Sort-of Recent Reading
I’m probably going to skip by a lot of books I’ve read in the last few months, too bad! Here’s just what I can remember. It does demonstrate (1) that I am reading a LOT of books and (2) that my iPad has become my reading device of choice. This list of books doesn’t even include the many articles from newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other shorter stuff which I also read on my iPad. More on this in a separate post.
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
Paperback, my own collection
I have always been very interested in the history of science and technology, and this book really pandered to that interest. Covering the late 1700s to the early 1800s, this is a beautifully written and fascinating look at the intertwining of science and culture in the “Romantic” era in Britain. I had no idea that scientists like Humphry Davy also wrote poetry and were closely associated with poets like Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Byron, who in turn had been deeply interested in contemporary science.
Even putting aside that fascinating side of the book, The Age of Wonder is also a wonderful collection of scientific biographies, covering the lives and work of Joseph Banks, William and Catherine Herschel, William’s son John Herschel, Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday, not to mention the explorer Mungo Park. Really well done.
Heresy by S.J.Parris
E-book, on my iPad
Ho-hum mediaeval mystery with Giordano Bruno as the protagonist, for some reason. I slogged through it, but was left unsatisfied.
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords by George R R Martin
Audiobooks, on my iPhone
This is the second time I’ve read/listened to this series by George R R Martin. I’m not at all a big fan of long-winded fantasy series, but Martin writes so well, with such interesting and three-dimensional characters, and with such a light touch on the magical or fantasy elements of his world that these books do stand out from the genre. The series now seems bogged down, with Martin spending the last ten or twelve years trying to get out the next volume (I count A Feast for Crows as an unfortunate and awkward attempt to satisfy the demands of his fans) with no real prospect in sight of the whole projected series (eight volumes) ever being completed. But I almost think that the series could end with A Storm of Swords and still be considered a completed and satisfying work in its own right.
Passage by Connie Willis
E-book, on my iPad
The premise of this book – researchers investigating near-death experiences – didn’t at first sound promising. But Willis takes it in unexpected directions, and really makes you think. Though the whole book is essentially about death, you close it with a smile.
Lincoln’s Dreams by Connie Willis
E-book, on my iPad
I really loved this. Again, Willis deals with an extremely unlikely premise – a young woman is beset with vivid dreams which seem to be communications from the past – and makes you believe it. It’s a romance but not a romance. A tragedy but not a tragedy. It will teach you a lot about the American Civil War, and will make you feel deeply about it and the leading players in it.
And it ends with a line which just bowls you over, because Willis has been leading you to it, step by step, throughout the entire book.
Blindsighted
Kisscut
A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter
E-books, on my iPad
Somewhat gruesome series of mysteries set in Grant County in Georgia, but well-done, with good characterisation. Not for those easily shocked, however.
The Temple of the Magic Rats by Robert Brunton
E-book, on my iPad
This is an unpublished novel written by a friend of mine. He gave it to me as a Word document, but it was far more comfortable to read it in iBooks on my iPad, so I did a quick conversion.
The author is an award-winning exhibition designer, and this book, like his first (The Golden Pavillions) is semi-autobiographical and features the building of a trade exhibition, in this case in Tehran in the late 1960s. But Brunton is able to weave in the tragic story of the Kurds and their persecution, making their plight seem personal and very real.
Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene
E-book, on my iPad
Interesting non-fiction about the way that reading works from a neurological perspective. How did the human brain develop so that extremely specific areas of the brain seem to be dedicated to the reading process, when writing is a cultural construct only a few thousand years old, clearly too recent for these capabilities to have evolved? Dehaene answers that question in a satisfying manner, and elucidates much about the way we actually read and learn to read.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
E-book, on my iPad
This is an award-winning novel by an Afghani writer, but to be honest I didn’t much enjoy it, nor did I feel that it gave much insight into Afghanistan’s plight today.
The Ghost by Robert Harris
Audiobook, on my iPhone
Entertaining novel about a ghost writer (whose name, appropriately, we never discover) hired to write the autobiography of an ex-Prime Minister of Britain (suspiciously similar to Tony Blair). Secrets are eventually revealed. Not great literature, but enjoyable enough.
