look on my works ye mighty, and despair

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (re-read)
This has always been my favourite Wyndham; I love the wider backstory, I love that there are pockets of differing cultures, I love the character relationships, I love how complicated people's emotions are. Petra is my least favourite kind of character, in that she is basically pure plot-device, but the protagonist is my favourite kind of protagonist: thoughtful, empathetic, cautious and rational.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissa Pessl (re-read)
This gets compared to A Secret History a lot, and I can obviously see why -- death, guilt, charismatic-teacher-worship, academia. But it also has a geek->beauty makeover, it's set in high school, and the big plot revelation does sort of get infodumped breathlessly two-thirds of the way through. I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong. But it's messy and weirdly-paced, and the other kids are too hateable.
Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
I'm a big fan of Allie's blog posts, so this was an obvious buy for me. She makes depression and mental health very readable and easy to empathise with, and also makes it funny. Very recommended.
Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
Oh. Um. This is the 40th Discworld book, and it's a big industrial revolution moment, and I know after Snuff I should really not have raised my hopes much. I'm not sure I can really even explain the problem beyond 'this feels like a draft' and some entire chunks feel like placeholders and there are paragraphs which feel like they make sense in Pratchett's head but don't work on paper and some parts are under-explained and other parts are underexplained and the climax is underwhelming and -- oh I guess I can explain quite a bit in actual fact. I kept pausing in my reading to be sad about the way it was written, and saying that makes me feel awful.
The Elephant Vanishes by Murakami Haruki (short story collection)
The first story in this is the one later expanded into The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I think it's one of the weaker stories in here, actually. It's been a little while and I don't have the book handy, but I really liked a lot of these stories and would totally recommend the collection if you like Murakami's work generally.
Pretty Good Number One by Matthew Amster-Burton (non-fiction, re-read)
I read this a few months ago, why would it be back in here so quickly? Because now I have a paperback copy to re-read before visiting Tokyo at the end of December. It's still brilliant -- funny and witty and Tokyo-wanderlust-inspiriting, and it turns out I do enjoy reading a paperback version more than an ebook version -- but I think I need to go through it again with a notepad and write down some specific recommendations. Also it turns out I'll actually get to see Matthew while in Tokyo, which is all sorts of awesome.
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O'Brien (non-fiction)
Uh, so, I saw excerpts from this book on tumblr, laughed, and then went and bought it. Apparently that is a thing people do, who'd have thought. And then I read the introduction and remembered I wanted to read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, so those excerpts effectively sold me two books. A lot of this book is (apparently) online already, on the author's website, but I don't mind paying for it: it's actually rather like reading mythology as retold by Archy or Abby the Cat. Either that sounds awesome to you or it doesn't; I liked it a lot.
The Quarry by Iain Banks
Oh god, I don't think I can really explain how much I liked this. This was wonderful, just wonderful; I needed to read exactly this kind of old-but-quite-broken friendship group dynamic and associated conversational style, I think, it scratched an itch I didn't know I had.


Current to read pile:
The Master of Go by Kawabata Yasunari (a reward for finishing my Go-themed fic)