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Wednesday Words to the Wise
May. 18th, 2016 01:27 pmArchived from Livejournal
What I've Finished Reading
Time of Hope by C. P. Snow. It went by fast and didn't bore me, and was a little more interesting than the previous Snow. This one is kind of diluted Somerset Maugham, with the narrator deliberately getting himself hopelessly entangled with an unhappy woman who will make him unhappy. I might say a little more about it next week and I might not. Probably I should.
What I'm Sort of Reading
In an attempt to give my eyes a break, I picked up a free audiobook from work and have been listening to it. The book is Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton, starring a slightly insufferable urban vampire hunter, her preternaturally foppish vampire boyfriend, and lots of rape. It takes place in a world where there are were-versions of every mammal anyone ever drew on a notebook in middle school, vampires, a Circus of the Damned, and zombies, and probably some other things that just haven't come up. Anita Blake works as a kind of law-enforcement liaison for supernatural cases. This provides her with lots of interesting scars to show off in tank tops and backless dresses, and also some moral dilemmas. There are already enough descriptions of clothing and dialogue infodumps for ten regular books - Anita reminds me a little of Enoby Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. She was dating a vampire and a werewolf, but the werewolf freaked her out by eating a guy right in front of her, so now she's sticking to the comparatively safe and meticulously groomed vampire, who talks with a Pepe Le Pew accent and says "ma petite" a lot.
It's not really my thing. If this were a paper book, I would have closed it around the third or fourth conversation about how toughand goff and unlike other girls Anita is, but in this format it's enjoyable. I don't mind that I can't follow the plot because I probably wouldn't like the plot very much (from what I can tell: a bunch of supernatural factions rape and torture each other; Anita is the Chosen One of several communities of which she is not a part), and it helps pass the time while I'm cleaning.
What I'm Reading Now
Lady Chatterly's Lover ( is a book that I am reading )
It's interesting. I can't really tell how good it is or isn't. The little motor chair is my favorite character, poor little guy. It could be the hero of a children's book: broken and abandoned by the evil/pathetic Sir Clifford, it lingers forlornly first in a barn, then in a scrap yard, before being discovered and fixed up by the scrap metal man as a gift for his daughter, who loves it for the freedom it gives her while respecting its limitations as a machine. It could be called Dream of the Chair or A Chair for Cecilia or The Very Lonely Chair or The Helping Chair, with winsome single-color imitation period illustrations, or maybe some nice watercolors.
I just started To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, which does have a time-travel grant committee, or maybe just one eccentric billionaire who controls the time-travel funds; I'm not sure. There's a team of time-travelers who have been sent back to confirm the existence at a particular time of an architectural feature, for reasons that are unclear. It's a little funny, but not yet as funny as Three Men in a Boat. I am going to read the rest, but I have to finish The Dispossessed first, and a bunch of other things.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have to finish my current stack before I can start anything new! Two new 99 Novels, previously mentioned -- The Disenchanted and Scenes from Provincial Life. Some books from my bookshelf, probably.
What I've Finished Reading
Time of Hope by C. P. Snow. It went by fast and didn't bore me, and was a little more interesting than the previous Snow. This one is kind of diluted Somerset Maugham, with the narrator deliberately getting himself hopelessly entangled with an unhappy woman who will make him unhappy. I might say a little more about it next week and I might not. Probably I should.
What I'm Sort of Reading
In an attempt to give my eyes a break, I picked up a free audiobook from work and have been listening to it. The book is Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton, starring a slightly insufferable urban vampire hunter, her preternaturally foppish vampire boyfriend, and lots of rape. It takes place in a world where there are were-versions of every mammal anyone ever drew on a notebook in middle school, vampires, a Circus of the Damned, and zombies, and probably some other things that just haven't come up. Anita Blake works as a kind of law-enforcement liaison for supernatural cases. This provides her with lots of interesting scars to show off in tank tops and backless dresses, and also some moral dilemmas. There are already enough descriptions of clothing and dialogue infodumps for ten regular books - Anita reminds me a little of Enoby Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. She was dating a vampire and a werewolf, but the werewolf freaked her out by eating a guy right in front of her, so now she's sticking to the comparatively safe and meticulously groomed vampire, who talks with a Pepe Le Pew accent and says "ma petite" a lot.
It's not really my thing. If this were a paper book, I would have closed it around the third or fourth conversation about how tough
What I'm Reading Now
Lady Chatterly's Lover ( is a book that I am reading )
It's interesting. I can't really tell how good it is or isn't. The little motor chair is my favorite character, poor little guy. It could be the hero of a children's book: broken and abandoned by the evil/pathetic Sir Clifford, it lingers forlornly first in a barn, then in a scrap yard, before being discovered and fixed up by the scrap metal man as a gift for his daughter, who loves it for the freedom it gives her while respecting its limitations as a machine. It could be called Dream of the Chair or A Chair for Cecilia or The Very Lonely Chair or The Helping Chair, with winsome single-color imitation period illustrations, or maybe some nice watercolors.
I just started To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, which does have a time-travel grant committee, or maybe just one eccentric billionaire who controls the time-travel funds; I'm not sure. There's a team of time-travelers who have been sent back to confirm the existence at a particular time of an architectural feature, for reasons that are unclear. It's a little funny, but not yet as funny as Three Men in a Boat. I am going to read the rest, but I have to finish The Dispossessed first, and a bunch of other things.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have to finish my current stack before I can start anything new! Two new 99 Novels, previously mentioned -- The Disenchanted and Scenes from Provincial Life. Some books from my bookshelf, probably.
