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books before I diary: P.G. Wodehouse
P.G. Wodehouse - Full Moon
Not much new to say: another absolutely delightful Blandings novel with fraught engagements, tough aunts, impostures and the rest. -
no MRI, it turns out
As soon as I got to the MRI unit and I mentioned the stent, from wanting them to check again that it was non-magnetic, I was asked when it was inserted. Two weeks ago. They immediately said that they won't do an MRI until six weeks after any surgery. I argued that just shoving that down my throat was hardly surgery, but they were adamant - the MRI ( Read more... ) -
book diary: Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly - The Poet
An excellent thriller, unusually fro him not part of his Harry Bosch series. A journalist uncovers a serial killer who has been killing cops and making it look like suicide each time. He gets tied up with the FBI investigation, which is well handled, although a late twist does rather depend on a couple of pretty contrived ( Read more... ) -
books before I diary: Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Much as I love the final scenes with Rutger Hauer in the movie, much of what I love in the book is what isn't in the film: the religion, the reason for the interest in animals, the empathy, the mystery around what is reality. The doubts about identity and what it means to be human are fascinating ( Read more... ) -
book diary: Edmund de Waal
Edmund de Waal - The Hare With Amber Eyes
Thanks to Cis for lending me this. It's a family memoir inspired by the author inheriting a collection of 264 netsuke (those tiny Japanese carvings) and tracing back to 19th C Paris, where they were bought, then forwards through Vienna, England and Tokyo. It's also one of the most upper class books I've ever ( Read more... ) -
happy!
It's been a good day, mostly. The pain has been fairly bad, but nonetheless ( Read more... ) -
book diary: Robert Reed
Robert Reed - Beyond the Veil of Stars
I love Reed for the scale of his SF thinking and ambition. This is relatively subdued and personal, which he does very well too, but there are huge concepts behind it, as humanity takes its first steps towards contacting other intelligences, and there are plenty of them. I'm looking forward to reading the ( Read more... ) -
more bad health news
I've just been at the hospital for another appointment. I have previously mentioned two new recent tumours (side of head, left hip); I discovered another a couple of days ago, just south of my left buttock. The registrar thinks the very bad neck pain (and now my left arm is very weak) is probably due to a nerve trapped by another tumour at the top ( Read more... ) -
book diary: Raymond Queneau
Raymond Queneau - Exercises in Style
Queneau takes a tiny observed incident on a bus, and writes it in 99 different ways. A few are contrived in an irritating way and are tedious, but most are imaginative, more varied than I could have believed, and often funny. A brilliant book that must have been a major translation headache. -
books befiore I diary: China Mieville
China Mieville - The Scar
Having created the magnificent city of New Crobuzon in his previous novel, this starts with a ship leaving there - and eventually getting taken to the equally extraordinary new pirate city of Armada, a huge flotilla of ships tied together into a city. The rest of this 800-page novel is, it turns out, one big plot, with key ( Read more... )