This seems about right. From the old Irish Brehon Laws via Dorothy Dunnett’s excellent Queens’ Play.
Month: March 2020
More Time for Reading
I’ve had a little extra time for reading, but haven’t felt much like writing. I thought I’d remedy that.
Fortress in the Eye of Time by C.J. Cherryh. This very much felt like Forrest Gump, but in a medieval, fantasy world. There’s a protagonist who is simple and foolish, at least from the perspectives of all around him, but whose goodhearted nature and positive intentions generally work to the good. A charming, quiet book that spends a lot of time ruminating about life and what it’s all about.
Atomic Robo and the Ring of Fire (v. 10) by Brian Clevinger. This might be my kid’s favorite comic series and I like to have stuff to chat about with him. I certainly wouldn’t start with this one because it builds so heavily on what came before, but if you like giant robots fighting giant monsters, you’ll probably dig this.
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs. I didn’t read this book for its advice, such as it is, but I did find that I met a kindred spirit. Jacobs enumerated what I get out of reading books more than just about anyone else I’ve read. His inclination to read at whim is one well worth modeling, in my view. I’ll definitely look for other books by him to read.
Batman: The Fall and the Fallen (v. 11) by Tom King. As with most comic books, I barely remember the plot of this. My impression was of rising up from bleak desperation, as is true of many of the best Batman stories, implacability in the face of impossibility.
Black Widow: Welcome to the Game by Richard K. Morgan. A pretty decent spy story. I picked it up for the art by Bill Sienkiewicz, who doesn’t disappoint here, but only did a couple of issues in this collection as far as I could tell.
Agency by William Gibson. I had this feeling of wanting to start over again with this as soon as I finished it. A bit more of a sequel than some of his others. From his most recent books especially, I get this visceral sense of the strangeness of the time we’re living through. High recommended, of course.
Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series by Eliot Asinof. There are some painful similarities in 1919 to our present moment it turns out. A flood of criminals and scoundrels skirling around trying to make a buck with no compunctions for legality or decency. The elevation of the wealthiest to a place of preeminence which they don’t deserve. The fools and saps and patsies who let themselves be led around by everyone else. The legal system that only seems to come down hard on the lowliest and least informed, while ignoring the career criminals who snub their nose with impunity. Also, there’s a lot about baseball too. Not a lot has changed in a 100 years, it seems, or there are just certain cycles that repeat themselves.
Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto by Jessa Crispin. I definitely felt like I was crashing a party when I read this one. A lot of food for thought, but the book wasn’t written for me. Not at all. As it should be, probably. Jessa Crispin’s podcast, Public Intellectual, is well-worth listening to, by the way.