The OF Blog: Early January Book Porn

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Early January Book Porn



After the Christmas glut, I suspect the remainder of January will be much like it has for its first ten days; a few books here and there from publishers, a few being purchases of my own. Which suits me well right now, since I won't have quite the amount of time to read this year as I did this time last year, when I read 60 books (I'm about to finish #4 and maybe #5 today, to put things into perspective).

Left: Richard K. Morgan, The Steel Remains (American hardcover edition; I will read this either this weekend or next); Robyn Young, The Fall of the Templars (historical novel with perhaps a bit of romance, will look at it later to see how much is each).



Left: Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, Two Lives of Charlemagne (first book of many that I'll be reading in relation to Charlemagne's paladins, especially Roland/Orlando, this year); Jonathan Strahan (ed.), Eclipse Two (it finally arrived the other day, now I'm back to awaiting the delayed arrival of Best American Fantasy 2); James Morrow, Shambling Towards Hiroshima (I plan on reading this book either later today or tomorrow, time permitting).

Not much else to say other than I might write short commentaries/reviews on most of these in the next few weeks.

7 comments:

SQT said...

I just ordered a copy of "The Steel Remains." I'm really interested in this one.

Joe King said...

Greetings. Was wondering if you had any recommendations concerning novels that deal in manner with psychotherapy. I do anywhere near as fast as you do so I am keeping things to a simple book per week. February has been christened psychotherapy month for my reading tastes. So far three of the four weeks have been filled.

Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint - What can be said about this? Haven't read it before so seems like a no-brainer considering I am both American and Jewish.

Jonathan Baumbach's Separate Hours - Big fan of Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale. Not sure of your familiarity with it. The father in the film is based on Jonathan Baumbach and thought I should check out some of his works. Seems very experimental and very interesting. The downward spiral of marriage told from multiple points of view. Husband and wife who are both therapists, the daughter, and a distant angle that examines things as if it were a movie screenplay. All four accounts telling a different story. What happened, if anything?

Patrick O'Leary's Door Number Three - The science fiction installment for the month. Supposedly very much in the vein of Philip K. Dick coupled with early Vonnegut. Have you read this book?

Still need one for a fourth cold February week!

Joe King said...

Oops. Typos. Meant "I don't read anywhere near as fast as you do" up near the top.

Larry Nolen said...

While I haven't read those three books you've mentioned, I believe Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy of historical novels about Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon and Sassoon's convalescence in a British hospital during WWI might meet your criteria, plus the trilogy is really, really good.

Joe King said...

Oh wow. Read up on your recommendation and sounds great. Definitely would top all others for seriousness. Makes for a well-rounded exploration of psychotherapy in fiction! I will dig it.

Larry Nolen said...

Cool! Glad to have been of some assistance there!

ediFanoB said...

I got the opportunity to read an ARC of The Steel Remains.

It is the first volume of the LAND FIT FOR HEROES trilogy.

It is dark, violent, contain sex, use an explicit language, is character driven and has good world building.

If you like this kind of stuff then read it.

 
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