Christian Realism

I’ve gotten a bit behind on logging what I’ve read, but most of what I’ve read either has not inspired much comment from me or I’ll be reviewing it elsewhere, so this will be mostly a laundry list with short comments about what I’ve read this past month:

• Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett. It’s Discworld, do I need to say more? Fun and thought-provoking. Will be reviewed in forthcoming issue of Deep Magic.
• Sorcery and Cecilia by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. An epistolary Regency-era novel about people being turned into trees and magic-possessed chocolate pots. Lots of fun. I’ve got the sequel (recently published) loaned to me by a friend in my soon-to-read pile.
• The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. The grand-daddy of Gothic novels. I was summarily unimpressed, other than finding it interesting where all the tropes originated.
• Magic Street by Orson Scott Card. Card finally does contemporary fantasy. It was slow starting, but ended well. Good book.
• The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston. I started reading this one, but couldn’t get into it sufficiently. I sent it back to the library and will try to get into it again sometime this summer.
• The Early History of Rome by Livy. For the boys’ schoolwork.
• The Best Things in Life by Peter Kreeft. A set of Socratic dialogues between Socrates and some moderns. Also for the boys’ schoolwork. When Kreeft is at his best, the dialogues are captivating, but when he’s got an axe to grind, suddenly there aren’t many questions and Socrates is suddenly pontificating instead of probing. Uneven.
• The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable by F.F. Bruce. Yes.

I’m sure there’s something else I’m missing, but I don’t have my pile in front of me to check.

I think that brings me up to 13 books for the year. Still working on An Instance of the Fingerpost in between other stuff. The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award long list has come out, so I’m busy with that.