June 2013

Stuff I’ve Been Reading: June 2013

1. Wool by Howey, Hugh
2. The Age of Miracles by Walker, Karen Thompson
3. The Return of Captain John Emmett by Speller, Elizabeth
4. Sense and Sensibility by Austen, Jane*
5. The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton by Speller, Elizabeth
6. The Odyssey by Homer
7. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Gaiman, Neil
8. The Long War by Pratchett, Terry and Stephen Baxter
9. Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain by Martinez, A. Lee
10. Code Name Verity by Wein, Elizabeth

Italics indicate library books, asterisks indicate audiobooks, and I didn’t finish reading numbers 8 or 9.

Best Read: Wool by Hugh Howey. All of humanity lives in an underground silo. But when the Sheriff chooses death to go outside, he sets in motion a chain of events that just might lead to a revolution and the uncovering of a vast conspiracy.

Next Best Read(s): The Laurence Bertram novels by Elizabeth Speller. I like mysteries, and I like this post-WWI England setting, and I like this introverted, observant narrator. One is a suicide under mysterious circumstances, and the other is a cold case concerning a missing child.

Books Not Finished: Emperor Mollusk was too earnest to be a genuine parody and too silly to be a genuine satire; The Long War ought to have been named The Long Wait, considering that no war was even on the horizon by page 150.

Books Finished, By Golly: The Odyssey may have taken me all month to wade through, but I did read it cover to cover. A favorite sentiment from a book about hospitality–Welcome the arriving and speed the departing guest.

WWW Wed Jun 26

Take a moment to admire the tidy dovetailing of this week’s WWW Wednesdays post with the actual correct day of the week.

What are you currently reading? The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. If having read the first sentence of something can be said to be “currently” reading it, this is my current read.

What did you recently finish reading? The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles. After a laborious month of reading this classic, during which I took a double-mystery hiatus to read Elizabeth Speller’s excellent novels, I have finally concluded my reading of The Odyssey. My prior reading of it in college, I now realize, must have been an abridged or abbreviated version, as I read many parts and tales this time that I had never known before. Is it my favorite book? Well, no, not at all; but I am glad to have read it.

What do you will think you’ll read next? One of the many library books I have checked out, including but not limited to The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear, or The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan (featuring selkies).

WWW Wed Jun 12

What are you currently reading? The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles. My husband adopted a dog, a two-year-old male German shepherd and shar pei mix. He named it Argos. I demonstrated loving support by deciding to read Homer for the first time since my sophomore year of college. This is an engaging translation, which is to say that one hardly notices that it’s poetry.

What did you recently finish reading? Two books so far in June: Wool by Hugh Howey and The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. In the former, people live in a huge underground silo; in the latter, the earth’s rotation begins to slow down. I liked Wool the better of the two reads, not least because it is partly a mystery, but also because, unlike The Age of Miracles, you find out why things are the way they are.

What do you think you will read next? We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, a just-released short story collection. Or perhaps Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, a young-adult spy novel set in WWII.