Reviewing the Mail: Week of January 20, 2023

This is the back half of the books from the same box as last week; I'm not going to repeat myself.

Big Sky is a novel by Kate Atkinson, in her loose series about detective Jackson Brodie. It came out in 2019, and I'm not sure how many Brodie novels preceded it - I read Case Histories and One Good Turn a decade ago, and have (I think) two more on the shelf to read, but I could have missed some in the middle as well. I want to read more Atkinson, and bought this one even though the books of hers I probably will read next are already on my shelf. That's a recommendation of a kind, I think.

Highfire is an adult fantasy novel by Eoin Colfer, best known for the very popular Artemis Fowl series for younger readers. I think the other Colfer book I've ever tried to read was And Another Thing..., his licensed extension of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker books - I read about a third of it, realized it was never going to turn into a new book by Douglas Adams, and put it down. But I though Colfer was good at what he did, and figured I'd come back at some point for one of his own plots - I guess now, a decade later, with this book about a dragon in a Louisiana swamp, I'm doing that.

Dirty Pictures is a history of underground comics by Brian Doherty, with one of those non-fiction explain-the-whole-book-and-take-up-the-whole-cover kind of subtitles: "How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Revolutionized Art and Invented Comix." I've had it on lists of books to look for, probably since it was published in 2022, so now it can sit on a shelf and maybe I'll even read it.

Out of Body is a novella by fantasist Jeffrey Ford from 2020. I recently read a Ford book that had been sitting on my self for a long time, which got me thinking about what a great writer he is...and so now I have something else to read. This one seems to be somewhere in the loose territory of dream-story, horror, and thriller.

I had a K.J. Parker book in the list last week; I also have a book from his alter ego (and real name, I think) Tom Holt: When It's a Jar. Holt's books under his own name are generally humorous fantasy, while the Parker books are darker and often have subtler fantasy elements. I read a Holt book or two what feels like a million years ago, but not since then - probably his first book, Expecting Someone Taller, which a lot of us read in the '80s. (Holt is British, and my sense is that his career as Holt fizzed along just fine in his native UK but sputtered a bit after his first few books in the US, and various publishers have since tried to re-invigorate it.) Anyway, I haven't read a "Tom Holt" book for a long time; this one was available, cheap, and standalone. I think it's somewhat funny; I'm pretty sure it's contemporary; I'm not sure what the plot is about but the back cover says the main character just killed a dragon with a bread knife.

Blood Grove was the new book in Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" detective series for 2021. Mosley is frighteningly prolific, but also hugely varied - I've read his books off-and-on, getting further and further behind every year. I read the first half-dozen Easy mysteries as they came out - back in the '90s, when I was reading mysteries by the fistful - but I'm at least that far behind now. Maybe I'll just read this one, and then look to fill in the gap.

And last is the random token classic: Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell. My sense is that it's very uncharacteristic, but it's short, it's by Orwell, and it was cheap - so what the hell. You can't read a book if it's not on the shelf. (That's not the cover on the book I have: I have some cheapie edition printed in India, probably because this is out of copyright, but I'm assuming/hoping the text is the text.)