- Safety Biscuits
- Oct 21, 2010
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I am going to read 100 books this year. I have already read five.
Mostly I read mysteries and nonfiction so I'm looking to expand my horizons. I'm up for a wildcard, if I can get it at my local bookstore/library network.
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt (or her second novel Lightning Rods.)
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Jan 11, 2018 16:50
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May 14, 2024 01:07
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- Safety Biscuits
- Oct 21, 2010
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January - 6:
1. The Man with the Compound Eyes (Wu Ming-yi)
What did you think of this?
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Feb 2, 2018 00:32
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- Safety Biscuits
- Oct 21, 2010
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My wildcard request got lost in my post as well I think. I need one, please!
Heinrich von Kleist's short stories.
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Feb 3, 2018 10:36
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- Safety Biscuits
- Oct 21, 2010
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Your post has reminded me that I never actually talked about the books I read 
It's good. It's pretty lacking in traditional plot - very little "happens" which is an odd thing to say about a book which incorporates a tidal wave and a giant vortex of plastic garbage washing up on the coast of Taiwan, and of what story there is very little gets resolved. It's more about the combination of environmentalism, reactions to trauma, and I guess what you might call a focus on "return to the land" since most of the characters gain their greatest satisfaction from running away from Taipei and living in aboriginal villages out in the forests and mountains. In some ways it's a book whose moment has come with the current chatter around single-use plastics and the enormously wasteful lifestyles of Western and Western-influenced societies, and while it doesn't say anything especially revolutionary about those things, it's a coherent look at them through a slanted magical-realist lens. There's also some Taiwan-specific stuff with the prominence of aboriginal characters, since from some brief Googling I understand there's increasing prominence of aboriginal Taiwanese in the country and this book is very interested in their varied cultures and histories.
Also tons of cool poo poo happens including the titular man with the compound eyes appearing in weird places, and a house which is overwhelmed by the sea, and magic sperm whale ghosts of dead Polynesians. And grief so strong that Alice invents a fictional version of her dead son which her husband buys into until he, the husband, falls off a cliff and dies and the man with the compound eyes shows him that he was alone the whole time, except the fictional boy is so fully realised that he's still a pov character for like three chapters.
Oops, forgot to reply... Glad you liked it. I thought it was a good examination of modern life. Thibgs have been getting better for the aboriginal people recently, yeah, and most writing about Taiwan stresses the Chinese population.
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Feb 8, 2018 04:46
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- Safety Biscuits
- Oct 21, 2010
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Babel-17, by Samuel R. Delany - I never know what to expect with old sci-fi, and this book pleasantly surprised me. The world and ideas presented varied between interesting and progressive, charmingly 60s-future (you can order a starship crew at a moment’s notice, but you need to use a phone booth to do it), and straight-up bizarre. I doubt that I’ll read more by Delany, but I’m glad I picked this up on a whim.
If you're going to read sf, read Delany.
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Mar 4, 2018 07:24
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May 14, 2024 01:07
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- Safety Biscuits
- Oct 21, 2010
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This looks like a thread that gets a lot of diverse traffic, so I'm going to go ahead and plug the 2018 Book Barn Secret Santa. Check out the thread to ask questions or sign up.
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Nov 15, 2018 16:45
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Jan 11, 2018 16:50
