic fight inflected with optimistic values. I found that really valuable.