pedanther

#8: A book with a cover in the same colour as the previous book

Devil in the Mountain: A Search for the Origin of the Andes by Simon Lamb.

Still at it, but it's slow going. It's interesting, but it requires concentration and it's not the kind of book where, when you're not reading it, you're actively looking forward to picking it up again. (At least for me; someone who was more into geology in general might feel differently.)


StoryGraph Onboarding Challenge: A book you discovered via the 'Similar Users' toggle on the News Feed

Attempt one: Mythos by Stephen Fry. A collection of retellings of stories from Greek mythology.

I have not yet officially given up on it, but I'm less than a quarter of the way through and I have a strong feeling I'm not going to make it to the end. Fry is at a disadvantage with me, because I've been reading various authors' retellings of Greek myths since I was small and I already know most of the stories (and most of the facts he sprinkles in about modern words that derive from them), so it's standing or falling on the execution. I had hopes for the execution -- after all, it's Stephen Fry -- but so far it's not going well. The tone feels inconsistent: it doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind whether it's aiming for a formal register or a colloquial tone, or whether it's recounting the myths as something long ago and far away or getting right up in the action and into the characters' heads, and switches from one to another from sentence to sentence in a way I'm finding rather irritating.

Someone I know is listening to the audio book and enjoying it, and perhaps that would be the way to go; presumably Fry's performance would help.

Anyway, we're still in the early parts of the story, where the world is full of immortal personifications of abstract concepts and humans haven't been invented yet. I'm going to give it until the humans show up, and see if the narrative settles down when there are actual people in it. My hopes are not high, though.

#6: A book whose title has the same first letter as the name of the previous book's author

James Randi: Psychic Investigator, the companion volume to the 1991 TV series of the same name.

An introductory overview of a topic and a person I was already interested in, so there wasn't much in it that was new to me except in the details, but it was an entertaining overview and an enjoyable refresher, and now there's one less unread-for-over-a-decade book on my shelves.


#7: A book with the same number of words in the title as the previous book

It took me over a week to pick a book for this prompt, because I kept trying to match the previous book to the extent of having four proper words with no articles or prepositions, which leaves a lot of candidates out (anything titled "The X of Y", for a start). In the end, I settled on:

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche in which Psyche's sister decides it's time to tell her side of the story.

Another unread-for-over-a-decade book; as an adult, I've developed a tendency to distrust Lewis. In this case, I'm glad I finally read it.

Orual makes an interesting protagonist and narrator: she's not a nice person, proud and selfish, but it's always clear why the things she does made sense to her at the time. And, balancing the fact that she's ready with a justification for her bad actions, she's also capable of doing signficant good and doesn't always recognise how good she's been. (I was reminded of the saying about how life is like working backstage at a theatre or doing an embroidery from the wrong side, where you're always aware of the messy scaffolding that nobody else can see and only have an indistinct idea of what it looks like to everyone else.)


#8: A book with a cover in the same colour as the previous book

The cover of Till We Have Faces has a full-cover illustration with a very similar colour scheme to the previous book I had for this prompt last year, which would have been a useful thing to notice then but now means that, unless there's another such book lurking unnoticed on my shelves, I'm facing a similar struggle to find something to match it.

Fiction books
Tove Jansson, tr. David McDuff. The Moomins and the Great Flood
WE Johns. Biggles Forms a Syndicate
Sharon Lee. Sea Wrack and Changewind (e)
KG Lethbridge. The Rout of the Ollafubs (re-read)
Alexander McCall Smith. The Tin Dog
Andy Weir. The Martian (e) (re-read)
Oscar Wilde. Lady Windermere's Fan
Jane Yolen. Sister Light, Sister Dark (e)

In progress
Tove Jansson, tr. Elizabeth Portch. Comet in Moominland
Tim Powers. Down and Out in Purgatory: The Collected Stories of Tim Powers (e)
Helen Simonson. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (e)

Abandoned
Martin Cruz Smith. Gorky Park

Non-fiction books
Colin Duriez. The Tolkien and Middle-Earth Handbook
Alan Loy McGinnis. The Friendship Factor

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Agatha Christie. The Mysterious Affair at Styles

. As I mentioned some time back, I had formed a vague intention to travel to the city and catch up with family there, but I had run aground on my problems with self-motivated scheduling. A week ago, I finally managed to nail down a specific event I could build the rest of my travel plans around, and then things proceeded with rapidity (perhaps aided by the fact that I'm running out of leave), so I'll be heading down later this week. Those of you who are in the city already, any suggestions about fun things to do or places to visit while I'm in town? I've already taken note that it's a WABA weekend, so if any of you are going I might see you there.


. I've been playing Ingress more than usual, partly inspired by the recent event and partly by noticing that I'm getting close to unlocking Access Level 12, which I've been picking my way toward for quite a while. (Although I looked it up just now, and apparently the feature that used to be only available to Level 12 and up was recalibrated months ago and is now available from Level 10 up, which shows you how much attention I've been paying. I'd have found out if I'd tried to use it in the past few months, but of course I never did because I thought I knew it wouldn't be available.) I'm running out of things to do locally because everything within easy bike distance is already incorporated into a field, which is partly a result of my activity and partly due to the fact that my main opponent, who can usually be relied on to tear down anything I build in short order, hasn't been active recently (based on past experience, he's probably out of town for a while). I'm using it as an impetus to expand my definition of "easy bike distance".


. Speaking of which, I've been riding my bike a lot recently. I'm trying to build up a habit of going for a bike ride in the morning before the day heats up (though even then, I haven't gone out recently without being glad my bike has a water bottle holder). I'm hoping that if I get the habit going now, it will stick when my leave is over and turn into me going for a bike ride before work.


. I've been reading a four-volume retelling of stories from the Mabinogion by Evangeline Walton, which if memory serves I picked up secondhand at a Swancon. It's a mixed bag; she tries to give comprehensible human motivations to the characters, which works better for some stories than others. Sometimes if you try to add human depth to a wonder tale about a cunning trickster, you run the risk of your audience coming to the conclusion that the trickster is an entitled jackass. And sometimes I don't know what Walton was doing; her characterisation of the female characters in Prince of Annwn, which I read first, is deeply weird and would probably have resulted in me giving up on the series entirely if I didn't already have all four volumes at hand. The Children of Llyr, which I read next, is much more successful (though the subject matter is grimmer, and it trails off a bit after it gets to the climactic tragedy), and The Song of Rhiannon and The Island of the Mighty fall somewhere in between. Looking back on it, I think the characters Walton created from whole cloth to patch gaps in the narrative feel more alive than the ones she took from the Mabinogion and tried to add flesh to, which is probably significant of something about the pitfalls of a project like this. In the end The Island of the Mighty did stick the landing, but my main emotion at finishing is to be glad I've got these checked off and can get on with reading something else that hopefully I'll enjoy more.


. Letters from Watson is onto the last Sherlock Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear. We're about halfway through, which since it shares the traditional Sherlock Holmes Novel Structure means that Holmes has just solved the murder and most of the remaining page count is going to be Arthur Conan Doyle, Frustrated Historical Novelist, giving us a detailed account of the killer and victim's backstory. I'm looking forward to it; from memory, this is the one in which the structure is most successful and the backstory most interesting. (I'm also looking forward to the reactions of the people who haven't read it before.)

. Did some more weeding, around the back and far side of the house, and the part of the front that I hadn't done yet. One of the goals was to create clear space around the outdoor parts of the split-system air conditioning units, which was a good idea in any case but (see earlier post about self-motivated scheduling) had been given a boost by the landlord notifying me that there would an aircon tech around at some point to make sure all the units were working before summer sets in. I ended up clearing around the last unit in a hurry after receiving a phone call to say the tech would be there in half an hour; one of the brain weasels tried to make something of the fact that I'd put it off until the last moment, but was firmly rebutted by a more sensible part of my brain which pointed out that the important thing is I'd been organised enough to do most of it already on other days, so that there was less than half an hour's work left to do.

. All the air conditioners are, as expected, in good nick except for the one in the living room that squeaks loudly when it's running; the tech says that something's worn out and how quickly or cheaply it will be replaced depends on whether the replacement parts are still available for a unit that old (it may end up being easier, or necessary, to replace the whole thing).

. The Hidden Almanac is a podcast that ran from Friday the 13th, September 2013 to Friday the 13th, September 2019. Each episode is a few minutes long and presents a couple of historical anniversaries, a potted biography of a saint whose feast day it is, some seasonal gardening tips, and a message from the episode's sponsor -- all of which are the product of the imagination of fantasy author Ursula Vernon. (Well, except for... let's say many of the gardening tips, because Ursula Vernon is a keen gardener and knows what's what. Especially when it comes to the zucchini problem.) I fell off listening partway through the first time I gave it a try, but 2024 sees the return of Friday the 13th of September, which seemed like an appropriate occasion to give it another shot. This time I'm planning to stick to listening to one episode at a time, on the appropriate date, because from what I remember the problem I ran into last time was that I kept trying to catch up by listening to a whole bunch of episodes at a time and suffering from overdoing it. So far it's working much better at the intended pace; each episode is a bright moment in the day and doesn't outstay its welcome.

. At the boardgame club, I got to play my first game of Captain Sonar, a game in which two teams take on various roles of crew members in a submarine, and each crew attempts to locate and sink the other submarine before the other submarine does the same to them. I had the role of planning our submarine's route to avoid giving away too many clues about our location or putting too much stress on the boat's systems; I did an all right job of it. The real MVP of our submarine was the crew member whose job was to collect clues about the other sub's activities and plot its possible locations; she made very detailed notes, kept her head at a point where I would probably have decided the sub had given me the slip, and managed to pinpoint its actual location just as it surfaced for repairs, allowing us to chase it down and put two torpedoes into it before it could do anything to stop us.

. The Songs of Penelope trilogy by Claire North is about the aftermath of the Trojan War from the point of view of the women whose views on the whole thing tend to be underrepresented in the epics. The central character is Penelope, wife of Odysseus, left to keep his kingdom together for years while he's off doing the Iliad and the Odyssey, with a supporting cast of women who mostly don't get mentioned in the epics at all. There are also a few high-profile guest stars: the first book of the trilogy revolves around the fate of Clytemnestra, the self-made widow of King Agamemnon, and the second gives an answer to the question of what happened to Helen of Troy after she was brought home from Troy that turns out to be more complicated than it first appears. Penelope gets an uncontested spotlight in the third book of the trilogy, which retells the last part of the Odyssey from the moment Odysseus arrived back on his native shore, with a lot more attention than the epic poets gave to questions like "How much did Odysseus really understand about the situation he was coming home to?" and "What kind of future is there for a husband and wife who haven't seen each other in twenty years and barely had a chance to get to know each other before that?"

. For the July random book challenge (a book in the genres of Feminism and/or Science Fiction), I'd selected The Female Man, but then proceeded to spend a fortnight not reading it. Then I saw that the local library now has all three volumes of Claire North's Ithaca trilogy, which retells the end of the Odyssey (as well as the fates of Clytemnestra and Helen) from the viewpoint of the women involved, so I read that instead.


. The themed book challenge for August was "a book that has something to do with schools or education"; I read Down with Skool!, a book from the 1950s that purports to be an account of school life written by a schoolboy named Nigel Molesworth, he of the famously individualistic approach to spelling and punctuation. It used to be highly regarded, but although I got a few laughs out of it I suspect it works best for people who have themselves survived the kind of school being described and aren't standing at a distance going, "Wow, people just used to do that, huh?"


. The random book selection for August came from books labelled Medium- or Fast-paced. My selection was The Tesladyne Industries Field Guide, a tie-in to the Atomic Robo comic book series, containing essays on such useful topics as What to Do If You Meet Your Evil Twin, The Best Ways of Fighting Genetically-Engineered Dinosaurs, a separate essay on one specific dinosaur who's a recurring character in the comic and an exception to all the usual rules, and Time Travel Is Impossible But Even If It Isn't Here's Why You Shouldn't Do It. "If you really want to change the present, the best time to act is now."


. The themed book challenge for September was "a book with a one-word title or a collection of short stories"; I read He Do the Time Police in Different Voices, a collection of parodies and pastiches by David Langford. It's a mixed bag; the works collected were written over a span of more than three decades, and many of the earlier ones haven't aged well at all. The later works are better, and it ends on a high note with a story in which a detective who definitely isn't Nero Wolfe solves a series of murders that may or may not have been done with the Evil Eye, but I wasn't sad to be seeing the last of it.


. The instructions for the September random book selection are to sort the to-be-read list Z-A by author, and then read one of the first five books on the list. This turned out to produce several dilemmas on the subject of how literally to take the instructions; for one thing, the first three books on the resulting list were by authors who the system had decided came after Z in the alphabet (one was by a Lebanese author and had been sorted on her name in Arabic, and the other two were by de Lint, Charles). Then three of the next five were sequels I'm not up to yet, and four of those five had been sorted by an illustrator, Michael Zulli, but strictly speaking the actual author of the four is Neil Gaiman. I haven't decided which book I'm going to read yet, but I currently suspect I'm going to keep discovering technicalities until I can justify reading Timothy Zahn's Cobra.

Fiction books
Terry Pratchett. The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner (e)

In progress
Jane Austen. Persuasion (e) (re-read)
Sulari Gentill. A Few Right-Thinking Men (e)
Bram Stoker. Dracula (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Timberlake Wertenbaker. Our Country's Good

Fiction books
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Fair Trade (e)
Raymond Chandler. The Lady in the Lake (re-read)
Raymond Chandler. The Little Sister (e)
Raymond Chandler. The Long Goodbye (re-read)
Raymond Chandler. Playback

In progress
James A Michener. Tales of the South Pacific
Bram Stoker. Dracula (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Grahame Bond. Jack of All Trades, Mistress of One (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Timberlake Wertenbaker. Our Country's Good

Fiction books
Ben Aaronovitch. Amongst Our Weapons (e)
Raymond Chandler. The High Window
Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White (e)
Tim Powers. Alternate Routes (e) (re-read)
Tim Powers. Forced Perspectives (e) (re-read)
Tim Powers. Stolen Skies (e)

Picture books
Neil Gaiman, Lorenzo Mattotti. Hansel and Gretel

Non-fiction books
Terrance Dicks, Ray Jelliffe. A Riot of Writers
Richard P Feynman. The Meaning of It All

In progress
Margaret Scott. A Little More (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Timberlake Wertenbaker. Our Country's Good

Fiction books
Raymond Chandler. Farewell, My Lovely (re-read)
Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist (e)
Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend (e)

In progress
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Jason Pitre. Sig: City of Blades

Non-fiction books in progress
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Raymond Chandler. The High Window