While She Knits--Up To Speed
Jun. 27th, 2008 12:06 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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queensthiefWhat Have You Been Reading?
If you recommend something, see if you can link it back to the Thief books--as silly or obscure as it may have to be. Just for fun!
This is While She Knits after all. Be provocative, be clever, be inspirational to a certain someone who seems to be spending an awful lot of time with her hands occupied with something besides writing (though I'm sure her brain may occasionally flit to thoughts of plots?)
If you recommend something, see if you can link it back to the Thief books--as silly or obscure as it may have to be. Just for fun!
This is While She Knits after all. Be provocative, be clever, be inspirational to a certain someone who seems to be spending an awful lot of time with her hands occupied with something besides writing (though I'm sure her brain may occasionally flit to thoughts of plots?)
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Date: 6/27/08 05:27 pm (UTC)My library doesn't have the third Volume, so I've started The Last Unicorn, just to see how it is. I'm not too far in and its OK so far, but I'm hoping it'll pick up a bit.
I have Mr Midshipman Hornblower, Sorcery and Cecelia, Conrad's Fate and The Eagle of the Ninth also Checked out of the Library. Where should I start, what shouldn't I bother with?
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Date: 6/27/08 05:33 pm (UTC)It's the story of a hero, a legend in his own lifetime, who's inexplicably withdrawn from public life and is living a quiet life of (somewhat tormented) obscurity until he's tracked down and persuaded to tell his tale. Since it's just book one, only the beginnings of the story are told, mostly telling about his teenage years, but there's much foreshadowing of angst-ridden events yet to come. The bulk of the narrative is told in the first person (link with The Thief?) and there's... er... a sequence when he's living on the streets and... er... thieves a bit. (I'm clutching at straws with the links here.)
Just before that, I read House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones, which is her latest Howl book, so I trust that the Thief link is obvious. ;-)
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Date: 6/27/08 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/27/08 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/27/08 06:02 pm (UTC)The title refers to a song, which is also a country, in Europe, which is also where Greece is, and as we know, the Thief books have strong Greek overtones. Therefore, there's clearly a deep relationship between the two books.
Norwegian Wood is set in the 1960s, following a college student named Toru Watanabe. He is in love with an old childhood friend, Naoko, who has a great deal of mental and emotional problems. He also falls for a classmate named Midori, but the book isn't really romantic - not in a typical way. The book reads almost like a biography even though it's fictional, and follows Toru for about a year of his life. There's no over-reaching plot and the entire story is vague, but in a GOOD way.
Go read it, peons.
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Date: 6/27/08 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/27/08 08:37 pm (UTC)Linking Narnia to the Thief books
Date: 6/27/08 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/27/08 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/27/08 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/27/08 10:51 pm (UTC)Anyway, if you like any of the stuff I mentioned, you should totally give it a look. It's set in the 1300s and focuses on a slightly obscure bit of Catholic Church history...but it is engrossing and AWESOME. Just like the Thief books. ♥
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Date: 6/27/08 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/28/08 12:25 am (UTC)spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
undergoes something somewhat similar to the loss of Gen's hand, which is why the MWT books came up on The Mirador.
And I found Melusine because I read Farthing, and in the introduction to that, Jo Walton said she was inspired by Sarah Monette's essays on Dorothy Sayers, so I read those, and that's where I saw references to Sarah Monette's own books, and the Dorothy Sayers essays were in fact pretty good, so I thought what the hell. I bought Melusine on the way home from work, and the next night on the way home from work I bought the two existing sequels.
Actually, Farthing started me on a whole cascade of books, because I also read Brat Farrar because of it (I'd read a lot of Josephine Tey in college, but somehow missed that one), and because of finding MWT through Sarah Monette, I bought and re-read The Mark of the Horse Lord, and I also re-read an old almost-childhood favorite, Red Adam's Lady, because there's a "I'll really be your wife" signal in it kind of like Attolia's earrings, and then I read A Companion to Wolves because, well, Sarah Monette, and that led me, by obscure internet paths, to Robin Hobbs's Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies. And on a different branch leading from Melusine, I read The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas under Red Skies (more thieves) and The Name of the Wind, which has already been mentioned in this thread. And I don't know exactly how I got onto Sherwood Smith's Inda books, but I'm sure there was a connection somewhere. Oh, and I read all of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, too, and Lymond maybe does have a little something in common with Gen, characterwise. So anyway, Jo Walton has a lot to answer for about the state of my bank account, and it's been a frenzied six months or so, and I recommend (highly, in most cases) all of them.
Was that even remotely related to what you asked?
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Date: 6/28/08 12:27 am (UTC)I just finished Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey which was a WONDERFUL reread. Tey writes brilliantly, as does MWT, only not as good. She uses phrases like "negotiated the vermicelli with smug neatness" in ways that sort of reminded me of Megan's writing. She also nails dialogue. The book was written 60 years ago but families still talk exactly how they do in this book. It's sort of a mystery, sort of a story of mistaken identity, all in a lovely setting in England.
I'm now reading Airborn, which is fantasy, like the Attolia books. Only not as good. Did anyone else find Matt a little Mary Sueish?
Next up is The Dead and the Gone, which is a sequel, as was QoA, though this will probably not be as good. This book, however, is a sequel to Life As We Knew It.
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Date: 6/28/08 12:46 am (UTC)Beside the fact that Miles is a very clever, snarky, over-the-top capable and charismatic young man, much like Gen, the real connection is the fact I am reading it because I have been REPEATEDLY poked by various members of Sounis, not to mention those who lurk and post anonymously.
*is forever grateful the pokes were finally effective*
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Date: 6/28/08 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/28/08 12:54 am (UTC)*must get hands on a copy*
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Date: 6/28/08 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/28/08 12:59 am (UTC)The Chronicles of Narnia, which obviously connects because Skandar Keynes is my Eugenides.
The Inheritance Triliogy, for the new book in September. It has, uh, swords? Awesome old dudes? Powerful women who dont love the one theyre supposed to (at first)
Tons of Dianna Wynne Jones- I NEED House of Many Ways NOW! I suggest The Tough guide to Fantasyland, which basically mocks all the fantasy cliches like the Dark Lords and Glowing Elves. Much Snark. Nuf said
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Date: 6/28/08 01:01 am (UTC)The title is, much like "The Thief" rather non-descript. The inside is, much like The Thief mindblowingly more excellent than one thinks it will be, until one actually starts it. (The way Gen's propped his feet up against the wall despite his chains gets increasingly more funny...)
And there's Loki. Prototype Trickster, which I collect, but was turned onto by Our Thief, Eugenides, who himself takes after a Trickster god.
Are you beginning to see why I asked this question. Why YES, it is because my answer was going to be overwhelmingly apropos!
I'm not done yet, but it's amazingly good, Reprobates. Read it!
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Date: 6/28/08 01:03 am (UTC)SKANDAR KEYNES.
My GOSH that's perfect.
Not that I wasn't already too fond of Skandar for a grown lady, but to think he could play Eugenides (and is not already too old!) is enough to break my heart.
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Date: 6/28/08 01:05 am (UTC)So I'm with Checkers.
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Date: 6/28/08 01:08 am (UTC)I need to get it back out again, as I was thinking at the library a few days ago. You have now only enforced the point. (And I'm already aggravated that it's the first of three, and the only one yet published, after only starting it, so *sympathy*!)
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Date: 6/28/08 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/28/08 01:48 am (UTC)wait ... we're trying to inspire her to READ, by suggesting all these cool book titles to her, instead of WRITE?
I THINK NOT!!!