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Belated summer reading
September 29th, 2018 11:14 amI was doing quite well at posting these and then we went on reading week and I got rather distracted, but still, here's the rest of my summer reading, as well as I can remember it - I nearly forgot about a couple of the physical books that I've remembered to include here, so there may be other things that slipped my mind...
The Book of Hidden Things by Francesco Dimitri - I was quite liking this in an odd, surreal, magical realist sort of way, until there is a specific horrible thing that happens right at the end which I found incredibly upsetting and made me wish I hadn't read the book! A very odd reading experience!
Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge - As I mentioned earlier in the summer, I often don't enjoy Hardinge as much as I feel I should, but this was an exception. I really got into this and found it a great read and a fascinating magical world.
Murder Most Unladylike and Arsenic for Tea, both by Robin Stevens - I think it was Nic that recommended these to me - they're boarding school/murder mystery storys and I found them very charming indeed. I liked the first one enough that I immediately bought the second one. I did also enjoy that but it wasn't really different enough to make me feel like I urgently needed to read on to the rest of the series, I'll just save them up for when I'm in that sort of mood.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseni - I wouldn't describe this as exactly an enjoyable read but I did find it powerful and compelling, and I'm glad I read it. It did feed into my overall feeling of sadness and despair about the state of the world though.
Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce - I enjoyed this but it didn't feel structured quite right. It just sort of ends in a slightly odd way and I didn't quite get pulled into it the way I often do into their other books. I felt perhaps it was more interested in Ozorne as a young man than Numair as a young man really - I wanted more on him discovering and struggling with his magic.
Re-reads
To the Hilt by Dick Francis - I have a a real soft spot for Dick Francis, despite their deficiencies. I did actually re-read another one of his that was on the bookshelf in the reading week house too, but I can't remember which one.
Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones - I have a soft spot for this one. I always like books in which characters you know well from one book turn up in quite a different context and you see them in a different light.
Wild Magic and The Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce - Inspired by Tempests and Slaughter, I went back to re-read these to see if the new knowledge affected how I saw the existing characters and it had some impact but didn't quite feel real somehow, plus I ended up spotting an odd discrepancy which will really bug me unless it's somehow explained in the rest of the to-be-published trilogy. When he's trying to decide what to do about the dampening spells towards the end of Wild Magic, Numair tells Daine he has almost no healing magic but he spends most of Tempests and Slaughter focusing more and more on healing. As I say, at the moment, it nags, but who knows, maybe it will be addressed.
The Book of Hidden Things by Francesco Dimitri - I was quite liking this in an odd, surreal, magical realist sort of way, until there is a specific horrible thing that happens right at the end which I found incredibly upsetting and made me wish I hadn't read the book! A very odd reading experience!
Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge - As I mentioned earlier in the summer, I often don't enjoy Hardinge as much as I feel I should, but this was an exception. I really got into this and found it a great read and a fascinating magical world.
Murder Most Unladylike and Arsenic for Tea, both by Robin Stevens - I think it was Nic that recommended these to me - they're boarding school/murder mystery storys and I found them very charming indeed. I liked the first one enough that I immediately bought the second one. I did also enjoy that but it wasn't really different enough to make me feel like I urgently needed to read on to the rest of the series, I'll just save them up for when I'm in that sort of mood.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseni - I wouldn't describe this as exactly an enjoyable read but I did find it powerful and compelling, and I'm glad I read it. It did feed into my overall feeling of sadness and despair about the state of the world though.
Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce - I enjoyed this but it didn't feel structured quite right. It just sort of ends in a slightly odd way and I didn't quite get pulled into it the way I often do into their other books. I felt perhaps it was more interested in Ozorne as a young man than Numair as a young man really - I wanted more on him discovering and struggling with his magic.
Re-reads
To the Hilt by Dick Francis - I have a a real soft spot for Dick Francis, despite their deficiencies. I did actually re-read another one of his that was on the bookshelf in the reading week house too, but I can't remember which one.
Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones - I have a soft spot for this one. I always like books in which characters you know well from one book turn up in quite a different context and you see them in a different light.
Wild Magic and The Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce - Inspired by Tempests and Slaughter, I went back to re-read these to see if the new knowledge affected how I saw the existing characters and it had some impact but didn't quite feel real somehow, plus I ended up spotting an odd discrepancy which will really bug me unless it's somehow explained in the rest of the to-be-published trilogy. When he's trying to decide what to do about the dampening spells towards the end of Wild Magic, Numair tells Daine he has almost no healing magic but he spends most of Tempests and Slaughter focusing more and more on healing. As I say, at the moment, it nags, but who knows, maybe it will be addressed.
