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ladyherenya · 7 years

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Books read in September

This is the most books I’ve read in a month since I was at university. Listening to audiobooks definitely makes a difference to how many books I read. As does being on holidays. And not Tumblr-ing. That may be the biggest factor...

I’ve asterisked my favourites.

(My longer reviews and ratings are on LibraryThing.)

A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle (narrated by Jennifer Ehle): Set a year after A Wrinkle in Time. Meg is worried about her youngest brother, Charles Wallace, who has just started school. I enjoyed the first half of this as much as I enjoyed the first book, and was disappointed with the second half. The challenges Meg faced were just too similar to those in the first half, the ultimate outcome felt predictable, and the setting was a bit confusing. And the narrator didn’t have such distinct voices for the characters - if I missed something, it was harder to work out who was speaking and what was going on.

* Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) by Thomas Hardy (narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith): Last year I saw the 2015 film adaptation. It’s very picturesqueness and tells an interesting story - a young single woman managing her own property - but it felt rushed. The book made more sense, and gave certain developments the context they need. Even though I knew where the story was heading, the way it was told kept me interested. I particularly enjoyed Hardy’s descriptions, the amusing way with words some characters have, and the colourful portrayal of life for this farming community. This novel offers thoughtful, and at times surprising, commentary on courtship, male expectations of women, healthy relationship dynamics, and the consequences of mistakes… along with a shippable romance. The audiobook is excellent.

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor: Lazlo Strange is an orphan obsessed with the mystery of the vanished city of Weep. Sari lives in an unusual household with unusual abilities, hiding in a citadel. Their stories unfold and then collide, a collision all the more complex and fraught because we can see there are no easy answers. This is slow but gorgeously written - I particularly liked the descriptions of the library - and I became invested in the characters. However, with a couple of bleak and cliff-hangery twists, all my enthusiasm was squashed. I can’t tell if I like the direction the story is now heading in.

A Single Stone by Meg McKinlay: Teenaged Jena lives in an isolated post-apocalyptic community that is dependent on girls who are small enough to squeeze through tunnels in the mountains and harvest the mineral that is their source of light and heat. An unexpected discovery leads Jena to question what she’s been taught. This is tightly focused, with puzzle pieces slowly but steadily revealed. I liked that it explains enough - but not too much, leaving some loose ends. It would have made a bigger impression when I was fourteen, or if Jena had had to deal with more emotional fallout from others’ reactions to her discoveries.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (1938) by Winifred Watson: An unsuccessful middle-aged governess who is looking for another job meets a night-club singer. This is a funny and joyful story, and I appreciated the supportive female friendships. But as the story went on, I found myself a bit disappointed by Miss Pettigrew’s naivety and her willingness to discard her moral code to embrace the glamorous world she finds herself in… there’s something very superficial about it all. There’s also a far larger dose of 1930s prejudice than I’d anticipated. But the film adaptation - I watched it again - is lovely, and addresses all my criticisms with the novel.

* The Book That Made Me: a collection of 32 personal stories edited by Judith Ridge: These stories are entertaining, memorable and interesting. I loved the diversity - of experiences and of approaches to the topic. Most of these authors are from Australia and New Zealand, but they grew up in different countries, in different eras, in families with different attitudes towards stories. They had differing levels of access to libraries and to books featuring people like them. I thought I’d read a bit here and there - but I practically read this in one go. It’s delightful. One of the best books I’ve read this year.

Cheerfulness Breaks In (1940) by Angela Thirkell: This is less successful and delightful than Thirkell’s others. She turns her attention to outsiders to the English village - evacuees and refugees - and her humour is undermined by her reliance on stereotypes and perhaps by a lack of sympathy. This book also acts like a sequel, more interested in catching up with old characters than spending time with new ones, at the expense of offering a satisfactory coherent standalone narrative - but since I knew those familiar characters from previous books, I was happy to spend more time with them. Especially the lively, independent Lydia Keith. I’m glad I read this.

Hunted by Meagan Spooner (narrated by Saskia Maarleveld and Will Damron): A retelling of Beauty and the Beast that does so many things right, particularly telling its own story, something new and different, even as it keeps to the general shape of a tale as old as time. One of my favourite things in these sorts of stories is when knowing folk- and fairy-tales is useful. (I like meta commentary and genre-savvy heroines). I also liked Yeva’s relationship with her sisters and her dog. And the way the story explores the pitfalls of wanting more than what you have, wanting something which may be unattainable, was unexpected.

The Baker’s Daughter (1938) by D.E. Stevenson: Sue, the daughter of a baker, impulsively accepts a position as housekeeper for a painter and his wife living in an old flour mill - and risks scandal by remaining after Mrs Darnay leaves her husband. This is a gentle, meandering sort of story, with picturesque Scottish scenery and fortuitous turns of events. A bit too fortuitous, really, but there’s something rather comforting about it all, so I was happy to suspend disbelief. If I read nothing but books like this, I think I would find them lacking, but it’s nice to read one every so often.

The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir by Jennifer Ryan: This epistolary novel set in an English village during WWII about a ladies’ choir sounded exactly like my cup of tea, but it isn’t - it’s less charming, and much more sad and scandalous and unsympathetic, than I was expecting. Rather than revolving around the choir, this is really about the Winthrops at Chilbury Manor, particularly teenaged Venetia and Kitty. My favourite character was Mrs Tilling, a choir member to whom the girls turn for help, but I warmed to both girls eventually. So, not quite my cup of tea, but probably someone else’s? I don’t regret reading it.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han: Lara Jean has a hatbox of letters she’s written, never meaning to send. But when the letters reach the boys they are addressed to, she finds herself in an unexpected situation, with a pretend-boyfriend. Some stories have a story sense of place, this has a strong sense of aesthetic. Cute vintage, pinterest, baking-in-your-pyjamas aesthetic. I liked Lara Jean’s confidence in her own tastes, and how central her relationships with her father and sisters are to her life. However, the whole concept of something private being revealed in some way, made me feel kind of anxious...

P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han: This sequel to To All the Boys... is about the differences between having a pretend-boyfriend and a real boyfriend, and looking back on middle-school relationships. It’s nostalgic and reflective in a way I enjoyed. It also involves something private not just becoming public but going viral - much more serious than a crush receiving a letter that they were never meant to read. I was rather relieved when the end of the book left Lara Jean in a good place.

Penric and the Shaman: a novella in the World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold (narrated by Grover Gardner): I like the stories about Penric and Desdemona; they're well-written and often amusing. This one is set a few years after the first book. Penric is assigned to a temple Locator, Oswyn, who is tracking a shaman accused of murder. (The story switches between these three male characters’ points of view. This POV switch caused a tiny moment of confusion whenever I resumed the story until I worked out whose POV I was in the middle of.) I liked how this connected to The Hallowed Hunt. I also enjoyed the eventual banter.

Snowspelled by Stephanie Burgis: Regency fantasy. Cassandra Harwood is the first - and only - woman to study magic at the Great Library but her magical career has ended with humiliating failure. At the insistence of her sister-in-law, Cassandra attends a house-party, and is promptly confronted with her ex-fiancé, her new limitations and a mystery about who is interfering with the weather. A funny novella with supportive family banter, a delightful romance and interesting dilemma. It is short and a little predictable, but that’s part of the appeal. I read this twice in row.

The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You by Lily Anderson: A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing set at a high school for geniuses. While Beatrice Watson’s best friends plot to acquire boyfriends, Trixie’s goal for her senior year is to overtake her nemesis, Ben West, in the class rankings. This is fun and geeky, full of references to the sci-fi and comics Trixie and her friends are big fans of. Familiarity with the plot of Much Ado means one can predict how Trixie and Ben’s relationship will change, but not how the scandal surrounding Trixie’s best friend will eventually unfold. I was impressed with how this was adapted.

#Herenya reviews books #Angela Thirkell #Stephanie Burgis #Lily Anderson #To All the Boys I've Loved Before #Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day #D.E. Stevenson #Madeleine L'Engle #Lois McMaster Bujold #the World of the Five Gods #Meagan Spooner #Far from the Madding Crowd #Laini Taylor

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ecotone99 · 5 years

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[NF] I was a surveyor for Hillcraven Gold Mine. I think there's people trapped in the tunnels.

It’s 2 a.m. I’m lying in bed, waiting for the day to start, so I can finally escape this nightmare.

Once dawn hits I’m jumping out of bed, running to the Ops Managers' office, and handing in my resignation. I'll explain to him that I can no longer work here, and thank him very much for the opportunity, but I’m seeking employment elsewhere. I’ll pack my bags and leave this place on the next bus out to town.

For the last five months I’ve been working at Hillcraven Gold Mine. It’s a relatively small operation, but one that's been going for over two hundred years. I’ve been working as it's surveyor, much to the dismay of my mother.

I was originally supposed to study and become a software developer. After passing high school and getting my degree (alongside the hundred other kids who had the same idea), I'd spend most of my days sitting behind a computer monitor, drinking copious amounts of coffee while typing code for hours on end.

Luckily for me, a few bad marks on my final report card prevented that catastrophe from ever happening.

As a result, I’ve become what is known as a ‘third generation miner’, as my dad likes to call it. He made his living as a mine surveyor, and his dad did as well. It was fate, really, that brought me to here.

The work is tough, but I’ve found that the mining culture and the routine of the work is extremely enjoyable. I've been living in a commune on-site with five other men, provided to me free of charge by the mine, eating meals at the cafeteria for pennies and only going in to town once a month for a whole week of drinking with my colleagues. The routine has created what I can only describe as a kinship between me and my coworkers. We eat the same food, work in the same conditions and sleep in the same house.

Every morning at 6:30 a.m. sharp, we wake up and make our beds, rubbing the sleep from our eyes and stretching out our stiff limbs. We walk out and join the other hundred people in the locker rooms. We open up our assigned lockers, get changed into our overalls and gumboots, grab our hard hats from the racks and make our way to the lamp room.

The lamp room is where you get the safety equipment required for going underground. The kit includes one battery-powered LED headlamp, which you attach to the top of your hard hat, an external battery pack that provides power to the lamp, which you thread through one side of your belt, and one small oxygen tank that you clip onto the other side of your belt.

So far no one has bothered to explain to me when I should use the oxygen tank, or even how, so I pray that I won’t have a need to know anytime soon.

Once you’re kitted out, you make your way to the mine shaft. The Shift Boss will be waiting outside the lift, with his ragged clipboard and leathery face. You give him your name, and tell him which tunnel you’re going to today, and he’ll make a note on his list. That way, they can see who’s missing at the end of the shift, and who shouldn’t have gone in in the first place.

The Shift Boss is also responsible for checking if you have the right equipment on. If you don’t, you can’t go in.

Got your hard hat? Check.

Headlamp working? Check.

Earplugs?

Check.

Last on his list is your boots. He’ll glance over his clipboard and give your gumboots a quick once-over, to make sure you have them on. Once he’s checked that off the list, he’ll give it a second check. If your gumboots have so much as a spot of dirt on them, he’ll raise his eyebrow at you and give you a chuckle.

“Been working the night shift, huh?” he’d ask.

All the fellow miners will laugh at that, having been asked the same question at some point.

“What?” I asked the first time it happened to me, my boots muddied and hard hat perched awkwardly on my head.

“Your boots. The only people who have a reasonable excuse to have dirty boots are the people who work the night shift.” He replied.

“But we don’t have a night shift?” I asked, slightly confused.

“Exactly. Make sure you keep your boots clean.” He replied, stepping aside to let me into the lift and looking back down at his list, checking off the next person’s name.

All the surveyors must also report to the survey office for a briefing on what parts of the mine you'll be surveying that day, as well as to fetch the equipment from lock-up. Since I’m the only surveyor on the mine besides Mark, I have to lug the near-10kg equipment by myself.

Mark is nearing eighty, has severe arthritis and spends his days in his office, looking over the mine plans and watering his beloved fern. He retired over ten years ago, hopping onto the solitary bus that takes you back to town once a week to live with his wife of fifty years. His plan was to spend his last good years with her, doing some gardening on the two-acre property that he brought in the 80’s, until he passed away, hopefully, in his sleep.

After spending a month living with her, though, he hopped right back on that bus and begged for his job back, deciding that he’d rather spend his last few years working away from home.

His duties mainly comprise of checking my work and updating the plans when necessary. On occasion, though, he’ll grace you with one of his many pieces of advice that he’s acquired through the years.

“Always keep both feet firmly on the ground while in the tunnels. Don’t wanna slip and fall.”, he’ll tell you as you pass him in the kitchen, or: “A sharp pencil is a sign of sharp work.”

One of his favorites though, that he never seems to grow tired of, is: “Always check your headlamp before you go down. It’s easy to get lost and without a torch, you’ll never make it back.”

I normally try to follow the advice he gives me. Most of it makes sense, and has actually helped me at times.

Thanks to him I always check my lamp before going down. I mostly just give it a cursory click-on and click-off while the lift takes me down to the right level.

Yesterday I was working alone in one of the quieter parts of the mine. It was an old shaft that they were looking at expanding, and it was my job to make sure they knew where they were going. While I was setting up the equipment, I stepped on something soft.

I picked up my foot.

It was lying on the floor, half-buried by the dust and debris.

A small pocketbook.

Curious, I dug it out and dusted it off.

“Survey Report - Mark Whittel.” it said on the front, in neat block letters. It was bound by a green leather cover, slightly scuffed and warped from sitting in someone’s back pocket.

I chuckled to myself as I picked it up. He must have lost this back in his heyday, when he was still making his rounds. I thought it would be funny to show it to him, take a look through his old notes and laugh at how he lost it.

I slipped it into my pocket and carried on with the job, forgetting about it almost immediately. Once closing came I went back up the lift, locked up the survey equipment and said goodnight to Mark. I handed in the headlamp and oxygen tank and went to the locker room.

It was there that I remembered it, as I was changing into my normal clothes. By that point Mark was most likely asleep, so I’d have to show it to him the next day.

My colleagues and I ate dinner in the cafeteria, playing a round or two of poker before ultimately moving back to the dorm. As I lay in bed, winding down and getting ready to sleep, I decided to take a look through the pocketbook. Just out of curiosity.

The first few pages were just random personal notes on things to remember, as well as some drawings of different tunnels, all of them labeled. I laughed at a few of them, the contrast between the old man Mark I know and the young man Mark in this book was startling.

After a few more pages, though, something caught my eye. A note was written across the page:

“If you’re reading this, please send help. I’m trapped down here with no idea how to get out.”

I almost choked laughing at that. The Mark I know could probably navigate those tunnels with his eyes closed, there’s no way he’d lose the exit. He must have been very young.

I couldn’t wait to show him this. We’ll go through it together, most likely in tears thinking about Young Mark lost in the tunnels. Getting found by a group of miners who probably never let him hear the end of it.

I turn the page and carry on reading. This time the page is full of text. He’s numbered the date at the top.

“Day 6”

“It’s been almost a week since I came down here, and none of the tunnels seem familiar. I’ve been walking upwards for what seems like hours now, with no signs of me getting closer to the surface.”

“I was surveying tunnel B2L when my headlamp turned off. I stood there frozen for a second, the darkness causing my muscles to seize up. I reached for its switch, flicking it off and then back on. The light flicked back on, luckily, but that was the least of my problems.”

I turned the page.

“For a moment I couldn’t believe what had happened. I wasn’t in the same tunnel.”

I re-read that line again, slightly confused. Did he mean that he somehow accidentally wandered into a different tunnel? Or was he just magically teleported to a different part of the mine?

I’ll have to ask him tomorrow.

“I wandered around for a while, calling out, hoping someone would hear me and tell me which section I was in. My equipment was missing as well, most likely left behind when I was taken here.”

“After what felt like hours, I heard noises. What sounded like people digging further in. I made my way towards it, still calling out, until I heard them stop and call back to me.”

“I’ve been working here for over ten years. I started as an ordinary miner, rubbing shoulders with everyone at some point, before getting promoted to Chief Surveyor.”

“In all that time, I have never met these men.”

I turned the page again.

“Day 9.”

“These men have a wild desperation about them. Some just keep hammering against the wall, ripping chunks out of it with wild abandon for days on end. Some just sit idle, making small talk or just staring at the wall.”

“They told me that there’s no way back up, as far as they’ve seen. At some point they worked on the mine and their lamps did the same thing as mine. When they turned back on, they found themselves here, just like I did.”

The next few pages are filled with what looks like scribbles drawn inside a grid. They all start in the center square and stretch out until meeting back in the middle, hundreds of little strands stretching across the pages,

After awhile, I realized that they were maps.

“Day 10.”

“They call this ‘night shift’, due to the fact that all their watches stick at 2 a.m. sharp. Mine’s been reading the same thing since I got here. When I asked them why they were digging, they explained that no matter how far up or down you go, you end up back here anyways. So they decided to go sideways.”

“I’ve been here a week, and to me that sounds like a reasonable choice. Some of these guys have been here for years.”

“Since I got to night shift, I haven’t felt the need to eat or drink. Sleep hardly comes and almost seems to be more out of habit when it does. I’ve spent the week mapping out the tunnel system, there are hundreds of offshoots that all seem to end up at the same spot, no matter how irrational it is.”

“Day 11.”

“I think I’ve finally found something. A small stress seam at the end of a dead-end tunnel. It stretches from the floor to ceiling and is just wide enough to stick my pinkie through. I can feel air coming from it, a soft, erratic breeze that must come from outside.”

“I’m turning back and finding the other guys to help me dig. This could be the way out.”

The next few pages were full of sketches of the tunnel wall. He labeled where the stress seam is, as well as the optimal spots to dig it out.

I flipped through them until I found another page full of text. This time, it looks like it was written with a shaky hand.

There’s no date on the top.

“They haven’t stopped chasing me since we let them out. As far as I can tell I’m the only one left alive. They were waiting on the other side for someone to break the seam.”

“They look just like us. Same faces, same clothes, same everything.”

“I’ve been hiding but I think they’ve found me. I can hear them coming, they have good sense of smell. I can hear them sniffing-”

The rest of the pages are blank.

I turned off my torch and placed the pocketbook on my nightstand. As I turned on my side, something caught my eye.

Fred was lying in his bed, his head turned towards me.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck rising. He's been staring at me, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open. My heart beat faster as I realized he hadn't blinked.

I turned away from him, my insides going cold as I fought down my paranoia. I shut my eyes.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm myself down.

As I opened my mouth to take another, I felt someone breathing on the back of my neck.

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