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My goal is 30 with no work related books in the mix. So on that note: 1. Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution It's an interesting look at the French Revolution from the angle of fashion history. My biggest complaint is that the kindle version doesn't have good plates (or at least my version doesn't) so it's harder to visualize the clothing and see what the author is really getting into. I'm working on Tampa but uh it's not working out so good so I'm probably going to give up on it move onto something else.
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Jan 4, 2014 06:16
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:56 |
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2. Tampa by Alissa Nutting. It's basically a fictionalized version of all those "female teacher fucks her middle school students" told from the perspective of the teacher, who is into barely teenage boys and always has been. It was a really hard book to read and normally I don't have problems plowing through fiction with reprehensible main characters or controversial subject matter but nothing about this book worked. It's like the author read a bunch of news stories and Lolita at the same time and decided she'd combine the two and the result is poo poo and I hate myself for having finished it.
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Jan 12, 2014 21:37
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Poutling posted:Interesting, I read this book too and had the complete opposite reaction - I think it's the nature of this type of book to be extremely polarizing. Not sure if you're familiar with the author's other works but she's a bizarro fiction writer with feminist leanings. I read Tampa as a reaction to the weird double standard that society has of romanticizing older woman, young boy relationships, removing as much of the 'glamor' associated with the act, and showing it in the most repugnant light possible. I wanted to like it because the subject matter is interesting and I wanted to see how someone would write about a Mary Kay Letourneau but the way it was written was really off putting to me. I'm not looking for lovingly lurid descriptions of a grown woman loving teenage boys but it comes off as so robotic and technical that it just really came off less as a story and more as writing exercise. I'll probably try reading it again since I usually like to go back to read stuff I didn't like and, to be honest, I did actually appreciate the ending. Plus Nutting others stories look interesting and I think I'd probably get into her as a short story writer.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:33
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3. The Round House by Louise Erdrich. I really enjoyed it but it's not really for anyone who isn't into novels that incorporate stories within a story or who won't want to put up with reading about tribal law and jurisdiction. The narrator is a teenage boy and the whole novel is told, essentially, from his perspective which can be frustrating but it's worth it in the end. The only real problem I had was that Erdrich never uses quotes when someone's talking so occasionally it can get difficult to figure out who is talking. 4. Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey Meh.
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Feb 2, 2014 02:53
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6. Sex with Kings by Eleanor Herman. It's trashy pop-non fiction about kings and their mistresses that drops bits of interesting information mixed with gossip and a breezy, easy to read writing style. It's not exactly historically accurate in parts and you can definitely tell which mistress the author likes most but it's a good plane book and I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. It's like a costume melodrama in book format. 7. Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh. Do you want to be depressed and have nightmares about trains filled with butchered bodies? Read this book. It's good and based in a village near the India-Pakistan border during partition and it's all about how so many people used Partition to commit horrible acts of violence along with mundane corruption and greed. The main scene that I always remember is when the Sikh villagers find the train filled with the mutilated corpses of Sikh coming in from Pakistan and then they retaliate against their Muslim village members by butchering them. 8. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie. Life on the reservation written by someone who grew up on the reservation. It's slice of life short stories that follow the same three main characters, (Victor, Thomas and Joseph) as they grow up on the Spokane Indian reservation. Read "Distances" and "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona". Distances is all about what would happen if white people were wiped out and it always reads like a surreal fever dream. " This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" is basically a road trip story with Victor and Thomas, who don't get along, going to get Victor's dead dad's belongings. It's pretty much what I expect to happen when my dad dies. I'm currently working my through London's Sinful Secret: The Bawdy History and Very Public Passions of London's Georgian Age by Dan Cruikshank. Basically it's about whores in London.
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Mar 23, 2014 00:19
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Blind Sally posted:Brilliant collection, and one of my favourite works by Alexie. If you've never seen it, some of the stories (particularly Victor and Thomas going to get Victor's dead dad's belongings) were adapted into a film, "Smoke Signals", which is worth checking out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bctCV38FfU Thank you for the link! I saw the movie a while ago and I've been thinking about re-watching it. I've read pretty much everything he's written, partially because I love Alexie and partially for work related reasons, and even when I'm disappointed with one of Alexie's books I still find a story or passage I really like. 9. London's Sinful Secret by Dan Cruikshank. A look at how prostitution influenced the culture, architecture, and history of London during the Georgian era. It's a big book with a lot of information but it's fascinating look at the oldest profession and the people who profited from it. It has more depth than, say, Sex With Kings but it's not super academic and the individual stories Cruikshank chooses to focus on are interesting. Was this teenager really abducted by Gypsies and nearly forced into hooking or did she make it up? We report, you decide.
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Mar 27, 2014 04:44
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screenwritersblues posted:
It's mostly a random pick on my part but it can depend on what I've been reading for work. Right now I'm reading a lot of academic work on the Indian Child Welfare Act for work, so I'm probably going to go back and read The Night Circus this time around because it's pretty mindless so it should be a nice break. Unless I give up halfway through it again when it gets dull.
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Mar 30, 2014 20:07
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10. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I managed to finish it but only by forcing myself. The pacing for the book is really off occasionally and the main characters are pretty blank slates. I did like the idea behind the circus and the magical portions were interesting but it really felt like the author basically threw together a novel out of her really cool RPG idea. 11. Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey 12. Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow by Juliet Grey These are the first two books in a triology about Marie Antoinette and it's pretty standard historical fiction, although they do a pretty good job at showing how Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were pampered and kind of dumb. There's not much sex and where there is the author likes to use French to refer to it, which is kind of annoying since it's inserted kind of awkwardly. Over all they're pretty bland, which is a shame. 13. Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. Super hosed up but I love it anyway. It's not the best of Mishima's novels but it's an interesting look into his psyche and there are some wonderful passages. I'm starting on A Storm of Swords and Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader now so I should be halfway through my goal by June.
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May 11, 2014 09:12
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14. Under the Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty by Bradly K. Martin A really interesting look at North Korea and the Kim Dynasty. The writing is competent but Martin spends a lot of time randomly talking about how hot North Korean women are which gets creepy and distracting every time it pops up. His personal experiences in North Korea were interesting and added a bit of insight to how Western non-Communists saw North Korea in the 70s and 80s. Still, there are better books on North Korea out there. 15. No Way Down: Life and Death on K2 by Graham Bowley 16. One Mountain Thousand Summits by Freddie Wilkinson Both of these are about the 2008 K2 climbs that killed 11 people but they focus on different aspects. The Bowley book is a pretty straight forward telling of the events on the mountain based off interviews with the people who participated in the climb while the Wilkinson book focuses more on how the media reported on the incident and on the Sherpas who were involved in the rescue. What I took away from both is that people who have enough money to climb K2 can be pretty terrible and that most folks really don't care much about Sherpas. 17. Savage Summit: The Life and Death of the First Women of K2 by Jennifer Jordan The first six women who climbed K2 all died, 4 on K2 and the other 2 on different mountains. It's all about how much mountaineering sucks if you're a woman if the men who plan on climbing don't want you there. None of the women portrayed in the book are particularly good people but Jesus some of the treatment they received was terrible. 18. A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami Fantastical realism featuring sheep and a dude with an ear fetish. I always appreciate Murakami's story telling and his early novels all have a post-WWII generation malaise in them (to me anyway) where all of his characters basically have mediocre, floating lives until they come across some mystery or fantastical element that "wakes" them up. The lack of actual names, just nick names, helps add a sense that none of the characters are particularly solidly ground. 19. The Lowlands by Jhumpa Lahiri I have a really, really hard time explaining why I liked this book so much. There's a lot going on in the Lowlands, from how the Naxalite movement started to how one death can affect multiple people to how much our identity is shaped by the people and environment around us. Slow reading time over all the past couple of months, so I'm hoping to pick the pace this summer.
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Jul 6, 2014 05:39
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Oh god, I totally forgot about this thread and I haven't been reading a whole lot but here's what I can remember. 20: Elizabeth of York - Alison Weir A pretty standard biography of a queen who was important because of her blood but didn't really do a whole lot. I generally like Alison Weir's biographies because she gets into details but this is one where a lot of her details are conjecture which is what happens when there isn't a whole lot of documentation directly from or related to Elizabeth of York 21: Henry VIII: The King and His Court - Alison Weir This is one where she really gets into the details about all the places Henry VIII lived and she really focuses more on him rather than the wives because like everyone else who writes about Henry VIII she's already put out a book about his wives. Weir can be a bit of an apologist for Henry VIII and sometimes she gets kind of lazy, which can be a little frustrating but understandable. 22: Eleanor of Aquitaine - Alison Weir I had a harder time finishing this one compared to the other Weir biographys I read. I'm not sure why either since she definitely does her best to try and present a more balanced portrait of Eleanor of Aquitaine but it kind of falls flat for me. It's a good overview of Henry II's policies and his kids but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it. 23: The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahir Probably my favorite book ever and it has a lot to say about identity and growing up in America as a first generation immigrant. The prose is amazing and it switches it's POV between Gogol and Ashima, contrasting their experiences in America and India. There's a passage where Gogol's father tells him the significance of his name that always gets me, as well as Gogol's search for something different. 24: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte It's not my favorite Bronte novel and it's more conformist than Wuthering Heights or The Tenant of Wildfell Hall but I do like the undercurrent of Gothic horror running through the novel. Rochester is least interesting Bronte anti-hero even with the whole imprisoning his crazy wife in the tower thing and Jane's a lot more interesting when she's dealing with his ward than him. 25: The White Queen - Philippa Gregory 26: The Red Queen - Philippa Gregory 27: The Kingmakers Daughter - Philippa Gregory I basically read this trilogy because they're quick reads and I have bad taste in historical fiction. Margaret Beaufort is pretty much the least likeable person in the series, Anne Neville is dumb, and Elizabeth Woodville is the only one who is tolerable. But it's Philippa Gregory so expecting anything other than frothy, questionably accurate drama that's tailor made for T.V. is dumb. Gregory's got a huge, huge hard-on for Richard III that's pretty hilarious though. I'm working my way through The Goldfinch right now and I've got a book on K2 lined up next. So I should hit my goal!
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Nov 16, 2014 05:02
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:56 |
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Just barely completed my reading goal this year (30 books, can't be related to work or school). 28. Livia, Empress of Rome by Matthew Dennison Biography of the first empress of Rome. The sections that go into to detail about how Livia's image was built up to reflect on the virtues of "old" Rome and, specifically, as a contrast to Cleopatra and other women who'd made a negative impact on Roman history were the most interesting to me since many of Livia's contemporaries didn't leave a record of her. Plus it's an interesting contrast to all of the Roman historical writers who basically call her a murderous shrew. 29. K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain by Ed Viesturs All this really does is cement that I never, ever want to climb 8000 meter plus mountains. It's really interesting reading about the mountaineering disasters on K2 written by someone who's actually climbed it and other Himalayan mountains because it lacks some of the condemnation that other accounts have but it definitely has a bit of "why would you do that"? mixed with disappointment that mountaineering has become splintered and individual rather than team efforts. Still it's morbidly fascinating to read all about people dying on giant mountains due to their own hubris. 30. The Gossamer Years by Michitsuna's Mother and translated by Edward Seidensticker Depressed ancient Japanese noble woman writing a diary to basically call her husband an rear end in a top hat and be super depressed.
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Jan 2, 2015 02:28
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