Currently reading
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Fingersmith
Roadside Picnic
Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement (Pivotal Moments in American History)
London Falling
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
Well crap. Once again Doctorow paints a pretty grim and believable picture of what happens when we allow our rights to privacy, autonomy and freedom of expression to be circumscribed in the name of "safety" and "protection." The most disturbing thing about the potential of this tale to become reality, is that many of the MOST disturbing plot aspects of the novel have already occurred, and even as the perpetrators get their hands slapped, their attorneys rewrite service agreements, that we click "accept" in the little checkbox, and say "Hello nice corporation, I COMPLETELY trust that you will not use any of my private information for nefarious purposes, nor will you turn it over to, or sell it to, any other corporation or government agency that wants it." All the while, your phone is sending out "location and usage data" to 50 different services all the time, even if your CarrierIQ has been disabled. That's okay, they have other ways of getting what they want out of your devices. So here I am, typing on a website that shares my personal opinion with anyone who wants to see it, any website that wants to aggregate it, I've voluntarily placed up my own personal image, stated approximately where I live, given my cellphone permission to gather more "user statistics," and now I will page over to Facebook, and G+, and use my MapMyWalk, and my GPS, and take pictures that get geotagged and upload them to Flickr...We are doing it to ourselves, and even when we know, do we plan to stop? This short story is relevant and worth reading: The Perfect Match, by Ken Liu
I wrote a nice review, then crashed my browser window. This is the "I'm so not reconstructing that" rewrite version. Read this, loved it. Not a huge Sherlock fan, but I liked the BBC miniseries, which is a very different sort of Holmes than this, but still quite recognizable. Mary might be just a little too perfect in the beginning, (with of course, her flaw/secret,) but it didn't bother me, because I really enjoyed the writing and pacing. Haven't yet picked up Mary Russell #2, which might have been a mistake. I'd like some more please.
Quite by accident, I've been reading a lot of stories about righteous people who do wrong things for what they believe are right reasons. Some of these people reap the consequences of their decisions, and some do not. Some see the error of their choices, and a very few go on blindly believing that nobody else really understands, only they can see that they are right, and only they are able to interpret what is true.The religion of my childhood referred to itself as "The Truth." As a child, I trusted in everything that implied, up to and including believing that there could be only one truth, and not realizing that there are many such groups who call themselves by those precise words. In "The Truth," there are many rules, and the less thinking one does, the more following is possible. People act like they are happy when they choose not to think. But the truth is not "The Truth," and acting is not the same as being. Among the many rules in my particular "Truth," were rules regarding whom could teach, and whom could lead. There were rules governing relationships, permitted and proscribed activities, gender roles, clothing, and possessions, just as there is conformism in every society, to a greater or lesser degree. In my "Truth," to the greater degree, there were also rules regarding treatment of those who did not keep to the other rules, as well as instruction to repudiate any succumbed to "independent thinking."Koriba, the mundumugu - a witch doctor and spiritual counselor - tries to hold his people, in the Utopia he helped to create, to unreasoning rules and tradition which do not allow for personal growth and change, and prevent cultural progress. His reasons are clearly in protection of what he thinks is perfect justice and ideal society, but he forgets to love the people in loving the ideas. The stories are brilliant in their execution.These stories hurt my heart, but they are cathartic too. I lived in my own Kirinyaga. I know what it means to walk to Haven.
I'm not sure I can adequately express how profoundly this novel affected me. I certainly wasn't expecting such a personal examination of faith. I can't really find the words to explain the physical and emotional reaction the story evoked for me, but I believe that for anyone who has ever lived a life of faith, and then found it severely shaken or lost, they would also find Emilio Sandoz's tale to be a visceral read as they recall their own process. Beautiful writing.
Wolf Hall
I've been looking forward to reading this book ever since I took a crack at the Phillipa Gregory novels. I made it to page 71. 3rd person present tense? really? She reads until she doesn't understand what she is trying to do when she decides to use present tense. If she makes better use of her pronouns, especially the proper ones, maybe she will have a better chance of enjoying her writing and her confusion with her story can be minimized. As it is, she doesn't seem to think names (or quotation marks,) are necessary, and thus she has to exercise a great deal of rereading to determine who she is writing. Just say no.It's not so much the POV, as it is the utter lack of clarity regarding characters, time frames, conversations... the men sound like synopsis, the women sound like the men. The text is rife with allusion, and I wonder if the author meant the reader to have a professorial knowledge of the time period. About 60 pages in, there's a reference to his family being lost. (Assuming she is talking about Cromwell, because in the same paragraph she has another "his" character.) It seems to be an important sentence, but there's no explanation anywhere in the surrounding pages, and it doesn't seem like it's supposed to be foreshadowing or a surprise to be explained later. So what gives? Is the answer in page 400? So I hopped over to Wikipedia, and got the answer there. And read a bit about Cromwell and his wife, kids, King Nasty Pants, and figured that was enough. Moving on.
The Shadow of the Wind
Another recommendation from a friend, I devoured this one in just a couple of evenings, at the expense of sleep. It has been awhile since I've sacrificed shut-eye for a good story. The writing is very beautiful, but doesn't make you eat your veggies before getting to dessert. The action and suspense is driven, and even though I was pretty sure I had elements of the mystery figured out at various points (and I did!) I was never completely sure. This makes the reveals fun in a "I was right!" sort of way instead of "I knew it, that's sooooo obvious." I think this is how a good mystery should be - enough clues to work it out, but not so many that there's no payoff, and neither should one be blindsided by a reveal that is completely unsupported by clues. This is a dumb review (don't have time or inclination for a proper one,) and is not expressing how much I loved the writing itself, which flowed so well that it pulled me along hour by hour. If I could figure out a way that good writing could have the same effect on my skin as "beauty sleep," then I'd add this one to the list.
Another cute-for-children poem by Gaiman. What makes this little book are the whimsical, saturated images by Dave McKean who must leave little trails of brilliance and paint wherever he goes.
I love Maguire's style and use of language. As he writes, I can hear his voice narrating and performing (which is why I won't spoil it with the audiobook, Maguire himself is a wonderful performer, and it was a delight to see him in person.) Lion is not as compelling as the previous two books, but gains momentum with the reappearance of Yackle, and the subsequent explanation of the character.
I did it, I finished this book, after it sat on the shelf for 3 years with a bookmark stuck in at page 202. Maybe I should say "mired." And all I'd like to say isWHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?Seriously, god. It was like the last season of Lost with the fucking waiting room. Alex Krycek and Scully's miraculous alien baby. The Gilligan movies. Joey getting his own show... Ugh. I'm guessing Baby Herbert (or more likely "I'll blast it with my superweapon that I JUST DISCOVERED IN MARY SUE'S SEKRIT POCKET" KJA) didn't actually read any of Frank's books, or is simply incapable of understanding the complexity of concept regarding power, fanaticism and fear-mongering. I know, I know, I'm a completionist, and maybe a wee bit of a fiction masochist. It had its moments, although at this moment, I can't think of one. I'm still probably going to read Sisterhood, and I'll just hope against all logic, that I recognize my beloved Bene Gesserit.
I'm not writing about this one, I read it too long ago, but this review pretty much says it all:>http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/151358236
I started this installment in the Dune series about 5 years ago, and it has been sitting on the shelf with a bookmark about 200 pages from the end ever since. This trilogy is less compelling that the Houses trilogy, which is less rich than Frank Herbert's original series. I'm invested in the story though, so every so often I have a compulsion to continue reading, in spite of the lack of richness and meaning in Herbert the Younger's continuation of the series. Frank Herbert had so much to say regarding religion and faith, ecology, political machinations, indeed you could point an accusing finger at heinleinesque editorializing in the original series. (I must confess, I love these sections.) The trilogies, however, never realize the same heart that was invested in Dune,et al., and while it does more than a passable job of space opera/battle fiction, there always seems to be something missing. I keep reminding myself that Frank Herbert left copious notes on his continuing story ideas, and for this reason, I keep reading these. Sometimes I like to imagine that I see a bit of Frank peeking through these novels, especially where he has something potentially profound to observe on his original themes. My primary reason for diving in and finishing this, is to close that storyline in anticipation of Sisterhood. The Bene Gesserit threads are by far the most interesting to me, so I will be reading that one soon.
This is beautiful art and story by Amano, based upon Mozart's opera. The book is a pleasure - the finest sort of coffee table book, and I don't mean to diminish it in any way by suggesting it should reside on a coffee table. The art invites the viewer to spend time on each picture, to decipher a story so sparsely told with words, that you must absorb the pictures to see the story, which is good vs. evil, love, and now with the art, just a tiny pinch of creation myth, in true Japanese style.
Fun stuff. This one didn't rock my socks the way the last one did, but I still liked it enough to immediately grab #3 for my ereading indulgence. I love a good fun, addictive little series. Okay, so I knew "who done it" almost from the beginning... well, really, almost from the previous book. Ha! Sometimes it doesn't matter though, and this is one of those books. Alexia is still saucy.Lord Bitey is still... bitey. (yummy)Ivy is still dumb as a post, but it was the irritating kind of dumb, not the cute and fun storybook foil kind of dumb, although the little merry go round with Tunstall was amusing. Felicity... what was the point of having her in there at all? What's surprising to me is in retrospect, there was a lot in this book that didn't work for me, and yet I enjoyed it thoroughly. The entire writing style is that tongue-in-cheek, slightly snarky, fun and silly style that I actively seek out. Recommended.
Elegant, both in words and drawing. This story examines the value of a life, told through time bending the date of death of a newspaper obituary writer. Emotional on many levels, the piece that strikes me the hardest is how obituaries are for the living, as if we put a stationery seal on the envelope at the end of a loved one's life. Last summer, someone I once loved very much died. Here is his obituary:"*** was born on April 5, 1970 and passed away on Saturday, July 2, 2011.*** was a resident of San Francisco, California."What does that mean? I want a nice little bow. I want to know if he had children? Did he like his work? Did he find beauty in each day? Did he suffer, or pass peacefully at home surrounded by friends? What where his joys and personal demons? Did he ever think of me? Bá and Moon know you can't summarize a person's life in a tiny newspaper column, and they show us in each frame, through word and color and nuance, capturing the emotion of the life (and sometimes the detachment from emotion,) and reminding us that, no matter how gracefully written, you cannot distill the essence of living into a paragraph or two starting: "He was..."But it helps the living.