I've had several non-fiction burdens in my "currently reading" list that I've decided to drop. Farewell "ggplot2", "Think Stats" and "Innovator's Solution". I won't miss you. Maybe I'll read you again when I care more urgently about data analysis and launching successful products. Still slogging through "7 Habits".
Have been working through the anthology, The Way of the Wizard, which is fun for tube rides and has a few interesting stories. The ones by Martin, Gaiman, Silverberg and Le Guin stand out, which is probably what you'd expect.
Jolie got me a bevy of books for my birthday. I read Peace by Gene Wolfe straight through almost instantly. It's great. It made me readFifth Head of Cerberus again. Fifth Head, by the way, is great. Really great. An ambiguous, intelligent, multi-layered, irresolvable meditation on identity, individuality and post-colonialism with strong Kafka and Proust notes. Read it.
I'm clearly on a bit of a Wolfe bender at the moment. I just consulted my records and it looks like I also re-read Shadow of the Torturer. I picked up on a bunch of subtleties I missed last time.
Turns out that I'm not a very visual reader. I don't pick up details in descriptions and see them in my mind's eye very well. If the same words get used, I'll notice that. But a nebulous figure could be described as "fair-haired", say, in one part of a book and then later as "blond", and I might never actually guess that they were meant to be the same person. It's why I'm rubbish at guessing the murderer in most crime novels.
Wolfe often uses visual clues like that. So when re-reading Fifth Head or Shadow, I have been compelled to read more slowly, more carefully, paying attention to what is actually going on in the narrated world. A wonderful, new experience.
Also read a Rumpole omnibus. Jolly good fun, a bit repetitious, suspect the TV show would be better.
And since writing this post a couple of weeks ago, quite a few more!