“The Stone Sky” by N.K.Jemisin. I had to wait for this book from the library! That sucked. But I went from 25 of 35 (15 copies) to “in Transit” in a few hours one day, so no complaints about the Toronto Public Library. About 150 pages from the end, I was sorely tempted to stay up all night to finish it, but sensibility prevailed. I haven’t done that in so long! This entire series was a delight. And Ed liked them too.
LHC #47: “The Glass Town Game” by Catherynne M. Valente. I had three CV books on my library inactive holds list from the same date. This is the first. It’s the fattest, but there aren’t that many words per page, and there are pictures! This is the fifth CV book I’ve read, and I realized I have more of an intellectual relationship with them than an emotional one. I had no trouble setting it aside to read The Stone Sky and no trouble picking it up again, but I wasn’t really attached to any characters. The only one who I really engaged with was Victoria, when she was talking about her paracosm.
I did gush about it to someone I think should read it. And paracosms, they’re a little bit of an obsession of mine.
LHC #48: “Telling the map: stories” by Christopher Rowe. It was probably the word “map” that got this book on the list. It’s neat the things that obsess him: Protestantism or maybe just religion and how it impacts people is very front and centre, but also how we’re trashing the planet. I could see why this book was dedicated to Terry Bisson. CR made great use of dialog doing more than one thing.
Sometimes when I read a collection of short stories it makes me think I took unfortunate criticism early on from people who don’t read short stories, and maybe I should write some short things to try to learn some skills.
LHC #49: “People who eat darkness” by Richard Lloyd Parry. True crime set in Japan. I really liked how this book was organized – with an overarching timeline and divided into sections, and yet with relatively short chapters that would take one character or theme from start to finish. I kept wishing that book about Salem in 1692 had been organized this way. I think it was possible.