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Books Read, January 2009
Jan. 23rd, 2009 10:14 amOne of the things I can do, when my brain is too scattered from deadline-watching to give me new words (or, often, to even focus enough to revise), is read. Reading seems to use different muscles, so to speak, and it’s a breath of fresh air for my poor, overworked thinking apparatus.
Lately, therefore, I’ve been reading—on the bus, sitting at the table over breakfast or lingering over the remains of dinner, in the half-hour after evening chores are done and before time for the TV show I’m trying to stay up with. Some of this is comfort re-reading and some is research…and then there are the books I’ve been wanting to read, waiting for the moment to be right (if I’m actively writing, I don’t do a lot of reading).
Allow me to give a shout-out to Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth. It’s general fiction, I guess, though I’m pretty bad about figuring out genre. And it’s a book about werewolves, but don’t let that or the conceit of its free verse format put you off; this is a book whose format matches its content, a refreshingly low-angst and modern take on the werewolf mythology. Recommended if you want a good read that’s not overly complicated.
Another new-to-me book I recently finished was Steve Brust’s The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. Like most of Brust’s work, I really enjoyed this one—an hour and a half that might have seen me in the chatroom was spent instead lingering over the last third of the book. I was reminded with wistful pleasure of the touch Roger Zelazny had with words and with narration; that hint of bitter-but-wiser-now self-deprecation that informs so many of Brust’s (and Zelazny’s) protags strikes me just right. As Greg, the protag in this book, says, some artists’ work hits you just right and it becomes impossible to offer an objective critique. I will say instead that this book now goes on my permanent bookshelf, alongside the Vlad Taltos books and Freedom and Necessity and all the Zelaznys in the world.
(I found a copy of Jack of Shadows recently – squee! I think with that volume I now have all the novel-length work Zelazny published.)
And now I’m going to go open mail and let my brain poke around with thoughts of the Brust-and-Zelazny protags’ attitudes and how they manage to convey that bitterness with a soft touch and without dwelling in backstory.
Lately, therefore, I’ve been reading—on the bus, sitting at the table over breakfast or lingering over the remains of dinner, in the half-hour after evening chores are done and before time for the TV show I’m trying to stay up with. Some of this is comfort re-reading and some is research…and then there are the books I’ve been wanting to read, waiting for the moment to be right (if I’m actively writing, I don’t do a lot of reading).
Allow me to give a shout-out to Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth. It’s general fiction, I guess, though I’m pretty bad about figuring out genre. And it’s a book about werewolves, but don’t let that or the conceit of its free verse format put you off; this is a book whose format matches its content, a refreshingly low-angst and modern take on the werewolf mythology. Recommended if you want a good read that’s not overly complicated.
Another new-to-me book I recently finished was Steve Brust’s The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. Like most of Brust’s work, I really enjoyed this one—an hour and a half that might have seen me in the chatroom was spent instead lingering over the last third of the book. I was reminded with wistful pleasure of the touch Roger Zelazny had with words and with narration; that hint of bitter-but-wiser-now self-deprecation that informs so many of Brust’s (and Zelazny’s) protags strikes me just right. As Greg, the protag in this book, says, some artists’ work hits you just right and it becomes impossible to offer an objective critique. I will say instead that this book now goes on my permanent bookshelf, alongside the Vlad Taltos books and Freedom and Necessity and all the Zelaznys in the world.
(I found a copy of Jack of Shadows recently – squee! I think with that volume I now have all the novel-length work Zelazny published.)
And now I’m going to go open mail and let my brain poke around with thoughts of the Brust-and-Zelazny protags’ attitudes and how they manage to convey that bitterness with a soft touch and without dwelling in backstory.
