No time

Busy at work, need to run soon to see the eye doctor during "lunch," then back to work...but the library wants my books back, so I need to get at least a little something down on (virtual) paper.


Last weekend (last two weeks? I'm not sure) I re-read Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches and then read the recently published Shadow of Night. Now not only are there vampires and witches, they're time travelling. OBVIOUSLY. But Harkness knows her history, and while the random historical-name dropping is OUT OF CONTROL in Shadow of Night, it's still kind of fun to read, especially the glee and perturbation of a historian suddenly walking around in the past...I think my head would explode, in a good way, if it were me. Anyhow, that part of the book(s) I like, Harkness' eye for period details and stuff. The rest...meh. I also finished the book feeling a bit let down by the author: she makes a reference in one of the last chapters (the last chapter) to the death of a fairly significant character, but without ANY explanation of what happened, and also has an other random character pop up after the "events" of the previous May. I get that she's trying to keep her readers hooked, and will no doubt get into it all in the next (final?) book, but it was handled awkwardly - I actually started flipping back trying to figure out if I had missed a whole chapter somewhere, and when I went online to check it out (I was that confused) it turns out so had a lot of readers. Stringing your audience along is one thing, bewildering them is another.


Totally different, totally amazing - John D'Agata and Jim Fingal's The Lifespan of a Fact. I can't say enough how much I love this book. I laughed out loud and also had super deep, philosophical conversations with myself on the nature of Art and Truth (generally while in the shower or at the bus stop, but whatever). Super fun, super smart. Twists you brain up in a good way. I kept wondering how "real" the process/conversation described in the book was (and the book itself, by extension), and then remembered that part of the point of the book was that it shouldn't matter, but then wondered how much that was, itself, a construct meant to carry the book along... good times.