Recently read books

[luzula]

The Color of Distance, by Amy Thomson
I liked this a lot! It's about a scientist who gets stuck on an alien world, and how she learns to communicate and live with the intelligent aliens there. The writing is more telling than showing, but the characters are engaging and I just really enjoyed reading about the alien biology and society. There's a whole fascinating ecosystem, too. Will be seeking out the sequel.

The Beggar Maid, by Alice Munro
Read for my book club at work. I guess it was okay, but I didn't love it? I just wasn't emotionally engaged enough. They should give the Nobel prize in literature to Ursula K. Le Guin instead.

I döda språks sällskap, by Ola Wikander
This is a popular science book (in Swedish) about various dead languages, like Sumerian, Etruscan, Coptic, etc. I picked it up at a book swap a while ago, and liked it fine, but it wasn't really geeky enough for me. Historical context is all well and good, but I'd have liked more detail about the languages themselves.

Comments

[frayadjacent]

I might be checking out The Color of Distance, thanks for the recommendation! I've been looking for new fiction.

Agreed re: Le Guin. Though I still have never read any Alice Munro.

Speaking of: what do you think of Le Guin's more recent work? Changing Planes left a bad taste in my mouth and I haven't read anything she's published since (though I have revisited old favorites). I heard good things about Lavinia but not much either way about anything else.

[luzula]

What didn't you like about Changing Planes? Might help me answer your question about her recent work. I remember one of the stories making me think "I don't think genetics works like that", but otherwise I liked it, though it's not one of her best books IMO.

I do like her recent work! Lavinia is really good, and so is the YA trilogy Gifts, Voices and Powers. Gifts didn't work that well for me because it uses the trope "two children grow up together and then later become a couple" which always triggers my incest squick. But Voices and particularly Powers were great.

[frayadjacent]

I remember it having more rape than I want in my fiction. OK, I pretty much never want rape in my fiction, but it stood out to me as being more prevalent than her other short story collections (or novels), and also as being portrayed in a way that naturalizes it? I don't remember examples, though -- it's probably been about 10 years since I read it. (!)

[luzula]

Oh, hmm, I don't remember that. But then, it's been ages since I read it, too. Er, I can't guarantee you that there isn't any rape in the Gifts/Voices/Powers trilogy. Like, in the middle book, there's a city which is occupied by a foreign army, and I think one of the characters is the child of a raped woman. And the third book is about a slave and the process of him finding freedom--I don't remember any rape, but, well.

Books should have content notes like fic does.

[frayadjacent]

Yeah, I guess a lot of her fiction has rape in it. Most memorably, for me anyway, in Four Ways to Forgiveness, which I think is excellent and I'd love to read again, but it's also just so upsetting I can never bring myself to. But I remember with Changing Planes feeling like the rape was presented as a sort of natural biological fact and that was more what bothered me. I mean, I never enjoy rape being in my fiction, but the way that it's presented makes a big difference in my reaction. But, like I said, it was a long time ago and maybe I'd see it differently now.

Anyway, glad to hear it about the other books. I'll be checking out Lavinia for sure at some point, and probably the others as well.

(I did start to read Gifts a long time ago, but I got distracted by mounds of work and never came back to it. It's always much harder for me to read a book if I've already started it once and put it down, even if the reason I put it down has nothing to do with how much I enjoyed it.)

[jesse_the_k]

In my experience the Color of Distance sequel was heartbreaking, because #1 was so alien and made me think in new ways.. But #2 is basically, "Aliens come back to earth for a cabinet of curiosities," and who CARES what the earthlings think of the aliens??? (Seems I have strong feelings.)

Better Canadian meditations on life and love come from Carol Shields, in particular _The Stone Diaries_ and _Unless_.

[luzula]

Oops, I have already ordered the sequel, so I guess we'll see if I agree with you. But I was already rooting for the protagonist to go native, so maybe I will.

Thanks, I'll look up Carol Shields!

[desireearmfeldt]

I mostly have trouble getting into Alice Munro -- I find her emotionally distancing too. But then, I have a similar problem with Ursula LeGuin -- I keep reading her because she seems like the sort of author I ought to like, but I find her hard to engage with.

[luzula]

Oh, that's interesting about Le Guin--for me her books are very easy to get emotionally involved with. The Dispossessed is probably the book that makes me cry the most, for example.

[riverlight]

Hey, I never thanked you for your offer a few weeks ago to send me that book about translating Lord of the Rings for my mom! I asked her whether she'd like it—figured I should ask her before I made you go to the trouble—but she never got back to me. So you're off the hook! Thank you, though. :)

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

Now I'd be fascinated by the historical context in the last one. I wonder if there is an English translation/equivalent?

[luzula]

I would have guessed there to be tons of popular science books about dead languages in English? But I haven't actually gone looking.

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

Oh, indeed. I attended a lecture on vanishing languages at the Festival of Ideas at Cambridge last year and checked out some of the works by the lecturer, but he was dealing with the present day more than the past. Still, there is always the Newton Catalogue to search.