Ahira's Hangar

I have started reading a collection of interconnected short stories by a Pakistani writer named Daniyal Mueenuddin. The collection is called In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. So far I am greatly enjoying them. He has a deceptively simple writing style - you think you are getting a simple little short story, and when you get done reading it, you realize that you got a subtle little lesson in the culture and hsitory of the country along with the story. Highly recommend.

Currently reading Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test, a book of essays which delves into the plentiful philosophical/ethical issues raised in the graphic novel Watchmen. It's a fun and enlightening read for those like me who aren't well-versed in many of the great philosophies in history, some of which Watchmen bring to light in a modern context.

I have been reading my library books the last couple of days. The fantasy and science ficiton section is horrible, but they have a decent mystery selection - it's as big as the general fiction section, in fact. The problem is that they do not have any complete series, as far as I can tell. Luckily with mysteries, the authors strive to make each book in a series a complete book in and of itself, though the completist in me gets a bit frustrated when they have books #2,5,6,7,9,and 10 in a twelve book series.

But I have been into a little series of cozy mysteries lately called the Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton. I like them, as the ones I have checked out and read do not involve murder and mayhem - which can get a little ridiculous in the series set in tiny little towns, as they must have per capita murder rates higher than most of America's largest cities after a few books. While the library only stocks half the series, the ones I have read are actually very heart warming and well written.

I just finished up the fifth in the series, Aunt Dimity's Christmas, and it was all about finguring out the identity and life story of a mysterious vagrant found terribly ill in front of a cottage in a snow storm. The man lies in the local hospital in a coma, and the cottage owner tries to find out who he is - and whether or not he is a saint or a mad man, as the evidence points to him being one or the other.

Finishing up "Triumph of the Moon" by Ronald Hutton (it's about the origins of NeoPaganism). Borrowed "World Without End" by Ken Follett from Magickmaker yesterday -- I may read that next, or I may start in on the Outlander series. Decisions, decisions...

As part of the hype and hoopla over the new Star Trek movie, I'm reading The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss. This book came out in 1995 but I'm just getting to it now. Yeah, I'm hopeless. Anyway, it's a very fun book: Krauss explains clearly (more or less) the far out science underlying some of Trek's far out technologies. I'll report back once I've finished the book and digested all that crazy stuff.

(No, I haven't seen the new Trek film yet. Pretty soon though.)

I read A Disobedient Girl by Sri Lankan writer Ru Freeman. It interweaves the stories of two women in alternating chapters. One story begins with that main character as a little girl held in virtual slavery as a servant in a wealthy household, and details her life up into her thirties. The other story follows a woman who has packed up her three children and is fleeing an abusive husband. I really wanted to like this book, but had issues with it. One problem is timing - decades go by in the one storyline, while only a few days (at most) go by in the other, so it crawls in comparison. Another is the two main characters themselves. The servant woman keeps making the exact same huge mistakes with huge disastrous consequences again and again and never seems to learn from them at all. Which was very frustrating for me as a reader. The other main character, the mother, was more likable, but she made mistakes out of naivety that also had disastrous consequences. Which was also frustrating for me as a reader.

A book I just finished that I liked much better was the beautifully written The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim. It is the fictionalized retelling of her mother's life as a girl and a young woman in occupied Korea between the world wars. Najin Han was born to the noble class to a somewhat progressive mother (who is a pillar of strength throughout the story) and a very conservative father, who is desperate to protect traditional Korean ways in the face of Japanese occupation. The mother encourages Najin to further her education at every opportunity, and sends her away to serve as a companion to the royal princess at court when her father tries to arrange a marriage for her at age fourteen. The family suffers greatly during the turbulant war years, and Najin becomes a pillar of strength herself. It is a largely quiet story, but with great characters (while her parents want very different things for her, it is clear that they both want what each thinks is the best so niether is villanized) all doing the best they can to survive and help out their family during impossibly hard times.

Zorro by Isabel Allende - a novelisation of the old California legends of the dashing masked man who fought corrupt Spanish colonial officials for justice.

I got it from the library, so am unsure?

This one is not overwrought, if anything it was a bit detached...but fun anyway.

I had not read Allende before, but enjoyed this book enough that I will definately be checking out more of her books.

I'll have to look for it. Sounds like fun!

I'm kind of between books right now, having finished Brian Ruckley's fantasy trilogy over the weekend (which was good, btw). Thought I might catch up on some of the free classics I got with the Reader. But I've also got a dead-tree volume of Garcia Lorca's plays that I bought last fall and have been meaning to read. I got partway into the introduction awhile back, then got sidetracked by something shiny on the Reader -- I don't even remember what it was, now -- and never went back to Garcia Lorca....

I read the first Ruckley book and thought it was good, if a bit grim. Am looking forward to reading books two and three now that the trilogy is complete. good to hear that you liked all three, Ali.

It doesn't get any less grim, Duchess, but I don't think it ever reaches the depths of grimness of the Malazan books. But what saves Erickson's work from out-and-out-depression is the humor -- Kruppe, and the exchanges between the soldiers, and so on. Very little of that in Ruckley's work. Still a good series, tho.

While on vacation, I read a wonderful short little historical novel about based on the author's grandfather's stories of surviving the Siege of Leningrad in WW2, called City of Thieves by David Benioff. High recommend.