What are you reading right now?

I'm a bookworm with a scifi habit, but military space battles, not particularly uplifting or intellectual.

I normally read a few books per week, but I've got flu, so have been gorging on 3 long series, each with kickass female leads:

. J D Robb: Lt Eve Dallas
. David Weber: Honor Harrington
. Evan Currie: On Silver Wings

There is a glut of post-apocalyptic fiction. Station Eleven was so-so.

I enjoyed Adam Baker's "Outpost" series. All of them have very resourceful female characters.

Station Eleven was exactly why I avoid books (especially sci-fi) written by women. It was disjointed, devoid of a real plot (let alone an engaging and/or clever one), improbable, and with complete lack of worldbuilding. A viral flu kills off most of the world's population and the the ones left alive somehow manage to find food, shelter, and clean water very easily which leaves them free to procrastinate and whine all day long.

None of it made much sense. A viral infection that becomes symptomatic in several hours and kills in a day is the easiest disease in the world to contain, since it would burn itself off very quickly. Just broadcast everyone to stay indoors for a few days - what seems to be the problem?

The post-apocalyptic world rings completely false, as well. All of it falls apart too quickly, and the author has given no thought to what such a world of few survivors would actually be like. "Schools" where kids are taught about the lost world and its comforts made me laugh. Surely, you would try to preserve knowledge of math, chemistry, physics, biology etc rather than stories of past comforts like indoor plumbing and air conditioning.

Good thread!

Cote, DD & I fought over Dark Eden (she swiped it while I was cooking tea ) & bought the sequel straight away, but I wasn't anywhere near so taken with it, so it's currently sitting half read. DD liked it, though.

I've got a few things properly on the go atm. Half way through Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (post-apocalyptic. It was a birthday present, not something I'd necessarily have picked out, but I'm actually really enjoying it now I've got into it.

I'd just started 'Do it Like a Woman' by Caroline Criado Perez when I was given Station 11, looks like it'll be good & I like the fact that she's grappling with the issue of how we avoid devaluing traits associated with stereotypical femininity whilst not being limited by them. Will see how far she gets . . .

DH gave me the bio of Joss Whedon as an extra birthday present, but not particularly enthralled (he wants to read it though )

In my 'to read' pile I've got 'Binary' by Stephanie Saulter - just read and very much liked the first one in the series, Gemsigns - another SF novel, set in a world with many genetically modified humans.

Also just ordered Ancillary Mercy today! (Why am I on MN, I ask myself . . .?)

I'm reading the second to latest Robin Hobb right now, they're good (and plenty more in the same world from different aspects if you like her style).

There was a recent dragon one, where it was the first and only time I've had people consider the risks of having sex, and therefore risking pregnancy in a wilderness situation with risk of mutation (don't want to spoiler). Generally in these things the women and men just don't think through how wise it is to breed, but she brutally demonstrated, and then had a character speak about the dangers a female character was opening herself to.

I have never read anything by Tana French but have seen her recommended on MN and as a lover of detective fiction, I had her on my to-read list. I just scanned the prologue of In the Woods and I am thinking, maybe not.

There is a series of detective novels that are still a bit obscure I think, but that definitely have a feminist vibe, by A.D. Scott. The first in the series is A Small Death in the Great Glen. The books are set in Inverness (never identified by name but clearly Inverness) in the 1950s and the sleuth is a young woman who works for a newspaper and is trying to leave an abusive marriage. They are easy reading but well done and entertaining.

YesCote What on earth was the point of In the Woods ? It's gone from my Kindle too.

Germaine Greer - Women, Aging and the Menopause.

I particularly like reading it on the bus - so effective in stopping annoying men from chatting to me

I'm reading one of Mary Renault's books from her Alexander the Great trilogy - 'Fire From Heaven'. Its great, but not as fabulous as 'The Persian Boy' (am reading them in the wrong order - don't ask ). Not sure about her female characters, though. Olympias is written as a bit of an hysterical witch-woman thus far (I really like her ).

Also reading The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Informative, but dry, although that may be because I am reading it off the back of reading Michelle Moran's historical fiction, which is much more fun...lots of fabulous imaginings of Nefertiti.

Trying to finish 'A Peoples History of The United States' by Howard Zinn. He dealt brilliantly with chapters on the decimation of American Indian tribes, but his chapters on women's rights in early US history have been a bit thin so far...

"Tana French is good too (crime but not slasher type stuff). She often gets compared with Donna Tartt"

Maybe in her dreams

I read In The Woods because it was recommended by a friend and thought it was the single most pretentious and pointless crime novel I have ever read. I was going to give its 1st sentence as an example, but I've deleted it from my Kindle - a rare honor I reserve for books I never ever want to see again.

I enjoyed Dark Eden & plan to read the sequel. His book The Holy Machine was also interesting.

I got to about page 50 of Ancillary Justice and wanted to hurl it across the room. Really hated it.

Chris Beckett's Dark Eden and the follow up Mother of Eden are interesting. The premise is that 2 people , a man and a woman, are stranded alone on a habitable planet. They come to the conclusion that they can live out their lives alone or they can try to populate the planet. They do the latter , which creates a matriarchal society as women, due to the need to bear children, are more important than men. Obviously there are issues re incest/ genetic deformities. The back story of how they came to be there is in a separate short story.

A God a that Hates, by Wada Sultan.
A superb read by a truly inspiring woman.
You can catch her talks on YouTube.

Why are they not all referred to as 'it', if there is indeed no gender?

I read a lot of sci-fi and would be happy to exchange recommendations (although I recognize your name so we probably have). What kind do you like?

I'm on a bit of a Sci Fi run at the moment. I particularly enjoyed Ancillary Justice not only because it was written by a woman, but also because the main protagonist's language contains no word for gender, so , by default, all characters are referred to as 'she'.

Naomi Novik? The Napoleonic wars but with dragons.

Shan Sa's Empress is one of my favourites, it tells the story of Empress Wu, the only female emperor of China.

I just finished a sci-fi speculative fiction book called The Echo and am currently on The Moscow Club, apparently one of the most respected spy books of the last couple of decades.

I have trouble with most female authors, unfortunately, and would like to find some that I would enjoy. Can anyone recommend me women authors who don't focus on feelings, and who write books that are not about family stuff or love? If it helps, I loved The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

HarryLime Oh, I dunno. I think Pratchett managed to write some quite astonishingly good female characters. Sybil is a force to be reckoned with, Angua subverts the beautiful blonde trope quite nicely and Cheri - who doesn't love a lady with ribbons in her beard?

Lost symbol by Dan Brawn . It's very fascinating.

the woman who went to bed for a year

I am currently reading... well, in theory, I am reading a pile of techy info for an exam next week. So I'm actually reading Our Longest Days, which is extracts from Mass Observation diaries in WW2.

I have just finished reading Katrine Marcal's Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? (which I think would not have been his mother - I am sure she would have spoken to the servants to make sure his dinner appeared, rather than doing it herself.) It's an interesting book, but I wish it had had an editor who insisted on proper sentences. I got increasingly annoyed by the style. There's a whole paragraph which says, "In short." That's not even a whole sentence, let alone a paragraph, and it made it more difficult to keep track of what she was actually saying. She'd have been better off using commas.

Rather than starting new paragraphs.

I think she was probably writing as she speaks (and I did see her speak at Hay Festival), but it really did detract from the content, and I'm annoyed with it for that reason, because otherwise, it was an interesting book.

Nooooo She has been writing for ages though, and not been all that prolific - I love how measured and thoughtful her books are.

When I was growing up in the 1980s my mum had a few of them in the bookshelf, and I tried over and over to read them - it felt like such a rite of passage when I was old enough to enjoy Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.