What I've been reading
I have a few books on the go or have just finished them. Some brief notes.
The Diviners by Libba Bray. A fun, horror/supernatural YA novel. It moves along at a rollicking pace, but suffers from far too often wearing the details of its setting too loudly. It seems to shout, 'Hey, it's the twenties,' every couple of paragraphs. I also find Bray's heroines a bit too repetitive and a bit ahistorical in their values and attitudes. This was particularly the case in her Victorian trilogy. It worked well in Beauty Queens, in which she basically satirised her own heroines. I don't think YA readers would be as bothered by the setting hammer as I was, given that they are probably less familiar with the period. She does include some main characters of colour and one is a significant narrative focus. I wonder if he's a bit of a 'magical negro' but so many of the characters have magical abilities, he doesn't stand out too much as such. For me: 7/10, but younger readers might rate it more highly. It's a long book and has lots of focal characters, so probably needs a fairly strong or sophisticated reader.
The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane. This is a fantastic piece of non-fiction 'travel' writing. The writer is a true stylist and his sentences have an incredible grace and beauty. Here's the publisher's description:
In The Old Ways Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the British landscape and its waters, and connecting them to the continents beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, of pilgrimage and ritual, and of songlines and their singers. Above all this is a book about people and place: about walking as a reconnoitre inwards, and the subtle ways in which we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move.
Highly recommended by me. A real 10/10.
The Diviners by Libba Bray. A fun, horror/supernatural YA novel. It moves along at a rollicking pace, but suffers from far too often wearing the details of its setting too loudly. It seems to shout, 'Hey, it's the twenties,' every couple of paragraphs. I also find Bray's heroines a bit too repetitive and a bit ahistorical in their values and attitudes. This was particularly the case in her Victorian trilogy. It worked well in Beauty Queens, in which she basically satirised her own heroines. I don't think YA readers would be as bothered by the setting hammer as I was, given that they are probably less familiar with the period. She does include some main characters of colour and one is a significant narrative focus. I wonder if he's a bit of a 'magical negro' but so many of the characters have magical abilities, he doesn't stand out too much as such. For me: 7/10, but younger readers might rate it more highly. It's a long book and has lots of focal characters, so probably needs a fairly strong or sophisticated reader.
The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane. This is a fantastic piece of non-fiction 'travel' writing. The writer is a true stylist and his sentences have an incredible grace and beauty. Here's the publisher's description:
In The Old Ways Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the British landscape and its waters, and connecting them to the continents beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, of pilgrimage and ritual, and of songlines and their singers. Above all this is a book about people and place: about walking as a reconnoitre inwards, and the subtle ways in which we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move.
Highly recommended by me. A real 10/10.