Ben Saufley - Reading

Rivers of London

by Ben Aaronovitch

Finished 2019-05-19

I would never have read this book if it had been presented in what is apparently the American branding which is renamed “Midnight Riot” and features a low-pixel explosion and a silhouetted figure who looks like Vinnie Jones (the protagonist is mixed race and presents as black) and looks just all-around terrible. But I came across the paperback, with the intriguing map illustration and the “Rivers of London” name, and that made me seek out the audiobook (presented as Midnight Riot by Audible US).

It’s a fun story, combining elements of American Gods and other magic stories in a detective/crime structure. I’ll probably read the next one at some point. So I’m glad I saw the paperback, and not that terrible American cover, first.

The Socialist Manifesto The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality

by Bhaskar Sunkara

Finished 2019-05-12

House of Blades

by Will Wight

Finished 2019-05-09

The Well of Ascension

by Brandon Sanderson

Finished 2019-04-30

The Bird King

by G. Willow Wilson

Finished 2019-04-15

No Time to Spare Thinking About What Matters

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Finished 2019-04-10

The Clockmaker's Daughter

by Kate Morton

Finished 2019-04-09

The Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt

Finished 2019-04-01

I ran really hot and cold on this book. It reads very much like a familiar and kind of insufferable subgenre of literary fiction where white men pine for some timeless golden youth in Manhattan, and I didn’t like that. I also didn’t like the intro, which immediately flashes back in a disorienting way that indicated to me that we’d flash forward again… but we never did. The flashback was the book, leading back to the present. But by the end, I had been won over. It was pretty interesting and I wanted to know what happened. Which is why the ending, which doesn’t tell you what happens, and ends so abruptly I thought something was wrong with my copy , left me cold all over again. I’m averaging this out as a 3. I don’t regret reading it; I’m glad I did. But man. __ __ Update: something was actually wrong with my copy of the audiobook! There’s a whole chapter (1/12 of the book!) remaining. So I’ll update this once I’m done.

Age of Swords

by Michael J. Sullivan, Marc Simonetti

Finished 2019-03-25

For We Are Many

by Dennis E. Taylor, Ray Porter

Finished 2019-03-18

In the Woods

by Tana French

Finished 2019-03-13

An Anonymous Girl

by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen

Finished 2019-03-01

Pandemic

by A.G. Riddle

Finished 2019-03-01

Artemis Fowl

by Eoin Colfer

Finished 2019-02-23

The Word is Murder

by Anthony Horowitz

Finished 2019-02-16

I enjoyed the story and I appreciate Horowitz’s meta approach but just because you’re talking about the tropes you’re engaging in (curmudgeonly male detective who just happens to be brilliant) doesn’t absolve you from engaging in them. And to see this will be a series … meh. I dunno, man. You say “if I were writing it I’d have chosen a different character.” You did write it. Why didn’t you?

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