Ceci n'est pas un book blog

I am not a book blogger. I promise.

2023 Reading Challenge (and it's still November)

On and off over the last few years, I've engaged in a year-long "reading challenge" as part of my regular reading. Sometimes, this is of my own making: I'll choose some books or set a target of reading a certain number of books on a theme, and try to get through them by the end of the year.

In other years, I came across a reading challenge from a book blogger and followed along. Typically, this kind of challenge consists of a list of categories, about a dozen, say, and the goal is to read a book from each category: a biography, a book of poetry, a book written by a woman, and so forth.

2023's challenge was the latter kind. I came across the list on Ramona Mead's blog, While I Was Reading. (In August, I noticed the site was offline. I've periodically checked in since, and it has returned a variety of error messages. I've seen no explanations elsewhere. Apart from the technical issues, I hope everything's all right.)

Normally when I do a year-in-review post at the end of the year about my reading habits, this is the kind of thing I would tack on the end. Why would I summarize a year of books when the year still has a month left? But since I filled in the last category this morning, I thought, why wait? It gives me something to write, too.

In the burning heat, hanging on the edge of destruction

A lightning review of Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey (London: Orbit, 2015). Ebook.

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Nemesis Games is the middle novel of the Expanse series, written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the joint pen name James S. A. Corey. (If you haven't read the first four books in this series, read them first.)¹ While the Rocinante is being overhauled, its crew split up to take care of personal business: James Holden is overseeing the repairs while he assists an investigation into some missing colony ships; Amos Burton pays his respects on Earth to a recently departed friend; Alex Kemal triest to get some closure with his ex-wife on Mars; Naomi Nagata hears that her son, Filip, is in trouble. Colony ships are leaving the solar system through the interstellar gateway constructed by the alien protomolecule, and the Outer Planets Alliance faces an existential crisis. Radical OPA factions organize a Free Navy and bombard Earth with asteroids, causing planet-wide catastrophe.

I really enjoyed the plot surrounding the threat of the protomolecule in the first three Expanse novels, and so I was mildly disappointed when the story shifted in Cibola Burn to the colonists on the other side of the ring. (Not that the switch was bad, to be clear: just that I was really ejoying the previous plot.) So I was glad to see the action return to our solar system. The chapters focused on Amos as he tries to get off the devastated Earth, are the best part of this novel. The scenes of Earth's devastation are tense and Tom Clancy-esque. Corey have done a superb job with this volume. I will likeliy power my way through the rest of the Expanse early next year, and now I'm especially looking forward to seeing how the story pans out.

Footnote

¹ In order: Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, and Cibola Burn. Yeah, Corey love their mythology.

Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts

A review of An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (London: Faber, 1986). 206 pp. Hardcover.

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If you were to ask me what my favourite novel was, I would quickly answer, The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro's third novel. My first reading of that novel was a shade under thirty years ago. Despite my love for Remains, until this year, I had never read any of Ishiguro's other books. I decided to fix that situation last year, and so I began January with A Pale View of Hills, and read An Artist of the Floating World in September.

Masuji Ono is an elderly artist—as well as a father, grandfather, and widower—in Japan, a few years after the end of World War II. He is now retired, as his paintings have gone out of fashion. Ono has two daughters as well as a son who died in the war. His older daughter, Setsuko, is married and has a young son, Ichiro, who is fascinated with Godzilla and Western cultural icons such as Popeye and the Lone Ranger. Noriko, the younger daughter, is unmarried. She and Ono are preparing for her miai, or interview with the prospective groom and his family. An earlier marriage arrangement fell through. Setsuko and Noriko suspect it had to do with Ono's past. Setsuko suggests that he take "precautionary steps"—meaning, make amends for his past errors with his former colleagues, in case Noriko's prospective in-laws use them to investigate his history.

Girls just want to have fun

A review of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (New York: Scribner, 1905). Ebook.

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Lily Bart is a beautiful young New York socialite. Although she grew up in wealthy surroundings, her father lost the family fortune, and then both parents died when she was 20, leaving her without money. She lives with her aunt, which at least lets her live surrounded by wealth (even if the house's décor is outdated) and move in the social circles she's accustomed to. Lily receives a small allowance from her aunt, which she spends on clothing, but that doesn't leave her enough to cover the thousands of dollars of gambling debts she has incurred playing bridge.

And so Lily seeks a husband. Her options are limited at her advanced age of 29. Her friend Lawrence Seldon is a lawyer with good social connections, but he's not rich enough. Simon Rosedale, a Jewish businessman and Seldon's landlord, is wealthy and climbing the social ladder, but unrefined in his manners. And Percy Gryce is wealthy enough, but he's a rather boring collector of Americana. Nonetheless, Lily sets her sights on Percy.