March 2010

Here’s the Stuff I’ve Been Reading list.  It appears more impressive than it is because I didn’t finish four books, but I listed them anyway.

1. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde (fun).  It was pretty typical Fforde, meaning a pretty zany book, but it wasn’t about Thursday next, which made me nostalgic.
2. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (fun).  I reread this in preparation for A Conspiracy of Kings, which was released this month.
3. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (Brit lit).  Ironically, the good soldier of the title was carrying on a years-long affair with the narrator’s wife.
4. Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler (60%) (fun).  I liked the Lilith’s Brood trilogy, but this one, about vampires, was a bit silly.
5. Night Watch by Stephen Kendrick (fun).  Featuring a surprisingly spot-on Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown.  My only regret was that Watson wasn’t quite right.
6. Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life by Claire Tomalin (research).  Even though it’s old-fashioned to incorporate the biography of one’s subject, I think it’s relevant in this case since Mansfield wrote so much from her life.
7. The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye (50%) (fun).  I got halfway through this 1,000 page book and needed a break.  Never fear, I’m not defeated yet.
8. Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas (form & theory).  A memoir in fragments, when generally I like neither fragments nor memoirs.
9. In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield (research).  This was the book that made a name for Mansfield, though she would go on to publish even better work.
10. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (fun).  Book three.
11. Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card (travel book).  Philip and I finished reading this while driving back and forth to Oklahoma.  It falls chronologically after Ender’s Game and before the Ender trilogy.
12. The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat (fun).  Having read her memoir, I saw a lot of her biography in here, about the relationship between Haitians and Hatian-Americans.
13. The Art of the Novel by Milan Kundera (51%) (form & theory).  I hoped it would be more form and less theory, but alas.
14. The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick (form & theory).  The so-called Bible of creative nonfiction writers.
15. Magician’s Ward by Patricia C. Wrede (fun).  It was the day before A Conspiracy of Kings came out and I had to read something, so I reread this.
16. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (fun).  Best and certainly most anticipated book of the month.
17. The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs (60%) (form & theory).  I dislike nature writing as a rule.
18. Dubliners by James Joyce (Brit lit).  It’s funny that we’re reading him in British literature, seeing as he loathed the English.  But his stories are phenomenal.

Don’t I just look a lady of letters?