Wednesday reading meme

[mayhap]

What I've been reading:

I've been reading Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa books and really enjoying them. I just finished #9, A Mist of Prophecies, and I've been really enjoying how the last few books have been shaking up the usual mystery formulas, not to mention the rise of Caesar. The only reason I'm not reading the next book in the series right now is that I'm waiting for one of my library's virtual "copies" to be "returned".

I reread Father's Arcane Daughter as part of my kick to reread all of E. L. Konigsburg's books after she died last month. I don't own a copy and had only read it once before, and I believe the last time I read it, I didn't anticipate the unexpected reveal and it left me cold. On reread, I was not paying enough attention and it is adequately set up and also a really good book.

I read China Court because I really loved In This House of Brede (the made-for-TV adaptation with Diana Rigg is merely okay, but it does have Diana Rigg in it, so) and also because Jo Walton namechecked it when she was talking about what she did with her book Lifelode, which I loved loved loved. This book is sort of like what L. M. Montgomery might have written if she was doing something really experimental with narrative structure.

I read The Tyrant's Law, the new book in Daniel Abraham's The Dagger and the Coin series, and it was as compulsively readable as the last two, although as the middle book in a five-book sequence (and not the third book in a trilogy as I had oh-so-mistakenly gotten into my head) it kind of has that middle-book feeling that the second book in a trilogy gets. I would totally recommend these books to fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, and also to people who feel like they would enjoy ASoIaF more if it involved less rapiness and more banking.

What I'm reading now:

I just started The Silver Pigs, the first book in another series of ancient Roman mysteries, which is also a hard-boiled detective pastiche. I have not yet decided how well this combination is working. (To be fair, it is the first book and it may come to work better.)

What I'm reading next:

Well, the rest of the Gordianus the Finder books, when I can get them. Also I have a collection of Damon Runyon stories from the library that I've been wanting to reread since I watched Cinderella Man (which frankly could have used a little more Runyon in the script department).

Also I want someone to read Dan Brown's Inferno for me and summarize how terrible it is wittily.

Comments

[kivrin.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I have a copy of China Court that I picked up from a free box but have not read - I shall have to check it out.

Thanks so much for the upload a while back. I have listened to it with great enjoyment. :)