#dailyreadingrecommendation — Public Fediverse posts

#dailyReadingRecommendation: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
Though I'm a Communist, I have a certain liking for anticommunist literature when it's well-written. This novel is much deeper politically than 1984, and presents us with a committed Communist investigated by the party's security apparat. The story attempts to work out how and why people may do the worst acts from the best motives, and how this may be in some sense rational and justified; though the conclusion is rather bleak.

#DailyReadingRecommendation: The Physician by Noah Gordon
In this historical novel, a small boy in 10th century London loses his parents. A barber surgeon takes him as an apprentice and teaches him all he knows about medicine, but he wants to learn more. The problem? The best school is in Persia, and Christians are forbidden to study there both by the Pope and the Muslims. Needless to say, this won't stop him. Read it and find out how he does it.

#DailyReadingRecommendation: Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
My favourite play though I don't read much #drama.
Cyrano is an incovenient polymath, expert with the pen and the sword. However, there's one thing he doesn't have: physical beauty. He pines for a cousin (bear with me) but decides to help the man she likes to woo her by writing poems in his stead. He refuses to play by society's rules, makes enemies, and fights them, but is ultimately doomed. Read it now.

#DailyReadingRecommendation: The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
Hard to characterise as to genre, this speculative novel is written in the form of a biographical report about a great player of a game with geopolitical and social significance. The game is the way through which society expresses and solves conflict and debates. It really makes one want this game, and the civilised, gentle society which uses it, to exist. Excellent.

#DailyReadingRecommendation: Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bul

Speculative or alternative history. It is written in the form of letters, at first exchanged between someone seemingly waking from the dead and one of his relatives in 1800s England. Though it seems about the paranormal at first, it turns out to contain much more of family drama and political scheming (Marx and Engels get a place!), as well as secret cults plotting for power. Amazing.

#DailyReadingRecommendation: Scout's Progress by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
An #SF novel part of the #Liaden Universe series, it mixes in issues of family drama and domestic violence with an exciting yarn about a shy mathematician woman daring to become a space pilot and getting involved with some of the most prominent people in her planet. Wonderful characterisation, and Liaden society is so well fleshed out I want to go there for a holiday.

#DailyReadingRecommendation: Altai by Wu Ming
This historical novel is set in 16th century, mostly in the Ottoman Empire and the Mediterranean. It follows a protagonist who has hidden his Judaism to become a trusted spy for Venice, and how his real identity catches up with him and results in his involvement with an intricate plot of staggering ambition, but dubious means, using Turkish power as a fulcrum. Well characterised, and a really exciting period.

#DailyReadingRecommendation: Semiosis by Sue Burke
This #SF first contact story follows a small interplanetary expedition sent from an Earth ravaged by environmental damage. idealism and the desire to live in harmony with nature soon confront the reality of a hostile ecosystem dominated by intelligent, aggressive plant life. Explores how niceness and social conformity can become repressive,, and the difficulties in negotiating and living under the shelter of a more powerful alien intelligence.

#DailyReadingRecommendation: Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan
This historical novel takes the form of a monk's journal relating events from his personal life as well as the controversies regarding the nature of the trinity which shook the Eastern Roman Empire. Wonderfully human, dealing with living up to unrealistic aspirations, the difficulties of celibacy for a young man with opportunities, and religious conflict, it's far from a dry account of theological arguments. Really enjoyed it.