Recent reading
Mar. 29th, 2018 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaMy fever has gone down and I am not half-dead anymore, though far from well. Dragged myself to the corner store today, had this conversation:
Me: *sways and looks like a zombie*
Guy behind the counter: Aww, you look sick!
Me: Yeah.
Him, sounding very sure: It's the Norwegian flu!
Me: Norwegian flu?
Him: You'll be sick for two weeks! And then it'll take you ten more days to get well!
Me: Um.
I cannot find the Norwegian flu on the internet. Anyway, I have read doggedly to distract myself from the misery:
La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (2017)
Okay, this I read before getting sick. I liked it--the characters were sympathetic, and it was a good page-turney adventure too. Although I was a bit thrown by the sudden appearance of Fairyland.
The Common Good by Ugo Mattei (2011, original in Italian, read in Swedish, seems not to be available in English)
Ha haaa. Why did I choose this book to read while having a fever? I know, I know, it's because it's due at the library. Anyway, the author is an Italian law professor, and it's about the commons as opposed to public or private ownership. I feel like I already agree with him politically, but he's saying it in a too-complicated way. Or maybe that was just my fever-muzzy brain. I never get it when people use the word "phenomenology"--I'm sure I've tried to learn what it means before, but it never sticks. The book was very short though, so there's that.
Marken by David Väyrynen (2017, only in Swedish)
Also due at the library. A collection of poetry set in Norrbotten, the northernmost county of Sweden. Or actually it's more like documentary-style fic. I should have taken the fact that the book cover is entirely red as a clue, but I didn't actually realize where it was going until a network of villages is seceding from Sweden and aiming to become self-sufficient. And this is told by means of the meeting minutes of a village annual meeting. : D More stories should be told via meeting minutes. I did have a niggling discomfort with one aspect of the book though, which was that there are many many names in it, but none of them are immigrant names; they're all Swedish, Finnish and Sami. It's not anti-immigrant that I can see, they're just...not there. Also it's a bit sweeping about people from southern Sweden. Anyway, an interesting part of the book is a moral code with 613 items, spread through the book. Here's a sample:
83. A ban on expecting interest on your sacrifices during hard times.
84. A ban on bragging afterwards about your sacrifices in order to obtain interest.
85. A ban on forcing others to make sacrifices for your sake.
86. A ban on scapegoating one person so that the rest of the village will be free of blame.
...
91. A ban on blaming everything on bad circumstances.
92. A decree to remember that some things you cannot control yourself.
93. A ban on thinking that the things you cannot control yourself are under divine control.
94. A decree to remember that even if you work together, there are some things you cannot control.
95. A decree to nevertheless work together in such situations.
The Year Without A Summer by Mary Robinette Kowal (Glamourist Histories #3)
A+ choice of light reading when having a fever, would recommend. This is established-relationship regency with magic, nice mix of character development and page-turney plot.
Nella Last's War by Nella Last
The diary of a 49-year-old British housewife during WWII. This was absorbing and domestic and surprisingly upbeat for a war story, largely because the main character gets out of the house and away from her husband, and learns she has a talent for organizing. I liked it! (The weirdest thing about it though is that at one point she bakes a cake in June and then doesn't eat it until April the following year! Whaaat. It's just wrapped up in paper in a tin. Is there so much sugar in it that it's preserved by that?)
The Course of Honour by![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
Avoliot
Everybody and their sister was reading this a while ago, and I do see why! Wow. This had pretty much everything I wanted right now, sooooo much pining and tropey goodness, and such a well-constructed plot too. All the thumbs up. I loved it.
Me: *sways and looks like a zombie*
Guy behind the counter: Aww, you look sick!
Me: Yeah.
Him, sounding very sure: It's the Norwegian flu!
Me: Norwegian flu?
Him: You'll be sick for two weeks! And then it'll take you ten more days to get well!
Me: Um.
I cannot find the Norwegian flu on the internet. Anyway, I have read doggedly to distract myself from the misery:
La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (2017)
Okay, this I read before getting sick. I liked it--the characters were sympathetic, and it was a good page-turney adventure too. Although I was a bit thrown by the sudden appearance of Fairyland.
The Common Good by Ugo Mattei (2011, original in Italian, read in Swedish, seems not to be available in English)
Ha haaa. Why did I choose this book to read while having a fever? I know, I know, it's because it's due at the library. Anyway, the author is an Italian law professor, and it's about the commons as opposed to public or private ownership. I feel like I already agree with him politically, but he's saying it in a too-complicated way. Or maybe that was just my fever-muzzy brain. I never get it when people use the word "phenomenology"--I'm sure I've tried to learn what it means before, but it never sticks. The book was very short though, so there's that.
Marken by David Väyrynen (2017, only in Swedish)
Also due at the library. A collection of poetry set in Norrbotten, the northernmost county of Sweden. Or actually it's more like documentary-style fic. I should have taken the fact that the book cover is entirely red as a clue, but I didn't actually realize where it was going until a network of villages is seceding from Sweden and aiming to become self-sufficient. And this is told by means of the meeting minutes of a village annual meeting. : D More stories should be told via meeting minutes. I did have a niggling discomfort with one aspect of the book though, which was that there are many many names in it, but none of them are immigrant names; they're all Swedish, Finnish and Sami. It's not anti-immigrant that I can see, they're just...not there. Also it's a bit sweeping about people from southern Sweden. Anyway, an interesting part of the book is a moral code with 613 items, spread through the book. Here's a sample:
83. A ban on expecting interest on your sacrifices during hard times.
84. A ban on bragging afterwards about your sacrifices in order to obtain interest.
85. A ban on forcing others to make sacrifices for your sake.
86. A ban on scapegoating one person so that the rest of the village will be free of blame.
...
91. A ban on blaming everything on bad circumstances.
92. A decree to remember that some things you cannot control yourself.
93. A ban on thinking that the things you cannot control yourself are under divine control.
94. A decree to remember that even if you work together, there are some things you cannot control.
95. A decree to nevertheless work together in such situations.
The Year Without A Summer by Mary Robinette Kowal (Glamourist Histories #3)
A+ choice of light reading when having a fever, would recommend. This is established-relationship regency with magic, nice mix of character development and page-turney plot.
Nella Last's War by Nella Last
The diary of a 49-year-old British housewife during WWII. This was absorbing and domestic and surprisingly upbeat for a war story, largely because the main character gets out of the house and away from her husband, and learns she has a talent for organizing. I liked it! (The weirdest thing about it though is that at one point she bakes a cake in June and then doesn't eat it until April the following year! Whaaat. It's just wrapped up in paper in a tin. Is there so much sugar in it that it's preserved by that?)
The Course of Honour by
Everybody and their sister was reading this a while ago, and I do see why! Wow. This had pretty much everything I wanted right now, sooooo much pining and tropey goodness, and such a well-constructed plot too. All the thumbs up. I loved it.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-03-30 11:26 am (UTC)The usual primary meaning of "ränta" is economic, but I guess it could be both. And nope, the minutes did not say anything about meeting techniques!