What I’ve Read

The Invention of Love – Tom Stoppard – I read this along with a bookleg recording of the 2000s Broadway production, which is amazing. It’s a deeply compassionate and reserved play that I deeply enjoyed. A friend of mine said this was a foundational work for them, and I absolutely see how. It’s the story of AE Hausman, particularly thru his relationship to the Classics, and the story weaves past and future together thru the Young Housman having conversations with his Old Housman self. I really enjoyed the unexpected appearance of Oscar Wilde, whose trial happened during Hausman’s post-university years.

What I’m Reading

The Fortunate Fall – Cameron Reed – The 1996 cyberpunk book is just deliciously weird. Like, so much weirder than I expected. Also, gay! The book was recently re-issued under the author’s new name.

Into the Drowning Deep – Mira Grant – Ten years ago spooky deep sea mermaids killed everyone on a research mission sponsored by Not The Discovery Channel. Our main character’s sister died, and now she’s going to be able to use her research to figure out what happened for herself. I am slowly working thru all the tentpoles from Be the Serpent, a finished podcast that I deeply enjoyed, and this is one of them! I find Mira Grant to be rather like Michael Crichton in her commitment to Doing the Research on how various elements of her characters’ scientific work remains. I feel like this should be scarier but that might be just the beginning of the book. Grant, like Crichton, has a very visual and cinematic style, and sometimes that works for me and sometimes it does not.

Guillermo del Toro: Cabinet of Curiosities – on hold.

What I’ll Read Next
Natural History of Dragons
The Hunger Games
The Grief of Stones