Has anyone mentioned Diane Setterfield? Her three books, each in different settings, are intriguing, mysterious, complex and intelligent. I liked Once upon a River best, but Bellman & Black comes close.
If you missed it at the time, you may enjoy this discussion of Once Upon a River, which was our December Book Club selection here in Heaven.
My Young Man treated me to a copy of Rain by Mary and Bryan Talbot (and he got it signed!).
It's a graphic novel about the floods in a Yorkshire town, and the management of the grouse moors that is causing the flooding - and also takes in the Bronte sisters, environmental activism, the RSPB prosecuting gamekeepers who are killing hen harriers, and the Zone Rouge - the battlefields of the First World War which are still dangerously contaminated.
It puts the environmental case very clearly.
T Kingfisher is great. I discovered her a couple of months ago and binge-read everything I could get (though I haven't read anything she's written as Ursula Vernon).
I've just finished Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper, formerly of the Westboro Baptist Church. Very readable. In a way what impressed me most was not just that she rejected her previous beliefs, but that she managed to salvage and take with her some aspects of her upbringing - family love and interdependence, and the willingness to stand up for her beliefs - and allowed them to inform her new life as someone who works for understanding and tolerance. There's a good TED talk by her here
I've been catching up on some reading lately. Edith Wharton is one of my favourite American writers, and I'd been meaning to pick up and read Summer, one of her short novels set in rural New England (apparently sometimes called the warm-weather version of Ethan Frome). It's vintage Wharton, the writing apparently effortless and both evocative and compelling. Not a happy ending (do any Wharton novels have happy endings?), but some sense of redemption at the end even if a highly equivocal one.
I also started Ethan Frome a while ago but put it aside as having just too much unrelieved darkness. Will come back to it at some point.
Wharton is definitely one of my very favorites, too. "The House of Mirth," is the saddest book I've ever read, but I still read it over and over, it's just so perfect. I recommended, "Ethan Frome" for my book club last year and they all hated it, neither did they want to listen to my heart felt defense of Zeena.
I just re-read, "My Antonia," by Willa Cather, another favorite of mine, I think the turn of the last century must be a good period for me. I love E. M. Forster, too.
I just watched the TED talk with Megan Phelps-Roper. My God, if that doesn't make you weep in sadness, happiness, awe...you meed to have your pulse checked. When she repented of her hate, I know Jesus did a happy dance.
This is proof that Love really is the only thing that can transform Hate. I have to go blow my nose...yeah, I'm crying.
Currently slogging my way through Garrigou-Lagrange‘s “The three ages of the interior life” which is interesting but needs to be digested in small chunks.
It occurs to me that I haven’t read anything properly non-fiction in a while. I may dust off Michael Moorcock from the shelves as it’s a number of years since I read any of his stuff.
I've been catching up on some reading lately. Edith Wharton is one of my favourite American writers, and I'd been meaning to pick up and read Summer, one of her short novels set in rural New England (apparently sometimes called the warm-weather version of Ethan Frome). It's vintage Wharton, the writing apparently effortless and both evocative and compelling. Not a happy ending (do any Wharton novels have happy endings?), but some sense of redemption at the end even if a highly equivocal one.
I also started Ethan Frome a while ago but put it aside as having just too much unrelieved darkness. Will come back to it at some point.
Wharton is definitely one of my very favorites, too. "The House of Mirth," is the saddest book I've ever read, but I still read it over and over, it's just so perfect. I recommended, "Ethan Frome" for my book club last year and they all hated it, neither did they want to listen to my heart felt defense of Zeena.
I just re-read, "My Antonia," by Willa Cather, another favorite of mine, I think the turn of the last century must be a good period for me. I love E. M. Forster, too.
Re-reading A Room with a View at the moment, actually. Watched the movie as well - I had tried to download it for a long flight back in February, but I found out on the plane that it hadn't downloaded properly, so ended up watching it after the fact. It had been a while since I'd seen the movie - very faithful to the book. Funny to think the movie is 35 years old though - everyone looks much younger...
I share your admiration for House of Mirth but I think once was enough for me. I saw a copy of My Antonia in our local second-hand bookshop on the weekend. Maybe I should go back and buy it...
I read Ethan Frome in High School, and I genuinely thought it was a satire on people blindly following convention.
Why did Ethan marry Zeena in the first place?
Would whatever hardship and scandal associated with Divorce be worse than attempted suicide?
Etc.
I'll have to read it again sometime in my life.
I'm another fan of The House of Mirth and reread it every 2-3 years. Agree about the aspect of perfection--like a Greek Tragedy. My paperback's introduction quotes Wharton "that a frivolous society can acquire significance through what its frivolity destroys."
In need of some comfort reading now, so I've started False Value - the eighth Rivers of London novel by Ben Aaronovitch. Peter Grant has got a job doing security at a computer company which I suspect is based heavily on Google (and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).
Still working on T Kingfisher's books, but have just discovered that Barbara Hambly is still writing. I haven't read anything by her in years, and I didn't finish some series of hers i'd started. Looking forward to switching over to her once I finish T Kingfisher.
NicoleMR - I liked the Benjamin January story of Barbara Hambly's that I found recently (sort of topical, too, as it was set during "yellow fever season" in New Orleans).
I read a few Edith Whartons in university but can't remember much about them. I read My Antonia, too, which I do remember liking.
Today I made a start on Kate Atkinson's Big Sky, fortunately purchased before All This started happening. I had planned to save it up for later, as I've been running through the Jackson Brodie series relatively quickly, but I need a pick-me-up.
For a laugh I've been reading a series that begins with "Pemberly - Mr Darcy's Dragon". Yes, it's "Pride and Prejudice" with added wyrms. As always, for me, the funniest bits are when the author doesn't get the vocabulary right. Somehow I don't think Austen would have had Darcy saying, "Bloody hell," a friend saying he has, "bollocks for brains," or another calling him, "Darce"!
Back to non-fiction for me - Francis Pryor's Flag Fen: life and death of a prehistoric landscape. I think I'd rather be thinking about Bronze Age Fenland at the moment, now I'm stuck at home like everyone else.
all that remains: a life in death by the incredible Sue Black. I started it at Christmas and have been reading each chapter as a stand-alone read. There is so much in it - science, history, personal reflection. Some chapters, such as the chapter on her work identifying bodies in Kosovo I read in horrified fascination. I think I would have been overwhelmed had I read it as a continuous read.
I really enjoyed the Flag Fen book, so I've gone straight on to more archaeology with Sutton Hoo and its Landscape: the context of monuments by Tom Williamson. It's a bit more technical than Francis Pryor's book, but equally fascinating - and now I want to go to the Fens and Suffolk, of course!
I have read the first in the Barbara Hambly "Northlands" series, Dragonsbane, and am going to start the second, Dragonshadow.
I loved Dragonsbane, but I think she should have stopped there. The subsequent books in that series (IMHO) lose it... I haven't touched any of her Windrose novellas out of a desire not to revisit that disappointment!
I'm re-reading comfort books as well, as so many people are -- in this case Catherine Fox's Lindchester Trilogy, three of my all-time favourite books which I only discovered because of the Ship's book club. I'd probably be re-reading them now for comfort anyway, but the specific trigger in this case is that she has started posting new Lindchester stories on her blog, and I want to refresh my memory of the old characters before I start reading the new stories. Very interested to see how the clergy and people of Lindchester are going to weather the storms of 2020!!
Just finished Paul Cornell's London falling. It's only taken me seven years of starting, stopping, starting again...
Well, I've finally finished, thanks only to the lockdown. I assume he noticed that Ben Aaronovitch, Kate Griffin, and the rest were doing nicely out of London-based urban fantasy and thought he'd get in on the act but didn't really have anything interesting, or indeed coherent, to say...
Just discovered a new (well, new to me) Scottish writer of historical mysteries, Lexie Conyngham. She has written three series, one set in Viking-age Orkney, another in early nineteenth-century Scotland and a third in mid-nineteenth-century Ballater (Aberdeenshire). Haven't tried the second series, but the first and third are very good - well-realised historical settings, good characterisation. The pace of the stories is rather leisurely, so not likely to appeal to someone who likes thriller-type mysteries, but I'm enjoying them. NEQ, she must be one of your local authors - she seems to know north-east Scotland very well.
Just discovered a new (well, new to me) Scottish writer of historical mysteries, Lexie Conyngham. She has written three series, one set in Viking-age Orkney, another in early nineteenth-century Scotland and a third in mid-nineteenth-century Ballater (Aberdeenshire). Haven't tried the second series, but the first and third are very good - well-realised historical settings, good characterisation. The pace of the stories is rather leisurely, so not likely to appeal to someone who likes thriller-type mysteries, but I'm enjoying them. NEQ, she must be one of your local authors - she seems to know north-east Scotland very well.
As a teenager I read the Orkneyinga Saga, and led to my life-long affection for the islands, as well as to studying Old Norse in university. (I've even crawled into Maes Howe!). I've read some George Mackay Brown, and even got to have a conversation with him when I was doing some folk research in Kirkwall. He was living on Birsay, I think. I know that he wasn't on Mainland when I called him. He was quite generous with his time. I must look up Lexie Conyngham. Sounds right up my alley. Thank you for that.
Library is closed so from my own shelves I picked Rose Macaulay's Letters to a Friend 1950-52, taking it slowly to make it last. Coincidentally she has just missed regular church-going and all Easter celebrations because of being confined to her flat, and mostly her bed, with undulant fever (now better known as brucellosis). Over 8 weeks before she was rid of it.
After hearing what The Tudors was like, I avoided dramatizations of that period in general. After several recommendations on this thread, however, I recently got the Wolf Hall Trilogy and became an immediate fan.
My quibbles are that some spots (at least if you already have some historical familiarity) are exposition-heavy, and Cromwell recalling already-described events (though that is what real people do) may annoy people who want more streamlined narratives. The scope, imagery, and character dissection, however, are beyond argument (except by one negative critic cited on Wikipedia, who found the first novel tedious and boring).
Especially effective was the concept that:
Cromwell took advantage of an opportunity to destroy several people who had caused or approved of Wolsey's destruction.
Am now reading The Mirror & The Light and have binge-watched the miniseries based on the first two novels; the latter (though I have small quibbles there as well) will bear repeated watching.
I’m reading “The Brave Men of Eyam: a tale of the great plague year” by Edward Hoare, which my grandfather was given as a Sunday School prize in 1909 (he would have been about 14 then I think).
Finally in the right mental space to read fiction, I picked up In the Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard. It's a loose re-telling of Beauty and the Beast where the Beast is a dragon living in a palace left behind by aliens who have polluted the planet. What I hadn't realised was it is also about all the viruses they left behind, and the dragon's efforts to heal the humans who come to her. It took me a while to get into, but I was totally gripped by the end.
Finally in the right mental space to read fiction, I picked up In the Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard. It's a loose re-telling of Beauty and the Beast where the Beast is a dragon living in a palace left behind by aliens who have polluted the planet. What I hadn't realised was it is also about all the viruses they left behind, and the dragon's efforts to heal the humans who come to her. It took me a while to get into, but I was totally gripped by the end.
Yes, read this last month, very interesting. I wish there had been more.
Lamb Chopped - Aliette de Bodard has also written a loosely linked series which is about a Vietnamese space Empire - the Xuya series. Books are On a Red Station, Drifting, The Citadel of Weeping Pearls and The Tea Master and the Detective. The Tea Master is a brilliant re-working of a Sherlock Holmes story, with an eccentric scholar as Holmes and an ex-warship AI with PTSD as Watson.
She also has lots of Vietnamese characters in her Chronicles of the Fallen series, which is set in a devastated Paris run by Fallen Angels, with a whole Vietnamese dragon kingdom under the River Seine!
Getting into "The Photograph" by Penelope Lively. Well-written and intriguing, it follows Glyn, who delves into a rarely-opened cupboard and comes across a photo of his deceased wife, apparently holding hands with her brother-in-law. This leads him to suspect they had an affair, especially as it has an attached note which appears to confirm the fact. His world, and that of other members of the family, falls apart as he seeks to find out more.
Lamb Chopped - Aliette de Bodard has also written a loosely linked series which is about a Vietnamese space Empire - the Xuya series. Books are On a Red Station, Drifting, The Citadel of Weeping Pearls and The Tea Master and the Detective. The Tea Master is a brilliant re-working of a Sherlock Holmes story, with an eccentric scholar as Holmes and an ex-warship AI with PTSD as Watson.
She also has lots of Vietnamese characters in her Chronicles of the Fallen series, which is set in a devastated Paris run by Fallen Angels, with a whole Vietnamese dragon kingdom under the River Seine!
Lamb Chopped - Aliette de Bodard has also written a loosely linked series which is about a Vietnamese space Empire - the Xuya series. Books are On a Red Station, Drifting, The Citadel of Weeping Pearls and The Tea Master and the Detective. The Tea Master is a brilliant re-working of a Sherlock Holmes story, with an eccentric scholar as Holmes and an ex-warship AI with PTSD as Watson.
She also has lots of Vietnamese characters in her Chronicles of the Fallen series, which is set in a devastated Paris run by Fallen Angels, with a whole Vietnamese dragon kingdom under the River Seine!
According to a well-known online retailer, The tea master and the detective is 96 pages long and retails for £3.49 as an e-book or £7.99 for hard copy. This doesn't strike me as terribly good value?
I loved Dragonsbane, but I think she should have stopped there. The subsequent books in that series (IMHO) lose it... I haven't touched any of her Windrose novellas out of a desire not to revisit that disappointment!
I read the Windrose things, and they're, well, not great. They're OK for an afternoon's mindless time-passing when you're feeling ill and can't concentrate on much, though. I had a similar experience with her Sun Cross books - I thought the first was rather good, but the second (with Nazis) was not. But I don't think I've come across any of her stuff for the past couple of decades.
Lamb Chopped - Aliette de Bodard has also written a loosely linked series which is about a Vietnamese space Empire - the Xuya series. Books are On a Red Station, Drifting, The Citadel of Weeping Pearls and The Tea Master and the Detective. The Tea Master is a brilliant re-working of a Sherlock Holmes story, with an eccentric scholar as Holmes and an ex-warship AI with PTSD as Watson.
She also has lots of Vietnamese characters in her Chronicles of the Fallen series, which is set in a devastated Paris run by Fallen Angels, with a whole Vietnamese dragon kingdom under the River Seine!
According to a well-known online retailer, The tea master and the detective is 96 pages long and retails for £3.49 as an e-book or £7.99 for hard copy. This doesn't strike me as terribly good value?
It's an excellent yarn, which is how I measure value. One of her best.
The first SunCross book I thought had real potential, but I agree entirely that the second was disappointing.
I think my attraction to both the Dragonsbane and The rainbow abyss was the potential they had for the "I'm just normal not having to worry about the end of the world yada yada"... Not sure if that makes sense?
(And my introduction to Windrose was through Stranger at the wedding=Sorcerer's ward, so somewhat similar!)
Thanks to this thread today I bought and read, "In The Vanishers' Palace". It was excellent! I'd never heard of the author before, but I want to read more of her now.
She was a guest of honour at Mancunicon a couple of years ago, and I also got to meet her at the Kaffeeklatch (a small group of fans get to sit around a table with the author of their choice and chat for an hour, either with coffee or, if in the bar, as a Literary Beer).
I like Aliette de Bodard's other work - The tea master and the detective is one of my favourites - but I couldn't get into her Chronicles of the Fallen series.
Zen Cho (Sorcerer to the Crown; The True Queen) is another good fantasy author, though she's Malaysian, based in the UK. I'm looking forward to her next book which is due out in June (hopefully we'll be out of lockdown by then, but I'm not holding my breath).
Comments
If you missed it at the time, you may enjoy this discussion of Once Upon a River, which was our December Book Club selection here in Heaven.
It's a graphic novel about the floods in a Yorkshire town, and the management of the grouse moors that is causing the flooding - and also takes in the Bronte sisters, environmental activism, the RSPB prosecuting gamekeepers who are killing hen harriers, and the Zone Rouge - the battlefields of the First World War which are still dangerously contaminated.
It puts the environmental case very clearly.
Going to be reading a lot for the next two weeks.
Wharton is definitely one of my very favorites, too. "The House of Mirth," is the saddest book I've ever read, but I still read it over and over, it's just so perfect. I recommended, "Ethan Frome" for my book club last year and they all hated it, neither did they want to listen to my heart felt defense of Zeena.
I just re-read, "My Antonia," by Willa Cather, another favorite of mine, I think the turn of the last century must be a good period for me. I love E. M. Forster, too.
This is proof that Love really is the only thing that can transform Hate. I have to go blow my nose...yeah, I'm crying.
It occurs to me that I haven’t read anything properly non-fiction in a while. I may dust off Michael Moorcock from the shelves as it’s a number of years since I read any of his stuff.
Re-reading A Room with a View at the moment, actually. Watched the movie as well - I had tried to download it for a long flight back in February, but I found out on the plane that it hadn't downloaded properly, so ended up watching it after the fact. It had been a while since I'd seen the movie - very faithful to the book. Funny to think the movie is 35 years old though - everyone looks much younger...
I share your admiration for House of Mirth but I think once was enough for me. I saw a copy of My Antonia in our local second-hand bookshop on the weekend. Maybe I should go back and buy it...
Why did Ethan marry Zeena in the first place?
I'll have to read it again sometime in my life.
I'm another fan of The House of Mirth and reread it every 2-3 years. Agree about the aspect of perfection--like a Greek Tragedy. My paperback's introduction quotes Wharton "that a frivolous society can acquire significance through what its frivolity destroys."
And you've just given me an idea for a new thread!
Today I made a start on Kate Atkinson's Big Sky, fortunately purchased before All This started happening. I had planned to save it up for later, as I've been running through the Jackson Brodie series relatively quickly, but I need a pick-me-up.
Eigon, I've never read any of her non-fantasy, maybe after I finish a bit of her fantasy I'll give it a try.
I loved Dragonsbane, but I think she should have stopped there. The subsequent books in that series (IMHO) lose it... I haven't touched any of her Windrose novellas out of a desire not to revisit that disappointment!
Well, I've finally finished, thanks only to the lockdown. I assume he noticed that Ben Aaronovitch, Kate Griffin, and the rest were doing nicely out of London-based urban fantasy and thought he'd get in on the act but didn't really have anything interesting, or indeed coherent, to say...
As a teenager I read the Orkneyinga Saga, and led to my life-long affection for the islands, as well as to studying Old Norse in university. (I've even crawled into Maes Howe!). I've read some George Mackay Brown, and even got to have a conversation with him when I was doing some folk research in Kirkwall. He was living on Birsay, I think. I know that he wasn't on Mainland when I called him. He was quite generous with his time. I must look up Lexie Conyngham. Sounds right up my alley. Thank you for that.
My quibbles are that some spots (at least if you already have some historical familiarity) are exposition-heavy, and Cromwell recalling already-described events (though that is what real people do) may annoy people who want more streamlined narratives. The scope, imagery, and character dissection, however, are beyond argument (except by one negative critic cited on Wikipedia, who found the first novel tedious and boring).
Especially effective was the concept that:
Yes, read this last month, very interesting. I wish there had been more.
She also has lots of Vietnamese characters in her Chronicles of the Fallen series, which is set in a devastated Paris run by Fallen Angels, with a whole Vietnamese dragon kingdom under the River Seine!
Yep, I have all of these!
Just a tad. Occasionally. Once in a while. For lack of a better interest, you understand.
According to a well-known online retailer, The tea master and the detective is 96 pages long and retails for £3.49 as an e-book or £7.99 for hard copy. This doesn't strike me as terribly good value?
I read the Windrose things, and they're, well, not great. They're OK for an afternoon's mindless time-passing when you're feeling ill and can't concentrate on much, though. I had a similar experience with her Sun Cross books - I thought the first was rather good, but the second (with Nazis) was not. But I don't think I've come across any of her stuff for the past couple of decades.
It's an excellent yarn, which is how I measure value. One of her best.
I think my attraction to both the Dragonsbane and The rainbow abyss was the potential they had for the "I'm just normal not having to worry about the end of the world yada yada"... Not sure if that makes sense?
(And my introduction to Windrose was through Stranger at the wedding=Sorcerer's ward, so somewhat similar!)
Zen Cho (Sorcerer to the Crown; The True Queen) is another good fantasy author, though she's Malaysian, based in the UK. I'm looking forward to her next book which is due out in June (hopefully we'll be out of lockdown by then, but I'm not holding my breath).