An enjoyable take on the legend of Achilles, and what went on (possibly) behind the scenes. More than a historical retelling, it is closer to a love story, and it manages to add to the legends of Achilles without dumbing it down.

The writing of the author is just as good as I remember, and it moves the story forward without getting in the way. The focus is on the telling of the story, and we see it from a different point of view this time.

Since the story is so well-known there aren’t too many twists, but for someone coming to it for the first time this would be a rollicking ride. Through most of the book I was trying to figure out they would get through the ending, but the compromise that was made didn’t feel like cheating.

One complaint I have was that there was so much going on unseen in the world of the gods, and the way it was related back to us felt clunky and unnatural. I would have liked to have seen them in action more, but the author chose to focus on a few mortal characters rather than on the gods on Mount Olympus.

It is a rather short novel, so it was hard to stop turning the pages knowing it wouldn’t take long to get through. Excellent book!

Next I am reading The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft.

Partly a mystical fairy tale, partly a travelogue of the world’s (mostly) unknown secrets, this book should have been right up my alley. Not only is it largely concerned with travel, but it contains a secret mysterious library with secret doors that connect across the globe. I’m not sure why I didn’t like the book more.

It certainly isn’t a bad book – the writer has an engaging style and the prose is easy to read and has a lighthearted approach to descriptions. The natural world and the animals that live within it are especially well done.

But what I found myself concerned with was the point of this journey that we are on. The main character embarks on it with very little introspection, and considering the time they have on the road alone, you’d think they’d have more thoughts and theories on it than they do. We usually hear about her joy and adventures not firsthand but in her memories, which makes us wonder if she is really out there living or just plodding on to stay alive. Most of the interesting introspection is left for the end of the book.

We are asked to believe in some magic, and once we accept that proposition it makes the “real-life” magical moments that the main character discovers less, well, magical. She talks of amazing things that she has witnessed in her travels but they are less amazing when coming from someone with a mysterious magical curse.

Still, the concept of the interconnected library, the thoughts on travel and what it means, and the metaphors throughout are interesting enough for me to enjoy the book. Not sure if I can recommend it for everyone, though.

Next I am reading The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I really liked her book Circe, so I’m hoping this turns out even half as good.

I was starting to get into this book, set in a unique time and place for fantasy books – the era of the Spanish Inquisition – but as the main character started to “awaken” to a sexy dude with eternal life I realized that I had read something like this before. Oh yeah, this is the same author that wrote Ninth Wing, a groaner that I had somehow finished last year or so.

How did this book get into my backlog? I guess I have to be more careful. But it made me think a little about what I liked about this book. The writer has a great skill with writing prose and pushing the story forward at the right pace. There are few slow points and we get right to the next big event. I was also happy that this isn’t the first in a series, which is so common in fantasy books.

But the magic system was pretty unclear, and I couldn’t help thinking why our hero needed to be afraid when she had so much power at her fingertips. The romance angle was predictable and didn’t seem necessary, and unfortunately many of the characters were pretty shallow and one-dimensional.

But I finished the book, hooray me. Next I am reading A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke.

In the end I really enjoyed this book, but the sort of campy/folksy start had me wondering if I really wanted to continue this book or not. The early stages of the book set the time frame in history, and tries to show the irreverent and odd characters that make up the population of the Greek island.

But once we get through this, the story takes its time and tells a story from many points of view. The writing felt lyrical and focused on the beauty of life on the island, and unfortunately later it is contrasted with the lifestyle of the residents during war time.

The story arc of Madras, the young fisherman, and how he turned out after the war was especially heartbreaking, but this book is filled with heartbreaking moments. Scenes from the Second World War related by various characters are absolutely brutal. The character of the goatherder was used for laughs now and then, but reading about his lifestyle had me reconsidering mine.

I like stories like this that span lifetimes, and we see how small things connect to others later in life, and how decisions turn out for better or worse.

Personally I thought the ending of this one, and what eventually happened between Corelli and Pelagia felt sort of unnecessary or tacked on, but I can see how some might feel it was a necessary full circle.

Although the book was a little preachy at times I enjoyed reading it, and was surprised to find that it was written so recently. I’m not sure I want to read it again in the future – so much heartbreak is hard to take.

Next I am reading The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo.

I usually really like this author so I was bummed out with how this book turned out. There is a lot of promise – a story from the perspective of a bio-engineered war dog – but I didn’t think it came off very well.

Having one of the main points of view being from an intelligent dog is fine, but the voice of that dog seemed pretty cliche. Things like, “I am a good dog” and “The Master is angry” just felt awkward to read. I understand what the author was trying to evoke (I mean, I think I do) but it seemed amateurish and clunky.

The main arc of the story seemed to have run its course, and then the book went on for quite a bit longer – in an attempt to fit a few more issues into the story.

I’m not sure I can recommend this one – there are so many better books by this author.

Next I am reading Corelli’s Mandolin by Lous De Bernieres.

I had heard that this book has some great world building in a fantasy genre, and while there is an interesting world in these pages it didn’t really spring to life organically.

The story starts off quite well, and we learn to like the main character as she navigates her precarious position in the world. But after a while the story gets quite mysterious, and everything grinds down to a pace too slow for me.

I don’t think this book needed to be as long as it was. I understand that the author is setting up the world for further novels, but maybe too much front loading here.

Although I really liked the character, part of the story was that she was not invested so much in the crucial events – she is always ready to just bug out and run. And since she wasn’t invested, it was hard for the reader to get invested as well. Why should I care about character A, B and C when the world will end in a few months?

I was a little disappointed in this book because it held a lot of promise. With some skillful editing I think there is a pretty good story to be told.

Next I am reading Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

This book was recommended by another author as a good spy novel, and after reading it I agree.

It has all the things you’d expect in a spy novel, and I imagine that people who read a lot from this genre might complain that there isn’t a lot of new ground being broken. But for me as a neophyte I enjoyed it for what it was. The pacing could have been improved – sometimes the writer got all caught up in the details and backstory and neglected to move the plot forward. However other times the author skillfully moved the story along to skip over the boring bits.

There are a lot of exotic locations, many of them written with details and attention that make me think that the author has been there. The characters are entertaining, although sometimes a little predictable. Bad guy is 100% bad, good guy is clearly good.

One thing I liked about the book was at the end of each chapter a quick recipe is given for a meal that was enjoyed in that section of the book. It was a great idea and I can’t wait to cook some of the dishes, but with so many chapters you started to see where the characters had to eat a meal soon so that a recipe could be included.

I think that this is the first in a trilogy, and there was enough in this book that I liked to move on to the next book later on. There is also a movie (starring Jennifer Lawrence) so I’ll have to check it out sometime, too.

Next I am reading Kalyna the Soothsayer by Elijah Kinch Spector.

The problem with reading an old classic book is that sometimes the story and plot developments that were revolutionary at the time end up feeling out of date. Even though you are looking at a prototype it feels like old hat.

So it was with this book, which really is a great haunted house story. The scares here are effective and elegant, there is some great psychological terror going on, and the resolution was very satisfying. I was so glad that I hadn’t heard anything about this book before reading it.

Besides the story the author writes characters really well. One character early on is introduced by the nameless narrator as a liar. This throws the whole thing into unclear territory, and just this simple fact kept me on my toes for the rest of the book.

I don’t read a lot of horror, but this elegant and more cerebral approach was definitely worth the read.

Next I am reading Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews.

I’m no genius, a fact that can be clearly established based on my academic records and even the writing on these pages. But even I figured out the twists and the villain while reading this mystery/thriller.

I picked this book up because it was name-checked in another book I read recently, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There was an odd vibe to the writing – very British and feeling sort of old fashioned. Maybe because of this it was easy to suss out what would happen in the end.

It was a quick book to read, though, and so I guess in a way it was entertaining. I saw that there are a bunch more books featuring the same characters, but I don’t think I’ll continue this series.

Next I am reading The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

This book is a novel (and sort of a fairy tale) about someone drawn back into his family history in Georgia after escaping from the country with his father and brother during the civil war following the breakaway from the USSR.

For the author, I felt like the book served as a memorial for their life in Georgia, their memories and the people that they left behind. Sometimes I read a book and I feel like the author was seeking catharsis – this was one of those cases.

For myself, the book was a good chance to revisit Tbilisi and the parts of the city we visited. It gave the city a deeper historical context, and it was fun to read about places that we had walked through ourselves. I enjoyed some of the characters – one taxi driver kept giving out great insults – while others were a little grating.

The author’s style was a little different – voices of characters that lived on in the narrator’s head, backfilling information over and over again – these decisions felt a little gimmicky to me.

The story itself was just a bit too perfect – key characters appear at precisely the right time: the villain, the hitchhiker, the soldier in Ossetia. I guess that was why I felt it more of a fairy tale than a novel – but if you can suspend the disbelief maybe you’ll enjoy the story.

The end turned unexpectedly violent – which caught me off guard – but this book is the story of a violent revolution and violence (and hope) between people. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Next I am reading The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid.

There is no question that American culture is a car culture. And if everyone needs a car to get around, they also need some parking when they arrive where they are going. This book delves (deeply) into how parking has influenced the way homes and cities are designed, and wonders aloud if it isn’t the right time to do something better.

There are some great quotes in this book. The first one that caught my eye was explaining the parking rules in various cities in America, and how they are often incomprehensible even to the locals, and representative of the self-interested clusterfuck that is American parking policy.

Reading about this policy and how it came about was pretty interesting. I think the target of this book is the people involved with parking policies or town/city design, rather than the average Joe. But it is eye-opening how decisions made so long ago have had such a lasting (negative) impact.

The book was written recently, so the influence of the COVID pandemic is included here, and this reveals the positive changes that the pandemic brought – and gave me a little hope.

As for me the book helped me realize how lucky I am to live in a place where I don’t really need a car, and could certainly live without it.

Sometimes this book went a little too far into historical details and I felt occasionally like the writer was having so much fun telling his stories that he lost sight of how the reader might be feeling about it. The full title of the book is “Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains The World”, but the second part of the title wasn’t really delivered. The book explains a lot about America, but I thought there might be a bit more on how other countries/cities around the world deal with the automobile.

Next I am reading Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili.

This was a story that was hard to hear. Obviously the writer has some phenomenal talent and there was so much beauty in the descriptions of her grief.

The book relates the before and the after for a woman who married her husband only to lose him to an unexpected and unclear death while he was out running.

I guess what I got from this story is that grief runs much deeper than anyone expects, and that although people deal with it in different ways nobody knows what you are supposed to do with it. Even living and moving on are not necessarily the obvious course. The stages of grief that are often discussed are not even related to something like this – they were designed for something completely different.

Sometimes I felt a little voyeuristic while reading this – isn’t this a private journey? Am I reading about grief for entertainment? Or just to know more?

The product of that grief is the beautiful writing and imagery of this book, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I hope that the author can channel her abilities into more writing in the future, and I wonder if it will be possible to write about other things as well as she did with this.

Next I am reading Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar.

I enjoyed reading this short story collection, some scary, some thought-provoking, and some a little too simple for my taste. But that’s the beauty of this format: like a box of candy you take what you like and leave the rest for others.

One thing I really liked was a story that had a character that last appeared way back in an older book. I read Cujo back in junior high school, and it was an odd feeling to have that same character (a much older version) appear in this book.

The stories have quite a bit of variation – there are thoughts on talent, belief, fate, and even a few aliens thrown in there too. Sometimes the main characters tended to blend together – most of them are old guys (much like the author, I suppose) and I would have liked more diverse personalities.

But if you like the author’s writing, this book continues in the same style. It was a satisfying read.

Next I am reading Here After by Amy Lin.

Since we’ll be in Stockholm in a few months I thought I should read this book which is set there. I’ve seen this book on the shelves since forever so I guess it is about time to read it anyway.

Translated for Swedish (I guess) the story relates to the emergence of two characters who end up working together. One of them falls in love, another one doesn’t seem to notice. I liked both the main characters and their chemistry is really what made me like this book.

In addition the setting of the story was interesting, and I was marking off places to visit on Google maps as I read. The plot involves a long-ago disappearance – and there are some surprises hidden among a very large family of suspects.

Despite at first seeming to be a locked room mystery, the story branches out and we learn more about even some of the minor characters. I enjoyed this sort of divergence, even though I’ve criticized other novels for the same thing. I guess that done right it can be engrossing rather than a time waste.

The technology and the scenes involving it have aged a bit poorly I think. The author tends to overemphasize some details (to lend credibility?) but we don’t really need to know the brand name of the modem or how many megabytes the disk drive is. Is it a cultural thing? Not sure.

Also the idea of what a hacker does or can do is pretty oversimplified, and in this book it is sort of like a magic “do-whatever-you-want” card that can be played any time. Again, this might be related to the age of the book.

So I enjoyed the story and I’m wondering if I should see the movie or not. My next book is You Like it Darker by Stephen King.

There was moment in time between my work in the wine industry and working in bookstores while I waited to ship off to Japan. It was a time for me to test out working in a different industry that was growing quickly in the Silicon Valley not far from where I was living.

I’ve always been interested in technology, although less on the gadget side and more on the internet and PC side, and so I sort of fell into designing websites and eventually convincing some companies to hire me to do it professionally.

This book starts with the author’s career in journalism and how she saw the burgeoning tech industry as something with a future, and how she transitioned from old to new and followed the ups and downs right up close. Although I came to it later than she did, it was really interesting to read about the chronicles of those early days of Web 1.0. I remember working in companies and being amazed at how much money was being thrown around. The author of this book focuses on what all that money can do to leaders in tech.

I didn’t know the writer who is apparently one of the big names in rise of Silicon Valley tech scene – which speaks to how tangential my involvement was. She writes with a very sharp wit and is really funny. Speaking truth to power and not knuckling under takes a lot of commitment and resolve – it is good to see that she has deep wells of both.

It did feel sometimes like this book was a way for her to say “I told you so” about various people and developments, and it grew a little wearisome sometimes. She seems to have a fan base and sometimes it was like she was pitching raw meat to her followers. I think people who know this writer well will enjoy the book more.

But I enjoyed the book overall and the insight into the industry over time, and the leaders who have come and gone.

Next I am reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.