Raw Spirit — Iain Banks
Sometimes the life of a bestselling novelist is hard. This isn’t one of those times, unless you consider driving around Scotland drinking single malt whiskies a hard life. Nicely diverting, nothing knew if you know your whiskies already but who cares?
A Writer’s Diary — Virginia Woolf
Selected by her husband Leonard Woolf a decade or so after her death, this is an extract of her diary edited to keep most of the personal stuff out but the entries about writing in. Completeness aside, this was long enough for me already, hard going in places but ultimately rewarding. Interesting to see the rhytm in how she writes her books.
Cetaganda — Lois McMaster Bujold
A Miles Vorkosigan novel I reread because Jo Walton is rereading the series for tor.com. Ironically, she doesn’t seem to like Cetaganda as much as I did. A fun adventure romp.
Old Tin Sorrows — Glen Cook
Another adventure of Garret P.I. , a Chandleresque hardboiled detective stuck in fantasyland. This time an old army comrade recruits him to find out who might be poisoning the retired general he’s working for.
Blessed Among Nations — Eric Rauchway
An examination of how nineteenth century globalisation made America into the country it still is today and why its evolution went so different from that of other advanced countries during that period.
Prador Moon — Neal Asher
Fastpaced space opera in which you don’t have to think too much.
Night of Knives — Ian C. Esslemont
Esslemont is the friend with which Steven Erikson thought up the world of the Malazan Empire. This is his first novel in that world. Quite good, but different enough from Erikson to be confusing at first.
The Worlds of Poul Anderson — Poul Anderson
Three unrelated novels too short to be published separately. Not Anderson’s best work, but entertaining enough though each is decidely gloomy in its own way.
The Pastel City — M. John Harrison
The first of Harrison’s books set in Virconium, the Pastel City in the evening of humanity’s existence. Of course this is inspired by Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, as viewed through a New Wave sensibility.
The Broken World — Tim ETCHeLLS
My eye fell on this when I picked up Night of Knives. Twentysomething slacker obsessively writes a walkthrough to his favourite game while his life tears apart around them. It reminded me of Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs.
The Wartime Kitchen and Garden — Jennifer Davies
A companion book to a BBC tv series I never saw, this was a quite good introduction of how people on the homefront had to cope with rationing and the demands made on them for food production.
When Daddy Came Home — Barry Turner and Tony Rennell
What happened after World War II was won and millions of British soldiers returned home.
Dread Brass Shadows — Glen Cook
Another Garret P.I fantasy mystery. When his on-again off-again girlfriend is knived in the back on her way to see him, Garret gets involved in the fight over a powerful book of sorcery.