Yea, yea, it's April Fool's, which means that most of you (or at least the two of you who even thought about it) were assuming that my threat to deliver a First Monday post today was just another joak. Ha. Joke's on you. I actually did read a book this month.
In fact, I read it in about two days: the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time prequel, New Spring.
Jordan, who had the poor manners to die before completing his opus, somehow managed to squeeze in the time to knock out this short novel, which was published in 2005. It was a light, enjoyable read.
The book focuses fairly heavily on the relationship between Moiraine Damodred and Siuan Sanche, with a secondary story attempting to develop Lan's character a bit as the plot leads up to the point at which Moiraine takes Lan as her Warder. If you are addicted to the Wheel stories, you've probably already read this one. If you are not and never plan to be, this one is forgettable. If you enjoy the Wheel stories and are twiddling your thumbs waiting for the next book to arrive, you might enjoy this one.
Overall, the writing style is pretty easy. As I said, I blew through this one in a couple of days. My main problems with the book are its implausibility (within Jordan's universe, obviously). Moraine and Siuan are presented in this volume as young Accepteds, in their early 20s or perhaps very late teens, at the time of the Dragon's rebirth. This means that within far less than 20 years, Siuan has to rise to the Amyrlin Seat not via a civil war within the Aes Sedai. That. Would. Not. Happen. Siuan is presented in the series later as a mature, powerful, imposing personality, all of which possibly could come to pass in that time frame, but it just isn't long enough to be credible.
For her part, Moiraine comes across as incredibly naive, petulant and, well, arrogant. Nothing like the character she becomes.
Jordan introduces the Black Ajah in this book, but in ways that I found pretty unsatisfying. And the book wraps up entirely too conveniently and quickly (hard to believe for a Jordan novel). As one reviewer put it, "The term padding comes to mind soon and often as New Spring blooms. Perhaps it should have been left a short story, and perhaps only Wheel of Time junkies will genuinely enjoy it." I think that comes pretty close to the truth. The book fills in some background material, tells a mildly interesting set of stories, and is over with pretty quickly. Not Jordan's best effort, but I didn't feel too cheated by my purchase at a used book store.
What are you reading?
I'm currently working on the 11th novel in the Wheel of Time series, Knife of Dreams. So far, after about 1/3 of the book, I feel like it's heading in a better direction than the previous offering. Its tough to get in the reading time needed with the Trinket being all over the place, though. But, I have a trip to Thailand coming up next month, so I'll probably get through every book ever on those flights.
Kindle, or are you taking an extra suitcase for the books?
Haven't decided quite yet. I already have to check a bag, so I'll just wear all of my clothes on the plane and put the Wheel books in the checked bag.
baggage handlers will hate you. And what if the folks in Thailand think you are trying to smuggle the books into their country? You could spend the rest of your life in a gulag.
I have approximately 500 pages left of Volume 3 of Shelby Foote's The Civil War (Atlanta just fell to the Shermanator and Burnside was just fired for his tunneling disaster). Unbelievably great stuff.
I also have a bone to pick with the cover art. What's with the brown hair on Lan? and why no pair of swords on his back? #imayhaveaproblem
I haven't been a fan of any of the WoT cover art. It's my firm belief the artist didn't read any of the books and that Mr. Jordan may have been legally blind (I assume he gave his approval).
What are you talking about, Loial is almost certainly the same height as Rand.
I finally finished "Our Band", and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Next up is a couple of books I've previously read for my dissertation so I can write this new article. Nothing fun for about a month or so.
very little progress on my side, but i did finally manage to finish world war z. in case you're wondering, it was awesome.
Agreed - can't wait to see the hack job they make of the movie.
I'll share my book update in a bit, but in the meantime here's my favorite book-related April Fool's joke of the day.
Not as much time as I would've liked for reading this month, but here goes.
The Best American Short Stories 2011: Still on a short story kick at the moment. The two that made the biggest impression from this collection were "Out of Body" by Jennifer Egan and "The Call of Blood" by Jess Row. "Out of Body" is apparently a section from A Visit from the Goon Squad. A friend recommended the book to me several years ago, and I'm starting to think he had good reason to do so. There was also an odd but excellent George Saunders story, "Escape from Spiderhead." I clearly just need to admit it's inevitable that I'm going to read Tenth of December.
A few days ago, I read a provocative article in Salon by J. Robert Lennon regarding his thoughts about contemporary literary fiction (spoiler: he thinks a lot of it is terrible) and why he believes young fiction writers (and presumably other people as well) should read more broadly, rather than focus only on what is currently being published.
Fitting in with short stories and contemporary literary fiction, I got to read Saunders Tenth of December this month. It was really good. Even with high expectations, I loved it.
I'm not quite sure where this month went... I'm some number of pages into The Brothers' K, getting my head start on DPWY, since he'll pass me in a flash.
If I ever get my hands on a copy. I may request one from the library soon once I wind up Foote's masterpiece.
Arrested Development = Brothers Karamazov
I want to kiss you on the mouth right now.
I read The Warmth of Other Suns which is about the black migration from the south to northern and urban areas. Very well done as it concentrates on 3 separate people and the migration story. Added bonus: it's a Oprah books club selection!
Also read a book about the making of the movie Psycho. Nice quick read about a classic movie.
I'd recommend both.
I continued reading Jack McDevitt's standalone books, and went with Infinity Beach this time. The mystery being solved by this protagonist is reminiscent of the Alex Benedict series.
I read a lot of books in March.
The best ones were HHhH by Laurent Binet, about the assassination of the Nazi SS officer put in charge of the Czech Republic. It ended up being about history as much as the historical events in the novel, and it was very well written and overall great.
I mentioned Tenth of December by George Saunders above. It's worth the wait if you're on some library waitlist or something.
Rontel by Sam Pink. Read it in one sitting. It made me laugh, and I was very sorry that it was over, I could have spent another couple hundred pages in Pink's Chicago.
Windeye by Brian Evenson. Short little horror stories that were all about things lost, or sometimes things found that weren't quite the same as the things that were lost, or sometimes about whether the characters should even look for the thing that was lost. Favorite story in this one was "Angel of Death".
Traveler of the Century by Andrés Neuman. Very thick (both in size and tone). It was interesting because the characters were clearly modern characters set in the early 19th century, but they didn't feel like anachronisms. There were quite a few allusions/symbols/metaphors and I'm sure I missed a lot of them, but it was really good. Sometimes it dragged as the characters discussed philosophy/politics/economics or whatever, but I never struggled to keep reading.