Birthday Books

[muninnhuginn]

1. Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
2. Ulrich von Liechtenstein, The Service of Ladies
3. Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
4. ed. The Lifted Veil, 19th Century Women's Stories
5. Bremner, Bird, Fortune, You Are Here
6. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
7. Polly Bird, How to Be an Effective School Governor
8. Jean Estoril, Ballet Twins
9. Andre Norton, Judgment on Janus
10. Granta 89, The Factory
    
11. Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
12. Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor
13. Patrick McGrath, Dr Haggard's Disease
14. James Barclay, Dreamthief
15. Paul Cornell, British Summertime
16. Ken Macleod, Dark Light
17. Evelyn Lord, The Knights Templar in Britain
18. Eric Brown, Deep Future
19. Japanese Death Poems
20. Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Felaheen
21. Iain M Banks, The Algebraist
22. Elizabeth Bear, Hammered
23. Granta 90
24. Ian Rankin, The Falls
25. Jon Courtenay Grimwood, redRobe
26. Angus McAllister, The Canongate Strangler
27. Allen Steele, Coyote
28. Gene Wolfe, The Citadel of the Autarch
29. Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pashazade
30. Granta 91, Wish You Were Here
31. Michel Houellebecq, H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
32. Bernard Lewis, The Assassins
33. Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
34. Jeanette Winter, The Librarian of Basra
    Kiddies' book, really and hardly long enough to count as a read, certainly counts as a a viewing tho'. The pictures are glorious, instantly tempting me to try to reproduce them in embroidery or patchwork or collage. The story fell, as I guessed it would, into the muninnhuginn only buys children's books that make her cry (a long list including The Mousehole Cat, Nothing, Tom Finger...), so I read it backwards. I still cried. It's a simple story, plainly told, but the heroism and the resourcefulness of people in the most extreme circumstance shines through, the bravery of people who know that saving books--as part of a precious cultural heritage--is vital. To be lent to Looby Loo, who'll read it in five minutes flat.
35. Allen Steele, Coyote Rising
    If I'd been a subscriber to Asimov's, I'd be feeling cheated, since all but one part of this has already been published in the magazine. I'd say serialised, except there wasn't enough continuity for that. Too bitty for my liking, the overall arc of the story too obvious with the individual sections hanging rather limply from it, a little like the bombed Garcia Narrows Bridge. There was no real feeling of ongoing tension and too much of a predictable feel to it. The little boy in the prologue just had to be waiting in the wings for a later appearance--along with the military commander. There was, it had to be said, an improvement in the mortality of viewpoint figures, the demise of whom just as they'd got into their narrative stride making the narrative flow of Coyote rather disjointed (almost literally). Each section had its interest, but I want more of an epic sweep, a broader view that might come from focussing on one of these narratives more closely for longer.
    All the same, I enjoyed the book enough to make time to finish it quickly instead of relegating it to the half-read to be resumed at a later date pile.