Imaginative: Too Like the Lightning

Day seven of the meme, posted on day...twelve. Better late than never!

7. The most imaginative book you've seen lately

I was briefly tempted to say Winterblumensaat, but that's imaginary, which isn't quite the same thing. ( Read more... )

I'm going with Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (and the Terra Ignota series generally) for this one. Reading Too Like the Lightning is a pretty overwhelming experience. There's just so much going on! Palmer does fascinating things with novel political systems, religion, gender...all told in the style of an eighteenth-century novel, with possibly the world's most neurotic (and often unreliable) narrator. It's a utopian novel more than anything else, and really gets into ethical issues about what is justifiable in service of maintaining a society that is in many ways better than ours, but still deeply flawed.

Note: When I first picked up a copy I thought Palmer was doing something deeply cissexist with gender; then I read further and realized she was actually doing something very different – exploring how the fact that gender is a social construct doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that we made it, and now we have to deal with the thing we made rather than pretending it will go away if we ignore it.

The remaining questions: ( Read more... )

Just for Me: Templar Knight Mysteries

8. A book that feels like it was written just for you

The Templar Knight Mysteries series by Maureen Ash!

Bascot de Marins, a Templar knight, returns to England at the end of the twelfth century after almost a decade of captivity. While recovering from his wounds, he spends time in the service of Nicolaa de la Haye, the formidable castellan of Lincoln Castle, and catches murderers with the able assistance of a mute Italian boy named Gianni – Bascot's servant in name, but his son in heart.

Found family, complex relationships with religion, and engaging mysteries, all in an impeccable medieval setting – it's as if Ash were writing with me in mind!

The series is now eleven books long (Crusade of Murder came out in May and isn't on the Goodreads series page yet), but each one can stand alone; in my opinion, the first few are the best. (My personal favorite is #2, Death of a Squire, though it has stiff competition!)

The remaining questions: ( Read more... )

Reminds Me of Someone: The Name of the Rose

Slowly catching up on the book meme...

9. A book that reminds you of someone

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco is my mother's favorite novel, and one of mine as well.

The Name of the Rose is a murder mystery set – with incredible attention to detail – in a Benedictine monastery in Italy in 1327. This is a time and place of significant turmoil; tensions around the relationship between the sacred and the secular, and the dangers of religious certainty, are everywhere.

As is always the case with Eco, there is much more going on than is obvious on the surface. You could never doubt that Eco is a semiotician; the novel constantly explores the idea of signs and what they do (and do not) signify. Literary, philosophical, and theological allusions permeate the novel, but the reader's enjoyment doesn't depend on catching the references; they just add an additional layer. Every time I read The Name of the Rose, I notice countless things I never have before.

Eco's characters – especially the narrator, Adso – are well-developed, and the story is often intensely emotional. I've cried reading it.

My mom and I often have very different tastes, so it's great to have something we both love so much.

The remaining questions: ( Read more... )