Stuff I've been reading

All right, y'all, I'm sure you've noticed my conspicuous absence. Nothing weird or bad going on, just a lot of Real Life that needs straightening out which leaves me with not a ton of time to be reviewing. Trust me - there's about ten started-but-not-finished reviews lingering on the back end of this blog, staring at me and inducing wracking guilt every time I'm online.

So what have I been reading? Well, being a list-maker at heart, I thought I'd just let you know.

Working on Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke, which is one of my books for 2009. I am really enjoying it, even though it took quite some time to get into at first. The scenes with the statues at York Minster talking - and the brilliant description of Waterloo as seen through Jonathan Strange - are so far my favorite bits. This book has occupied the odd position of my Breakfast Book: being a person who reads several books at once, books generally take a geographical or chronological assignment. This one, by virtue of the fact that it's fun to read on my sunny front stoop on the weekends (and is way too big to carry around in even my monster-size purse), has taken up residence in the breakfast hours - or twenty minutes - of my mornings.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. After hearing a lot of people raving about this I decided to give it a go. I think I was initially turned off by this book by some earlier edition that I think had some fruit on the cover. Seriously. But it's quite unexpectedly funny, and a little bit of fresh air. This is the book I carry around with me.

The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston. Never heard of it? Not surprising. Apparently it's been out of print in the US since 1926, though the Collins Library of McSweeney Books re-released it a couple of years in a gorgeous hardcover edition. The crux? A mysterious amnesiac escapes from a rural British asylum and befriends a befuddled but well-meaning German baron. Antics ensue. If you like Wodehouse, do yourself a favor and check this one out.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Am I perhaps the only person who hasn't yet read this? It's interesting so far, but I am only about twenty pages in. It also occupies a unique position since it's too large to carry about during the day but breakfast book is taken. Also I generally don't want something so hefty at night. So it's not yet found a comfortable place in my day, but I suspect it may take Strange/Norrell's place when I am finished with that.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Of course I've read this before. I just have to read it again before the film comes out. I'd forgotten how good it is.

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus. This was a book club pick. Don't read it.

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. As a narrative nonfiction the author does a good job, although he goes off into a crazy tangent at the end about nuclear weapons. I can almost hear some agent or editor saying, "No one cares about cholera in 1854. Can you make it more pertinent to the present day?"

The Watchman by Robert Crais. This was borrowed from a friend who reads mystery-detective-type books and shares them with his father, who is also an avid reader. It wasn't much up my alley, but it wasn't bad. It was just so completely swathed in testosterone that it was difficult to resist snorting at it every now and again.

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett, perhaps my favorite Discworld novel. This was probably my tenth reading. What makes it memorable to me? Well, I adore Susan, the granddaughter of DEATH, and this novel is a bit more philosophical as opposed to political in nature, though it's no less humorous.

Revealed by Kate Noble. The author was kind enough to send me a copy after I fell in love with Compromised. I have to admit this one didn't do it so much for me - and that's partially because I read it immediately after reading My Lord and Spymaster, and if you want Regency spies you should look to Joanna Bourne immediately - but it was still really amusing and well-written, and I will undoubtedly buy Noble's next book without hesitation.

Vanity and Vexation: A Novel of Pride and Prejudice by Kate Fenton. This one was so cleverly written and conceived and executed - and so very meta - and I loved it. Brilliant. And I tend to not like Austen "retellings."

Lavinia. This was my first Ursula K. LeGuin novel, and I enjoyed it although there was a definite change in agency about half-way through in which Lavinia as a character stops acting for herself and starts acting as an agent for the action in the novel. (This also happened in One Thousand White Women, and I disliked that book so much that I actually didn't care in that novel.) I'm on the fence about this one. I did really enjoy it, but I hate that dying fall when women in books stop telling their own stories. (Update: Find the full review here.)

Desperately Seeking a Duke by Celeste Bradley. I don't remember a lot of it except the main characters were all trying to marry dukes in order to win some inheritance, and the three cousins who were the main characters had such similar names that I kept on getting them confused.

The Spymaster's Lady and My Lord and Spymaster by Joanna Bourne. I definitely preferred The Spymaster's Lady of the two, although both were excellent. I would like to read Adrian's story, though. Is there any chance there's a third coming from these loosely-related two?

So...how about you? What have you been up to?

By the way, I really do intend to write reviews of most of these books. Seriously. Just not today.