Finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Short and unsettling and very, very good.
At the moment, this is what my notional stack of books looks like:
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
- A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine
- The Will to Battle (but do I first need to reread the previous two books?) by Ada Palmer
- The Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson
- The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford
Interspersed in there are Web Typography by Richard Ritter, and various RPG books.
(Really, though, anything past the second is purely speculative, and even the first two aren’t locked down yet.)
Finished reading Cuisine & Empire by Rachel Laudan, a Christmas gift. Fascinating look at how ingredients, cooking techniques, and culinary philosophies have changed and spread over the millennia.
Got sucked into Ancillary Justice, and then reread Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy in short order. A couple thoughts:
- Of course the books are a criticism of imperialism and oppression, and a subversion of gender normativity. But Leckie also writes what strike me as neuro-atypical characters as well (Breq here, but possibly also one of the main characters in The Raven Tower).
- By the end of the series, I had grown tired of Breq’s near-omnicompetence.
Anyway, I finally got back to The End of Policing last night.
For years I’ve only read one book at a time. I’ve recently started alternating between two — one important, one fun. So, also currently rereading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.