Winter's lock is shuddering

I heard children playing outside today. I was struck by how unusual that seems these days.

Winter is reading time. (Well, it's always reading time. But especially in winter.)

Now in progress:

Scar Night by Alan Campbell. My tolerance for dystopian SF/F isn't what it used to be. When I was younger, I liked things dark, and so edgy you could cut yourself. Now, no - when I go off into a fictional landscape, I find the noir starts to get monochromatic and monotonous when laid on with a trowel. I like this book so far, though - it reads like the baby generated by a back-alley bang between China Mieville and Neil Gaiman (perhaps surprisingly, Neil tops) and the baby is then circumcised in a bris straight out of the ritual books of Gormenghast. Pirates vs ninjas? Played out. How about angels vs. assassins?

London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. Years ago, I read Mike Wallace and Edwin G. Burrows's Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, and loved it madly--in part because it was comparable in size to a Manhattan phone book, and so utterly thorough. I also loved it because I know New York's streets well as they are now, and I love being able to visualize the ones no longer there. London's a much older city to fit in a big book, and the reading experience is different because I've never been there. But the prevailing sense of love and interaction is similar, because the authors understand the way cities are beings in their own right, and for a person to try to comprehend their vast lives is a lot like one of my red blood cells trying to understand me.