Finished rereading The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis. A hard-boiled detective thriller set in imperial Rome, the book was quite good … except for first part, which painted the main character with such unpleasantness and misogyny that it was something of a slog. The “but with a heart of gold” was there, of course, but I wish the author hadn’t felt the need to play into that trope quite so hard. I’m considering reading more (of course it’s a series), but I don’t know if the next book resets the character back to his initial state; if so, I’d probably rather just read something else.
Finished reading A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage. In many ways, I wanted this to be deeper — any of the chapters could comfortably have been twice as long — though I’m not sure I wanted to read a book that was twice as long. The sins of brevity were largely atoned for by the appendix (“how can I taste something like the early forms of these beverages?”) and thorough bibliography (for further reading).
Finished rereading Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin. This was Le Guin’s last novel (and one of my favorites, along with Always Coming Home and (in third place) perhaps Tehanu). It’s clearly the work of an older Le Guin, comfortable writing not just as a woman (which only happened some time into her career) but as an older woman. The ending has brought me to tears both times I’ve read it.
Finished reading The City & the City by China Miéville. This was one where I enjoyed having my misapprehension corrected partway into the book; it’s a murder mystery set in a pair of overlapping/intertwined cities, with none of the overt supernatural of the other Miéville books I’ve read.
This makes me realize that some of the plot (including some characters’ actions), especially at the start of the book, felt like RPG sessions. The characters themselves are well-conceived and -drawn, but most of them seemed pretty blasé about the supernatural.