A lot of books for review, and one proofing job.
For fun:
Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire, A Desolation Called Peace
I reread Memory so I could have context for Desolation. These are both excellent, complicated, brilliant books, about a colonizing empire which is nevertheless very attractive. Also (more important in the second than the first) some strange, deadly, fascinating aliens. Highly recommend both of these, but save them for when you can spare a lot of brain power.
The title of the second novel makes it sound like Martine is basing these on the Roman empire, but that is not at all the case. I don't recognize the empire she *is* basing them on, though. Maybe one she invents? The court politics and the culture of the empire are both fascinating.
Jess Ruliffson, Invisible Wounds
This is a graphic novel/oral history of veterans, mostly those who fought in US wars during the past two decades. A lot of PTSD, as you would expect. I recommend this, though I don't know that I enjoyed it. If I ever teach a war & literature class, though, I would include this one. Ruliffson includes a trans soldier, and also a victim of sexual assault, so content warning there. Content warning for the entire book, I guess -- there's also suicidal thoughts, violence, racism, all that.
R. P. Lanza and Nancy Kress, Observer
And here we have real science fiction, rather than science fantasy. I love Nancy Kress, so I checked this out from the library on the strength of her name -- I had never heard of Lanza. Wikipedia tells me he's a physician and a scientist, and that this is his first novel.
It starts with a woman neurosurgeon getting cancelled by Twitter, which nearly put me off; but that is done with careful realism, not your usual propaganda. Caroline Soames-Watkins is compelled (by various circumstances) to then take a job offered by her famous great-uncle, at a shady research center in the Caribbean. The research turns out to be a way to allow subjects to access other universes in the multiverse. The science here seems accurate to me (a non-scientist) and is explained clearly enough that I (a non-scientist) could mostly follow it. The characters are a bit two-dimensional, as is also traditional in real science SF, but not all the characters are straight white guys, so that's a nice change.
I enjoyed this one a lot. The parts about the multiverse are particularly good, and there's some heart-tugging passages. The opening is pretty grim, so maybe skim through that part? Get to the science on the island.
George Eliot, Middlemarch
The best novel in the English language. I've read it like a dozen times, despite it's massive length, and am now listening to it while I exercise. This version. It's excellent, and also 35 hours long, so it's lasting me awhile. Listening to it rather than reading it makes me pay more attention to the language, I'm noticing, and especially Eliot's metaphors, which are wonderful.
If you haven't read Middlemarch, you should read Middlemarch. Eliot lets us spend a year or so with the intertwined lives of the inhabitants of Middlemarch, a city in the English midlands, and its environs. We also make a brief trip to Italy. Also this is the book in which Will Ladislaw, my fictional boyfriend, is a character. Honestly, this is the only book by Eliot I actually like, though I've read or at least started all the others. But this is a perfect novel. Everyone should read it. And listen to it.
There was a BBC series made of the book, but it is awful. Don't even look at it.
Stephen King, Duma Key
To be honest, I mainly read this one because my library has a large print copy. At night when my eyes are tired I need large print. I remember reading this once before, some time ago, but I didn't remember much about it. The first half is pretty good -- a building contractor gets badly injured (as King did) in a a vehicle accident, and as part of his recovery (he's wealthy, as King is) rents a house in the Florida Keys for a year. While there, he returns to his first love, which is art, and (via supernatural means) turns out to be a brilliant artist. All that kept my exhausted interest well. The last third of the book is the artist and his buddies fighting a supernatural evil demon, and that part got a little tedious. King should try writing non-horror books, in my opinion. He'd be good at it.
Faith Addis, Butter-side Down
Another large print, about a woman and her husband and her mother who are small-holders in the west of England. It's non-fiction, of that genre of books about quotidian life which were popular in the 1960s-1980s. They keep pigs, goats, and horses, and grow flowers and veg to sell. The horses are used to give kids riding lessons. I very much enjoyed having a mother in a novel who wasn't a villain or an idiot -- in fact, this mother is a font of wisdom about surviving in the country and on very little money. Nothing big happens in the book, which is kind of the point, but it was a charming read. If you like the Miss Read novels, you'd probably like this. Apparently there are several of these, charting Faith and her family's life through the years, though my library only has this one -- I may seek out others via Thriftbooks.
Oh, and apparently there was a TV series on BBC?
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