Fall Book Report: 36 books

This being the New Year, it is time to report on the reading for the fall.  I read a total of 36 books (and part of The Gulag Archipelago, as I posted about before).  Eight of the books were read for the purpose of my Recess blog and I will not repeat what I wrote there about them.  That leaves 28 to discuss.

Six of the remaining books were nonfiction.  With great perseverance, I finished Hobbes’s Leviathan.  While not exactly a page-turner, the book was definitely interesting and Hobbes has a lovely gift with language.  He knew the horrors of civil war and as a result had an almost pathological desire to prop up the powers that be.  In the present political climate, the ideas present definite food for thought.  The latter part of the book with the long exegesis of the divine right of kings felt like tough sledding, but I persevered to the end.

Several years ago when T. and I went to London, we visited the British Library.  At the time, they had an exhibit on science fiction.  I bought the book of the exhibition, Out of This World:  Science Fiction, But Not As You Know It, by Mike Ashley.  I just now got around to reading it.  Of course, I now have more books on my list of books to read eventually.  The book includes great illustrations and covers many topics from future worlds to time travel to aliens of all description.  It would be a good coffee table book for a fan.

One of the perks of sending a kid to college is the first right of refusal on all books.  T.’s introductory world history text Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, Volume I by Pollard, Rosenberg, Tignor, et al, proved engaging.  Because of my age, my education was not so good on the global front, so I was fascinated by the opportunity to fill some gaps.  Better late than never, I suppose.

Syd, when he was still a student, read Sundiata, An Epic of Old Mali by D.T. Niane.  I filed it under nonfiction, because it is history, but it is also art.  Perhaps the best way to think of it is as a source document.  Epic seems to be a fairly consistent genre across cultures.  Our hero overcame the usual obstacles with the usual displays of prowess and awesomeness.  The value, for me, was the particular lens of the culture.  I liked the experience of a different set of assumptions about how things are done.  And, in a completely childish way, I very much enjoyed that some of the warriors were called sofas, so I got to imagine the attack of the furniture.

Someone gave one of us Rod Evans’s little book Sorry, Wrong Answer.  It was a mildly entertaining trivia book, but nothing special.

I re-read Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez.  I highly recommend it as a useful tool for thinking about money.  I have financial PTSD, which is only a slight exaggeration.  This book helps.

I read two graphic novels, volumes 2 and 3 of March by John Lewis.  The man is a hero and a treasure.  May the march continue until we have real freedom and equality in our country.

I read six kid books, four of which were by Diana Wynne Jones:  Charmed Life, Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, and The Lives of Christopher Chant.  I liked them better as I went along.  It took me a little while to accustom myself to some of her ambiguous characters.  I will read more.

I always look forward to whatever Rick Riordan writes.  His latest Magnus Chase book, The Ship of the Dead, satisfied my need for adventure with well-crafted and very funny prose.  He can write as many books as he likes; I will read them all.

When Brent and I were in Spain a while back, I bought myself a book at the Thyssen Museum, Abecedario de Arte, by Carlos Reviejo and Ana Mareno Rebordinos.  I like to buy alphabet books in other languages and this one has lovely illustrations from fine art.  My Spanish is not fabulous, but was adequate enough for the task with the help of Google.  It turns out that art is full of birds, all of which have names that were not in my vocabulary.  (Museum exhibits are usually geared toward the average fourth grader, in my experience, and my Spanish copes reasonably well at that level!).  It’s a very pretty book and a worthy addition to my alphabet book collection.

Which brings me to fiction.  Of the fourteen books in this category, five were Kerry Greenwoods.  I love Phryne Fisher and so enjoyed The Castlemaine Murders, Queen of the Flowers, Death by Water, Murder in the Dark, and Murder on a Midsummer Night. 

I try not to buy more books.  I really do.  And then Louise Penny writes a new mystery and I surrender.  Glass Houses was another pleasant addition to her works.  I find murder mysteries to be the most soothing genre and hers in particular meet my needs for coziness and order and accounts of good food.

Dan Brown also wrote a book recently.  Origins is typical of his work.  I should have waited for the paperback.  The premise was even sketchier than usual and the trope of the beautiful female accomplice to Langdon’s escapades has worn thin for me.  He could have at least boned up on cladistics before propounding his odd evolutionary theory.  Not a keeper.

My mother used to love the works of Phyllis A. Whitney.  I have, over time, read lots of them because they were in the house and had print in them.  Sea Jade is a typical example of the gothic romance genre:  beautiful heroine in dire circumstances, two attractive men, one of whom must be the hero and one who must turn out to be the villain, and some kind of exotic twist, in this case an Asian wife.  I enjoyed it the way I enjoy certain foods of my childhood, not because they are good, but because they are nostalgic.  The premises and cultural assumptions are dated.  The prose is perfectly acceptable.  The plot was entirely predictable.  I got it from a Little Free Library in the neighborhood, read it, and sent it on to my mother, who was thrilled to be thought of and enjoyed the read.

Dorothy Gilman was a genius.  I adored all the Mrs. Pollifax books and A Nun in the Closet is one of the funniest books of all time.  So I was entirely willing to give the library a donation in exchange for Incident at Badamya.  It was well-crafted, as all her books are.  It’s a straight adventure story, set in Burma.  Two thumbs up.

Syd abandoned David Sedaris’s Holidays on Ice here when he moved out.  I find him hilarious in small doses and annoying thereafter, so the book was the perfect length.  It was appropriate reading for the Christmas season and I feel much better about my Dreaded Holiday Letter.

Free Lancers was a collection of three novellas by Orson Scott Card, David Drake, and Lois McMasters Bujold.  Only the third one was worth reading, but I had to read them all to find out.

I was excited to learn that Alan Moore had written a straight-up novel, Voice of the Fire.  It was amazing.  I don’t get to use the word very often, but it has the feel of a palimpsest.  The book is a series of semi-related stories all set in his home county.  They weave in and out of time.  The man’s language feeds my soul.

Samuel R. Delaney’s book Dhalgren stuck in my head.  I still am not sure whether I liked it or not.  A lot of the material is disturbing.  The world shifts even as you look at it.  The book has a deep commitment to language.  It’s just so very weird.

Finally, I read The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland.  I have not read any of Nicole Galland’s work before this, so I don’t know how it compares to her usual, but I have read all of Neal Stephenson’s novels (yes, even The Big U).  I liked this one better than the last few, but it’s not as good as my favorites (The Diamond Age, the novels of the Baroque cycle, and Cryptonomicon, in order).  I had a little trouble with suspension of disbelief when very smart people did very dumb things.

Final note:  I did accomplish the reading I set out to do in 2017.  Gold star for me!