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Ursula K. Le Guin, ‘Birthday of the World’

With the Ekumenical novels and stories, Ursula K. Le Guin has given readers a milieu that rivals William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County. This rich fictional world, spanning star systems and light years, has provided the background for novels addressing philosophical and anthropological themes such as The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. In Birthday of the World, Le Guin offers six wonderful stories that take a closer look at people of various Ekumen worlds. This isn’t completely a Hainish story suite as there are two stand-alone stories that that also explore culture and what it means to be human.

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Posted 15 July 2009 † shindo § books § literary fiction § science fiction ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Jincy Willet, The Writing Class

What happens when a misanthropic has-been creative writing teacher is put together with students of varying levels of talent? Murder and mayhem. Well, murder occurs in small doses, but a much-aggrieved, much-rejected, aspiring literary hack does a lot to cause the mayhem, which terrorizes Amy Gallop, the instructor, and her class of mostly novice writers. The mystery of the perpertrator, however, fascinates the group and is a much stronger draw than getting one’s stories torn apart. Jincy Willett’s The Writing Class is one of those books I came across purely by accident while shopping for steampunk novels at Mysterious Galaxy in Kearny Mesa.

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Posted 13 July 2009 † shindo § San Diego writers § books § literary fiction § metafiction § mystery fiction ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Welcome to the Shindothèque

Hi. The Shindothèque is my blog about the books I read. My comments on books I’ve read, past and present. My interests vary – literary, bscience fiction, post-modern, French and Japanese fictions, along with some surprises. I’ll post on them from time to time. Stay tuned.

Posted 13 July 2009 † shindo § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °