[booklog 2006]

[iridium]

45. The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson. epic alternate history, definitely an interesting read, but the quality of writing is inconsistent, and it's a bit much taken all at once. still definitely worth reading, and there are some neat thought-experiments there.

46. Invisible Cities, italo calvino. elegant, gorgeous writing, in such tiny packages.

47. The Essential Bordertown, an anthology of stories set in, & 'guidebook' entries for, the town that exists on the border between the human world & the realm of Faerie. the stories were of varying quality, but the good ones were lovely, and the idea of such a place is an interesting one to play with. the best went beyond the given tensions between 'human' and 'elvin/faerie' and looked more at what it means to live in the in-between places.

48. & 49. Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde. more tasty not-entirely-fluffy escapist fun. i went through these in less than a day each, i think.

currently in the stack: another two Calvino books (a novel & a collection of short stories), the next Fforde novel, Reading Lolita in Tehran, which is textured and rich and makes me slow down and read it at least a little carefully, the little Cometbus i picked up the other day, and A Time Traveler's Wife, which i borrowed from l_stboy and haven't looked at yet.

Comments

[simplykimberly.livejournal.com]

oooooh - I read The Time Traveler's Wife a couple months ago, and immediately had to reread it! I can't wait to hear what you think of it!

[iridium.livejournal.com]

i've got two books in progress now, and i may pick up the next Fforde novel before i get to that one...but i'll let you know as soon as i finish. :)

[tyratae.livejournal.com]

ditto.

might complicate your life a little, though; then again, maybe not. in any case, where the hell do you get the time?!? :) (well, ok, bordertown isn't that time-intensive. so it's a good collection? i've only read the original bordertown stuff; i was afraid the anthology would be too many people who weren't sure how to create their own worlds doing unfortunate things w/the established promise of one already created. i've seen it happen before...)

[iridium.livejournal.com]

might complicate your life a little, though; then again, maybe not.

dearlord, i hope not. at least not any unpleasant complications. my life is about as complicated as i can manage, right now.

in any case, where the hell do you get the time?!? :)
*laugh* i've been sick. still am, kinda. and i read fast, and i read while i'm eating, or while i'm on the bus, or when i want to take a break from work for a few minutes... :)

(well, ok, bordertown isn't that time-intensive. so it's a good collection? i've only read the original bordertown stuff; i was afraid the anthology would be too many people who weren't sure how to create their own worlds doing unfortunate things w/the established promise of one already created. i've seen it happen before...)

it's inconsistent, but a fun read; it's all fairly short stories and little "guidebook" exerpts in between. i think with the "guidebook" aspect they outlined enough features of the world that the authors could then just take those ideas and play with them from there, so there was a coherency to the whole thing that i enjoyed. some of the stories were quite good, some of them were interesting explorations/descriptions of the world, and some of them fell short, but mostly they were worth reading.