2013, so far, but only a little bit. And some of 2012

I have been terrible about writing about what I’m reading. I have read a not inconsiderable amount of books in the last year, and I haven’t kept track of what I’ve read, nor have I written down what I’ve thought of them.

But I feel like I should at least make the attempt. Here are some books I read over the last year. This is not an exhaustive list. I have read more than four books in the last year. Really, I have.

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

You know those kind of books that grab you and don’t let go? This is one of them. I tried explaining what The Night Circus recently to someone, and I found that I couldn’t quite manage it. It is, for one thing, about a circus, and how it grows and makes people love it and follow it around the world. It is about the nature of love, too, and how people love each other and don’t quite manage to choose whom to love in love with. It is about magic, and the way that people think about magic, and whether or not it’s important that people think about magic at all.

The Night Circus is a story of many parts that are woven together with exquisite care. Every moment in it has with it a sense of something unreal. I loved it, and you will, too.



The Magicians, Lev Grossman

Sometimes you keep running into books, you know? I used to run into The Magicians a whole lot. Wherever I went, this book would be sitting there, and I’d thumb through the first couple of pages before thinking ‘Maybe another day.’

Well, that day finally came, and it was the oddest day. The hero is called Quentin Coldwater. It’s the sort of name you only ever see in fantasy novels. When was the last time you met someone with as interesting a name as Quentin Coldwater? He goes to a school of magic called Brakebills, and has all sorts of adventures. You might think it’s exactly the sort of think I’d love.

I didn’t. I really, really didn’t. I mean, it gripped me as only fantasy stories do, but I put it down and then I thought ‘This book meant nothing to me.’ I felt nothing for Mr Coldwater, was not in the least bit concerned with his wellbeing. It’s this sort of book that leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

It is a bit shit.

Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay

Oof. Here’s a book that affected me. Tigana is a little typical of Kay, in that it’s set in a fictionalised version of a real world place, in this case Italy. There are two moons, and broad themes of love and honour and that sort of thing. It’s also another of these books that I’ve kept running into.

Unlike The Magicians, though, this one is great.

Tigana is set in a country that looks like Italy. The Peninsula of the Palm has been conquered separately by two tyrant sorcerers, each of whom wants the entire peninsula for his own. In doing so they crush the locals beneath their boots as they try to defeat the other.

At its core, Tigana is a book about identity. It is about what happens when a nation is conquered by an outside force that forces it to give up what is most essential to it. It is about the existential question of what really binds a nation.

But it is also about the fundamental humanity of even those who seem like villains, and the way that everyone changes in ways that they don’t expect. Tigana is a book that makes you sympathise with characters that you know you should hate. It is about revenge and the way it always affects those who pursue it.

Tigana is not without its flaws. Some parts of it are truly extraneous and a little odd. But its virtues are so good, so good, that I find it difficult to care about the bits I didn’t quite like.

The Cuckoo’s Calling, by David Galbraith

See, the most important thing about this book is an unfortunate thing. David Galbraith is secretly J K Rowling. And it’s not really a secret, because she told someone who told someone who ended up telling the press.

And its unfortunate because The Cuckoo’s Calling is really rather good. It’s gripping from the get-go, and takes you for a rather enjoyable ride through a murder that appeals to the most basic parts of us.

The Cuckoo’s Calling is a murder mystery in which a famous supermodel named Lula Landry apparently jumps off the balcony of her flat and dies. The police decide it is a suicide, but Landry’s brother suspects it was murder instead. So he hires private detective Cormoran Strike (what a name, right?) to find the truth for him.

Actually the book is fairly formulaic. Strike just methodically talks to every person connected with the case. There are no chase scenes, only one murder reconstruction scene, and almost no elements that distract you from Strike’s need to solve the case.
But Galbraith (or Rowling, if you’d prefer) is extremely good at making those conversations engrossing. It was only two-thirds of the way through the book that I realised at all that Strike had just been having conversations. IT seems so natural that you don’t really question it.

Strike is also an interesting character. He’s a little standard (broke PI who has one last chance) but is saved by some clever writing and an interesting history. His secretary Robin is equally interesting, though she fills the same Watsonesque persona we’ve seen in every murder sytery since SHerlock Holmes.


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