What's she reading this Wednesday?

In truth, I'm not reading any books right now. Scary, I know. But I have a good reason. I've been cast in "Proof" and I have a helluva lot of lines to learn.

Back to the grind.

Book o' the Week

I think I mentioned this before, but I'm reading Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I was in the musical last October and happened to find a copy--sans extensive notes--at my neighbourhood new and used bookstore. I'd forgotten how long it takes to read Dickens. Good thing this one is relatively short and made shorter by the fact that he died before he finished it. It's interesting comparing the characters in the book to the versions of them created by Rupert Holmes for the show. I want to beat the Rosa Bud in the book with a large stick, she's such a vapid twit, and I think I won't be sorry when Edwin vaishes and is believed dead. I'm looking forward to finishing and coming up with my own theory of whodunit. :)

What's she reading this Wednesday?

Actually, I'm in the midst of three books right now. The one I was reading this morning is one I received for Christmas from a friend who knows me well. It's The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin. I'm diggin' it. It is only vaguely linear and follows the charmingly disfunctional life of one man. It's fascinating reading how he justifies all the patterns and rules he imposes on himself, the long and complex fantasies he builds for himself, and descriptions of how he interacts with each of the people in his insular world. Steve Martin is one of those hit-or-miss people for me. When he hits, it is dead on target. When he misses, his misses so completely I can't even describe it. This one, for me, is a hit. I recommend checking it out.

What's she reading this Wednesday?

What else? Suzanne Brockmann's All Through the Night. I love Jules and Robin and now I finally get to read their HEA. And it's even seasonal. :D I've read three others of her books, and I've thoroughly enjoyed them all. Of course, they all had a lot of Jules in them, so how could I not, right? If you've not had the pleasure of reading any of her books, I highly recommend diving into Hot Target. It's number eight in her Troublshooters series, but it's where Jules and Robin's story begins and that's what it's all about for me. So Hot Target, then Breaking Point, and Force of Nature. Then and only then may you read All Through the Night. But don't worry. It won't take long to get throught the first three; they're all very tough to put down once you start reading. And it's so worth it! Hie thee to the bookstore and pick up all four titles. If the weather around you is anything like the weather around me, you'll need some good books to keep you warm.

What's she reading this week?

I finally finished Kushiel's Dart, which was brilliant. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys: fantasy; action/adventure; political drama; erotic romance.

So, what am I reading this week? I'm reading the print galley for The Ballad of Jimothy Redwing. It comes out in print on 28 April and of course that means a chance to fix typos before that happens. I'm nearly done--just one chapter to go--which is good since it's due next Monday.

Also, I won NaNoWriMo again this year. Yay! I'm a three-peat winner! (We'll ignore for now the fact that the novel isn't acutally done.)

Finally, I have a free read holiday story that will be available soon through the Samhain Cafe yahoo group and I think on the Samhellion Blog. When it's up, I'll let you know!

What's she reading this Wednesday?

As predicted, I'm still working my way through Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey and still enjoying it. Unfortunately, pesky day job-type stuff is keeping me from reading. I predict I still won't be done next week, but I'm sure as hell going to try.

It's Wednseday. What's she reading?

This week (and probably next week, too) I'm reading Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. It was recommended to me several years ago by one friend and then again recently by another friend who went so far as to thrust her copy of it into my hands. The author has created a fascinating and complex world. A country of people descended from apostles and angels, who love beauty above all else, and who live by the rule "Love as thou wilt."

The heroine, Phedre, is born to a woman of the Night Court, sold into indentured servitude, and purchased by a nobleman with political secrets and plans. She becomes a part of his household and at the same time a living tool that he uses to gain information. I'm barely over a quarter of the way in--it's 900+ pages--and I am hooked. At least for this book. It's not easy reading; I'd put it somewhere between Gael Baudino and Robert Heinlein in density of verbiage. But so far my friends have not steered my wrong. I can put it down with relative easy, but I am always excited to pick it up again later.

What am I reading this week?

The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig. That's what I'm reading. It's the sequel to The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. I know. The titles alone are thoroughly delightful. Even more so when you get into the story and discover that the author's tongue is firmly in her cheek. The second book is no disappointment on that count. Willig's style flows easily whether she's writing the present-day, first-person story of Eloise - the historian researching these floral mysteries - or the third-person, 1803 characters of London and Napoleonic France.

First off, this is a part of history I dig. Not quite as much as I dig the French Revolution itself, but close. It's a fascinating segment of history, IMO. Willig takes the story of The Scarlet Pimpernel and moves beyond it to his student-cum-replacement the Purple Gentian, and then later the Pink Carnation. Okay, enough of the premise. These are romantic historic adventures with a healthy dose of modernity. I nearly sqwaked like one when the 1803 heroine of Black Tulip barked out "Albatross!" Willig made it fit perfectly sensibly into the scene while leaving no question as to just who and what the author was referring to. Hilarious!

I do like this heroine, Lady Henrietta, rather more than I like the heroine, Amy de Balcourt, in the first one. Amy has her charms, but she's a bit of a twit, IMO. Hen, on the other hand, I can relate to. She's sensible and logical while still falling prey to her emotions. You know, like normal people do. At least, the normal people I tend to know. Amy's great on the page, but like Grace Adler, I would have to beat her with a stick if she were real. Hen and her hero, Miles, are normal people in extraordinary circumstances. I like that. I'm looking forward to reading The Deception of the Emerald Ring.

And through it all, Eloise, who is living her own first-person life while researching the Pink Carnation, et al. Again, my type of heroine. The woman's a dork, and I love her for it. Go, Eloise!

What am I reading?

I'm trying something new. Each Wednesday I'm going to post something about whatever book I happen to be reading. That's the theory anyway. Let's see how many Wednesdays I can go before I miss one. Hopefully it'll be incentive for me to read more, too.

This Wednesday, I'm reading Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night. Its original copywrite is 1953 and this edition, from April 1970, has a fascinating Publisher's Note that I'll add at the end of the post. Clarke is -- sorry, was ( ::sad sigh:: ) one of the masters of the sci-fi genre. He used (I cannot get used to that past tense.) science fact to write speculative fiction. This book is set so far into the future that he tosses out words like century and millenia like we would use minutes and years. The human race has expanded out into the universe and been driven back to Earth by "the Invaders", and even that was all so long ago that no one living (despite their slowly aquired immortality) was living then. The contraction of the human race over countless eons down to one enormous, automated city - Diaspar - has at the same time been both the deliverance and the slow destruction of the species. Unimaginative, incurious, afraid, patient to the point of stagnation, humans have lost what made their ancestors human. Until our hero, Alvin, the first child born in seven thousand years, grows into a boy who questions...everything.

And that's where the story begins as the last cloud ever seen by man crosses the sky of the desert Earth.

I'm loving this book despite its most obvious failing. 109 pages into the total 159, there has been one - one - female character. I only half blame the author. After all, it was 1953. The western world was sexist beyond anything I can comprehend and, quite simply, Clarke wasn't writing for the audience that is me. Setting aside what I tend to refer to as the quaint sexism of early sci-fi, it's a beautiful illustration of a future too big and broad to be real to our minds, but at the same time too familiar to the themes facing the world today to be comfortable. We are back sliding rather badly here in the US, de-evolving right before our very eyes. We need an Alvin to shake things up.

I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes and where it ends.

Okay, here's that Publisher's Note I mentioned. Check this out:

"Against the Fall of Night is a novelty even in the novel field of science-fiction publishing. Published in 1953 by Gnome Press, it earned critical acclaim and reader popularity. Then, in 1956, Mr. Clarke published a completely rewritten version under the title of The City and the Stars, exercising his author's privilege to have "second thoughts" about his work. There has been no general agreement on which is the better book. Pyramid is proud to present the author's original inspiration in the form in which it first appeared."

I love that: a novelty even in the novel field of science-fiction publishing. I'm going to have to keep an eye out for a copy of The City and the Stars so I can make my own comparison.