Reading Wednesday
Mar. 7th, 2018 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Death at the Durbar by Arjun Raj Gaind. A murder mystery set in 1911 Delhi. It's the sequel to A Very Pukka Murder, but you could easily read this without having read that one. Our main character is Sikander Singh, the maharaja of a small state in northwest India. He's a fairly typical hero of the mystery genre: rich, privileged, intelligent, and oh so very bored with life. Thus he turns to solving mysteries. In this case he's been summoned to Delhi for the British Empire's Durbar: an enormous celebration crowned by the arrival of King George V, the only time one of the so-called 'Emperors of India' actually bothered to visit the subcontinent. Sikander – along with every other person of significance in British or native India – has been required to attend. The plot heats up when a young woman is found dead in the King's private quarters, and Sikander is given only two days to get justice for her; the king himself hasn't actually arrived yet, and the powers that be want the matter either closed or hushed up before he does.
The dead woman was a nautch girl (literally 'dancing girl', but the cultural role is much closer to the geisha of Japan than anything else. They traditionally were extremely respected artisans of dance, singing, and poetry, and didn't necessarily do sex work at all, but the arrival of the British tended to blur the lines between the different categories of working women and downgrade all of them), who spent her last day alive entertaining an entire crowd of maharajas – all of whom, of course, are now suspects. The rest of the book falls into a fairly repetitive pattern: Sikander visits a maharaja, interviews him, recaps the history of his (or her, in a few cases) particular state, and eliminates him as a suspect, until he's narrowed down the possibilities to only one. I found this part of the book fairly entertaining, though I probably have a much higher tolerance for long historical infodumps than average. Most of the suspects are real historical figures as well, which was an unexpected twist. I knew a few of them (not personally, of course!) and seeing them turn up in a pulp novel was amusing.
Unfortunately I didn't like the eventual conclusion, particularly that Sikander and the other characters had an inexplicable amount of understanding for the murderer, once revealed. A woman is dead! Don't act all sympathetic to her killer!
The writing itself is fine though not great. The POV, which is mostly tied to Sikander, occasionally drifts, and I caught a few contradictions and editing mistakes here and there. But it reads quickly and easily, and there's certainly worse ways to spend your time.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Badass Braids by by Shannon Burns, aka Silvousplaits. A how-to guide for recreating the hairstyles from various franchises. There are 45 different looks in this book, a number that includes multiple characters from Vikings, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, and Black Sails as well as individual characters like Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy, Vanessa Ives from Penny Dreadful, Maeve Millay from Westworld, Morgana from Merlin, and Lucrezia Borgia from The Borgias. There's even a chapter recreating hairstyles from animated sources, such as Katara from Avatar, Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon, and Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. In other words: if you have ever wanted a character's cool hairstyle, it is probably included in this book.
Each hairstyle comes with written instructions, step-by-step drawings, and photographs, a combination that works very well. If I didn't understand something in the instructions, I could look at the drawing, and if that was unclear, I could study the photos. Also, silvousplait's youtube videos FINALLY taught me how to french braid my own hair, a feat 33 years of life of had not managed.
The styles are mostly intended for hair long enough to braid, unsurprisingly, though Burns does include tips on how to use hair extensions. Her instructions tend toward assuming that one is dealing with straight, fine hair. My own is extremely curly and thick, but I just ignored directions to tease it for volume, for example, and didn't have a problem. Some of the styles would probably not be suitable for kinky or coiled hair (types 4A-C, in curl typology), but others would work fine.
Overall, this is an excellent book if you enjoy stealth cosplay or experimenting with unusual ways of wearing your hair. Highly recommended.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Okay, okay, y'all convinced me to give this a go! And you've been right: I'm loving it.
Death at the Durbar by Arjun Raj Gaind. A murder mystery set in 1911 Delhi. It's the sequel to A Very Pukka Murder, but you could easily read this without having read that one. Our main character is Sikander Singh, the maharaja of a small state in northwest India. He's a fairly typical hero of the mystery genre: rich, privileged, intelligent, and oh so very bored with life. Thus he turns to solving mysteries. In this case he's been summoned to Delhi for the British Empire's Durbar: an enormous celebration crowned by the arrival of King George V, the only time one of the so-called 'Emperors of India' actually bothered to visit the subcontinent. Sikander – along with every other person of significance in British or native India – has been required to attend. The plot heats up when a young woman is found dead in the King's private quarters, and Sikander is given only two days to get justice for her; the king himself hasn't actually arrived yet, and the powers that be want the matter either closed or hushed up before he does.
The dead woman was a nautch girl (literally 'dancing girl', but the cultural role is much closer to the geisha of Japan than anything else. They traditionally were extremely respected artisans of dance, singing, and poetry, and didn't necessarily do sex work at all, but the arrival of the British tended to blur the lines between the different categories of working women and downgrade all of them), who spent her last day alive entertaining an entire crowd of maharajas – all of whom, of course, are now suspects. The rest of the book falls into a fairly repetitive pattern: Sikander visits a maharaja, interviews him, recaps the history of his (or her, in a few cases) particular state, and eliminates him as a suspect, until he's narrowed down the possibilities to only one. I found this part of the book fairly entertaining, though I probably have a much higher tolerance for long historical infodumps than average. Most of the suspects are real historical figures as well, which was an unexpected twist. I knew a few of them (not personally, of course!) and seeing them turn up in a pulp novel was amusing.
Unfortunately I didn't like the eventual conclusion, particularly that Sikander and the other characters had an inexplicable amount of understanding for the murderer, once revealed. A woman is dead! Don't act all sympathetic to her killer!
The writing itself is fine though not great. The POV, which is mostly tied to Sikander, occasionally drifts, and I caught a few contradictions and editing mistakes here and there. But it reads quickly and easily, and there's certainly worse ways to spend your time.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Badass Braids by by Shannon Burns, aka Silvousplaits. A how-to guide for recreating the hairstyles from various franchises. There are 45 different looks in this book, a number that includes multiple characters from Vikings, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, and Black Sails as well as individual characters like Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy, Vanessa Ives from Penny Dreadful, Maeve Millay from Westworld, Morgana from Merlin, and Lucrezia Borgia from The Borgias. There's even a chapter recreating hairstyles from animated sources, such as Katara from Avatar, Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon, and Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. In other words: if you have ever wanted a character's cool hairstyle, it is probably included in this book.
Each hairstyle comes with written instructions, step-by-step drawings, and photographs, a combination that works very well. If I didn't understand something in the instructions, I could look at the drawing, and if that was unclear, I could study the photos. Also, silvousplait's youtube videos FINALLY taught me how to french braid my own hair, a feat 33 years of life of had not managed.
The styles are mostly intended for hair long enough to braid, unsurprisingly, though Burns does include tips on how to use hair extensions. Her instructions tend toward assuming that one is dealing with straight, fine hair. My own is extremely curly and thick, but I just ignored directions to tease it for volume, for example, and didn't have a problem. Some of the styles would probably not be suitable for kinky or coiled hair (types 4A-C, in curl typology), but others would work fine.
Overall, this is an excellent book if you enjoy stealth cosplay or experimenting with unusual ways of wearing your hair. Highly recommended.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Okay, okay, y'all convinced me to give this a go! And you've been right: I'm loving it.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-08 04:12 am (UTC)May I ask?
no subject
Date: 2018-03-08 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-08 08:17 am (UTC)That sounds really fun! I'm sorry the ending fell over.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-11 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-12 02:16 am (UTC)