Nosemonkey > Recent Status Updates

This final volume, so far, is rather more blunt in its messaging than the previous two, with a strong endorsement of totalitarianism and various assertions that humanity needs a strong hand to keep it in check. Now the endorsements by the Chinese Communist Party no longer surprise... Also (as with the last one) a gentle sprinkling of anti-Japanese sentiment as the icibg on the cake. Still very rradable, though.

This is fun so far (well, not quite the word with all the death and plague), but not quite seeing the reason for the ecstatic reviews. Maube that's going to come in the second half - because this is meant to be a journey around medieval Europe, and so far he's not even left Russia...

Promising so far. But still too early to tell how it might develop.

Ants that are smaller than dogs but bigger than foxes, digging up gold in Indian sand on the far edges of thebworld. Black semen. Multiple Ethiopias. Mythical lands where tin comes from.

A neat collection of essays on writing, stories, and myth, written in an easy, chatty, engaging style. Comforting, reassuring, encouraging.

Two years? Really? Bloody hell... It's good, this. No idea why I left it so long to pick up again. Elizabethan England from an alternative, interesting perspective.

Another one I forgot I was reading again...

Every few months I remember I'm still reading this beast of a novel, and dip back into it. I always find it confusing, hard to follow, intriguing - Joyce crossed with Borges. Kinda love it, but fear it may be a few more years before I finally finish chipping away at it...

Again have forgotten how to *not* send this update to Facebook...

Extremely readable and well paced, even if the plot's progressing far more slowly than I expected. Good stuff.

Ordered based on skimming an article in the London Review of Books, and very glad I decided to make this my first bit of modern Chinese fiction.

Translation seemed a bit weak at first, but I think that's just because it's American English. The story, the ideas, the pacing, the concept? All superb so far.

First time I've tried Rushdie, and so far a lot more readable than I was expecting. Style feels similar to someone, but I can't work out who.

However, I seem to hate the main character, so not sure if I'll be able to make it through the rest for personality reasons, even though it's ticking all the other boxes for me at the moment.