Luzula

Am I reading anything? Still very little fiction, due to life circumstances. But I'm not worried--my fiction-reading has previously gone down to almost zero in similar circumstances, and then bounced back later. The books will still be there.

I think one reason I read fiction is to vicariously experience other people's lives and emotions. And when my own life is full of experiences and emotions (especially romantic emotions, but it can be other kinds of intense feeling, too), then that can leave little mental space for reading fiction. What fiction I am reading is (perhaps surprisingly) my own fic, and occasionally other people's fic. I recently reread one of my own longfics, for example. But that's good, it keeps me in fandom.

I am, however, reading some non-fiction. I made it through the pile of magazines that had accumulated; these are mostly biology-related in some way or other (like membership magazines from such things as the Swedish botanical society). During my first illness in January (covid??) I read Sandor Ellix Katz' The Art of Fermentation, which was quite interesting and gave me ideas for further things to try, though there was some repetition from the other book by the same author that I'd already read. Currently I am making my way through On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee, which is brilliant and comprehensive. I am learning so much from it! Highly recommended if you're interested in why cooking works the way it does, and learning more about various ingredients.

I've also dipped into some of housemate's books on market gardening, which (quite understandably) are a bit different from gardening books aimed at home gardeners. A reasonable way of sowing, watering, weeding, harvesting etc for someone who is growing vegetables for the household, can be a time sink for someone who is growing vegetables to make a living, because it doesn't scale up. Thus a focus on efficiency and how one can save time. I am obviously not going to be a market gardener, though housemate is, but it was interesting to read. And perhaps some methods might carry over.

Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki (1983)
Well, I see why this is not as famous as Nausicaa--it's a much slighter work, and more broad strokes both in the artwork and in the story and worldbuilding. I also didn't feel that the worldbuilding made as much sense as in Nausicaa, though I think it was meant to have a more mythic feel where things don't have to make sense. Apparently I was unable to really enjoy this on its own terms without comparisons...oh well.

You May Well Ask by Naomi Mitchison (1979)
Her autobiography 1920-1940. There are lighter sections, but on the whole it is rather grim because of being bracketed by two world wars! It ends with some ominous diary entries from the beginning of WWII, with the very last sentence But my baby died. Oof. But also it's chock full of notes on everything from her love life, to politics, various of her friends, her writing, etc. I'm sure I missed lots of references, but one I did catch thanks to people in my DW circle who like reading about spies was this: I think it was in Vienna [in 1934] that I had lunch with a nice young Englishman called Philby; no doubt we talked politics. *boggles* Also she met Selma Lagerlöf! I wonder what they talked about. Also you get passages like this: We would go to the local café or Chez Louise, where I occasionally danced with the lesbian professional ladies who came to eat and dance in congenial surroundings before they went to other bars to earn their living. Louise herself was that way, with the barmaid as her wife. I remember once in the late Thirties going there with Margaret Cole; Louise thought I had at last seen the light. Heh. Also, I am not quite sure if "professional ladies" means they were selling sex or perhaps strip-dancing or something, or are they just barmaids?

Lady Eve's Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow (2024)
Read for book club. I LOVED this! : D I bounced off The Iron Children, but this book was entirely different. It's fun and fast-paced and with a grabby narrative voice, and it turns out that f/f with two characters who don't really trust each other (until they finally do) is just what I wanted to read. Sol and Ruthi have so much chemistry together, and I also enjoy all the details of Ruthi's high society con job! It's interesting how we're so deep in the POV of the main character, and it really colors the view of the other characters. I would probably get along well with Esteban, we could talk about soil and I wouldn't mind his social awkwardness! And obviously Jules fell in love with him, so he must have something going for him. But Ruthi really dislikes him, which very much colors what we see of him.

Trädgårdsboken om jord by Håkan Wallander et al (2020)
And...a book about soil! : D As it relates to gardening, that is. We're still working on where to grow our vegetables, and my sister who has expertise in this area was here this weekend. We did some tests that were in this book, and determined that probably we should just do it on what has been the arable land in the past. Like, there's probably a reason that there was a vegetable field there before. It's fairly clayey soil, which my sister thinks is at bottom good, but in the short term it's quite compacted and will need work. We're thinking about starting out with various green manure crops with deep roots that might help us improve it. Though potatoes and some other crops can be grown in hay/compost beds on top of the soil, too. Er, sorry, this was not really a review of the book.

Aaaah. Today I am up early to go to the appointment where the house changes owners, and tomorrow I move. I suppose it's understandable that I didn't sleep well last night, but it's ironic that this happens just when I most need to sleep well.

Babel by R F Kuang (2022, audiobook)
For book club. I thought the central idea of the book (the linguistics magic) was very cool, and found the book page-turney and interesting! Perhaps it's a little on the nose about colonialism being bad, which was reinforced by the footnotes being read by a different person, so before I understood that they were footnotes, I thought it was a little voice coming in to point out all the things that were racist. But hey, colonialism is bad, and it's good to read that perspective along with the regency romances. The other things I want to say are spoilery. ( Read more... )

System Collapse by Martha Wells (2024)
Murderbot! Murderbot is much more stressed out than I am. I don't have anything deep to say about this book, but it's good to read another installment in a series you already know you like. Also, I'm impressed by Well's ability to write action scenes in a way that is 1) easy to understand, and 2) engaging. It's in the character voice, I suppose.

1793 by Niklas Natt och Dag (2017)
Listened to as an audiobook in Swedish; this book is also available translated into English as The Wolf and the Watchman. This is historical fiction set in late 18th century Stockholm, where I enjoyed the writing style, characters, historical setting, and audiobook reader--but unfortunately it is also the sort of murder mystery that has grisly details of horrible crimes, which is not my thing. DNF at 25%. (Yes, the author's last name is actually "Night and Day".)

As for DNF, I also started on Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, but did not get past the first chapter with what really could be labeled as climate horror. I wish I hadn't read that at bedtime.

Herrarna satte oss hit by Elin Anna Labba (2020) [The Lords Put Us Here]
Finally something I wanted to read! It's written by a descendant of one of the Sami families who were deported along with their reindeer in the 1920's, and has stories (lightly fictionalized, but based on interviews) from people who experienced that. When Norway separated from Sweden in the early 20th century, they developed a nationalism where they wanted the Sami to assimilate or just go away, and especially what they hated was the seasonal Sami migration across the border in the north, a form of transhumance where, unusually, the summer grazing was down by the sea and the winter lands were higher up on the Swedish side. The Norwegian state felt the reindeer were grazing lands that "ought" to be developed for agriculture or grazed by cows or sheep. So the border was closed. Sweden undertook to remove those people, who were then deported south, which created problems of its own, because there were other Sami already keeping their reindeer there. Sweden did not necessarily want the Sami to assimilate or go away, but they paternalistically believed that the state knew better how these people should order their lives and keep their reindeer.

Moving the reindeer south was difficult, because they are used to their ordinary migrations and would often escape to the north, trying to get back. It's a moving book with a lot of personal stories of dislocation, and lots of photos. One thing I thought was interesting was that there seems to have been not much conflict at the local level between Sami, Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns, or at least that was not the main problem (the main problem being the states). A Sami family usually had a "host" family among the sedentary people, a relationship which went generations back, with whom they would trade, stay with when they came to market, etc. There's a story of a Sami woman giving birth to twins and knowing she couldn't care for both infants on the move, so she left one of them to be fostered by the host family for a few years and came back for it later.

Konsten att beskära träd och buskar by Eva Robild, Georg Grundsten, and Eva Lie (2021)
This is about how to prune trees and bushes, especially fruit trees. I will take over some already-established fruit trees and hopefully plant more, so this is something I need to learn! Having read it, I still do not feel fully confident in how to do this, but at least I know more. Probably this is the sort of thing where you need practical demonstration.

Commodore Hornblower by C S Forester (1945)
It was fun to see Sweden and Denmark through Age of Sail eyes: where on the coasts would have been dangerous passage points for ships, and the English equivalents of placenames in these "barbarous northern tongues". The Skaw is obviously Skagen (the northernmost tip of Denmark), Cape Kullen is Kullaberg, and (which never fails to amuse me) Elsinore is the much more prosaic Helsingör. This book feels obviously written as a novel and not as a series of short adventures, which I enjoyed. I recognized with glee several very slashy lines about Bush which I have seen around the fandom before, and enjoyed the dynamic between them as they navigate a new chain-of-command situation. But I am baffled by Hornblower randomly sleeping with some Russian countess, which happens without him ever thinking of it in relation to his marriage. I am amused by the insert of Clausewitz as a minor character, and Forester's guts in portraying his own character as smarter than Famous Military Theorist. I haven't actually read Clausewitz, but I thought he was famous for pioneering ideas about morale and the political and psychological aspects of warfare, and here he's portrayed as doctrinaire and not used to thinking outside the box? But perhaps Forester means to imply that Hornblower has Opened His Eyes to such matters? Heh.

Fröodling by Anders Skarlind (2006) [Seed cultivation]
A slim volume about growing and harvesting your own seeds in your kitchen garden, so as not to have to buy seeds every year. This is obviously easier with some vegetables, such as peas, than with biannuals like carrots, where you typically eat the root during the first year, so that's not what I'm going to try first. Obviously vegetable gardening is shaping up to be a new nerdy interest, which plays well with established nerdy interests such as field biology and history. I can grow the kinds of peas people grew in the 18th century! Which were often "grey peas" with violet flowers, instead of the current strains of peas with white flowers which apparently taste milder. The pea soup would actually have been grey in colour!

I also read a chapter of Violet Jacob's The Lairds of Dun (1931), because regshoe tipped me off that she had based two of the characters in Flemington on her own ancestors and what they did during the '45! And yes, this was obvious, though she has really aged down James Erskine who was 75 (James Logie in the book is in his 30's). Also, I do think less of David Erskine (Balnillo in the book) for having Lord Grange, who famously shipped off his wife to languish on a remote island, as a friend.

I have also read 50 pages of Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake and am not sure I'll go on. I've read and enjoyed the previous two in the Gormenghast trilogy, but it was some time ago. I still enjoy the singular writing style, but I feel that the book somehow lost its magic when it left the Gormenghast castle setting. Opinions on this book?

Am on the way back from my forest surveying camp. It was intense, so I'm enjoying the time to myself on the train back.

The Pastor's Fire-side, Vol 4 by Jane Porter (1817)
( The thrilling conclusion! Totally did not expect this plot twist. )

The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones (1981)
It's been a while since I read a new DWJ. I spent a lot of this one being confused, but in retrospect, I think it makes sense? Whoa, those are some dysfunctional parents. Also, I like how just plain weird all the kids are, it makes them such vivid characters, and the four sisters have such complicated relationships. Still, probably not my favorite DWJ.

I am now on the train north, to do a botanical survey and then a forest survey, for two weeks.

The Pastor's Fire-side, Vol. 2 by Jane Porter (1817)
( Click to read further exciting plot developments! )

Sword Dance by A J Demas (2019)
This was delightful! It is an m/m romance set in fake!ancient Greece (or in fact one of the characters is probably non-binary). The prose style is nothing special, but it's warm-hearted and engaging. The plot is similar to K J Charles Think of England: a disabled former soldier comes to a house party, where he falls for a gender-nonconforming spy that he's not sure he can trust, and then they have to work together to defeat the shady dealings going on at the house party. But hey, it's a great plot! Glad to see that this is the first of a trilogy.

A Narrative of the Life of Mrs Charlotte Charke (1755)
My regular dose of 18th century writing. This autobiography reminds me a little of Moll Flanders, in that it is about a woman making her own way in the world. The difference is that there are far fewer husbands and lovers, less life of crime, and more queerness. Charlotte is primarily an actor, often in breeches roles, and the book would probably be interesting for people who are into the history of theatre. But she is a very precariously employed actor, who often can't get acting jobs, or quarrels with someone, or is sick of the theatre world and wants to strike out and do something else. Which she does: selling sausages, keeping a public house, selling pastries, etc. Unfortunately she's not a great entrepreneur (which she herself owns), or else she just has bad luck. Charlotte grew up in a fairly well off family in the theatre world, and I'm afraid I took against her in the beginning when she as a young teenager sold bogus remedies to poor people, pretending to be an apothecary. But she grows more sympathetic with age. When she's still fairly young she falls in love with a man and persuades her parents to let her marry him. But the relationship quickly goes south, at which point they just separate and she does her best to safeguard the money she manages to make so her husband can't get at it. He dies after a while, there's one more brief love affair with a man, and then no more. After this she’s a single mother bringing up a daughter, who eventually also becomes an actor. Charlotte also spends periods of her (his?) life living as a man (Mr Brown), partly to dodge creditors and find jobs, but had masculine interests early in life, as well. She works as a valet for a while, with the gentleman being aware that she’s not a cis man. She also lived for years with a female friend/lover/partner (who knows which) as Mr and Mrs Brown. A fascinating life! This book is of course written for public consumption and who knows how that affected what she wrote.

All Change Here by Naomi Mitchison (1975)
After this I cast about a bit, not feeling in the mood for anything on my e-reader, before recalling that I happen to have this physical book that wasn't in a box, and it was just what I wanted to read. This is the second part of her autobiography, about her girlhood and marriage before and during WWI. This hadn't struck me so much in the first part about her childhood, but she is so sheltered and so far still from the outspoken and political author of her later life! OMG. Like, even after she's married, her mother makes sure she has a chaperone in various situations. Looking forward to reading the third part where presumably we get to see how she becomes more independent.

It can be surprisingly difficult to set out to read something self-indulgent! I suppose a reread or the next entry in a series is the best bet, but even those can backfire (the Hornblower book I read before these was a success, though).

The Magpie Lord by K J Charles (2017)
Surely a K J Charles would be a fun, engaging read? I picked this one on the basis of it being free, but alas, it didn’t work that well for me. The relationship between the main characters just wasn’t built up enough for me, with the result that I kind of lost interest in the sex scenes and was more into the magical plot. It didn’t help that it has that sort of everything-goes-smoothly kink where one of the main characters just goes ahead and dominates the other without anyone having to talk about it, whereas I would prefer there to be more negotiation and snags and character moments. I’m not being entirely fair, because there are some moments like that, and I did like those! But on the whole the relationship felt a little shallow.

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley (1984)
A favorite of many of my fannish friends! Perhaps an older YA fantasy was what I needed? I think if I had read this one at fifteen, I would have loved it, but reading it at forty-five without the benefit of childhood nostalgia, I did not love it. Don’t get me wrong, I can still be charmed by a flame-haired princess fighting dragons, but I am more apt to have my back put up when the book starts out with someone on the border of a kingdom wanting to secede, and the narrator assures me that the only reason someone could want to secede from this Good Kingdom is because he’s a little stupid and also possessed by a demon. I also found the final battle anti-climactic because Aerin only wins because of something that seems accidental? And a lot of her actions in the second half seem like she’s being carried on some determined path rather than choosing her own actions? I am aware of how hypocritical this is of me, since I’ve seen people complain of the same thing in The Dark Is Rising, but I love that (childhood favorite) book, heh. However, my favorite character is the horse Talat. Great character, lovely relationship with Aerin, totally carried the book for me. <3