Alma Alexander’s post on reviewing writers (as in, writers who review other writers’ books, not the reviewing OF writers) popped up in my RSS feed as I was putting together my June reading roundup. It was timely because I always get this squeamish feeling before posting up reviews that are less than glowing. I like a lot of books, but I LOVE very few of them, and I’m not the sort to call a book “good” unless I really mean it. However, as a wannabe author, am I really brash enough to critique the works of people so far ahead of the game? Writers who have a lot more skill than I do? Writers that I might some day actually *gulp* meet?  Writing a novel is hard work. Knowing that, having experienced that, shouldn’t I be kinder towards other books?

One solution would be to not review books at all, but then you’d have a monthly list of books with no commentary. Or, I could review only the books I liked, and stay nothing about the ones I didn’t. So far, I’ve chosen to post my (tempered) reviews and stand behind my (tempered) opinions.

What say you? Do you read book reviews? What do you look for in a review? Do the rules of the reviewing game change if the reviewer is also a writer? If you do vent about books that push your buttons the wrong way, do you choose to not name them?

The reviews of the new Star Trek movie are starting to hit my Google Reader, and they’re quite negative (plot spoilers!).

Glad I didn’t waste my birthday/Mother’s Day weekend sitting through 2 hours of that. I took a nap instead.

Reading those reviews, though, have made me crave some space opera. I haven’t read anything approaching military sf since David Weber took the Honor Harrington series into territory I wasn’t willing to follow him into. You know, I’ve been meaning to check out the Liaden books for a while now and I still have birthday money…

• All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear
• American Creation by Joseph Ellis
• Snow by Maxence Fermine
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

I’m a little reluctant to admit that I had never read a book by Elizabth Bear or Neil Gaiman until last month. I expected them both to be fine writers, and I was not disappointed. Their use of language was sure and deft. I was both admiring and envious of their ability to use precisely the right word, to conjure an image with a phrase, to bring the reader into the scene. Gaiman, especially, has the confidence to leave spaces in his narrative, to avoid overexplaining and belaboring the point, to trust to his own subtle hints and the reader’s intelligence to fill in those spaces.

All the Windwracked Stars began with a great premise. The elements of Norse mythology—Ragnorak, valkyries, the World Tree and the Midgard Serpent–are brought into a far future where technology is so advanced as to be magic. The whole setup was weird and compelling, but ultimately I didn’t love the book as much as I’d hoped to. There was a distance between me and the characters, me and the conflict. I didn’t care enough about Muire or the Main Guy Dude (see, I don’t even remember his name). Kasimir was the only one I connected with. There was a sense of meaninglessness to the story, and even the resolution did not dispel that for me. I admire the writing and the premise, but the story didn’t touch me. All the while I read, I kept thinking of the Eliot line about the world not ending with a bang, but a whimper. And that’s kinda what I felt about the end of the novel.

The Graveyard Book, though: original, tightly-written, thoroughly enjoyable, with a cast of delightful characters. I would not mind returning to that world, or following the further adventures of Bod. Now I must seek out more of Gaiman’s work (his adult work, I mean. The Wolves in the Walls, though a fun and funny picture book, does not count, hee).

Snow is a little book which reads like a fairytale. It felt like a string of beads; images, poetry, stories within stories all roped together. I found an undercurrent of pretension in the book, but it did not detract me from enjoying the story, with its romance and drama and grief, just made me gloss over the the writer’s artistic philosophy. I suspect I am too much of a pragmatist to appreciate it.

American Creation was my non-fiction read and took me the bulk of the month to get through. I feel like my view of the Revolutionary War and the early years of the US are overly influenced by Ellis, since I’ve read so many of his books. He does make the history accessible, and his chapter on the early dealings of the new country with the Native Americans was poignant and sobering. Not really adjectives I expected to use for this book!

I’m up to book 26 (well, 27, if you count the one book I’ve read so far in May!). Have you read any awesome books this year?

I finished A Suitable Boy early in March. Immense and sprawling, this book meandered from storyline to storyline, rich in detail, at some points suffocatingly so. While the descriptions of Hindu rituals and customs were fascinating to me, the pages devoted to political speeches and legalese were not and I had no qualms about skimming those (skipping about 50 of them altogether, not too much of a dent in this 1300-page monster!). This is not a tightly-focused book, but I didn’t mind too much. I normally shy away from books such as this one, but something–nostalgia? literary quality? the strange blend of familiar and alien?–kept me turning pages till late several nights. It’s definitely one of those novels that I had to brace myself to plunge into, but once I did, I had no problems getting back into it (barring the yawn-inducing speeches!).

So that was my literary read of the month.

I tore through Lady Friday and Superior Saturday, which (argh!) ended on a cliff hanger. The stakes are high, secrets are being uncovered, and the mysterious Lord Sunday and the end of the series are just within reach. Ohmigoodness, when is the last book coming out again??

Tamara Siler Jones’ Threads of Malice and Valley of the Soul were my Florida vacation reading. They’re grislier than what I’m normally comfortable with, but I’m such a sucker for crosses between fantasy and other genres. Forensic murder mysteries in fantasy settings? I’m all over them, in spite of my internal squick-o-meter going off at an alarming rate.

Besides, I read these for the character arcs. Really.

I also picked up The Cipher by Diana Pharoah Francis on a whim on my last visit to the bookstore (40% off coupon in hand). And, wow, it reminded me a lot of my own Season of Rains. Not as in, “Argh, someone else already wrote the book I’m writing!” but as in, hey, I see a lot of themes and plot devices that I like to use in here. Now I have to get her other books to see if its a one-time thing or what.

(Also, can I just say how nice it is that the main character in a fantasy has a real job? Not Princess, not Mage, not Warrior, but Customs Inspector. I love it!)

Next up, my non-fiction read of the month: Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, a quick, engaging read. Some of his findings were fascinating (like the strong correlation between athletic success and birth dates); others common sense (wonderful musicians practice a lot more than mediocre musicians–who woulda thunk??). Many of his findings could be distilled down to the luck of the right people being in the right place at the right time–interesting to analyze for common traits from the vanatage point of the future, but not something one can duplicate.

And that brings my book count up to 22. Somehow I get the feeling that hitting 52 books this year will not be a problem.

In January I read:

• A Reason for God (Timothy Keller)
• Physik (Angie Sage)
• Queste (Angie Sage)
• The Mysterious Benedict Society & the Perilous Journey (Trenton Lee Stewart)
• Your Child’s Growing Mind (Jane Healy)
• Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world (Mark Kurlansky)
• Mister Monday (Garth Nix)
• Grim Tuesday (Garth Nix)

Hmm, I think I know why I didn’t get much writing done this month. Granted, five of these books came from the children’s section of the library and were quick reads. I especially enjoyed the Garth Nix books, the first of The Keys of the Kingdom series. It looks like six out of the seven books have been published. Good. I hate having to wait a year or more between books. I wish publishers would wait until they have most of a series, then bring the books out at six-month intervals. It probably doesn’t work from a financial standpoint (authors like to be paid and publishers want to guage how a series will do before committing to it), but I wonder how many readers are lost because they won’t pick up a series unless it’s complete or forget about it altogether because it’s been too long between books?

Cod, I was predisposed to like because I enjoy books that trace the impact of a commodity on history and culture. Though short, it did drag towards the end, and I found the “fish that changed the world” epithet far too grandiose for the reality (I’m from Asia and I failed to glean how cod changed my corner of the world). What made the book fascinating for me were the details that I could see using in a novel; fishing techniques, or the use of clay/cod oil mixture to protect coastal buildings from the salt, or wars over fishing grounds. I also skipped the appendix of cod recipes. Just not a big fan of old-style European cookery.

I do plan to pick up the Kurlansky’s Salt: A World History.

What have you been reading?

Reading Sherwood Smith’s The Fox, sequel to Inda, that’s what.

Here’s another reason why I’m reading so much more non-fiction these days: non-fiction is a lot easier to put down than a really good novel is. Non-fiction does not have me staying up past midnight, or have me pick reading over ensuring that everyone has clean underwear, or cause extended nursing sessions where the baby falls asleep because I’m reading “just one more chapter”.

As you can tell, this book is pretty good.

If you like complex and detailed and juicy worldbuilding, lots of political intrigue, and adventures on the high seas, you’ll like these books. My big complaint is that there are too many characters and cultures and languages (some of which have similar-sounding names) to keep track of sometimes. I read Inda in January and I’d forgotten many of the secondary characters by the time I started reading The Fox (I think I’m up to speed now). When people have at least three names; first names, nicknames and family names (with the latter names all ending in Vayir), it can get confusing. Oh, and there are too many references to pleasure houses and what goes on in them for my taste. But then, I’m more of a prude than most people, so your mileage may vary. Aside from those bits, the story is immensely engaging (and not very graphic).

I can’t wait for the next book to come out in paperback (and by the time it does, I’ll have forgotten those secondary charcaters again). I’m going to interlibrary loan it.