Books & Stuff (NS, No 15) - Reading in Apr 2021

Finished Reading

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

A hang-over from 'March is Mars Month', and I discussed it in the last round-up. 

There I called it a lyrical classic about human baggage, which I'll stick with.

Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog

One of Willis' splendid books on the Oxford Faculty for Time Travel.  In this one, everyone has been caught up in a donor's huge vanity project (to recreate the bombed Coventry Catherdral in perfect detail).  Willis is one of those writers who keeps me up all night.

It's both a tribute to J K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat and a study of chaos theory.  A hoot.

Ben Aaronovitch, False Value

When I started this I was a little concerned that - at Book 8 - the Rivers of London series might have run out of steam.  I need have only been slightly worried.  Although, not up to the high standard of the first couple of books, this certainly kept pace with the later ones.

The only problem is that I need a concordance to keep up with all the characters and references.  I'm sure there's one online somewhere, but that's not much help to me when I'm sitting up reading at 2.30am.

Aubrey/Maturin Series

Patrick O'Brian

Master and Commander 

Post Captain

HMS Surprise

The Mauritius Command

I had an inclination to re-read some of the Aubrey/Maturin books - not necessarily all of them (that would be too much of A Project), but it seems to be heading that way.  

It was with some surprise that I see that they are older now than the Hornblower books were when I first read those (and then they seemed positively antique!).  Still, they take me back...  I first read them in the 90s when I used to have a long commute (most of my copies were bought at WH Smiths on Liverpool's Lime Street Station).  It was a formative period for me.  At the time I was developed a focus on maritime and naval history which ran as a thread in my career for a while.

Currently Reading

Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island

The crew head towards the Botany Bay colony (with a few convicts including a beautiful female spy), but run into trouble in the South Atlantic.

The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

If you're like me you have a little list of books that you've seen in bookshops and liked the look of.  You may also find that various computer algorithms has suggested you should read them.  If the latter doesn't put you off and you see a cheap copy you probably buy it and put in on a shelf to sit unread.

Occasionally I will take one of these books and read it.  In this case it was Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London (apparently re-titled Midnight Riot in the US).  This is the first in a series of books about Peter Grant, a young PC who after a chance encounter with a witness to a especially nasty murder who just happens to be a ghost, is assigned to a secret division of the Met and becomes the first apprentice wizard in 50 years.

So far so silly, but this is really very well written with some nice ideas.  Grant's narrative voice is laconic but not cynical, providing some really funny descriptive passages.  Although the book is very firmly set in London (and indeed the genii locorum play a important part in the plot) it doesn't make a fetish of the city as the work of some might (Peter Ackroyd, I'm looking at you!).  Thus it isn't off-putting to someone like me who doesn't particularly like the place.

Having finished the book, I went straight to the second in the series (which was also conveniently on the shelf), but had to stop.  The Wife, having put up with me chuckling in bed and reading out the best bits, insisted that I read the whole thing to Her.  So I've started again...

Highly recommended, this one.