#landwriter's prev tags: tamora pierce

[that-banhus]

Ten Books To Know Me

Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.

Tagged by @landwriter​, whose list I am pillaging for reading tips. In no particular order: 

Paladin of Souls - Lois Bujold. Cordelia Naismith is still my favourite of her characters, but the World of the Five Gods series is so kind. Bujold does religion better than anyone, and in a deeply humanist way. The exact inverse experience of reading Maria Russell’s The Sparrow, though both are phenomenal. 

Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges. The short story collection version of someone leaning in and going “would you like to hear a fucked up thought about set theory? No? Time?”

Watership Down - Richard Adams.

I was (understandably, I think) leery of books with rabbits after my Mom insisted that the first time I’d broken down sobbing over The Velveteen Rabbit was a fluke, and I’d misunderstood the point of the book, and then tried reading it to me another two times. I cried every time. HER point is that the bunny became real at the end, so it’s a happy book. MY point is that to the boy, the bunny was real the whole time, and that from his point of view it was essentially one of those horribly moralising 19th century fairy tales where the main character’s best friend dies horribly half way through but they go to Heaven so you’re expected to be happy about it. Except in this case, they’re burned alive. Watership Down was the runner-up for most traumatic childhood book about bunnies, but it made no bones about what it was. It knew when it was being brutal, and did it on purpose and well, and I love it still. It also was one of several deeply formative books for introducing me to my favourite trope: stories-in-stories.

The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien. Yes, I know, everyone’s favourite, etc etc. Still, I read it young enough to sort of grow up along it as a trellis. I can’t put any of my favourite medieval works on this list per the rules, but Tolkien’s the reason I could read them as an adult and go oh, but you’re familiar. Also, the older I get, the more the whole ‘no kindness is ever wasted’ element makes me verklempt. 

Jackalope Wives - T. Kingfisher. I know, it’s not a book, but you’ll forgive me for that once you’ve read it, for free, right here: https://apex-magazine.com/short-fiction/jackalope-wives/

How good was that? Right?

Gaudy Night - Dorothy L. Sayers. I’ve never related to anything or anyone more than Harriet Vane as I read this, belly down on the grass in the Oxford botanical gardens this summer, in the middle of having a Bad Fucking Time romantically. Sayers’ characters are complicated and human, a little too smart for their own good sometimes, and prone to self-sabotage and overthinking. This book is so profoundly good at capturing the absurdities of love, and the negotiations of self that requires, while still being very tender about the whole thing.

American Gods - Neil Gaiman. I’ve never been in the US for longer than three months at a stretch since I was three, and growing up, it was largely mythological to me. America was Where Stories Happen. I read Stardust first, and possibly like Good Omens best of Gaiman’s, but American Gods put words to a lot of the experience of looking at the US from a one-foot-in-the-door-one-foot-out perspective.   

Caedmon - Denise Levertov. Once again cheating, this time it’s a poem:

http://www.southernhumanitiesreview.com/denise-levertov-caedmon.html

I’m also a tremendously basic poetry person in terms of liking Donne, Blake and Eliot. Mmm, weird feelings about God and/or WWI.

The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver. Possibly my favourite ending in anything I’ve read ever? I can’t say anything concrete without spoiling it, but the book starts out big, and then, at the end, gets narrower, and narrower down to a fine point, and - look, it’s very good. It has opinions about how we tell stories. The Bean Trees is also very good, though it’s been near a decade since I read that one, and I remember it less.

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley. Look, it has stories within stories, and a big, gothic, sweep of thought and emotion. It feels big, and deep, and bigger and deeper every time I go back.

Special mention because almost everyone who follows me is into Sandman: Doomsday Book - Connie Willis.

Would you like to CRY about the middle ages, and how people were people always and how no kindness is wasted? I bet you would. Maybe only read this if you’re feeling stable about pandemics again, though. I’m giving it another few months personally before going back.

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I am, as usual, a tiny bit late to the tagging game and have lost track of who’s already been tagged. HOWEVER, I have a bunch of lovely amazing mutuals and new followers and if you want, please consider yourself tagged (that way I can also see who’s interested in maybe being tagged in the future, and get to know you better?)

#special mentions to half a dozen exceptional sci-fi/fantasy series i had to cut #Le Guin's left hand of Darkness #Ann leckie's ancillary justice #and Seth Dickinson's traitor Baru cormorant #particularly #also #landwriter's prev tags: tamora pierce #tiny six year old me spent SO MUCH TIME hitting things with sticks pretending to be a knight