FF: Substance and Illusion

I found myself wondering a lot this week about depth versus the illusion of depth…

Kel likes Marvin Gardens

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Audiobook. A series of vivid, often elegant, descriptions tied together with an unsurprising, although not off-putting, plot.

In Search of Marvin Gardens by Amy Sarig King. The author writes gripping YA novels as A.S. King. Among my favorites are Please Ignore Vera Dietz and Glory O’Brien’s History of the Past. This middle grade book is superficially less ambitious, but manages to pack a lot of subtext into what most kids will read as a modern ecological fable.

In Progress:

Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise and Other Imponderables? by David Feldman. The occasionally dates nature of some of the responses does not detract from the charm and fascination of these short – sometimes only a few paragraphs long – essays.

Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language by Esther Schor. Alan and my Tangent discussion on Esperanto a week or so ago led me to want to learn more about the context in which this language was developed and in which it continues to – if not thrive – at least exist.

Also:

This book called Through Wolf’s Eyes by Jane Lindskold. I haven’t read it from beginning to end in well over a decade. I find myself enjoying it.