Booklog is not a river in Egypt
Apr. 2nd, 2007 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneSigh. I'm sorry I haven't been around. Same old boring story: I'm stressed, I'm depressed, I don't want to talk to anybody. None of the job possibilities I mentioned in my last post have panned out, and I'm feeling pretty darn frustrated and useless. I've also been feeling guilty about not keeping up with things, including this booklog, and I guess that since that's something I can deal with, I will. So, yeah. These last two weeks' worth book reviews brought to you by the letter D: denial! Hurrah?
No, seriously: books are such a happy place. Let's lose ourselves, shall we?
Weeks 12 & 13: 19 March-1 April 2007
67. Your Whole Family Is Made Out of Meat: The Best of Dinosaur Comics, Ryan North — A birthday present, and a good weapon against an apocalyptic future where the internet implodes but I still really really need to read Dinosaur Comics (which, come on, I totally would). This collection is totally fucking awesome, as Dinosaur Comics so often is. Redundant to what's on the web of course, which, if you somehow have never managed to experience, is all archived here. I'm glad to have at least some of it in hard copy, though. No one expects the internet-imploding apocalypse!
68. Theories of Everything, Roz Chast — Chast is one of my favorite cartoonists; her work is just the perfect blend of neurotic anxiety, literary humor, and utter wackiness. This is a really great collection, too: 400 pages spanning her entire career, including many of my personal favorites. (Pollyanna in Hell! Yay!) Highly, highly recommended.
69 & 70. Fruits Basket (Vol. 2 & 3), Natsuki Takaya — The series seems to be picking up nicely in these volumes; I really liked Hatori's backstory and the hints about the mysterious family leader, Akito. Also, the basically tangential story about the foolish traveler broke my heart. I appreciate how the silly premise can be undercut by real sadness, by wonderful pangs of the bittersweet. There is definite potential here, and I'll hopefully be able to find the next few volumes soon.
71-73. Cowboy Bebop (Vol. 1-3), Yutaka Nanten — The Cowboy Bebop anime is one of my favorite things in the history of ever; this is...less thrilling. I suppose it's kind of like average-quality gen fanfic: doesn't advance the main plot in any way (obviously), but it also doesn't really say anything new or interesting about the characters. It was sufficiently diverting, but mostly it just made me want to rewatch the series.
74. Borrower of the Night, Elizabeth Peters —![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wychwood recommended this to me; or really, she recommended the sequel, but I'm too anal to read the second book in a series without the first. This was a fairly unremarkable mystery/thriller with supernatural trappings. I found Vicky's assertions of toughness and her triumph over the (not just shown to be, but frequently referred to as) male chauvinists fighting with and against her to find an ancient Germanic treasure to be rather self-conscious; the tone of the whole book, actually, is like that. wychwood says the series gets much better with the next book, so I will give it a shot, but this volume really didn't do much for me.
75. Blood Price & Blood Trail, Tanya Huff — Blood Price was a reread, in anticipation of reading the rest of the series, as I liked the Smoke spinoff so much and I feel silly watching the new series without having read all the books. In the war of the Vicky/is—a battle of kickass female protagonists between these books and the above—Vicki Nelson totally wins. Reading the first book for a second time and the second book for the first, I was happy to find these more fun than I remembered (possibly because the characters have more resonance than just the first book taken alone allows); I was also surprised by Tony's brief appearances (so young! so different!) and how much more sympathetic (and also, oddly, younger) Henry seems in these books than in the Smoke ones. I guess it makes sense; Tony (understandably) has major issues with him. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the rest of the series and seeing how everything connects.
77. Shoebag, Mary James — Found out about this when I was looking into Kockroach, a recent reverse-Metamorphosis tale. This one's a kids' book from about 15 years ago with a similar premise: a cockroach wakes up one morning to find he's turned into a person. That's what I call awesome-strange; the actual book, however, is...bizarre-confusing-strange. There's all kinds of weird stuff about the family that adopts Shoebag-turned-Stuart: the daughter is a child actress who shills toilet paper, and frankly I don't know what to make of any of it; I have no idea what I would have made from it when I was in the appropriate age group. But, um. Maybe I had a more flexible mind then? *wanders away, disconcerted*
78. The Sharing Knife: Beguilement, Lois McMaster Bujold — The start of a new fantasy series that, like Bujold's other works, is full of great dialogue and compelling characters; however, it suffers from being really, really oddly paced. All the action is concentrated in the first half of the book, the rest given over to a romance plot that leaves what one would generally think of as the main plot dangling until the next volume. I actually really enjoyed how Bujold dealt with the culture clash aspects—rather than just have one of the protagonists say, "Oh, what will our families think!" we actually got to see what their families thought; it made me want to read more books (even non-SF/F books) about "mixed marriages" of whatever sort. So I enjoyed this a lot even though the strange pacing made the overall effect...odd.
79. The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas — Like Thomas' PopCo, I found this both fascinating and frustrating. Thomas definitely achieves something really special with her ability to make her writing intensely cerebral (some of my favorite parts of Mr. Y were the digressions into quantum physics and other brain-stretching topics) while at the same time creating very human, flawed characters. Still, there's a quality of...coldness that prevents me from becoming emotionally involved. Perhaps the whole thing seems too clever, too orchestrated? I don't know. Anyway: the plot of this novel is nominally about a cursed book, but is really much more like an alternate take on Being John Malkovich with an ending that feels like the close of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the part that's supposed to be best if watched stoned. As with PopCo, the experience of reading the novel was very pleasurable and interesting, but the final impact just isn't there; it's oddly unsatisfying.
80. Fullmetal Alchemist (Vol. 1), Hiromu Arakawa — OMGAWESOME. This was by far the best manga I've read yet; completely engaging and fun from page 1. Call me crazy, but so far it has that wonderful wandering Western feel, and I just love it. So why oh why will the library system not let me reserve manga? And where are the episodes of the anime thatsiriaeve burned for me? *needs more NOW*
81. My Date With Satan, Stacey Richter — Really, really cool short stories. Richter does an amazing job capturing the POVs of her bizarre, fucked up characters; their voices are remarkably distinct and the prose is lively. Richter reminds me somewhat of Aimee Bender or Kelly Link, although I think I may have actually enjoyed these stories more; they had a tighter narrative structure than either Bender's or Link's work, whose stories (the latter's in particular) sometimes leave me going, "What was that actually ABOUT?" Which is not to say Richter's dumbing it down—there is simply a clarity to her presentation and purpose. I loved both the tragic, heart-wrenching stories, like "The Beauty Treatment," and the ebullient, ridiculous ones—"Goal 666" and "Rats Eat Cats" are two of my favorites in the collection. Richter just came out with a new book, too: Twin Study. *wants*
82. Strange Happenings, Avi — Bleh. "Five tales that explore the possibilities of transformation"—an appealing concept, but with rather dull results. There's just nothing new here—nothing you couldn't get from reading a half dozen random fairy tales, and I would have felt that way even when I was ages 10-12. I feel bored again just talking about it.
83. Changing Places, David Lodge — To everyone who was telling me I should read this: you were right, you were right, you were so so right. One of my favorite books is Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim, so of course I would love Lodge's academic comedy—especially since it comes with the bonus of being set in Birmingham (*waves towychwood*) and Berkeley. They're not called Birmingham and Berkeley, of course, but if you have any familiarity with either locale, it becomes even more amusing to "decode" the various place names (i.e., Silver Span, Cable Avenue, etc.). Further, the way Lodge plays with format (epistolary, newspaper clippings, film script) is both fun and effective, and there's a delightful amount of meta-humor. In short, I enjoyed this immensely.
84. Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, Christopher Moore — Reread in anticipation of reading the sequel, You Suck, which finally turned up in the library's "You Snooze, You Lose!" section (I'm still No. 65 in the regular holds queue). I haven't been especially fond of some of Moore's more recent work (am I the only one who really didn't like Lamb?) but this was as amusing as I remembered; more so, maybe, now that I've actually lived in the Bay Area and can properly appreciate all the San Francisco jokes. It probably says bad things about my cynical nature, but since I really did enjoy it again, I'm now mostly hoping that the sequel doesn't sour me against it.
Total Books: 84
My reading for today? The California State Driver's Manual. I really need to learn to drive and stop feeling like such a loser.
No, seriously: books are such a happy place. Let's lose ourselves, shall we?
Weeks 12 & 13: 19 March-1 April 2007
67. Your Whole Family Is Made Out of Meat: The Best of Dinosaur Comics, Ryan North — A birthday present, and a good weapon against an apocalyptic future where the internet implodes but I still really really need to read Dinosaur Comics (which, come on, I totally would). This collection is totally fucking awesome, as Dinosaur Comics so often is. Redundant to what's on the web of course, which, if you somehow have never managed to experience, is all archived here. I'm glad to have at least some of it in hard copy, though. No one expects the internet-imploding apocalypse!
68. Theories of Everything, Roz Chast — Chast is one of my favorite cartoonists; her work is just the perfect blend of neurotic anxiety, literary humor, and utter wackiness. This is a really great collection, too: 400 pages spanning her entire career, including many of my personal favorites. (Pollyanna in Hell! Yay!) Highly, highly recommended.
69 & 70. Fruits Basket (Vol. 2 & 3), Natsuki Takaya — The series seems to be picking up nicely in these volumes; I really liked Hatori's backstory and the hints about the mysterious family leader, Akito. Also, the basically tangential story about the foolish traveler broke my heart. I appreciate how the silly premise can be undercut by real sadness, by wonderful pangs of the bittersweet. There is definite potential here, and I'll hopefully be able to find the next few volumes soon.
71-73. Cowboy Bebop (Vol. 1-3), Yutaka Nanten — The Cowboy Bebop anime is one of my favorite things in the history of ever; this is...less thrilling. I suppose it's kind of like average-quality gen fanfic: doesn't advance the main plot in any way (obviously), but it also doesn't really say anything new or interesting about the characters. It was sufficiently diverting, but mostly it just made me want to rewatch the series.
74. Borrower of the Night, Elizabeth Peters —
wychwood recommended this to me; or really, she recommended the sequel, but I'm too anal to read the second book in a series without the first. This was a fairly unremarkable mystery/thriller with supernatural trappings. I found Vicky's assertions of toughness and her triumph over the (not just shown to be, but frequently referred to as) male chauvinists fighting with and against her to find an ancient Germanic treasure to be rather self-conscious; the tone of the whole book, actually, is like that. wychwood says the series gets much better with the next book, so I will give it a shot, but this volume really didn't do much for me.75. Blood Price & Blood Trail, Tanya Huff — Blood Price was a reread, in anticipation of reading the rest of the series, as I liked the Smoke spinoff so much and I feel silly watching the new series without having read all the books. In the war of the Vicky/is—a battle of kickass female protagonists between these books and the above—Vicki Nelson totally wins. Reading the first book for a second time and the second book for the first, I was happy to find these more fun than I remembered (possibly because the characters have more resonance than just the first book taken alone allows); I was also surprised by Tony's brief appearances (so young! so different!) and how much more sympathetic (and also, oddly, younger) Henry seems in these books than in the Smoke ones. I guess it makes sense; Tony (understandably) has major issues with him. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the rest of the series and seeing how everything connects.
77. Shoebag, Mary James — Found out about this when I was looking into Kockroach, a recent reverse-Metamorphosis tale. This one's a kids' book from about 15 years ago with a similar premise: a cockroach wakes up one morning to find he's turned into a person. That's what I call awesome-strange; the actual book, however, is...bizarre-confusing-strange. There's all kinds of weird stuff about the family that adopts Shoebag-turned-Stuart: the daughter is a child actress who shills toilet paper, and frankly I don't know what to make of any of it; I have no idea what I would have made from it when I was in the appropriate age group. But, um. Maybe I had a more flexible mind then? *wanders away, disconcerted*
78. The Sharing Knife: Beguilement, Lois McMaster Bujold — The start of a new fantasy series that, like Bujold's other works, is full of great dialogue and compelling characters; however, it suffers from being really, really oddly paced. All the action is concentrated in the first half of the book, the rest given over to a romance plot that leaves what one would generally think of as the main plot dangling until the next volume. I actually really enjoyed how Bujold dealt with the culture clash aspects—rather than just have one of the protagonists say, "Oh, what will our families think!" we actually got to see what their families thought; it made me want to read more books (even non-SF/F books) about "mixed marriages" of whatever sort. So I enjoyed this a lot even though the strange pacing made the overall effect...odd.
79. The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas — Like Thomas' PopCo, I found this both fascinating and frustrating. Thomas definitely achieves something really special with her ability to make her writing intensely cerebral (some of my favorite parts of Mr. Y were the digressions into quantum physics and other brain-stretching topics) while at the same time creating very human, flawed characters. Still, there's a quality of...coldness that prevents me from becoming emotionally involved. Perhaps the whole thing seems too clever, too orchestrated? I don't know. Anyway: the plot of this novel is nominally about a cursed book, but is really much more like an alternate take on Being John Malkovich with an ending that feels like the close of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the part that's supposed to be best if watched stoned. As with PopCo, the experience of reading the novel was very pleasurable and interesting, but the final impact just isn't there; it's oddly unsatisfying.
80. Fullmetal Alchemist (Vol. 1), Hiromu Arakawa — OMGAWESOME. This was by far the best manga I've read yet; completely engaging and fun from page 1. Call me crazy, but so far it has that wonderful wandering Western feel, and I just love it. So why oh why will the library system not let me reserve manga? And where are the episodes of the anime that
siriaeve burned for me? *needs more NOW*81. My Date With Satan, Stacey Richter — Really, really cool short stories. Richter does an amazing job capturing the POVs of her bizarre, fucked up characters; their voices are remarkably distinct and the prose is lively. Richter reminds me somewhat of Aimee Bender or Kelly Link, although I think I may have actually enjoyed these stories more; they had a tighter narrative structure than either Bender's or Link's work, whose stories (the latter's in particular) sometimes leave me going, "What was that actually ABOUT?" Which is not to say Richter's dumbing it down—there is simply a clarity to her presentation and purpose. I loved both the tragic, heart-wrenching stories, like "The Beauty Treatment," and the ebullient, ridiculous ones—"Goal 666" and "Rats Eat Cats" are two of my favorites in the collection. Richter just came out with a new book, too: Twin Study. *wants*
82. Strange Happenings, Avi — Bleh. "Five tales that explore the possibilities of transformation"—an appealing concept, but with rather dull results. There's just nothing new here—nothing you couldn't get from reading a half dozen random fairy tales, and I would have felt that way even when I was ages 10-12. I feel bored again just talking about it.
83. Changing Places, David Lodge — To everyone who was telling me I should read this: you were right, you were right, you were so so right. One of my favorite books is Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim, so of course I would love Lodge's academic comedy—especially since it comes with the bonus of being set in Birmingham (*waves to
wychwood*) and Berkeley. They're not called Birmingham and Berkeley, of course, but if you have any familiarity with either locale, it becomes even more amusing to "decode" the various place names (i.e., Silver Span, Cable Avenue, etc.). Further, the way Lodge plays with format (epistolary, newspaper clippings, film script) is both fun and effective, and there's a delightful amount of meta-humor. In short, I enjoyed this immensely.84. Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, Christopher Moore — Reread in anticipation of reading the sequel, You Suck, which finally turned up in the library's "You Snooze, You Lose!" section (I'm still No. 65 in the regular holds queue). I haven't been especially fond of some of Moore's more recent work (am I the only one who really didn't like Lamb?) but this was as amusing as I remembered; more so, maybe, now that I've actually lived in the Bay Area and can properly appreciate all the San Francisco jokes. It probably says bad things about my cynical nature, but since I really did enjoy it again, I'm now mostly hoping that the sequel doesn't sour me against it.
Total Books: 84
My reading for today? The California State Driver's Manual. I really need to learn to drive and stop feeling like such a loser.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 07:53 pm (UTC)Don't forget, I've seen pictures of you as a seventeen-year-old, too. Flock of Seagulls comes to mind.
-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 07:56 pm (UTC)Flock of Seagulls is a fair point. But c'mon - how often's a guy gonna live through a hair trend that he can carry off just by waking up in a morning?
So - these pictures of you dressed as cupid? When was that?
Nice ass, by the way.
- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 08:17 pm (UTC)I am not going to dignify the Cupid comment with a response.
-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 08:19 pm (UTC)And yeah, so I used a little Aqua-Net. Who didn't?
C'mon, tell me the cupid story. Jeannie wouldn't - she just sent the photos and told me to ask you "when the time was right."
- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 08:37 pm (UTC)Does this look like the right time to you? No, wait, who am I asking—you are the king of the inappropriate question.
-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 08:41 pm (UTC)So?
An inappropriate question would be more like the time you used the open channel to page me from the infirmary, high on narcotics, to ask me what I was wearing. This? This is tame! Besides, it's not like you're working on anything important - my sources tell me you're playing battleship and trying to make it look like you're running simulations.
- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 08:52 pm (UTC)And I'm very close to giving you an inappropriate answer. I'm sure you know what inappropriate answers are, Colonel, given that your answer to that particular question of mine (and I cannot be held culpable for my actions! I was very very high) was "Dog tags and a grin, Rodney."
-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 08:54 pm (UTC)- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 08:59 pm (UTC)-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:01 pm (UTC)You . . .
'scuse me, buddy, I gotta go somewhere private, laugh until I cry.
- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:06 pm (UTC)-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:08 pm (UTC)Wanna meet me down in the bio-repository lab? I hear it needs . . . inspection. 'Cause of that - memo. About - checking the data.
- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:11 pm (UTC)-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:14 pm (UTC)You and your manly ejaculations.
- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:20 pm (UTC)I and my manly ejaculations are astonished and suspicious. Have you been letting any alien priestesses drug you lately? Are both your pupils equal and reactive? Do you have any urges to sing excerpts from musical theatre in the gate room?
-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:24 pm (UTC)-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:27 pm (UTC)- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:29 pm (UTC)-RM
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:31 pm (UTC)- JS
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-02 09:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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