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What I read: July 2022

"Lent" by Jo Walton. I love her so much. An interesting thing to read right after The Dragon Waiting that's for sure. I knew even less about Savonarola than Richard III but that didn't matter. 

LHC #175: "On Translation: Translators on their work and what it means" edited by Esther Allen. Even the essays I really didn't care about, like the one about translating songs from old French, were fascinating. Somehow it hadn't occurred to me that French would have zany old spellings the way English does. 

LHC #176: "Wanderers" by Chuck Wendig. I was intimidated by the fatness of this, but it was a very quick read (for something so fat). I guess long doesn't equal difficult? I did find the lack of past perfect tense sort of annoying sometimes. It meant I had to pick through manually and decide what order things happened. also an unnatural number of characters with red hair for no reason. And America seems to be populated only by white supremacist gun nuts and sheeple, I find that hard to believe. 

LHC #177: "The Wee Free Men" by Terry Pratchett. I have found him tedious and annoying in the past. There's a certain frantic humor that I find a slog. This was another race between the eBook and hard copy, and the hard copy won. Maybe because it's got a middle grade intended audience, I found the pace, voice, etc., much less annoying than his normal fare. 

LHC #178: "Nomadland" by Jessica Bruder. eBook. Frances McDormand started in a movie loosely based on this book a couple of years ago. This is true stories, profiles of various borderline homeless old people. What stood out to me in this book was the lack of physical violence, and also substance abuse was relatively low. Not sure how realistic that is. I spend far too much time worrying that I'm going to wind up old and homeless, so this was great. 

LHC #179: "You look like a thing and I love you" by Jannelle Shane. eBook. 

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