What are you reading?

by Grania

And now, dear reader, let us move from the critical analysis of one type of fiction to another.

I picked up two books last week when I was in the bookshop up the road, as one does. One I would recommend to anyone, the other is more for those of a particular taste.

Solar by Ian McEwan, is like everything else of his, beautifully written and a pleasure to read. This novel follows an aging physicist whose career’s respectable peak has been reached and whose 5th marriage is in trouble as he tries to recover his former glory. It’s dark and comic and bitingly satirical.

Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio is a series chronicling the life of an orphaned girl with Mad Scientist proclivities. It’s sort of Pratchett-esque in tone, although the world is a Steampunk version of earth rather than a fantasy. If Steampunk isn’t already something you like, then this probably isn’t the book to get you into it. You can actually read it in comic book form online which I think I prefer to the novels, although obviously in a much shorter form.

What have you read lately?