Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Back in the saddle

Back in the saddle. Well, actually that came to be a little while back, but after a longer than usual summer vacation the adjusting to the working schedule and projects took a little longer as well. Nonetheless all is good and settled now, meaning that a return to the blogging schedule is to be expected. Again I made some poor choices with my summer readings and that led to a reconsideration of the selection process once more. I am afraid that my free time doesn’t leave too much room for disappointing readings. In a way I miss the childhood years when I stopped going with a book as soon as it didn’t work for me, nowadays I struggle beyond that point against my better judgment. Still, Sofia Samatar’s “A Stranger in Olondria” compensated all those poor choices made on holiday and its review together with a couple more should be ready as soon as I manage to sit down and write them. So I’ll be around this space again.
How was your end of summer? Did you get any good moments and memories? Any good books?

3 comments:

ediFanoB said...

Dear Mihai,
welcome back. My summer wasfull of work with less time for reading and blogging and nearly no time for reviews. Fortunately now I have some days off - kind auf autumn holiday- which I used for reading.
I enjoyed several steampunk books like
SHERLOCK HOLMES THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES by James Lovegrove, THE EXECUTIONER'S HEART by George Mann, GIDEON SMITH AND THE MECHANICAL GIRL by David Barnett,
Furthermore I enjoyed the blend of fantasy and historical fiction GALLOW: THE CRIMSON SHIELD by Nathan Hawke;sci-fi CASSASTORM by Alex J. Cavanaugh whicht is the third and final CASSA book.
Anyway I can recommend two of my current reads:
epic fantasy THE THOUSAND NAMES by Django Wexler; time travel BLACKOUT by Connie Willis.

I must say I have been lucky with the books I chose to read. There was only one which has been good but nothing for my taste: AURORARAMA by Jean-Christophe Valtat.


Anonymous said...

"The Devil All the Time" was pretty darn good, as was "Name of the Wind" (yea I'm a bit behind the trend).

But, I really had a great time going back to good old Ray Bradbury and reading "Something Wicked this Way Comes." The way he writes is just so un-self-conscious and fun, it reminded me of the simple joy of reading.

Mihai A. said...

Work tends to keep us busy, isn't it Michael? I still manage to read though, not as much as before but I am happy with it. "Gallow" and "The Thousand Names" are on my reading list too and hopefully I'll get to them until the end of the year. I had a couple of steampunk books read over the summer but I guess this genre is not exactly for me. They didn't work as well as I hoped they would. Well, it was not exactly my genre before either. :)

Jeff, I had "The Devil All the Time" on my reading list ever since it was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award last year. Unfortunately I didn't get around to read yet. That needs to be corrected. And both "The Name of the Wind" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes" are two of my favorites. Wonderful books. :)