recent reading
Slowed down a bit again, unfortunately.
- Saturday, Ian McEwan. The story follows a London neurosurgeon through the course of a single day as it turns from routine to nightmarish, with 9/11 and the upcoming invasion of Iraq lurking in the background. I really thought I'd enjoy this more than I did, but it didn't quite grab me like I'd hoped. His prose is wonderful, but I found the confrontation towards the end of the book a bit silly, frankly. Unless you're conversant in the topic of neurosurgery, you might wish like I did that you had a medical dictionary handy in the first ten or fifteen pages.
- Wolves Eat Dogs, Martin Cruz Smith. More Renko is always a good thing, so far as I'm concerned. This time out, his investigation of a suicide leads him to Pripyat and Chernobyl. The Zone itself seemed as much a character in the story as any of the individuals and, truthfully, more interesting than some of them.
- The Winter Queen, Boris Akunin. Apparently Akunin is wildly popular in Russia, but has only fairly recently been translated and published here. This is the first of his Erast Fandorin novels. What's with me and reading about Russian detectives investigating suicides? Not an intentional theme, so far as I know. I really rather enjoyed this, and I see there are a few of the subsequent novels translated so far which will end up on my "to pick up" list.
- D.C. Noir, edited by George Pelecanos. An anthology of short stories set in and around DC. I found it refreshing to read stories set in DC that weren't political thrillers. A couple of stories set around Capitol Hill and K Street do involve lobbyists and Congressional aides, to be fair, but most of the stories take place elsewhere around the city. The publisher's got a series of noir anthologies, including London Noir, Twin Cities Noir, Baltimore Noir, Manhattan Noir (edited by Lawrence Block) and San Francisco Noir. If noir's your thing, check it out.
- She Captains, Joan Druett. In addition to the "pirate queens", there are chapters about officer's wives, women who dressed as men to take to the sea for various reasons, Lady Nelson and Lady Hamilton, Lady Franklin, and female shipowners as well. My biggest peeve about the book was how often a story ended with "nobody ever heard about her again". This was an overview, I didn't feel like I got a particularly deep understanding of any of the women she talks about.
- More Than This, Wil Wheaton. On his website a while back, Wil offered a limited edition chapbook of a couple of stories from his upcoming Do You Want Kids With That?, and I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy. It's only about 20 pages and a very quick read. Wil and his stepson Ryan seem to have frighteningly similar senses of humor -- I was laughing to the point of tears by the time I finished Ryan's foreward. The mullet: official hairstyle of '80s rock.