Book 36, 2023: French Braid by Anne Tyler. This story of a family through the generations is surely one of her best. I love the way she skips through time, bringing characters in then letting them go. Just stunning. Which is your favourite #AnneTyler novel? #fiction #annetyler #books #justread @bookstadon

I #AmReading (actually #JustRead, but that's not as big a hashtag) a #ScienceFiction #TrunkNovel discovered after the author's passing. It's "Voyage to Vaju" by Vernon D Anderson. You get the sense that the author wanted to write a Lost World story, or maybe a 1950s-type novel with declining-civilization, skinny, blue-skinned Martians; noble-savage, robust, green-skinned Venusians; and heroic Earther explorers. He apparently felt constricted by current knowledge of the Solar System, however.

So, instead, Anderson settled for 240-cm-tall, powerful humanoids (bronze-skinned, with pointed, tufted ears) at an early medieval tech level on "Vaju" (which I interpret as "VAriant JUpiter). Vajuvians live a few layers down in Vaju's atmosphere, where the air happened to be breathable to humans, and the gravity was slightly less than Earth's. And where there was a surface like Earth's. The humans who end up on Vaju wonder about all this, but they never find any reason why Vaju is as it is. [Personally, I think it would've been easier to have a portal story to a variant Earth, but I didn't write the novel.]

Anyway, private company Humongous Motors had come up with an innovative interplanetary spaceship good enough to get to Mars in a couple of months. They built two, in fact, the second currently serving as a fully stocked model for paying tourists to walk through to see the future. Fully fueled, too (by authorial fiat), with the ultra-safe ultra-powerful mixture invented by Interplanetary Research. And the crew of the real ship planned to go up soon happened to be acting as extra tour guides. And somehow the ship accidentally launched itself. And the fuel was much better than imagined, but the engines and controls not so much.

After a few days of multi-gee uncontrolled flight, the ship found itself near Jupiter. The crew entered orbit to rest and think, but the engines went wild again, plunging them into the atmosphere. They managed to regain enough control to successfully crashland on the surface of the odd world they never expected to exist. Four crew (captain, copilot, chemist, biologist), and eighteen others (tour guide Dave, his three niblings, and various friends and relatives/friends of friends, most convenient things like doctors, Olympic champions, engineers, and so on). [Again, was contriving this all the best way to go?]

The there are chapters of dealing with various wild animals, and camping out [there are tents, shovels, camping gear, rifles, etc on the ship], and trying to repair the ship, which got a bit mangled in the landing. They decide they need something that will burn very hot, like high-grade coal, in order to straighten out the bent fins. On pretty much zero evidence, they decide that there might be some in the mountains in the distance. So they bury the ship so it won't be bothered by animals, and start trekking toward the horizon.

On the way, they deal with tyrannosaur-analogs, and animals similar to tigers and wolves. There was even a brief truce with lions when one of the party helped save some cubs from a giant lizard, and then the mother lion didn't bother him while the wounded man rested nearby until his party found him. And there were apemen who have tree-villages connected by vineways in the dense forest, but apparently no fire. These folk naturally kidnap a woman, but our brave party rescues her. But afterwards a large group of apemen come and attack the humans.

The humans are rescued by a Vajuvian hunting party led by a prince, and promptly taken captive: such is Vajuvian custom. They are brought back to the locals' city, where they live as slaves for a time. After an incident with the prince's Disney-villain cousin, four of them are accused of attacking royalty. Two choose trial-by-combat in the arena, and win against the three wolves they face. Two choose a race against two chasing cougars, and survive by using a tree to cross a small canyon, skipping half the route. After this, the accused are ruled innocent and the whole group of humans are ruled honorable, and their status changes from that of slaves to that of resident foreigners.

And that's the tale. A "Lost World" adventures-every-chapter tale. Just don't think about the #SciFi setting too much. There were a few bits where the author intruded anti-PC stuff, and the attempt to treat human females as equals of human males was awkward at times. I pretended the novel was written in the 1950s, like its tone suggests, and made allowances. The story wasn't great, but I didn't hate it.

Book 23, 2023: Sisters by Daisy Johnson. This is a terrific read, a psychological house horror/thriller about grief and families from the writer of Everything Under. #books #justread #novels #literature #fiction

Book 22, 2023: Happening by Annie Ernaux. Non-fiction account about the difficulties she faced trying to obtain, and then having, an abortion. Written with her customary openness and self-awareness, this is an essential read. #books #reading #nonfiction #abortion #Fitzcarraldo #AnnieErnaux #france #justread

Book 21. 2023: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Classic spooky story. #books #horror #justread #fiction #reading #ShirleyJackson

Book 20, 2023: The Trouble with happiness by Tove Ditlevsen.

Collection of short stories featuring downtrodden women and terrible men. Knife-sharp writing, but mostly very bleak. In a good way, mind.

#books #justread #reading #fiction #ToveDitlevsen

Book 19, 2023: Happiness by Aminatta Forna. A Kindle book I’ve been reading on short train journeys for what seems like months, and therefore the reading experience has been a patchwork one. But the story of a wildlife expert in London, and a trauma doctor is engaging, and the writer has London down well. #books #fiction #justread #reading #kindle

Book 19, 2023: Happiness by Aminatta Forna. A Kindle book I’ve been reading on short train journeys for what seems like months, and therefore the reading experience has been a patchwork one. But the story of a wildlife expert in London, and a trauma doctor is engaging, and the writer has London down well. #books #fiction #justread #reading #kindle

Book 18, 2023: In My Father’s House by Miranda Seymour.

Biography of a man who was OBSESSED with a stately home in Nottinghamshire, and the difficult relationship he had with his family, and friendships with young men 👀.

I loved Seymour’s biography of racing driver Helle Nice, and this more personal work was fascinating. #biography #justread #reading #books #nonfiction

I've #JustRead “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands,” which won #CanadaReads2023.
Kate Beaton’s #GraphicMemoir sketches homesickness, sexism, danger – & occasional beauty – in the hellscape that is the #OilSands.
One lovely vignette occurs when she explains that Maritimers have long had to leave home to work elsewhere (a loss that defines their music & literature), & we see that she is reading “No Great Mischief” by the wonderful Alistair MacLeod.
#Bookstodon #AmReading

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/06/ducks-kate-beaton-review-oil-sands/

Book 17, 2023: The Sound of Being Human by Jude Rogers. Part memoir, part scientific analysis on what makes us love music, and what music can do for us. Features Mark Hollis, Paddy MacAloon, Wham!, and Adam Ant. A terrific read. #music #books #reading #justread #science #non-fiction #memoir

Book 16, 2023: Boulder by Eva Baltasar. Seething, thrillingly written second part of a loose trilogy in which woman falls in love then tries to come to terms with, or doesn't, her girlfriend's desire to have a baby.

Been looking forward to this, and it's probably the best thing I've read all year. Not a spare word in the whole of the novel.

#Books #JustRead #literature #reading #nowreading #fiction #iceland #spain #catalunya #catalonia

"They know unicorns are deadly, my parents tell me that they are evil, and I know everyone is right.
But I still love mine."

Really enjoyed "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn" by #DianaPeterfreund - another #ZombiesVsUnicorns story 🦄
#bookcites #bookstodon #JustRead

Book 14, 2023: I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux. Hard-hitting, searing, and upsetting memoir of her mother’s last days, living with dementia in a nursing home. As always, Ernaux’s honesty is brutal. #memoir #justread #reading #books

Book 11, 2023: The Perfume Thief by Timothy Schaffert. Wartime drama set in Paris in which a lesbian thief comes out of retirement to try to save her friends and scupper a Nazi plot. #fiction #perfume #paris #justread #reading #books #novels

Book 11, 2023: The Perfume Thief by Timothy Schaffer. Wartime drama set in Paris in which a lesbian thief comes out of retirement to try to save her friends and scupper a Nazi plot. #fiction #perfume #paris #justread #reading #books #novels

#justread #scifi

⭐⭐⭐ Starts slow, but gets exciting along the way.

Not my favorite sci-fi style, I have to admit. Characters are a bit cartoony and it feels like it was written to be made into a TV series. But I appreciated the novel approach to inter species relationships and mature culture clashes. I think it's the first time I've seen both covered to this extent.

Excited to see where the series goes.

Just finished "The Librarian" by @aquinton 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

Buy it at https://argylewerewolf.itch.io/the-librarian 📖🐺

#justread #werewolf #Werewolves #shortstories #shortstory #bookstodon

Just finished "The Librarian" by @aquinton 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

Buy it at https://argylewerewolf.itch.io/the-librarian 📖🐺

#justread #werewolf #Werewolves #shortstories #shortstory

Finished the first read of #Doorstopper2023: The Terror by Dan Simmons. Enjoyed the vibe. Arctic experience enhanced by not having the heating on.

#justread #books #booksofmastodon #nowreadung #horror #historicalfiction #TheTerror