What are you reading?

[nancylebov]

What are people reading? I'm currently reading _A Killing Frost_ by Seannan McGuire (an October Daye novel). Not the best, but I'm still invested in the series, and have some hope that there's more going on that minutia of Elvish law driving the plot.

Has anyone else read _The Ministry for the Future_ by Kim Stanley Robinson? How much of the solutions for climate change actually make sense?

Also two horror novels. _The Southern Book Club Guide to Slaying Vampires_ by Grady Hendrix. Do not be deceived by the title. The book starts off funny and gets terrifying. Physical, mental, and social horror. A new idea that I haven't seen before-- a vampire who gets his victims involved in bad investments to make them financially dependent on him-- in addition to the stuff about blood and madness.

_The Hollow Places_ by T. Kingfisher. Inspired by "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood. In which a museum of oddities becomes a problem and a solution. Very scary, but to say more would be spoilers. Suffice that there's plenty of whimsy and more than sufficient fear.

I'm still reading "The Willows". Even if you don't like horror, I can recommend the beginning as excellent nature writing. The Danube is a bigger deal than I realized. There's a reason The Blue Danube waltz has so much lift and drive.

Also, I had no idea it was that feasible to die a mere century ago in flat land at moderate temperatures just by taking the wrong branch of the multiply divided Danube. If you don't like horror, bail out when things start to get disquieting.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Just finished re-reading a book of Jewish folk tales and started one (in French) on the origins of celebrity in the 18th century.

Did you know that the Blue Danube waltz has to do with river pollution? The Danube is an amazing river at least the bits I know around Budapest, Vienna and Bratislava.

[nancylebov]

Fast research suggests that pollution in the Danube was a problem that became serious long after the waltz was written. Have I missed something?

[cmcmck]

The 'blue' was apparently caused by pollution.

The Danube is certainly nothing like blue.

[sartorias]

Re the Danube, have you ever read Patrick Leigh Fervor's A Time of Gifts. It's extraordinary--about nature, about the river, (he walked from England, so to speak, down to Constantinople, on the eve of WW II, with some sidetracks). And amazing prose.

[nancylebov]

I've ordered a copy of _A Time of Gifts_, but it's going to have to fight it out with the other books in my to-read midden.

[sartorias]

I hope you'll find it as astonishing as I did!

[kgbooklog]

Just finished The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure the mystery holds up to scrutiny (so much evidence against so many people that was never addressed at the end).

Next will be A Restless Truth by Freya Marske.

[carbonel]

Mostly I've been rereading Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar novels, and being distracted from those by fan fiction. But as audiobooks, I've been reading a bunch of Nathan Lowell's space commerce novels.

[madfilkentist]

Every December I reread Das fliegende Klassenzimmer (The Flying Classroom) by Erich Kästner, a novel about the events before Christmas break in a boarding school. We read the last chapter aloud in our German language discussion group at the Portsmouth Library. Fortunately, I didn't have to read the pages where my voice would have broken.

[mneme]

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure there's more going on in A Killing Frost than minutae of elvish law.

Most recently read Sanderson's The Lost Metal, which I enjoyed even if I'm somewhat annoyed at his plotting. This one brought the story more directly up the wider Cosmere, which makes me wonder if I need to read more Sanderson Cosmere books that aren't set in Scadrial if I really want to understand what's going on.

I read The Hollow Places a while ago. It's a good whatever it is.

[nancylebov]

Yes, I'm almost to the end of A Killing Frost, and it's shaped up into having more significance. I don't think it's the best in the series, but it's good.