mid-week reading meme

[firecat]

What are you currently reading?

Late Eclipses by Seanen McGuire, the fourth book in the October Daye series. I almost quit reading this series after the second one, and I'm glad I continued, because the third one was good and I'm enjoying this one a lot.

Lilith's Brood, Octavia Butler. I don't know any other writer who can creep me out so much and make me keep turning the pages at the same time.

What did you recently finish reading?

Bears Discover Fire, short story collection by Terry Bisson. The titular story broke my heart. In a good way. I guess I'm not the only one because it won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus awards. My other favorite in this collection is "England Underway." I also liked "Over Flat Mountain," "George," "Canción Auténtica de Old Earth," "Partial People," "Carl's Lawn and Garden," "The Message," and "The Shadow Knows."


What do you think you’ll read next?

I'm having a hard time picking my next audiobook. I tried and rejected Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches. I liked some things about it but several other things irritated me and it goes really slowly. Then I tried and rejected Richelle Mead's Succubus Blues, after I'd listened to something like 10 scenes in a row involving the protagonist being cajoled or threatened by men—it's not that I object to such scenes on principle but that was the only thing that was happening for pages and pages. Then I tried Linda Fairstein's Final Jeopardy. I found out the author was behind the conviction of the Central Park Five and that kind of made me uncomfortable. But I decided to give up after these two scenes coming one right after the other made my head explode. Scene one: The protagonist (female, white) is an assistant District Attorney in charge of sex crimes. An FBI agent tells her rape jokes, and she thinks about how tiresome it is that that happens all the time. Scene two: The protagonist is talking with a (white) colleague, who refers to people of Indian descent using the phrase "dot and a knot." The protagonist thinks about how great it is that people in her office aren't PC.

I would really like to find a good procedural series that isn't sexist, classist, racist, or fat-phobic and that doesn't rely on sexual violence against women for every single plot. Recommendations welcome.

So now I'm listening to Charlaine Harris' Grave Secret, the fourth and last in the Harper Connelly series, which is paranormal fantasy/mystery.

I want to read An Exchange of Hostages by Susan R. Matthews because she was a guest of honor at FogCon.

Comments

[oursin]

I read An Exchange of Hostages more or less when it first came out, and thought it had some significantly problematic elements.

[firecat]

So I've heard... dunno how far I'll get into it.

mysteries!

[bibliofile]

Of the Charlaine Harris series, I liked the Harper Connelly books the best, I think. I like the sibling protagonists, including how they take care of each other. I also like the unusual insight offered by the heroine's unique skill, and how that ability affects everyday life beyond helping police investigations.

I confess to have read most of Linda Fairstein, but they're quite popcorn books and not for the depth. I liked Linda Scottoline's books better, but she doesn't produce books as quickly.

Have you read any Liza Cody? British mystery writer who was in a small writing group with Michael Innes and oh crap I forgot the third author. She had a couple of series back in the '90s, including one about a working-class woman wrestler who also worked as a bodyguard. Mind, I Haven't read them lately, but I did enjoy them at the time. I just picked up a copy of the first in that series, Bucket Nut; I should reread it before passing it along.

There's also Val McDermid, a Scottish lesbian whose first series featured a lesbian protagonist. She also wrote the Tony Hill books that became the TV series "Wire in the blood." The main drawback with McDermid is that she doesn't believe in bisexuals, but she only mentions it in two or three books total (including, IIRC, her most recent). I got annoyed and rolled my eyes at those things; YMMV.

Re: mysteries!

[firecat]

I think the Harper Connelly series is Harris's best too (I tried three other series of hers and didn't like them well enough to continue past book 1 or 2).

Thanks for the recommendations! "The Mermaids Singing" -- I like it already.

Re: mysteries!

[shanaqui]

Caveat: Val McDermid's The Mermaids Singing did include a horrific amount of sexual related torture which triggered me to hiding under my desk, though. It was sexual violence towards men, though, if I recall rightly.

I've been recced Tana French, though I haven't read any of her stuff yet. I did just finish reading Jeffery Deaver's The Bone Collector, which contains no sexual violence (well, the women expect sexual violence, but that's not what the killer does), and features a quadriplegic protagonist. I thought it was reasonably well done.

From my crime fiction class, Sue Grafton? Starting with A is for Alibi: female detective. Don't remember it clearly, though.

That seems to be about it from my shelves, at least at the moment.

Oh, my sister recommends Tess Gerritsen and Kathy Reichs. I've read Gerrittsen's The Surgeon, I found it gross and I think there was sexual violence towards women though some of these books come together in my brain so my memory might not be accurate.

Re: mysteries!

[firecat]

Thanks for the recs and the warning about The Mermaids Singing. Sex torture as a theme doesn't trigger me, but I'm just really bored right now with the tropes around sex crimes against women. But against men, I'm not bored with that yet.

I read several of Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme books and liked them.

I read the first Kathy Reichs and it had all the tropes. But I'll look into the rest of them and see if she mixes up the crimes a bit.

Re: mysteries!

[shanaqui]

Mermaids Singing also involves gender stuff, iiiiif I remember rightly.

My sister loves Kathy Reichs, enough that I'm going to try it. Damn that it has all the tropes, though.

Re: mysteries!

[firecat]

OK, the synopsis of Mermaids Singing on Wikipedia, which contains massive spoilers, convinced me I don't want to read it right now.

Turns out I've read three Kathy Reichs novels. She is a very good writer. Lots of detail. (Too much at times; I don't necessarily want to read about the condition of the facial pores of the protagonist's colleagues. 0_o) The first one has all the "sex crimes against women" tropes, but she writes about other stuff in other books in the series. I especially liked the one set in Guatemala.

Re: mysteries!

[shanaqui]

*looks it up* Yeah. Having that little recap, I don't recommend it. I hear her Lindsey Gordon series is better, though.

Good to know! Thank you.

Re: mysteries!

[snippy]

Sue Grafton is ALL ABOUT THE FAT HATRED. I won't read her stuff any longer.

Re: mysteries!

[shanaqui]

Oh gross! I've only read the first one. Definitely taking that off my potential reading list.

[shanaqui]

Lilith's Brood, Octavia Butler. I don't know any other writer who can creep me out so much and make me keep turning the pages at the same time.

Omg, that really encapsulates how I feel about reading Butler's work. I feel so uncomfortable but it's so good and well thought out.

[snippy]

Kate Wilhelm gave up SF for mysteries and they're quite good. Her protagonist is a woman lawyer who does afternoons in a local restaurant as pro bono for poor people and also takes on defense of people accused of murder. I read a bunch of them in the early 2000s and then stopped, but have been listening to audiobooks for the last couple of months and they're still very good.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I read "Discovery of Witches" because it was given to me as a gift, but I was really NOT a fan and wont' be reading the rest of her series. My biggest beefs: a) She changes viewpoint irregularly and without warning (mostly from whats-her-faces but sometimes from Matthew's). b) She obviously tries to work in her knowledge of food and wine into the book (she also has a wine blog) but crams it into the novel un-artfully,and c) The ending was super unsatisfying and felt very much like the set-up for the second novel.

I found certain things intriguing about her world building rules, but overall, I just felt sort of irritated with it.

[firecat]

That validates my decision to stop reading it, thanks! The viewpoint changes were sloppy, but I didn't mind that terribly. The endless blathering about wine really bored me though. And I hate it when books don't wrap up nicely.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I think the Tess Gerritsen series (which I started reading before the TV series Rizzoli and Isles came out) does have a fair number of female victims (unfortunately, like real life) but not all of them. I generally like them though some are better than others. Two strong female characters is nice. Not great literature, but good brain candy.

[firecat]

Looks like the first one has all the sex-crimes-against-women tropes that I'm currently bored by, but I'll keep her in mind for when I feel less annoyed by that. :)

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

IMO the second Toby Daye book is by far the weakest in the series. After that, McGuire finds her stride and they just keep getting better. But Toby is uncharacteristically dumb in the second book.

[firecat]

Toby is uncharacteristically dumb in the second book.

Yes, that was exactly my problem.