Picked up my new pair of glasses, and then went for a short walk with Mom.

Our new heat pump installation was finished today, replacing the old gas furnace that the repair person wouldn’t even look at when he came out about 20 months ago. It’s so much more quiet.

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.

We had my niece over for a couple days. She was a good guest.

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).

Reaching the end of several days of heat and smoke; ready to open the house again.

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.

Walked about 16 miles today, from the west end of the 520 bridge, across the lake and up the east side to Kenmore. Not my favorite walk, but glad I did 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.

Tonight’s patio victory: grilled corn on the cob, to celebrate the dude getting his braces off.

The juncos have left the nest.

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.

Really, Lovecraft Country just makes me want to run a Harlem Unbound game of Call of Cthulhu.

Finished reading Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, described as a novel but really a set of closely-connected short stories. As reviewers have said, the racism is far more scary than the horror, though the second half of the book does bring nice bits of the Lovecraftian “sure, magic is evil, but maaayyybe just this once?”.

Watched Die Hard with the dude this weekend. He thought it was really good even though it had a ridiculous premise.