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Recent reading
Oct. 7th, 2025 07:40 pmI read some fiction! Only novellas though. I nominated them for my turn at book club, and ended up reading both of them.
Clear by Carys Davies (2024)
A poor Presbyterian minister takes a job evicting a tenant from a remote island during the 19th century Scottish Clearances, while his wife stays at home (at least she does at first). He falls and hits his head and the tenant, not knowing what his errand there is, takes care of him. I liked it well enough, but while I am generally a fan of resolving love triangles with poly, I thought the resolution here was much too hasty.
Aerth by Deborah Tomkins (2025)
Meh. It sounded like the kind of ecologically minded SF that I used to read a lot of, but it felt kind of flat to me. It takes guts to reference The Dispossessed so clearly in its plot, and I feel it just did not live up to that. And come on, you can't grow apples in a climate which is so cold that you get regular frosts in June! The flowers would freeze and you'd never get any apples. *grumbles* I did learn something new and exciting from the book, though, which is that runner beans (unlike ordinary beans) are actually perennial! They have tubers which you can dig up, store through the winter, and plant again in the spring (in warmer climates you don't have to dig them up, obviously). I'm totally going to try that with our runner beans, especially as they cross-pollinate and we had two varieties, so I can't trust the seeds to breed true.
Er, sorry to make everything about vegetable gardening.
Clear by Carys Davies (2024)
A poor Presbyterian minister takes a job evicting a tenant from a remote island during the 19th century Scottish Clearances, while his wife stays at home (at least she does at first). He falls and hits his head and the tenant, not knowing what his errand there is, takes care of him. I liked it well enough, but while I am generally a fan of resolving love triangles with poly, I thought the resolution here was much too hasty.
Aerth by Deborah Tomkins (2025)
Meh. It sounded like the kind of ecologically minded SF that I used to read a lot of, but it felt kind of flat to me. It takes guts to reference The Dispossessed so clearly in its plot, and I feel it just did not live up to that. And come on, you can't grow apples in a climate which is so cold that you get regular frosts in June! The flowers would freeze and you'd never get any apples. *grumbles* I did learn something new and exciting from the book, though, which is that runner beans (unlike ordinary beans) are actually perennial! They have tubers which you can dig up, store through the winter, and plant again in the spring (in warmer climates you don't have to dig them up, obviously). I'm totally going to try that with our runner beans, especially as they cross-pollinate and we had two varieties, so I can't trust the seeds to breed true.
Er, sorry to make everything about vegetable gardening.
