Sunday, January 10, 2021

What am I reading?

 

 

 

 

 

The question comes:

"What are you reading?"

Oh my god. So many books! I almost never have so many excellent books that I am reading all at once. I am reading a veritable treasure trove of books, all at the same time!

 

I have:

 

The Constant Rabbit, by practically my favorite author ever, Jasper Fforde, which, while whimsically about anthropomorphized rabbits in England, is perhaps the finest piece of hard, contemporary political/social satire written since Orwell, or Kafka, or even Swift!

It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It, by Bill Heavey, a charming and fascinating account of someone exploring and seeking to eat as much wild food as he can forage. I loved this book so much I put it on my Recommended Books all time list and decided on a reread to see if it holds up. It does!

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, by K. Eason. Feminist fable re-imagined and all wrapped up in Space Opera Science Fiction. The beginning at least is promising and, for what it's worth, the reviews were all gushing.

The Absolute at Large, by Karel Capek. Speaking of dark political satire, this is Czech Sci Fi from 100 years ago. Dark, funny, dense, and weirdly modern, I've only just begun it, but already it has taught me the thrilling word "Contumacious" (willfully disobedient to authority) around which I built yesterday's enormously slight blogpost.

Great Streets, by Allan B. Jacobs.  I have only hinted at this in an occasional post, raging at the mechanics of walk signals, but I have become fascinated by Urban Design and street construction and traffic management. This compelling book is the seminal work that has informed all my other favorite writers and YouTubers on the subject.


Isn't it great to have so many fabulous, intriguing things to read!


No, that's a real question actually:

Isn't it great to have so many fabulous, intriguing things to read?


No.


No is the answer.

I go to read one of these amazing books and am so overwhelmed by the largess that I simply can't decide or choose. 


So I go edit my endless photographs of the local creek instead. 

 

 

 



 


 

 

 

 

 

2 comments:

  1. You got me started on Fforde's books some years ago, so I was glad to see a new one. But...I went to put it on request at my local library and found that they have the eBook and the eAudio book, but no paper. The state library has a copy, but I don't think they're doing interlibrary loan.

    Oh, how I miss MELSA and all the libraries I could use, even without resorting to ILL.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To indulge my aggrieved bent for a moment here, my library has also disrespected Fforde's latest, buying a ridiculously small amount of copies and creating a knot of holds on the book that will not clear up.

      Delete

If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.

I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!

One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.