June's Judicious and Jubilant Literary Joruneys

[GOLLUM]

OK folks.

Please post what it is you are reading for this month.

I am reading The Complete Plays, Lenz and other writings of George Buchner. Buchner is a reappraised German master who is widely acknowledged as being well ahead of his times who but for a life cut tragically short by illness, would almost certainly have been on a par with the giant Goethe.

EDIT: I've just noticed that someone else beat me to the punch and started a June thread..

Our policy is to try and keep the previous monthly reading thread open for at least 1 day into the new month and that it is best we keep these tasks to the moderators to perform...so as the other thread has only just kicked off as well and with an advanced apology to Grrimward for any inconvenience caused, I'm going to lock it, mainly to avoid the confusion of having now 2 June reading threads open.

I apologise for not having got to this earlier but I have had some unusual circumstances to deal with recently offline...

[The Judge]

I'm about half-way through Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan and becoming more irritated by the characterisation at every page...

Also dipping into The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion and Fencing in Renaissance Europe by Tobias Capwell, which accompanies a Wallace Collection exhibition of the same name.

[Mangara]

Currently 100 pages into Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century #1)
by Cherie Priest. Enjoying it a lot, its my first foray into steam-punk.

[nomadman]

Currently tearing through Joe R Lansdale's The Complete Drive-In. A real blast thus far. Lansdale is a sick puppy, and a funny dude as well if you like your humor dark and nasty. Quite elucidating as well, if you look past the grue.

Also reading Dancing With Bears by Michael Swanwick. It's the first full length novel with Darger and Surplus, his two Leiber-esque conmen trying to get rich in a post apocalyptic earth.

Will be starting on Gene Wolfe's Home Fires soon, his newest book.

[thaddeus6th]

Hmm. I added Lions of Al-Rassan to my almost comedically large reading list recently. Have you read Tigana, and, if so, how does it compare?

Gollum, I hope it wasn't anything too bad.

[The Judge]

Not read Tigrana, thaddeus, so can't help you -- I suspect, though, if you liked his writing there, then you won't find anything wrong with Al-Rassan, since I imagine it isn't a flaw of this particular novel so much as his general method of characterisation (goodies don't have meaningful faults, characters have little or no internal conflict, women are simply men in dresses and everyone is religious in name only unless they are baddies whereupon they're bigots).

[Connavar]

I read Sunkwa:Clingings to Life by Naana Banyiwa Horne

Written by a writer of Ghanaian Diaspora and its real depressing to me the best authors of the continent cant live in their own countries and have to live, work in the west. Too much Neo-coloniasm for my taste, all quality African authors i read work in American Universities not because they live there before their literature career. They are bought in afterwards.....

The Collection is heartfelt poems about how precious life is and about the authors personal loses of her child, her friends. Part One is "Naananom", Part Two are "Love Miracles", Part Three are "Being Woman", Part Four: "Aborted Beginnings" and Part five: Ancestral Bonds". The collection, poems were from decent simple langauge emotions poems to ones with beautiful language and powerful emotions that i felt a bit too real. The chapters take the readers from dark places to more positive, pleasant places.

My favorite poems was " Today I cried for you Again", My Fair Lady, "My African Valentine", "Sisterhood".

[Grimward]

No problem (or apologies necessary for that matter!), Gol. I didn't see a thread and saw folks clamoring for it. Will dutifully submit myself for drawing and quartering, JD.

Hope everything is OK, Gol.

Grim

[Extollager]

I'm reading The Lord of the Rings (my 12th reading) and following along in Hammond and Scull's The Lord of the Rings Reader's Companion, which is stuffed with nuggets that will interest Tolkienists, including quotations from otherwise unpublished manuscripts. Just now, for example, I've been reading there some sentences relating to the oft-discussed question of who or what Tom Bombadil is. (Tolkien did not want to pin down the matter.) These two authors are peers of Shippey, Anderson, Garth, Carpenter, and Flieger as Tolkien scholars. To put it another way, their book is good fannish fun.


I don't think I posted here about so many Tolkienian anniversaries this year.

Hobbit -- 75th
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil -- 50th; beautifully illustrated by Pauline Baynes
Smith of Wootton Major -- 45th; also with splendid Baynes art
The Road Goes Ever On -- 45th
LP record with Tolkien reading his own poetry -- Caedmon's Poems and Songs of Middle-earth -- 45th; picture by Baynes; included recordings of several of Tolkien's poems set to music by Donald Swann
The Silmarillion -- 35th

Also, 2012 is the date of the supposed discovery of the Notion Club Papers (Tolkien's unfinished novel published in The History of Middle-earth, vol. 9: Sauron Defeated)


You can get Tolkien's own recordings now in the J. R. R. Tolkien Audio Collection. The recordings of Donald Swann's settings of several Tolkien poems, as The Road Goes Ever On, vocalist William Elvin, are now available as a CD included with the RGEO book. I don't have the sense that the Swann music is a big favorite with fans, but I think it's time for me to give them another listen. I always thought they were pleasant, at least. Even if I didn't, they would have interest in that Tolkien heard them and approved of them, except that he had his own idea for "Namarie." He suggested a Gregorian chant-type setting, which Swann adopted. (I would be a little curious to hear whatever it was that Swann originally had in mind!)

The book The Road Goes Ever On was, till publication of The Silmarillion, kind of a cherished item for Tolkien fans eager for glimpses of First Age lore, since Tolkien let out a few more details in the 1967 book. If you look at the original Mirage Press edition of Robert Foster's Guide to Middle-earth (1971), you'll find that he tries to do what he can with such hints! RGEO also had some lovely calligraphy by Tolkien.


Dustjacket art above by Tim Kirk

[alchemist]

Copied from the other thread but my thoughts must live...

I just finished Katharine Kerr's Snare. It took two months. Granted, I was distracted by stuff, but I still couldn't get into it at all. It was an interesting story, an apparently Fantasy novel that was really Science Fiction (although the Author's note at the start was a spoiler on that point), but it was far too long with the same points hammered into me repeatedly, long journeys catalogued in meticulous detail, and a very dull climax. There was also a bizarre gay subplot which accounted for about two pages of writing in three scenes, didn't fit the character, and really seemed tacked on. (I wouldn't have minded if he was gay throughout, in case I'm misconstrued).
So, as it says above my avatar, don't.

[Connavar]

Im just about to finish The Star Fraction by Ken Macleod. A near future smart political SF with cyberpunk elements. It was hard to understand, like the story at first but now i understand the messy political map of the world i hope the other books of his is as good and even better.

[Galacticdefender]

Metro 2033 and Caliban's War. Maybe another Gaunts Ghosts novel.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Grimward

No problem (or apologies necessary for that matter!), Gol. I didn't see a thread and saw folks clamoring for it. Will dutifully submit myself for drawing and quartering, JD.

Hope everything is OK, Gol.

Grim

No problem Grim.

To yourself and thaddeus6th thanks for asking but No, nothing too dramatic. Sorted now.

Speaking of Guy Kay I'm something of a fan. I liked Loins of Al Rassan possibly more than Tigana and it is possibly still my favourite of his works.

I've also been a fan of the Fionavar Tapestry. When I read it back in the mid 80s it made quite an impression upon me as at that stage I was still relatively new to Fantasy and speculative fiction in general...

I also rate Song of Arborne quite highly and think the Sarantine Mosaic duology is excellent..just a bit too short..I wanted more!

Cheers.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by nomadman

Also reading Dancing With Bears by Michael Swanwick. It's the first full length novel with Darger and Surplus, his two Leiber-esque conmen trying to get rich in a post apocalyptic earth.

Will be starting on Gene Wolfe's Home Fires soon, his newest book.

Nice to see you enjoying Swanwick's Dancing with Bears. Personally I think Swanwick is a little underrated in the wider SFF community.

I received Gene's HB edn. of Home Fires a few months ago but haven't read it yet. It will be particularly interesting for me to read any of your thoughts on this book therefore as I will not be able to read it before next year now.

As a heads up Gene, according to the man himself, is working on a new book The Lands Across. It's apparently, in a brief snippet and to paraphrase the great man.. about a young well traveled individual who enters a surreal Balkan nation, formerly under Communist rule with an ancient Turkish influence, that this guy has written about. The young man is arrested as soon as he steps foot into this country, where he is forced to live with a man not liked by the government in a somewhat unusual arrangement...the rest shall no doubt be revealed in due course.

[thaddeus6th]

Loins of Al-Rassan sounds like an adventure of sexy time in the desert

Cheers, I'll try to remember to download a sample and check it out. Glad your stuff is sorted.