wednesday reading

• What are you reading?

Arabella of Mars, by David Levine. It has a very old-fashioned feel. A sort of Golden Age of Science Fiction or Rudyard Kipling adventure. The setting is Age of Sail in spaaaace, because there is breathable atmosphere out past Mars, navigable by ships with balloons, sails, and oars.

Also a permaculture book.

• What did you recently finish reading?

Penric's Demon, by Lois McMaster Bujold. I liked it! I read the Five Gods novels when they came out; as I remember it, the first was good, the second was better, the third was kind of a mess. This novella is a good small story and satisfying look into what it is like to come into possession of one of the Bastard's demons. (Mostly satisfying; I really wanted to know how Penric is going to cope with his shyness and Desdemona's curiosity on sexual subjects, but all Bujold tells us is that it's awkward.)

• What do you think you’ll read next?

I belong to four book groups. In a perfect world, that would mean one meeting every week. In reality, two of them are slightly erratic and one meets only six times a year, so this month I have five book group meetings from 4-10 to 4-18, one of which I am hosting at someone else's house. (The fifth meeting is because someone in my SF book group is also in a graphic novel book group, which is reading Bitch Planet this month, so I'm going to visit.) The books are

A spool of blue thread, by Anne Tyler
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson
Hope in the Dark, by Rebecca Solnit (I'm hosting this one)
Bitch Planet, by Kelly Sue DeConnick

Also I have to do our tax return somewhere in there.