Finished reading The History of Jazz (3rd ed.) by Ted Gioia. This was kind of the flip side of A History of the World in Six Glasses: I wish it hadn’t been quite so long, but I was fascinated by every part of it, and wouldn’t cut much if anything. I now have a lot of listening to do.
Finished reading Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, followup to Wolf Hall. I very much enjoyed this. It feels like the political parts of A Song of Ice and Fire, but with a wry sense of humor, and without the fantasy elements (obviously) and glorified cruelty that became increasingly central to that series. (Or, rather, probably vice versa: That series clearly drew some of its inspiration from these historical events.)
Amusingly, the stylistic tic of Wolf Hall was transformed into a different tic which eliminated almost all pronoun ambiguity. It felt forced at the beginning, but it gradually won me over.
Finished reading Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. This was a charming story about two academics — the titular Wilde, junior and diligent and quite possibly neurodivergent, and a tenured professor, lazy and charming and (Wilde suspects) prone to falsifying his research. Seasoned with little bits of horror, but still quite fun and cozy.
Finished reading The Language of Power by Rosemary Kirstein. This is clearly not the end of the series, though it ends on an adequately-satisfying note, but it’s the most-recently published. (Kirstein is apparently continuing to write.) Less Le Guin–esque than the others, but still reminiscent. I’ve enjoyed all these books.
Finished reading The Lost Steersman by Rosemary Kirstein. This was a little more harrowing than the previous two, but (or thus?) a little more compelling.
These books are self-published, and could have used another pass from a copyeditor, but nothing that ruins the read.