Book Post: Backman, Gaiman, Vernon, Novik, Carson, Dahl and Bujold
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, 337pp [translated from Swedish]. (started in 2022).
I started this book in 2022 because I saw the trailer with Tom Hanks and wanted to read the book. I wanted to read more Backman anyway so I got it as an ebook from the library. And it cemented for me how much I like Backman as a writer and I like his humor in dealing with serious subjects as well as letting the reader truly get to know the characters, who are not one dimensional in anyway but tend to be pretty complicated people who really do seem like regular people living regular lives. Ove is a curmudgeon and a very rigid one but his life certainly has not been easy. He tries to kill himself in various ways after his wife dies and he is made redundant at work but is thwarted by his neighbors and various events in his neighborhood. He becomes an honorary grandpa really and it is the connection with others that lets him live again. There is a lot of sadness in this story but also hope and I just enjoyed reading the book to see what will happen.
Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman, 110pp (
I finally read this book after getting it years ago. Tanya read it last year and liked it so I figure I needed to catch up. It was a cute book. The Dad goes out to get milk, takes a while and comes back with a fantastical story full of aliens, a inventor dinosaur, time and space travel, pirates and other adventures. It is not Gaiman's most memorable book but it is certainly nice enough. It is very amusing for the intended age group, with Tanya just reading it pretty quickly.
Dragonbreath: The Frozen Menace by Ursula Vernon, 201pp [Dragonbreath 11].
The last in the Dragonbreath series. Danny's fire goes cold and he needs to travel to the mythical North pole and eat an eggshell of a phoenix egg to recover his fire. Wendel and Christiana go with him and have adventures including giant ice-worms and an imprinting baby phoenix. This book brings the series full circle as the series starts with Danny not able to breathe fire, sort of doing it during time of distress in the previous books but now finally learning to control it. I really enjoyed reading this series along with Tanya and then after she was done with the later books and look forward to reading them again in a few years with Olivia.
Golden Age and Other Stories by Naomi Novik, 124pp
This is a collection of Temeraire short stories that were inspired by fan art. Some stories were truly short and some much longer and in all it was so lovely to be back in the Temeraire world again. A very good collection.
"Voly’s Cow" - short post series with Temeraire trying to get a dragon to vote. Cute enough. Too short but a very cute peak at post series activities that Temeraire is up to.
"Planting Season" - the story of John Wampanoag from North America making it work as a trader dragon, making profit for his people. Slow and steady, gaining in experience. An interesting look at the side character.
"Dawn of Battle" - Jane just getting command of her dragon and asserting her authority in a very discriminatory world even along the Corps. I always like Jane's no-nonsense attitude and you just cheer her on as she puts her subordinate into place.
"Golden Age"- The main story of the book and the longest. To my slight embarrassment, it took me 24 hours after I finished it to realize that this story was not set pre-Temeraire with another dragon, but alternate reality with Temeraire. Temeraire is the main character, just with the name Celeste because in this universe, the ship that bore him from China crashed on the Caribean island and he grew up with feral dragons and became a bit of a pirate. Laurence is sent in the Reliant to find "The French pirates" who use dragons to threaten ships, and he ends up forming a close relationship with Celeste since the point is to show their connection in any universe. There is also a Kraken. Also Laurence’s moral dilemma that overrides loyalty to military and country is also present here, which was really well done, since this was the crux of the series for me as well. I want to smack myself in the head for this delayed realization that this is an alternate universe. It has been awhile since I read the Temeraire series and I remembered a bit after the fact that Amirite was Temeraire’s French ship. That detail should have clued me in sooner. Overall, this was an excellent story and I'm sure it would have even deeper implications and impressions if I realized as I was reading the Celeste was Temeraire.
"Succession" - Temeraire’s mother’s story of hatching two eggs and worrying about the Chinese succession and what led to her decision to let one egg go to France. And that Temeraire was actually the older egg.
"Dragons and Decorum" - Pride and Prejudice with dragons. If Elizabeth Bennett was a Captain in the Aerial Corps with a dragon Wollstonecraft and met Mr. Dancy while already in service. Using a lot of very familiar situations in the book and even similar dialogue. A very clever take on Pride and Prejudice. And it did work.
There were also 26 Drabbles of various kinds.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, c.304pp
I started this in 2022 as it was one of the last books I wanted to get to last year, but it was a bit of slow going so I finished it mid-January. This is a classic book, written over 50 years ago, that started the environmental movement and a lot of things in it we take for granted now. So creepy to think that people just sprayed chemicals without really studying the consequences even though more natural solutions were available. And it is not like this is really stopped. We have so many chemicals in our bodies. Carson really presented her evidence well and was the first one to really unite various studies and put it into one package for people to see and really changed the world and approach to environmental protection. The book is also depressing since there are still many environmental and climate problems on top of those. Some chapters did get a little too technical or held less interest for me since I'm not a biologist or chemist, but it was written for a lay person at least. I'm glad I read it even though it was not an easy read in terms of subject.
Matilda by Roald Dahl, 240pp
After watching two different Matilda movies it was time to read the book. I didn't grow up with Dahl - I'm aware of him as a children's writer now but I was almost 13 when I came to the US and I kipped over him. He wasn't translated when I was a kid. (Just like I am still catching up on Diane Wynn Jones). I got Matilda for Tanya to read because they both loved the movies so much and then in the evening, I would read what she was reading, since she wanted me to read it as well and I wanted to. I tried reading outloud to Olivia but she is not ready for this yet and just wanted some section. She is sticking to the movies by now. Both movies actually were great adaptations of the plot, especially the 1996 movie, so nothing in the book was too new, it all felt familiar. I did think it was well written and the plot carried you along. Tanya is now willing to try more Dahl - BFG was on sale in her class Scholastic book orders so we got that - it also helps that some of her classmates are reading Dahl too. I might check out more classics. I'm getting to experience American childhood books which were very different from mine. (But then I was also reading all of Dumas and Christie and all the Tarzan series and all kinds of books that here are considered adult and not really given to kids. We read what we had access too as kids, although we did have books for kids as well.
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, 488pp
I finished Vorkosigan Saga last year and I wanted to read more Bujold. So this year I wanted to check out her fantasy series from the World of Five Gods, especially since one of them won a Hugo and I am actively reading those. I knew absolutely nothing about the series other than it is a fantasy and someone mentioned in the comments that it has a historical setting and I then I read that it was inspired by medieval Spain. So I dug in with very little information and wound up falling in love with this book. I am very much looking forward to more in this universe.
Since I knew the series was a fantasy equivalent of medieval Spain, the setting was very comfortable for me and needed very little explanation. I studied medieval England but I taught enough European and Global history to know medieval Spanish history. I also really loved the characters. Cazaril is so earnest and tries so hard, and Iselle and Betriz are clever girls who grow well with the plot. Bujold's world building felt so easy as well, the theology not that complicated and pretty clear with each God having a season and a color and a sacred animal to act in the funeral. A lot of the times when I read a book set in a new universe, weather sci-fi or fantasy, it takes a while for world building to settle and my brain feels too full at times with second book flowing easier, but not here. It is immersive from the first.
It is also how the plot is constructed - first focusing on individual (Cazaril) and his adjustment to society and we learn from that, then to family (Iselle, her brother, grandmother and mother) and Cazaril settling in as the tutor, with some plot introduced in the background like Cazaril's explanation of Dondo to his friend Palli, and only then the action moves to the capital city and the main plot, which is kicked off by the spell book Cazaril encounters in the very first chapter. Nothing in the book is an accident, but given the presence of the Gods it doesn't feel too contrived. There was only one time the book was irritating me - right before Iselle's engagement - it was clearly going to be an engagement and yet neither Carazil or the ladies could figure out what news Orico was hinting at? It irks me when I figure out where the plot is going but it takes the characters a lot longer to get there. But other than that, the rest of the plot of well done and you root for the characters and the overall solution was very clever since I didn't think the ending for Cazaril would be anything other than demonic.
I'm very much looking forward to the next book and the series overall. This book was just fantastic and was written just for me.