1. I love Brother Cadfael books ever so much, but I loved The Heretic’s Apprentice by Ellis Peters particularly because there was a book involved. The premise is that a faithful apprentice brings his deceased master to the abbey to be buried, but a question of heresy arises that might prevent the respectable pilgrim from being interred. Then the apprentice himself is denounced for heresy by a member of his former master’s household. Books and bookmaking and book-lore are important to this tale, and there’s a more than average amount of theology, too. Books, theology, and murder? Yes, please. But this is book 16! There are only four left!
I’m frankly worried about what mystery series I’ll read next. I’ve greatly enjoyed the classics: Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. I like historicals: Laurie R. King and Elizabeth Peters. I like police procedurals: Donna Leon and Peter Lovesey and P.D. James. I like unusual-to-me geographical settings: Alexander McCall Smith. I’ve read ever so many series–I prefer really long ones with at least 12 books–and I spread them out over a few months or so. But what series should I read next? It’s a mystery.
2. Then I read Children of the Fleet by Orson Scott Card because it was next on my to-read list, through which I am proceeding in a very roughly alphabetical order. It’s set after the Formic Wars are over, when the Battle School kids begin to return to Earth. Dabeet Ochoa is an eleven-year-old who is brilliant but arrogant and believes he belongs in Fleet School (which is Battle School reprised for colonization). Dabeet is and is not like Ender–comparisons between this story and that of Ender’s Game are numerous and part of the pleasure of the novel–but his evolution into a leader is rather different. My complaint about Card’s later books is that they read like Enderverse fanfiction, but this one draws close to the original in quality because it knows it’s similar in theme and setting.
Graff is still a favorite, playing mind games with students, though mostly for their own good. And there was honestly one of the best descriptions I’ve ever read of an EVA. Gave me butterflies in my stomach.
3. Othello is next on the Shakespeare list. Yes, the next four will be tragedies, then the Henriad.
This Week's Reads 