Tag: books read 2014

Books I Read in 2014

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Well, I’m not quite a month late, but almost. Here’s the list of all the books I read in 2014. I’m not writing about magazines, because I’m 99% sure nobody reading this blog cares about that stuff. Heck, I’m not even convinced anyone’s interested in this kind of bookkeping/tabulation stuff, though I’m going to kick it off with a list of my top thirteen books of the year. Why top thirteen? Because… well, why should it be only ten? Here are the thirteen books I read in 2014 that I enjoyed most: 1. Blindsight by Peter Watts. Why in the hell did I wait so long? Usually,  when a …

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November-December Books

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It looks like it’s been slower around here than it actually has been, in terms of books: I’ve just been reading some big ones, is all. I’ll put ’em beneath the cut, to save space.

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Phadaeng Nang Ai, Translated by Wajuppa Tossa

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I came to Wajuppa Tossa’s translation of Phadaeng Nang Ai via Bryan Thao Worra’s Demonstra (discussed here, more info here–and it’s even discounted right now, and $7 is a steal!), where it’s mentioned in passing (in an appendix, I think). What got me curious about it (after I looked it up) was the impression I got that it’s basically an epic about a love triangle involving humans and nagas. Not that Worra’s book was my introduction to nagas, of course. AD&D, Indian movies,  and travel in Southeast Asia had previously exposed me to various versions of nagas, from these: … to this film that the inimitable Ritu Chaudhry showed me during …

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Hidden Treasures…

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Having just finished Jim Baker’s The Cunning Man’s Handbook (which I discussed earlier here, and mentioned in passing here: it’s a big book, so I’d been reading it for a while now) I can say that big chunks of history suddenly make a lot more sense to me. For one thing, the constant fascination with hidden treasure. Basically, a lot of people seemed to think of the world as if it were some kind of Monty Haul D&D campaign: at least in the English speaking world, the idea that there were hidden caches of treasure everywhere was bizarrely common, to the point where treasure hunting was a significant part of …

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Recent Books

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I’ve been reading a fair bit this year, as far as my standards go. More than usual, anyway. This is everything so far, though, of course, a few of those I gave up on and didn’t finish: I’ve been feeling a little disappointed lately in how so much of the SFF world online is so busy talking about scandals and outrages that we never seem to talk about the books anymore. Short stories, too, but, well, that’s for another post. So I figured: do my bit. Post about what I’ve read lately. Part of why I stopped was because–on some very bad …

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