Roads to Safe Places

Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Crocky and I are probably not the best fans considering how little we've actually been reading the books ever since the last movies came out. Sure, I've certainly flicked through them occasionally, but the last time the two of us read a book together was when DH came out. I love reading with her.

Pratchett, Terry: Dodger
I really wanted to like this book. I don't. And ... I don't know what to say. I judge this author by much higher standards than any other, anyway, because his books meant and mean so much to me.They have a huge influence on how I see the world, their humanism and underlying optimism inherent especially in his late eighties and nineties books changed me and how I see people forever and made me a much happier person.
Sadly, somewhere around, oh, it may have been around Thud!, that seems to have gone lost forever and taken over more and more by the mandatory cynical grittiness that are apparently a mandatory hallmark to achieve depth these days. Dodger... I was scared of this book. There were many possibilities and pitfalls, and... it just doesn't work. The characters don't, the Dickensianism... also sort of doesn't, the historical figures didn't. Oh, and that love plot, too, but there aren't many love plots that I'd ever consider entirely necessary, so. Shame -there are many things that could have worked if he'd picked a different main character instead of writing Harry King's biography in Dickens' London.

Davis, Lindsey: The Silver Pigs
Private Eyes in Vespasian's Rome, strong female characters, a walk through the underbelly of the Aventine, a fun read.

Goldacre, Ben: Bad Science
Re-listening after finishing Bad Pharma.

Galbraith, Robert: The Cuckoo's Calling
A very decent crime story by an not entirely unknown Scottish author who's shown before that they can do plots, and didn't disappoint here.
I liked the characters, I didn't like the moment when our sleuth tells the murderer what they'd done and they never actually confess or say much to agree or disagree with the sleuth's version. It seems strange that anybody would sit and listen at length to someone laying out what happened without any input from them, but this is a gripe I have with many crime novels with sleuths.

Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
Angel Aziraphale and Demon Crowley have been stationed on earth on opposite sides for so long that they've not only become quite fond of earth, but also become something like friends. When Crowley is asked to plant the Antichrist in a family to bring about Armageddon the two change plans to try and stop it. However, it soon turns out that the baby that they believed to be the Antichrist isn't. While they set out to find the real one, professional descendant Anathema Device prepares to stop Armageddon with the help of the prophecies of her ancestor witch Agnes Nutter. She is helped by modern Witchfinder Newton Pulsifer and soon discovers that she is closer than she first thought.
I've re-read this book at least once a year ever since I was sixteen years old, and whenever I feel down. I love the characters, and though I notice the problems (casual racism, classism, gender issues, slightly flat magic) it is one of my favourites for the characters and how the authors see humans.

Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
In the main plot, Samuel Vimes' life has become busy after his marriage to Lady Sybil Ramkin as well as his promotion elevated him to knighthood. The Assassins guild keep trying to kill him, people are killed gruesomely and there does not seem to be any trace of them left on the scene, and as though this is not enough, Lord Vetinari, benevolent tyrant of Ankh-Morpork, is poisoned.
One of the books that I keep re-reading when I feel down.

Nella Larsen, Passing
Two black women, Clare and Irene are able to pass as white in twenties Chicago. While Irene does not rely on this in daily life and avoids confrontation with racism wherever possible Clare is married to a white racist who does not know that she is not white. Both women navigate their identities and personal happiness differently until the discovery of one has disastrous consequences.
I spotted this novel when I looked for books on passing and was surprised to find out it was so old, published in 1929. It's a fascinating insight, but also depressing.

Donna Jo Napoli, Hush - An Irish Princess' Tale
Shortly before Melkorka's family is trying to avenge an offer of marriage by a Viking trader by her father she is captured by Slavish slavers together with her eight-years-old sister. Worried that anyone'll find out about their royal birth they keep silent to keep their secret.
The tale tells the story about how Melkorka became a slave and travelled to Iceland. I quickly grew fond of the characters, but it's a very depressing read. The first sexual assault of a thrall happens about 20% in, she starts having fond feelings for the rapist who purchased her at about 70%. Fuck that.

• As is always the case with the more recent books I felt rather apprehensive towards this one. My worries were rather unfounded. It is not a masterpiece compared to many of the books he wrote in the late nineties which I loved, but it does work, and the characters he introduces are charming.
• Romeo and Juliet and football. Yes.
  
• Lady Margolotta. I really like her, but I think I liked her more as an éminence grise. I am not quite clear on why she needed to be bested by Glenda, but she is as charming as ever.
• Lord Vetinari seems to suffer from a spell of Villain Decay, or there is a lot more to Glenda than meets the eye, whose character puzzled me.  
• I love Madame Sharn and Pepe and all their gender complicatedness.
• Dwarf fashion. Dwarf fashion!  Glittering pick-axes just in case the dwarf in question spots a seam and just can't help herself! Hyperfeminine assecories self-confidently invading a traditionally hypermasculine culture. Take that, femmephobia.
• Speaking of which, what does bother me is the recurring coincidence of being dense as a brick and unbelievably stunning. I am about to forgive him because of the utter awesomeness of his other female characters as well as the fact that she is not the only woman who is good-looking, while she is definitely one fo the few dense ones.
• It's always good to see Ridcully again.
  
• Ponder <3. Although it's sad to see that he managed to liberate himself somewhat from the Archchancellor, I rather enjoyed their original relationship.
• Nutt. I'm fairly meh about him apart from in his function as a love interest for Glenda. They are so cute together.
• Trevor. Equally meh.
• Repetitions, gnuh. I wonder what went wrong there. Would it really have hurt to cross out a few "I am an Orc"s or "but I promised my old Mum"'s? These lines were repeated so often that they really annoyed me towards the end.

I just realised that I haven't updated this thing since August. I can't remember half the things I read since then, so this is more an informed guess than a correct account of what I've been reading since then. I can definitely remember reading four books, the first four listed here. I can't really get them in any sort of order, though.

53.

Maskerade, Terry Pratchett.
It's an old favourite solely because of Agnes. I am not that fond of the story, but I love Agnes. She is one of the most realistic characters he has ever written, and much of the things which happen to her from the "but she has a wonderful personality" to the fact that she would never be the one to be looked after after a fainting fit but always the one to fetch cold water is incredibly spot on. Crocky and I are reading it together, and it seems that with his observances about opera in particular and the performing arts in general, Terry Pratchett is incredibly and unsurprisingly spot on.

52.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris. 
I love reading his books. Even though I'm usually not a fan of books comprising of anecdotal writing, but he is so funny that it works well. I usually end up reading them out to Crocky because I want to share the funnier bits. Especially his exploits as a language student are incredibly entertaining and reminded me a lot of my own experiences as a language student abroad.

51.

Nation, Terry Pratchett.
Interview with Terry Pratchett on the book.
I usually buy P'Terry's books as soon as they come out, but with this one, I felt slightly sceptical that it would live up to my expectations, which it did, of course. The way the characters deal with the trauma of having lost everything they have known, the way they struggle to find their new position in life as their reality is toppled upside down and everything they have come to take for granted is called into question after the tidal wave which brought them together is much more interesting to read than other, similar "stranded on a desert island" books. What made this book for me are the asides on cultural relativism, cultural equality and the history of science, though. I've always have been a big fan of those.

50.

Monstrous Regiments, Terry Pratchett.
I did not really like this book when I read it first because I did not really like the ending too much although it is realistic as it does capture the complicated nature of situations like these for which there is no simple solution, especially none that help from the outside can provide. I get that. I still felt very uncomfortable with peace-loving Terry Pratchett writing about wars and soldiers.
Still, it is a good book. I do like the characters, his take on gender, patriotism, faith and fanatism.
 

49.

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox, Eoin Colfer.
Wow. I love his books, but this one was really, really less good than I thought it should be. Not only does he exploit the "sick mother" trope ad nauseam, he also uses it and the "dead mother" as a reason to justify all sorts of really unlogical actions and decisions. As much as I love his characters, what he does to them in this book is not really in character for any of them. Yes, it is fun, seeing the old Artemis again, and it is fun reading the interaction of Holly and Artemis, but the plot is forced, the decisions the characters make are not explained or motivated sufficiently, and the characterisation is stretched too much to be comfortable. They practically creak in some scenes.
Also, Colfer can't write little children, much less gifted little children, to save his life. Yes, it is really hard, but it's not as though it isn't possible to do some research or watch a bleeding documentary on gifted children online, at least.
As for what is probably one of the most frequently discussed scene - the Holly/Artemis moment - as squee-worthy as it was, it made me feel very uncomfortable. I don't like the way Holly is changing. Holly is one of my favourite female characters, and the way this character is undermined by the strereotypes she gets saddled with more and more is making me uncomfortable. Holly, the kick-ass-eager-to-prove-herself-Holly from the first book would not likely tear up and go on rescue missions because of her dead mother. She also would not kiss Artemis. Yes, their interaction changed them, but I doubt that it would have changed her this much.

48.

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
I had expected more, somehow. I do like this book, especially the characterisation of the married couple in the first couple of chapter, but the way he describes Paul Morel's characters' sexual exploits somehow did not really work for me. The importance placed on sex in the novel and the extra dimensions it receives somehow annoy me. I like my sex, and I like it a lot, but it is just that, sex, not something offering a deeper insight into the mystical nature of anything, or a spiritual union.

Wings, by Terry Pratchett.
The final instalment in the Bromeliad trilogy. This is Masklin's story and how he managed to get back to their mother ship and get back to Grimma and the store nomes in the quarry.
Which I did not finish because it had been put on hold by someone at the library and I had to take it back earlier than I would have liked. I never thought this instalment was as interesting as the other two, even though Masklin is as likeable as ever and even though the store nomes reaction to meeting a decendant of his deity is hilarious.

Diggers, by Terry Pratchett.
Living together in a disused quarry, especially the store nomes have troubles adjusting and putting by old feuds. Masklin, the main character, decides to go and get help from a decendant of the store nomes "deity" who founded the store. In his absence, the quarry is re-opened and Grimma, who now leads the nomes even though she is female, acts to save them.
Again, my gender-goggles were pleased, even though I keep thinking that Terry Pratchett's positive message is made easier by the fact that his female characters are all coming directly out of deeply prejudiced worlds which are just moving on to more equality. Still, I have a very soft spot for Grimma.

Truckers, by Terry Pratchett
Four-inch or so tall people, originally form outer space, the nomes, who live next to a motorway decide to improve their perilous condition by moving, use on of the trucks that sometimes come by, and find out that there are nomes which live in a store. When the store has to be demolished, they leave together.
When I first read these books, I read them in German on a train ride back from my elderly relatives in Essen and frequently I had to literally bite my hand to stop myself from making a spectacle of myself by repeatedly getting into laughing fits. On second reading, in English, ten years later, I do not find these novels THAT funny anymore, but these predecessors of the Wee Free Men, successors of the Carpet People are still interesting enough for me to read all three novels. Again, my gender-goggles are deeply gratified by the progress perceptible in this world, and even though the plot itself is nothing that new, there are many elements to the story that I liked a lot, like the religion the store gnomes have.

Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett.
A story about the first female wizard who goes to Ankh-Morpork's famous Unseen University, or tries to, as women can't enter the university.
Not in this pretty version, obviously. What I love about Terry Pratchett is that you can analyse his books at leisure and still hardly ever be disappointed. I have never used race goggles on his books, he may have skeletons in the closet there, but gender-wise, and my gender-spectacles are permanent by now, I'm afraid, this man is perfect. This is one of his earliest novels and even though he cheerfully draws on the same stereotypes as many of his Fantasy-writing colleagues do it does not matter, as he does so tongue-in-cheek, as he deconstructs the things he does use as he goes along. The deeply prejudiced world he depicts at the beginning of the story is already going somewhere by the end of the novel, and this deeply optimistic view of his world as a place which starts out bad but is evolving to something better every novel makes his Discworld novels such a great read.

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood.
I LOVE. This book. It's absolutely unputdownable. There are not many books which nearly make me tap my foot during lectures, looking forward to the break so I can get back to my book, this is one of them. Absolutely great.

Making Money, by Terry Pratchett.
Eerie. I had a lot of Going Postal flashbacks, reading this. Again great to see more of Vetinari, but on the whole... Where is the author of Small Gods?

Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett.
By far not my favourite discworld novel, although it does have it's highlights. Not many, but they're there. When I read it back in '06, I thought that it's good to see more of Vetinari, and I liked Spike a lot, but on the whole... I never thought I'd say this, but where's the author of Small Gods?

Imperium, by Robert Harris.
Great read. Experiencing Cicero's very impressive career and his various schemes through the eyes of his slave Tiro is interesting enough, and the amounts of history textbook personalities around him add to the appeal of that book. The probably most interesting character in this novel for me was not Julius Caesar, or the obscenely rich Crassus, or the notorious Verres I know from the speeches, but his Cicero's wife, Terentia.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand, why he divorced her later in life. Of course he must have his reasons, very probably political reasons, knowing the two. Still. I didn't find much information on her, but what is known seems to suggest that she was a very independent woman who knew what she wanted, and even though there never seemed a lot of romance between her and her husband, she always supported him. She invested considerable amounts of money into his career, and stood by him while he was exiled. After more than thirty years of marriage, he left her for his rich young ward who was no older than twenty - about ten years younger than his daughter.

Dragonsbane (albeit in German, Der Schwarze Drache), by Barbara Hambly.
I love this book. It's not the best fantasy novel there is, it's not that well written, there are whole passages which are ... long, most of all. Still, again, what makes this novel for me, is the characters. The main character is a witch in her late thirties, she's torn between pursuing what she feels is her true calling, her career as a witch, and her family, her husband, down-to-earth Lord John and her two sons. It's great to read a fantasy novel which is not about people in their twenties for once.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling.

Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.
I am an Agnes fangirl. There should be more Agneses in literature. It also contains some of the best quotes on literature, and I've always meant to write an essay comparing Granny Weatherwax's and Vorbis's views.

Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett.
This is the book which made me love Terry Pratchett. It's the second book I bought, and when I read it, I fell in love with Death and Granny Weatherwax at first sight.

Witches Abroad, by Terry Pratchett.

Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett.
I doubt that there is anyone who dislikes this book.

The End of Alice,  by A. M. Homes.
Another very recommended book. It's very well written, and the way it forces you into the psyche of the abusive, paedophile character and narrator of the story is deeply disturbing, but also very captivating.

Incidences in the life of a slavegirl, by Linda Brent.
I really recommend this book, although the main character's story is horrible. Not an easy read.