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Name: smashmyradio Personal Challenge: 50 books BOOKLORD 2022: yes
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Feb 18, 2022 21:34
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I finished ten titles in February, homehow. Dang. Wowie. 15 - Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica, by Zora Neale Hurston. A Secret Santa gift that I immediately started diving into, but ended up digesting in little chunks over a month and a half. This is a strange, exciting and engrossing anthropological work awash in detail and personality. Hurston presents the minutiae of cultural and religious rituals and mythology in such a way that I felt like I "got" it, to whatever extent that's possible for a white guy in 2022. The most interesting part for me wasn't the voodoo (although there are some eye-opening scenes of legend and cosmology) but an earlier episode where Hurston convinces a village to take her on a wild pig hunt. The book can be a little unfocused - it just sort of ends, for instance, and some aspects and characters are given far more attention than others - but Hurston's personality shines through, from her arch observations to her deep respect for the spiritualities she encounters. 16 - Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. Beloved cult novel full of wit, sadness, grotesque realism and a farcical central character. Ignatius is, sixty years on, an even more recognisable character, a prototypical "neckbeard", an ur-Redditor. The author revels in the baseness of Ignatius and his associates, from downtrodden drunks to squealing queens to canny, put-upon black workers. There's a lot of caricaturing, but most of it carries an affection for the subaltern - the worst fates are reserved for the rich, the police, the academic. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did, though: it's the kind of "funny book" that only had me smirking from time to time, or maybe giving a wry nod. Still, I respect the craft and detail that went into this, and while I was unsure at first, by the final third the book had me pretty invested. The final scene was oddly beautiful, even as it carried the melancholy from the rest of the book. Maybe I'll revisit this someday and end up properly loving it. 17 - Gag Gum, by Cate Wurtz. Strange, spooky comic about a nameless women puppeteered to commit murder on the Titanic. Has a couple of extremely funny gags, even as it descends into atmospheric, claustrophobic horror. Cate Wurtz is good stuff. 18 - Our Lady Of Perpetual Degeneracy, by Robin Gow. Powerful collection of poetry around the themes of gender non-conformity, sexuality, and lapsed catholicism. Gow's pieces mainly concern the lives and mythology of saints, putting them into a modern, mundane context to explore what their personalities and proclivities might mean for existing in current times. There are also reworked "stations of the cross" and a number of sonnet-form "sacraments" that are particularly lovely. Very good poems, made me wish I had the religious knowledge to understand each of the saints and martyrs. 19 - Apex Hides The Hurt, by Colson Whitehead. Beautifully written book about an anonymous man whose job is to give products catchy, marketable names. Embroiled in the swamp of renaming an entire town, suffering from an accumulation of emotional and physical injuries, Whitehead tracks his protagonist through listless exploration and whip-smart inner monologues on everything from marketing to racial consciousness. The prose is gorgeous, and while the narrative itself didn't do much for me, it was really good to be taken on this journey into the main character's psyche. 20 - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 1, by Alan Moore, Kevil O'Neill. Even more fun than when I first read this as a teen, now that I'm able to spot all the cultural references and recognise how well done the pastiche is. It's still very turn-of-the-millennium edgy, grim and grotesque with plenty of, let's say, outdated depictions and language. Whether Moore and O'Neill succeed in their balancing act - the book tapdances on the "line" between ironic depictions of historical racism and caricature, and just loving reproductions thereof - I'm not entirely sure. Moore certainly means to provoke and problematise. I wonder how later books in the series evolve these ideas, as well as the characters themselves. 21 - A.L.I.E.E.E.N.: Archives of Lost Issues and Earthly Editions of Extraterrestrial Novelties, by Lewis Trondheim. A "comic book for children" from an alien culture. These cute little critters live in a world of cruelty, prejudice, torture, ritualised violence, and fear. It's bleak but it's also adorable and darkly funny. 22 - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 2, by Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill. The art and adventure have improved considerably from the first volume, and there are some absolutely great ideas here, especially the depictions of Mars and Moreau. There are a couple of genuinely shocking scenes, and the writing overall has hit a confident stride. It's a shame that the collection is capped off with an interminable, only mildly amusing slog of a "traveller's almanac" that caused my eyes to wander to anywhere other than the page. There are so many story threads and locales that could have been saved for later editions of the comic, rather than packed densely into dozens of pages with only occasional (gorgeous) illustration for respite. That aside, this is still a drat good comic book. 23 - Gelpack Allegory, by Robert Kiely. A short collection of poetry, microfiction and snippets of an essay about science fiction's inability to concieve of worlds truly apart from this one. Kiely's main target is Elon Musk, who is subject to delicious character assassination: his vision for the future is shown up as emblematic of a narrow, childish lack of imagination. There's a lot of misery in this slim book, as well as a good deal of catharsis too. 24 - Somebody To Love: The Life, Death and Legacy of Freddie Mercury, by Matt Richards & Mark Langthorne. Deep, detailed and revelatory, this is a twin biography of the Queen frontman and the HIV virus, from their births in obscurity to their fatal intersection and legacy. For even a casual Queen fan, this book features a wealth of interviews, facts, anecdotes and profiles. Freddie's personality and the stories of his life are presented with a bittersweet tone: his talent and work ethic as a showman contrasted with (and ultimately sabotaged by) his hard-partying promiscuity and extreme recklessness. One recurring feature that surprised me (as someone who grew up post-Freddie) is that Queen's success was never assured: there are plenty of scathing reviews quoted throughout their career. Rolling Stone magazine even repeatedly called the band and its music "fascist", which can't have been helped by their "apolitical" approach to international touring. It's a warts-and-all biography, educational too, and certainly puts dreck like that Bohemian Rhapsody film to shame. 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. - 24/60 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. - 6 - 2, 4, 13, 15, 17, 18 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. - 11 - 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. - 4 - 1, 13, 17, 18, 5. Read something originally published... f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 6. Read two works by the same author 7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 11. Read something about exploration 13. Read something about film or television 16. Read something about mountains 17. Read something you've been meaning to read for a while, but haven't yet 18. Re-read something you love 19. Read something scary 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!)
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Feb 28, 2022 08:47
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Name: DanReed74 Personal Challenge: 200 books Booklord 2022: not this year but perhaps next
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Mar 1, 2022 18:14
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Alright, poo poo slowed down in February but I'm still on track 18 - Chainsaw Man volume 9 by Tatsuki Fujimoto Holy poo poo. When I bought this volume the clerk said "a lot of wild stuff happens in this volume" and I was like yeah sure whatever it's Chainsaw Man wild poo poo happens every volume. So much happens. Like, in any other series this would've been five volumes. There are two or three sentences said by the US President that by themselves could have been stretched out to an entire volume. Stuff I was not expecting, I was like, oh no, oh no, this isn't going to actually happen, but then it did. Chainsaw Man is the best comic book ever written. 19 - Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose This was pretty good. But then main thing is that it was clearly used as a source for two of my favorite movies, The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far. And it's like, you're probably fine just watching those two movies instead of reading the book 20 Vinland Saga volume 1 by Makoto Yukimura Pretty good. The initial viking attack was the kind of crazy over the top action I like, and the characters seem reasonably well fleshed out. I especially like that the main guy's backstory still leaves a way for him to go home. That's rare, usually the guy on a quest for vengeance has lost everything. But this guy still has a path to a regular life and people who love him. I'm onboard, I'll see where this is going 21 King Coal by Upton Sinclair This one was pretty good. I read the Jungle awhile ago, and I'm happy to say that this book doesn't end with 50 page long conversations about theory. It's very well structured, showing the plight of the miners, then introducing the potential solutions, then explaining why those won't work or are more complicated than you might think, and ending with a full throated call for One Big Union. Good stuff, and still relevant today. 22 & 23 Heterogenia Linguistico volumes 1 & 2by by Salt Seno This is pretty great. A young linguist goes to explore the realms of non-human sentient creatures and learn how to communicate with them. There's a ton of thought into how, like, lizard people and Werewolfs who speak the same language would have very different accents because of their different mouths. Werewolfs can seem really abrupt and even rude to humans because they get so much information from smell that a lot of vocal small talk humans would do is unnecessary. It's really well thought and interesting. I am fully on board, I am following this series to the end. 24 I Shall Bare Witness by Victor Klemperer Whoof that's a tough read. The guy's diaries from 1933 to 1941 as a non-Aryan in Germany. You get this real sense about how things constricted around him over time, with laws and humiliations added one at a time. And it's on top of his regular problems, like his moneysink house and various health issues. Problems never go away and they just get worse. A really unique view of day to day life in nazi Germany. You're in a fascist nightmare world, but you still have to pay the bills and deal with annoying neighbors 25 Mortis by John French Gotta be honest, this one sucked. The first stinker in the Siege of Terra series. The previous books actually had concrete things happen that moved the story forward. But nothing is completed here. The big threat is that the Titans will take down the Ultimate Wall. They're getting closer over the entire book, and then it ends with them getting to the wall. Come back next time to find out if they actually take it down! gently caress you. Meanwhile, Oll Persson is still heading towards his stupid goal that I hate, but of course doesn't reach it by the end of the book. A small group of Dark Angels arrive and go to relight the Astronomicon, check back next volume to see if they succeed. And some people decide to propagate the Imperial Faith to combat the wave of warp-strengthened despair that is causing a surge of suicides in the Palace. Check back next volume to see how that works out. That plot is especially stupid because they loving tried that a couple books ago, it didn't work, it made things worse. This book sucked so loving much, oh my god. And meanwhile the actual interesting thing, the Iron Warriors loving off and leaving the Sol System, gets a few sentences. That better get a novella or something to flesh it out. I am so angry about this terrible book. Current Progress 25/52 books 8/26 History books
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Mar 1, 2022 18:39
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February Got a good amount read this month -- definitely a bit more than I was expecting, especially with how much of my bandwidth Moby Dick took up (I didn't finish it until 2/12 so it took almost half the month by itself). 6. Moby Dick by Herman Melville OK I really loved this book. I'd read snippets before a long time ago, but wasn't sure what to expect. This book is weird and I mean that as a compliment. It's almost post-modern/avant-garde in some ways. The structure is wild, interspersing the chapters about whales as, almost, a concept more than an animal (but also there are some whale biology based chapters), with the actual narrative are fascinating. There are a lot of genuinely funny moments and some really incredible images and moments. Really glad that I finally bucked up and read it! 7. The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer by Dean Jobb About a serial poisoner who was active around the same time as Jack the Ripper (he wasn't the Ripper though, there's a theory about that apparently but he was in prison in the U.S. when those killings happened), and how he was eventually caught by Scotland Yard (and all the ways he was NOT caught for a very long time, including killings he likely committed in Canada and the U.S.). A really interesting, nicely narrative story that kept my interest, that works really hard to contextualize the science and medicine known during the time. 8. Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt A contemporary horror novel where fascism is a haunted house in England that influences people near/in it to do terrible things. Touches on a lot of the inherent horror in being trans and Very Online in a time when places like Tumblr and 4chan were probably where you started to figure out your identity. Absolutely haunting, and maybe a little on the nose sometimes, but it's hard not to be when you're explicitly talking about fascism. 9. Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Andrea Pitzer A nonfiction book about the Dutch attempts to find a Northeast passage over Russia to China in the 1590s, the last of which was stranded for a year on a remote Arctic island called Novaya Zemlya, and few of the crew members made it home. I had no idea that there were serious attempts to find a Northeast Passage, never mind all the way back in the 1590s. This wasn't as snappily written as some other nonfiction I've read lately (it felt very 'this happened and then the next day this happened, and then...') but it was still interesting and informative. 10. & This is How To Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda A novella about a girl whose (gay? trans? maybe both?) sibling commits suicide and her use of magic/time travel to try to prevent the suicide from happening. It's tragic, well-written, and an interesting look into the notion of if you can actually change the past or not. 11. Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin A trans-focused riff on the 'gender plague' post-apocalypse sub-genre. The main characters are trans women who have to hunt down feral men to harvest their organs and keep their testosterone levels low enough that they don't get turned into monsters themselves. The most immediate threat, however, is a militarized cult of transphobic women who hunt down and kill any trans women they encounter. A really thoughtful and tense horror novel with extremely messy characters and lots of gross body horror (in a good way). 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. Total: 11/52 Nonfiction: 2/10 Moby Dick: 1/1  2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. ~6/11 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. ~3/11 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. ~6/11 5. Read something originally published... c. At least 25 years ago f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 6. Read two works by the same author 7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read 12. Read something about transformation 13. Read something about film or television 14. Read something fictional, based (however loosely) on a historical event [Master and Commander] 15. Read something written by an author living in the opposite hemisphere from you where you currently live/the one you'd call home (North/South and/or East/West - Bonus Points* for both axes!) 16. Read something about mountains 20. Look through some other Book Barn threads (or the Discord) and pick a book suggested or discussed there to read (Bonus Points* if you also post in that thread to discuss the book once you've read it!) [Icebound - Did you know that polar bear livers contain so much Vitamin A that it's toxic for a human to eat it? The Barents expedition found that out the hard way!]
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Mar 1, 2022 22:31
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Prose Novels 1.) Network Effect (Murderbot #5) by Martha Wells 2.) Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness by Neil Vallelly 3.) Eric (Discworld #9) by Terry Pratchett 4.) Ballistic (The Palladium Wars #2) by Marko Kloos 5.) Moonraker (James Bond #3) by Ian Fleming 6.) Fire on The Mountain by Terry Bisson An sci-fi-ish alternate history where John Brown's raid was successful and he led America to be a socialist utopia. Loved this. Mainly because the author never lost the sense of optimism or hope, even when displaying the horrors that arise from racism and war. The three parallel stories, which occur in three different times, bounce and flow off each other. The only downside is that it's very easy to miss the point of the "current" storyline, because the other two are so dramatic. Which is a shame because it's a gorgeous tale. Reminded me of "The Man in the High Castle" for a lot of obvious reasons, so I'd recommend highly for anyone looking for something similar. 7.) A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath by Truong Nhu Tang Autobiography of a Vietcong politician, telling his story from how colonialism shaped his desire for independence, to fighting in the Vietnam War, to his experience navigating the post-war government. This was recommended in the History Book thread for someone looking for an account of the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese perspective. After loving The Jakarta Method, I've also been looking for more non-western pov history, so I jumped on this and it did not disappoint. What I wasn't expecting, though, was that the author was born and raised in the Western style in South Vietnam, then joined the communist north. The post-war period he experienced was every bit as fascinating as the war-time period. It's still surreal to think about what a totally unique, invaluable story this was. On a personal note, my library's copy of this book came with some very, uh... "interesting commentary" written in the margins. Particularly valuable were some notes about points that the author omitted in the book. So reading this was a doubly fun lesson on not taking anything at face value. 8.) The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo Fictional account of an empress in exile, as told by her bff to a gender-neutral cleric. A beautiful novella. The depth of character development and world-building that the author built over only roughly 100 pages is just crazy. And Vo does it with this masterful subtly that just feels like the words are getting to you by casually strolling out of the book, down your fingers and up into your brain. I was very confused as to what was happening at first, but there was a point where it all just clicked and the rest of the book was such a joy to read. Blown away. 9.) How to Stay Human in a F*cked-Up World: Mindfulness Practices for Real Life by Tim Desmond Meditation/mindfulness techniques for life in a Western capitalist society (the titular "real life"). I'm a sucker for suggestions on how to apply Buddhism within my capitalist nightmare life. The author is a student of Thich Nhat Hanh and does a pretty great job at explaining Hanh's teachings (by this I mean Hanh's particular approach to Buddhism). The "apply to real life" parts were also pretty strong, with the author giving some of the better examples I've read of when and how to utilize mindfulness. And this last part is what won me on this author, because books like this can very very easily dive headfirst into uselessness with vague teachings and bad anecdotes. But Desmond does such a great job of relating to non-monastics, I'd be pretty comfortable recommending this to beginners and/or Westerners. 10.) Witches Abroad (Discworld #12) by Terry Pratchett The travel journal of Discworld's witch trio as they wander through the land of fairy tales and fantasy tropes (with the capital city aptly named "Genua" (wokka wokka)). Part of my ongoing read-through of Discworld (I will eventually forget to correct my constant misspelling of this as "Discoworld") and I'm achieving about one title a month. There were a lot of problematic things here. Nothing particularly new or interesting is done with the well-worn territory of three little pigs, ruby slippers and the like. So maybe it's because I've read this type of story so many times that I had a hard time enjoying it. Or maybe it was because the humor in the book was repetitive variation on the idea of "foreigners do things differently." I tried to see the humor as "inexperienced people blunder through different cultures" but it just didn't work that way. (One of the side-jokes even being "there's no racism on the Disc because everyone is too busy being species-ist" didn't help.) On top of that, one of the main characters is presented as An Indepedent 90s Woman, but the reader is almost explicitly told that "the old ways" are better. Ah, well. I might skip the next book, which is another Witches tale, for a later time. At least Nanny Ogg continues to be my favorite Disc character. 11.) The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn Universe #0.3) by P. Djeli Clark Prequel-ish novella-like about government ghost catchers trying to de-haunt some public transit. Liked this a lot. The story itself is a pretty standard action tale, but the world Clark builds is gorgeous. An alternate Cairo where a djinn helped drive out the colonial British in the 1800s? Oh hell yeah sign me up. But what really got me about this is that the protagonist is a standard straight dude who finds himself to be the fish out of water as he navigates this era of change, with such aspects as women getting the vote, gender-swapping magical beings, religious tolerance, foreign candies. I loved how he reacts to finding himself taken out of his comfort zone. As a straight white dude who is likewise trying to change decades of assumptions and systemic thinking, I really took to this. 12.) Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov, Mirra Ginsburg (translator) Scientist turns a dog into a man and then gets mad at ensuing dogman shenanigans. A Russian comedic version of Frankenstein, I guess? This is billed as a satire of Russian society following the Revolution, particularly focusing on the new rich. But I wasn't really sure who was supposed to be the hero or the villain of the piece: Filipp the rich scientist (who is presented as the protagonist) or Sharikov the mandog (presented as a scourge). So, ignorant of Bulgakov's intentions, I eventually sided with Sharikov because I saw his story as infinitely more relatable: Someone who is thrust into a social hierarchy they neither sought nor understand, then demonized for not fitting in. Filipp spends the book lamenting the decline of the old (and, in his esteem, superior) ways, but it's the new Proletariat society that eventually helps Sharikov adapt to the world. And because of this I thought the ending was actually kinda tragic. Graphic Novels i.) Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vol 7: I've Been Waiting for a Squirrel Like You by Ryan North, Erica Henderson ii.) The Flintstones (2016) vol 2 by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh iii.) Sweet Tooth vol 3: Animal Armies by Jeff Lemire iv.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 1: The Assassin's Road by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima v.) March vol 3 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin vi.) Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles by Mark Russell, Mike Feehan vii.) Ascender vol 1: The Haunted Galaxy by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen viii.) Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel vix.) Lumberjanes vol 8: Stone Cold by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh, Carey Pietsch x.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 2: The Gateless Barrier by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima xi.) Usagi Yojimbo vol 14: Demon Mask by Stan Sakai Ronin rabbit ronins rabbitly around rabbit Japan. Continues to be a lot of fun and a surprisingly investing read. This volume is a buffer between an ongoing plot about a legendary sword that started last volume and, judging by the last issue of this volume, will continue in the next. I liked all the stories in this one, particularly the titular Demon Mask. Sakai manages to pack a lot of depth into his characters and this is a stronger outing. Art is still a lot of fun, but maybe too cartoony for some tastes. xii.) Wonder Twins vol 1: Activate! by Mark Russell, Stephen Byrne Modern take on the origin and introduction of the Wonder Twins in the current DC universe. Pretty standard superhero comedy fare. Not great, not terrible. I mainly picked this up because I love the author. While I appreciated his attempts at critiquing western society's concept of justice and how it fails abysmally, there wasn't enough bite to make it work for me. Also, there was almost no attempt at offering inspiration (even the Superman scene ended with him despairing that the world is irreparably broken) and so the entire book ended up being more depressing than it had any right to be. The art is fine, but is the boring DC house style. xiii.) Sweet Tooth vol 4: Endangered Species by Jeff Lemire The main plot about solving the animal-kid plague gets puts on hold for a random adventure. Mainly feels like a half-hearted, wheel-spinning arc from The Walking Dead. Some added supernatural elements kept my interest, but overall I felt the real-world stuff was just pointlessly stopped the story. And a cliffhanger ending means there's more of it in the next volume. And the art is just so so so bad. xiv.) Billionaire Island by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh The world's billionaires create an artificial island to wait out the end of the world. I have a hard time with this one, because while I always appreciate a critique on the concept of billionaries and their negative effect on the world, the satire here doesn't quite eclipse the reality of unbelievably stupid stuff that rich people do. The question of "how do you lampoon genuine insanity" doesn't quite get answered satisfactorily, since the jokes just kinda serve as a reminder that rich people actually do most of the crazy garbage depicted in the book. While the book itself is well done and funny, I couldn't escape the looming dread of returning to the real world, which is no different than what was on these pages. The art is really good and reminded me a lot of Frank Quitely. xv.) Usagi Yojimbo vol 15: Grasscutter II: Journey to Atsuta Shrine by Stan Sakai Ronin rabbit and his animal friends fight bat ninjas a lot. One of the biggest underrated strengths of this title is how Sakai seamlessly brings a lot of loose stories from his one-shot issues together, sometimes for creating a new ongoing story path and sometimes for creating an epic standalone. This volume is one of the epic tales that sees several stories/characters finally connected through the macguffin of an ancient sword, One character sees an amazing conclusion to his journey and I'm not ashamed to admit I cried over a karate cat. Art is still fun. xvi.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 3: The Flute of the Fallen Tiger by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima A ronin and his son roninly ronin around not-rabbit Japan. The stories are getting way more interesting and "The White Path Between the Rivers" gives us Lone Wolf's origin, paving the way for the bigger story to begin. Of the rest of the stories, particularly striking was "Half Mat, One Mat, A Fistful of Rice," an amazing, deep exploration on the harm that Itto is doing to himself, his son and the world in general and also the first to give us a glimpse behind Itto's robot exterior. Art continues to be astounding. xvii.) Ascender vol 2: The Dead Sea by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen Space witch continues to hunt the last robots in the galaxy. This is a world-building arc and boy howdy does it hoot and holler. Lemire is really good at creating unique, interesting stories when he's not gushing blood everywhere, and Ascender is proving how much fun he can craft with a post-apocalyptic galaxy full of space vampires and, my god, werewhales. And the art is so so beautiful. xviii.) Wonder Twins vol 2: The Fall and Rise of the Wonder Twins by Mark Russell, Stephen Byrne More of the same from the last volume. One issue stood out from the other five, as it explored how nostalgia creates a bonding experience in groups of people by uniting them with hatred of change. And subsequently how that can lead to those groups actively wanting/aiding the destruction of the world. But it wasn't enough to elevate the rest of the volume or the title as a whole. Art is bland, fine. xiv.) Lumberjanes vol 9: On a Roll by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh, Carolyn Nowak The 'Janes help out some yetis and there's roller derby and sasquatches and ice cream and friendship. While not as laugh-out-loud funny as it used to be, this volume was full of the heart and magic that made me fall in love with this series in the first place. A new artist also brings cleaner art and more expressiveness to the characters. I was on the fence about continuing this series, but this volume has convinced me to do so. xx.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 4: The Bell Warden by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima Ronin and ronin, jr. engage in a bit of the old ultraviolence. Not as strong an outing as the last volume, but still frankly amazing. This particular volume sees a clearer focus on weaving historical facts about Edo-era Japan into the tales, with some interesting aspect of the time serving as the exposition for what Itto is up to. We also get to see Itto's humanity a bit more and I'm starting to understand that he's more than just an 80s action movie cliche. Art is superb, as always, but the amount of hyper-focus on female nudity in this volume is unnecessary. xxi.) Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vol 8: My Best Friend's Squirrel by Ryan North, Erica Henderson Squirrel Girl teams up with Loki, Drax the Destroyer and Horse Thor for space fighting the Silver Surfer. North's brand of humor is tailor-made for Loki and MCU Drax, so it's no surprise they work well here. My biggest complaint is that the story is very standard superhero fare, which is odd for this book, but North plays with some well-worn tropes to make them enjoyable. Art is still ugly but somehow endearing. xxii.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 5: Black Wind by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima They see him ronin, they hatin'. Oooh, the Big Story has now begun and there's so much to love about it. The plots and character development are particularly good in this volume, with some incredible insights into Itto and Daigoro as individuals. And not to be outdone, the art also hits a new level of amazing: This book has also been super cinematic, but this volume kicks the Kurosawa up to 11. The visual storytelling in "Executioner's Hill," in particular, stood out. Soooo good, man. xxiii.) Usagi Yojimbo vol 16: The Shrouded Moon by Stan Sakai Buddy ronin tales for those training in the mystic art of friendship. This volume is predominantly small tales of Usagi and his rhino best frenemy, Gen, traveling around and doing cool buddy stuff. I always like stories with Gen and these are enjoyable, though not the best. Art is getting a bit more serious: Sakai is depicting bloodshed more and more, so the violence is less Loony Tunes feeling. Nothing on the level of Lone Wolf and Cub or anything, but still noteworthy. The 2022 challenge: 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. - 12/36 prose, 23/52 graphic novels 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. - 2/12 (1, 8) - 16% 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. - 3/12 (7, 8, 11) - 25% 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 8% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. - 1/12 (8)- 8% 5. Read something originally published... a. b. At least 5 years ago c. d. e. At least 100 years ago f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 6. 7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read 11. Read something about exploration 12. 13. Read something about film or television 14. 15. 16. 17. Read something you've been meaning to read for a while, but haven't yet 18. Re-read something you love 19. Read something scary 20. 21. Ask someone in this thread for a Wildcard to read OR read something that was explicitly recommended to you either by someone you know, or by someone in another thread in The Book Barn (Bonus Points* if you do both!) 22. [s]Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!)[s] 2, 7, 9 MathMathCalculation fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Mar 2, 2022 |
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Mar 2, 2022 03:51
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Is it too late to join? Name: tuyop Personal Challenge: 60 book Booklord 2022? Yes
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Mar 2, 2022 19:05
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1. Walden, Thoreau My belated and beloved biology professor aunt’s favorite book. Reading it gave me insight on many values she cherished and lived by. I think I appreciate it much more at 47, than I would have as a young man.
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Mar 4, 2022 00:53
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Phew, read five this month and it seems like less. Probably due to a few shorties, and I felt like I went slow on a couple. Outside factors have sapped some of my will to read though. My habit for February is to read black authors, and I sorta got behind with a backlog so only got two in. Still, there'll be some in March then, I guess. 7. The Ninja Daughter by Lily Wong - The titular daughter is half Chinese and half Norwegian, and learned to be a ninja from a guy she met in the park. Yeah. She uses her ninja skills to help out a clandestine women's shelter by extracting women and children from dangerous situations. Her instincts lead her to look into a recently dismissed domestic abuse case and finds out she may have bitten off more than she can chew. Definitely light reading. It was OK, and there's a chance I read more in the series. 8. Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw - A new-ish novella from Khaw about a group of friends conducting a destination wedding in a haunted Chinese palace. This was decent, but felt too short. Everything is abrupt, escalating quickly rather than giving creeping horror a chance to grow. It's OK. While not horror, I definitely preferred the Rupert Wong series by the same author. 9. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton - A man finds himself reliving the same day over and over, except as a different person at a large dinner party. To escape, he must be the first to solve the murder due to occur late in the evening. I really liked this, and more than one night stayed up way too late reading it. 10. Salvage the Bones by Jessamyn Ward - Been meaning to read something by Ward for awhile, and this is where we landed. A poor family on the gulf lives their lives with hurricane Katrina bearing down in the near future. This was good, a really compelling look at poverty generally and also the difficulties of hurricane prep while poor. 11. Gone Fishin by Walter Mosely - An Easy Rawlins book, and a fairly middling one. It's functionally a flashback to Easy in east Texas and a trip he took with Mouse. Ultimately, no real mystery, and Easy was sidelined by a fever for a lot of it while Mouse was offscreen doing things. Not my favorite, though some of the backstory is good to have, I suppose. Ben Nevis posted:1. Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
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Mar 4, 2022 02:02
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2. The Dark Half, King I liked the abrupt ending. Seemed to be not so much King/Bachman, as sobriety/cocaine. Still, decent.
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Mar 4, 2022 07:41
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I finished Moby Dick and it almost killed my interest in this challenge because the middle section was so bad. Good ending though. Now to make up for lost time. 
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Mar 6, 2022 18:24
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The books so far: Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough by Kyle Tran Myhre The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones Klara and the Sun: A novel by Kazuo Ishiguro Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow THE 2022 CHALLENGE: 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. 7/60 books (I'm way behind) 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. 2/ White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. 3/ Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough by Kyle Tran Myhre The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones Klara and the Sun: A novel by Kazuo Ishiguro 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 8% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. 5. Read something originally published...
7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read 11. Read something about exploration 12. Read something about transformation 13. Read something about film or television 14. Read something fictional, based (however loosely) on a historical event 15. Read something written by an author living in the opposite hemisphere from you where you currently live/the one you'd call home (North/South and/or East/West - Bonus Points* for both axes!) 16. Read something about mountains 18. Re-read something you love 20. Look through some other Book Barn threads (or the Discord) and pick a book suggested or discussed there to read (Bonus Points* if you also post in that thread to discuss the book once you've read it!) 21. Ask someone in this thread for a Wildcard to read OR read something that was explicitly recommended to you either by someone you know, or by someone in another thread in The Book Barn (Bonus Points* if you do both!) Can I have one of these? 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!) *Bonus Points are entirely made up and can be whatever reward you feel like you deserve and/or makes you feel good for taking the extra effort! I don't enforce the rules, I just suggest them! tuyop fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Mar 7, 2022 |
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Mar 7, 2022 17:19
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Here's a random book for whoever wants it! The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
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Mar 8, 2022 05:26
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3. Needful Things, King I last read this about 30 years ago. Loss and chronic pain makes this hit a lot closer to home, this time.
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Mar 12, 2022 05:31
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DanReed74 posted:1. Walden, Thoreau I've had this on my list for a long time. Every time I get started, I wonder, "what in the world was he running from? no telephones, no television, no Wi-Fi, no internet, no cellular phones, no instagram, no facebook, etc., etc., he was already off the grid!" and it just turns me off. Thoughts?
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Mar 14, 2022 05:53
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4. Gerald’s Game, King Effective retelling of The Raven. 5. The Mental Floss History of the United States Breezy tour of history, entertaining. If it helps any, my take on Walden is similar to my aunt’s situation. She retired as a college professor as soon as she could, and had a little house that was in a secluded place half on the woods. While she did still have a television, interacted with her siblings, nieces and nephews, and read voluminously, she also took most of her meals alone, and spent most of her time writing, reading, and above all, thinking. She wasn’t running So much as valuing her time and appreciating the joy of her solitude. It seemed a quiet life, valuing introspection and only having interactions that she chose to have. Like she wasn’t running away from herself anymore, or prioritizing what Society dictated to her about what her priorities should be. I hope that helps; I’d recommend reading it.
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Mar 17, 2022 02:20
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February update: 9. A Deadly Education by Naomi Novic 10. The Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow 11. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart 12. The Last Graduate by Naomi Novic 13. Clockwork Alchemist by Sara C Roethl 14. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 15. The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec Book Lord Challenge: 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. 15/50 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. 10/15 - 66% 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. 2/15 - 13% 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 8% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. 1/15 -6% 5. Read something originally published... c. At least 25 years ago d. At least 50 years ago f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read 12. Read something about transformation 13. Read something about film or television 15. Read something written by an author living in the opposite hemisphere from you where you currently live/the one you'd call home (North/South and/or East/West - Bonus Points* for both axes!) 16. Read something about mountains 18. Re-read something you love 20. Look through some other Book Barn threads (or the Discord) and pick a book suggested or discussed there to read (Bonus Points* if you also post in that thread to discuss the book once you've read it!) 21. Ask someone in this thread for a Wildcard to read OR read something that was explicitly recommended to you either by someone you know, or by someone in another thread in The Book Barn (Bonus Points* if you do both!) 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!)
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Mar 17, 2022 04:08
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DanReed74 posted:If it helps any, my take on Walden is similar to my aunt’s situation. She retired as a college professor as soon as she could, and had a little house that was in a secluded place half on the woods. While she did still have a television, interacted with her siblings, nieces and nephews, and read voluminously, she also took most of her meals alone, and spent most of her time writing, reading, and above all, thinking. She wasn’t running That does help actually. Thank you!
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Mar 17, 2022 08:20
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6. Woodrow Wilson, Cooper In-depth biography of an intellectual, and fairly racist, president. Tidbit. He fell in love with his first cousin and proposed marriage. 7. 77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected, Nappa Outdated (2010) but still no-punches-pulled look at what it takes to get a publisher interested in your novel. Revealing, and a bit depressing. 8. Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth, Washington Post Seeing whether Trump lies a lot. Spoiler: he does. 9. Hounded, Hearne A friend mentioned he’s a favorite author, so I gave the first book in the Iron Druid Chronicles a try. Light, Pratchett-like stories with a bit less humor and a bit more grue.
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Mar 21, 2022 14:14
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10. Dolores Claiborne, King A solid, sad and moving novel of how a mother’s love can be more intense than any other.
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Mar 23, 2022 04:51
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I wish I'd been reading this thread the past 3 months, a lot of these books are going on my to try pile and I'm excited. Book 1 Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender. About a 17 year old trans guy at summer art school who faces some lovely transphobia while trying to figure stuff out. I'm trans, and it's not a very hopeful time for me; see Texas and also my social media where I'm now getting outed and deadnamed to show either support for transpeople (yup.) or to fight back against our woke agenda. The transphobia in this book is treated as unequivocally not okay and not Felix's fault; it's not a heavy story and I'm really glad I read it right now. Made me feel hopeful. Book 2 The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's war on vaccines by Brian Deer. I liked this more than I expected. For a couple chapters it seemed like stuff I already knew, and I thought I might not finish it, but once Deer gets more personal about how he uncovered Wakefield's fraud and the opposition he faced I got really into it. Book 3 The New Annotated Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley & Leslie S. Klinger. I didn't know anything about Frankenstein outside of cultural osmosis, I didn't even know the creature could speak. Turns out he talks a lot. This took me forever to read, it's very flowery. But the story is kind of haunting, I keep thinking about it. I know people who identify so strongly with the monster, and now I understand why. The annotations were helpful, and sometimes really interesting in a slightly off topic way (like paragraphs about 19th century court proceedings and asylums). Now I'm finally going to watch the films. Book 4 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. This Hunger Games prequel probably isn't very good. But I really like The Hunger Games world and ideas. The world here is less interesting and there's not much to think about, but the story moves quickly and I didn't want to stop reading so how bad can it be. I guess if you're into Hunger Games but somehow didn't know about this book, like me, you could try it. Book 5 White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America by Anthea Butler. An outline of the history of how evangelicals in America have been racist. Her thesis is that Trump isn't an anomaly that evangelicals support despite being racist: being racist has become the point of the religion and Trump is the result. I didn't really enjoy it until most of the way through, when she talked about her own experiences as a black woman in a white evangelical church. It must just be directed at a different audience: I've been following evangelical racism for a while so it wasn't much new. I read this on recommendation of Ex-Fundie Diaries on YouTube; I've been watching her with my partner who was raised neglectfully/abusively religious white supremacist (and he identifies as a monster, see Frankenstein above). I'd like to read something more about unpacking personal evangelical racism stuff than a straight history. I'm reading Station Eleven now, it's so great. It's been hard to get back into reading, I just haven't been able to get lost in a book like I used to, until this one. I think the practice of making myself read the previous 5 books made it possible. I get all my books as public library ebooks, and I've just taken out Cruddy by Lynda Barry, which I've wanted to read for more than a decade so that's next!
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Mar 25, 2022 21:39
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11. Almost Interesting, Spade Misogynistic auto-bio of Joe Dirt. 12. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson Amusing confessional essays by a normal person.
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Mar 29, 2022 05:31
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quote:
Welp, I read thirteen things this month, though that does include the entire rest of LEOG. Which was great. Also Tlooth! Finally! I loved it! 25 - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, by Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill. The third LOEG collection and the best so far. Moore has finally got the right balance between comic and in-universe ephemera, with some truly delightful pastiches married to a fun spy caper of a framing device. The extra documents included range from a "lost Shakespeare draft" to a short Jeeves & Wooster story to a Kerouac-style logorrhoea, and basically amount to Alan Moore showing off in thoroughly pleasing ways that flesh out extra details of the world(s). Throughout, the artwork is really top notch, with dynamic action scenes and beautiful environmental work. The resolution and final return to the "Blazing World" is depicted through a 3D filter, even - sadly my copy didn't include any 3D specs, but the effect was impressive on its own in 2D and really makes the ending feel special. Good good stuff. 26 - I Have The Right To Destroy Myself, by Young-Ha Kim. Dark, melancholy story about two brothers and their tensions, traumas and romantic endeavours, intersecting with the work of a shadowy euthanasia salesman. Chance encounters with ill portent, sweet conversations that turn dark and frightening, themes of destruction and whether or not renewal is even desirable, let alone possible. "Nobody can save anybody" is the line that sticks with me most, as we are shown the pull of the nameless narrator's downward spiral. Spooky. 27 - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 3: Century, by Alan Moore, Kevil O'Neill. Hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah. A three-part, century-spanning adventure with all the fun and violence and "what if?" worldbuilding I've come to expect. I managed to predict a major plot point, and felt very clever. The art continues to be excellent, and the climax is particularly intense and grisly. The pacing is really tight, too, allowing the reader to soak up the atmosphere as the plot progresses with a satisfying ebb and flow. I wonder what comes next. 28-30 - Nemo: Heart Of Ice / Roses Of Berlin / River Of Ghosts, by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill. Trio of adventures set in the LOEG universe. A pulpy Antartic adventure leads to Lovecraftian ruins; a daring rescue sends the crew deep into Nazi-adjacent Metropolis; a prehistoric lost jungle full of dinosaurs and Moore/O'Neill's take on The Boys From Brazil. Janni is a great protagonist, though she rather overshadows much of her supporting cast. The final instalment is tinged with sadness as Janni is literally haunted by the ghosts of her past, her descendants looking forward to a new and smaller world than she adventured through. A great miniseries. 31 - Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto. A beautiful, bittersweet novella about love, loss and companionship, paired with a companion story touching on similar themes. I found the former much more affecting than the latter, but both were good and interesting. Dealing with sudden loss and persisting memories, Yoshimoto uses small moments to build up their signifigance and it really worked for me. Eriko is a great character - it's nice to see a sympathetic and interesting trans woman in a book from the late 80s, treated relatively respectfully by the writer and characters too. I can see why Kitchen was such a success when it first came out. 32 - The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women, by Kate Moore. The topic is horrific, upsetting, and a vital chapter in the history of both medicine and workplace safety. Moore packs these accounts of the "shining women" - radium dial painters who were poisoned by the paint they used and suffered the awful consequences of radiation sickness - with an exhaustive collection of personal details and observations from their lives. This is sometimes really effective in fleshing out the different characters, but often Moore gets bogged down in florid descriptions and melodrama. At times I found myself thinking "This situation is abhorrent, I can imagine the extremes of emotion perfectly well without the extra layers of dramatisation". Maybe that's unkind of me - it's clear a huge amount of research went into this book, and even the little minutiae are thoroughly sourced. But as the narrative dragged on, I was tempted to skim ahead. This is still a very interesting and unforgettably sad story, and one I'll recommend to people for sure. 33 - The League of Extaordinary Gentlemen, vol. 4: The Tempest, by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. The final instalment of the series, and the swan-song of Moore and O'Neill as they retire from the comics industry. It's an adoring pastiche of decades of sequential art, harkening back to both creators' roots as well as wrapping up the final loose ends of the LOEG plot. It's not the fantastically entertaining masterpiece many hoped for, but it is fantastical, with spectacular set-pieces and some emotional closure. There's more than a little sadness written throughout, and the theme of explosive, world-ending destruction hits pretty close to home. As a whole series, it has some big flaws, of course, and some obvious blind spots. But it's also just...really fun. Self-indulgent and intertextual to the last. A hell of an ending. 34 - American Hippo, by Sarah Gailey. A pulpy Wild West adventure transposed to the hippo-infested waters of the Mississippi in an alt-history US South. The protagonist is a bisexual gunslinger and ex-hippo-rancher-turned-bounty-hunter named Houndstooth, and I'm enough of a sucker for rule-of-cool casting that this had me sold from the outset. The rest of the cast are filled out with likeable (or appropriately loathable) and quirky individuals (and their hippos), equally skilled with wit and violence. The two novellas here are fun adventures, though the first outclasses the second in terms of sheer spectacle. There's a budding queer romance too, complete with chaste tension and longing stares. It's hardly high literature, but I enjoyed getting to know all the characters and joining them on their adventures. Also, if you want a book with a large amount of hippo violence, this is the one for you. 35 - Mr. Loverman, by Bernadine Evaristo. drat, I liked this one a lot. Narrated by the protagonist, an elderly Antiguan man living in London who's been living a double life - married to the same woman for fifty years, but hopelessly in love with his male best friend for even longer. The book is about the tensions of living closeted, of ideal versus expected life; the oppressive forces of family and religion, and of the daily travails of being an aging black man in a rapidly changing world. It's also about the consequences of denying yourself and others happiness. Between the main story chapters there are glimpses into the psyche and history of his long-suffering and deeply religious wife, adding extra perspective on the whole sorry affair. Often very sad, but also very funny and even joyful, I really enjoyed this. Every character is flawed and interesting in their own way, and everyone has their own secrets. Listening to the audiobook helped - James Goode has an excellent voice for the characters, and he especially sells Barry as a grumpy-but-good-hearted old man. 36 - The Pride Of Chanur, by C.J. Cherryh. A human stowaway on a spaceship populated by cat people. Interspecies conflict and diplomatic tensions and interpersonal politics and lots of fun alien terminology. This starts out strongly, and I liked the scenes between Pyanfar, the feline protagonist, and Tully, the human - teaching him to communicate and trust and slowly opening the pride to him. Unfortunately, that was the only part that held my attention. There are action scenes and discussions of great galactic portent and all of it blurred together into a dull stodge. I wanted to like this a lot, as it came highly recommended, but sadly this wasn't for me. 37 - Tlooth, by Harry Matthews. I feel very pandered to by this one. A prison escape becomes a globetrotting adventure of silly, absurd episodes, preposterous characters, sex, sickness, and utterly misplaced academic rigour. I couldn't put it down, enjoying the little linguistic puzzles and deciphering metaphor and comedy skits to try (and fail) at finding a coherent plot. But Matthews is uninterested in plot or structure in general, happy to let the reader tumble through little scenes or rants or travelogues. The prose is sometimes very pretty, and sometimes utter nonsense, but it's fun and amiable nonsense. A breath of fresh air. 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. - 37/60 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. - 11 - 2, 4, 13, 15, 17, 18, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. - 14 - 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19, 26, 31, 35 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. - 6 - 1, 13, 17, 18, 34, 36 5. Read something originally published... f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 6. Read two works by the same author 7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 11. Read something about exploration 13. Read something about film or television 16. Read something about mountains 18. Re-read something you love 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!)
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Mar 31, 2022 18:59
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I finished 6 books in March. Mostly great reads with just one disappointment. 12. The Great Mortality by John Kelly A really readable and informative book about the Black Death that follows its spread through Europe, almost like a travelogue, citing the diaries and statistics written down by the people who experienced it. There are some interesting narrative trends, like how Italy was chock full of diarists but little hard data, where the English kept pretty good statistics but we don't have many narrative accounts. (There was one throw-away mention about what a medieval fuller's job entails that raised my hackles because I work with fiber as a hobby it was factually wrong, but it also didn't have anything to do with the main topic of the book so whatever.) 13. Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire Seventh and newest entry in the Wayward Children series of novellas. This is the first book since book #1 where the characters don't spend time in any of the portal worlds. Plenty of weird stuff still happens. One of the recurring characters looses hope that she'll be able to return to her portal world again and chooses to go to the "other" school for kids who've been sucked into and spit out of their portal worlds, and want (or rather, their parents want them) to be 'normal' again. The school is even more nefarious than it seems at first blush. An interesting entry in the series, and it seems to be setting up a new major arc (since the first was completed a few books ago). 14. Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes I had really high hopes for this one (maybe unfairly too high). It's pitched as something like Event Horizon meets the Titanic, and haunted spaceships/shipwrecks are definitely something I dig. I think the biggest thing in this that stuck out and bugged me was how much it reads like it should have been a screenplay. The characters have a flatness to them that would be fine in a 90 minute movie, but feels really weird in a full length novel. The 'twists' toward the end are one part obnoxiously telegraphed and one part out-of-left-field and interest-cratering. Oh, well! 15. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell This book is just hands-down fantastic. Really glad that I picked it to read next because I needed something good, and this was great. A joint Jesuit/scientific mission makes first contact with the first ET civilization detected by SETI and things go horribly wrong. The characters, especially the main character, have a wonderful complexity and humanity to them, and the aliens are suitably alien while not being completely alienating (hah). Father Sandoz's who deal, going from religious revelation to horrible trauma, and then trying to reconcile them, is just heartbreaking. Apparently there's a sequel where the mafia is involved in the plot(??) but I'm perfectly fine leaving the story where it is in this book. 16. The Wingspan of Severed Hands by Joanna Koch (though he's going by Joe Koch now) Gorgeous, nasty, hallucinatory little novella. Plays around with "King in Yellow" type concepts (which is great if you're looking for some weird/cosmic horror that's referencing an older work but not built on Lovecraft). I really enjoyed this, and it's short enough, with enough balance between the hallucinatory/dreamlike parts and the more grounded parts that it doesn't overstay its welcome. Without giving away too much, I think this would be a good read for people who are into the whole SCP thing, too. 17. The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite I never really read romance novels so this is my entry for "a genre you never read." This was a perfectly fine book! I was definitely more interested in the translating-an-advanced-astronomy-text and drama-with-the-all-male-science-club plot(s) than the romance itself, which was cute but pretty straightforward. About 2/3 of the way in, it did have (I guess as a genre expectation) a nearly breakup-inducing misunderstanding between the two leads that I found a bit obnoxious, but it was resolved pretty quickly. Oh, also editing to add that this is a lesbian romance novel. Which definitely sets it apart from more mainstream/hetero romances. 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. Total: 17/52 Nonfiction: 3/10 Moby Dick: 1/1 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. ~11/17 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. ~3/17 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. ~9/17 5. Read something originally published... a. In the past year [Light from Uncommon Stars - 2021] b. At least 5 years ago [Ninefox Gambit - 2016] c. At least 25 years ago [The Sparrow - 1996] d. At least 50 years ago [Master and Commander - 1970] e. At least 100 years ago [Moby Dick - 1851] f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 6. Read two works by the same author 7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read [Romance - Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics] 11. Read something about exploration [Icebound] 12. Read something about transformation [Wingspan of Severed Hands] 13. Read something about film or television 14. Read something fictional, based (however loosely) on a historical event [Master and Commander] 15. Read something written by an author living in the opposite hemisphere from you where you currently live/the one you'd call home (North/South and/or East/West - Bonus Points* for both axes!) 16. Read something about mountains 17. Read something you've been meaning to read for a while, but haven't yet [Moby Dick] 18.Re-read something you love [We Have Always Lived in the Castle] 19. Read something scary [Tell Me I'm Worthless] 20. Look through some other Book Barn threads (or the Discord) and pick a book suggested or discussed there to read (Bonus Points* if you also post in that thread to discuss the book once you've read it!) 21.Ask someone in this thread for a Wildcard to read OR read something that was explicitly recommended to you either by someone you know, or by someone in another thread in The Book Barn (Bonus Points* if you do both!) [Murderous Dr. Cream] 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!) [Icebound - Did you know that polar bear livers contain so much Vitamin A that it's toxic for a human to eat it? The Barents expedition found that out the hard way!] DurianGray fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Apr 1, 2022 |
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Apr 1, 2022 15:52
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Prose Novels 1.) Network Effect (Murderbot #5) by Martha Wells 2.) Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness by Neil Vallelly 3.) Eric (Discworld #9) by Terry Pratchett 4.) Ballistic (The Palladium Wars #2) by Marko Kloos 5.) Moonraker (James Bond #3) by Ian Fleming 6.) Fire on The Mountain by Terry Bisson 7.) A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath by Truong Nhu Tang 8.) The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo 9.) How to Stay Human in a F*cked-Up World: Mindfulness Practices for Real Life by Tim Desmond 10.) Witches Abroad (Discworld #12) by Terry Pratchett 11.) The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn Universe #0.3) by P. Djeli Clark 12.) Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov, Mirra Ginsburg (translator) 13.) The Labyrinth's Archivist by Day Al-Mohamed A near-blind woman solves a series of murders and attempted murders, set against a fantasy world where she helps map portals to other dimensions. While I enjoyed the characters and their relationship-building, the main draw was how the main character interacts with the world's prejudice towards her disability. It was neat seeing her grow as she came to grips with understanding her reaction to all this ableism, to the point of realizing how it affected her partner. I also liked the world-building a lot. That said, the actual murder mystery aspect of this one was very standard, well-trodden stuff and the ending was disappointing. 14.) Novel Without A Name by Duong Thu Huong Disillusioned Vietcong soldier wanders through the Vietnam war and reflects on the path of his life. Oh my god, this novel is just everything. I picked this up because I was interested in getting a POV of the Vietnam war outside of the American filter. I loved in this novel that the focus was how the people are effected by the war rather than being a sidenote to the war itself. Usually novels about wartime make the battles the most important aspect to the point where they might as well be the central characters, but here they happen between chapters/paragraphs/sentences so that the author can explore how people function during on-going trauma. The bulk of the novel felt like a classic travel novel, with the MC wandering around Vietnam in a haze of despair for the path of his life and the fate of his friends and family. His turmoil at the disappointment of discovering the reality of jingoism, in his fall from the fervor of youthful nationalist to the disillusionment of a jaded gravedigger, was such a potent anti-war travelogue. 15.) Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire Murder mystery at an X-Men home for children who traveled to fantasy worlds via hidden doorways but were cast out of those worlds. I just adored everything about this book. The "what happens after the adventure ends" plot is becoming a favorite of mine. This book is all about outcasts: kids who are now removed from not just their fantasy realms but also, because of their experience, from their real-world families. It reminded me a lot of Piranesi, with the blurring of fantasy adventure and PTSD. And I was hit hard by the ongoing theme of exile and what it means to want to return to where you consider your true home. Add some great characters, some truly spectacular world building and a decent murder mystery, and this might be my favorite thing I've read this month. 16.) A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables #1) by Alix E. Harrow An Independent 90's Woman take on the Sleeping Beauty fable. This was more fun than it should have been. When a novel about the subversion of the Sleeping Beauty myth opens by admitting that Sleeping Beauty sucks, you know you're in for a good time. And yeah, my favorite thing about this book was that it explored how every girl was strong, useful and valid just the way she is, rather than needing to teach her how to be "better" by becoming something (or someone) else. The Girl Power-ing here even did for Maleficent what the Angelina Jolie movie tried to do. My only complaint is that there was a point where the characters travel for a week that is abruptly skipped over (in favor of levity, I guess?) and I would have loved to have seen that time period, to witness how the journey solidified their friendship. So I guess my worst criticism of this novella is that I wish it were longer? 17.) Hammers on Bone (Persons Non Grata #1) by Cassandra Khaw Lovecraft-ish crime noir-like starring the Nicolas Cage Spider-Man and no one can convince me otherwise. I genuinely loved Khaw's prose. There's maybe three different writing styles going on through the book and she nailed each one. Of course, the main one is the crime noir narrator and the old timey lingo had me hearing Nic Cage from "Into the Spider-Verse" the entire time. The story itself is fine, if not very memorable. But Khaw plays with the Lovecraft lore in a really cool way that made me excited for the sequel. 18.) The Warner Boys: Our Family's Story of Autism and Hope by Curt and Ana Warner Autobiography of a family raising autistic twins. Being the father of a child with autism, I'm always on the lookout for memoirs like these. I liked how open and honest the Warners are in this book. They don't sugarcoat their emotions over the hardships of raising autistic children and they very openly discuss how the journey to happiness was (and continues to be) a struggle for them. The only reason I wouldn't recommend this book is because the final chapter has a lot of judgmental b.s. against other parents of children who are higher-functioning on the spectrum, some cringe fantasizing about a hypothetical cure that they compare to knee surgery, and some anti-vax dogwhistling. 19.) Silver in the Wood (Greenhollow Duology #1) by Emily Tesh I'm choosing to believe this is a historical fiction account of how Alan Moore fell in love with Grant Morrison and broke up with the ghost of a 16th century forest bandit. A very cute little love story wrapped in a forest-centric fantasy tale. I loved how Tesh was able to build an entire mythos without leaving an area that was probably a couple square miles. What struck me most, though, was Tesh's use of time to signify the main character's emotional state, how entire months and years could be glossed over in the span of a sentence or so. And there's a cat. 20.) Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children #2) by Seanan McGuire Origin story for two characters introduced in the previous book. I'm torn on this one because it's a well-done, very fun take on some classic horror tropes, but it's a story that was told much better in the previous book. When it was a small, casual part of the first book, it left enough to the imagination to be really, really interesting. Here, it's just kinda drawn out needlessly. Further, the author has a few moments where she just straight up lectures us (in full paragraphs that are jarringly out of place) about the themes of the book, as if she doesn't trust the story to get her point across. So I find it amazing that the book still captivated me and I enjoyed every page. I'm definitely going to read more by her. 21.) Resist: Tales From A Future Worth Fighting Against edited by Hugh Howey, Gary Whitta and Christie Yant Anthology of sci-fi short stories that focus on commenting on current social ills like racism, fascism and climate change. I usually don't read short story anthologies because I hate when the quality swings wildly from story to story. And that's exactly what happened here. I appreciated that the stories weren't all mil-sci fi tales of guerilla warfare. There were several really clever plots, in fact, and even some neat takes on "future AI will be benevolent and teach us how to be better humans". But the really good stories didn't make up for the really bad ones or even the really mediocre ones, and of course which ones are good or bad is entirely subjective. Even though I agree with the politics and viewpoints of the stories I'd say this is pretty skippable, with the only exception being "The Venus Effect" by Violet Allen (which was reprinted from an issue of Lightspeed magazine and is free to read on their website). 22.) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz #1) by L. Frank Baum Less singing and dancing than the movie, but more decapitation. I read this as an ongoing bedtime book for my son and it's super obvious that this was its original intent. The chapters are very, very short and almost disconnected from one another, with occasional recaps of earlier events and a lot of repetitive prose. The book is fun and different enough from the movie to be interesting, but the movie tells a better story. Also there were several times that the book got surprisingly violent (not in a cartoon Tom and Jerry way, but in a limbs-getting-cut-off and stabbed to death way) and I had to skip some things. My son, who is six, liked the book enough that he asked for it instead of Spider-Man cartoons. So that might be the best praise I can give. (On an unrelated, subjective and absolutely personal note: I've been reading several books over the last few years that discuss how the trope of "children going through magic portals to fantasy worlds" is a metaphor for childhood trauma. For example, Dorothy imagining going to Oz could be a cover brought on by PTSD to escape dealing with her near death experience, I guess. There's nothing in the actual Oz book here to back this up or indicate this to be true, but as a reader the connection was inescapable for me and meant the ending was completely ruined.) 23.) Men At Arms (Discworld #15) by Terry Pratchett Puns don't kill people... So now that I've got a taste for each of the main sub-series under my belt, I think I like the Guards the best because they deal most with themes of class and the illusions of power within social systems. Or maybe it's because they've coincidentally had the best Librarian cameos. Either one, really. Just like the last Guards novel, this one won me over with some incredible character work, which was a feat since it introduces, like, thirty new characters. But unlike the last one, I thought the ending here was not pulled together very tightly. Still, an enjoyable read, and Vimes' Boots Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness is about the greatest thing ever. 24.) And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed A dystopian zombie in the dystopian future liberates a dystopian brothel. What's cool about this book is that it's told from the POV of a side character to the Main Story. In a traditional telling of this story, we would be following the girl who came back to life as she tore the city enacting her revenge. So following a sidekick who isn't even really involved and being involved in her dilemma as a normal person was fantastic. I saw a lot of reviews that complain about how the novel is "overwritten." But I found the opposite to be true: The narration was clear, very well written and easy to understand, and I really enjoyed the stream of consciousness thought process aspect. What held it back for me was the world-building wasn't clear enough (as an example: we learn halfway into the book that the bordello has a plane hangar, which means it's MASSIVE but nothing prior to this gave me this sense), so I was constantly amending my mental picture of this world up until the very end of the book. Graphic Novels i.) Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vol 7: I've Been Waiting for a Squirrel Like You by Ryan North, Erica Henderson ii.) The Flintstones (2016) vol 2 by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh iii.) Sweet Tooth vol 3: Animal Armies by Jeff Lemire iv.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 1: The Assassin's Road by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima v.) March vol 3 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin vi.) Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles by Mark Russell, Mike Feehan vii.) Ascender vol 1: The Haunted Galaxy by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen viii.) Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel vix.) Lumberjanes vol 8: Stone Cold by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh, Carey Pietsch x.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 2: The Gateless Barrier by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima xi.) Usagi Yojimbo vol 14: Demon Mask by Stan Sakai xii.) Wonder Twins vol 1: Activate! by Mark Russell, Stephen Byrne xiii.) Sweet Tooth vol 4: Endangered Species by Jeff Lemire xiv.) Billionaire Island by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh xv.) Usagi Yojimbo vol 15: Grasscutter II: Journey to Atsuta Shrine by Stan Sakai xvi.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 3: The Flute of the Fallen Tiger by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima xvii.) Ascender vol 2: The Dead Sea by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen xviii.) Wonder Twins vol 2: The Fall and Rise of the Wonder Twins by Mark Russell, Stephen Byrne xiv.) Lumberjanes vol 9: On a Roll by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh, Carolyn Nowak xx.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 4: The Bell Warden by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima xxi.) Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vol 8: My Best Friend's Squirrel by Ryan North, Erica Henderson xxii.) Lone Wolf and Cub vol 5: Black Wind by Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima xxiii.) Usagi Yojimbo vol 16: The Shrouded Moon by Stan Sakai xxiv.) Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall, Hugo Martinez Autobiographical tale of a historian trying to discover, and being denied access to, information about women slaves that led uprisings. I went in expecting a history book. But this is actually more about the author's drive to find the stories of slave women just as much as it is about the revolts. We get to see how various modern social systems treat her in this search and how she processes everything she learns, coming to terms with some really dark truths without letting them overpower her. So so good. I loved the art because it reminded me of the underground indie style that I grew up on: rebellious and unique, not sterilized like you get with, say, the DC house style. Also, the layouts are really creative and the artist does a fantastic job with detailing the scenes. xxv.) Ascender vol 3: The Digital Mage by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen Space witches and space robots prepare for their space wars. A buffer volume where all the characters are getting into place for the next volume's Big Fight. I'm not really enjoying where the space witch arc went, so hopefully the conclusion does something unexpected. The watercolor art is the main draw here. xxvi.) Run (Book One) by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin John Lewis' graphic novel autobiography of his experience during the post-Voting Rights Act period. Where March focused on Lewis' rise to leadership, Run is about his apparent fall from it as the attitudes within the civil rights community change and he is pushed out. Still just as powerful and engrossing as March, but this first volume is mostly setup for the next chapter. There are so many people introduced and events explained that this felt more like an annotated history book than an autobiography. But I had gripes with the first volume of March, too, and so I'm optimistic the next volumes of Run will match the second and third volumes of March. And the art is still so, so good. xxvii.) Lumberjanes vol 10: Parents' Day by Shannon Watters & Kay Leyh, Ayme Sotuyo We meet the campers' parents and a fox spirit that is definitely not Loki, Loki-inspired or Loki-trademarked and copyrighted. It was really cute to see the characters interact with their parents but the addition of the parents meant that there were way too many characters to keep track of, so no one was really given more than a page or two. I really wish this had been longer, with an issue devoted to each character. A new artist for this volume brings a more newspaper comic look to the series and it's fine. xxviii.) Usagi Yojimbo vol 17: Duel at Kitanoji by Stan Sakai An ongoing storyline about the swordmasters' duel gets concluded. I had a lot of expectations for this one, and was kinda disappointed that the duel itself is super rushed at the end of the book. The volume fills more like filler, as the first couple issues are unrelated one-shots and the second half's main focus is a pretty generic "save the town from bandits" story. But mediocre Usagi is still great reading and the characters are all so fun. The 2022 challenge: 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. - 24/36 prose, 28/52 graphic novels 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. - 11/24 (1, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24) - 45% 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. - 9/24 (7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 21, 24) - 37% 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 8% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. - 5/24 (8, 13, 15, 20, 21) - 21% 5. Read something originally published... a. b. c. d. e. f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 6. 7. 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read 11. 12. 13. Read something about film or television 14. 15. 16. 17. Read something you've been meaning to read for a while, but haven't yet 18. Re-read something you love 19. Read something scary 20. 21. Ask someone in this thread for a Wildcard to read OR read something that was explicitly recommended to you either by someone you know, or by someone in another thread in The Book Barn (Bonus Points* if you do both!) 22.
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Apr 2, 2022 18:06
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I finished two books in March. Shameful, really. I'm mostly done three more, which is how I read I guess: The Famished Road by Ben Okri I posted a big review (for me) of this one here. It was exactly what I was looking for, even though it was a big of a slog at times. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher Nice little analysis of the ways capitalism has evolved and hosed us over even more woo! The books so far:
THE 2022 CHALLENGE: 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. 9/60 books (I'm still way behind) 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. 2/ 5, 6 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. 4/ 1, 2, 3,8 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 8% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. 5. Read something originally published...
7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read 11. Read something about exploration 12. Read something about transformation 13. Read something about film or television 14. Read something fictional, based (however loosely) on a historical event 15. Read something written by an author living in the opposite hemisphere from you where you currently live/the one you'd call home (North/South and/or East/West - Bonus Points* for both axes!) 16. Read something about mountains 18. Re-read something you love 20. Look through some other Book Barn threads (or the Discord) and pick a book suggested or discussed there to read (Bonus Points* if you also post in that thread to discuss the book once you've read it!) 21. Ask someone in this thread for a Wildcard to read OR read something that was explicitly recommended to you either by someone you know, or by someone in another thread in The Book Barn (Bonus Points* if you do both!) Can I have one of these? 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!) *Bonus Points are entirely made up and can be whatever reward you feel like you deserve and/or makes you feel good for taking the extra effort! I don't enforce the rules, I just suggest them!
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Apr 2, 2022 18:45
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13. Night Shift, King Great collection of short stories, many made into films - Quitters, Inc. is a standout. 14. Doctors Killed George Washington, Barrett Cute anecdotes and quotes about medical oddities and fuckups. 15. At Home, Bryson Fascinating examination of how the modern home got its contents.
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Apr 4, 2022 20:11
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Tutop - The Third Policeman, O’Nolan I recommend this for your wild card. Interesting read.
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Apr 4, 2022 20:13
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Robot Mil posted:14. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 6. The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays - Esme Weijun Wang This is a series of personal essays about the author's experience with schizoaffective disorder. I really wanted to like this book but I found it increasingly problematic and frustrating as I went on. It starts off extremely clinical, like I'm reading a research paper at school (with citations and everything), but then there are some promising interludes of her struggles/decisions and reckoning with the illness, but by the end it is completely off the rails in a non-interesting kind of way. The essays are incredibly disjointed and unmoored in time or theme. The last few chapters are spent talking about her "Chronic Lyme" diagnosis (I didn't think this was a real thing?) and her and a friend seeking out a bunch of alternative medicine for it. I think there's something interesting to unpack when having an 'uncurable' diagnosis like schizoaffective disorder can lead to seeking other forms of comfort/treatment when western medicine is out of answers, but she is not quite honest enough with herself to be able to convey anything insightful in her writing. Her intense amount of privilege (wealth, beauty) and acknowledgement of the privilege WITHOUT examination of it is completely exhausting. Again, I really wanted to like this book, but if you're writing a memoir/personal essays you should either have lived a very interesting life or be very interesting yourself and she doesn't really clear the bar. 7. The Martian - Andy Weir I'm counting this as my exploration book, because what better to explore than new worlds! It's a funny, delightful read and I think the movie did a really good job distilling out the heart of the book. Highly recommend. 8. Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik Just a great, charming retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. Perfect vacation read. 9. A Week in Winter - Maeve Binchy I was heading to Ireland and I like to read novels set in and from authors from wherever I'm going. Maeve Binchy was on a bunch of "best Irish authors" lists and this was immediately available on Libby. It's a lovely, warm hug of a novel. The second half reads like a bunch of short stories woven together and it's just very cozy. 10. The Winter of the Witch - Katherine Arden Finished up the trilogy. Fun, fast, satisfying fantasy series. This counts as my "read two books from one author", but I'll probably do that challenge a few more times. 11. Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi Very good debut novel following the descendants of two half-sisters from 18thc Ghana to present day USA. Each chapter is a new generation in one of the two sides of the family. I think I've seen it compared a bit to 100 Year of Solitude/House of the Spirits in that it's about multiple generations of family and intergenerational trauma... but I actually think a closer comparison for this is Cloud Atlas, with the time scale and number of characters. It is actually my main critique of the book: the characters' voices are not ver distinct from each other - each has the same reserved personality, extremely rich inner monologue, and basic decision making across generations. This made the book a very fast and engrossing read, but did not do much to differentiate the eras or characters from each other and I didn't find the ending very satisfying at all. I'd still recommend giving it a shot if you like family epics. 12. One Day in December - Josie Silver I think Bringing Down the Duke awakened an appreciation for romance novels in me haha. It's fine, like watching a movie on TNT. 13. The Queen of Blood - Sarah Beth Durst I read this on the flight home and would have stopped if I had other books to read. 14. The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey I went in blind off a friend's recommendation and was surprised that this is my second Snegurochka book this year (first being The Winter of the Witch). It's well written and was an enjoyable read but isn't going to stick with me.
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Apr 7, 2022 22:21
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I apologize for the lateness on the March report. I sorta realized halfway through the month that I ought to read something for Women's History month, so read the Kitchen Front, I had more on tap and then suddenly some in demand holds came through from the library. In terms of planning or sticking to a theme, it was a shambles. The books weren't bad though. 12. Trailer Park Trickster by David Slayton - The followup to White Trash Warlock, Adam's aunt has been killed and we're trying to figure out why. Adam's back in Oklahoma in his childhood home, and we've got other members of the Binder family about and naturally the big scary guy. Solid book, very much a middle book of the series. Look forward to the next. 13. Zone One by Colston Whitehead - Our hero is a member of a cleanup corps trying to clear the remaining zombies out of New York City as sort of a propaganda piece to establish a bulkhead for the reconquest of America. Rather than hard core zombie action, it's mostly him going through the motions and reflecting on life before the zombie apocalypse and in the immediate aftermath. A contemplative zombie novel if you will. I enjoyed it, though it was slower than I thought. 14. The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan - Set in England during WW2, this book focuses on a cooking radio show, providing domestic tips and recipes to help with rationing. IRL, partway through the war, some other personalities were added to spruce the show up. Ryan has imagined a village cooking competition to choose the new host of the show. The book follows our four competitors and their trials and tribulations. Many chapters finish with a recipe for a key dish. It was a really enjoyable read, though maybe a bit melodramatic and saccharine and simplistic. I think it'd appeal to people who enjoy dramatic cooking shows. 15. The Archive of the Forgotten by AJ Hackwith - Second book in the Hell's Library trilogy. It's decent. I think I liked the first more, will read more of the series though. 16. Last Exit by Max Gladstone - An exciting new on from Gladstone. A group of 5 kids at Yale learn how to jump to alternate dimensions and proceed to do so to try and find a better America. In the process, they lose one of the kids to the "rot" a sort of chaotic entity beyond the bounds of normal space. That was 10 years ago. Since then the group has broken up, become a doctor, a tech bro, a car mechanic, and a witch who lives on the road excising what rot she can find in America. The last, believes the lost member is coming back and bringing with her rot to destroy the world. They old gang are summoned to try and save the world. There's a lot of reflecting on the past and their personal relationships. There's an odd sort of Americana by way of Lovecraft vibe. I found this to be really good. Ben Nevis posted:1. Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
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Apr 8, 2022 16:23
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16. The Enemy of the People, Acosta Personality conflict between CNN reporter and Trump. 17. West Virginia: A History, Rice Overview of a sad state’s sad history. Coal sucks. 18. Alexander Hamilton, Chernow Comprehensive examination of his life, the triumphs and the ignominy.
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Apr 11, 2022 21:57
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19. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo Poignant, romantic novel of loss and woe. 20. 100 One-Night Reads, Major Spot-on selections and a good reason why for each one.
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Apr 19, 2022 11:00
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quote:1 - Croc and Roll, by Hamish Steele, George Williams & Ayoola Solarin I finished seven books in the month of April. A very broad range of stuff, too. 38 - Radical Attention, by Julia Bell. A short, bleak, furious polemic that diagnoses the made ways in which modern society is made worse by the marriage of new media technologies and unfettered capitalism. From gentrification to hate crimes to hyperreality, this reads like a checklist of "go outside and touch some grass" anxieties and imperatives. But it's hard to argue with much here, especially the ultimate messages - to actively listen, to allow deep understanding of things, to accept and embrace silence in a noisy world. 39 - Spikes, by Marlo Mogensen. Zine/comic about an extended friend group of queer and trans pals and partners, rendered as Sonic characters. Emotional honesty, processing of relationship drama, slice-of-life anarchism. I know a lot of people who have had similar lives and experiences, and this gave me some nice feelings. The artwork is lovely as well, real print-on-recycled-paper feeling, with good blending of naturalistic and cartoon-hedgehog styles. 40 - TMWWWBSASATWI: An Illustrated Novella, by Mr. 'Beany Tuesday'. Extremely funny, well-observed, and able to turn from uplifting to heartbreaking at any moment. Beany Tuesday has a real knack for introspection and illustrating the weird foibles and self-doubts underpinning human experience. The humour is sometimes silly, sometimes pitch-black, and some of these scenes are going to linger in my mind for a long time. Really drat good. 41 - 100 Boyfriends, by Brontez Purnell. Wonderful, emotional, funny, gay as all hell. A novel, maybe, comprised of amalgamated explicit short stories and vignettes about dating, sex and desire, and all the different factors that complicate and enhance intimate relationships. Purnell has a great command of language, like I was sitting at a party listening to his storytelling. Very happy I picked this up. 42 - The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut. Early SF and one that'd been recommended a lot to me. It's less fun than his other novels I've read, and felt much slower, but it still has that melancholy humanism and cutting satirical eye that I expected. The scenes involving the Martian army were particularly bleak, and despite the occasional laugh this was overall a pretty depressing experience. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but it's far from my favourite Vonnegut. 43 - Yes, I Am A Destroyer, by Mira Mattar. Novella/prose poetry about a woman of indeterminate age describing how utterly inhuman she must be in order to conform to ideas of humanity, femininity and the like. Occasional flourishes of criminality and self-destruction, hints at intense trauma, enormous miserable streak, pretty exhausting but gripping enough not to put down while it was hurting me. I'm sure plenty of folks would find it cathartic - Mattar's Palestinian background and her heavy research into ideas of personhood, justice and existence under the hells of capitalism and white supremacist imperialism definitely helped shape the desperation of her "flayed" protagonist. 44 - Kalpa Imperial, by Angélica Gorodischer. BOTM! This is really something special. A collection of legends, histories and folktales from an empire that seems to span infinite space and time over its rises and falls. Stories of imperial politicking and betrayal are mixed in with subaltern struggles; pitched battles give way to times of peaceful prosperity. There is a deliberate timelessness to it all: Kalpa is everywhere and everywhen at different points in its history. The strengths and enormous personalities in play are as transient as nameless merchants. The final chapter seems to wrap up Gorodischer's thesis satisfyingly: all empires have great people and great stories, and the specifics erode into each other to be rearranged inexorably by telling after telling. I will likely re-read this at some point in the future: I had a really good time exploring the world Gorodischer has built, but more importantly the stories themselves are beautifully told. 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. - 44/60 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. - 14 - 2, 4, 13, 15, 17, 18, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 43, 44 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. - 16 - 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19, 26, 31, 35, 41, 43 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. - 10 - 1, 13, 17, 18, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43 5. Read something originally published... f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 6. Read two works by the same author 7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 11. Read something about exploration 13. Read something about film or television 16. Read something about mountains 18. Re-read something you love 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!)
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Apr 30, 2022 23:34
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I finished 11 things in April. (A few of them were ones I'd been working on for a while, and a few were notably short.) 18. The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander I ordered this pretty much as soon as the recent news broke that the wreck of the Endurance had been discovered. I was surprised that there's no e-book, but as soon as I saw just how many of Frank Hurley's photos from the expedition are in the book, it made sense. The story of how the crew managed to survive the ship being sunk in Antarctic pack ice, then successfully take a few tiny open boats over hundreds of miles through rough seas until they were able to reach rescue is wild. And no one died! (Except for a lot of animals, that is  )19. One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve by M. Shaw This is an indie horror novella that I really enjoyed. It's the story of the two halves of a corpse awakening, each side with his own consciousness, and figuring out how to make their way in the world. By turns gross and heartbreaking, the relationship between Left and Right (as the halves initially call themselves) is the main focus of the story. The very last chapter, which sort of, maybe, overexplains everything was a bit take-it-or-leave-it for me, but on the whole I really dug this. 20. The Book of Queer Saints edited by Mae Murray A horror short story anthology where the main thread linking things together is that the protagonists are allowed to be horrible people/monsters who happen to be queer. A fairly solid collection overall, only a couple of the stories sort of thunked for me (they both happened to have long sections of people wandering around cities which is just not a motif that typically interests me). And, despite the title, you won't really find any stories riffing on religious themes for the most part. 21. Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune Wow, I.... really did not like this book, haha. I ended up skimming about 85% of it. I know there are a good amount of people who like House in the Cerulean Sea, which is by the same author (the praise for that was why I ended up picking this one up, but I probably should have read that instead I guess? Not that I plan to now though, if this is indicative of the author's whole shtick). The basic plot is that an rear end in a top hat lawyer (the main character) dies, goes to a sort of limbo-teahouse where he... sort of falls in love with the guy who runs the teahouse/is his assigned psychopomp, and just stops being an rear end in a top hat suddenly? That's pretty much it. 22. Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey Into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton Went back to exploration disaster nonfiction as a palate cleanser. The Belgica was the ship used for an 1897 Belgian Antarctic expedition that went pretty poorly! Much like the Endurance after it, the Belgica was trapped in the Antarctic ice for about a year, but the Belgica (almost miraculously) managed to sail back out. In the meantime, several members of the crew died, a few others had mental breakdowns, and almost everyone got scurvy (along with another possible mysterious illness) until the ship's last-minute-replacement doctor figured out a solution. A pretty incredible story overall, especially since it was Roald Amundsen's (who would go on to successfully reach the South Pole first) first Antarctic excursion. Highly recommend it if you're interested in this sort of thing. 23. Low Kill Shelter by Porpentine Charity Heartscape Porpentine is probably best known for her experimental narrative games, but her writing is, possibly, even weirder. That said, Low Kill Shelter is a lot more accessible than something like Psycho Nymph Exile (which I love, but is certainly not for everyone!), but it's still gross. There's a pandemic that turns affected humans into rabid almost-dogs, and the main character is trying to find a cure by keeping his co-worker's rabid boyfriend locked in a closet in his apartment. It's weird and gross, and great if you're into that kind of thing! 24. Southern Gothic Corpse Machine by Hannah V. Warren This is a horror poetry chapbook I was lucky to snag a copy of (they only printed 50 and it's sold out now). I don't read a ton of poetry, but I really enjoyed a lot of the imagery in this and I really look forward to re-reading it again soon. One of the main threads through the collection is the horror of abuse/manipulation filtered through Southern fundamentalist Christianity, and breaking free from it, which resonated with some of my own experiences growing up in Appalachia (luckily not TOO much though!). 25. The March North by Graydon Saunders I have become a Graydon Saunders sockpuppet account. If you read the SFF thread, you're probably either tired of hearing about the Commonweal series, or you're already also Graydon Saunders. I really loved the spare writing style that seems like it's barely explaining anything about this fantasy world, but, which you actually start to figure out and jive with the more you read. The style and thoughtfulness of the approach really do so much to make this interesting, since the basic plot and concept seems fairly flat if you just say "it's about a small national guard-style force + three wizards going to battle against a neighboring, invading country." It's a lot more than that! 26. Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day by Peter Zuckerman with Amanda Padoan Back to mountaineering disasters, which I am as fascinated by as maritime disasters! Back in the 2008 climbing season, through accidents, poor decisions, and pure bad luck, 11 people attempting to climb K2 died. It's pretty common for stories about climbing the various Himalaya mountains to brush over or even completely ignore the Sherpas and High (and Low) Altitude Porters that make these climbs possible at all. So it was great to see a book that focused primarily on them as people and clearly outlines the incredible risks they go take to break trails, set lines, and just keep their clients alive. 27. The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington I really wanted to like this more than I did! I've been keeping an eye out for medieval horror since I finished Between Two Fires and it's not a very big subgenre so far. Like, Between Two Fires, Brothers Grossbart is also a picaresque. It follows two grave-robbing brothers who survived the Black Death as children and are on their way to Egypt (Gyptland as they call it) to rob the rich graves their grandfather told about. They encounter (and kill, in meticulous detail) witches, demons, sirens and a lot of regular humans who also want them dead. It all sounds great, but I got really thrown off by the pacing. There's almost constant action but I think I would have liked this a lot better if it had been maybe 150~ pages shorter. Ah, well! It might click better with someone else looking for some more medieval horror, though. 28. Seize the Press, Vol. 1 edited by Jonny Pickering I almost forgot about this because I hadn't logged it in my Storygraph yet, but I did read an online lit mag this month! Seize the Press is "[a] brand new online magazine for dark speculative fiction and anticapitalist sci-fi, fantasy and horror pop culture analysis." The first issue had 5 short stories (of which, "Eating Bees From The rear end Of God" was probably the standout, both in title and style) and a few essays + and author interview which is pretty typical of a lot of spec-fic lit mags I've encountered. A really interesting first issue, and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here! 1. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. Total: 28/52 Nonfiction: 6/10 Moby Dick: 1/1 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. ~17/28 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. ~5/28 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. ~14/28 5. Read something originally published... a. In the past year [Light from Uncommon Stars - 2021] b. At least 5 years ago [Ninefox Gambit - 2016] c. At least 25 years ago [The Sparrow - 1996] d. At least 50 years ago [Master and Commander - 1970] e. At least 100 years ago [Moby Dick - 1851] f. At least 250 years ago g. At least 500 years ago 6. Read two works by the same author 7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) [Seize the Press, Vol. 1] 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author [Book of Queer Saints] 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read [Romance - Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics] 11. Read something about exploration [Icebound] 12. Read something about transformation [Wingspan of Severed Hands] 13. Read something about film or television 14. Read something fictional, based (however loosely) on a historical event [Master and Commander] 15. Read something written by an author living in the opposite hemisphere from you where you currently live/the one you'd call home (North/South and/or East/West - Bonus Points* for both axes!) 16. Read something about mountains [Buried in the Sky] 17. Read something you've been meaning to read for a while, but haven't yet [Moby Dick] 18.Re-read something you love [We Have Always Lived in the Castle] 19. Read something scary [Tell Me I'm Worthless] 20. Look through some other Book Barn threads (or the Discord) and pick a book suggested or discussed there to read (Bonus Points* if you also post in that thread to discuss the book once you've read it!) [The March North] 21.Ask someone in this thread for a Wildcard to read OR read something that was explicitly recommended to you either by someone you know, or by someone in another thread in The Book Barn (Bonus Points* if you do both!) [Murderous Dr. Cream] 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!) [Icebound - Did you know that polar bear livers contain so much Vitamin A that it's toxic for a human to eat it? The Barents expedition found that out the hard way!]
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May 1, 2022 21:48
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21. The Ancient Egyptians for Dummies, Booth Basics of Egyptian life and culture, incorporating recent discovery and research. 22. The Man Who Laughs, Hugo Uneven tragedy of how society works, still applicable now. 23. Nightmare Scenario, Abutaleb Examination of the coronavirus and Trump’s handling of it. 24. A Woman in Charge, Bernstein Hillary Clinton’s biography through 2007 from a semi-objective perspective. 25. Economics for Dummies, Flynn Basis of micro and macro economics, good for those completely unfamiliar with the subject, like me.
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May 2, 2022 01:13
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Currently at 39/100.
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May 2, 2022 01:16
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I still don't have a wildcard. I finished four books in April, a bit more like it. Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives by Michael A. Heller Classic lib pop history of the concept of ownership. I thought the author got into interesting territory when he started talking about bodily autonomy and the selling of the sacred and profane. Memoirs of a Space Traveler by Stanislaw Lem Read this with my partner, it was hilarious and a wonderful time. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor What a wonderful novella. Suspenseful, delightfully written and I've started the sequel, which is even better. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Needs no introduction, a masterpiece. I wrote a longer little review here https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=2175822&perpage=40&pagenumber=383#post522887225. The books so far:
THE 2022 CHALLENGE: 1. a. Set a goal for number of books and/or another personal challenge. 13/60 books (I'm still way behind) 1. b. 10 "classics". 1/10 2. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 25% of them are not written by men. 3/ 5, 6, 12 3. Of the books you read this year, make sure a least 25% of them are written by writers of colour. 5/ 1, 2, 3, 8, 12 4. Of the books you read this year, make sure at least 8% of them are written by LGBTQ writers. 5. Read something originally published...
7. Read something by a disabled author 8. Read an issue of a story-focused/literary magazine (there are many available online entirely for free!) 9. Read an anthology or collection containing the work of more than one author 10. Read something from a genre you rarely or never read 11. Read something about exploration 12. Read something about transformation 13. Read something about film or television 14. Read something fictional, based (however loosely) on a historical event 15. Read something written by an author living in the opposite hemisphere from you where you currently live/the one you'd call home (North/South and/or East/West - Bonus Points* for both axes!) 16. Read something about mountains 18. Re-read something you love 20. Look through some other Book Barn threads (or the Discord) and pick a book suggested or discussed there to read (Bonus Points* if you also post in that thread to discuss the book once you've read it!) 21. Ask someone in this thread for a Wildcard to read OR read something that was explicitly recommended to you either by someone you know, or by someone in another thread in The Book Barn (Bonus Points* if you do both!) Can I have one of these? 22. Read something that will teach you something new (and briefly tell us what you learned!) *Bonus Points are entirely made up and can be whatever reward you feel like you deserve and/or makes you feel good for taking the extra effort! I don't enforce the rules, I just suggest them!
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May 2, 2022 16:06
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tuyop posted:I still don't have a wildcard. How about In The Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu?
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May 2, 2022 16:46
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DurianGray posted:How about In The Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu? Thank you 🙏 namaste
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May 3, 2022 22:39
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Not as late as april. I'm lagging behind here a bit and don't have a real firm plan for completing the challenges. I guess I've got several picked out for up to 100 years back for that challenge, but not so much the extremes. Feeling a bit like I need to get on some more of these. Mountains? Whatever. I'll figure it out. I'm trying to speed up a bit and spend some more time reading to make sure I hit my numeric goal. It's suspenseful, I know. 17. The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman - Not surprised at how popular these are. As much as I enjoyed the first, I feel like this is a step up and for those who care is a fair mystery as well, I think. I like the Thursday Murder Club, will read more. 18. Jimmy the Kid by Donald Westlake - Dortmunder 3. I missed the second, but it doesn't matter. Dortmunder's gang is back and after reading a Parker book with a successful kidnapping, decides to kidnap the kid of a Wall Street big wig as their next score. Unfortunately, the kid is smarter than they are. Enjoyable romp. 19. How to Relax by Thich Nhat Hanh - Spoiler alert: The answer is basically breathing. 20. Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey - Queer librarians distribute state approved materials in a post apocalyptic western. Quick read, fairly enjoyable. If you want a queer western, I probably prefer the Anna North book. 21. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein - Misshelved at the local library, I realized I'd never read this one. And it's in the 50 year range for the goal. A slave is bought by a crippled beggar and taught to be a self sufficient intelligent kid with a health respect for freedom. He winds up travelling with the free traders before making his way to Earth. Entertaining read, and it's a juvenile so none of Heinlein's sexweirds are on display. Heinlein, naturally, shies away from identifying the problem as capitalism. 22. A Spindle Splintered by Alix E Harrow - Wasn't Really intending to get this but saw it had been nominated for something (hugo? I don't remember) so figured I might as well. And it's sort of Sleeping Beauty/Cursed Girl myths as multiverse. Interesting read. 23. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead - 3 section each detailing a crime and centering on Ray Carney, a respectable Harlem businessman. The tension here is between the respectable hard working Carney and the criminal element that definitely pays better. quote:1. Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
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May 5, 2022 19:28
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