What are you reading?

[Silky Gooseness]

And is it any good? I’m interested…

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Silky: What I read, I post sometimes in my Little Corner where you can read about, in the privacy of that forum. But I only do if worth mentioning. What are you reading you like to share?

[Pele Alarion]

I'm reading The Stranger/The Plague by Albert Camus. It puts me to sleep very nicely because I find his writing to be very dry and boring...

[Drífa]

I am not sure what to read these days. I am way behind the times when it comes to new authors. I am listening to, The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It was slow at first, and I was not too sure about the narrator, but things seem to be picking up, and I am enjoying it. There are two other books in this trilogy, The Kingkiller Chronicle. Has anyone read them, and is it worth listening to them?

Does anyone have an author to recommend?

[Saranna]

Rothfuss is amazing , and the second book I thought was as excellent as the first. Sadly he, like GRR Martin, is being slow to produce the third which I am anxious to read. There is a shorter book related to the trilogy, 'The slow regard of silent things' which is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read but may not be to everyone's taste for its minuteness of description.

[Drífa]

Oh, thanks, Saranna! I should have informed myself before I posted. It was recommended to me by a co-worker. Perhaps he meant the third book is the one you mentioned.

What is it with authors these days, eh? Do they take on too much (charity, podcasts, interactive role-playing, games, series, comic books, etc.)? I am still waiting for the fourth book in the Abarat series by Clive Barker. I was almost a young adult when I last read it.

[Silky Gooseness]

Gosh the book I’ve been waiting the longest for is Captal’s Tower by Melanie Rawn - the last book was out in 1997.

I just finished reading “Clytemnestra” by Costanza Casati - an excellent read in a market kinda oversaturated with myth retellings. If you liked Circe/Song of Achilles you’ll probably like it - the prose is smooth and beautiful, and Clytemnestra is very well realised as a character

[Drífa]

Oh my god, Sil, 1997?? That is incredible, eh? It was the same with the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. So, it's a waiting game and a reread for sure when it comes to one's favourite series. Something to look forward to, I guess, if they ever finish them.

I will look for Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. Thanks!

[Saranna]

Mikhail Bakhtin's 'The Dialogic Imagination' which is best described as a study of how the novel came to be and how it developed out of ancient world views and storytelling. It's heavy! But compelling, I can't manage more than 4-6 pages at a time but am totally engrossed in it. I've seen it described online as 'A novel by Mikhail Bakhtin' but don't read it if you are looking for fiction. Time consuming but worth every minute.

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

While I was on vacation, I read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, the same guy who wrote The Martian. Absolutely excellent book, couldn't put it down!

[Silky Gooseness]

@Drifa - I’m not sure it ever will be finished tbh, but the two existing books are pretty good stories in and of themselves thankfully!

@Saranna that sounds fascinating but mind bending - perhaps something I would consume more easily as a documentary

@Reikon Suchi-ru I keep hearing amazing things about this…

I have just been reading the Eli Monpress books about a thief-wizard who doesn’t use magic in the conventional way. Loads of fun.

[Saranna]

Between bouts of 4-5 Bakhtin pages I am reading Michael Crichton's 'Next' for light relief mingled with apocalyptic terror! What does anyone else think of it?

[AnsonLongbottom]

Currently listening to new LoTR recordings read by Andy Serkis. They're amazing! So much better than the originals by Rob Indris (?) which I found a bit boring. I hope he'll do the Silmarillion as well!

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I don't suppose anyone has ever read Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence? I just started it yesterday - another Oxford man who serves in WWI and is clearly a bit off his rocker, but amazing writing. I don't think people read it today but if anyone has I'd be curious as to their thoughts.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Mikhail Bakhtin's 'The Dialogic Imagination' which is best described as a study of how the novel came to be and how it developed out of ancient world views and storytelling. It's heavy! But compelling, I can't manage more than 4-6 pages at a time but am totally engrossed in it. I've seen it described online as 'A novel by Mikhail Bakhtin' but don't read it if you are looking for fiction. Time consuming but worth every minute.

Looking that up on Amazon now. Also this one:

I just finished reading “Clytemnestra” by Costanza Casati - an excellent read in a market kinda oversaturated with myth retellings.

[Saranna]

Now on 'The Anatomy of Bibliomania' by Holbrook Jackson. Almost reaching the end of Vol 2 (of 2) Maybe not to everyone's taste but as a bibliomaniac - or perhaps more accurately a bibliophile and retired librarian, it's a pleasurable read to me.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

I am reading a thick book on the history of West-Europe, 375AD - 800AD. Bought over a year ago, but considering all took place over the last ten months I hadn't much energy to take up what I was reading. But I am picking up as all of that tiredness has gone and my memory works perfectly.

[Drífa]

Has anyone read anything by N.K. Jemisin?

[Rivvy Elf]

@Drifa The Fifth Season is quite good.

Currently I'm reading Jin Ping Mei (The Golden Lotus). I love it.

[Drífa]

Thanks, Rivvy! I will check it out.

I listened to The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald today just for the heck of it. I enjoyed it very much,

[The Good Hunter]

I will second @Rivvy Elf's recommendation of Fifth Season. It's been a few years since I read it, but the dynamic use of second person POV is worth the price of admission.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

I just finished the Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelmsson, was quite nice.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

After several months on this site, and recent pressure from various quarters including the Dwarf, I have just purchased The Silmarillion on kindle. Will let you know what I think of it.

[Drífa]

Oh, wonderful! Mind you, I've heard a lot of people say that the Silmarillion is hard to digest in one gulp. Good luck with it.

I've been listening to the Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin on and off for a while. I am finding it hard to get into. But I won't give up. Maybe when the seasons change, and the long winter days stretch ahead, I will enjoy it more.

This week I came across an audiobook by Robert Silverberg called, Lord Valentine's Castle, sort of a science fantasy. I am getting a real kick out of it and it makes the time go by super fast, which I like.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Surprisingly, The Silmarillion is quite good. Unfortunately, as yet I've only got as far as the making of the Dwarves (it is curious that Eru speaks to Aulë - sound with no image, a bit biblical). I say this because if I had only read a little further I reckon I would have got the Hobbit's latest riddle!

Is it really good to have the time go by faster? In Catch 22 there is a character who spends his life staring at the ceiling cultivating boredom because it makes the time seem slower, which means he feels that he lives longer.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Got bored with The Silmarillion. It was good at first but now there are just too many Elves. So I've put it aside for a while and am reading Michael Crichton's 'Eaters of the Dead' which is a retelling of Beowulf - or at least draws heavily on it - with the story told by a 10th century Arab from Baghdad who gets sent on a mission to the Bulgars but ends up in Heorot. Great fun, and (so far) not an Elf in sight.

[Ephtariat]

@Chrysophylax Dives There's a very good 1999 film adaptation of that novel, it's titled "The 13th Warrior", and has Antonio Banderas playing the Arab.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

OOoh. Well, the movie was a bit not good, and tbh by the end the book was not so hot either. I went back to M.R. James ghost stories.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

[Saranna]

I am reading several books at once, thanks to a nasty virus that made me too unwell to do anything that involved standing up for very long, or thinking clearly enough to write. Most of the last three weeks were spent on the sofa, reading.

I am very much enjoying Adam Ncholson's 'The seabird's cry' which gives deep insight into the natures and lives of many seabird species. I am astonished by how much we now know about them.

About to follow that with 'Old Gold' which is a poetry collection by Ben Batten, a writer from Cornwall. I have enjoyed (and written reviews on Goodreads and Facebook for) all of Ben's previous books.

Also I am looking forward to the next book in my handy reading pile affter that, '42: the wildly improbable ideas of Douglas Adams.' I gather these are the last discoveries of writings left behind by Adams at his untimely death.

And once my brain comes back there's going to be Andy Orchard's 'Critical Companion to Beowulf.' I really hope I shall be up to that one!

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Saranna: Wow that is quite much, all in the same period of time. I think you are fan of Ben Batten.

I am reading a bible on the folk movements across Europe between 375AD - 800AD. I am well past page 200 and have to read another 400 pages. It is a period where not much documentation survived off, that academics dare to use. But unofficially there is much more and even interestingly. I don't know why the academic world is so much on fact checking. The society back then, didn't have this at all. In Roman times quite a substantial people could read and write, but the later time appeared that their descendents were by the circumstances illiterate again. It is quite interesting to me, that I meet peoples again I heard off in the past, but never much knew off really, than a name and a few shallow facts.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

O me o my I just had one of those rare moments.

@Nessa Saelind, you long ago fell into shadow, but you were a fellow soul in love of historical fiction. And I just found this link. I copy and paste from a letter itself pasted into the preface of this pdf document. The letter writer had more enterpise than I, but speaks for me. The letter was sent in 2007 to Patrick McCormak, via his publisher.

I am writing to you regarding your Albion trilogy of Arthurian and postArthurian Britain. I am a great fan of the first two novels. I have read a great deal of historical Arthurian fiction, and I think your books are unparalleled in their ability to capture the reality of 6th century Britain – the decaying economy, the complications of the politics and the relations between Britons and Saxons. You also have one of the freshest takes on the Arthurian legend.

You have clearly put an enormous amount of research into these. The reason I am writing is that I’ve been waiting, ever since The White Phantom came out, for the third book in the trilogy, The Lame Dancer. It was advertised to come out years ago, but never has. I now understand from your publisher, Constable and Robinson, that you have finished it, but that they may never release it. This is very disappointing for me, and, I’m sure, many other fans.

Is there any way you could make available your final novel for fans like me?

The result was a reply by the author explaining that the publisher had released the copyright and here was a copy of the third, unpublished novel, which the letter-writer was free to make available online.

It has been many a year since I felt like this. I am drooling at what is in store. Only drawback is a pdf is tough to read in the bath.

[Drífa]

I am not a good reviewer, only to say like or dislike.

@Reikon Suchi-ru I listened to Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and totally enjoyed it, even with all the scientific and mathematical jargon; the narrator, Ray Porter, did a fantastic job and made it quite entertaining. Rocky!

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Well, that discovery reported above - the concluding work of Patrick McCormak's trilogy on post-Arthurian Britain - got me back into reading novels again. Two years ago, Karen Maitland's stories kept me sane in the ICU in the hospital, but at a price. Since then I have found myself unable to read fiction (and I will never, ever, be able to read anything by Maitland ever again!) But McCormak's novel flipped something, and I've just finished a re-read of his truly excellent Hengest story, The Half Dane's Daughter.

But now I hit a problem. There is little I like better than a good historical fiction novel. But 'good' requires the book to be both well-written and historically accurate, or at least, not marred by blatant anachronism. And such combinations are rare indeed.

So, after lots of goodreads searches - which got me nowhere, I have ended up purchasing Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders. Here is the blurb.

Set in the fourteenth century in Europe's most far-flung outpost, a land of glittering fjords, blasting winds, sun-warmed meadows, and high, dark, mountains, The Greenlanders is the story of one family - proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose wilful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son, Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling centre of this unforgettable book.

Looks like a long read. Will report back, eventually.

Edit. Have started and it really is very good. Written in the style of the old Icelandic sagas. If ever you are feeling cold or hungry or just basically badly off and impoverished, just remember that you could have been living in Greenland in the 14th century. They have no bread and no alcohol and survive primarily on seal fat - but they do not do the surviving bit that well.

[Drífa]

‘To my enemies I am the devil himself, the root of all evil, the breaker of cities and glutter of ravens, a man whose name is a byword for treachery...

That is an interesting term: glutter of ravens. I have never heard it before. I have just finished another Robin Hobb series. I shall give The Half Dane's Daughter a listen.

[Drífa]

I guess I won't be listening to The Half Dane's Daughter, as it isn't available as an audiobook, and I don't have a Kindle. Maybe I will see it someday at a book fair.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

‘To my enemies I am the devil himself, the root of all evil, the breaker of cities and glutter of ravens, a man whose name is a byword for treachery...

That is an interesting term: glutter of ravens. I have never heard it before. I have just finished another Robin Hobb series. I shall give The Half Dane's Daughter a listen.

Tolkien speaks of crows:

Odin the Goth, the Necromancer, glutter of the crows, Lord of the Slain. (OFS)

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Felt an urge to speak on The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley. There are books it is fun to read, books that are even better, but this book is one of those rare treats where you know it will always haunt you. There is no plot, as such. Rather, we take a long, slow amble through a generation, following a brother and sister, from before their births to their old age. The style is like the old sagas, and these late 14th-century Greenlanders are the descendants of old Vikings. But they are now Christian farmers living on the edge of nowhere. A boat arrives in Greenland sporadically once aver few years, and otherwise they have no bread and no timber. They survive on farmed and hunted meat, with seal fat the source of light and heat. At the end of the summer you gather all your supplies, slaughter some of your animals, and hope that the winter will not be too long. Often it is, and people die - usually the young children or the old. Sometimes some other plague hits them as well. At first the deaths are shocking, like the first deaths in GoT. The book works to get you used to death, as the Greenlanders take death in their stride.

Tolkien paints the old northern mythology as deeming the world as that which will defeat you, and treats the mythical monsters as projections of the world - Arda marred. Smiley captures a Christian North where the monsters have vanished but the harshness of the world leaves it just as it was - that which will defeat you, in the end. And she paints a picture of a society of Christian farmers who remain in their hearts the northmen of the sagas. There is no greater pleasure, in 14th century Greenland, than nursing a grievance through the long winter nights, no more sublime satisfaction than pulling off a carefully planned revenge. (One of my revelations over the last decade has been the insight that life in the Middle-east gives on the Old North.)

This book is really special. I mourn it now that I have finished it.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

My head is still in The Greenlanders. I was just looking over the long list of characters given at the start of the book and sighing. In a perfect world there would be a Greenlanders Fanatics Plaza where a dedicated few who have read and re-read and know every character inside out would discourse. A whole community discussing an imagined community, each person with a rounded story, shown in the different ages of their life, the later years illuminating and rendering comment on the person we saw in younger life.

The book is a sort of anti-LotR. Almost no action and no heroism of the old sort. It is a sort of story of a Hobbit colony, only these Hobbits are more tough than comfortable because the colony is up in the northerly wastes of Forodwaith, and it is slowly dying.

[Drífa]

I know how you feel about mourning a book. I'm also like that, and sometimes, it takes a while to get into another author and book. Right now, I am going through all of Robin Hobb's trilogies. The characters and places follow into each trilogy. Some are better than others, but I will probably not stop now until I listen to them all.

@Túrin - I remember you mentioning Tad Williams in 2020. I have finally started The Last King of Osten Ard series. The first book has been a struggle: The Witchwood Crown. I believe it does not come close to anything he has written in the past. Hopefully, it will improve with Empire of Grass, the next book in the series. Have you read it yet? I hope this finds you.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

R. H. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity; or Hebrew, Jewish, and Christian Eschatology from Pre-Prophetic Times till the Close of the New Testament Canon. Being the First Jowett Lectures delivered in 1898-99. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1899 (2nd edition, 1913).

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Inspiration: Eight Lectures on the Early History and Origin of the Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1893. By W. Sanday, Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis, Fellow of Exeter College Oxford. London, Longmans, Green, & Co. 1893.

Got to Sanday through reading on Charles. As in, Sanday seems to be the one who showed Charles what the critical scholarship could and should be. I suspect a road to Tolkien on 'true Myth' but these guys are Liberal Anglicans.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Medicus: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire (Gaius Petreius Ruso Series Book 1), by Ruth Downie.

So this book has set in motion some head scratching and soul searching on my part. It is exactly the kind of stuff I seek out - light bedtime reading historical fiction. Downie has set out to revamp the Gordianus the Finder series, an encounter with which two decades ago prompted me, in the years since, to seek out and devour all the historical fiction I can find. Both series are essentially whodunnits, with a murder or series of murders solved by the likeable hero. But where Gordianus lives in Rome in the last days of the Republic, and so rubs shoulders with some of the greatest names and stories of history (the last days of the Roman Republic = some wild, wild history!), Medicus is a medical doctor in an army fort in Roman Britain in the days of the Emperor Trajan (98 AD). So in place of all the name dropping of Gordianus the Finder Downie goes to town on the lack of anything of any interest whatsoever in this back of beyond on the very edge of the Roman Empire - beyond the army hospital and fort most of the action takes place in a brothel in the town, and once or twice we step inside a native British house. Her trick is to paint the work of the Roman doctor in the army hospital into an instantly recognizable vision of any institution today - running through all the story is an insane hospital administration whose cost cutting obsessions are the bane of all culture and civilization.

So the transformation of Gordianus and the great names of the Roman Republic into Medicus who lives in an institutional world far too like our own for comfort is really great. The vision of the admins (haha!) as devils with mundane human faces, who genuinely believe what they say whilst at the same time committing terrible crimes, is really well done, and sustained the whole read.

But... Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders.

The Greenlanders is a work of art. My life is better for having read the book. It will remain with me, and shape my thoughts. I will return to it (should I live long enough) and on doing so will discover elements of its art that I completely missed on the first read, or glimpsed as it were only through a glass darkly.

Also, lest we forget the obvious, The Lord of the Rings. The Greenlanders reminded me of what I value in Tolkien's stories. The Plaza, as indeed all my online interactions with other Tolkien fans, may at any moment reveal to me something that I never saw or noticed in Tolkien's work. To make a work of art like these books an author must be doing something special, above and beyond. I have no clear idea what that is, beyond the mere fact that these are authors who have invested a whole lot of themselves into their books, and wrote for a reason perhaps peculiar to themselves.

Medicus, like Gordianus before him, is a formula. All the differences noted above notwithstanding, the essential formula is identical. Likeable hero, marked out as such especially by way of relationships with slaves, as also by relationships to different kinds of women. Gordianus has an advantage here because there are plenty of powerful and sexy Roman women of history to call on. This Medicus book basically is about his relationship with a fiesty native British slave woman, who he saves, heals her arm, but intends to then sell, but by the end of the book the two are an item.

Why read?

Or rather, why read this book?

What do I gain from reading this formulaic book that I could not get from playing a computer game, watching a movie, or cutting my toe-nails?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

12,000-year-old spindle whorls and the innovation of wheeled rotational technologies, Talia Yashuv and Leore Grosman.

A bit dry but interesting. Talia, one of the authors, lives in my village and is an archeologist who studies the Natufians. @VelvetineZone you know of the Natufians? They are at the start of it all - the first to settle down and make houses, the first to domesticate wild wheat. Back when things were more simple...

[VelvetineZone]

Not before today, @Chrysophylax Dives.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Not before today, @Chrysophylax Dives.

I discovered them watching TV documentaries with my kids about a decade ago. Stories of the Stone Age was my favourite. Here are the Natufians.

[VelvetineZone]

I've been watching Art of Persia on BBC iPlayer. V interesting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/ ... -of-persia

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I also read recently Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires, which began as a decent historical novel set in plague times in France and which I enjoyed to near the end when it got weird and the girl in the story seems to have become an angel but I lost any clue as to what was going on. You know, one of those books where the final chapters are all italics and spiritual stuff is happening and you have the feeling that the author had run out of ideas. Maybe I was not paying attention.

But all this recent reading was preparation for The Legend of Wang Jin (Part I and II), which I began last night. And I am happy to report that, so far, I love it. Basically because the writing is so strong. The last few novels were about getting used to fiction prose again, and the first thing I found with The Legend is that the writing is excellent, well above the quality I've got used to over these last few weeks.

I will report back - good or bad - as I progress.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Update.

Luan Tingyu, you are a stuck up prig and do not deserve the love of Wang Jin!

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Well, I finished. Or I finished what I had to read. If I had more I would read it now. I found myself thinking about the story during the day, wishing I could be reading it instead of working. I really loved this. Nothing formulaic here at all, just total immersion into the mental and emotional life of the (wonderful) Wang Jin.

Reading Wang Jin dissing everyone reminded me at times of listening to the author, who I have on rare occasion heard complaining about this or that deplorable. But Wang Jin does it so much better! And she beats them up too.