What Book Are You Reading XV - The Pile Keeps Growing!

[Kyriakos]

I am reading the diaries of Franz Kafka.
First time for the tenth time.

A nice description of a dream (2 October, 1911), where a family that Kafka knew, and had in reality only daughters, now has a son, who moreover wears a very peculiar pair of glasses because his eyes are not only myopic but deformed (the left one sticks out, almost entirely). But later on Kafka notes that his mother also wears glasses whose lenses aren't quite at the same distance from the face.
I suppose Kafka was the child in the dream, who is tied to females (instead of male), and tied to his mother too (instead of father). Very generally, that is.
I find it nice that one can be aware of so specific details from one's life, and something that took place more than 100 years ago. Here, for example, the reader learns that Kafka felt so tired the day after the dream, that he kept describing it to others, including his elderly supervisor at the insurance firm.

That said, I recall that, as reading, 1911 doesn't end easily at all in the diaries, because for something like 50 pages he will go on describing a rather bad group of jewish actors from the polish ghetto. 1912 was a far more interesting year (The Crisis, The Metamorphosis).

 

[Takhisis]

The Wild Irish: a novel of Elizabeth II & the pirate O'Malley (Robin Maxwell, 2003).
A dramatisation of the last stages of the Tudor iteration of the English conquests of Ireland, centred alternatingly around the figures of Gráinne O'Malley (Ní Mháille, really), Elizabeth of England, and her last favourite, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Show the futility and non-romanticness of warfare, especially when, for so many of the rulers at the time, it was engaged in for petty revenge, religious fanaticism, and/or personal monetary profit.

Two thumbs up!

Now shifted into a reread of Wilt (Tom Sharpe, 1976), a satire about a man who's accused of committing a murder which he and only he seems to know he never committed, and Oyfn Veg (Yiddish: on the Way, 2014), a songbook in this very particular German(ic) tongue.

 

[Traitorfish]

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf. The premise is as the title indicates, although it's very narrative-first approach, so it reads more a sort of literary exercise, an attempt to "tell a story" in a fairly literal sense, than a rigorous attempts Muslim perceptions and responses to the crusades. This is achieved in part by relying largely on Islamic sources (at least, in terms of what is directly acknowledged and quoted) which render the motivations and decision-making of the crusaders obscure and often inscrutable. Most popular texts on the Crusades, even when attempting to take an inclusive view of the period, will tend to default to a vaguely Western perspective insofar as "the Crusades" is an inherently Western framing and periodisation, so really committing to the premise does give a different perspective. However, the flip side of that is that jettison the Western perspective also means jettisoning that framing which can leave the narrative feeling a little structureless; the author accepts the chronological and geographic scope of "the crusades", but isn't clearly able to justify it. Ultimately it's an interesting and even now (thirty-nine years after publication) at least somewhat provocative approach, but doesn't really stand alone as a work of history.

Antkind by Charlie Kauffman. Very weird, very funny. I'm not good at describing fiction so I'll just quote the line that's had me laughing for three days: "And then something miraculous happened. He fell down the stairs." (I swear that it's hilarious in context.)

 

[Takhisis]

Now shifted into a reread of Wilt (Tom Sharpe, 1976)

Onto The Wilt Alternative (1979).

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf.

If you're interested in this kind of thing, Al jazeera's English channel did a documentary on this a couple of years ago.

btw… you're back?

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Ninth Metal by Benjamin Percy. Great Sci Fi story of the near future rooted in cool premise. It is supposed to the first of 3, but the story is resolved enough to be read as a stand alone.

 

[Josu]

Ended Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

Distopy: Check
Fantasy World: Check
Sci-Fi: Check

Magnificent background for a not such magnificent main plot. The plot is OK, but IMHO the author fails to give the same consistence as the background.

Starting Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes

 

[Takhisis]

The War on Freedom: How and why America was Attacked September 11, 2001 (Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, 2002).
Let's say ‘interesting’, since I haven't finished reading it.
Of course, later events have superseded it since then, e.g. the U.S. later invading Iraq.

 

[Traitorfish]

The War of the World by H. G. Wells. Picked from the Project Gutenberg library on a whim during a slow work day. It's surprisingly modern in its style, in that it reads like a very twentieth century book; if it wasn't for the technology described (lots of horse-drawn carts, very little electricity, etc.) you might assume it was written in the 1930s or '40s. Possibly I'm just falling from an unfair stereotype of nineteenth century literature as universally florid and stuffy. It's also very engaging- a classic for a reason, I suppose- and it's depiction of panic in the face of crisis feels very resonant in the current historical moment.

It's also amusing that Wells has to stop and, for instance, explain to the reader what a ray-gun is, because he had just made it up and so couldn't assume, like later science-fiction writers could, that the reader would be familiar. You forget that tropes as ubiquitous as that had to originate somewhere, and that it therefore follows there was a time when people didn't know about them.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The War on Freedom: How and why America was Attacked September 11, 2001 (Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, 2002).
Let's say ‘interesting’, since I haven't finished reading it.
Of course, later events have superseded it since then, e.g. the U.S. later invading Iraq.

Don't tell me how it ends!

 

[Takhisis]

What sort of person do you take me for? Spoilers? Never!

 

[EnglishEdward]

Yesterday I finished reading a book I picked up second hand:

Wyrd Sisters

by the late great

Terry Pratchett

which is very good for the first 90%.

Alas I was able to predict the last two plot twists at the end.

 

[Takhisis]

That's an excellent book.
What was it that you found so predictable?

 

[EnglishEdward]

I'd prefer not to give the plot away.

 

[Takhisis]

Spoiler :

There are spoiler tags, you know.

We also have a dedicated Discworld thread.

 

[Josu]

Ended Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes
3/5.
A satire wannabe that has just a few amusing parts

Starting Zeus y familia (Zeus and family) by Fermin Bocos

 

[Takhisis]

Just started with Ser una diosa: una mujer divina en la tierra by Ricardo Coler (2006). It's the account of the author's visit to Kathmandu where he visited a temple where a local woman is elected the living incarnation of a divinity.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Highlander: An Evening at Joe's, edited by Gillian Horvath. It's an anthology of short stories written by various cast and crew who worked on the Highlander TV series.

 

[Synobun]

February 2022

Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey (5/5)

Spoiler :

This is a pretty strong finale, with opportunity for a new story someday in the future. Bittersweet, but most finales are. Especially in a world posited like the one in the Expanse. I don't have any real complaints; this was a solid series from start to finish.

Thrawn by Timothy Zahn (4/5)

Spoiler :

Decent read, though I would have preferred a little more failure in Thrawn's skyrocket to grand admiraldom. As written, he's a bit of a Mary Sue. He has the aesthetic and tone for that to be mostly forgivable, but story-wise it would have been nice to see more struggle. Also, this book breadcrumbs a threat that is cheapened by the official sequel storyline, so there's little enthusiasm for me as a reader in seeing what that threat will end up being.

Noumenon by Marina J. Lostetter (2/5)

Spoiler :

This is unfortunately a very disappointing read. Noumenon reads more like a series of half-complete short stories than anything resembling a coherent, consistent novel. By the time you come close to maybe caring about a character, it skips ahead a generation and tackles a different storyline. These storylines progressively get worse and worse, and threads from previous generations are completely dismissed and never mentioned again. The writing and pacing is sloppy, and it really comes across as though it were never edited or revised—even though it was published by HarperCollins.

The book had promise, but it could not meet it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Got it today!

 

[Takhisis]

Thrawn by Timothy Zahn (4/5)

Spoiler :

Decent read, though I would have preferred a little more failure in Thrawn's skyrocket to grand admiraldom. As written, he's a bit of a Mary Sue. He has the aesthetic and tone for that to be mostly forgivable, but story-wise it would have been nice to see more struggle. Also, this book breadcrumbs a threat that is cheapened by the official sequel storyline, so there's little enthusiasm for me as a reader in seeing what that threat will end up being.

Didn't Thrawn get disowned altogether with the Disneyfication of Star Wrs?