February was a cold, snowy month in Montreal with icy sidewalks and lots of blizzards. I was at home most of the month and didn’t go out much. I was teaching my online history of SF course, and writing, and then at the very end of the month I flew to Florence. I read seventeen books, a mixed lot, but some of them were outstanding.
The Fall of Gondolin, J.R.R. Tolkien (2018)
Fragments of the story of Tuor, extremely unfinished and contradictory, with only flashes of what one might want to read Tolkien for. I did not enjoy this much and can’t recommend it; the Túrin one is the only one that really felt worthwhile of these patchwork books.
Coming Home, Rosamund Pilcher (1975)
You start a book in the 1930s with a girl going to boarding school while her parents go back to Singapore and you know to brace yourself if you know any history at all. This was great. I had it for ages unread because it was long, and the last long Pilcher I read was meandering, but this one really worked—I could immerse myself and care about the characters and their fates.
This is a book with lots of history seen close up in human lives. The main love story has a fifteen-year age gap between the characters, but this is women’s fiction, not romance, so it doesn’t take up too much space on the page. I really liked some of the other things Pilcher was doing here. Content warnings for sexual abuse, but dealt with as well as possible in 1975, right at the beginning of being frank about these things in fiction. Period racism of the “non-white characters are just scenery” kind. I’m getting sadly low on unread Pilcher.
What Are Big Girls Made Of? Marge Piercy (1997)
Re-read. Terrific poetry collection by Piercy on the top of her form, covering her favourite subjects of politics, nature, sex, love, family in an insightful way. I love the way she puts things, the shining images she captures. Worth reading if you like twentieth-century poetry at all.
The Hanging Tree, Ben Aaronovitch (2018)
This one was really great, focus on Tyburn, don’t start here. I don’t think there’s anything else I can say. I am enjoying this urban fantasy series, the characters and ongoing story are excellent, begin at the beginning.
Under a Sicilian Sky, Lisa Hobman (2021)
Gah. I want my money back, this claimed to be a romance novel set in Italy but in fact the vast majority of it was set in Scotland, and in Italy she barely left the villa. Nor was anything else about the book enough to make up for it. Misleading title and cover to say the least.
The Last Slice of Rainbow and Other Stories, Joan Aiken (1975)
Joan Aiken’s short stories for children are a delight, and I was thrilled to see this volume available for Kindle and grabbed it. These are little whimsical fantasy stories full of surprises and strange charm. Definitely intended for fairly young children, but thoroughly enjoyable by anyone.
Love in a Mist, Susan Scarlett (Noel Streatfeild) (1944)
Re-read. This is the book where an American mother married to a British man and living in England is made fun of by the text for believing in Freudian analysis, but the English character thinks the child could have “an ordinary inferiority complex.” Psychology, we have come a long way. Mental health issues, we have come a long way. This was certainly an odd moment. Nevertheless, a fascinating read. It’s really about three brothers married to three very different women, plus their parents and children, and how the grandmother manipulates everyone for their own good—and because the author is on her side, it really is.
Arion and the Dolphin, Vikram Seth (1994)
The libretto for an opera that works well as standalone poetry, but not quite as good as Seth’s poetry that’s written as poetry. This is very short and I raced through it.
Ocean’s Echo, Everina Maxwell (2022)
Sequel to a book I haven’t read, but said to be standing alone, which I’d say it did. Space opera that’s very, very good at some things and oddly lacking in others. The characters and the intensity of their interaction were splendid and drew me in at once, the plot is somewhat implausible and overwrought, but in a way that’s more a feature than a bug, but the worldbuilding just didn’t make sense on close examination, and that was disappointing. I will not read the prequel or other books in this universe, but will look out for whatever she writes that is in a different setting that might hold together better for me. My main problem with this was when I found out this world of “architects,” “readers,” and “neutrals” had only been that way for twenty years—that’s just not long enough for a culture to get shaped this way, and my suspension of disbelief evaporated.
Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other, James Aldred (2021)
Aldred is a nature photographer, and he had permission to film goshawks on the nest starting in March 2020, so that’s what he did. The book is a diary of the wildlife, the unfolding pandemic, natural history going on at multiple levels, reflections on the environment and human impact on it, in a place where the author grew up but can’t afford to live. Beautifully written and compelling. I loved this.
Shopaholic and Baby, Sophie Kinsella (2007)
The pregnancy of Becky Brandon, in which she does not confront her hoarding problem or her debt problem but does have a baby. Definitely start the series at the beginning. I don’t like Becky as much as I like most of Kinsella’s characters, but I’ve read all her non-Shopaholic books now. Bits of this were fun.
The Intellectual World of the Italian Renaissance, Christopher Celenza (2021)
This was so great, really; this was insightful and excellent and went from Petrarch right through, with excellent chapters on Poggio and Ficino, and really made me feel the changing angle through time. Readable and fascinating, I think it would be approachable by anyone. A really excellent read.
The Unfinished Clue, Georgette Heyer (1934)
Detective novel in which the identity of the person to be murdered was so obvious from so early on that I had more suspense about when it would happen than about who would do it. Heyer’s detective stories are slightly ponderous and nothing like as good as her Regencies, and never as good as Tey or Sayers, but when I haven’t read them before, so they have the virtue of being new to me.
The Hands of the Emperor, Victoria Goddard (2019)
Recommended to me by a friend who said it was ineluctably Canadian because it held “peace, order, and good government” to be virtues. This seemed so unusual in a fantasy novel (or any genre novel, really) that I picked it up. It’s long. Very long. And it’s good, and indeed, this is a rare book where government is a good thing. It’s also about friendship, and holding on to minority culture. It has a health service and UBI and yes, in a fantasy world with magic and an interestingly odd tech level, and a huge complex fantasy world. It’s not perfect, there are certainly parts of it that could have been tightened up, but on the whole this is a very good book that one can sink into and enjoy. The world needs more things like this. If you liked the kindness and quiet fixing things elements of Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, try this. And if you’re interested in political SF and thought-provoking social experiment SF, then definitely read it.
The Italian Fiancé, Victoria Springfield (2021)
A proper romance novel set in Italy! And this one had bonus aunt and nieces all finding love, and a side story about someone discovering her dead grandmother’s romance. Very enjoyable and fun.
John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-Century Italy, William Caferro (2006)
Did you know one of Edward III’s sons married the daughter of the duke of Milan, and Petrarch and Chaucer met at their wedding feast and John Hawkwood, mercenary, was also there? This is the biography of a mercenary captain, and contains many, many wars, which is a little tedious, but the beginning discussing the general situation of mercenaries in the period, the economics, and the social context, and the odd asides that happened in his life, make it worth slogging through the battles and complexities of politics.
Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome (1930)
Re-read; I read it and reread it over and over as a child. The whole series is now available for the Kindle, and they’re good comfort reads. This is a book about two boys and four girls sailing two boats on Coniston in the Lake District. All the children are characterised well. The messing about in boats is great, the adventures are small-scale but adventurous. There is so much here that is still so good.
The colonialism and period racism, while very mild for the period, does really demonstrate how much everyone was soaking in it. The children play, in Cumbria in 1930, that they are explorers and pirates, and that the (white, local) population including their mother and baby sister are “natives” and “savages.” They did not mean to be unkind. They just found that a fun way of playing they were seeing the world, in a world where this was OK. If giving this children’s book to children, which there are many good reasons to do—not least that it’s a deeply readable, quietly feminist story about children being competent and independent—it might be a good idea to talk to them about this kind of thing first.
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published two collections of Tor.com pieces, three poetry collections, a short story collection and fifteen novels, including the Hugo- and Nebula-winning Among Others. Her novel Lent was published by Tor in May 2019, and her most recent novel, Or What You Will, was released in July 2020. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here irregularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal. She plans to live to be 99 and write a book every year.
