The Winter of Jonathan Stroud

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

While you are eating leftovers and hopefully taking a well-deserved break, I thought we might talk about our reading plans this winter.

It's been a weird few months of reading at la casa de Nico. I started several books and got about a quarter of the way through each of them before giving up. Usually what I do when I know I'm losing interest is I read the last few pages of the book to see if the ending makes me want to go back and finish. This might be insane to some people, but I am very much a “it's about the journey not the destination” kind of person. It's why I don't usually care about spoilers. If knowing the ending ruins the experience, then it's probably not a very good book—or movie or show. And sadly, in several cases this fall, the ending did not make me want to go back.

But I have FINALLY started reading a book that I’m LOVING: The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud. It feels a bit like Mad Max set in England but with monsters, zombies, bank heists, and a little bit of David Cronenberg’s Scanners. Basically it’s like Stroud read my High School dream journal.

I also found this quote from Stroud about his writing process which I really related to:

I tend to flip between an orderly, rational kind of thought process—which likes to make neat chapter plans and compiles files of notes about the underlying themes—and an improvisational, seat-of-the-pants kind of creativity, which throws itself into the middle of scenes and sees where they end up. It’s the latter side that usually comes first: I write lots of fragments that get me excited, and which conjure images and the beginnings of ideas. Eventually, I have to draw back and try to arrange them consciously into a structure that works. Then I throw myself into battle again. Seesawing between the two sides helps give the result a lot of its energy.

I first discovered Stroud’s writing after watching the Netflix show based on his book series, Lockwood & Co., which is awesome and you should totally watch it. But be prepared; it is one of the many great shows that Netflix inexplicably cancelled in favor of less interesting shows.

I read the first two books very quickly, wrote a newsletter about the first one, then took a break for some reason—probably to read some of the books that have been bumming me out this fall. But now, with a sigh of relief, I am back with a vengeance. In typical fashion, I am reading two books at once: a physical copy of Scarlett and Browne and the audiobook of The Hollow Boy, the third installment of the Lockwood & Co. books. So it is looking like December is going to be the month of Stroud and I am here for it. His books are fun, full of mystery and intrigue, action, interesting characters, and deft world building. In short, he’s a great writer. Good thing he’s got plenty to read. There are three series and a handful of stand alone novels.

I’m also working on a new book of my own, so there has been a fair bit of non-fiction, research-related reading. But it’s fun research, because I try to only write about stuff that I’m really interested in, including the history of myths & folklore, a few technical manuals, and biographies. But I will keep those a secret for now because I’m not ready to talk about the new book I’m working on.

If anybody has read Jonathan Stroud and has further recommendations, please send them my way. What are you all reading to keep yourselves cozy this winter? Let me know!