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Sten

I did an end of year book list last year, and I really liked having to reflect about what books I'd read, and how I felt about them.

It felt a bit rushed though, so I'm trying something different this year, and making a post every day until Christmas about a book I've read and enjoyed

Follow to collect them all

#Bookstodon
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Day 1:

One of my favourite reads of 2021 was Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. We follow an unnamed narrator as she moves from being paid companion, to marrying a wealthy widower and becoming mistress of a country house. She's shy and diffident, and the house seems haunted by the echo of the late Rebecca, who died the year before.

I loved the overwrought opening, and I loved the mood of the whole story. And I'm definitely on team Rebecca - nobody deserves what happened to her

The cover of the book Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. The background color of the cover is black Centered at the top, we see the image of a woman seen from above, looking down. The perspective means that her face isn't visible at all, but we can see that her hair has been done, and she's wearing a necklace. She's holding her hand up to her shoulder in a slightly awkward pose The image is all bright lights and dark shadows, and seems uncanny and unsettling.
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Day 2: The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

We follow a bunch of children as they grow up in the Library under the care of the Master. Or rather, that's what we learn about: the book opens just after the Master's disappearance, with the kids locked out of the Library and trying to figure out what's going on.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the mix of horror and the absurd. The slow reveal of what was going on and many flashbacks also worked really well.

The cover for The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. The cover shows a stack of papers with a hole burned right through them. In the hole, the silhouette of a lit-up house is visible against the background of an eerie glow in the sky
#Bookstodon
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Day 3: The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper

A story of Rome focusing on the role of climate and disease in its fate, and how they constrained its course of development

The book covers three pandemics and a few climate shifts, as well as many smaller outbreaks, and is as a great example of how to use science in history writing. Harper introduces a lot of objective evidence, and is very good at showing both where it points, and explaining the things we do not know.

The cover of the book "The Fate of Rome" by Kyle Harper. On a bright red background is a laurel wreath; the roman symbol of victory. The wreath has started losing its leaves, and they're falling down the rest of the page
#Bookstodon
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Day 4: I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal

We follow a waiter in Czechia in the years around WWII. At first, he is works at a provincial hotel, then becomes head waiter at a Prague hotel, buys his own hotel, and finally is exiled

It has Hrabal's mix of earnest and absurd, but most of all an intense humanity shines through. The scenes with the Nazis show the earnestness, and the narrator's wish to be imprisoned as a millionaire hits the height of absurdity

The Czech first edition cover of the book "I Served the King of England" by Bohumil Hrabal. On a dark backround. across the top, the author's name is written, and below that the title in Czech. Blow that is a white rectangle, superimposed on which is a tilted card, show the head and shoulders of a young boy, pointing to the bottom left. The boy is wearing a blue cap, and a shirt in the same colour, and probably represents the main character of the book
#Bookstodon
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Day 5: The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull

The book is set on the US Virgin Islands, in the days and years around an alien landing. We discover that the alien ambassador to humanity has lived on Earth for centuries, and we see flashbacks to the colonisation of the islands, and the slave society which was established.

I really liked the scope of the story and I felt that the themes of the book worked well. The description of the setting was vivid and I liked the ending

The cover of the book "The Lesson" by Caldwell Turnbull. The title and author in bold red text cover almost the entire page. Behind them, in the very t centre of the page is a weird conch shape, from which many tentacles snake their way out to the borders of the page in all directions.
Sten

As a first contact story, the book has echoes of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, but thematically it's much closer to some of Octavia E Butler's work, in particular her Lilith's Brood series, but also Kindred

#Bookstodon
Dec 05, 2023, 04:45 PM·Public
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