Solitaire Book Club: Eversion

Eversion by Alastair Reynolds. This is a solid sci-fi adventure and then some. The reader moves through a succession of adventures in seemingly separate eras and milieus, each one echoing the others in theme but differing in detail, until an underlying truth is revealed and the real story can begin. Reynolds's prose is both engaging in and of itself as storytelling and also fashioned into an intricate structure that both conceals and reveals the underlying narrative. If ever the term page-turner applied to a novel, it fits here. I couldn't put it down and cannot recommend it ti highly enough.

I will be looking for Reynolds's other work.

Solitaire Book Club: The Bartender's Cure

The Bartender's Cure by Wesley Straton. This is a story of young woman, Sam, overcoming personal challenges and finding her way through life as she works as a bartender in hipster Brooklyn. If I were to pursue some Aristotelian categorization of this book, I would waver between calling it popular fiction or a literary novel. Straton uses an engaging conceit: each chapter begins with a drink recipe, and the character development and plot itself both progress in a way reflecting the drink and the story behind it, which we learn about along with Sam as she becomes more proficient behind the bar. The device never seems forced or awkward, so enmeshed are Sam's personal and professional growth; we move with her on her journey in a fully realized context, deep in the milieu she is moving through.

I have spoken before of my negative response to authors who eschew quotation marks; Straton has busted that bias wide open. Sam tells us a lot directly, addressing the reader as if relating an anecdote to someone at the bar; when she narrates a conversation, she tells us (the reader) what she is thinking, and then in the next instant we realize that it is what she has said aloud to her companion. The immediacy of the story-telling is sustained for the whole novel and it works.

Straton has not only created an engaging character and a story that carries us along, but she demonstrates a deep talent for the craft of writing. I will be looking for her other work.

Honored more in the breach

So, I was feeling a bit obligated to run a birthday post this morning, having the sense that it was a bit of a tradition, but when I went looking for actual evidence to confirm that, I found that I have done a birthday-centric post only in 6 of the prior 14 years.  Doing something 43% of the time is certainly considerable but it by no means qualifies as institutionalization. Nonetheless, I am here now, so I might as well get on with it.

Most of the burthday fuss came, of course, from Coco, who, even though she is recovering from the Covid and was at her first day back at her internship after missing a week, wanted to make cure the occasion was marked. 

Kicking off with the official commemorative photo (above), the day was marked with a Zoom call with family and phone calls with friends and texts with all kinds of folks and a bike ride to get some art supplies.

After Coco was finished for the day, we headed to Canada for dinner but a big accident on I-5 put the kibosh on that plan. I jumped off the freeway just before getting trapped in the backup and we had a wonderful dinner on our own local waterfront, during which Coco showered me with graphic novels. I will have plenty of reading (and instructive art models!) for some time to come.

And we can't forget the  other significant gift, from my Uncle Sam:

And there we are. See you next year. Maybe. There's now a 47% chance.
 

Hot Air Update

 

Just to let you know that after more than nine years since I first found out about it, the World Sky Race still hasn't happened. 

But big, big news: about two weeks ago, Prince Albert II, His Serene Highness of Monaco, announced that the race will commence in London on September 27, 2024!

AlI can say is: we shall see.

May 12, 2013.

October 18, 2014.

November 7, 2021.