Lone Woman by Victor Lavalle is yet another excellent offering from Lavalle. I have to confess an affinity for Lavalle. At this point I've read everything he's written. I actually held off reading this because I knew it would be awhile before anything new appeared.

One of the things about his books that I love is how each one creates its own world, its own reality. This is usually couched in some other reality--a mental institution, the streets of New York or like here, early 20th Century Montana.

In many ways these new versions of the places are more appealing than the reality (if you don't mind people occasionally being torn to pieces).  He creates a magical world and fills that world with characters you care about. You may sometimes hate them but even the ones you hate you can relate to.

Here is the other thing; Lone Woman may be his best effort yet. Previously I would have said Big Machine but Im revising my opinion. When you ask fans of the writer what their favorite is you are likely to get different answers. I will confess that I didn't love The Ecstatic but given how much I loved his other work I more question myself than Lavalle. What is wrong with ME that I didn't get the book?

Another of his books, The Changeling, is about to become a limited series. Truth is that most of his books really lend themselves to translation into movies or TV.  I just hope Lavalle was involved in the script.

I don't really want to write about every single book in this series! I want more to just note that I read them.

Of course, going through the series and noting how it progresses is an interesting process. Once you get used to some characters...poof, they vanish. Other times the plot development that would seem best placed at the end of a book is smack dab in the middle of the book (of course in The Master and Margarita the two characters named in the title don't appear until the book is half way done).

There is something of a "Game of Thrones" problem here--not to compare what many regard as the pinnacle of science fiction to a throw away fantasy series.

But the problem is real.

You get to a section labeled "Tyrion" and you want to read it. Then you sigh and trudge through a section from the perspective of a less interesting character. That happens in these books. When certain character's story arc ends they are not always taken over by an equally interesting character.

One great thing about these books is how difficult plot summary is. You can give a BROAD summary but then it breaks down into smaller plots that sometimes stand on their own. There is something akin to a history book in these novels.

The next book will be interesting. It is the fourth book and one that came after a nearly 30 year lay off from writing this series. How will the tone change? The 50s were a lot different from the 80s!

Slow Horses by Mick Herron isn't your typical spy book. This is not James Bond nor is it John le Carré. It might be closer to Get Smart...ok, not really but it is about a collection of spies who are not particularly good at their jobs.

They've done ridiculously stupid things or pissed off ridiculously powerful people (or both). Some of them are out and out incompetent and others made a single but unforgivable mistake. They are then sent to an out of the way, dingy, office called (unofficially) Slough House. This leads to the nickname "Slow Horses." There they sit, watching their careers die.

Of course the book is not about a bunch of wayward spies sitting around counting paper clips until retirement. There is SPY STUFF going on and lots of intrigue, backstabbing and hilarity.

Dead Lions is a continuation of the espionage (and pratfalls) of the denizens of Slough House, necessitating that they, once again (sort of) save the day. Old spies from days gone by play a part in this installment.

It is  rare thing when I get enthusiastic about a SERIES of books that is more than two or three books but these Slough House books? I have to hold myself back from reading the next one because, while i want to read and read and read? I don't want them to be over. At the moment I am poised before the third book, Real Tigers after finishing Dead Lions.

I will ration them out over time!

Also? The Apple TV show based on these books, starring Gary Oldman and Kirsten Scott Thomas is also pretty good. It diverges enough from the books to keep from being simple rehash as well. It also gives fans of the book something to talk about; "so and so is NOT who I pictured in that roll" or "so and so is exactly who I pictured farting his way through that role!"

I was introduced to Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country via the HBO mini-series. As soon as I was done watching I bought the book. Imagine my surprise when I found that, despite loving the series, I loved the book even more.

I eagerly awaited a second book, The Destroyer of Worlds :A Return to Lovecraft Country, even though HBO nixed the show after a single season.

The second book follows up on the action in the first. The Freeman family are still working on their guide for black travelers and running afoul of a variety of supernatural entities. The beauty of both "Lovecraft" books is that they are told from the perspective of black characters and are uncompromising in the excoriation of the systematic oppression of black people. Ron DeSantis would not like these books. He'd probably ban them from Florida Barnes & Nobles if he could.

Is this book as good as the first? No. It isn't. There seems something abbreviated about it. I wanted MORE to this story. There are two threads of the story that seem, if not unfinished, then abridged. I am making an effort to not summarize so I will leave it at that. It is, however, a huge compliment from me to say "I wanted another 100 pages of this."

Ultimately the book does weave the various threads into a satisfying ending and it is, like its predecessor, a book that is hard to put down but there is a little bit of a "sophomore slump" here.

These books make more use of H.P. Lovecraft's name than his universe(s). There are, of course, references to the creatures and background created by the writer. His various "universes' ' were creative, horrific and unique but he was also an inveterate racist. His depiction of anyone with skin slightly darker than Wonder Bread is, uniformly, derogatory and demeaning. He was also an anti-semite (yes, I am aware he married a Jewish woman).

The problem with Lovecraft is that his short stories are often great.  No one, not even Poe, was as good at creating a sense of dread. He changed how horror was written. Most of his stories did not deal with issues of race even though his racism is on view for all to see in many, if not most, stories (Herbert West: Reanimator, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Rats in the Walls etc etc etc). Some publications sanitize the racist bits and you are unlikely to see his writing that is actually dedicated TO the issue of race re-printed ANYWHERE these days. An example of his poetry is specifically dealt with in the first Lovecraft Country book. His correspondence is where you can find more than "hints" of his racism but good luck finding most of that sort of correspondence with a cursory browser query.

So what to do with Lovecraft? Do we ignore the racism? Do we take it for what it is and acknowledge both the creativity and the racism? I have a hard time with what to do, frankly.

Ruff figured out a way to confront and acknowledge Lovecraft. Take his worlds and his views and make strong, intelligent, black characters the protagonist in a world loosely based on Lovecraft's.  I look forward to more books in this series.

Yes, yes more history reading. China Marches West--The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia, by Peter C Purdue, is an exhaustive look at how the nascent Manchu Empire expanded its dominion.

This book was one that bogged me down. Not because it is dull but because it is another REAL history book and it takes time and thought to read it. It is also an important book to understand where we are now in the world, despite the fact it takes place several hundred years ago. This is history for people who want to understand now.

We tend to think of the nation states as they exist now as monolithic things that existed, as is, since time immemorial, even when boundaries change within our own lifetimes. This book tells the story of Chinese, or more accurate, Manchu Quin Empire's, expansion at the expense of the Mongol people. The Chinese are not alone in this conquest/absorption. As they moved west, the Russian Empire was moving east. Caught in between were the Mongol people--specifically the Zunghar Mongols.

At the time these three groups played a game of cat and mouse that included diplomacy, duplicity and warfare.

Perdue meticulously catalogs the motivations of the players making clear that this wasn't "straight line" history. Nothing that happened was inevitable nor were the results all intended by the participants (certainly not the Mongols). Unlike the History of the Arab Peoples this book also gives glimpses of personalities and focuses on the motivation of the "great men" involved-- in some cases we know more about intentions because the men themselves wrote them down.

He also parses official histories an calls out the mistakes, omissions and lies. The end result of China's movement West was the creation of a multi-ethnic nation state that, more or less, exists today.

The book is exhaustive (and a little exhausting) but it is worth the time and effort. Keep in mind the effort isn't because it is written in a dry manner; it is actually quite engaging. It simply includes a vast amount of information.

I'd been meaning to read A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani, since I read a review of it something like 30 years ago. It is what the title implies but it is a book of its times in many ways.

For one it eschews the "great man (or woman)" sort of history and focuses instead on culture.  In the 1990s history had turned away from "great person" biographies and the focus on war and grand events. It was about the people and culture. This was, of course, an important correction. In some cases it maybe goes too far in this direction of ignoring the kings and queens and such altogether. Some may have that impression about Hourani's book but I do not think that would be accurate. So often Westerner's read about Arabs ONLY in the context of rulers and also as bit players in some Western story. This book will have none of that and it is incredibly detailed and focused.

Within the cultural focus mentioned there is a hyper-focus on the role of Islam.  Indeed the book basically starts with the origins of Islam. History before Islam is treated as prologue and an extremely brief prologue. The one great man there is detail on is the Prophet Mohammad (and if you are going to pick a single towering figure you cannot find one larger). Yet even the great Prophet isn''t really the focus; the beliefs he espoused.

The history of Islam is an enormous part of the history of the Arab people. Especially in the early third of this book the religion is the backbone of what is laid out for the reader. If you come to this book looking for detailed discussions of Arab expansion East or West or the battles fought and the men who led? You are going to be disappointed. In part this may be because Hourani knew that if you start down that road you, out of necessity, start talking about Byzantium, the Sasanians and others. This is a book about the Arab peoples and he shows great discipline in keeping it just that.

He does a great job putting you into the ancient world at various points in time and locations. When the book arrives in modern times it outlines policies again, not getting tied up in personalities. If you start discussing independence and the receding power of Britain and France in too much detail the focus might be lost. It doesn't happen. The book never bogs down in personalities.

This isn't to say that there is anything wrong with biography or history books about wars and significant political events. This just ISN'T any of those and it is valuable because of that. This is also not a "popular" history even though I believe this book was a best seller. This is history history so be prepared to wade through detail and repetition. It is meticulously sourced and indexed. If you cannot bring yourself to read it in one fell swoop it is definitely something you can return to.

Doubtless, in the over 30 years since this book was published there have been changes, revisions, in the history. I don't know enough to tell you what these are but it is true of most books of history. Nonetheless, this is a fantastic place to start in learning about the Arab Peoples.