This is the moment of the year people generally say, no wait, really? I can’t believe we’re almost done. This year tasted differently, though, if anything, because due to Covid-19, many of us have the impression summer (ie, holidays, ie free time, relax etc) is yet to come. But no. Here we are. And that’s my reading right now.
- Insurgent by Veronica Roth
The second novel of the Divergent series, and, for now, I’m still enjoying how the story proceeds. This second book promises to raise the stakes even more. “Tris has survived a brutal attack on her former home and family. But she has paid a terrible price. Wracked by grief and guilt, she becomes ever more reckless as she struggles to accept her new future. Yet if Tris wants to uncover the truth about her world, she must be stronger than ever… because more shocking choices and sacrifices lie ahead.” I didn’t find Tris an endearing character in the first novel, but here she gets better. In this series, as in many other YA I’ve read, it is, however, the supporting characters who are often the most interesting.
2. The Company. A Novel of the CIA by Robert Littell. This is the tenth or -nth times I’ve read this novel (I actually held an academic presentation on its historical content a few years ago) but I keep getting back because it is a masterpiece for spy novels that cut off the (fake) glamour of the genre and get down to the dirty and unrewarding aspects of real-life intelligence work over the decades. If Le Carre’ is the undisputed master, Littell is the historian of the spy thriller pack, and he adds exquisite irony and cruel detachment in his depiction of the Cold War. This novel often features in the syllabus at graduate-level Intelligence Studies, and there are a lot of good reason for it.
- A Brief History of Medicine by Paul Strathern
A non-fiction book from an excellent historian I’ve mentioned on this blog a couple of times already. Some pages really read like a novel, a horror one. “Paul Strathern follows the development of medicine through the lives of its greatest practitioners, whose discoveries (and errors) shaped the course of medical history. Includes geniuses, such as Paracelsus, the father of medical chemistry, and Edward Jenner, whose vaccination banished smallpox, scientific endeavour, such as the discovery of X-rays, and mistakes both fortunate and fatal. With grave robbing, plague and germ theory, quackery, nursing, syphilis, micro-organisms and penicillin along the way, this is the ultimate story of human –and humane — achievement.”
What about you? What’s on your desk these days? Let me know.
What an eclectic list for the month! I loved “The Company” as well, especially the really cruel irony at times. Littell adds to what Le Carre has accomplished, I think. My reading right now is actually not that light either — except for the mystery novel by Nicholas Blake, “The Whisper in the Gloom,” that I’ve been reading in bed before I turn off the light. I began reading “Shardik” by Richard Adams a week ago. I had read, years ago, most of Adams’ novels, but had avoided the Beklan Empire books. After a week, I’m quite hooked and enjoying playing with the question of whether Shardik the bear is truly “the power of God” or just a bear. I’m also planning to begin the famous biography of Ludwig van Beethoven by Thayer. It’s Beethoven’s 250th year, and I thought I’d celebrate by reading this thick, 2-volume biography. I’m sure some of this reading will go into next month…..
Very interesting suggestions! Many thanks for chipping in. I think I need to get to Adams, too 🙂
Re-reading Watership Down at bedtime (we live a mile from the start of the book), just finished Provenance (Leckie), about to start The Lost Words (Robert MacFarlane), cant stop dipping into Ring the Hill (Tom Fox) even though I finished it several weeks ago. My reading is all over the place…….
I’ve just bought all the Hugo novel nomimees from 2017 to 2020 — that will be my autmun reading. As long as I can put the Tom Cox down….. 🙂
Quite a busy reading list 🙂 I’ll have to take notes for my next reading. Thanks!
Like you I’ve done some rereads and some new reading. I’ll just mention three current ones. I’m a few pages off the end of Atil Rahimi’s The Patience Stone — such a powerful novel about an Afghan woman tending her coma-stricken husband. I’m going, more slowly than I’d like, through Anne Radcliffe’s early Gothick novel A Sicilian Romance which ironically I chose because it was relatively short! Finally I’ve just bought Susan Cooper’s Greenwitch, the third in her The Dark is Rising sequence, which I’ve been meaning to read for some time now. But of course I’m the kind of reader who flits from book to book as the mood take me so I also have other long term titles on the go, I’m ashamed to say!
I heard about The Patience Stone — there’s also a movie about it apparently. Must read the novel! Ann Radcliffe was one of my high school readings, but I remember nothing. Maybe it’s the time to brush it up? Thanks for the suggestions!