follow-through, or lack thereof

[freckles_and_doubt]

Careful archaelogical excavation of the bibliographic strata on my desk, preserving the chronological layers, reveals that, in defiance of all probability, I am currently in the middle of the following books:

• At the bottom of the pile, denoting several months of avoidance, George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones. One-third through. I'm not really enjoying this. Too much depressing political wrangling.
• David Mitchell, Ghostwritten. One-third through. This is an amazing book with the classic Mitchell tenuous thread connecting disparate narratives, but the disparate narratives are uniformly depressing. Also, some of them are reading like Murakami, which is confusing me. So I have apparently stopped reading.
• Sylvian Hamilton, The Gleemaiden. Two-thirds through. Book club book: very fast-paced, often funny medieval noir romp, if such a thing is remotely possible. I've stopped reading this because the writing style is annoying me.
• Tim Richardson, Sweets: A History of Temptation. Halfway through. I love this book, it's full of weird facts about food, but I actually have a limited non-fiction tolerance and I think my monthly quota is somewhat full, possibly as a result of all the New Scientists. I look forward to getting back to this one, though, now that I've unearthed it from the pile and remembered its existence.
• James Morrow, This Is The Way The World Ends. Halfway through. Good lord, why am I reading such depressing books? This is a nasty, funny, acute, very very black and slightly surreal apocalypse. It's depressing me. (Are you sensing a theme here?)
• Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen. Halfway through. One of my students lent this to me; it's a contemporary psychological narrative based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. As such, it represents absolutely my least favourite possible thing to do with fairy tale, namely ditch the magical in favour of realism. Also, since it's about people trying to come to terms with being struck by lightning, it's both bizarre and depressing.
• Jeremy Leggett, Half Gone. Woe, global warming; woe, energy crises. Two-thirds through. Very well written, authoritative, persuasive and incredibly depressing. Also, see non-fiction tolerance limit, above. I need to finish this this week, though, since book club is coming up.
• Julie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon. Just started. An empathetic, insightful, well-constructed biography of one of my favourite feminist science fiction writers, who was a strange, disturbed, masked sort of person whose life was actually rather sad. Depressing, but in a strangely uplifting way. Her stories are starting to make sense to me in a way they never have before.

Good lord, I seem to have approximately the literary attention span of a hyperactive gnat. I think I need to weed these and darned well apply myself to the remainder.

Comments

[lady-guenievre.livejournal.com]

Game of Thrones is, IMO, worth it, though I suppose not if you don't like the politics - because that's how it stays, the whole time. I enjoyed the politics, though, so that series is one of my favorites. YMMV.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

MM definitely Vs ;>. If I wanted unrelenting politics I'd live in Africa. Oh, wait, I live in Africa. OK, so I read fantasy to get away from the unrelenting politics. I really, really don't enjoy highly political fantasy, being intrinsically a cute, fluffy, wide-eyed, pathetic excuse for an actual literature professional. Sigh.

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

Alternately, stick with the current MO and go through the rest of your life being extremely well-read but ironically having not read an entire book! (kinda like Paris Hilton ;)

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I cannot believe you went and compared me to Paris Hilton on my own blog in broad daylight! There'll be pistols at dawn about this, I can tell you! Or at the very least a stiff letter to the Times.

I so will finish these books. Some of these books. I think Game of Thrones and the medieval thriller are going to bite the big one, though. A girl can only take so much. I may finish the apocalypse scenario one of these evenings while suitably drunk.

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Well, you *are* cute, fluffy and wide eyed. Can't blame pinkthulu for the mistake, really.

:D :D :D

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

You know that David Mitchell lived in Japan and taught English there? The Murakami echoes are not at all accidental.