Booklog 2007: Week 1
Jan. 8th, 2007 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneInspired by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wychwood, I’m going to try my hand at keep a book log (with reviews!) this year. And hey, what better way to start than with probably the only time ever I’ll be able to report seven books in seven days? (Airport layovers = good for something.)
Week 1: 1-7 January 2007 (Seewychwood, I’m even copying your dating order! (It looks prettier.))
1. All Families Are Psychotic, Douglas Coupland – I’ve started reading a lot of Coupland lately, all out-of-order so I’m getting a really schizophrenic view of how his writing has evolved. So far, the only pattern I’ve been able to establish is: earlier stuff—told in 1st person, somewhat plausible narrative; later stuff—told in 3rd person, completely fucking insane. This book falls into the latter category and while, like a lot of Coupland’s work, it’s nutty and implausible and kind of scattered, it was a blast to read and I found it oddly touching. (Though it didn’t rock me as much as the end of Microserfs—God.) This book—which involves a one-armed astronaut, a family of middle class Canadians with AIDS, Prince William’s last letter to Diana, and a couple of Florida baby-harvesters—reflects reality while being completely divorced from it. It’s neat. *g*
2. Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris – The best thing about the Memphis airport? They sell used books. Why don’t ALL airports do this? Anyway, this was a book that I got there, because my flight was delayed and I needed a quick laugh. Sedaris’ opening essay, about working as a Macy’s elf at Christmas, certainly delivered—and we’re talking the usual, must-bite-lip-and-not-appear-psycho-to-strangers kind of laugh-inducement here. Unfortunately, Sedaris is a much better essayist than he is a short story writer; the pieces of fiction that share the volume were much too obvious, totally without the subtlety his non-fiction possesses. If you’re not stuck in an airport, I’d recommend reading the first essay in this volume in the store, then picking up one of Sedaris’ longer, richer, better books.
3. Oblivion, Peter Abrahams – Another Memphis airport buy, this is a thriller that everyone was raving about a while back—Entertainment Weekly gave it an A+, etc. Maybe I’m just a cranky bitch, but I don’t see why. Admittedly, Abrahams treatment of amnesia—a central plot point—was really well done; we fanfic writers could learn a thing or two from his descriptions of Nick Petrov’s post-accident confusion. Yet it’s frustrating, because I think we’re supposed to be as shaken as Nick is about how this has changed him, changed his personality, but we can’t be, because pre-accident Petrov is too much of a cypher. Further, the central mystery was unsatisfying to me, mainly because I knew who the villain was going to be very early on (the character has almost no other role in the narrative; ergo…), and even the exposure of that character’s motivation didn’t much interest me—it was too pat, too old hat. And then, Abrahams has to tack a “happy ending” onto the end. Or, a bittersweet one, anyway, but it was way too sudden and too neat. Oh, he gets the girl! Great, except she has almost no personality and their relationship was barely developed. Sigh.
All this makes it sound like I really hated this book; I didn’t, at least not while I was reading it—in fact I was pretty entertained. But man, those were some empty calories and now I have indigestion.
4 & 5. FAKE (Vols. 1 & 2), Sanami Matoh – My first yaoi! Aww. Here are my thoughts, which I’m sure you are dying to hear. ;-)
I…liked it? But didn’t love it? I mean, it’s very cute, but it’s so…well, immature. There’s an aside from the author at one point where she says, “Well, this is really a girls’ comic, anyway” and…yeah. That’s the problem for me. It’s clearly written with teen girls in mind, and while I must say that Japanese teen girls are TOTALLY AWESOME if this is what they like, I think I’ve outgrown it. Ryo and Dee, the two protagonists, may be employed as New York cops, and there may be fake splashes of cartoon blood from time to time, but the whole thing is so…fourteen years old. I mean, the guys are in love from minute one, and then there’s lots of kissing and “Oh my god! He kissed me!” And there are none of the (this is so lame) social issues I want from a two-cops-in-love story—everyone at the station is just, like, okay with this? *pouts* I want some angst and some grit, dude.
So basically what I’m saying is: I would rather be reading due South fic. Sigh.
6. The Pursuit of Alice Thrift, Elinor Lipman - The Inn at Lake Devine remains one of my favorite books, and Pursuit illustrates why: Lipman can really write female characters, and female characters I can relate to, which is incredibly, incredibly rare. She’s got a great protagonist in Alice—smart, poor social skills, makes dumb, self-destructive mistakes of the exact kind I can (and do) see myself making. In fact, parts of this book were kind of hard to read, they hit so close to home. But in the end, I loved Alice, and I love that somewhere out there in the world of fiction, she exists.
However: why end the book just when it’s starting to get interesting? We’re told from the beginning that Ray, the man pursuing Alice, is bad news, and every single thing he does says—no, screams in bright, bold, neon letters—RAY IS BAD NEWS, and yet the book ends…with the revelation that Ray is bad news? No! I want more, much more, of how Alice moves on with her life. Lipman gives us wonderful, tantalizing hints of how she’s grown and changed, but I wanted to see them in action, dammit!
7. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Nicholas Meyer – 50¢ at a book sale, and with my current love of Sherlockia, I couldn’t resist, even though I was pretty sure I would hate it. I didn’t hate it. It’s too well-intended to hate, too joyfully fannish, and I must admit that some of Meyer’s footnotes on this “found” manuscript made me laugh out loud. (In case you’re curious, it was the one where Watson writes, “I believe it was in Julius Caesar that Shakespeare said…*” and Meyer’s footnote is simply, “*It’s not.”) However, this fannishness was I guess also part of what I objected to: I mean, it’s published fanfic, people! And while, you know, not that there’s anything wrong with that…I guess on some level I do see something wrong with that. I can’t take it seriously. I kept wanting to comment on Meyer’s LJ: “Sherlock Holmes meeting Freud? What an awesomely cracktastic idea! LOL” Furthermore, it didn’t help that the mystery that pads out the book was just that…padding. And not particularly interesting padding, either. Some of Doyle’s plots may have been a bit…silly, but they’re so atmospheric, so well done! ‘The Speckled Band’ is really creepy! So’s The Hound of the Baskervilles! The train chase in this was just…long.
So, with modern copyright laws, will Harry Potter ever come into the public domain? ‘Cause man, then Harry’s going to be meeting a lot of people nuttier than Freud, that’s for sure.
Total Books: 7
…And it’s all downhill from here!
wychwood, I’m going to try my hand at keep a book log (with reviews!) this year. And hey, what better way to start than with probably the only time ever I’ll be able to report seven books in seven days? (Airport layovers = good for something.)Week 1: 1-7 January 2007 (See
wychwood, I’m even copying your dating order! (It looks prettier.))1. All Families Are Psychotic, Douglas Coupland – I’ve started reading a lot of Coupland lately, all out-of-order so I’m getting a really schizophrenic view of how his writing has evolved. So far, the only pattern I’ve been able to establish is: earlier stuff—told in 1st person, somewhat plausible narrative; later stuff—told in 3rd person, completely fucking insane. This book falls into the latter category and while, like a lot of Coupland’s work, it’s nutty and implausible and kind of scattered, it was a blast to read and I found it oddly touching. (Though it didn’t rock me as much as the end of Microserfs—God.) This book—which involves a one-armed astronaut, a family of middle class Canadians with AIDS, Prince William’s last letter to Diana, and a couple of Florida baby-harvesters—reflects reality while being completely divorced from it. It’s neat. *g*
2. Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris – The best thing about the Memphis airport? They sell used books. Why don’t ALL airports do this? Anyway, this was a book that I got there, because my flight was delayed and I needed a quick laugh. Sedaris’ opening essay, about working as a Macy’s elf at Christmas, certainly delivered—and we’re talking the usual, must-bite-lip-and-not-appear-psycho-to-strangers kind of laugh-inducement here. Unfortunately, Sedaris is a much better essayist than he is a short story writer; the pieces of fiction that share the volume were much too obvious, totally without the subtlety his non-fiction possesses. If you’re not stuck in an airport, I’d recommend reading the first essay in this volume in the store, then picking up one of Sedaris’ longer, richer, better books.
3. Oblivion, Peter Abrahams – Another Memphis airport buy, this is a thriller that everyone was raving about a while back—Entertainment Weekly gave it an A+, etc. Maybe I’m just a cranky bitch, but I don’t see why. Admittedly, Abrahams treatment of amnesia—a central plot point—was really well done; we fanfic writers could learn a thing or two from his descriptions of Nick Petrov’s post-accident confusion. Yet it’s frustrating, because I think we’re supposed to be as shaken as Nick is about how this has changed him, changed his personality, but we can’t be, because pre-accident Petrov is too much of a cypher. Further, the central mystery was unsatisfying to me, mainly because I knew who the villain was going to be very early on (the character has almost no other role in the narrative; ergo…), and even the exposure of that character’s motivation didn’t much interest me—it was too pat, too old hat. And then, Abrahams has to tack a “happy ending” onto the end. Or, a bittersweet one, anyway, but it was way too sudden and too neat. Oh, he gets the girl! Great, except she has almost no personality and their relationship was barely developed. Sigh.
All this makes it sound like I really hated this book; I didn’t, at least not while I was reading it—in fact I was pretty entertained. But man, those were some empty calories and now I have indigestion.
4 & 5. FAKE (Vols. 1 & 2), Sanami Matoh – My first yaoi! Aww. Here are my thoughts, which I’m sure you are dying to hear. ;-)
I…liked it? But didn’t love it? I mean, it’s very cute, but it’s so…well, immature. There’s an aside from the author at one point where she says, “Well, this is really a girls’ comic, anyway” and…yeah. That’s the problem for me. It’s clearly written with teen girls in mind, and while I must say that Japanese teen girls are TOTALLY AWESOME if this is what they like, I think I’ve outgrown it. Ryo and Dee, the two protagonists, may be employed as New York cops, and there may be fake splashes of cartoon blood from time to time, but the whole thing is so…fourteen years old. I mean, the guys are in love from minute one, and then there’s lots of kissing and “Oh my god! He kissed me!” And there are none of the (this is so lame) social issues I want from a two-cops-in-love story—everyone at the station is just, like, okay with this? *pouts* I want some angst and some grit, dude.
So basically what I’m saying is: I would rather be reading due South fic. Sigh.
6. The Pursuit of Alice Thrift, Elinor Lipman - The Inn at Lake Devine remains one of my favorite books, and Pursuit illustrates why: Lipman can really write female characters, and female characters I can relate to, which is incredibly, incredibly rare. She’s got a great protagonist in Alice—smart, poor social skills, makes dumb, self-destructive mistakes of the exact kind I can (and do) see myself making. In fact, parts of this book were kind of hard to read, they hit so close to home. But in the end, I loved Alice, and I love that somewhere out there in the world of fiction, she exists.
However: why end the book just when it’s starting to get interesting? We’re told from the beginning that Ray, the man pursuing Alice, is bad news, and every single thing he does says—no, screams in bright, bold, neon letters—RAY IS BAD NEWS, and yet the book ends…with the revelation that Ray is bad news? No! I want more, much more, of how Alice moves on with her life. Lipman gives us wonderful, tantalizing hints of how she’s grown and changed, but I wanted to see them in action, dammit!
7. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Nicholas Meyer – 50¢ at a book sale, and with my current love of Sherlockia, I couldn’t resist, even though I was pretty sure I would hate it. I didn’t hate it. It’s too well-intended to hate, too joyfully fannish, and I must admit that some of Meyer’s footnotes on this “found” manuscript made me laugh out loud. (In case you’re curious, it was the one where Watson writes, “I believe it was in Julius Caesar that Shakespeare said…*” and Meyer’s footnote is simply, “*It’s not.”) However, this fannishness was I guess also part of what I objected to: I mean, it’s published fanfic, people! And while, you know, not that there’s anything wrong with that…I guess on some level I do see something wrong with that. I can’t take it seriously. I kept wanting to comment on Meyer’s LJ: “Sherlock Holmes meeting Freud? What an awesomely cracktastic idea! LOL” Furthermore, it didn’t help that the mystery that pads out the book was just that…padding. And not particularly interesting padding, either. Some of Doyle’s plots may have been a bit…silly, but they’re so atmospheric, so well done! ‘The Speckled Band’ is really creepy! So’s The Hound of the Baskervilles! The train chase in this was just…long.
So, with modern copyright laws, will Harry Potter ever come into the public domain? ‘Cause man, then Harry’s going to be meeting a lot of people nuttier than Freud, that’s for sure.
Total Books: 7
…And it’s all downhill from here!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:01 pm (UTC)The Coupland sounds kind of cool. I loooove Microserfs, and though the other one or two I've read haven't been nearly as good, there's still something there. I really must read Gen X, actually. If you like that sort of writing, you might like William Gibson, too - have you read anything by him? Not so much his cyberpunk, Neuromancer and that, as his more mainstream stuff, Pattern Recognition or Idoru.
And there are none of the (this is so lame) social issues I want from a two-cops-in-love story—everyone at the station is just, like, okay with this? *pouts* I want some angst and some grit, dude.
So basically what I’m saying is: I would rather be reading due South fic. Sigh.
Awww. I feel your pain, though; increasingly I find that I want serious fic to deal with the issues they have to face; I'm less interested in porn / fluff and more interested in some of the issues of identity and perception and secrecy that are so fundamental to being outcast in that way.
I kept wanting to comment on Meyer’s LJ: “Sherlock Holmes meeting Freud? What an awesomely cracktastic idea! LOL”
*giggles* I had something like that with Jack Absolute; I wanted to beta it, and tell him to make the protagonist less of a Mary Sue, and I don't even remember what else. There's a surprising amount of fanfic-like published writing out there! And mostly not the good kind of fanfic either (although I can think of some...)
Yay!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:29 pm (UTC)Microserfs is definitely my favorite of the Coupland I've read so far, although I also really liked Life After God. I haven't read any Gibson, mostly because cyberpunk intimidates me—in my attempts to read Delany (pre-punkish, I would say) and Stephenson, I always have a terrible time figuring out WHAT'S GOING ON—but I happen to know my mom has a copy of Idoru, so maybe I'll
stealborrow it.I'm less interested in porn / fluff and more interested in some of the issues of identity and perception and secrecy that are so fundamental to being outcast in that way.
No, me, too! And, sadly, this weariness has spread to my fanfic reading, which is unfortunate because if there's any place to enjoy pure fluff, it should be right here.
*looks up Jack Absolute*
Um...
Yeah. Y'know, maybe if it were done in a zany, lighthearted manner...?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:47 pm (UTC)I love cyberpunk, but it can be very inaccessible to outsiders; the Gibson I mentioned, though, really aren't so much like that, they're more like Coupland in being SFF-inflected mainstream writing, real world plots with a kind of technological sensibility to them. Plus Pattern Recognition was one of my top ten new books of last year, so... *g*
I still do read and enjoy fluffy fic, but the other sort is often more interesting to me. Your DADT fic, for instance - I still think that's the best thing you've written in SGA, and certainly the best science fiction. The ramifications and implications are just fascinating.
People seemed to think of Jack Absolute as an entertaining airport read *g*. And, ok, it wasn't *badly* written, but the period feel was terrible, the protagonist was a raving Mary Sue, and generally it needed a lot more work before I'd have let one of my friends post it...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-09 12:08 am (UTC)*g* I like things to be numbered! And in lists! *is not anal AT ALL, no*
I'll check out Pattern Recognition. Book recs are for yay!
Your DADT fic, for instance - I still think that's the best thing you've written in SGA, and certainly the best science fiction. The ramifications and implications are just fascinating.
Well, first of all, thank you for saying that. I think I can say without it being too egotistical that it's certainly my favorite thing I've written in SGA fandom (although I have an eternal softspot for 'Dæmonology'). In fact, I remember something
But yeah: THOSE are the types of issues I want to see explored—by other people, and by me, definitely. Especially in my original fiction, which I am trying so desperately to write...
the period feel was terrible
Patrick O'Brian has spoiled me forever. His prose evokes the period, not just the dialogue or the setting. That's tough to beat.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-09 12:21 pm (UTC)Yet I am sure that, like
Patrick O'Brian has spoiled me forever. His prose evokes the period, not just the dialogue or the setting. That's tough to beat.
Oh, totally. But although PO'B is the master, there are lots of other people who manage it quite adequately (CS Forester, Naomi Novik, about 50% of AoS fandom...) Jack Absolute doesn't even try, and totally ignores all the social mores at the same time (I think the most egregious example was the scene where a member of American high society sends his daughter off completely alone with Jack for a two-week journey across the colony, and apparently thinks this perfectly acceptable behaviour. Dude, seriously.)