I did a lot of reading while I was visiting ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rysmiel, and on the trips there and back (there's not much else to do while waiting at the airport).
Recommended:
Spirals in Time, by Helen Scales: seashells, the animals that build them (present and long-extinct), how humans have used shells, climate change, the space of possible shell shape&hellip. There is a narrative arc, built around the author's conversations with people including scientists, seafood vendors, and historians. There are good discussions of things like the use of cowrie shells as money, and the connections between that and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and on the effects of both over-harvesting of molluscs and ocean acidification, and a variety of amusing bits. E.g., hermit crabs are mostly ocean-swelling, but there are some land-dwelling species. Some of the land-dwelling hermit crabs in Madagascar loiter next to an eroding cliff, waiting for fossil shells to fall out, then move into them. Elsewhere, when a shell is vacated, and the first crab to find it needs one a size smaller, that crab waits for a suitable-sized crab to move into the vacant shell, then moves in turn, and other crabs may come along and line up in size order, kindergarten style, so everyone can move up. (The oldest known hermit crab fossil was growing inside an ammonite shell.) [I found this one by idly searching for "shells" in an online library catalog.]
The Grief of Stones, by Katherine Addison: This is a fantasy/mystery novel, a sequel to Addison's The Witness for the Dead, also told by Thara Celehar, and we see more of him as a person, as well as the politics, ghosts, and other world-building. I'm not sure how much sense this would make if you haven't read The Witness for the Dead, and this book is full of spoilers for the previous. (Both are sequels to The Goblin Emperor in sequence of events, but aren't about Maia or set in his court.
I enjoyed these:
The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, by Olivia Waite: a lesbian romance set in early 19th century England. This includes printing, bees, a prejudiced and oppressive vicar, and closeted homosexual characters. There's a mystery plot involving a missing item that was part of a bequest, in a will that also left someone the care of the deceased's beehives (but not the actual hives). I liked this one, and may look for more by this writer.
The Silent Speaker, by Rex Stout; I don't remember reading this before (and found it on rysmiel's bookshelf). A Nero Wolfe mystery set in 1948, involving obnoxiously self satisfied businessmen, and the murder of a federal bureaucrat who worked in the office of price control. Archie continues to be the sort of sexist who admires women while objectifying them, but less annoyingly than he sometimes is.
Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett: a reread, and I hadn't read it in long enough that it felt fresh. out what's going on and why. Death stands in for the missing Hogfather, and Death's adoptive granddaughter tries to find him, and figure out what's going on and why. This is the one with Jonathan Teatime and with the Auditors; I don't think itwould be a good place to start reading the Discworld books.
The Last Coincidence, by Robert Goldsborough: One of Goldsborough's several authorized Nero Wolfe books, set after the books Stout wrote and published in his lifetime. This one focuses on the family of Archie's close friend/longtime unofficial partner Lily Rowany. Goldsborough doesn’t quite have the balance between Wolfe surprising the characters, and a feeling that the author is playing fair with the reader. This was published in 1990, and the background for the murder is the victim having raped a woman he was dating; most of the characters treat the woman better than she expected they would, or than many people do. (also found on rysmiel's bookshelves)
Disappointing:
We'll Always Have Parrots, by Donna Andrews: mystery set at an odd media con for fans a low-budget (imaginary) sf TV program. The parrots are literal and plot-relevant, but it never does become clear why the organizer thought that having parrots, monkeys, and a tiger at the con would be a good idea. Someone recommended this, it's fifth in a series, and I don't expect to read more.
Also, I reread the first twelve chapters of The Phantom Tollbooth Monday evening, having found a copy on a table while visiting rysmiel.
Currently reading (and enjoying):
A Half-built Garden, by Ruthanna Emrys
rysmiel, and on the trips there and back (there's not much else to do while waiting at the airport). Recommended:
Spirals in Time, by Helen Scales: seashells, the animals that build them (present and long-extinct), how humans have used shells, climate change, the space of possible shell shape&hellip. There is a narrative arc, built around the author's conversations with people including scientists, seafood vendors, and historians. There are good discussions of things like the use of cowrie shells as money, and the connections between that and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and on the effects of both over-harvesting of molluscs and ocean acidification, and a variety of amusing bits. E.g., hermit crabs are mostly ocean-swelling, but there are some land-dwelling species. Some of the land-dwelling hermit crabs in Madagascar loiter next to an eroding cliff, waiting for fossil shells to fall out, then move into them. Elsewhere, when a shell is vacated, and the first crab to find it needs one a size smaller, that crab waits for a suitable-sized crab to move into the vacant shell, then moves in turn, and other crabs may come along and line up in size order, kindergarten style, so everyone can move up. (The oldest known hermit crab fossil was growing inside an ammonite shell.) [I found this one by idly searching for "shells" in an online library catalog.]
The Grief of Stones, by Katherine Addison: This is a fantasy/mystery novel, a sequel to Addison's The Witness for the Dead, also told by Thara Celehar, and we see more of him as a person, as well as the politics, ghosts, and other world-building. I'm not sure how much sense this would make if you haven't read The Witness for the Dead, and this book is full of spoilers for the previous. (Both are sequels to The Goblin Emperor in sequence of events, but aren't about Maia or set in his court.
I enjoyed these:
The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, by Olivia Waite: a lesbian romance set in early 19th century England. This includes printing, bees, a prejudiced and oppressive vicar, and closeted homosexual characters. There's a mystery plot involving a missing item that was part of a bequest, in a will that also left someone the care of the deceased's beehives (but not the actual hives). I liked this one, and may look for more by this writer.
The Silent Speaker, by Rex Stout; I don't remember reading this before (and found it on rysmiel's bookshelf). A Nero Wolfe mystery set in 1948, involving obnoxiously self satisfied businessmen, and the murder of a federal bureaucrat who worked in the office of price control. Archie continues to be the sort of sexist who admires women while objectifying them, but less annoyingly than he sometimes is.
Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett: a reread, and I hadn't read it in long enough that it felt fresh. out what's going on and why. Death stands in for the missing Hogfather, and Death's adoptive granddaughter tries to find him, and figure out what's going on and why. This is the one with Jonathan Teatime and with the Auditors; I don't think itwould be a good place to start reading the Discworld books.
The Last Coincidence, by Robert Goldsborough: One of Goldsborough's several authorized Nero Wolfe books, set after the books Stout wrote and published in his lifetime. This one focuses on the family of Archie's close friend/longtime unofficial partner Lily Rowany. Goldsborough doesn’t quite have the balance between Wolfe surprising the characters, and a feeling that the author is playing fair with the reader. This was published in 1990, and the background for the murder is the victim having raped a woman he was dating; most of the characters treat the woman better than she expected they would, or than many people do. (also found on rysmiel's bookshelves)
Disappointing:
We'll Always Have Parrots, by Donna Andrews: mystery set at an odd media con for fans a low-budget (imaginary) sf TV program. The parrots are literal and plot-relevant, but it never does become clear why the organizer thought that having parrots, monkeys, and a tiger at the con would be a good idea. Someone recommended this, it's fifth in a series, and I don't expect to read more.
Also, I reread the first twelve chapters of The Phantom Tollbooth Monday evening, having found a copy on a table while visiting rysmiel.
Currently reading (and enjoying):
A Half-built Garden, by Ruthanna Emrys
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If I recall correctly, The Grief of Stones is essentially the second half of The Witness for the Dead. I was puzzled at its somewhat abrupt beginning -- there is a bit of a summary, but no easing-in description or anything like that. But if you just read them both straight through, it works very well. I don't know anything about the exact history of the books, who decided what when, but that part was mentioned repeatedly in discussions of The Grief of Stones when I went looking for them after I finished it.
I found it very satisfying to reread both books in order.
P.
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I also gave it a warning in my review because it isn’t an Action!Plot! book, it’s a “conversations about governance” book. (Some people are disliking it because it’s “slow” and “nothing happens.”)