I think it's time to admit I am never cleaning up any of the 2016 book log, post, and move on.

League of Dragons (2016) (Naomi Novik): The concluding novel in the Temeraire series. Napoleon is finally finished off, various disputes are disposed of, and Temeraire and Iskierka's egg hatches.

( On romance and Romance; characterization; and worldbuilding. )

Assume plentiful spoilers under all the cuts.

( The Philosopher Kings (Jo Walton) (2015) )

In December and over the holidays I read a number of Damon Runyon's short stories collected in The Bloodhounds of Broadway and Other Stories (1981). A writing giant of the 1930's, Runyon has a wonderfully distinctive fictional voice and smashing comedic timing.

A coworker lent me Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale (1983), which is a brick-long love ( Read more... )

So, er, I found some book logs I started in July, and put somewhere unusual for me, and just found this week. And I remembered I had finished Lifeboats, so here's some novels.

Ancillary Mercy is getting its own post. It's moved me that much.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami) (1997 trans. Jay Rubin): Absolutely surreal Japanese ( Read more... )

Penric's Demon, a novella in the five gods universe.

This entry cross-posted at http://ase.dreamwidth.org/653138.html, where there are
( Read more... )

NEW BUJOLD NOVEL. AND IT'S A CORDELIA NOVEL. Clearly a massive Bujold reread is in order. Crap, I had other plans tonight and I have been SIDETRACKED BY LIFE. And booze! If that were not clear from the capslock ( Read more... )

2012's going down as one of the less consistent book log years.

The Best American Science Writing 2010 (Jesse Groopman, editor; Jesse Cohen, series editor):. Table of contents below, ask for reactions to any titles that strike your interest.

( ToC )

Feminism is Queer: the Intimate Connection Between Queer and Feminist Theory (Mimi Marinucci) (2010): Gender theory and I do best in small doses, so I like to check in every few years to see if my strong feelings on the importance of activism and the incestuous tedium of theory have abated. (Short answer: no.) I'd hoped for a survey of the current ( Read more... )

Aha!

Trying to engineer social change and improve quality of life are key concepts driving my small-l liberal politics, but the way Dag and Fawn go about it, especially in Horizon, makes me wonder when someone's going to put a torch to the Forbidden Tower Tent.

(2006: The Sharing Knife: Beguilement is published. 1964: The Bloody Sun is published ( Read more... )

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich): Strong entry-level feminism primer. If I were trying to do a women's history or women's studies 101 , I'd love to stick this on the book list and cherry-pick case studies. The author coined the title phrase in a graduate paper on colonial women; in the prologue, she reflects on its ( Read more... )