Only three books read in March, although when I get to book three you'll know why...
The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain by Kevin Nelson M.D. was an interesting look at what's actually happening from a neurology point of view when someone has a near-death experience, what causes the tunnel and the light and the feeling of oneness. Highly readable.
Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent is about to be (or perhaps already is?) the source material for a Ken Burns documentary. I found this book interesting as well. I had some sense of prohibition and what it tied into (women's suffrage, income tax and that), but not in all the detail it's presented in here. The people mentioned come to life, and all the little details are wonderful.
And finally, what took most of the month to get through was The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft. I'd read most of the major works before, but this time I hit them all in chronological order, even the stuff he ghost-wrote for Harry Houdini. That's a lot of Lovecraft, my friend.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Books in February
My reading usually has a certain flow to it, whether it's reading through one writer's life work, or swinging from writer to influence to their influence. Sometimes my reading is fueled by my writing, either researching something I'm trying to write, or reading things that will end up being research for things they prompt me to write.
Then there are months like February, where it's all pretty random.
The last thing I read in January was Among Others which was so perfect and wonderful I immediately wanted to read more Jo Walton. Not everything she's written is on Kindle, though, so I grabbed (being the theme of the month, at random) Tooth and Claw, a sort of Masterpiece Theater story of alliances and marriages and people being polite to the extreme. Only the people here are dragons. It may sound silly, but the details are just so perfect, both in the Jane Austenesque setting and in the physiology of dragons this just really worked. I loved that the females turned pink and darkened to red as they got older, a wonderful image which is such a cool plot point as well (females are only supposed to turn pink when they are affianced).
I also finally finished off all three volumes of Clockwork Phoenix. I've taken plunges into them before, reading this or that story, but in February I went through and read them all in order. They do have a lovely flow from one to the next when read in order, a neat trick in an anthology of different writers. In all three volumes, there were only one or two stories that didn't do it for me, and many that transported me to farflung places as I read them. A nice series of books, I'm hoping there will be a Clockwork Phoenix 4.
I read some Houdini last year, and it's been gnawing at the edges of my mind since. In February I read two biographies, to fill in some gaps and maybe tease out what my subconscious is working on. The latter is still a mystery, but at least the bios were good. The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kallush and Larry Sloman is based on the idea that Houdini worked as a spy. They didn't remotely sell me on more than the hint of a possibility of that, but it was still a thorough look at his life. Still, I found Houdini!!! by Kenneth Silverman the superior book. Both worth a read if you're curious about Houdini.
Finally, when buying those Houdini books at Amazon.com, the "people who bought that also bought" widget tossed up Sock by Penn Jillette. I love Penn & Teller and especially their show Bullshit but this was a work of fiction, I wasn't sure what to expect. It's definitely a different sort of book, narrated by an aetheist sock puppet prone to rants (but also to deep love of his people). It reads a bit like beat poetry, with song lyrics woven in (many I knew, some I didn't). The ending was perfection, and I'm not going to give it away. The whole novel is filled with sharp humor, equal parts laugh out loud and thought-provoking. It was hard to pick just one quote from it, so much of it is highlighted on my Kindle.
In the escape business, as the Amazing Randi put it, “If you are not an egotist, you are a failure.” What but a megalomaniacal brassballed self-assurance could have dragged Houdini inside a riveted boiler or to the depths of the Mississippi River? – Kennether Silverman
Molly is a person of conviction too. She just never managed to distill her convictions to a size that will fit on a t-shirt. This man had found a way around that. His t-shirt is almost the size of a billboard. – “They Tarrying Messenger” by Michael DeLuca from Clockwork Phoenix
So many kings, so few rulers. - "At The Edge of Dying", Mary Robinette Kowal, Clockwork Phoenix 2
The blazing glory of Hathirekhmet, pitiless as stone, but not cruel; cruelty implied a desire for suffing in others. Hathirekhmet did not desire. She simply was. - "Once a Goddess" by Marie Brennan from Clockwork Phoenix 2
He gave his creation a mother's love and a father's protection, a sibling's tolerance and a friend's rivalry, a teacher's admiration and an enemy's respect. - "Your Name is Eve" by Michael M. Jones from Clockwork Phoenix 3
When you touch a decomposed body that's been in the water for a while the body feels kinda, sorta good until you figure out what it is. Then it feels very bad. - Sock
Then there are months like February, where it's all pretty random.
The last thing I read in January was Among Others which was so perfect and wonderful I immediately wanted to read more Jo Walton. Not everything she's written is on Kindle, though, so I grabbed (being the theme of the month, at random) Tooth and Claw, a sort of Masterpiece Theater story of alliances and marriages and people being polite to the extreme. Only the people here are dragons. It may sound silly, but the details are just so perfect, both in the Jane Austenesque setting and in the physiology of dragons this just really worked. I loved that the females turned pink and darkened to red as they got older, a wonderful image which is such a cool plot point as well (females are only supposed to turn pink when they are affianced).
I also finally finished off all three volumes of Clockwork Phoenix. I've taken plunges into them before, reading this or that story, but in February I went through and read them all in order. They do have a lovely flow from one to the next when read in order, a neat trick in an anthology of different writers. In all three volumes, there were only one or two stories that didn't do it for me, and many that transported me to farflung places as I read them. A nice series of books, I'm hoping there will be a Clockwork Phoenix 4.
I read some Houdini last year, and it's been gnawing at the edges of my mind since. In February I read two biographies, to fill in some gaps and maybe tease out what my subconscious is working on. The latter is still a mystery, but at least the bios were good. The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kallush and Larry Sloman is based on the idea that Houdini worked as a spy. They didn't remotely sell me on more than the hint of a possibility of that, but it was still a thorough look at his life. Still, I found Houdini!!! by Kenneth Silverman the superior book. Both worth a read if you're curious about Houdini.
Finally, when buying those Houdini books at Amazon.com, the "people who bought that also bought" widget tossed up Sock by Penn Jillette. I love Penn & Teller and especially their show Bullshit but this was a work of fiction, I wasn't sure what to expect. It's definitely a different sort of book, narrated by an aetheist sock puppet prone to rants (but also to deep love of his people). It reads a bit like beat poetry, with song lyrics woven in (many I knew, some I didn't). The ending was perfection, and I'm not going to give it away. The whole novel is filled with sharp humor, equal parts laugh out loud and thought-provoking. It was hard to pick just one quote from it, so much of it is highlighted on my Kindle.
In the escape business, as the Amazing Randi put it, “If you are not an egotist, you are a failure.” What but a megalomaniacal brassballed self-assurance could have dragged Houdini inside a riveted boiler or to the depths of the Mississippi River? – Kennether Silverman
Molly is a person of conviction too. She just never managed to distill her convictions to a size that will fit on a t-shirt. This man had found a way around that. His t-shirt is almost the size of a billboard. – “They Tarrying Messenger” by Michael DeLuca from Clockwork Phoenix
So many kings, so few rulers. - "At The Edge of Dying", Mary Robinette Kowal, Clockwork Phoenix 2
The blazing glory of Hathirekhmet, pitiless as stone, but not cruel; cruelty implied a desire for suffing in others. Hathirekhmet did not desire. She simply was. - "Once a Goddess" by Marie Brennan from Clockwork Phoenix 2
He gave his creation a mother's love and a father's protection, a sibling's tolerance and a friend's rivalry, a teacher's admiration and an enemy's respect. - "Your Name is Eve" by Michael M. Jones from Clockwork Phoenix 3
When you touch a decomposed body that's been in the water for a while the body feels kinda, sorta good until you figure out what it is. Then it feels very bad. - Sock
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Books in January
Wow, kind of a lot of books in January.
I though Full Metal Alchemist volume 24 was going to wrap up the series, but now I guess it's volume 25. It's definitely building to a kick-ass climax. Also, I love the Flame Alchemist. Just sayin'.
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach is certainly an approachable book about the space program (or rather programs, as she also checks out what Japan is up to). It's not nearly as detailed, been-there-done-that, or witty as R. Mike Mullane. Her witticisms often rubbed me the wrong way; individual results may vary. But honestly if you're looking for a book about the space program written for everyone, I'd go with Mullane's Do Your Ears Pop in Space?
The Atheists Guide to Christmas is a UK book with the proceeds going to charity. Simon le Bon aside, I was more familiar with the scientists (including Richard Dawkins and Brian Cox) who wrote pieces for this than the pop culture celebrity types. I'm not sure if these people are on TV or what, but several of them are quite funny. Not a particularly meaty read, but amusing enough for the dollar I paid for it.
Zero History is of course the latest by William Gibson, with a plot about the fashion industry's relationship with military uniforms. But since this is Gibson it's really about all the little details that are just spot on and wonderfully described. I guess this wraps up his trilogy of books that are set so near-future they aren't really sci-fi. I've enjoyed them, and especially the women protagonists (who meet briefly in this one, a nice scene). It should be interesting to see what he does next.
Alchemy of Stone by Katerina Sederis had a wonderful setting. The main character is a clockwork woman; her creator keeps the key that winds her up. The society seems to be split between engineers and alchemists, two world views that don't overlap much, although our main character bridges them. But as the story progresses we start to see all the people who aren't either of those things: the farmers and the miners and that. I loved the worldbuilding, but the story just seemed to zip by too quickly. I'd have loved to read this at a more China Mieville length.
Among Others is the first book I've read by Jo Walton, although I've had her name down on my writers to read next list for a long time. I adore her column at Tor.com, and this book really feels like an extension of that. It's a book about books and why and how we love them. It's about how reading sci-fi matters even in the mundane world we all live in. It's so cool that now if anyone asks me "how can you read that stuff?" I have the perfect novel to hand them. This is why. (And bonus, I now have more names for my list of writers to read next).
I also read some urban fantasy, the first two books in two different series. Spellbent and Shotgun Sorceress (how awesome is that title?) by Lucy A. Snyder are set or start out in Columbus, Ohio, and hey! I was just there! So I had that geek factor going for me. The sequel starts in Ohio, but then finds its way to a Texas town being controlled by a Japanese demoness. Cool. I have a particular fondness for books where magic has a real cost, and boy does this main character pay a price. There's a large cast of well thought out characters (I have a particular fondness for the college boys the MC rooms with very briefly, although they likely won't turn up again, they were cool).
I also read Embers and Sparks by Laura Bickle, books set in Detroit. The main character is an arson investigator by day and a swallower of ghosts by night. She also has a salamander who is always with her, making trouble. He's not exactly a pet, more like a particularly precocious toddler, capable of destroying something the instant your attention is distracted. This is another one with a large cast of diverse characters; I particularly enjoy the ghostbusting team Anya works with. They have a wide range of world views that occasionally causes conflict but they manage to stay a team; I loved that aspect. Detroit I've not been to, but a few of the settings used in these two books I'd love to see firsthand, like the abandoned train station and the old salt mines.
It's a good month that has me finding two new series to follow. Below, the somewhat random collection of quotes, culled down from a much longer list (boy do I love the highlight feature on my Kindle).
There were cameras literally everywhere, in London. So far, he’d managed not to think about them. He remembered Bigend saying they were a symptom of autoimmune disease, that state’s protective mechanisms ‘roiding up into something actively destructive, chronic; watchful eyes, eroding the healthy function of that which they ostensibly protected. – Zero History
There’s also a lot to be said for Christmas. The high spirits, good food, bringing people together are excellent things for humans. Although anyone who says it is the greatest story ever told clearly hasn’t read Watchmen. – “110 Love Street” by Catie Wilkins, from The Atheists Guide to Christmas
“Bleed to death? How?” I stood up, frowning at him. “There aren’t any major arteries –“
“Dammit, I should not have to talk you out of sticking a spoon in your eye!” - Spellbent
A girl who wore combat boots was much better qualified to dress her than the pastel-clad biddy in the pink shop, Anya decided. – Embers
Various fine young Baptist rednecks regularly kicked the shit out of him because he was half Chinese, half Jewish, and 100 percent nerd. Worse, he was fussy enough to come across as utterly gay to everyone but the actual gay kids. – Shotgun Sorceress
“What are you, anyway? Are you the Charon? The guy fishing for dead souls on the river Styx? Or is that an affectation?”
She felt his muscles tense under her arms. “How about you?” he countered. “Are you the Ishtar?”
“Of course not.”
“We all inherit pieces of things that make us what we are, whether we want them or not.” – Sparks
There are some awful things in the world, it’s true, but there are also some great books. When I grow up I would like to write something that someone could read sitting on a bench on a day that isn’t all that warm and they could sit reading it and totally forget where they were or what time it was so that they were more inside the book than inside their own head. I’d like to write like Delany or Heinlein or Le Guin. – Among Others
I though Full Metal Alchemist volume 24 was going to wrap up the series, but now I guess it's volume 25. It's definitely building to a kick-ass climax. Also, I love the Flame Alchemist. Just sayin'.
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach is certainly an approachable book about the space program (or rather programs, as she also checks out what Japan is up to). It's not nearly as detailed, been-there-done-that, or witty as R. Mike Mullane. Her witticisms often rubbed me the wrong way; individual results may vary. But honestly if you're looking for a book about the space program written for everyone, I'd go with Mullane's Do Your Ears Pop in Space?
The Atheists Guide to Christmas is a UK book with the proceeds going to charity. Simon le Bon aside, I was more familiar with the scientists (including Richard Dawkins and Brian Cox) who wrote pieces for this than the pop culture celebrity types. I'm not sure if these people are on TV or what, but several of them are quite funny. Not a particularly meaty read, but amusing enough for the dollar I paid for it.
Zero History is of course the latest by William Gibson, with a plot about the fashion industry's relationship with military uniforms. But since this is Gibson it's really about all the little details that are just spot on and wonderfully described. I guess this wraps up his trilogy of books that are set so near-future they aren't really sci-fi. I've enjoyed them, and especially the women protagonists (who meet briefly in this one, a nice scene). It should be interesting to see what he does next.
Alchemy of Stone by Katerina Sederis had a wonderful setting. The main character is a clockwork woman; her creator keeps the key that winds her up. The society seems to be split between engineers and alchemists, two world views that don't overlap much, although our main character bridges them. But as the story progresses we start to see all the people who aren't either of those things: the farmers and the miners and that. I loved the worldbuilding, but the story just seemed to zip by too quickly. I'd have loved to read this at a more China Mieville length.
Among Others is the first book I've read by Jo Walton, although I've had her name down on my writers to read next list for a long time. I adore her column at Tor.com, and this book really feels like an extension of that. It's a book about books and why and how we love them. It's about how reading sci-fi matters even in the mundane world we all live in. It's so cool that now if anyone asks me "how can you read that stuff?" I have the perfect novel to hand them. This is why. (And bonus, I now have more names for my list of writers to read next).
I also read some urban fantasy, the first two books in two different series. Spellbent and Shotgun Sorceress (how awesome is that title?) by Lucy A. Snyder are set or start out in Columbus, Ohio, and hey! I was just there! So I had that geek factor going for me. The sequel starts in Ohio, but then finds its way to a Texas town being controlled by a Japanese demoness. Cool. I have a particular fondness for books where magic has a real cost, and boy does this main character pay a price. There's a large cast of well thought out characters (I have a particular fondness for the college boys the MC rooms with very briefly, although they likely won't turn up again, they were cool).
I also read Embers and Sparks by Laura Bickle, books set in Detroit. The main character is an arson investigator by day and a swallower of ghosts by night. She also has a salamander who is always with her, making trouble. He's not exactly a pet, more like a particularly precocious toddler, capable of destroying something the instant your attention is distracted. This is another one with a large cast of diverse characters; I particularly enjoy the ghostbusting team Anya works with. They have a wide range of world views that occasionally causes conflict but they manage to stay a team; I loved that aspect. Detroit I've not been to, but a few of the settings used in these two books I'd love to see firsthand, like the abandoned train station and the old salt mines.
It's a good month that has me finding two new series to follow. Below, the somewhat random collection of quotes, culled down from a much longer list (boy do I love the highlight feature on my Kindle).
There were cameras literally everywhere, in London. So far, he’d managed not to think about them. He remembered Bigend saying they were a symptom of autoimmune disease, that state’s protective mechanisms ‘roiding up into something actively destructive, chronic; watchful eyes, eroding the healthy function of that which they ostensibly protected. – Zero History
There’s also a lot to be said for Christmas. The high spirits, good food, bringing people together are excellent things for humans. Although anyone who says it is the greatest story ever told clearly hasn’t read Watchmen. – “110 Love Street” by Catie Wilkins, from The Atheists Guide to Christmas
“Bleed to death? How?” I stood up, frowning at him. “There aren’t any major arteries –“
“Dammit, I should not have to talk you out of sticking a spoon in your eye!” - Spellbent
A girl who wore combat boots was much better qualified to dress her than the pastel-clad biddy in the pink shop, Anya decided. – Embers
Various fine young Baptist rednecks regularly kicked the shit out of him because he was half Chinese, half Jewish, and 100 percent nerd. Worse, he was fussy enough to come across as utterly gay to everyone but the actual gay kids. – Shotgun Sorceress
“What are you, anyway? Are you the Charon? The guy fishing for dead souls on the river Styx? Or is that an affectation?”
She felt his muscles tense under her arms. “How about you?” he countered. “Are you the Ishtar?”
“Of course not.”
“We all inherit pieces of things that make us what we are, whether we want them or not.” – Sparks
There are some awful things in the world, it’s true, but there are also some great books. When I grow up I would like to write something that someone could read sitting on a bench on a day that isn’t all that warm and they could sit reading it and totally forget where they were or what time it was so that they were more inside the book than inside their own head. I’d like to write like Delany or Heinlein or Le Guin. – Among Others
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Books in December
Lots of books read in December. Alas I still didn't meet my goal of 100 books read in the year, and actually read less than 2009. In 2011 I'll have to be sure to read more graphic novels to pad my numbers.
Lots of books by Backspacers this month. Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler has a great concept: an anorexic girl becomes the Horseman Famine. The details of being anorexic really brought this story to life, and although it was often sad there are some fun moments as well (like Kurt Cobain as Death; very cool). This feels like a standalone, but I'd love to see a whole Horseman of the Apocalypse series.
Twelfth Grade Kills by Heather Brewer finishes off the chronicles of Vladimir Todd. It's a good ending with lots of surprises, but it feels like there's more story here. Maybe Vlad will go to college.
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by AS King really got me at a gut level. Dealing with the death of a close friend on top of already dealing with high school and family issues - Vera Dietz was very really for me. Plus the writing is just top notch; this is another book on my Kindle with pages and pages of highlighted quotes. (This was all around a tough month to winnow down the quote list).
Stealing the Marbles by EJ Knapp is a great heist story with great score: the main character is aiming to steal the Elgin marbles from the British Museum so he can give them back to the Greeks. I love me a heist story, and this one had a lot of fun twists and details. This would make an awesome George Clooney movie (but an even awesomer Cary Grant one, if such a thing were possible).
Tongues of Serpents is the latest Temeraire novel from Naomi Novik, this time set in Australia. She really brought the geography to life; man, I'd love to go to Australia some day. The naval battle with the sea monsters - straightup awesome.
Two short story collections from M. Rickert: Map of Dreams has a lot of her stories that I'd originally read in FSF. They're just as engrossing the second time through. The only weak entry is actually the first piece, the title story. For me it took too long to get where I always figured it was going. But all of the stories in Holiday were darkly wonderful, and the structure of a year's cycle of a story for each holiday gave it a nice rhythm. Of course any book that ends with "The Christmas Witch" is doing something right. I don't think I've ever read a young child POV so convincingly written.
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold is the latest Miles Vorkosigan novel and doesn't disappoint. Some old characters are back, but the new ones hold their own.
A Star Shall Fall by Marie Brennan is hands-down my favorite of that series so far. It might just be the time it's set in, but when science starts to come into its own, things get very interesting for magical creatures. I really love how Haley's comet is used, and the missing days from when the calendars were corrected. Very cool.
And now some of my favorite quotes, in no particular order:
She sipped, realizing that at least when food was involved, she was able to feel. Maybe the emotion was bitter and hateful, but it was better than the vacuum she otherwise seemed to dwell in. Food was real. Everything else paled. - Hunger
I turn to the pond and eye a bright pink fish the size of my forearm shimmering his way from shadow to shadow, and I toss in the penny and make a wish. I wish for world peace, because it’s about as likely to occur as anything else I can wish for. - Please Ignore Vera Dietz
Mulling this over, Vlad wiped her lip gloss from his lips with the back of his hand. Vampires, after all, didn’t sparkle. - Twelfth Grade Kills
Hell hath no fury like a woman whose boyfriend is tied to a chair and being tortured in a dingy garage. - Stealing the Marbles
Privately, Temeraire was forced to admit that Laurence was unreasonably deadly on the subject of superstition, even though it did not make any sense, as he was equally firm on the subject of the Holy Spirit; Temeraire did not see how one could deny other spirits, when you had allowed one. - Tongues of Serpents
Some say she had a glow about her, which, it is also reasoned, is no difficulty for the devil to conjure such a thing if the CIA can make the whole world believe that Russia is no longer a threat, then certainly it is no problem for them to make a girl glow. - "Angel Face" in A Map of Dreams
“She and that Escobaran medtech she married plan to pop their second kid from the uterine replicator any day now.”
“Not cloned, eh?”
“No, it was all done the old-fashioned way, an egg and a sperm in a test tube.” - Cryoburn
The sisters themselves looked like a pair of poetic country housewives, rendered in three-foot miniature. At least until Gertrude Goodemeade advanced on him with the demeanor of an overwhelmingly friendly army sergeant. - A Star Shall Fall
Lots of books by Backspacers this month. Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler has a great concept: an anorexic girl becomes the Horseman Famine. The details of being anorexic really brought this story to life, and although it was often sad there are some fun moments as well (like Kurt Cobain as Death; very cool). This feels like a standalone, but I'd love to see a whole Horseman of the Apocalypse series.
Twelfth Grade Kills by Heather Brewer finishes off the chronicles of Vladimir Todd. It's a good ending with lots of surprises, but it feels like there's more story here. Maybe Vlad will go to college.
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by AS King really got me at a gut level. Dealing with the death of a close friend on top of already dealing with high school and family issues - Vera Dietz was very really for me. Plus the writing is just top notch; this is another book on my Kindle with pages and pages of highlighted quotes. (This was all around a tough month to winnow down the quote list).
Stealing the Marbles by EJ Knapp is a great heist story with great score: the main character is aiming to steal the Elgin marbles from the British Museum so he can give them back to the Greeks. I love me a heist story, and this one had a lot of fun twists and details. This would make an awesome George Clooney movie (but an even awesomer Cary Grant one, if such a thing were possible).
Tongues of Serpents is the latest Temeraire novel from Naomi Novik, this time set in Australia. She really brought the geography to life; man, I'd love to go to Australia some day. The naval battle with the sea monsters - straightup awesome.
Two short story collections from M. Rickert: Map of Dreams has a lot of her stories that I'd originally read in FSF. They're just as engrossing the second time through. The only weak entry is actually the first piece, the title story. For me it took too long to get where I always figured it was going. But all of the stories in Holiday were darkly wonderful, and the structure of a year's cycle of a story for each holiday gave it a nice rhythm. Of course any book that ends with "The Christmas Witch" is doing something right. I don't think I've ever read a young child POV so convincingly written.
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold is the latest Miles Vorkosigan novel and doesn't disappoint. Some old characters are back, but the new ones hold their own.
A Star Shall Fall by Marie Brennan is hands-down my favorite of that series so far. It might just be the time it's set in, but when science starts to come into its own, things get very interesting for magical creatures. I really love how Haley's comet is used, and the missing days from when the calendars were corrected. Very cool.
And now some of my favorite quotes, in no particular order:
She sipped, realizing that at least when food was involved, she was able to feel. Maybe the emotion was bitter and hateful, but it was better than the vacuum she otherwise seemed to dwell in. Food was real. Everything else paled. - Hunger
I turn to the pond and eye a bright pink fish the size of my forearm shimmering his way from shadow to shadow, and I toss in the penny and make a wish. I wish for world peace, because it’s about as likely to occur as anything else I can wish for. - Please Ignore Vera Dietz
Mulling this over, Vlad wiped her lip gloss from his lips with the back of his hand. Vampires, after all, didn’t sparkle. - Twelfth Grade Kills
Hell hath no fury like a woman whose boyfriend is tied to a chair and being tortured in a dingy garage. - Stealing the Marbles
Privately, Temeraire was forced to admit that Laurence was unreasonably deadly on the subject of superstition, even though it did not make any sense, as he was equally firm on the subject of the Holy Spirit; Temeraire did not see how one could deny other spirits, when you had allowed one. - Tongues of Serpents
Some say she had a glow about her, which, it is also reasoned, is no difficulty for the devil to conjure such a thing if the CIA can make the whole world believe that Russia is no longer a threat, then certainly it is no problem for them to make a girl glow. - "Angel Face" in A Map of Dreams
“She and that Escobaran medtech she married plan to pop their second kid from the uterine replicator any day now.”
“Not cloned, eh?”
“No, it was all done the old-fashioned way, an egg and a sperm in a test tube.” - Cryoburn
The sisters themselves looked like a pair of poetic country housewives, rendered in three-foot miniature. At least until Gertrude Goodemeade advanced on him with the demeanor of an overwhelmingly friendly army sergeant. - A Star Shall Fall
Monday, December 27, 2010
Books in November
Only four books read in November (but wait until you see December...)
First off, I capped off my China Miéville marathon with his latest, Kraken. While this doesn't quite nudge Un Lun Dun off as my personal fave, it comes pretty close. Very readable prose, with such detail to the worldbuilding. I particularly like the magic-wielders who use sci-fi tropes for their magic. Who doesn't want a sonic screwdriver for a magic wand? It's so much cooler than a willow branch.
Behemoth is Scott Westerfeld's sequel to Leviathan, this time set in Istanbul. A fun read, the illustrations are quite good. All the talk of spices was making me hungry. And in the next book they are heading further east; should be interesting.
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia is another book that's been around the house for ages in various To Be Read stacks. I loved the Russian details (particularly Father Frost, whom I've adored since the movie), but the story itself didn't quite suck me in as much as I'd hoped.
Drive by Daniel H. Pink also wasn't as engrossing as I'd hoped, mostly because a lot of his ideas come from Dan Ariely, and I've already read him. Not enough new here. On the other hand, if you've not read Ariely, this look at people's relationship to their work and what motivates us might be interesting (on the other, other hand, I'd really just recommend reading Ariely).
It's back to work for me; these stories don't write themselves, you know. In the meantime, a few of my favorite quotes:
Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those in control. Yet in our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you through the day, but only the latter will get you through the night. - Drive
She didn’t know what it was about subways – perhaps the fact that they were carved into a dark wet heart of the earth – that made them so magical. But she used to have an unshakeable conviction that they were the way to a hidden world where she could escape. – The Secret History of Moscow
“Sometimes you can’t get bogged down in the how,” Baron said. “Sometimes things happen that shouldn’t, and you can’t let that detain you. But the why? We can make headway with.” – Kraken
“My name’s not Rosencratz,” Eddie Malone said. “I wasn’t going to carry a message I didn’t understsand.” – Behemoth
First off, I capped off my China Miéville marathon with his latest, Kraken. While this doesn't quite nudge Un Lun Dun off as my personal fave, it comes pretty close. Very readable prose, with such detail to the worldbuilding. I particularly like the magic-wielders who use sci-fi tropes for their magic. Who doesn't want a sonic screwdriver for a magic wand? It's so much cooler than a willow branch.
Behemoth is Scott Westerfeld's sequel to Leviathan, this time set in Istanbul. A fun read, the illustrations are quite good. All the talk of spices was making me hungry. And in the next book they are heading further east; should be interesting.
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia is another book that's been around the house for ages in various To Be Read stacks. I loved the Russian details (particularly Father Frost, whom I've adored since the movie), but the story itself didn't quite suck me in as much as I'd hoped.
Drive by Daniel H. Pink also wasn't as engrossing as I'd hoped, mostly because a lot of his ideas come from Dan Ariely, and I've already read him. Not enough new here. On the other hand, if you've not read Ariely, this look at people's relationship to their work and what motivates us might be interesting (on the other, other hand, I'd really just recommend reading Ariely).
It's back to work for me; these stories don't write themselves, you know. In the meantime, a few of my favorite quotes:
Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those in control. Yet in our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you through the day, but only the latter will get you through the night. - Drive
She didn’t know what it was about subways – perhaps the fact that they were carved into a dark wet heart of the earth – that made them so magical. But she used to have an unshakeable conviction that they were the way to a hidden world where she could escape. – The Secret History of Moscow
“Sometimes you can’t get bogged down in the how,” Baron said. “Sometimes things happen that shouldn’t, and you can’t let that detain you. But the why? We can make headway with.” – Kraken
“My name’s not Rosencratz,” Eddie Malone said. “I wasn’t going to carry a message I didn’t understsand.” – Behemoth
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Books in October
October was an all China Miéville month. I re-read King Rat and Perdido Street Station, then moved on to the other books I've been dutifully buying ever since, but that got lost in my massive To Be Read stacks.
The Scar I'd started once before, but only reached the point when the pirates take the main character's ship, stopping before she even reached the floating city. Which is a shame, as that is just my sort of thing. I did like a lot of elements of this novel, and the language was China gorgeous as always, but it was a bit slow and the main character was so emotionally removed she was hard to relate to, a problem as a few random interludes aside, she was the only POV character. But the ending pulled it all together in a fantastically perfect way; I was glad I'd stuck with it this time.
Iron Council was also a bit unevenly paced for me. The beginning, with the group of city dwellers out in the wild, essentially on a quest, dying one by one: I loved that bit. And again, the ending is absolutely perfect (man, that light golem was cool), but there were other bits in between that slowed down.
Looking for Jake is a short story collection, some of which I'd read before. I particularly liked the story set in an Ikea; my boys love going to Ikea (all three of them).
Un Lun Dun is a YA novel, and edges out Perdido Street Station as my favorite. The worldbuilding is so detailed, with every chapter full of new creatures and characters doing something just a little askew - it reminded me of the first time I read Alice in Wonderland. Wonderful.
The City & The City is equal parts fantasy and a police procedural/crime story. I liked the fantasy bits, but the crime story bits not so much. I don't read much crime fiction, though. I'm sure a fan of both kinds of stories would find this novel awesome.
Kraken will be coming up in November. In the meantime, I've managed to winnow down my enormous collection of favorite China quotes to these few:
Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole. - The Scar
In Spiral Jacob’s eyes Ori saw real derangement, a dark sea of loneliness, cold, liquor and drugs. But thoughts still saw there, cunning as barracuda, their movements the twitchings of the tramp’s face. - The Iron Council
They laid tracks on ground just smooth enough for their passage, on ties just strong enough, just close enough together. It was a just-railroad, existing in the moment for the train to pass, then gone again. - The Iron Council
The disease incubates for up to three years, during which time the infected patient suffers violent headaches. After this, full-blown Buscard’s Murrain is manifested in slowing failing mental faculties and severe mood swings between three conditions: near full lucidity; a feversigh seeking out of the largest audience possible, and a state of loud, hysterical glossolalia. Samuel Buscard infamously denoted these states torpor, prefatory, and grandiloquent respectively, thereby appearing to take the side of the disease. - from “Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopaedia” in Looking for Jake
I will not call them evil. They are not evil. But I am afraid that they are capable of it. - from "Different Skies” in Looking for Jake
“Is it dangerous? Hmmm. Well, define ‘dangerous’. Is a knife ‘dangerous’? Is Russian roulette ‘dangerous’? Is arsenic ‘dangerous’?” He did the little finger-thing to show quotation marks, tickling the air. “It depends on your perspective.”
“I don’t think it does depend on perspective,” said Deeba. “I think that’s all definitely dangerous. I don’t think you need none of this...” She did the quote motion. - Un Lun Dun
“The thing is,” Deeba said, eying Mr. Speaker, “you could only make words do what you want if it was just you deciding what they mean. But it isn’t. It’s everyone else, too. Which means you might want to give them orders, but you aren’t in total control. No one is.” - Un Lun Dun
He walked with equipoise, possibly in either city. Schrödinger’s pedestrian. - The City & The City
The Scar I'd started once before, but only reached the point when the pirates take the main character's ship, stopping before she even reached the floating city. Which is a shame, as that is just my sort of thing. I did like a lot of elements of this novel, and the language was China gorgeous as always, but it was a bit slow and the main character was so emotionally removed she was hard to relate to, a problem as a few random interludes aside, she was the only POV character. But the ending pulled it all together in a fantastically perfect way; I was glad I'd stuck with it this time.
Iron Council was also a bit unevenly paced for me. The beginning, with the group of city dwellers out in the wild, essentially on a quest, dying one by one: I loved that bit. And again, the ending is absolutely perfect (man, that light golem was cool), but there were other bits in between that slowed down.
Looking for Jake is a short story collection, some of which I'd read before. I particularly liked the story set in an Ikea; my boys love going to Ikea (all three of them).
Un Lun Dun is a YA novel, and edges out Perdido Street Station as my favorite. The worldbuilding is so detailed, with every chapter full of new creatures and characters doing something just a little askew - it reminded me of the first time I read Alice in Wonderland. Wonderful.
The City & The City is equal parts fantasy and a police procedural/crime story. I liked the fantasy bits, but the crime story bits not so much. I don't read much crime fiction, though. I'm sure a fan of both kinds of stories would find this novel awesome.
Kraken will be coming up in November. In the meantime, I've managed to winnow down my enormous collection of favorite China quotes to these few:
Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole. - The Scar
In Spiral Jacob’s eyes Ori saw real derangement, a dark sea of loneliness, cold, liquor and drugs. But thoughts still saw there, cunning as barracuda, their movements the twitchings of the tramp’s face. - The Iron Council
They laid tracks on ground just smooth enough for their passage, on ties just strong enough, just close enough together. It was a just-railroad, existing in the moment for the train to pass, then gone again. - The Iron Council
The disease incubates for up to three years, during which time the infected patient suffers violent headaches. After this, full-blown Buscard’s Murrain is manifested in slowing failing mental faculties and severe mood swings between three conditions: near full lucidity; a feversigh seeking out of the largest audience possible, and a state of loud, hysterical glossolalia. Samuel Buscard infamously denoted these states torpor, prefatory, and grandiloquent respectively, thereby appearing to take the side of the disease. - from “Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopaedia” in Looking for Jake
I will not call them evil. They are not evil. But I am afraid that they are capable of it. - from "Different Skies” in Looking for Jake
“Is it dangerous? Hmmm. Well, define ‘dangerous’. Is a knife ‘dangerous’? Is Russian roulette ‘dangerous’? Is arsenic ‘dangerous’?” He did the little finger-thing to show quotation marks, tickling the air. “It depends on your perspective.”
“I don’t think it does depend on perspective,” said Deeba. “I think that’s all definitely dangerous. I don’t think you need none of this...” She did the quote motion. - Un Lun Dun
“The thing is,” Deeba said, eying Mr. Speaker, “you could only make words do what you want if it was just you deciding what they mean. But it isn’t. It’s everyone else, too. Which means you might want to give them orders, but you aren’t in total control. No one is.” - Un Lun Dun
He walked with equipoise, possibly in either city. Schrödinger’s pedestrian. - The City & The City
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Books in September
Not much fiction read in September, and what I read was all Joe Hill. I mentioned his short story collection in August, which I liked, but the novels are even better. Wonderfully constructed with complex (often surprisingly loveable) main characters and endings that manage to slip into that narrow sliver where the circles of "didn't see it coming" and "satisfying happy ending" coincide. Heart-Shaped Box is already being adapted into a movie with Neil Jordan as director. I can't wait to see it; his gorgeous use of color and all-around visual sense with this story where reality keeps getting all nightmarish and twisty, is going to be very interesting indeed.
But Horns was the novel I liked the best of the two. The way the story unfolded, and little bits of the past coming to life in a completely organic way, I thought it was just about perfect. And I loved the ending (and the double meaning to the title).
In nonfiction, I read another by Dan Ariely, The Upside of Irrationality. His previous book was almost a downer with its arguments that as much as people would like to be, we just aren't always rational. This book makes a nice companion: yes, we're not always rational, but there are ways to make irrationality work for you. Not as meaty as his first book, but still a good read.
And still doing novel research, Anger, Madness and the Daimonic by Stephen A. Diamond turned out not to be useful at all for my current novel purposes, but very eyeopening to some of the thematic elements in my last work. Outside of my own writing, it was a very interesting book that made me want to dive back in to my Carl Jung collection, and expand it. So many books, so little time.
People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck reminded me of a certain episode of Frasier, where he is backing a political candidate he really likes, until he finds out that the man is convinced he was abducted by aliens. I felt the same disconnect here, with how much I was right there with him in the realm of psychology, and how vast the chasm between us was when he started using words like "evil" and "Satan". Such is life.
This month's quotes, all from the fiction:
If hell was anything, it was talk radio – and family. Heart-Shaped Box
Horror was rooted in sympathy, after all, in understanding what it would be like to suffer the worst. Heart-Shaped Box
Talking to her now was like flailing his hands at a storm of hornets, It did nothing, and it stung, and yet he couldn’t stop himself. - Horns
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Books in August
In August I finished off the last volumes of Full Metal Alchemist, namely 13-23. I have 24 on preorder, but it's not out until January. I'm not sure if that will be the last or second to last, but it definitely feels like the story is coming to an end. It's so different from the anime series and movie I don't know what's going to happen next, but it's awesome.
Tamas by Bhisham Sahni is a novel set in the Partition, when Pakistan became a separate country from India with much religious rioting. I've read nonfiction books on the subject which were deeply upsetting, and I've seen more than a few Bollywood movies that were set at that time, or dealt with the fallout of it all (often a bit too shrilly overdramatic). In comparison, this novel written by someone who lived through it all, feels very emotionally remote. It's a good story and feels real, just muted.
Speaking of nonfiction, I picked up the book version of a DVD I've been working through when I can find the time (so, not often), Taijiguan, Classical Yang Style by Yang, Jwing Ming. I like Yang's writing, we actually have quite a few of his other books and I delve into them from time to time. Learning the form is probably much easier with the DVD than with the pictures in the book, but the book has a lot more information on the hows and whys as well as the history. Someday I'll have enough time to really devote to this, right?
Another nonfiction I picked up as possible novel #5 research, American Exorcism by Michael Cuneo. It wasn't quite what I needed for what I'm thinking of for novel #5, but was interesting in it's own right and I read the whole thing in two afternoons. Cuneo (who describes himself in a way I could also describe myself, as an open-minded sceptic) looks into exorcisms, both the old school Catholic and the kind done by Pentecostals and Evangelicals, also spending some time on the Satanic scares of the early 80s, something I remember happening from my childhood years and was tremendously interesting to put into a larger context.
I also finished off my Cory Doctorow kick with his last two novels, Makers, which I actually found a bit depressing (for its near future in which no one has any financial security or job stability), and For the Win, which has displaced Little Brother as my favorite Doctorow. FTW is set mainly in Mumbai and China, where kids are put to work in sweat shops playing videogames to rack up megacharacters and win all the rare prizes to be sold to lazy gamers in the US and elsewhere. The plot centers on these kids getting organized, getting unionized, across national boundaries (and joining forces with all the other exploited workers of Asia). Lots of ideas about workers and economics, with details that put you right there in the heat, smelling the food, hearing the roar of the computer fans. I'd highly recommend that one; I think Doctorow is at his best when he's writing YA.
I've had Joe Hill's books on my shelf for quite some time now, gifts from two Christmases ago plus his new one which I picked up when it came out. It seemed like a good time to dig into them now (yeah, I don't know why, sometimes I just get these urges). I started off with his short story collection 20th Century Ghosts, which was engrossing as hell. Clever stories with marvellously complicated characters, what's not to love? Here's a little taste of Books in September: his novels are even better.
Banto again fell silent. Argument can counter argument, but argument is helpless against faith. -
Bhisham Sahni
What Aunt Mandy would say about it is that she's still trying to figure out what it is she's supposed to be. What my father would say is Mandy is wrong if she thinks the question hasn't been answered yet - she already is the person she was always sure to become. - Joe Hill
Tamas by Bhisham Sahni is a novel set in the Partition, when Pakistan became a separate country from India with much religious rioting. I've read nonfiction books on the subject which were deeply upsetting, and I've seen more than a few Bollywood movies that were set at that time, or dealt with the fallout of it all (often a bit too shrilly overdramatic). In comparison, this novel written by someone who lived through it all, feels very emotionally remote. It's a good story and feels real, just muted.
Speaking of nonfiction, I picked up the book version of a DVD I've been working through when I can find the time (so, not often), Taijiguan, Classical Yang Style by Yang, Jwing Ming. I like Yang's writing, we actually have quite a few of his other books and I delve into them from time to time. Learning the form is probably much easier with the DVD than with the pictures in the book, but the book has a lot more information on the hows and whys as well as the history. Someday I'll have enough time to really devote to this, right?
Another nonfiction I picked up as possible novel #5 research, American Exorcism by Michael Cuneo. It wasn't quite what I needed for what I'm thinking of for novel #5, but was interesting in it's own right and I read the whole thing in two afternoons. Cuneo (who describes himself in a way I could also describe myself, as an open-minded sceptic) looks into exorcisms, both the old school Catholic and the kind done by Pentecostals and Evangelicals, also spending some time on the Satanic scares of the early 80s, something I remember happening from my childhood years and was tremendously interesting to put into a larger context.
I also finished off my Cory Doctorow kick with his last two novels, Makers, which I actually found a bit depressing (for its near future in which no one has any financial security or job stability), and For the Win, which has displaced Little Brother as my favorite Doctorow. FTW is set mainly in Mumbai and China, where kids are put to work in sweat shops playing videogames to rack up megacharacters and win all the rare prizes to be sold to lazy gamers in the US and elsewhere. The plot centers on these kids getting organized, getting unionized, across national boundaries (and joining forces with all the other exploited workers of Asia). Lots of ideas about workers and economics, with details that put you right there in the heat, smelling the food, hearing the roar of the computer fans. I'd highly recommend that one; I think Doctorow is at his best when he's writing YA.
I've had Joe Hill's books on my shelf for quite some time now, gifts from two Christmases ago plus his new one which I picked up when it came out. It seemed like a good time to dig into them now (yeah, I don't know why, sometimes I just get these urges). I started off with his short story collection 20th Century Ghosts, which was engrossing as hell. Clever stories with marvellously complicated characters, what's not to love? Here's a little taste of Books in September: his novels are even better.
Banto again fell silent. Argument can counter argument, but argument is helpless against faith. -
Bhisham Sahni
What Aunt Mandy would say about it is that she's still trying to figure out what it is she's supposed to be. What my father would say is Mandy is wrong if she thinks the question hasn't been answered yet - she already is the person she was always sure to become. - Joe Hill
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Books in July
In my head, July was a month where I did nothing but write, write, write until I finished the rewrite on the novel. But apparently I was reading quite a bit as well. I remember the books, but I don't remember finding the time to read them. Writing warps my mind that way, I think.
In the world of, um, sequential art (OK, manga and comic books), I read volumes 7-12 of Full Metal Alchemist, which I love more and more the less it's like the anime series I've already watched three times. This story is so seriously cool. Perhaps I love it so much because as soon as I finish a volume I hand it off to Oliver and he devours it and then we geek out about it together. Good times.
I also finally picked up the Alan Moore I got with my Christmas money, volumes 3-5 of Promethea, which I think is my favorite of his. I can qualify that, it might not be my favorite story of his, but it's definitely my favorite art. It's just gorgeous (although the story and themes rock too). I also read two The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, namely The Black Dossier and Century:1910. It's like the coolest fan fiction ever, weaving in all the great fictional characters. But I've been getting less of that vibe as I go and the story moves more into modern times, and I'm beginning to wonder where he's going with all this.
I read one nonfiction book, the very interesting Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. The book came out just as the subprime shit was going down, and the edition I read had some appendices where he discusses just how much what he was saying in the first place was borne out by everything that happened. It's just a shame he didn't get heard sooner. Apparently economics is driven by economists who believe that everyone behaves rationally when it comes to money, and that's something we can depend on, can take as a constant when doing the math, so to speak. This book is about how that is sadly just not true, with lots of examples from experiments he's done, although once he's stated his point it feels so intuitive it's hard to believe anyone could think otherwise.
I happened to read that book after it came up on Boing Boing, which is as good a segue as I'm going to get to Cory Doctorow. I've previously read Little Brother, which was teh awesome. In July I read his first two novels Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is set in a far off future where there is no reason to work since no one needs anything, but the economy is based on reputation so everyone is always looking to do something cool, like super-geek-out Disney World rides. A fun read, especially if you love Disney World (I do). Eastern Standard Tribe was darker, twisted and funny. Having since read a few more Doctorow, I would say his themes are generally variations of the conflict between those who make, and those who want to control what is made. Which I find terribly interesting, if at times almost depressing when it seems like a losing battle (more on that in Books in August).
Lots of Backspacers with new books out, which is always cool. Only the Good Spy Young by Ally Carter is a great next volume in the series. The plot thickens, the stakes get higher, new facets of some characters are revealed. I love this series.
Shades of Gray by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge is also a sequel, although this to me feels more like the middle volume of a trilogy than another of a long series. It had that The Empire Strike Back kind of feel to it, anyway. The world building goes deeper, the characters form the sort of strange of-necessity alliances that are always the coolest thing in comics. I've waited forever for a cool novel about superheroes, and this and its predecessor are exactly what I longed for.
Moving out of genre to literary, I read Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch. If Amazon.com wants to pull a 1984 a pull this back off my reader, I'm pretty well covered since I underlined almost all of it anyway. Yes, the language is that perfect. Every sentence demands to be read aloud. But I particularly loved the nonlinear sequence spread over multiple characters. First we're in 1990 and then we're in 1931. We're in Audie's head, then we're in his brother's, or his nephew's. There's not a thread that's being followed, at first it seems all over the place. It reminded me of when I was a kid doing one of those pictures you paint with water. I used to like to get the brush as wet as possible, then hold it over the page and let big, fat drops fall on a few different points of the picture. Then I'd watch as the drops spread, making the blues, reds and greens come to life, bringing out more and more of the picture until they started to spread into each other, to connect and eventually cover the page. The plot of this reveals itself like that. It was hypnotic, I couldn't stop reading it. Remember what I said above, about not remembering reading these books? Well this one I do remember, because I devoured it all in a day, accidentally clocking extra miles on the treadmill because I wasn't paying attention, serving dinner late because I was cooking with one hand and holding the Kindle in the other (and I need two hands to underline - sorry, dinner!).
Now I'm not sure what happened but some of the books seemed to have lost their underlining on my Kindle. Not sure how that happened (Kings of Earth is happily unaffected), so my closing quotes are a bit skimpy this go around:
Wouldn't economics make a lot more sense if it were based on how people actually behave, instead of how they should behave? - Dan Ariery
The side of the refigerator was mossy. The man from Syrcuse said his Boy Scout training must be failing him because he'd been given to understand that moss grew on the north sides of trees and this was the east. One of the troopers suggested that maybe the conventional wisodm didn't apply to iceboxes. - Jon Clinch
It is very hot, and I am turning the color of the Barbie aisle at FAO Schwartz, a kind of labial pink that is both painful and perversely cheerful. - Cory Doctorow (Eastern Standard Tribe)
In the world of, um, sequential art (OK, manga and comic books), I read volumes 7-12 of Full Metal Alchemist, which I love more and more the less it's like the anime series I've already watched three times. This story is so seriously cool. Perhaps I love it so much because as soon as I finish a volume I hand it off to Oliver and he devours it and then we geek out about it together. Good times.
I also finally picked up the Alan Moore I got with my Christmas money, volumes 3-5 of Promethea, which I think is my favorite of his. I can qualify that, it might not be my favorite story of his, but it's definitely my favorite art. It's just gorgeous (although the story and themes rock too). I also read two The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, namely The Black Dossier and Century:1910. It's like the coolest fan fiction ever, weaving in all the great fictional characters. But I've been getting less of that vibe as I go and the story moves more into modern times, and I'm beginning to wonder where he's going with all this.
I read one nonfiction book, the very interesting Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. The book came out just as the subprime shit was going down, and the edition I read had some appendices where he discusses just how much what he was saying in the first place was borne out by everything that happened. It's just a shame he didn't get heard sooner. Apparently economics is driven by economists who believe that everyone behaves rationally when it comes to money, and that's something we can depend on, can take as a constant when doing the math, so to speak. This book is about how that is sadly just not true, with lots of examples from experiments he's done, although once he's stated his point it feels so intuitive it's hard to believe anyone could think otherwise.
I happened to read that book after it came up on Boing Boing, which is as good a segue as I'm going to get to Cory Doctorow. I've previously read Little Brother, which was teh awesome. In July I read his first two novels Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is set in a far off future where there is no reason to work since no one needs anything, but the economy is based on reputation so everyone is always looking to do something cool, like super-geek-out Disney World rides. A fun read, especially if you love Disney World (I do). Eastern Standard Tribe was darker, twisted and funny. Having since read a few more Doctorow, I would say his themes are generally variations of the conflict between those who make, and those who want to control what is made. Which I find terribly interesting, if at times almost depressing when it seems like a losing battle (more on that in Books in August).
Lots of Backspacers with new books out, which is always cool. Only the Good Spy Young by Ally Carter is a great next volume in the series. The plot thickens, the stakes get higher, new facets of some characters are revealed. I love this series.
Shades of Gray by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge is also a sequel, although this to me feels more like the middle volume of a trilogy than another of a long series. It had that The Empire Strike Back kind of feel to it, anyway. The world building goes deeper, the characters form the sort of strange of-necessity alliances that are always the coolest thing in comics. I've waited forever for a cool novel about superheroes, and this and its predecessor are exactly what I longed for.
Moving out of genre to literary, I read Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch. If Amazon.com wants to pull a 1984 a pull this back off my reader, I'm pretty well covered since I underlined almost all of it anyway. Yes, the language is that perfect. Every sentence demands to be read aloud. But I particularly loved the nonlinear sequence spread over multiple characters. First we're in 1990 and then we're in 1931. We're in Audie's head, then we're in his brother's, or his nephew's. There's not a thread that's being followed, at first it seems all over the place. It reminded me of when I was a kid doing one of those pictures you paint with water. I used to like to get the brush as wet as possible, then hold it over the page and let big, fat drops fall on a few different points of the picture. Then I'd watch as the drops spread, making the blues, reds and greens come to life, bringing out more and more of the picture until they started to spread into each other, to connect and eventually cover the page. The plot of this reveals itself like that. It was hypnotic, I couldn't stop reading it. Remember what I said above, about not remembering reading these books? Well this one I do remember, because I devoured it all in a day, accidentally clocking extra miles on the treadmill because I wasn't paying attention, serving dinner late because I was cooking with one hand and holding the Kindle in the other (and I need two hands to underline - sorry, dinner!).
Now I'm not sure what happened but some of the books seemed to have lost their underlining on my Kindle. Not sure how that happened (Kings of Earth is happily unaffected), so my closing quotes are a bit skimpy this go around:
Wouldn't economics make a lot more sense if it were based on how people actually behave, instead of how they should behave? - Dan Ariery
The side of the refigerator was mossy. The man from Syrcuse said his Boy Scout training must be failing him because he'd been given to understand that moss grew on the north sides of trees and this was the east. One of the troopers suggested that maybe the conventional wisodm didn't apply to iceboxes. - Jon Clinch
It is very hot, and I am turning the color of the Barbie aisle at FAO Schwartz, a kind of labial pink that is both painful and perversely cheerful. - Cory Doctorow (Eastern Standard Tribe)
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Books in June
I finally got around to reading the Full Metal Alchemist manga (by Hiromu Arakawa) I bought after watching the anime show. I read volumes 1-6 in June, and so far the show follows the manga pretty closely. I understand it's when Greed enters the picture that the two stories diverge.
After having read The Gangs of New York, I picked up another collection of New York anecdotes by Herbert Asbury, All Around the Town. These are not strictly about gangs and gangsters and some of the stories are quite amusing, like the breakdown in what it took to be a fashionable lady in the post Civil War period. Expensive, and a little on the ouch side.
Another nonfiction book I read was the latest from Ayaan Hirisi Ali, Nomad. I was sucked in with her life story in her last book, and here she has more reflections, about what everything she went through taught her, and how the western world should handle immigrants from the Muslim world in particular. A very thought-provoking read.
It sort of worked out that I ended up reading two books dealing with female genital mutilation. It's something that Ali went through, and it appears as a major plot point in Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death. I loved this book, it deals with a lot of dark material but in the end has a feeling of pragmatic optimism about the future. There is wonderful worldbuilding here, and complex characters. I'd highly recommend this one, a great read.
Lastly, another book I finally got around to is the English translation of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay's Devdas. Having seen two film versions (of the dozens in various languages made), I can now say that the Dilip Kumar version does follow the book (novella, really) more closely, but nothing can match the visual splendor of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's version. He may have deviated from some details, but I think he got the soul of the book up on the screen. It's one beautiful bummer of a story.
And now back to my so nearly done novel. I'll leave you with a few of my favorite quotes:
He said first that since he resembled Queen Anne to such a remarkable degree, he occasionally donned skirts and paraded the streets solely that he might acquaint the colonists with the appearance of their sovereign, whom none of them would probably ever see. This explanation didn't seem to satisfy anybody, so His High Mightiness said that he sometimes dressed as a woman simply because he was the New World representative of the Queen, and he though that the people should be reminded from time to time that they were ruled by a woman. Colonial eyebrows were still lifted, so Lord Cornbury finally announced with considerable dignity that he had made a vow which compelled him to wear dresses one month each year. And if that wasn't sufficient for the citizens, he implied, they could concoct a few explanations of their own. - Herbert Asbury
To be something abnormal meant that you were to serve the normal. And if you refused, they hated you... and often the normal hated you even when you did serve them. - Nnedi Okorafor
It is the custom of the wise and the cautious not to pronounce judgment on anything hastily, or to jump to conclusions without considering the full implications of the matter. But there are human beings who are the exact opposite. They do not have the patience to reflect over anything or follow a matter through to its logical end. On the spur of the moment they decide that a thing is either good or bad. They make faith do the work of thorough soul searching. It isn't that such people aren't cut out for the world - in fact they often work out very well. If luck is with them, they can often be found at the pinnacle of success. But if luck doesn't favour them, they can be found in the deepest dregs of misery, wallowing in its murky depths, unable to get up, to rise above their circumstances. There they lie like lifeless, inanimate objects. Devdas belonged to this class of men. - Saratchandra Chattopdhyay
All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. - Ayaan Hirisi Ali
After having read The Gangs of New York, I picked up another collection of New York anecdotes by Herbert Asbury, All Around the Town. These are not strictly about gangs and gangsters and some of the stories are quite amusing, like the breakdown in what it took to be a fashionable lady in the post Civil War period. Expensive, and a little on the ouch side.
Another nonfiction book I read was the latest from Ayaan Hirisi Ali, Nomad. I was sucked in with her life story in her last book, and here she has more reflections, about what everything she went through taught her, and how the western world should handle immigrants from the Muslim world in particular. A very thought-provoking read.
It sort of worked out that I ended up reading two books dealing with female genital mutilation. It's something that Ali went through, and it appears as a major plot point in Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death. I loved this book, it deals with a lot of dark material but in the end has a feeling of pragmatic optimism about the future. There is wonderful worldbuilding here, and complex characters. I'd highly recommend this one, a great read.
Lastly, another book I finally got around to is the English translation of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay's Devdas. Having seen two film versions (of the dozens in various languages made), I can now say that the Dilip Kumar version does follow the book (novella, really) more closely, but nothing can match the visual splendor of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's version. He may have deviated from some details, but I think he got the soul of the book up on the screen. It's one beautiful bummer of a story.
And now back to my so nearly done novel. I'll leave you with a few of my favorite quotes:
He said first that since he resembled Queen Anne to such a remarkable degree, he occasionally donned skirts and paraded the streets solely that he might acquaint the colonists with the appearance of their sovereign, whom none of them would probably ever see. This explanation didn't seem to satisfy anybody, so His High Mightiness said that he sometimes dressed as a woman simply because he was the New World representative of the Queen, and he though that the people should be reminded from time to time that they were ruled by a woman. Colonial eyebrows were still lifted, so Lord Cornbury finally announced with considerable dignity that he had made a vow which compelled him to wear dresses one month each year. And if that wasn't sufficient for the citizens, he implied, they could concoct a few explanations of their own. - Herbert Asbury
To be something abnormal meant that you were to serve the normal. And if you refused, they hated you... and often the normal hated you even when you did serve them. - Nnedi Okorafor
It is the custom of the wise and the cautious not to pronounce judgment on anything hastily, or to jump to conclusions without considering the full implications of the matter. But there are human beings who are the exact opposite. They do not have the patience to reflect over anything or follow a matter through to its logical end. On the spur of the moment they decide that a thing is either good or bad. They make faith do the work of thorough soul searching. It isn't that such people aren't cut out for the world - in fact they often work out very well. If luck is with them, they can often be found at the pinnacle of success. But if luck doesn't favour them, they can be found in the deepest dregs of misery, wallowing in its murky depths, unable to get up, to rise above their circumstances. There they lie like lifeless, inanimate objects. Devdas belonged to this class of men. - Saratchandra Chattopdhyay
All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. - Ayaan Hirisi Ali
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Books in May
In May I wrapped up the last of the Bronte novels. Villette by Charlotte Bronte dragged a lot in the beginning, then got very engrossing near the end. I'm going to have to tackle all of her books again some day after I've learned a little French; she puts entire paragraphs in French and doesn't translate. A sentence or two I can guess the gist, but whole paragraphs? Emily Bronte only ever wrote Wuthering Heights, which I read back in my teens. It's a tickle to read it again post-Jasper Fforde. Anne Bronte was apparently the religious one of the three; Agnes Grey comes across to me as very moralizing. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall I liked better. You'd think a novel about the long-suffering wife of a narcissist alcoholic (and possible heroin fiend) would have even more heavy-handed moralizing than the story of a governess in charge of a bunch of ingrates, but I actually found it very human and with a still-contemporary feel.
After all that reading of books more than a century old, I gorged on new releases from some of my faves. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman... well, what can I say? My Kindle version is underlined like crazy now, this book had so much wonderful writing in it. Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik is the latest Tremeraire novel. I liked it better than the last, which I felt wandered too much. This one has a stronger, more relentless plot: Napoleon invades England and the British army is driven back to Scotland. And the next book is set in Australia: I'm geeked already.
Helpless by MJ Pearson was all kinds of awesome. Oscar Wilde's trial makes the perfect backdrop for this story about the love that dares not speak its name, in this case a love triangle where someone is not to be trusted, but which one? And since this is Pearson, the historical details are delightful and perfect, and the secondary characters are rich and often laugh out loud funny. I had to wait awhile for this one to come out, but it was worth it.
Still reading about writing: Word Work by Bruce Holland Rogers was a fun read, more about process and lifestyle than about the mechanics. Rogers is one of my favorite short fiction writers, and the only short-short writer I consistently like; getting a little glimpse into how he approaches writing was enlightening. More work, but worth it, was The Rhetoric of Fiction by Wayne C. Booth. It took me a few months to get throught it, but mostly because there were so much here I needed to stop and let it soak in, really think about it. Anyone interested in the old show vs. tell debate, particularly if you like me are a bit cynical about rules cut in stone, I highly recommend this book to you.
And lastly, Hindi: An Essential Grammar by Rama Kant Agnihotri. A nice overview. Grammar, like math, I find I understand best if I have multiple people explain it from their own unique perspective (in case you're wondering why this seems like the fourth or fifth Hindi grammar I've read in the last year). This is thorough and points are clearly explained, but it's meant to be used in a classroom with a teacher; hence, none of the exercises have answers. So for the self-taught, I'm afraid RS McGregor is still the best bet.
And now for a few of my favorite quotes from the month:
No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. - Charlotte Bronte, Villette
I'm part of the world, and I love every grain of sand and blade of grass and drop of blood in it. There might as well not be anything else, because these things are enough to gladden the heart and calm the spirit; and we know they delight the body. - Philip Pullman
And here am I, my hands red with blood and shame and wet with tears, longing to begin telling the story of Jesus, and not just for the sake of making a record of what happened: I want to play with it; I want to give it a better shape; I want to knot the details together neatly to make patterns and show correspondences, and if they weren't there in life, I want to put them there in the story, for no other reason than to make a better story. - Philip Pullman
"...he just doesn't talk much. He can, of course, he's not dumb or dumb, if you get my meaning, he just doesn't say much. But when he does-"
Douglas was amused. "It's bound to be wise and profound?"
"Oh no, absolute drivel, usually."
Donnie rolled his eyes and spoke at last. "Orange," he said. - MJ Pearson
He seldom deigned to notice me; and, when he did, it was with a certain supercilious insolence of tone and manner that convinced me he was no gentleman; though it was intended to have the contrary effect. - Anne Bronte, Agnes Grey
"It is I who left them," was the smiling rejoinder. "I was wearied to death with small talk - nothing wears me out like that. I cannot imagine how they can go on as they do." - Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
What meaning would it have to say to Joyce that he has asked for "too much" cryptoanalysis in Finnegans Wake? Too much for you and me, perhaps, and we may find ourselves ultimately repudiating, on moral grounds, an author who excludes practically everyone. But not too much for Finnegans Wake. Who would bother about Finnegans Wake at all if it were not packed with Finneganswakism? - Wayne C. Booth
"Where does he live?" Temeraire asked, interrupting; he felt that anyone who did not have time for politics must be rather sensible. - Naomi Novik
After all that reading of books more than a century old, I gorged on new releases from some of my faves. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman... well, what can I say? My Kindle version is underlined like crazy now, this book had so much wonderful writing in it. Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik is the latest Tremeraire novel. I liked it better than the last, which I felt wandered too much. This one has a stronger, more relentless plot: Napoleon invades England and the British army is driven back to Scotland. And the next book is set in Australia: I'm geeked already.
Helpless by MJ Pearson was all kinds of awesome. Oscar Wilde's trial makes the perfect backdrop for this story about the love that dares not speak its name, in this case a love triangle where someone is not to be trusted, but which one? And since this is Pearson, the historical details are delightful and perfect, and the secondary characters are rich and often laugh out loud funny. I had to wait awhile for this one to come out, but it was worth it.
Still reading about writing: Word Work by Bruce Holland Rogers was a fun read, more about process and lifestyle than about the mechanics. Rogers is one of my favorite short fiction writers, and the only short-short writer I consistently like; getting a little glimpse into how he approaches writing was enlightening. More work, but worth it, was The Rhetoric of Fiction by Wayne C. Booth. It took me a few months to get throught it, but mostly because there were so much here I needed to stop and let it soak in, really think about it. Anyone interested in the old show vs. tell debate, particularly if you like me are a bit cynical about rules cut in stone, I highly recommend this book to you.
And lastly, Hindi: An Essential Grammar by Rama Kant Agnihotri. A nice overview. Grammar, like math, I find I understand best if I have multiple people explain it from their own unique perspective (in case you're wondering why this seems like the fourth or fifth Hindi grammar I've read in the last year). This is thorough and points are clearly explained, but it's meant to be used in a classroom with a teacher; hence, none of the exercises have answers. So for the self-taught, I'm afraid RS McGregor is still the best bet.
And now for a few of my favorite quotes from the month:
No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. - Charlotte Bronte, Villette
I'm part of the world, and I love every grain of sand and blade of grass and drop of blood in it. There might as well not be anything else, because these things are enough to gladden the heart and calm the spirit; and we know they delight the body. - Philip Pullman
And here am I, my hands red with blood and shame and wet with tears, longing to begin telling the story of Jesus, and not just for the sake of making a record of what happened: I want to play with it; I want to give it a better shape; I want to knot the details together neatly to make patterns and show correspondences, and if they weren't there in life, I want to put them there in the story, for no other reason than to make a better story. - Philip Pullman
"...he just doesn't talk much. He can, of course, he's not dumb or dumb, if you get my meaning, he just doesn't say much. But when he does-"
Douglas was amused. "It's bound to be wise and profound?"
"Oh no, absolute drivel, usually."
Donnie rolled his eyes and spoke at last. "Orange," he said. - MJ Pearson
He seldom deigned to notice me; and, when he did, it was with a certain supercilious insolence of tone and manner that convinced me he was no gentleman; though it was intended to have the contrary effect. - Anne Bronte, Agnes Grey
"It is I who left them," was the smiling rejoinder. "I was wearied to death with small talk - nothing wears me out like that. I cannot imagine how they can go on as they do." - Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
What meaning would it have to say to Joyce that he has asked for "too much" cryptoanalysis in Finnegans Wake? Too much for you and me, perhaps, and we may find ourselves ultimately repudiating, on moral grounds, an author who excludes practically everyone. But not too much for Finnegans Wake. Who would bother about Finnegans Wake at all if it were not packed with Finneganswakism? - Wayne C. Booth
"Where does he live?" Temeraire asked, interrupting; he felt that anyone who did not have time for politics must be rather sensible. - Naomi Novik
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Books in April
Still on the books on writing kick, in April I read About Writing by Samuel R. Delany. Boy, did I love this book. But then Delany and I have something in common, a shared love of literary as well as genre works. There is a lot in this book about how to pursue writing as a career (and whether you should), and writing as a lifestyle. Those topics in particular I'm really keen on at the moment. This is a rich book. I've not read any Delany fiction, but I've added him to my must read list. If he's fiction is half as good as these essays, I'm going to love him.
Speaking of literary works, still working on the Bronte sisters. Having re-read Jane Eyre I went on to one I haven't read before, Shirley. Apparently this book is what popularized this name for girls; prior to it, Shirley was a rarely used boys name. There is a lot to like in Shirley, I loved the characters and the story, and particularly the backdrop of a town struggling through the industrial revolution, with the machinery leaving so many workers without work, and the Luddites that hope to turn back time. It also continues Charlotte's themes not just of feminism but her deep respect for anyone who works for a leaving.
Since in April I spent two days in airports, I loaded up my Kindle with YA. Because I'm a nervous flier, I need something that has me so hooked I don't look up enough to panic. I read three: Heist Society by Ally Carter, Eleventh Grade Burns by Heather Brewer and The Dust of 100 Dogs by A. S. King. It's a toss-up for which I liked the best between Carter and King, but that's just because I love heists and pirates pretty much equally (I don't have that deep in the marrow love of vampires that some have; my delving into vampire fiction tends not to be as passionate for me as it is for some).
Now I'm getting back to my own novel, which I'm desperately hoping to have done before the end of June. Wish me luck. In the meantime, some quotes and a kick-ass video of Bronte Sisters action figures (Ooh! I want all three! And the evil publisher!).
.
Speaking of literary works, still working on the Bronte sisters. Having re-read Jane Eyre I went on to one I haven't read before, Shirley. Apparently this book is what popularized this name for girls; prior to it, Shirley was a rarely used boys name. There is a lot to like in Shirley, I loved the characters and the story, and particularly the backdrop of a town struggling through the industrial revolution, with the machinery leaving so many workers without work, and the Luddites that hope to turn back time. It also continues Charlotte's themes not just of feminism but her deep respect for anyone who works for a leaving.
Since in April I spent two days in airports, I loaded up my Kindle with YA. Because I'm a nervous flier, I need something that has me so hooked I don't look up enough to panic. I read three: Heist Society by Ally Carter, Eleventh Grade Burns by Heather Brewer and The Dust of 100 Dogs by A. S. King. It's a toss-up for which I liked the best between Carter and King, but that's just because I love heists and pirates pretty much equally (I don't have that deep in the marrow love of vampires that some have; my delving into vampire fiction tends not to be as passionate for me as it is for some).
Now I'm getting back to my own novel, which I'm desperately hoping to have done before the end of June. Wish me luck. In the meantime, some quotes and a kick-ass video of Bronte Sisters action figures (Ooh! I want all three! And the evil publisher!).
.
We love a sentence only partially because of what it means, but even more for the manner and intensity through which it makes its meaning vivid. - Samuel R. Delany
Paraliterature is also hundred of people who have said to me, on finding out that I'm a sciene fiction writer, "oh, I don't really like science fiction," as though a) I had asked them, b) I cared, or c) I should somehow be pleased by their honesty. - Samuel R. Delany
...but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise; they call them devoted and virtuous. Is that enough? Is it to live? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving in that existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your own to bestow it on? - Charlotte Bronte
Her thoughts blended together until they were like an Impressionist painting, and Kat knew she was too close to see anything plainly. - Ally Carter
A drug-addicted loser having to write his smart little sister a letter about how she should get her shit together was exactly how my mother communicated. - A.S. King
Paraliterature is also hundred of people who have said to me, on finding out that I'm a sciene fiction writer, "oh, I don't really like science fiction," as though a) I had asked them, b) I cared, or c) I should somehow be pleased by their honesty. - Samuel R. Delany
...but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise; they call them devoted and virtuous. Is that enough? Is it to live? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving in that existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your own to bestow it on? - Charlotte Bronte
Her thoughts blended together until they were like an Impressionist painting, and Kat knew she was too close to see anything plainly. - Ally Carter
A drug-addicted loser having to write his smart little sister a letter about how she should get her shit together was exactly how my mother communicated. - A.S. King
Friday, April 16, 2010
Books in March
In March I finished a lot of books that had been stacked up around here, half-read for ages. In nonfiction I've been delving into Herbert Asbury's Gangs of New York in small doses for weeks now. It's a good book to read that way; it's a series of anecdotes from the history of New York, some of which Martin Scorsese took to weave together into a single narrative for his film of the same name. I quite like the movie, and the book is entertaining as well, although of a larger scope, as it covers quite a stretch of time. Comparing this to books from London of the same time frame makes for an interesting compare and contrast; same same but different.
I also finished Revising Fiction by David Madden, another book I've been reading bit by bit, mostly because everytime I read a bit, I immediately want to get back to work revising my WIP. This book has played a big part in getting me back to productive work by getting me excited about it all over again. Which is awesome. (Hoping to be done by the end of May and on to the next book, which I'm already gestating).
Which brings us to Harry Houdini's A Magician Among the Spirits, his account of several prominent spiritualists and how they bilk people. If he had ever met Carl Sagan, he would have heartily approved of Mr. Sagan's Baloney Detector. A very readable and interesting work and sadly still pretty relevant today.
One last nonfiction, My Autobiography by Charlie Chaplin. He wrote this after leaving the US to settle in Switzerland. He's telling his life story, but has no compunction against wandering off the narrative thread to wax eloquent on all sorts of topics. I think those ruminations were my favorite bits.
I read somewhat less fiction in March, especially considering First Spanish Reader by Angel Flores was a collection of very short stories (although, in my defense, in Spanish. Of course every facing page is in English, but I hardly ever looked over, I swear!). Some fun stories, and I found my Spanish much less rusty than I'd expected. Also on the short end of things, The Poems of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, the noms de plume of the Bronte sisters. I liked Charlotte's works the best; very evocative.
I'm following up Jane Austen with all the Bronte sisters, and after the Poems I jumped into Charlotte's prose, namely The Professor, her first novel (written; I think it was the last published). Bronte is pretty much the anti-Austen; she has no interest in people who don't work for a living. She's also quite the feminist (more in Shirley than here, but it starts here and grows in Jane Eyre). There is a passage in The Professor that explains a blackboard, chalk and eraser with such extreme detail, I'm wondering if this was a new invention at this point?
And in new fiction, I read In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan. I loved the structure, and the historical details are rich. Again I'm sure if I ever went to London I could open this novel and find all these places, or stand where they once stood. Lovely.
OK, now I'm back at my own WIP again. In the meantime, the quotes I loved the best from March:
He could taste his own pulse, so strongly was his heart pounding. - Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie
There came a time in every man's life when he had to wonder what he was doing, kneeling in a faerie court, swearing to carry out a strange double existence on behalf of creatures for whom the entirety of his lifespan would be no more than an eyeblink. - Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie
I found poverty neither attractive nor edifying. It taught me nothing but a distortion of values, an overrating of the virtues and graces of the rich and the so-called better classes. Wealth and celebrity, on the contrary, taught me to view the world in proper perspective, to discover
that men of eminence, when I came close to them, were as deficient in their way as the rest of us... to know that intelligence is not necessarily the result of education or a knowledge of the classics. - Charlie Chaplin
Passive, at home, I will not pine.
Thy toils, thy perils shall
be mine. - Charlotte Bronte, Poems
I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs--that he should never get a shillinghe had not earned--that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment towealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might ain,should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find somuch as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half theascent of "the Hill of Difficulty;" that he
should not even marry abeautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam's son he should share Adam's doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment. - Charlotte Bronte, The Professor
"... the three reliable (?) witnesses agree that the windows through which he [Daniel Dunglas Home] floated were in the third story and either sixty or eighty feet from the ground. This would make the height of each story from twenty to twenty-seven feet, but tall stories appear to have been a speciality with these remarkably observant gentlemen." - Harry Houdini
Barrels of fiery spirits stood on shelves behind the bar, and poured out their contents through lines of slender rubber hose. The customer, having deposited his money on the bar, took an end of the hose in his mouth, and was entitled to all he could drink without breathing. - Herbert Asbury, Gangs of New York
The tongs are as American as chop suey. - Herbert Asbury, Gangs of New York
Does your style lack subtlety? Blatancy will enable your reader to move from sentence to sentence, but the dominant experience will be one of blatancy. Subtlety engages your reader's own faculties - emotions, imagination, intellect. Readers who must participate through subtlety and other devices have a deeper, more intense, more lasting experience. Subtlety is not the province of the sophisticated, refined, or snobbish reader. A subtle phrase or sentence may in
actuality stimulate a violent response. - David Madden, Revising Fiction
I also finished Revising Fiction by David Madden, another book I've been reading bit by bit, mostly because everytime I read a bit, I immediately want to get back to work revising my WIP. This book has played a big part in getting me back to productive work by getting me excited about it all over again. Which is awesome. (Hoping to be done by the end of May and on to the next book, which I'm already gestating).
Which brings us to Harry Houdini's A Magician Among the Spirits, his account of several prominent spiritualists and how they bilk people. If he had ever met Carl Sagan, he would have heartily approved of Mr. Sagan's Baloney Detector. A very readable and interesting work and sadly still pretty relevant today.
One last nonfiction, My Autobiography by Charlie Chaplin. He wrote this after leaving the US to settle in Switzerland. He's telling his life story, but has no compunction against wandering off the narrative thread to wax eloquent on all sorts of topics. I think those ruminations were my favorite bits.
I read somewhat less fiction in March, especially considering First Spanish Reader by Angel Flores was a collection of very short stories (although, in my defense, in Spanish. Of course every facing page is in English, but I hardly ever looked over, I swear!). Some fun stories, and I found my Spanish much less rusty than I'd expected. Also on the short end of things, The Poems of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, the noms de plume of the Bronte sisters. I liked Charlotte's works the best; very evocative.
I'm following up Jane Austen with all the Bronte sisters, and after the Poems I jumped into Charlotte's prose, namely The Professor, her first novel (written; I think it was the last published). Bronte is pretty much the anti-Austen; she has no interest in people who don't work for a living. She's also quite the feminist (more in Shirley than here, but it starts here and grows in Jane Eyre). There is a passage in The Professor that explains a blackboard, chalk and eraser with such extreme detail, I'm wondering if this was a new invention at this point?
And in new fiction, I read In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan. I loved the structure, and the historical details are rich. Again I'm sure if I ever went to London I could open this novel and find all these places, or stand where they once stood. Lovely.
OK, now I'm back at my own WIP again. In the meantime, the quotes I loved the best from March:
He could taste his own pulse, so strongly was his heart pounding. - Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie
There came a time in every man's life when he had to wonder what he was doing, kneeling in a faerie court, swearing to carry out a strange double existence on behalf of creatures for whom the entirety of his lifespan would be no more than an eyeblink. - Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie
I found poverty neither attractive nor edifying. It taught me nothing but a distortion of values, an overrating of the virtues and graces of the rich and the so-called better classes. Wealth and celebrity, on the contrary, taught me to view the world in proper perspective, to discover
that men of eminence, when I came close to them, were as deficient in their way as the rest of us... to know that intelligence is not necessarily the result of education or a knowledge of the classics. - Charlie Chaplin
Passive, at home, I will not pine.
Thy toils, thy perils shall
be mine. - Charlotte Bronte, Poems
I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs--that he should never get a shillinghe had not earned--that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment towealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might ain,should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find somuch as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half theascent of "the Hill of Difficulty;" that he
should not even marry abeautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam's son he should share Adam's doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment. - Charlotte Bronte, The Professor
"... the three reliable (?) witnesses agree that the windows through which he [Daniel Dunglas Home] floated were in the third story and either sixty or eighty feet from the ground. This would make the height of each story from twenty to twenty-seven feet, but tall stories appear to have been a speciality with these remarkably observant gentlemen." - Harry Houdini
Barrels of fiery spirits stood on shelves behind the bar, and poured out their contents through lines of slender rubber hose. The customer, having deposited his money on the bar, took an end of the hose in his mouth, and was entitled to all he could drink without breathing. - Herbert Asbury, Gangs of New York
The tongs are as American as chop suey. - Herbert Asbury, Gangs of New York
Does your style lack subtlety? Blatancy will enable your reader to move from sentence to sentence, but the dominant experience will be one of blatancy. Subtlety engages your reader's own faculties - emotions, imagination, intellect. Readers who must participate through subtlety and other devices have a deeper, more intense, more lasting experience. Subtlety is not the province of the sophisticated, refined, or snobbish reader. A subtle phrase or sentence may in
actuality stimulate a violent response. - David Madden, Revising Fiction
Monday, March 08, 2010
Books in February
I started February by polishing off Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey I liked better than I expected to; I'd heard it was her most minor work and it's clearly the work of a young writer just finding her own voice, but I liked it because of that, I think. I similarly liked Love and Freindship (there were some other things, shorter things; from looking at Wikipedia I'd guess you'd really call this her Juvenilia, Volume 2). Persuasion is a lovely last book. It feels like a last book, it has a wintry, end of a cycle quality to it. I also read Lady Susan, which was dark and interesting. All of her other books are about women up to the wedding; here is a book about a woman long after her wedding. I wished she had had a chance to write more of those.
.
Austen-related, I read Flirting with Pride and Prejudice, a collection edited by Jennifer Crusie full of essays, critiques, historical backgrounds, and even fan-fic all centered around Pride and Prejudice. It's a fun read from a wide variety of writers (all who love Colin Firth. But then who doesn't?)
.
Then I picked up The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. More accurately, I watched the movie, which I liked but hoped that the book would have more Austen discussion in it, and before the credits were done rolling I had downloaded it to my Kindle and dug in. I like it better than the movie (but when isn't that true?), it was deeper and had more of an edge. The women, for one, were older than they were in the movie. And I thought Grigg's recommendations on what books an Austenite should read to get into sci-fi were spot on (although I'd add a few, like Lois McMaster Bujold (particularly A Civil Campaign) and Naomi Novik; although she's more fantasy/alt history than sci-fi she's very Austen-y). .
I've long wondered why no one was really writing superhero novels. Oh sure, there have been a few in the romance genre which were fun, and of course there's Michael Chabon using superhero elements in The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, but I long for more. So I went into Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge with some pretty high hopes. It didn't disappoint; two ex-classmates from a superpowered school are now nemeses in a big, bad city. Every element of this book works; I loved it. The powers are awesome, and the mechanics of how they work and why are well thought-out. And the characters are wonderful and complex. And in the irony department, the sequel is going to be called Shades of Grey. Which is such an awesome title....
...that Jasper Fforde has also used it. Although the book itself is filled with all sorts of colors, an entire world built around colors, and who can see them, and who can't. Remember what I loved about Niven, how he took a concept like tranfer booths and really worked through all the implications? Fforde does that here. It starts out as a simple concept, that people only see one color, and some see it better than others, and creates a vast, complex world out of it (with a caste system based on what color you can see, and how well you can see it). This isn't straight up funny like his former books, but his wit is still there, always there. I already can't wait for the next book in the series..
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld also featured meticulous world building, and nice details with its alternate history. My only complaint was that I wished it had been longer, but then it's a lushly illustrated YA, so it's probably just the perfect length and it's really the next book I'm longing for.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld also featured meticulous world building, and nice details with its alternate history. My only complaint was that I wished it had been longer, but then it's a lushly illustrated YA, so it's probably just the perfect length and it's really the next book I'm longing for..
Tenth Grade Bleeds by Heather Brewer I didn't like as well as Ninth Grade Slays, but it's still a fun, fast-paced read that really gets interesting at about the midpoint. It has middle of a series syndrome, I think; too much series plot business and not enough unique-to-this-novel plot. Still, here again I'm looking forward to the next installment.
.
Lastly was a nonfic,
Literary Women by Ellen Moers, the book that Joanna Russ led me to (and there's a writer that Grigg recommends!). It's a celebration of women writers more than anything. It ends with a rather detailed list of women writers and their novels which I copied out. It's going to take me years to get through all of it, maybe a lifetime, but that's cool.Lastly was a nonfic,
.
You know, with the movies I always find something on You Tube to take onto the end, and I've been wanting to do something similar with books but wasn't sure what to do (book trailers - not my kind of thing). One of the cool things about the Kindle is that I can underline things without marking up an actual book that someone else might want to read someday. So I've been highlighting all over the place. As much as I love characters, and dig good plots, what I really love is a cool line, a thought I particularly like or an artful turn of phrase. I came up with this idea late in the month, though, so this first time out I only have a couple, but next month on I'll have more, maybe more than one from a book. In the meantime:
.
"Doubt is good. It's an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion - and action." Shades of Grey
.
"Her eyes darted back and forth between the rolled-up yellow cloth and the approaching storm, wondering what a boy would do." Leviathan
.
"Not five minutes earlier her mother's death had been painted acros her face like one of those shattered women Picasso was so fond of. Now she looked dangerous. Now Picasso would be excusing himself, recollecting a previous engagement, backing away, leaving the building." The Jane Austen Book Club
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Books in January
Starting with the sci-fi: I read two books by John Scalzi. Well, sort of. Judge Sn Goes Golfing is really a short story done up as a chapbook with illustrations. It's a fun story and the green-based illustrations make for a handsome little book. Even cooler (and longer, although still on the short end, I'm guessing novella length) is The God Engines. Loved the premise.
I also read Destroyer of Worlds, the third in the series written by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner. Very readable. I like the puppeteers and the Pak, but the Gw'oth, little fellows that look like starfish, are seriously cool. Their entire culture is very thoroughly thought through (although again we have an entire alien species that doesn't seem to have any women. Perhaps they're meant to be asexual, neither male nor female, but they come across as male. And I don't think that's just because of the pronouns).
Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer isn't a how to write book, it's a book about how to live the writing life. I found it completely awesome, full of great information about marketing and publicity, all the things a professional writer has to do besides just write.
He also had a few pages recommending books that truly were about writing, but not on the basics, on the more advanced aspects of the craft. I've been working my way through his list and with one exception (which I shan't name) I've really enjoyed those books as well. The Art of Subtext by Charles Baxter, aside from some wrongheaded thinking about genre fiction which seems based on the only two genre books he's read (and they aren't even the same genre), was interesting, full of examples of the techniques being described from various novels. More and more books these days, genre or not, read too much like written down movies to me and a lot of that is the lack of subtext. I like a book that requires me as a reader to actually do something, to notice things and reach conclusions that aren't completely spelled out. Of course I like movies that do that as well...
How to Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ is no where near as strident as it sounds, and led me to another book I never would have found on my own (see Books in February). Having had such a tough time lately even finding time to write, the stories of other women writers struggling to do the same thing, only doing it centuries ago in a much less woman-friendly world, was particularly heartbreaking. But this book read to me more like a celebration of what women have managed to do despite it all than anything.
But even before reading Russ's book I had decided that this year rather than tackling another science fiction writer's entire catalogue as I've done in the past two years that I would make a point to read more of the "big" books by women. You know, the literary ones. I decided to start with Austen, re-reading Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice before tackling all the rest which I've not read before. Mansfield Park had some wonderful observations and secondary characters (by which I mean, Ms. Austen always gives good snark), but the main character was so reactive rather than proactive, so different from Austen's other women, I found her hard to bond with. Emma, on the other hand, is perhaps my favorite Austen woman. She is more master of her own fate than the others, but she also is the one that goes through the most growth over the course of the story.
More Austen to come in February...
I also read Destroyer of Worlds, the third in the series written by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner. Very readable. I like the puppeteers and the Pak, but the Gw'oth, little fellows that look like starfish, are seriously cool. Their entire culture is very thoroughly thought through (although again we have an entire alien species that doesn't seem to have any women. Perhaps they're meant to be asexual, neither male nor female, but they come across as male. And I don't think that's just because of the pronouns).
Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer isn't a how to write book, it's a book about how to live the writing life. I found it completely awesome, full of great information about marketing and publicity, all the things a professional writer has to do besides just write.
He also had a few pages recommending books that truly were about writing, but not on the basics, on the more advanced aspects of the craft. I've been working my way through his list and with one exception (which I shan't name) I've really enjoyed those books as well. The Art of Subtext by Charles Baxter, aside from some wrongheaded thinking about genre fiction which seems based on the only two genre books he's read (and they aren't even the same genre), was interesting, full of examples of the techniques being described from various novels. More and more books these days, genre or not, read too much like written down movies to me and a lot of that is the lack of subtext. I like a book that requires me as a reader to actually do something, to notice things and reach conclusions that aren't completely spelled out. Of course I like movies that do that as well...
How to Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ is no where near as strident as it sounds, and led me to another book I never would have found on my own (see Books in February). Having had such a tough time lately even finding time to write, the stories of other women writers struggling to do the same thing, only doing it centuries ago in a much less woman-friendly world, was particularly heartbreaking. But this book read to me more like a celebration of what women have managed to do despite it all than anything.
But even before reading Russ's book I had decided that this year rather than tackling another science fiction writer's entire catalogue as I've done in the past two years that I would make a point to read more of the "big" books by women. You know, the literary ones. I decided to start with Austen, re-reading Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice before tackling all the rest which I've not read before. Mansfield Park had some wonderful observations and secondary characters (by which I mean, Ms. Austen always gives good snark), but the main character was so reactive rather than proactive, so different from Austen's other women, I found her hard to bond with. Emma, on the other hand, is perhaps my favorite Austen woman. She is more master of her own fate than the others, but she also is the one that goes through the most growth over the course of the story.
More Austen to come in February...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Books in December
Clearly, my New Year's resolution wasn't to keep up on my blog. (I actually don't make resolutions, just like I never start diets on Mondays. The time for change, you know, is always NOW).
At any rate, apparently I read some books in December...
Building Harlequin's Moon by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper. I loved the worldbuilding in this, and the characters were engaging, but I'm afraid I found it overly long. I remember it being sporadic; for several chapters I'd be completely sucked in, and then there'd be a few chapters that dragged. It could just be me, though; December is a suck month of the year for me workwise and I really should stick to more upbeat reading.
Like Groucho Marx. I picked up Memoirs of a Mangy Lover, parts of which were in some of the other Groucho books I've been reading, but other parts were new. Groucho and I have a lot in common, it seems. He prefers the company of his children to most grown ups, so his social life is largely hanging out with them. They were more interesting companions than the grown ups, especially in Hollywood. But then it naturally follows that they were bright and engaging; if they were adorable little morons I don't think he would have bothered. I have my own feelings on the cause and effect there; even a five-year-old will bring their game up if it's Groucho their matching words with. Some great stories in here, some of which I think are almost true. (I'm quite partial to when he tells the same story from his childhood two different ways, or how his version and Harpo's version of the same story don't really resemble each other. There's truth and then there's Truth).
Clearly I'm in a weird mood.
I also read Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Sometimes Zeppo by Joe Adamson. It's sort of the bible of Marx Brothers movies, loaded with facts and anecdotes and pictures. I, of course, adored it.
Now, when I first started watching all these Marx Brothers movies, I was always struck with how much Groucho reminded me of Woody Allen, and particularly early Woody Allen. Again, the cause and effect is clearly backwards here. But I thought the time was ripe to rewatch all my Woody Allen movies, and dig into those books that have been lying around for years, waiting to be read. Woody Allen and Philosophy by Mark T. Conrad and Aeon J. Skoble is part of the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series. I have several of these and love the concept. Philosophy, it's not just for eggheads. As Allen well knows. I think part of me likes Woody Allen best because he like me never quite made it through the whole college thing. Doesn't stop us from being well read, and widely read.
I also dug into books written by Woody Allen: Without Feathers, Getting Even, Sides Effects, and Mere Anarchy. There are some really great stories in here. My personal favorite is the one where a (clearly very bad but very pretentious) literary writer is hired to write the novelization of a Three Stooges movie. What he comes up with... man, it floored me. But there's lots of good stuff here, like the man that gets written into Madame Bovary, the trials of dealing with building contractors, how scholars can go overboard to the point of finding deep meaning in laundry lists. If you like Woody Allen movies, you should check out his prose. 'Nuff said.
Now having moved on in the movie realm to Buster Keaton, it seemed appropriate to pick up his own autobiography: My Wonderful World of Slapstick. Mostly because he rather famously didn't get along with the Marx Brothers. It's not hard to see why; they work in completely different ways. His stories of his childhood are wonderful, but I think he's being a bit dishonest or at least reticent about his adult life. But then one can hardly blame him. Someone needs to make an Oscar-worthy biopic of his life, though. I'd love to see it. His wife and the studio system double-whammied the hell out of him. And then there was the alcohol. Johnny Depp already nailed his look and mannerism in Benny and Joon, so he's my pick.
Rounding off with a little YA, and namely Justine Larbalestier. How to Ditch Your Fairy was fun, set in a cool world where everyone has their own fairy with one particular skill. Some cool, like a shopping fairy so you always find the perfect outfit at ridiculously low prices, and some not, like the main character's parking fairy, so she always findings the perfect parking space even though she can't yet drive. So other people always want her in their cars. I get the sense this was just a oner, which is a shame. It's a cool world I'd like to see more of. I also picked up Liar, which is my favorite sort of book, the sort where you think what's going on, but then everything turns, but in a way where you really feel like you should have seen it coming, only you didn't. That moment of turning is absolutely delicious; I live (or rather read) for those moments. Saying all that is probably spoiler enough, though; I shall say no more.
At any rate, apparently I read some books in December...
Building Harlequin's Moon by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper. I loved the worldbuilding in this, and the characters were engaging, but I'm afraid I found it overly long. I remember it being sporadic; for several chapters I'd be completely sucked in, and then there'd be a few chapters that dragged. It could just be me, though; December is a suck month of the year for me workwise and I really should stick to more upbeat reading.
Like Groucho Marx. I picked up Memoirs of a Mangy Lover, parts of which were in some of the other Groucho books I've been reading, but other parts were new. Groucho and I have a lot in common, it seems. He prefers the company of his children to most grown ups, so his social life is largely hanging out with them. They were more interesting companions than the grown ups, especially in Hollywood. But then it naturally follows that they were bright and engaging; if they were adorable little morons I don't think he would have bothered. I have my own feelings on the cause and effect there; even a five-year-old will bring their game up if it's Groucho their matching words with. Some great stories in here, some of which I think are almost true. (I'm quite partial to when he tells the same story from his childhood two different ways, or how his version and Harpo's version of the same story don't really resemble each other. There's truth and then there's Truth).
Clearly I'm in a weird mood.
I also read Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Sometimes Zeppo by Joe Adamson. It's sort of the bible of Marx Brothers movies, loaded with facts and anecdotes and pictures. I, of course, adored it.
Now, when I first started watching all these Marx Brothers movies, I was always struck with how much Groucho reminded me of Woody Allen, and particularly early Woody Allen. Again, the cause and effect is clearly backwards here. But I thought the time was ripe to rewatch all my Woody Allen movies, and dig into those books that have been lying around for years, waiting to be read. Woody Allen and Philosophy by Mark T. Conrad and Aeon J. Skoble is part of the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series. I have several of these and love the concept. Philosophy, it's not just for eggheads. As Allen well knows. I think part of me likes Woody Allen best because he like me never quite made it through the whole college thing. Doesn't stop us from being well read, and widely read.
I also dug into books written by Woody Allen: Without Feathers, Getting Even, Sides Effects, and Mere Anarchy. There are some really great stories in here. My personal favorite is the one where a (clearly very bad but very pretentious) literary writer is hired to write the novelization of a Three Stooges movie. What he comes up with... man, it floored me. But there's lots of good stuff here, like the man that gets written into Madame Bovary, the trials of dealing with building contractors, how scholars can go overboard to the point of finding deep meaning in laundry lists. If you like Woody Allen movies, you should check out his prose. 'Nuff said.
Now having moved on in the movie realm to Buster Keaton, it seemed appropriate to pick up his own autobiography: My Wonderful World of Slapstick. Mostly because he rather famously didn't get along with the Marx Brothers. It's not hard to see why; they work in completely different ways. His stories of his childhood are wonderful, but I think he's being a bit dishonest or at least reticent about his adult life. But then one can hardly blame him. Someone needs to make an Oscar-worthy biopic of his life, though. I'd love to see it. His wife and the studio system double-whammied the hell out of him. And then there was the alcohol. Johnny Depp already nailed his look and mannerism in Benny and Joon, so he's my pick.
Rounding off with a little YA, and namely Justine Larbalestier. How to Ditch Your Fairy was fun, set in a cool world where everyone has their own fairy with one particular skill. Some cool, like a shopping fairy so you always find the perfect outfit at ridiculously low prices, and some not, like the main character's parking fairy, so she always findings the perfect parking space even though she can't yet drive. So other people always want her in their cars. I get the sense this was just a oner, which is a shame. It's a cool world I'd like to see more of. I also picked up Liar, which is my favorite sort of book, the sort where you think what's going on, but then everything turns, but in a way where you really feel like you should have seen it coming, only you didn't. That moment of turning is absolutely delicious; I live (or rather read) for those moments. Saying all that is probably spoiler enough, though; I shall say no more.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Books in November
I hate daylight savings time. My body is a strict timekeeper, apparently. The nudge of one hour either direction makes my inner pendulum start swinging wildly and I find myself waking at all hours of the night feeling like I'm all done sleeping, then fighting to stay awake when I'm meant to be working. This year was particularly bad. Not being one to waste time, I can't just lie there and wait to fall back to sleep. But you know, watching the sunrise while reading Harpo Marx, it's not all bad.
So I did a colossal amount of reading in November, falling into two categories: Larry Niven and the Marx Brothers. (And one of the other side effects of being off my schedule sleepwise is I have particularly vivid dreams. Ever see the Marx Brothers perform in the microgravity of The Smoke Ring? I have. It's quite a sight).
I will be dealing more extensively with the Marx Brothers later (I'm holding onto that post until I finish this gorram novel), so here I will merely note that the autobiographies Groucho and Me and especially Harpo Speaks are wonderful, wonderful books. Short childhoods in late nineteenth century New York, working the vaudeville circuit then Broadway and Hollywood; the two of them were full of stories and knew how to tell them. I wish Chico had written something; he ran with a whole different crowd than his little brothers. What stories he must have had. I also read The Groucho Letters and The Essential Groucho. I can see why Woody Allen adores him.
I plowed through the Niven. The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring I liked the worldbuilding in them, but the stories themselves didn't really do it for me. Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn was fun.
The rest were short story collections, and there was a lot of repetition so in some cases to say I "read" a particular book only really involved reading the one new story it contained. But just for the sake of completeness, by name they were The Flight of the Horse (loved it), A Hole in Space (for a woman to be 20 pounds overweight when she's 145 pounds, she would have to be five feet tall. I'm just sayin'. And yes, Bridget Jones irritates me as well), Convergent Series, Limits, N-Space, Playgrounds of the Mind (these latter two really having a cool format with fun bits thrown in like special features on a DVD), Crashlander, Rainbow Mars, Scatterbrain, and The Draco Tavern (another highlight for me). I like Niven the best when he's writing a series of short stories exploring every possible angle of a problem, like transfer booths. I also like the vignette quality of his Draco Tavern stories. The lack of characters I can bond with doesn't bother me as much in those cases, and the ideas really are interesting.
OK, back to work on my own book. I'm hoping to have to finished before 2010. I now have two seasons of Lost still in the plastic because I haven't earned watching them yet. Man, I hope they're worth it.
So I did a colossal amount of reading in November, falling into two categories: Larry Niven and the Marx Brothers. (And one of the other side effects of being off my schedule sleepwise is I have particularly vivid dreams. Ever see the Marx Brothers perform in the microgravity of The Smoke Ring? I have. It's quite a sight).
I will be dealing more extensively with the Marx Brothers later (I'm holding onto that post until I finish this gorram novel), so here I will merely note that the autobiographies Groucho and Me and especially Harpo Speaks are wonderful, wonderful books. Short childhoods in late nineteenth century New York, working the vaudeville circuit then Broadway and Hollywood; the two of them were full of stories and knew how to tell them. I wish Chico had written something; he ran with a whole different crowd than his little brothers. What stories he must have had. I also read The Groucho Letters and The Essential Groucho. I can see why Woody Allen adores him.
I plowed through the Niven. The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring I liked the worldbuilding in them, but the stories themselves didn't really do it for me. Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn was fun.
The rest were short story collections, and there was a lot of repetition so in some cases to say I "read" a particular book only really involved reading the one new story it contained. But just for the sake of completeness, by name they were The Flight of the Horse (loved it), A Hole in Space (for a woman to be 20 pounds overweight when she's 145 pounds, she would have to be five feet tall. I'm just sayin'. And yes, Bridget Jones irritates me as well), Convergent Series, Limits, N-Space, Playgrounds of the Mind (these latter two really having a cool format with fun bits thrown in like special features on a DVD), Crashlander, Rainbow Mars, Scatterbrain, and The Draco Tavern (another highlight for me). I like Niven the best when he's writing a series of short stories exploring every possible angle of a problem, like transfer booths. I also like the vignette quality of his Draco Tavern stories. The lack of characters I can bond with doesn't bother me as much in those cases, and the ideas really are interesting.
OK, back to work on my own book. I'm hoping to have to finished before 2010. I now have two seasons of Lost still in the plastic because I haven't earned watching them yet. Man, I hope they're worth it.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Books in October
My suspicion that I'm really a Steven Barnes fan deepens. This month I read The California VooDoo Game, The Descent of Anansi, Achille's Choice and Saturn's Race, all collaborations between Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. They mesh cool ideas from science combined with compelling, believable characters. Together they make some of my favorite books since I started this Niven kick. I've already added Steven Barnes' name to my list of writers to check out next; I suspect he writes some good women characters.
I also read A World Out of Time by Larry Niven alone. I like a lot of the ideas in here (the cat tails are particularly cool), but the idea where without sex the world would devolve into a nation of girls and a nation of boys who never have contact with each other gave me the terrors. The very idea, living my whole life only with other girls for companionship, and me with nonfunctioning reproductive organs, so why should it matter anyway... Outside of my personal prejudices; I find it a bit unbelievable. My own childhood experience was of mixed genders that only really formed distinct gender-specific groups around the onset of puberty (and I never did the distinct group thing myself). But then I've been told I'm a bit odd.
And the first novel I bought and read entirely on my Kindle (until this point I've been using it to convert and read my critique group's work on the treadmill): Don't Judge a Girl by her Cover by Ally Carter. I read this on the way to and from Rapid City, South Dakota. By a weird coincidence, on my last anniversary that involved a trip out of town (to Duluth two years ago) I was reading Ally's last book, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy. These are great books; a terrific premise well-executed. Hopefully book four will be out by next October.
I read three nonfiction books in October as well: a memoir, a pop science, and a foreign language grammar book. Cause that's just how I roll. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali was thoroughly engrossing, a tale of her childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya and her escape from an arranged marriage into Holland, leading up to her election to parliament there, the murder of her partner in filmmaking Theo Van Gogh by an Muslim extremist, and her removal from parliament on petty bureaucratic grounds and relocation to the US. I hope we've been treating her well; she's a sharp one with plenty to say. I highly recommend this book, and hope to hear more from her.
Having seen him speak a bit in Bill Maher's Religulous, I picked up Why We Believe What We Believe by Andrew Newberg MD. Dr. Newberg performed functional MRIs of Buddhists monks, Catholic nuns, Pentecostals and even an aetheist while they prayed, meditated, or spoke in tongues. The results are intriguing, but it left me wanting more data. I'd like to see him keep on with more "normal" people. There is something to be learned from the people at the extremes, certainly, but I'm more interested in the rest of us normal folks. What's going on in our brains?
The last book for Ocober was Introduction to Hindi Grammar by Usha R. Jain. This is another textbook with no answer key (so no true friend to the self-learner) but a good resource. The grammar is broken down in an easy to understand manner, I just wish I had some way of checking if I'm on track, or if I only think I'm on track.
I also read A World Out of Time by Larry Niven alone. I like a lot of the ideas in here (the cat tails are particularly cool), but the idea where without sex the world would devolve into a nation of girls and a nation of boys who never have contact with each other gave me the terrors. The very idea, living my whole life only with other girls for companionship, and me with nonfunctioning reproductive organs, so why should it matter anyway... Outside of my personal prejudices; I find it a bit unbelievable. My own childhood experience was of mixed genders that only really formed distinct gender-specific groups around the onset of puberty (and I never did the distinct group thing myself). But then I've been told I'm a bit odd.
And the first novel I bought and read entirely on my Kindle (until this point I've been using it to convert and read my critique group's work on the treadmill): Don't Judge a Girl by her Cover by Ally Carter. I read this on the way to and from Rapid City, South Dakota. By a weird coincidence, on my last anniversary that involved a trip out of town (to Duluth two years ago) I was reading Ally's last book, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy. These are great books; a terrific premise well-executed. Hopefully book four will be out by next October. I read three nonfiction books in October as well: a memoir, a pop science, and a foreign language grammar book. Cause that's just how I roll. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali was thoroughly engrossing, a tale of her childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya and her escape from an arranged marriage into Holland, leading up to her election to parliament there, the murder of her partner in filmmaking Theo Van Gogh by an Muslim extremist, and her removal from parliament on petty bureaucratic grounds and relocation to the US. I hope we've been treating her well; she's a sharp one with plenty to say. I highly recommend this book, and hope to hear more from her.
Having seen him speak a bit in Bill Maher's Religulous, I picked up Why We Believe What We Believe by Andrew Newberg MD. Dr. Newberg performed functional MRIs of Buddhists monks, Catholic nuns, Pentecostals and even an aetheist while they prayed, meditated, or spoke in tongues. The results are intriguing, but it left me wanting more data. I'd like to see him keep on with more "normal" people. There is something to be learned from the people at the extremes, certainly, but I'm more interested in the rest of us normal folks. What's going on in our brains?
The last book for Ocober was Introduction to Hindi Grammar by Usha R. Jain. This is another textbook with no answer key (so no true friend to the self-learner) but a good resource. The grammar is broken down in an easy to understand manner, I just wish I had some way of checking if I'm on track, or if I only think I'm on track.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Books in September
Still working my way through the Niven catalog. First was the Niven/Pournelle/Barnes sequel to The Legacy of Heorot, Beowulf's Children. Not quite as "this should be a movie" as the first book, but the fact that this felt more novel-like is a good thing. My only quibble: I wasn't buying the evolved, more intelligent grendel conceiving of a grendel god. Deities are such social constructs, I don't see how or why a solitary animal would create one, or feel the need to create one. That aside, it was a killer story.
In the Niven and Barnes sans Pournelle category, I read Dream Park and its sequel The Barsoom Project. These were both awesome too. In these books and the two above, the women characters feel so much more real and complete in a way I don't find them in books just by Niven or Niven and Pournelle that I'm beginning to suspect I might be a bit of a Steven Barnes fan. I'll have to add his name to the list of writers I plan to read up on.
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. What can I say? I just found one of the spines for my high school biology curriculum. This book is amazing. Part of my reason for homeschooling my boys was the way public schools tiptoe around evolution. They mention it (which is enough to piss off certain people), but they never actually teach it, what it is, how it works, and most of all the wealth of evidence we have for it. This book does all those things, and Dawkins with his wit is such a pleasure to read. My own understanding of evolution is mainly from the medical end, genetics and comparative anatomy, so the chapters on geology and fossils I found particularly informative. I've never really read up on all that before, and it is dead interesting. I highly, highly recommend this one. I don't know how anyone could look at life this way and not be overwhelmed with awe and wonder at how it all works. We live in an amazing world.
In the Niven and Barnes sans Pournelle category, I read Dream Park and its sequel The Barsoom Project. These were both awesome too. In these books and the two above, the women characters feel so much more real and complete in a way I don't find them in books just by Niven or Niven and Pournelle that I'm beginning to suspect I might be a bit of a Steven Barnes fan. I'll have to add his name to the list of writers I plan to read up on.
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. What can I say? I just found one of the spines for my high school biology curriculum. This book is amazing. Part of my reason for homeschooling my boys was the way public schools tiptoe around evolution. They mention it (which is enough to piss off certain people), but they never actually teach it, what it is, how it works, and most of all the wealth of evidence we have for it. This book does all those things, and Dawkins with his wit is such a pleasure to read. My own understanding of evolution is mainly from the medical end, genetics and comparative anatomy, so the chapters on geology and fossils I found particularly informative. I've never really read up on all that before, and it is dead interesting. I highly, highly recommend this one. I don't know how anyone could look at life this way and not be overwhelmed with awe and wonder at how it all works. We live in an amazing world.
Lastly, A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi by Michael J. Shapiro. I've actually been working on this one for a while. It starts assuming no knowledge of Hindi and then builds to a level I found to be just about where Teach Yourself Hindi ends, so it was perfect for me. It contains a selection of snippets from actual readers used in schools in India, little stories about the gardens of Kashmir, or folk tales, even the opening of Alice in Wonderland all in Hindi. There was also a thorough discussion of the grammar. I'm such a grammar geek sentences like "It is possible to arrange a number of the most common Hindi adverbial forms into a highly systematic paradigm" actually make me swoon a little.
.
But I suppose that's just me.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Books in August
Is September the month from hell much? Or is it just me who's crazy busy?
At any rate - books. In August it was three nonfic and four fic books read. The nonfic books were all in the aetheist/freethinker vein.
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Well. I largely agreed with him in content, but not in tone. Those reading this on Blogspot are familiar with the quote that I've put in my banner:
I fared better with Raising Freethinkers by Dale McGowan. I enjoyed his earlier collection of essays from various people, Parenting Beyond Belief. This is sort of a practical guide on that subject, with lots of books and weblinks for further exploration. And he gets a huge thank you from me for putting secular homeschooling in the spotlight for a moment. We're in the minority, but we do exist!
Your Religion is False by Joel Grus is perhaps even more divisive than Sam Harris, but it's just so damn funny. Grus is an equal opportunity offender. Richard Dawkins often point out that atheists only don't believe in one more god than most folks; Grus runs with that premise, with chapters on all of the religions we don't believe in and why, including the flying spaghetti monster.
And then it was back at the Niven. I read an omnibus of The Magic Goes Away, The Magic Returns, and More Magic. A novella and two short story collections from various writers all set in the same world where magic is going out of the world and it's resetting itself to become the world as we now know it. It's a cool premise. I don't often like fantasy written by sci-fi writers, but these stories I enjoyed. My favorites were "Manaspell" by Dean Ing and "Talisman" by Larry Niven and Dian Girand.
Burning City and Burning Tower by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are set in the same world. Burning City I liked up until I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered it's meant to be an allegory about LA riots. Gah, I hate allegory. But I didn't catch the allegorical elements until after the fact, so it can be safely ignored. It's not like LA is the only place where people went batshit crazy and went after their neighbors under indefensible pretexts (I'm looking at you, Partition). Read in that universal sense, I like it. Read as a commentary on just one event, not so much.
Also some of the fantasy elements weren't thought through. If you're going to set a story in ancient CA, make it feel like CA, not like Europe. I was happier when I was wondering what the redwoods were doing in the Mediterranean. Also, there's a moment when a character wonders when someone is going to "turn off" the ocean. Where did he form this concept? And elsewhere someone's drawing is described as "cartoonish". They have cartoons in this world?
Back in the world of sci-fi: The Legacy of Heorot by Niven, Pournelle and Steven Barnes is all kinds of awesome. How has no one ever made this into a movie? Plus there were women here who felt real and complicated and genuine, particularly Carolyn whom no one likes and is sent off on a suicide mission with a bunch of horses and to everyone's shock survives. I liked her immensely. Perhaps just because she was unpopular.
At any rate - books. In August it was three nonfic and four fic books read. The nonfic books were all in the aetheist/freethinker vein.
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Well. I largely agreed with him in content, but not in tone. Those reading this on Blogspot are familiar with the quote that I've put in my banner:
Every time somebody opens their mouth they have an opportunity to do one of two things—connect or divide. Some people inherently divide, and some people inherently connect. Connecting is the most important thing, and actually an easy thing to do. I try to make a connection with someone every time I talk to them, because a connection can be made. People can be treated with respect. I'm shocked that there are so many people that live to divide. - Joss WhedonEven more to the point, or at least my point is this clip of Joss talking about cultural humanism, which really gets to the core of what I feel, that the enemy of humanism isn't faith:
I fared better with Raising Freethinkers by Dale McGowan. I enjoyed his earlier collection of essays from various people, Parenting Beyond Belief. This is sort of a practical guide on that subject, with lots of books and weblinks for further exploration. And he gets a huge thank you from me for putting secular homeschooling in the spotlight for a moment. We're in the minority, but we do exist!
Your Religion is False by Joel Grus is perhaps even more divisive than Sam Harris, but it's just so damn funny. Grus is an equal opportunity offender. Richard Dawkins often point out that atheists only don't believe in one more god than most folks; Grus runs with that premise, with chapters on all of the religions we don't believe in and why, including the flying spaghetti monster.
And then it was back at the Niven. I read an omnibus of The Magic Goes Away, The Magic Returns, and More Magic. A novella and two short story collections from various writers all set in the same world where magic is going out of the world and it's resetting itself to become the world as we now know it. It's a cool premise. I don't often like fantasy written by sci-fi writers, but these stories I enjoyed. My favorites were "Manaspell" by Dean Ing and "Talisman" by Larry Niven and Dian Girand.
Burning City and Burning Tower by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are set in the same world. Burning City I liked up until I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered it's meant to be an allegory about LA riots. Gah, I hate allegory. But I didn't catch the allegorical elements until after the fact, so it can be safely ignored. It's not like LA is the only place where people went batshit crazy and went after their neighbors under indefensible pretexts (I'm looking at you, Partition). Read in that universal sense, I like it. Read as a commentary on just one event, not so much.
Also some of the fantasy elements weren't thought through. If you're going to set a story in ancient CA, make it feel like CA, not like Europe. I was happier when I was wondering what the redwoods were doing in the Mediterranean. Also, there's a moment when a character wonders when someone is going to "turn off" the ocean. Where did he form this concept? And elsewhere someone's drawing is described as "cartoonish". They have cartoons in this world?
Back in the world of sci-fi: The Legacy of Heorot by Niven, Pournelle and Steven Barnes is all kinds of awesome. How has no one ever made this into a movie? Plus there were women here who felt real and complicated and genuine, particularly Carolyn whom no one likes and is sent off on a suicide mission with a bunch of horses and to everyone's shock survives. I liked her immensely. Perhaps just because she was unpopular.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
