too many blokes

[adelaidesean]

My piece for the Victorian Writers' Centre on the books I read in August inspired me to keep track of what I've read since. The short answer is: still not much SF and still hardly any books by women. But here it is, with micro-reviews attached:

• Philip K. Dick: Flow, My Tears, the Policeman Said (timeless)
• Isaac Asimov: The Return of the Black Widowers (endless)
• Robert Goddard: Name to a Face (awful)
• Michael Robotham: The Suspect, Lost, The Night Ferry, Bombproof, Shatter (varying degrees of brilliance)
• Jeffrey Deaver: The Vanished Man (uninspiring)
• Jon Evans: Invisible Armies (started well but lost me halfway)
• Steven Hall: The Raw Shark Texts (awesome)
• Fred Vargas: Seeking Whom He May Devour (a clunky translation from original French but ultimately quite affecting)
• Caitlin R. Kiernan: Tales from the Woeful Platypus (stunning)
• Patrick O'Brian: Master & Commander, Post Captain, HMS Surprise, The Mauritius Command (amazing, of course)

Given that I still have 17.5 Patrick O'Brian books to go, plus reading for Clarion and the Somerset National Novella Competition over Dec/Jan, plus a couple of books to blurb, I'm guessing it'll take me a while to get to all the books I bought at Worlcon...

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Listening to: Patrick O'Hearn - upon solitary expanse

Comments

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

I need to give up the day job so I can read more. Which is rather ironic, given my job.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Ha! Yes.

I used to read for hours at a stretch when I was a kid, but I can't do that any more. Not just because I have other things to do, but because I get restless much more quickly. These days, most of my reading is on planes (which there have been a lot of lately) or late at night, when the biorhythms are ticking over at a gentle 4/4 rather than some mad jazz drummer's improv. If Patrick O'Brian wasn't so damned exciting, I'm sure I'd be sleeping better...

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Love O'Brien. Which one are you up to? I might get mine out over Christmas and re-acquaint myself with them.

My main poblem is that I'm just not reading like I'd like to because, well, I have to work, someone needs to do some housework, sometime, and I have things to make, and I'm ususally too tired to read much at night. But I am making reading time over the Christmas break.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

I just started book five, Desolation Island, in which it appears they're headed to Australia. Hurrah!

Reading is good for the soul. It's also good for writing, something I forgot for a while, to my detriment. I make time for it now, even if it's not as much time as I'd always like.

I hope you get a chance to put your feet up with a good book at least once in the coming weeks!

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

I have a pile ready for the Christmas break. After all, I love cross stitch, but I need to have a break from it from time to time. I have a Meccano Eiffel Tower to finish as well. I'm thinking of putting little LED lights on it and using it as a table decoration. It was a present from Iain. I love my husband, he understands my hobbies.

I'm reading "A journal of a tour in the Hebrides" that Gillian Polack lent me. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell trotting through Scotland and goggling at the wild Northern savages....Think of it as background reading for the O'Brien novels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journal_of_a_Tour_to_the_Hebrides

90 days, 16 books...

[bitfidget.livejournal.com]

I'm nowhere close to that average...seriously, how much time does that take? I must be a ridiculously slow reader.

And, hey, give us another one like The Resurrected Man, willya? LOVED that book. I prosletyze your prose to everyone who will sit still for it here in the states (I got introduced to your books while living in Perth).

Re: 90 days, 16 books...

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

That does sound like a lot of books, now you put it like that. Must've had a few late nights, as well as many hours trapped in planes...

Would it please you know that I'm developing TRM into a movie script?

Re: 90 days, 16 books...

[bitfidget.livejournal.com]

TRM a movie? That sounds awesome!! I sincerely hope that your draft doesn't end up moving the story to the US, tho...

Re: 90 days, 16 books...

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Definitely not! But we'll see how long my determination lasts in the face of a truckload of money. :-)