Currently about half way through Norman Davies’ Europe: A History, which is good, although the scope of the work necessitates a lack of detail that can, at times, be frustrating.

I think the omens were there with the Lupin/Tonks. Jesus, that was some unconvincing random heterosexuality. I still maintain he only fancied her because she could turn herself into a bloke.

Okay, I’ll stop being a geek now.

I’ve just finished re-reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie - I think it might be his only book for children), which I read a lot when I was little; of course, the re-read shows up the political subtext that went over my head the first time around.

And I have, indeed, just finished Harry Potter, and am quietly annoyed (but sadly unsurprised) that ten years of reassuring queer subtext have all concluded with the Epilogue of Depressing Heteronormativity.

Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother and Spirit Walker - similar to Harry Potter in many ways (special orphan kid, talking to animals, destined to fight an earlier generation’s Big Bad, etc) but much more inventive and frankly a lot better. And her worldbuilding’s excellent, with a really fascinating religious system that fits very well with the plot. I’m gonna be recommending it to kids at the library this summer, particularly the ones who’re all “There is no more Harry Potter I will never look at the written word again”. They’re actually shelved as children’s storybooks in the library where I work, which I wouldn’t dispute, but damn, they’re good. She tells the story and creates the world in this really simple, straightforward way, and it works.

Just finished re-reading Lian Hearn’s Harsh Cry of the Heron, the fourth book in her Tales of the Otori series, set sixteen years after the first three. In which she basically says “happy ending? Were you not paying attention to the first three? Your favourite characters didn’t make it out of the first book alive! This is based on feudal Japan. There is honor and betrayal and duty and shifting alliances and lots of ritual suicide. I rip out your heart and stomp on it now. For six hundred pages.” Tales of the Otori is another series I push at kids in the library. And hopefully none of their parents will go “Oi, you recommended my kid a book with shagging and assassination and warfare and hara-kiri, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?!” Hearn needs to bring out the promised prequel before my head explodes.

I’ve also been re-reading Ryan Gattis’ Kung-Fu High School, and my partner enjoyed it, even though she really doesn’t like much violence. It’s a kung-fu movie, in the form of a Robert-Cormier-style teen novel. The enormous multi-person Big Boss showdown at the end takes over a hundred pages. You wouldn’t think that’d work, but it does, wonderfully. I think it helps if you a) like kung-fu movies (my housemate got me hooked) and b) would’ve quite liked to have just sorted out secondary-school misery with cathartic violence. But it is good. The sheer quality of writing… I’ve quoted a bit of it here.

Um, sorry. Turns out I can ramble on about books for ages. And this isn’t the geekiest I can get, either.

Next, I plan to finally get round to reading Zadie Smith’s On Beauty.

I might pick up that Harry Potter Book at some point to find out how it ends, although I’m inclined to wait for the paperback.

I recently read and enjoyed Jeffrey Eugenides’ book “Middlesex”. Lots of pretentious moments, but nowhere near so bad as “The Virgin Suicides”, and gripping overall. Also “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer. More good fiction. Once the irritation of a 9 year old narrator passes, it’s very good.

Been reading a lot of Holocaust stuff recently, fiction, memoirs and studies. “The Pianist”, the book from which the film was made, is very interesting and horrifying stuff. “Schindler’s Ark” was decent and worthwhile, but not so affecting. I’ve not finished “The Reader” yet, but that’s meant to be very good as well. Also looking at a book about the Yiddish community in Europe, which looks to be shaping up as something interesting.

Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” was, I thought, very good (though others have disagreed), but I’ve worked my way through a few others of his recently and found them rather thematically repetitive and dull, so maybe I was wrong about that too.

So… read stuff about Jews, Americans, atrocities and the gender-confused and you’ll probably be fine.