Reading Wednesday
Dec. 4th, 2013 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
City of Devi by Manil Suri. A surreal novel set in post-apocalyptic Mumbai, where world-wide warfare has resulted in most of society breaking down. Due to a rumor that a nuclear bomb will hit Mumbai within a week, most people have fled, and the city is nearly abandoned. The people who remain are mostly concentrated in pockets defined by communal identities (primarily Hindu vs Muslim). Meanwhile, a popular movie Superdevi ('devi' means 'goddess') seems to have taken on a life of its own, with people claiming to have seen the devi or that she's promised to protect the city from the bomb. The two POV characters are Sarita and Jaz; Sarita, a Hindu woman, is determined to cross the city on her own to find her husband Karun, or at least the last spot she heard from him, and is carrying with her a pomegranate that she's convinced has magic powers to return him to her. Jaz, a Muslim man, is also searching for Karun, but only because he and Jaz had once been lovers, and Jaz is convinced he can win him back.
This book is inventive, colorful, and nearly ridiculous at times, and pretty much the exact opposite of the only other book by Suri I've read, The Age of Shiva, which was very much the staid 'literary fiction' novel about a middle-class marriage. I liked City of Devi much better, and never could have guessed the two were written by the same man.
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is the novel in the series where Miles finally has to grow up, or at least figure out who he is. A very excellent novel for me to read at the moment, as I- like Miles at the beginning of this book- am 29. I loved so much of this: Miles's failure to resist temptation, Miles visiting Silvy Vale again (I kind of wanted the resolution to his story to be him staying with his district and making a life helping the people there, but oh well. I suppose that wouldn't make much a military sci-fi series), the drama with Ilyan (a really wonderful example of sci-fi plot that's both interesting in its ideas about technology and so emotional and engaging), CORDELIA/ARAL OTP 4EVA, Cordelia and kittens!, seeing Galeni again (and oh! Poor Galeni. though I do like him so), Ilyan and Lady Alys (and how hilarious that it takes Miles so long to figure it out), elephants!, the scene at the end with Miles and Gregor and Haroche (AMAZING), Ma Kosti of the amazing food, "The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart" (so lovely). Very good.
What are you currently reading?
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. A novel about the Indian woman who give sup her daughter to an orphanage, and the mixed-race (Indian/white) American couple who adopts her.
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss. AHH THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. Nonfiction about Alexander Dumas's father. He was born to a slave mother in Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti), got acknowledged by his aristocrat father and thus became a count living in Paris, then joined the French army just in time to participate in the French Revolution. And I'm not even half-way through the book yet!
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ugh, I don't really want to read this, but my coffeeshop is doing a bookclub and has chosen this. So I need to finish it by Monday.
City of Devi by Manil Suri. A surreal novel set in post-apocalyptic Mumbai, where world-wide warfare has resulted in most of society breaking down. Due to a rumor that a nuclear bomb will hit Mumbai within a week, most people have fled, and the city is nearly abandoned. The people who remain are mostly concentrated in pockets defined by communal identities (primarily Hindu vs Muslim). Meanwhile, a popular movie Superdevi ('devi' means 'goddess') seems to have taken on a life of its own, with people claiming to have seen the devi or that she's promised to protect the city from the bomb. The two POV characters are Sarita and Jaz; Sarita, a Hindu woman, is determined to cross the city on her own to find her husband Karun, or at least the last spot she heard from him, and is carrying with her a pomegranate that she's convinced has magic powers to return him to her. Jaz, a Muslim man, is also searching for Karun, but only because he and Jaz had once been lovers, and Jaz is convinced he can win him back.
This book is inventive, colorful, and nearly ridiculous at times, and pretty much the exact opposite of the only other book by Suri I've read, The Age of Shiva, which was very much the staid 'literary fiction' novel about a middle-class marriage. I liked City of Devi much better, and never could have guessed the two were written by the same man.
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is the novel in the series where Miles finally has to grow up, or at least figure out who he is. A very excellent novel for me to read at the moment, as I- like Miles at the beginning of this book- am 29. I loved so much of this: Miles's failure to resist temptation, Miles visiting Silvy Vale again (I kind of wanted the resolution to his story to be him staying with his district and making a life helping the people there, but oh well. I suppose that wouldn't make much a military sci-fi series), the drama with Ilyan (a really wonderful example of sci-fi plot that's both interesting in its ideas about technology and so emotional and engaging), CORDELIA/ARAL OTP 4EVA, Cordelia and kittens!, seeing Galeni again (and oh! Poor Galeni. though I do like him so), Ilyan and Lady Alys (and how hilarious that it takes Miles so long to figure it out), elephants!, the scene at the end with Miles and Gregor and Haroche (AMAZING), Ma Kosti of the amazing food, "The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart" (so lovely). Very good.
What are you currently reading?
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. A novel about the Indian woman who give sup her daughter to an orphanage, and the mixed-race (Indian/white) American couple who adopts her.
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss. AHH THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. Nonfiction about Alexander Dumas's father. He was born to a slave mother in Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti), got acknowledged by his aristocrat father and thus became a count living in Paris, then joined the French army just in time to participate in the French Revolution. And I'm not even half-way through the book yet!
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ugh, I don't really want to read this, but my coffeeshop is doing a bookclub and has chosen this. So I need to finish it by Monday.
