I did finally get Dungeon Crawler Carl on Kindle but have not yet started it. Has anyone else read it?
I've heard good things about the John Dies at the End series.
Pondering doing a big reread of most of my C.S. Lewis stuff (maybe all? It's been a really long time since I read some of his literary scholarship, but I'm mainly thinking of his other stuff).
At the moment I'm reading a variety of books about Iron Age Wales as part of my research for a local history group - I'm the tame archaeologist, so I get to research the earliest period, while other people wrestle with the lists of names of medieval landowners. So I'm rather enjoying Toby Driver's The Hillforts of Iron Age Wales, and Ray Howell's Searching for the Silures.
As a break from that, I'm dipping into Spitalfields Life, a compilation of some of the best blog posts from the long running blog that interviews interesting people around the London area of Spitalfields, and I've just started The Point of the Needle: Why Sewing Matters by Barbara Burman.
I just finished A Deadly Education, the first book in Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy. Wow, it's dark, but very enjoyable. Sort of the anti-Harry Potter, about students in a hostile and dangerous magical school.
I had never heard of this book or the author before, but decided to give it a try. After reading the first book, getting the other two of the trilogy was a good decision. It took a while to get into the first book, but was very interesting after that. I just started the third book, and have been glad to see how the main character has grown over time. (The second book telegraphed the end, so I wasn't surprised!)
Currently reading There Are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak. Engaging tale set in ancient Mesopotamia along the Tigris and progressively more recent London on the Thames. Water is featured as the title suggests. Not a book which requires a lot of effort or steadfastness. I usually only read for about an hour before bed but now I'm looking for opportunities during the day.
I just finished A Deadly Education, the first book in Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy. Wow, it's dark, but very enjoyable.
I had never heard of this book or the author before, but decided to give it a try. After reading the first book, getting the other two of the trilogy was a good decision. It took a while to get into the first book, but was very interesting after that.
I've just recently read the trilogy (technically Dafling major's copy). It is dark - but it's sort of hopeful in the end.
It's also got a lot of interesting stuff to say on power and class and privilege. (There's a little bit where employing people to generate mana for you is effectively low-level malefic magic.)
It's an excellent trilogy. It's true, the first book is hard to get into--not that it isn't good, just that for me, the levels of "this is how it is"--"nope, I thought it was that way, but it's really this way"--"um, let me correct that again"--and so forth, were hard to keep track of. Very well done, but it took a re-read before I got it all.
It's good on so many levels, but one of the things that really spoke to me is how it describes what school is like for a neurodivergent person. Everyone else forms into little groups and cliques and there you are on the outside, with no idea of what the rules are or what you did wrong or what you can do to fix things. Not that I'm claiming El is actually meant to be neurodivergent: just that this is what school is like for anyone who doesn't fit.
I made a noise upthread about Spufford's new-ish 'Nonesuch'. I enjoyed it, though it is not really my thing (perhaps it's his go at a historical romantasy in a period - 1940 London - he enjoys?). A tangentially-Christian book, in a very odd way, with more sex in it than IVP would have liked and more religion in it than a secular reader might handle. Belonging nowhere, I kind-of liked it. I suspect (I am afraid) it might be up my younger daughter's street.
Now I am on to something he published 3 years ago - 'Cahokia Jazz'. This is what seems (to me) to be a meticulously planned-out alternative history in which a different strain of smallpox makes its way to the New World with the Jesuits, from which large numbers of Native Americans recover, and convert to RC. (This is covered in an appendix, but makes sense of the premise). Their presence then changes the whole way the Western USA develops.
The story takes place in a tri-racial city about where St Louis is in our world, during the Jazz Age of the 1920s, prohibition, gangsters and all. It's Raymond Chandler with heavily-researched RC Injuns, and I am really, really enjoying it. If you like Philip Marlowe - I know he's set a bit later - do have a look.
It's true, the first book is hard to get into--not that it isn't good, just that for me, the levels of "this is how it is"--"nope, I thought it was that way, but it's really this way"--"um, let me correct that again"--and so forth, were hard to keep track of.
El is a bit of an unreliable narrator - she tends to think worse of people (including herself) than they actually are; even as the system is even more horrific than she thinks it is.
I've just read A Keeper by Graham Norton for my real life book group. It was quite a good read, I thought - I confess I didn't expect it to be any good at all.
It's true, the first book is hard to get into--not that it isn't good, just that for me, the levels of "this is how it is"--"nope, I thought it was that way, but it's really this way"--"um, let me correct that again"--and so forth, were hard to keep track of.
El is a bit of an unreliable narrator - she tends to think worse of people (including herself) than they actually are; even as the system is even more horrific than she thinks it is.
Yes. She tells you the facts, she's not lying; but her interpretation of the facts turns out to be wrong maybe the first six or seven times as she tries to make sense of the world.
I made a noise upthread about Spufford's new-ish 'Nonesuch'. I enjoyed it, though it is not really my thing (perhaps it's his go at a historical romantasy in a period - 1940 London - he enjoys?). A tangentially-Christian book, in a very odd way, with more sex in it than IVP would have liked and more religion in it than a secular reader might handle. Belonging nowhere, I kind-of liked it.
I just finished Nonesuch a week or so ago and loved it, but a historical urban fantasy is about as specifically "my thing" as a book could be. I was afraid that, like Golden Hill, it might end on a note that would make me reconsider everything I liked about it, but instead it ended on a cliffhanger that very much made me want to read the sequel (which is not out yet).
I made a noise upthread about Spufford's new-ish 'Nonesuch'. I enjoyed it, though it is not really my thing (perhaps it's his go at a historical romantasy in a period - 1940 London - he enjoys?). A tangentially-Christian book, in a very odd way, with more sex in it than IVP would have liked and more religion in it than a secular reader might handle. Belonging nowhere, I kind-of liked it.
I just finished Nonesuch a week or so ago and loved it, but a historical urban fantasy is about as specifically "my thing" as a book could be. I was afraid that, like Golden Hill, it might end on a note that would make me reconsider everything I liked about it, but instead it ended on a cliffhanger that very much made me want to read the sequel (which is not out yet).
If historical urban fantasy is your thing, I think (I am still in the first half) you might like the other one I mentioned, 'Cahokia Jazz'. Which is my thing, in that I like Raymond Chandler and I like jazz - and, so far as I can tell, it's well done.
(I'm sorry to fanboy just one author here. It's like owning three albums, all by Queen (yes, that was me at 15). It's a mark of how little confidence I have in my own taste - really, how unaware I am of what I might like - because I am so poorly read.)
I needed serious comfort reading this week. I can recommend without reservation, the "Handbook For Railway Steam Locomotive Enginemen", published by the British Transport Commission in 1957.
I’m reading A N Wilson’s biography of CS Lewis - more critical than others, and interesting. Also rereading Joanne Harris’s “Chocolat”, a fairly recent Alexander McCall Smith, and still ploughing through the Hobbit very slowly in Welsh when I have the mental energy.
I'm making a very belated contribution to this thread, I have been reading but not remembering to post and saying aargh to myself for not doing so.
Most recently read was A Little Unwell by Kerry Jewell, novel about training as a doctor in Australia. One thing I found very helpful was an explanation of the medical hierarchy at the front of the book. It highlighted the challenges faced by staff as they work within the system which is well known to be overstretched. The frequent fliers, the demanding patients, those who don't want to follow instructions but at the same time, remain healthy and independent. I didn't find it a challenging or particularly sad read, until the very end, which was tragic and involved a colleague of the main character. I think that those who never need to interact with the system would benefit from reading it, especially politicians.
The second novel, was called The Secret Garden Club. Recently bereaved Hilary is shocked to discover that her husband has been a member of the garden club for quite some time, and she was completely unaware of it's existence and his participation. After her husband's sudden death Hilary is surprised when the members of the club arrive at her home and insist on helping her reinstate her recently destroyed garden. Hilary herself was the cause of the destruction as part of her response to her husband's death. It sounds a bit of a depressing read, but it was interesting seeing Hilary working through her feelings and her responses to the help and support she has been offered by her husband's friends. The book does have a happy resolution after misunderstandings and jealousy involving more than one party, and I enjoyed it very much.
I needed serious comfort reading this week. I can recommend without reservation, the "Handbook For Railway Steam Locomotive Enginemen", published by the British Transport Commission in 1957.
I've got the diesel one of those, which I think is from the early 60s. Lots of detail!
I've not skimmed through all the pages in this thread so forgive me if this one has come up before ...
I'm reading Ian McEwan's latest novel What We Can Know. It's set a century in the future after major wars and climate disaster. It's well crafted and particularly insightful about late 20th/early 21st century literary life, the protagonist's area of study.
I've not finished it yet so no spoilers please.
I'm also reading The First Whigs by J R Jones. All about the Exclusion Crisis.
As it was our local book festival this weekend I have a pile of books to read mainly by local authors that I know but I have Matt Haig's The Midnight Library as well.
I needed serious comfort reading this week. I can recommend without reservation, the "Handbook For Railway Steam Locomotive Enginemen", published by the British Transport Commission in 1957.
I've got the diesel one of those, which I think is from the early 60s. Lots of detail!
[Aside... You are right - it's very good. I think I got mine at Doncaster on a short course for grammar school pupils (or possibly a year or two later at Inverness - can't remember which). The steam version belongs to a friend who was given it when he worked as a volunteer fireman on the Tilbury line during a strike in the 1950s. It's stamped 'Shoeburyness' with what is probably the shedmaster's signature. Even today it is an exemplary piece of clear technical writing.]
I've just skim-read The Hidden Girl by Lucinda Riley. I couldn't get on with her Seven Sisters series but thought she deserved a second chance. She won't be getting a third.
I'm also comfort-rereading Mary Norton's Borrowers series and am about to start The Borrowers Afloat.
I remember my mum reading us The Borrowers when I was a child. I might even see if see can borrow it from the library after the school holidays. It's lovely to see so many children enjoying the library. One of the things I like about Turanga* - the Central Library in Christchurch is that they include children's books on the 'Recently Returned' shelves along with adult books. I don't often visit the children's floor but it reminds me how much pleasure I've had from reading and being read to since I was a child.
*Turanga is one of the gifts from the quakes. The name means "A foundation of knowledge and a place to stand."
I still read children's and YA along with all the other books I like. Some of the best modern writers are writing for children and young adults. It's easier to get published if you're a new author, because children won't read books by established authors unless they're good and every ten years or so you get a new generation of readers who want books that are relevant to them and don't care how famous the author is.
Some of them might read classics like The Borrowers, as well.
Lately I've found searching the shelves in the library has been disappointing. I've often come home with books I don't enjoy, so I've started using the computer listing of new books and reserving them from home. It's a bit more like a lucky dip as I'm relying on a short description of the books I choose.
The latest book chosen this way was Original Sin, The Genetics of Wrongdoing, the problem of Blame and the Future of Forgiveness by Kathryn Paige Harden.
Has anyone else read it?
"The author is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas where she directs the Behavior Genetics lab and co-directs the Texas twin Project" according to the biographical information on the book jacket.
I found this book challenging because it is not an area in which I have any recent expertise. When I was studying human development many years ago the emphasis then was more on how experiences affected a child's personality, whereas this author persuasively argues for the impact of genetic influences, or a combination of both,
I would be very interested in anyone else's opinion as I don't think I've done the author justice in my description. Meanwhile I'm going to re-read the last chapter before returning the book because I am passionately interested in the "future of forgiveness."
I am going to re-read it because when I first read it I was so caught up I zoomed through it too quickly and probably missed points the author was making. Also it's a long time since I've read any non fiction apart from historical books and papers.
Actually I might try to order it from a local bookshop as I have some book tokens, but I noted that it cost 22 British pounds and I hate to think how much it would cost in NZ dollars.
The latest book chosen this way was Original Sin, The Genetics of Wrongdoing, the problem of Blame and the Future of Forgiveness by Kathryn Paige Harden.
[snip]
I would be very interested in anyone else's opinion as I don't think I've done the author justice in my description. Meanwhile I'm going to re-read the last chapter before returning the book because I am passionately interested in the "future of forgiveness."
Okay, just finished it.
You're right, the last part, the bit about forgiveness is the best part of the book. Really, I wish she could have expanded that section a great deal more--it feels like a lick and an promise, but the promise never gets kept. There's got to be more out there--I remember a friend of mine who was looking into various forms of reparative justice in her work in Canada, and the same sort of focus is found in other places as well. An overview would have been very helpful.
As for what came earlier--well, I am used to reading science, even scientific studies, and I was rather disappointed. Not by the fact that this was pop science--I mean, if that's what you set out to write, that's fine, just do it well. But I didn't feel like she did it as well as she could have.
The basic scientific concepts are explained decently, and that's good--though I could have hoped for more of an explanation on why variation in the genome is a good thing, as it provides more chances for organisms to reproduce and survive successfully in a great range of environments. The downside of variation is that you get problems like Brunner's syndrome popping up in the luck of the genetic draw--and that's pretty unambiguously bad, both for the carrier and for the people around him. I think this could have been explained more clearly, though--I'm kind of filling in the blanks myself from what I already know about genetics and evolution.
And then the final thing, which I don't even know how to address. She's organized the book as a set of comparisons with Christianity--by which she means the evangelical Christianity of her rather abusive childhood--and then she goes out of her way to cherry pick horrible quotes from Augustine and Jonathan Edwards, completely ignoring the facts that a) Christianity includes a great deal more than American evangelicalism of a particularly abusive type, St. A and JE.--I mean, the whole non-Augustinian branches of the church don't even exist for her, which would be fine if she weren't continually referring to the "evils of Christianity" as a whole when she means a very particular and rather fucked-up version of it. b) she completely ignores the fact that most world religions agree with Christianity on the points she's castigating it on, particularly the other Abrahamic faiths, which barely get a mention; c) she quotes people like Milton and Nietzche as examples of what Christianity teaches. Enough said? Maybe not. Milton was not an orthodox Christian, and as for Nietzsche...
I really, really, really wish she hadn't done this, as it brings down the value of the book for me--if she can be that sloppy about a subject I know well, it makes me concerned about what she's doing in areas I know less well. Plus it's just tiring.
That's really all I want to say about that. I'd be glad to take up the subject of forgiveness and alternatives to severe punishment if anybody else wanted to, possibly drawing on other sources than just this book, however--because there just isn't enough there IMHO.
I'm working my way through 'Babylon: Mother of Cities' by Lloyd Llwellyn-Jones. I haven't got very far into it yet but it's very good.
Bringing the conversation back down to my usual level, I recently read 'Murder in Moonlit Square' by Paul Waters, a murder mystery set in modern-day India and featuring an unlikely detective duo: a young Indian hotelier and a semi-retired Irish nun. Very well-written, although the mystery will not be too challenging for anyone who's read Christie.
I finished Rats and Gargoyles, which had a very satisfying ending. Now I have started The Cloisters by Katy Hayes, which is suspense, possibly horror, don't know yet if it's got supernatural elements or not.
Comments
I've heard good things about the John Dies at the End series.
Pondering doing a big reread of most of my C.S. Lewis stuff (maybe all? It's been a really long time since I read some of his literary scholarship, but I'm mainly thinking of his other stuff).
I think she may have trouble seeing in the dark, though. “Do not go, Gentle, into that good night.” 😛
At the moment I'm reading a variety of books about Iron Age Wales as part of my research for a local history group - I'm the tame archaeologist, so I get to research the earliest period, while other people wrestle with the lists of names of medieval landowners. So I'm rather enjoying Toby Driver's The Hillforts of Iron Age Wales, and Ray Howell's Searching for the Silures.
As a break from that, I'm dipping into Spitalfields Life, a compilation of some of the best blog posts from the long running blog that interviews interesting people around the London area of Spitalfields, and I've just started The Point of the Needle: Why Sewing Matters by Barbara Burman.
I had never heard of this book or the author before, but decided to give it a try. After reading the first book, getting the other two of the trilogy was a good decision. It took a while to get into the first book, but was very interesting after that. I just started the third book, and have been glad to see how the main character has grown over time. (The second book telegraphed the end, so I wasn't surprised!)
Caissa is about 100 pages in an we are reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl graphic novel for graphic novel book club next week.
It's also got a lot of interesting stuff to say on power and class and privilege. (There's a little bit where employing people to generate mana for you is effectively low-level malefic magic.)
Now I am on to something he published 3 years ago - 'Cahokia Jazz'. This is what seems (to me) to be a meticulously planned-out alternative history in which a different strain of smallpox makes its way to the New World with the Jesuits, from which large numbers of Native Americans recover, and convert to RC. (This is covered in an appendix, but makes sense of the premise). Their presence then changes the whole way the Western USA develops.
The story takes place in a tri-racial city about where St Louis is in our world, during the Jazz Age of the 1920s, prohibition, gangsters and all. It's Raymond Chandler with heavily-researched RC Injuns, and I am really, really enjoying it. If you like Philip Marlowe - I know he's set a bit later - do have a look.
Yes. She tells you the facts, she's not lying; but her interpretation of the facts turns out to be wrong maybe the first six or seven times as she tries to make sense of the world.
I just finished Nonesuch a week or so ago and loved it, but a historical urban fantasy is about as specifically "my thing" as a book could be. I was afraid that, like Golden Hill, it might end on a note that would make me reconsider everything I liked about it, but instead it ended on a cliffhanger that very much made me want to read the sequel (which is not out yet).
If historical urban fantasy is your thing, I think (I am still in the first half) you might like the other one I mentioned, 'Cahokia Jazz'. Which is my thing, in that I like Raymond Chandler and I like jazz - and, so far as I can tell, it's well done.
(I'm sorry to fanboy just one author here. It's like owning three albums, all by Queen (yes, that was me at 15). It's a mark of how little confidence I have in my own taste - really, how unaware I am of what I might like - because I am so poorly read.)
Most recently read was A Little Unwell by Kerry Jewell, novel about training as a doctor in Australia. One thing I found very helpful was an explanation of the medical hierarchy at the front of the book. It highlighted the challenges faced by staff as they work within the system which is well known to be overstretched. The frequent fliers, the demanding patients, those who don't want to follow instructions but at the same time, remain healthy and independent. I didn't find it a challenging or particularly sad read, until the very end, which was tragic and involved a colleague of the main character. I think that those who never need to interact with the system would benefit from reading it, especially politicians.
The second novel, was called The Secret Garden Club. Recently bereaved Hilary is shocked to discover that her husband has been a member of the garden club for quite some time, and she was completely unaware of it's existence and his participation. After her husband's sudden death Hilary is surprised when the members of the club arrive at her home and insist on helping her reinstate her recently destroyed garden. Hilary herself was the cause of the destruction as part of her response to her husband's death. It sounds a bit of a depressing read, but it was interesting seeing Hilary working through her feelings and her responses to the help and support she has been offered by her husband's friends. The book does have a happy resolution after misunderstandings and jealousy involving more than one party, and I enjoyed it very much.
I've got the diesel one of those, which I think is from the early 60s. Lots of detail!
I'm reading Ian McEwan's latest novel What We Can Know. It's set a century in the future after major wars and climate disaster. It's well crafted and particularly insightful about late 20th/early 21st century literary life, the protagonist's area of study.
I've not finished it yet so no spoilers please.
I'm also reading The First Whigs by J R Jones. All about the Exclusion Crisis.
[Aside... You are right - it's very good. I think I got mine at Doncaster on a short course for grammar school pupils (or possibly a year or two later at Inverness - can't remember which). The steam version belongs to a friend who was given it when he worked as a volunteer fireman on the Tilbury line during a strike in the 1950s. It's stamped 'Shoeburyness' with what is probably the shedmaster's signature. Even today it is an exemplary piece of clear technical writing.]
I'm also comfort-rereading Mary Norton's Borrowers series and am about to start The Borrowers Afloat.
*Turanga is one of the gifts from the quakes. The name means "A foundation of knowledge and a place to stand."
Some of them might read classics like The Borrowers, as well.
The latest book chosen this way was Original Sin, The Genetics of Wrongdoing, the problem of Blame and the Future of Forgiveness by Kathryn Paige Harden.
Has anyone else read it?
"The author is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas where she directs the Behavior Genetics lab and co-directs the Texas twin Project" according to the biographical information on the book jacket.
I found this book challenging because it is not an area in which I have any recent expertise. When I was studying human development many years ago the emphasis then was more on how experiences affected a child's personality, whereas this author persuasively argues for the impact of genetic influences, or a combination of both,
I would be very interested in anyone else's opinion as I don't think I've done the author justice in my description. Meanwhile I'm going to re-read the last chapter before returning the book because I am passionately interested in the "future of forgiveness."
I am going to re-read it because when I first read it I was so caught up I zoomed through it too quickly and probably missed points the author was making. Also it's a long time since I've read any non fiction apart from historical books and papers.
Actually I might try to order it from a local bookshop as I have some book tokens, but I noted that it cost 22 British pounds and I hate to think how much it would cost in NZ dollars.
Okay, just finished it.
You're right, the last part, the bit about forgiveness is the best part of the book. Really, I wish she could have expanded that section a great deal more--it feels like a lick and an promise, but the promise never gets kept. There's got to be more out there--I remember a friend of mine who was looking into various forms of reparative justice in her work in Canada, and the same sort of focus is found in other places as well. An overview would have been very helpful.
As for what came earlier--well, I am used to reading science, even scientific studies, and I was rather disappointed. Not by the fact that this was pop science--I mean, if that's what you set out to write, that's fine, just do it well. But I didn't feel like she did it as well as she could have.
The basic scientific concepts are explained decently, and that's good--though I could have hoped for more of an explanation on why variation in the genome is a good thing, as it provides more chances for organisms to reproduce and survive successfully in a great range of environments. The downside of variation is that you get problems like Brunner's syndrome popping up in the luck of the genetic draw--and that's pretty unambiguously bad, both for the carrier and for the people around him. I think this could have been explained more clearly, though--I'm kind of filling in the blanks myself from what I already know about genetics and evolution.
And then the final thing, which I don't even know how to address. She's organized the book as a set of comparisons with Christianity--by which she means the evangelical Christianity of her rather abusive childhood--and then she goes out of her way to cherry pick horrible quotes from Augustine and Jonathan Edwards, completely ignoring the facts that a) Christianity includes a great deal more than American evangelicalism of a particularly abusive type, St. A and JE.--I mean, the whole non-Augustinian branches of the church don't even exist for her, which would be fine if she weren't continually referring to the "evils of Christianity" as a whole when she means a very particular and rather fucked-up version of it. b) she completely ignores the fact that most world religions agree with Christianity on the points she's castigating it on, particularly the other Abrahamic faiths, which barely get a mention; c) she quotes people like Milton and Nietzche as examples of what Christianity teaches. Enough said? Maybe not. Milton was not an orthodox Christian, and as for Nietzsche...
I really, really, really wish she hadn't done this, as it brings down the value of the book for me--if she can be that sloppy about a subject I know well, it makes me concerned about what she's doing in areas I know less well. Plus it's just tiring.
That's really all I want to say about that. I'd be glad to take up the subject of forgiveness and alternatives to severe punishment if anybody else wanted to, possibly drawing on other sources than just this book, however--because there just isn't enough there IMHO.
Bringing the conversation back down to my usual level, I recently read 'Murder in Moonlit Square' by Paul Waters, a murder mystery set in modern-day India and featuring an unlikely detective duo: a young Indian hotelier and a semi-retired Irish nun. Very well-written, although the mystery will not be too challenging for anyone who's read Christie.