Steven Brust, Brokedown Palace and Five Hundred Years After. Two very different books about the collapses of governments, both excellent reads.
Frances Hogdson Burnett, The White People. (No, it’s not a book about Caucasians.) I’m aware that authors may profess views in their works that they don’t actually hold in real life, but there’s themes that show up so consistently in Burnett’s works that I’d be completely unsurprised to find that she held them, or that she aspired to hold them. Death as gateway to new life rather than a final end; the presence of God, there for anyone who chooses to be aware of It; the “Magic that never quite lets the worst thing happen”…. It’s not just in The Secret Garden or A Little Princess; it’s everywhere.
John Scalzi, Old Man’s War. A good quick read. There were gruesome events, but these were either telegraphed far enough in advance that I could skim, or else the details were vague enough that they aren’t still echoing in my head (although I will never look at slime molds in the same way again). I enjoyed it enough that I’ll track down The Ghost Brigades later.
Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Midwinter. The first in a series of mysteries featuring two people in a small upstate New York town, the chief of police and an Episcopal priest. I like Russ and Clare very much, and I’m looking forward to reading more about them. (I’m also hoping that we finally get to meet Russ’s wife Linda on page.)
Zander and Zander, The Art of the Possible. An interesting book on switching from scarcity thinking to possibility thinking, though several of the techniques aren’t going to work for me as presented. I hate discussing feelings and emotions, partially because I’m intensely private (no, actually, I don’t have a deep urge to be Known and Understood), and partially because in my experience, discussing feelings and emotions tends to become a substitute for action. After a while, I started skimming the little testimonials because I’m not interested in knowing that much about the emotional states of strangers.