books I read on vacation
I have just returned from vacation and was surprised to take stock of how many books I had read in such a relatively short time period. I suppose I have been diving back into my bookworm tendencies more heavily than I previously considered.
I had taken with me three physical books- which is perhaps a questionable choice, but I have never not done it, so it seemed silly to break the habit now. The books in question were The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty, The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett and The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. I did not manage to get to The Dispossessed, but I did read the other two and enjoyed them immensely.
I read The City of Brass on the way there and apparently read it so quickly that I shocked my brother as it is not a small or simple book. The world Chakraborty relates is complex and perhaps even a little confusing at points, but the action and the conflict kept me engaged and curious as I pored over the pages. I loved the magic system and the politics, but the characters were not exactly incredibly compelling to me personally. However, I was still very interested in following their progressions after I finished the book. Ali was my favorite I think, mainly because I found his familial and political conflicts to be more captivating to me personally, but Nahri and Dara were mysteries I still wanted to find the answers to. It also reminded me that I should probably reread The Golem and The Jinni by Helene Wecker, as it touches on similar mythology.
The Color of Magic was honestly a little mind boggling, but I do love the way Pratchett writes; the humor mixed with genuine sincerity is comforting, and the world he creates is whimsically delightful. The Luggage’s role as almost a deus ex machina never failed to make me smile and Rincewind’s back and forth with Death was hilarious to me. Plus I’m happy to have made another step into Discworld and I can’t wait to read more.
The other books I read were e-books borrowed from my local library. The first was Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier, which honestly shocked me because of how much I actually enjoyed it. It was a delight to follow Cas, mainly because I always appreciate an intelligent and resilient main character, and the story was deeply immersive with its complex politics and plague stricken culture. And the plot twist actually surprised me, which never happens. If I was paying closer attention at the beginning maybe it wouldn’t have, but I was glad to be surprised. It was a nice change of pace.
Attribution by Linda Moore was a strange but interesting novel. Due to its deep immersion into the art world, I was reminded of Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett, both children’s novels I had enjoyed reading when I was younger. I liked that the stakes were not incredibly high, but still dire enough for a normal person.
I read two novels by Mary Balogh, The Last Waltz and Lady with a Black Umbrella and two novels by Emma St. Clair, The Billionaire’s Masquerade Ball and The Billionaire’s Secret Heir. They were all romance novels, which I read a lot of, because I appreciate their more light hearted plots. I liked Lady with a Black Umbrella because it felt like Frederica by Georgette Heyer, and I liked The Billionaire’s Masquerade Ball because masquerade balls are one of my favorite plot devices ever. The other two were fine, I just wasn’t deeply enthralled with the plot progressions.
And then I bought five books from local bookstores while I was away. Two I had already read: The Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer (it made me cry and I loved seeing Dominic and Mary again) and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (I’ve been frantically looking for a physical copy and gasped when I came across it), but three were new to me: The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty (book 2 of The Daevabad Trilogy, cause I had to after reading the first one), Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (I’ve had my eye on it for a while), and Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov (I needed to read more Nabokov because I am a little obsessed with the way he writes).
~dys