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mousetrapplingBooks
Fiction: Finished "Revenant Gun", Yoon Ha Lee - liked that a lot. And a far more upbeat end to the story than I'd expected given the dystopic start. As this only came out last month I want to avoid spoilers, so I'll stop there rather than give any details. It does feel like I want to go back to the beginning of the series & re-read all three now I know where it went.
Started "The Lion Returns", John Dalmas - not sure when or why I bought this, I remember re-reading it some time ago (like a decade ago) and being surprised how much I liked it given the unpromising start. Maybe that'll happen again? Start = definitely unpromising. Unless it goes somewhere I forget, it's basically portal fantasy set c.1940s in our world, only the protagonist came from there to here & I'm guessing we'll be going back at some point. It's published by Baen, and feels like it, and I'm less tolerant of the rightwing end of US SFF than I used to be now the rightwing in the real world has gotten rather more overtly rabid. So, not a promising start.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - the current chapter opens with a contemplative look back at his own parents' deaths and the immorality of governments spending more money on killing people than they do on researching the diseases that kill us off.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 4 Scene 4-Act 5 Scene 2 - Silvia runs off and the various men discover this & are shocked, nay appalled that she might do something other than patiently wait for them to decide who she'll marry. Julia snipes from the sidelines.
Listening
Podcasts: ep 220-244 of The History of England - past divorce #1 & beheading #1 and along to wife #3 of Henry VIII, I particularly enjoyed the careful setting out of the evidence for & against the idea of Anne as actually a player in history rather than merely being "the scandal of Christendom" that Katherine of Aragon called her.
Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Persepolis, a key city in the Achaemenid Empire eventually sacked by Alexander the Great in a fit of pique. I hadn't known before that the elite of Darius I's time were still in some sense nomadic, the great cities & palaces of the empire were administrative centres/ceremonial centres but they were also in effect the "stone tents" that the king & his court lived in as they progressed around the empire.
Music: While running I listened to a compilation of 50s songs called "Dreamboats & Petticoats"
Watching
ep 2 of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2017: Language of Life - looking at communication without sounds. Smell, including pheromones, and body language.
ep 1 of Big Cats About the House - we fancied something fluffy to watch last night, and whilst this isn't 100% fluffy it does have someone hand-rearing a jaguar cub at home which is delightfully cute.
World Cup Football - watched the England semi-final, where they just seemed outplayed in the second after a good start to the match. Missed the third place playoff coz we decided beer festival in the sun with a friend was a lot more fun than watching England be taken to pieces by Belgium for the second time this tournament. Watched the final, hoping Croatia would win but it was not to be.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-19 19:28 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-22 08:18 (UTC)