👋 for the book reader asks: 3, 7, and 12?
3. What’s something you read recently and wanted to argue with (either with the book or the author or the fans)?
Maybe the Library at Mount Char - I liked it a lot, but I have a whole collection of books I call “Books about Libraries that are really Private Archives”. LaMC is only the most recent addition that I’ve read.
And it’s true, for a long long time up to the very recent past, libraries were usually private collections of resources which were only available to small affiliated groups. The Public Library is recent idea and the huge swathe of public social services the average (American) Public Library provides shouldn’t fall entirely on this one underfunded organization that can have insufficient training in social work etc. See this excellent Vocational Awe article for more info.
But I still want to read a book with a magical library that’s open to the public, that provides services and educational events, that supports its community, but isn’t hard to find. I really love a lot of these magical private library books, but the ubiquity of access is really important to the modern library (in some places anyway), and I’d love to read something that shows that someday.
5. What book do you love but usually not recommend because it’s weird or intense, etc?
I utterly adore Katherine Addison’s The Witness for the Dead, but it’s so hard to describe (and, as a result, to recommend) - the setting is so lush and the characters are such a product of their setting and life-experiences. It’s a non-violent crime novel. It’s very religious and spiritual. There might be werewolves. There are murderous ghouls. There’s opera and air-ships. It’s a detective novel. It’s a political thriller. It’s slow-moving and deeply kind. The protagonist is having a very long week. It’s only 232 pages long.
12. What book have you re-read most often?
I pick up Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog whenever I need a break from other things in life, so probably every few months on the outside 😹 I love that if I ever don’t understand what’s happening, the protagonist understands even less than I do. He’s overtired and overworked, and it’s made him into a soppy romantic who keeps mishearing people but is too polite to ask for clarification. I relate.
Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword and Tamora Piece’s In The Hand of the Goddess are two other comfort rereads that I have as audiobooks, so they probably are the stories I’ve read/heard the most often by sheer numbers.
