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Book Reports
Jul. 2nd, 2020 12:09 pmWhen I moved here, freed from the cognitively draining hypervigilance and with my whole day to myself, I intended to crack on with some esoteric theology books I've been holding on to and want to read before I let go. The brain was not so quick to bounce back, however, and while it's better now, I still don't have the concentration necessary to unpack some rather dense philosophising, so instead I've been tackling something more at my level: YA fantasy.
My sister has always been a big fan of Diana Wynne Jones, and while I appreciate her as a writer and storycrafter for sure, her work has never seized me the same way as, say, Terry Pratchett's. Said sister did impress upon me, with admirable patience, how much I needed to read the Dalemark Quartet, and a couple of years ago I did finally read the first two, which were indeed good. But then life blew up and I didn't have much reading time, so I didn't get around to the next until just now. In her oeuvre, they are really underappreciated books – I like them better than the Chrestomanci series, for example – so for what it's worth I thought I would write some reviews and maybe boost their profile a little.
For the last ten years, the bulk of my personal library – a collection I am always trying to keep to a minimum on account of nomadic tendencies – has fallen into three main categories: Polar, Art, and Narrative Fiction I Want On Hand. To my surprise a new section has begun to rival the others in size: Books By People I Know. I am now catching up with a series written by a Twitter friend who has done a lot of comedy writing for Radio 4 and created the Portentous Perils podcast (good times, look it up). The first book in the Darkwood series came out last year, when I was too preoccupied to read much of anything; the second has just been released, which prompted me to make up for lost time. I finished the first book yesterday, only an hour after the second plopped in through the letterbox, so that will be my lunchtime reading today.
Everyday life has settled into a semi-routine of gardening and drawing, and compared to previously there isn't much to write about plague-blog-wise, so I will do some little writeups on these books instead. I used to do reviews all the time – more as an exercise in analysis for my own sake, than thinking anyone cared what I thought about things – so it'll be fun to put those very old shoes on again. Maybe you might find the books interesting and pick them up, too.
My sister has always been a big fan of Diana Wynne Jones, and while I appreciate her as a writer and storycrafter for sure, her work has never seized me the same way as, say, Terry Pratchett's. Said sister did impress upon me, with admirable patience, how much I needed to read the Dalemark Quartet, and a couple of years ago I did finally read the first two, which were indeed good. But then life blew up and I didn't have much reading time, so I didn't get around to the next until just now. In her oeuvre, they are really underappreciated books – I like them better than the Chrestomanci series, for example – so for what it's worth I thought I would write some reviews and maybe boost their profile a little.
For the last ten years, the bulk of my personal library – a collection I am always trying to keep to a minimum on account of nomadic tendencies – has fallen into three main categories: Polar, Art, and Narrative Fiction I Want On Hand. To my surprise a new section has begun to rival the others in size: Books By People I Know. I am now catching up with a series written by a Twitter friend who has done a lot of comedy writing for Radio 4 and created the Portentous Perils podcast (good times, look it up). The first book in the Darkwood series came out last year, when I was too preoccupied to read much of anything; the second has just been released, which prompted me to make up for lost time. I finished the first book yesterday, only an hour after the second plopped in through the letterbox, so that will be my lunchtime reading today.
Everyday life has settled into a semi-routine of gardening and drawing, and compared to previously there isn't much to write about plague-blog-wise, so I will do some little writeups on these books instead. I used to do reviews all the time – more as an exercise in analysis for my own sake, than thinking anyone cared what I thought about things – so it'll be fun to put those very old shoes on again. Maybe you might find the books interesting and pick them up, too.
