Books!
I've been reading.
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young
The title is easily the best thing about this book. Young is a British journalist who gets offered a job at Vanity Fair and so moves to New York to make a name for himself. He fails miserably and this is entirely down to the fact that he is a dick. He is sexist, homophobic and while he may have been to Oxford, he's pretty thick. I'm guessing this is partly meant to be a witty expose of the media obsession with celebrity but Young is just as starstruck as those he criticises and he picks some pretty easy targets. For large chunks of this book, I was bored, which isn't what you hope for from a comic memoir.
All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear
I do read books by other people (see above) but Bear has written rather a lot of books and I'm catching up with them all. Anyway, I enjoyed this. There was a certain novelty in having a central character who is short and I think this is one of the reasons Muire appealed to me so much. I was also very taken with Kasimir, the two-headed valraven. I don't have much detailed knowledge of Norse mythology, but the story and the world created was enough to capture my imagination.
I think the aspect of this book that struck me most was the air of melancholy and loss that pervades it. The world is dying, other worlds have died and all the characters are mourning one loss or another. There are some interesting thoughts on grief and the finality of death and there is a very real sadness in the realisation that what has been lost can never be truly regained. For all the grief, it isn't a depressing read, but I would say it is a fairly haunting one. It takes a while to stop swirling around in your head - which is no bad thing.
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young
The title is easily the best thing about this book. Young is a British journalist who gets offered a job at Vanity Fair and so moves to New York to make a name for himself. He fails miserably and this is entirely down to the fact that he is a dick. He is sexist, homophobic and while he may have been to Oxford, he's pretty thick. I'm guessing this is partly meant to be a witty expose of the media obsession with celebrity but Young is just as starstruck as those he criticises and he picks some pretty easy targets. For large chunks of this book, I was bored, which isn't what you hope for from a comic memoir.
All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear
I do read books by other people (see above) but Bear has written rather a lot of books and I'm catching up with them all. Anyway, I enjoyed this. There was a certain novelty in having a central character who is short and I think this is one of the reasons Muire appealed to me so much. I was also very taken with Kasimir, the two-headed valraven. I don't have much detailed knowledge of Norse mythology, but the story and the world created was enough to capture my imagination.
I think the aspect of this book that struck me most was the air of melancholy and loss that pervades it. The world is dying, other worlds have died and all the characters are mourning one loss or another. There are some interesting thoughts on grief and the finality of death and there is a very real sadness in the realisation that what has been lost can never be truly regained. For all the grief, it isn't a depressing read, but I would say it is a fairly haunting one. It takes a while to stop swirling around in your head - which is no bad thing.