| Author | Title | Notes |
| Sharon Lynn Fisher | Salt and Broom | What if Jane Eyre was a witch and Rochester was a decent person? Can’t remember who recommended this one, but it’s very satisfying to the nine-year-old in me that wept over orphan Jane’s sad song. This is a better and more satisfying book than it starts out being. Unfortunately, there are at least two glaring issues with the plot: 1) English inheritance laws don’t work like that 2) dead bodies smell |
| Sarah Galey | Have You Eaten? | Sarah Galey gave me fudge for NY that they made themselves! I didn’t even know they lived in the Bay Area and suddenly – fudge! Apparently they married someone recently that slept on our couch once. I’m told he’s wonderful and I hope they will be very, very happy. This, of course, reminded me to go see which of their books I haven’t read yet and it’s this one. No hippos, straight-up anti-utopia about a group of youngish adults squatting in a food scarcity Conservative-ruled America. I almost didn’t finish it, because I hate anti-utopias and am feeling fragile about the idea of Conservative-ruled America, but I peeked at the ending. The ending is beautiful and it has the word “unalone” which made me keep reading just to reach it properly. The book itself turned out to be disappointing – perhaps it’s a part of a biggers series? All the plot and world-building are left incomplete after Fern and Harper realize they are together. Maybe it’s a deliberate choice deeply ladden with symbolism, but the last paragraph is beautiful and worth reading to. |
| Jacob M. Appel, MD | Who says you’re dead | Series of interesting case studies in modern medical ethics, each followed by a brief discussion of potential considerations. |
| Jacob M. Appel, MD | Marriage of Inconvenience | Play, may have been intended as humorous. A rich woman wants to a) destroy her wealth b) have her granddaughter marry a woman/someone who’ll change her diapers/a rich person. A lawyer is cured of his fear of death. |
| Iona Datt Sharma | Heard, Half-Heard, In the Stillness & 9 other short stories | Found through troisoiseaux‘s recommendation of the author. Very Indian (I learned a lot of new words), very lovely in a quiet way. Always And Forever Only You made me cry, but I might be sick |
| Iona Datt Sharma | Light and fire, five stories for Diwali | Micro-stories |
| Iona Datt Sharma | Non-fiction essays | A bunch of articles, mainly about language and colonization. I strongly disagree with the linked one that deaths in the Indian partition are the fault of modern British viewers |
| Victoria Goddard | The Weaver of the Middle Desert | Took me longer to finish (and start!) this one than I expected probably because the sisters just aren’t my favorite characters. It’s good though. Exactly the same as her other work – expertly crafted. |
| Елена Михайлик | Дом для демиурга | Yet another world with active gods. Why does “Sobrana” sound so familiar? Should a positive character (the Heyer Hero, the Alva, the Captain Blood) sleep with a dependent 15-year-old, even if she says yes? Should positive characters torture people or kill innocent family members of people who hurt them? Generally, I liked Mihailik, who is an amazing and beautiful poet, better before reading this book. Skoring, the guy who knows how to do reforms right and is the secretly good guy (that all the outwardly good guys battle for most of the book) is similar to the main character of Mihailik’s “Изыде конь рыжь” – does horrible things because someone has to. Ugh. Also hate the ease with which the autors kill secondary characters while literally doing a miracle to resurrect their favorites. |
| Victoria Goddard | Balancing Stone | “She didn’t need faith when she had sources” Really sweet novella about Hal’s bride Hope. |
| Theodor H Gaster | The Oldest Stories In The World | Some really hilarious stuff there, that might eventually go into a blog post. You know that story of Seth, Horus, and sperm lettuce? Middle Asian gods went at it even harder. |
| Kenneth Oppel | The Nest | Recommended by L, really extremely good and scary. About not wanting perfection or normality. I wonder what happened to the wasps’ baby. |
| Toshikazu Kawaguchi | Before the Coffee Gets Cold | Japanese time travel, gifted by M. Bought because sequels came out. Trite stories, way more explanation than needed, but charming details of being Japanese that stand out against this background as they do not in books by more serious writers. Relaxation reading |
| The Other Victoria Goddard | Still Small Voice | Bought because I kept seeing it when searching for the other Victoria Goddard – really good, tricked me twice. Moralizes a bit, and the characters are typical for the genre, and there’s the “physical scarring as a brand of evil” trope going, but it’s all minor in a sturdy well-made detective novel |
| Toshikazu Kawaguchi | Before the Coffee Gets Cold Tales from the Cafe | Can a ham-fisted police detectie really want to give his wife a birthday gift? |
| Toshikazu Kawaguchi | Before Your Memory Fades | Same thing but for some reason in another town and with an in-book “100 questions before the end of the world”. Less good than the others but sweet in the same chicken-soup-for-the-soul way. |
16 works (ok, I’m counting short stories as one thing), one a re-read, the others are new to me because I’m being deliberate about reading more new stuff. Of course, this doesn’t mean those are the only things I read this month – but Wandering Inn and Adult Children of Emotionally Immature parents, for instance, will take forever, and so will my current 25893th re-read of the Curse of Chalion because I’m listening to it and audiobooks are sloooooooooooow.