FF: Weighted Toward Non-Fiction

Mei-Ling And Kwahe’e Share Memories

This week is a mix, but weighted toward non-fiction.  I think it’s about time for a fiction binge…

The Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

And I’m always interested in what you have to recommend!  No unreliable narrators, please!

Recently Completed:

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles by Clamp.  Manga.  Issues 23-28.  Complex story, perhaps one of the few I’ve read in any form that tries to deal with the consequences of precognition when there is more than one with the ability, and everyone involved has different goals.  Ambitious, so not completely successful, but I admire the ambition.

Esteban by Dennis Herrick.  This non-fiction text takes a look at one of the most important yet consistently under-represented figures in the history of the Spanish incursion into the American west. Despite occasional forays into “narrative non-fiction,” which is a form I personally dislike, I enjoyed this book.

In Progress:

The Bends In The Road: A Memoir by Svenn Lindskold.  Svenn is my great-uncle, half-brother of my paternal grandfather, a relative I met only after I was an adult, but whom I’ve come to really like.

Caesar and Christ by Will Durant.  Audiobook.  We’ve finished with Jesus and the early church, and are now back to a rapidly decaying Roman empire.

Also:

A bunch of shorter stuff, including the latest American Archeology that may get a letter from me regarding inconstant terminology in one article.  Where were their editors?