Wednesday Reading Meme for Oct 8 2025

[kitewithfish]

What I’ve Read
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance – Lois McMaster Bujold – You can really feel the Penric and Desdemona style books coming around in Bujold’s later work. Bujold built a great character in Ivan Vorpatril – he’s too close to the throne of an empire to avoid knowing about politics, so instead he has developed a perfectly tuned sense of political ramifications for every move he could potential make – and manages to build a life where he’s known for being a lady’s man and a bit vapid, instead of a good figurehead for a coup! He’s adorable and he’s got a good match in Tej. In some ways, this felt like Bujold having a good time with her own books and not being too serious about it.


What I’m Reading
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club – Dorothy Sayers – 25% - An elderly man is found dead at his gentleman’s club, and establishing the time of his death becomes crucial for executing his will when it’s revealed he died the same day as his sister. Did he die just before her, so that all her wealth passes to her lady companion? Or just after, so that her wealth joins his estate and passes nearly entirely to his eldest son? It’s also got lovely worldbuilding around the WWI veterans in the background of Peter Wimsey’s world – their comfort with death and soldiering draws a line between the young men and the older crowd of the club.

The Mismeasure of Man – Stephen Jay Gould – Feisty and interesting! I’m re-reading this after reading it as a teenager – it definitely informed my skepticism towards science that “proves” an existing social bias is grounded in hard scientific fact. Really good and clear writing, it does feel like it’s from 1981 at times. (Remember when we were just fighting fundamentalists about teaching evolution in public schools? And not about the continued existence of public schools??)

What I’ll Read Next
Witness for the Dead Katherine Addison
The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed

Comments

[executrix]

You probably know this, but Sayers originally planned to have Wimsey be the first one to notice that an uncircumcised corpse couldn't very well be a Jewish financier. they wouldn't let her do this, so she had to make the corpse have fleabitten with scraggly fingernails and hence not likely to be a rich person.

[kitewithfish]

I did NOT know this but I absolutely had the thought! I assumed that I had missed a very delicate historical phrasing of this exact point - glad to know it wasn't reader error!

[executrix]

I like the Wimseyverse (as well as being the universe's only Bunter/St.George shipper) but it really is a howling retcon to make Peter, who started out as a genuine nitwit, into a brilliant scholar who was only pretending to be a nitwit. Mind you, since I was a history major in college, I am inclined to like Peter more because his stunningly brilliant First was in History.