Wednesday meme reads sheeple chow

[larryhammer]

Travel, spotty journaling, and a borked e-reader threw my records out of whack -- some of this is reconstructed.

What I've recently finished since my last post:

The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper, a fluffy paranormal romance with, well, werewolves who get naked to shift -- specifically a female alpha and a human cryptozoologist. Second in a series, but explanations of most of the backstory are deployed well. I'd been happier if the first third did not have so many sudden-jerk transitions between scenes.

Cat Girl's Day Off by Kimberly Pauley, a YA contemporary light fantasy with a bi-racial protagonist who is the neglected one of the family because, unlike her older and younger sisters (or indeed her parents), her psychic Talent is a relatively minor one: being able to talk with cats -- an embarrassment she keeps firmly in the closet, in part by keeping her social profile as low as possible. Despite her intentions, Nat gets involved via her celebrity-obsessed friends in the filming of a teen-comedy homage to Ferris Bueller's Day Off and thence entangled with a pink-heavy kidnapping & petnapping, plus other hijinks. Pauley nails the ending, too. Highly recommended, and not just because it hits several tropes I really like. The only reason I haven't done a full review post is I haven't gotten to it -- my bad.

Yotsuba&! volume 12 by Kiyohiko Azuma -- the volume with the long-anticipated camping trip, finally out in English. Love this stuff. LOVE IT. And not just for the scenery porn. Nor just for the camping trip, though that's certainly a highlight.

The Art of Chinese Poetry by James J.Y. Liu, a classic short study aimed at readers of poems in translation. Still relevant after 50 years, but I also want an updated equivalent. Any suggestions?

What I'm reading now:

Madan no Ô to Vanadis volume 7 -- lessee: when we last checked in, our titular "king of the magic-bullet"* had gotten embroiled in foreign civil war at the behest of not his home kingdom but the one where he is a hostage an enforced guest. This volume: still embroiling. And I'm early enough in I'm still trying to find this installment's plot arc, but it looks like military maneuvers against overwhelming odds will be featured.

* Which is actually a bow technique -- this is a European-medieval-high-fantasy setting.

Technically, Divine Eagle, Gallant Hero, but in retrogress -- I had to back up to the beginning of the chapter I had been on, but got hardly anywhere beyond that.

Poems of Places volume 2, at least a little.

What I officially Did Not Finish:

Pirate King by Laurie R. King -- too silly, not interesting.

Cloud Gate Song: The Verse of Tang Poet Zhang Ji tr. Jonathan Chaves, which I didn't finish not for itself but because I had to return it after reading about a quarter of the poems. I adore the attempt at and justification for translating rhymed Chinese poems with rhyming English verse, but I wish Chaves was a bit better at making rhyme not sound quite so chime-y and meter not so metronomic. Surprisingly, he's better at this with the regulated verse than the old style or music bureau forms.

What I might read next:

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk volume 3, at a guess.

---L.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I loved CAT GIRL!!! It was so fun. Am saving my copy for my friend's 9 year old - it might be a little advanced for what she usually reads, but then again she read all of Harry Potter.

[larryhammer]

If she's old enough to be interested in chaste romances, or at least doesn't mind them, she may be ready. Certainly, by that age, she should appreciate the fun (and the bad decisions made by all the kids).

---L.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I'd like an update to the Liu, too.

pink-heavy kidnapping

...took me a couple of tries to parse because I kept thinking of the plant. Dunno.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Hmm. The Art of Chinese Poetry sounds interesting. I might investigate further....

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

If Pirate King were more successfully silly, it would have been better. It had lots of goof ingredients, but the humour lacked the deftness and she left out the random high seriousness of some of the other books, so there was a sense of something missing, I felt.

[larryhammer]

Hee. I later thought of a better way to phrase that, but was away from keyboard and forgot by the time I got back. There is a lot of pink colors involved. The cat on the front cover is totally accurate.

---L.

[larryhammer]

It's worth tracking down -- though as far as I know, it's only ever been published by an academic press in the States.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Including narrative drive.

But, yeah, if the silly had been done better, that would have helped.

---L.