books

Finished reading The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi. Several short murder mysteries linked by an explicit exploration of the form, the overarching story doesn’t play fair but nevertheless is clever and ends on a satisfying note.

I’m now in the rare-for-me situation of reading two books at once: The first gets me so mad that I can’t read it at bedtime, so I had to start a second.

Finished reading Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ) by Haruki Murakami. I’m not quite certain what I’ve read, and it’ll take me a bit to digest. There were parts I really loved and parts which let’s say I found problematic; I don’t know if the problematic parts are a Murakami theme or unique to this book.

Finished reading “The Walking Man” by Jiro Taniguchi (歩くひと by 谷口 ジロー). This manga is mostly vignettes of a man walking in a small city, maybe eight to ten pages each, often with a final page as he gets home. It’s very peaceful, essentially no story, just a mellow vibe as he encounters interesting people or things and returns to his life.

Finished reading Menewood by Nicola Griffith, which picks up where Hild left off. This was another great book, with through-lines of trauma, grief, and becoming true to oneself, and perhaps a secondary theme of disability. Like Hild, I will reread this at some point; I hope she’s able to write the next one in less than ten years.

The annual reading report.

Finished reading These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs. I almost put the book down early, when it repeatedly poked at a stylistic peeve of mine, but Jacobs’s writing stepped up just in time, and I enjoyed the rest of the book to the end.

Super-excited to learn that a little bookstore is going to open nearby, in a month or so.

Finished reading The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. A beautifully-written, incredibly-bleak story of a girl who escapes the famine in colonial Jamestown. What she finds is barely better, and the glow of light and hope at the very end didn’t do much to counter the darkness of the rest of the story.

I’m glad I read this, and I enjoyed it in some ways, and cannot recommend it wholeheartedly, unless you value how well words are put together more than what happens to the book’s only real character.

Meghan and I went to our great local bookstore to hear Nicola Griffith interviewed by Neal Stephenson.

The Return of the King, for all its various virtues, was the volume with most of the racist characterizations we think of as we reevaluate Tolkien — not just the Haradrim and Easterlings, but even some of his depictions of orcs cross the line. Important to be aware of flaws in a work, even (or especially) if you otherwise love it.

Finished rereading The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, including the appendices.

It turns out I haven’t read all the appendices, or had thoroughly forgotten some of them. I like to think that everybody should read them, but … well, they’re not part of the main story for a reason.

Finished rereading The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Another thing I’ve noticed on this reread is that my mental images of the locations are very different. Tolkien’s descriptions seem very clear, and I don’t know why or how I could ever have imagined things as I did in the past, and I don’t think my current images are influenced by the movies in any meaningful way. Curious!

Speaking of sagas, this is very much a book that wants to be read aloud.

Finished rereading The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, part one of The Lord of the Rings as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, for something like the twentieth time.

One thing that strikes me from this reading is how economical it is — seriously! — with the important exception of the poetry, which felt self-indulgent. Pay attention to how much happens in any given chapter, and how short that chapter is compared to how it would have been written by a modern author. Inner lives of the characters, and even much of the outer lives, are pared down, leaving us with the scope of an epic.