Welcome to Recommended Reading with Mary Robinette! Back in March, I launched this post series with a set of recommendations including the likes of The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders, The Forever Sea by Joshua Phillip Johnson, and many others.
Now, a few months later, I’ve put together a new set of recommendations for you all. If you’d like to see them sooner, following me on Twitter, Goodreads, or Bookshop are also great ways to keep up to date. Sometimes it’s nice to have things in a nice, friendly little list you can look through at your leisure, though — hence this series!
And now… on to the books!
Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister
by Anne Choma
Like many people, I became aware of Anne Lister through the HBO mini-series. This book is fascinating and gets into the historical details of her life during the period covered by the show. What I find most compelling is the level of introspection that Miss Lister employed on a daily basis. The book includes excerpts from her journals with the historical context in which she was writing.
The Last Watch
by J. S. Dewes
What a fun ride! Snarky banter, space battles with physics that makes sense, and appropriate use of tethers — look. We all have our priorities. — I enjoyed the heck out of this debut and look forward to seeing what she does next.
Unmarriageable
by Soniah Kamal
This is exactly what it promises on the tin — a straight-up retelling of Pride and Prejudice, set in modern day Pakistan. The plot follows the same arc and its fun to see how iconic moments are reshaped to fit the culture. Oddly, what I most enjoyed are the chapters where it deviates from the original plot. This might be because those were the ones where I was surprised. I particularly liked when the Anne de Burgh substitute breaks from her archetype and speaks. In the novel, her disability renders her voiceless and here she is consciously not.
