My Russian spring (gimme some reading tips!)

[sealwhiskers]

Lately I've been trying to read some Russian/Slavic writers, since my Russian is barely existent and I am too slow a reader in Polish, I read them translated into those languages I am a completely fluent reader in, so that I can do it somewhat swiftly

Comments

[alecto23]

I've been reading the Hunger Games trilogy. A friend lent them to me, and I thought I'd see what all the fuss is about. Apart from that, there's been a lot of rereading the later Wimsey novels (Dorothy L Sayers) lately, and also the first Jill Paton Walsh/Sayers co-authored book, Thrones and Dominations. I should have left that one because I was so irritated that Paton Walsh utterly failed to capture Sayers. I'd read it before, but not immediately after re-reading Sayers herself. So although it's an ok book in its own right, compared to Sayers, it's just... *sigh*. Anyway, I have another one of those to read and also another Nicola Upson (have you read any of hers? They feature Josephine Tey, which is the pen name Elizabeth Mackintosh used to write mysteries - so Upson's using an alter ego/invented identity of a real person to investigate fictional crimes. But she does seem to work in details from Mackintosh's life as well, as much as she can since there's not a lot of biographical material to work with. Anyway, since you like Laurie R King, you might like these as well.) Speaking of LRK, I have her latest, The Pirate King, on the to-read pile as well. Also vols 2 & 3 of Abarat

I've also been slowly picking up books by Gillian Bradshaw, thanks to the wonders of Book Depository since Australian bookstores never carried her books. She writes really excellent historical fiction, set all over the place. The last one I read was called The Sand-Reckoner and was about Archimedes and Syracuse and various other things. She has a gift for making history seem accessible and understandable, I want to say contemporary but that makes it sound like you forget that it's historical, and you don't. But it's more like good fantasy - a place that you haven't been to and can't, though in this case because time travel's not possible, not because the world doesn't/never existed. Anyway, she also does really good female characters even when they're not the main one. The previous one of hers I read, The Wolf Hunt, was set in medieval France and had a female protagonist and werewolves. Also very good. And The Beacon at Alexandria is one of my all-time favourites, with a Roman girl disguising herself as a eunuch so she can run off to Alexandria and study medicine rather than get married to an asshole.

If you haven't read John Ajvide Lindqvist (who did Let the Right One In and some others), I rather enjoy his. I've only read them in translation though, no idea how they are in Swedish.

Hmm, come to think of it, there hasn't been a lot of fantasy on the reading list lately, apart from rereading Diana Wynne Jones and the odd Steven Brust. May have to do something about that.

[sealwhiskers]

Nicola Upton sounds like a good match, not only to me, but to several mystery loving family members who are into LRK. So Bradshaw is American, and can more easily be found here in bookstores than in Australia?
I've probably read everything by Lindqvist, and read Let the Right one In long before it was translated or even became a movie. He's a great writer, and is as far as I've seen (I've bought several of his books for the Geek to read in English) decently translated.
I recently re-read many of the Brust Books, but I want to re read more DWJ, since she sadly died last year.

[alecto23]

Yeah, Upson's worth a read. She works in a lot of queer stuff, and has Josephine Tey completely ok with alternative sexualities. No idea if the real Elizabeth Mackintosh was. My only quibble is that the books can be kind of... dark? gory? unkind? Not sure quite how to describe it. Tey's actual books (which are really really really good; I cannot recommend them highly enough; also Dorothy L Sayers) have an underlying kindness or sense that despite the horrible nasty things that people do to each other, there's also an innate goodness. Upson's books don't share that. People are just horrible and nasty. Not everyone, but they're weighted towards the nasty.

And yes, Bradshaw is American. I'd forgotten that. She lives in Britain now. Anyway, if you can't find them in bookstores, they're on Book Depository and Amazon and such.

Just realised there's a Lindqvist in translation that I haven't yet read - Little Star. Yay!

DWJ is my top comfort read. I am very miserable that she died, even though it sounds like she had a good life and did a lot of what she wanted and made her happy, and left us with lots of books to re-read.