Monday Book Recs--Harris's Sebastien St. Cyr and Your Brain at Work by Rock

Your Brain at Work by John Rock
Tobias Buckell recommended this book to me over a year ago, but it took me a while to get to it. So far I am finding it interesting, validating, and at turns also useful. Interesting, because it explains how the different parts of the brain works. Validating because I have long believed that if you spend a little while on things with absolute attention, you get a lot more done than if you spend all day with only half your attention. Useful, because it is giving me tips on how to work through some of my anxieties about writing, even when they happen in the middle of something where I wish they wouldn't. A lot of the book talks about mindfulness, which a friend of mine has already introduced me to, but still it was good to have the concept reinforced. My conclusions: I need to do more yoga, and spend more time doing nothing other than feeling "in the moment."


What Angels Fear by C.S. Harris
I really enjoyed this Regency England set mystery. There were clearly a lot of deeper mysteries to explore in the series, such as the long-gone mother, the odd relationship with the father, the hatred of the older sister, and the political problems. I enjoy that in a long series, the sense that we can wait and let the rest of this play out as it will. As a Jane Austen lover, the Regency period is familiar to me, but in the countryside more than London and with very little politics. Here, it's all the man's story, really. Which isn't that different than most stories, honestly. Still, I thought the female characters were interesting. If they fell a bit back on the standard maiden in distress, I forgave them. And since I have peeked ahead, I know that the not-maiden-in-distress/whore with a heart of gold character is the one who wins, in the end. St. Cyr's strangely acute hearing and sight, as well as his yellow eyes, are not part of the work of fiction, as Harris explain in the author's note. They are a real historical fact of Welsh families.