I CAN HAS BOOKLOG
Jun. 25th, 2007 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneWeek 25: 18-24 June
143. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon —![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runpunkrun recommended this to me, as a gay romance she (strongly) prefers over The Dreyfus Affair. Like Affair, I gobbled down Mysteries in just a couple of hours it was so very readable, and I can totally see why she loves it—when it's good, it's very very good. It's been a while since I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and I'd forgotten how lovely Chabon's prose is. However, I spent the whole book not really knowing where it was going—which can be fine, great even, as long as it comes together at the end. This didn't for me, really—as if Chabon himself wasn't really sure what the book was about. I loved the relationship between Art and Arthur, but I wanted to strangle Phlox—I couldn't remotely understand why Art wanted to be with her, even for a second. (Punk's theory that this was evidence of Art's confusion is probably correct, but sheesh—as with Mathematicians in Love, I tend to have a hard time with a book in which the main female character is someone I want to hit over the head with a bat.)
ANYWAY... this was totally worth reading, and actually makes me want to go read more of Chabon's work, but it has Y HALO THAR FIRST NOVEL written all over it.
144. Terry: Terry Fox and His Marathon of Hope, Douglas Coupland — A really lovely, picture-enhanced account of Terry Fox and his run across Canada to raise money and awareness for cancer research. The only problem with it, really, is that it assumes you know who Fox was and the basic details of his story—I knew, vaguely, but I wish there'd been a bit more background about him. (Basically: Fox, an enthusiastic athlete, was diagnosed with cancer when he was in college; he had to have his leg amputated. He immediately started retraining with a prosthetic leg, then embarked on the aforementioned cross-country run. He'd made it three-fourths of the way there and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars when the cancer came back; he had to be hospitalized and died when he was only 23.) However, Coupland has a great way of distilling a story into images and snapshot-like paragraphs, and he does this moving story total justice. Without being sappy at all, this book—and Terry Fox's story—shows how one person really can make an enormous difference.
145. Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, Ed. by Mike Resnick, et. al — Another collection of sci-fi Holmes pastiches; this one is much better than Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space, despite opening, for some bizarre reason, with what's by far the worst story in the whole book. (Profic writers really could learn a thing or two from fandom. Rule No. 1: Don't character bash. Rule No. 2: DON'T CHARACTER BASH.) I suspect this is because all these stories were written specifically for this anthology, while the other was a collection of previously published stuff. Thus, the focus of these tales is much more the actual Sherlock Holmes (and sometimes—but not nearly enough—Watson), and not characters merely similar to him. So, while none of the stories were what I'd call revelatory—I still haven't found my ideal Sherlock Holmes sci-fi pastiche (maybe I'll have to write it myself)—the collection as a whole was quite enjoyable. Though I wish someone would give Watson a bit more love. *pouts*
146. Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, Barbara Cohen & Bahija Lovejoy — Reread, although the last time I read this YA novel I was actually in the intended age group. To my happy surprise, it is just as good as I remember. Based on an Iraqi legend, the novel follows Buran, one (the Elizabeth Bennet one, to be precise) of seven daughters of a poor father. To help her family get some badly needed money (and to avoid having to marry anyone unpleasant), Buran dresses up as a boy and sets off to make her fortune. Enter: one prince, and oh man, it's just so much fun. There's a truly fantastic scene where a disguised Buran and Prince Mahmud go for a walk at dusk, and then—as boys do—decide to play a little chase-y chase-y. When Mahmud catches Buran, he pins her against a wall and they have a total moment—at which point Mahmud of course has a minor gay freak out. I loved that scene when I was younger; I should not have been at all surprised when I grew up to be a slasher.
I only have two complaints, really, which are that Mahmud makes the leap from "I like my male best friend!" to "OMG, he must be a chick!" a bit too fast and too easily, and that their final reunion scene doesn't quite have the impact I would like. But those are both minor. I need to somehow acquire my own copy of this. And hey, besides this and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, does anybody know of any other good crossdressing/genderfuck-y YA novels?
147. Twin Study, Stacey Richter — I loved Richter's first short story collection, My Date With Satan, and this, her second, did not disappoint. Richter has an amazing ability to take strange ideas and make them seem normal, or to take seemingly normal concepts and make them strange. I loved the title story, about twins resolute in their non-inter-changeableness, and all the others have something quirky or fun or surprising to recommend them. (And then there was the one that FREAKED ME THE FUCK OUT.) I am now a full-out Stacey Richter devotee; I can't wait to see what she does next. (I wish she'd write a novel.)
148. Book Lust, Nancy Pearl — A collection of themed book recommendation lists. I haven't really had the chance, yet, to see how good the recs are, though they seem interesting, and the book makes for a great resource if you're looking to catch up on a genre your background is lacking in. ("Cuban Literature—cool.") Some of the lits are a little too list-like, however (if that makes any sense)—I like to know why a book is being recommended to me, not just its title, and while Pearl sometimes provided nice explanations, she didn't always. Also, whoever copyedited this book deserves a good beating. (They can get in line behind the people who edited The Road.) There were all kinds of blunders, including sentences with missing words and—worse—misspelled authors' names. NOT so good for a book of book recommendations! Finally, I wish this book read better as a book. It's really not for reading, but for referring to. Still, it seems like it may turn out to be a handy resource.
Total Books: 148
Finally, here is a picture of my cat:
D'awww! Doesn't he look like his body was run over by a truck and there's just his little head perched on top? He is the famed FLAT CAT.
Is it wrong that I now want people to make Lolcats of my cat? He can be famous on the internets!
143. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon —
runpunkrun recommended this to me, as a gay romance she (strongly) prefers over The Dreyfus Affair. Like Affair, I gobbled down Mysteries in just a couple of hours it was so very readable, and I can totally see why she loves it—when it's good, it's very very good. It's been a while since I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and I'd forgotten how lovely Chabon's prose is. However, I spent the whole book not really knowing where it was going—which can be fine, great even, as long as it comes together at the end. This didn't for me, really—as if Chabon himself wasn't really sure what the book was about. I loved the relationship between Art and Arthur, but I wanted to strangle Phlox—I couldn't remotely understand why Art wanted to be with her, even for a second. (Punk's theory that this was evidence of Art's confusion is probably correct, but sheesh—as with Mathematicians in Love, I tend to have a hard time with a book in which the main female character is someone I want to hit over the head with a bat.)ANYWAY... this was totally worth reading, and actually makes me want to go read more of Chabon's work, but it has Y HALO THAR FIRST NOVEL written all over it.
144. Terry: Terry Fox and His Marathon of Hope, Douglas Coupland — A really lovely, picture-enhanced account of Terry Fox and his run across Canada to raise money and awareness for cancer research. The only problem with it, really, is that it assumes you know who Fox was and the basic details of his story—I knew, vaguely, but I wish there'd been a bit more background about him. (Basically: Fox, an enthusiastic athlete, was diagnosed with cancer when he was in college; he had to have his leg amputated. He immediately started retraining with a prosthetic leg, then embarked on the aforementioned cross-country run. He'd made it three-fourths of the way there and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars when the cancer came back; he had to be hospitalized and died when he was only 23.) However, Coupland has a great way of distilling a story into images and snapshot-like paragraphs, and he does this moving story total justice. Without being sappy at all, this book—and Terry Fox's story—shows how one person really can make an enormous difference.
145. Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, Ed. by Mike Resnick, et. al — Another collection of sci-fi Holmes pastiches; this one is much better than Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space, despite opening, for some bizarre reason, with what's by far the worst story in the whole book. (Profic writers really could learn a thing or two from fandom. Rule No. 1: Don't character bash. Rule No. 2: DON'T CHARACTER BASH.) I suspect this is because all these stories were written specifically for this anthology, while the other was a collection of previously published stuff. Thus, the focus of these tales is much more the actual Sherlock Holmes (and sometimes—but not nearly enough—Watson), and not characters merely similar to him. So, while none of the stories were what I'd call revelatory—I still haven't found my ideal Sherlock Holmes sci-fi pastiche (maybe I'll have to write it myself)—the collection as a whole was quite enjoyable. Though I wish someone would give Watson a bit more love. *pouts*
146. Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, Barbara Cohen & Bahija Lovejoy — Reread, although the last time I read this YA novel I was actually in the intended age group. To my happy surprise, it is just as good as I remember. Based on an Iraqi legend, the novel follows Buran, one (the Elizabeth Bennet one, to be precise) of seven daughters of a poor father. To help her family get some badly needed money (and to avoid having to marry anyone unpleasant), Buran dresses up as a boy and sets off to make her fortune. Enter: one prince, and oh man, it's just so much fun. There's a truly fantastic scene where a disguised Buran and Prince Mahmud go for a walk at dusk, and then—as boys do—decide to play a little chase-y chase-y. When Mahmud catches Buran, he pins her against a wall and they have a total moment—at which point Mahmud of course has a minor gay freak out. I loved that scene when I was younger; I should not have been at all surprised when I grew up to be a slasher.
I only have two complaints, really, which are that Mahmud makes the leap from "I like my male best friend!" to "OMG, he must be a chick!" a bit too fast and too easily, and that their final reunion scene doesn't quite have the impact I would like. But those are both minor. I need to somehow acquire my own copy of this. And hey, besides this and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, does anybody know of any other good crossdressing/genderfuck-y YA novels?
147. Twin Study, Stacey Richter — I loved Richter's first short story collection, My Date With Satan, and this, her second, did not disappoint. Richter has an amazing ability to take strange ideas and make them seem normal, or to take seemingly normal concepts and make them strange. I loved the title story, about twins resolute in their non-inter-changeableness, and all the others have something quirky or fun or surprising to recommend them. (And then there was the one that FREAKED ME THE FUCK OUT.) I am now a full-out Stacey Richter devotee; I can't wait to see what she does next. (I wish she'd write a novel.)
148. Book Lust, Nancy Pearl — A collection of themed book recommendation lists. I haven't really had the chance, yet, to see how good the recs are, though they seem interesting, and the book makes for a great resource if you're looking to catch up on a genre your background is lacking in. ("Cuban Literature—cool.") Some of the lits are a little too list-like, however (if that makes any sense)—I like to know why a book is being recommended to me, not just its title, and while Pearl sometimes provided nice explanations, she didn't always. Also, whoever copyedited this book deserves a good beating. (They can get in line behind the people who edited The Road.) There were all kinds of blunders, including sentences with missing words and—worse—misspelled authors' names. NOT so good for a book of book recommendations! Finally, I wish this book read better as a book. It's really not for reading, but for referring to. Still, it seems like it may turn out to be a handy resource.
Total Books: 148
Finally, here is a picture of my cat:
D'awww! Doesn't he look like his body was run over by a truck and there's just his little head perched on top? He is the famed FLAT CAT.
Is it wrong that I now want people to make Lolcats of my cat? He can be famous on the internets!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-27 05:16 am (UTC):D