books

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.

Now starting The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale.

Finished reading A Memory Called Empire. First impression confirmed; it felt more like Leckie’s and Chambers’s second or third books than their firsts. That’s a strong recommendation.

Recently started reading A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. First impression is that it sits somewhere between Ann Leckie and Becky Chambers.

Finished reading How to Be an Antiracist. It feels like more of a primer than a deep dive, but it’s carefully structured and methodical, and I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it a lot. I hope I put some of what I read into action.

Now starting How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi.

Finished rereading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I enjoyed the story, but have mixed feelings about it as a piece of craft; parts felt particularly clunky.

Anyway, about to reread Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré.

Looking for a lighthearted swords-and-sorcery book along the lines of “Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser starring Gwendoline Christie and Maisie Williams”.

Finished reading The Orphan Tsunami of 1700, finally. I’d put it down for a while, but the subject and presentation are like catnip to me: a popular explanation of the 1700 tsunami with the meticulousness and rigor of an academic paper. (It’s available as a PDF for free if you’d like.)

The dude is reading, and delighting in, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.