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larryhammerIt's Wednesday, and there's been some reading thither and yon. And sometimes even hither.
Finished:
Whiskerella, Hamster Princess #5, Ursula Vernon -- Not read aloud, because TBD was more interested in other books, but we already had it from the library so I read it. An even more bent fairy tale than usual, but the ensemble scope has been increasing and I can see why TBD's interest waned. Maybe we'll try again in a year. Querk!
Rogue Protocol, The Murderbot Diaries #3, Martha Wells -- Another quick installment of my favorite clinically depressed artificial person as it tries to navigate the social realms of humans, AIs, and evil corporations, all while pretending it isn't an illegally autonomous partially organic construct. A well-plotted adventure albeit ending with more of a cliff being hung from than previous novellas, related to the larger arc rather than the immediate adventure plot. <3 Murderbot.
On Wings of Song, ed. J.D. McClatchy -- Yeah, it took a year. Not the collection's fault, though to my surprise, the last third, as selections shade into birds used symbolically (think Shelley's skylark and Keats's nightingale), was the most interesting. I think this is now my current favorite anthology of bird poems.
American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang -- Yes, I'm only just getting to this. Yes, I should have read it years ago. Damn good story told damn well. This will be one of the last books we give up when the Great Culling comes, because TBD will need it as they navigate being Chinese-born in a white-dominant society. I want to know the sources for Yang's version of the Monkey King story.
In progress:
Boxers & Saints, Gene Luen Yang -- Boxer Rebellion, told as a two-volume YA graphic novel (or duology?) that's completely dedicated to the POVs of two young participants, one a Boxer and one a Catholic convert. Am almost done with Boxer, the first part.
The Poetic Old-World, ed. Lucy H. Humphrey -- A tourist anthology of poems associated with various European locales, which means a mix of poetry about the places themselves and about people or stories associated with same. I'm not really the audience for this, namely a traveler looking for some local color (thus the inclusion of “John Gilpin's Ride” for London) -- in contrast to, say, Longfellow's Poems of Places, which is aimed at a reader at home looking for evocations of places they haven't been to (yet). The relatively small size (“only” 500+ pages) means at best a couple entries for each location. (Belgium apparently consists of Bruges.) I do appreciate finding place poems more recent than Longfellow, though, so I'm keeping with it -- am about ~⅓ through.
Rise of Humanity, Zhai Zhu -- Still bounding along with the adventure. The treatment of female characters is unfortunately about par for the course in wuxia -- there are, at least, strong women but with one exception they are stuffed into stereotype roles, some more sympathetic than others (and then there's the demons…). Am up to chapter 362, with less than 100 translated chapters left (whereupon I'll be waiting for a while).
---L.
Subject quote from Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells.
Finished:
Whiskerella, Hamster Princess #5, Ursula Vernon -- Not read aloud, because TBD was more interested in other books, but we already had it from the library so I read it. An even more bent fairy tale than usual, but the ensemble scope has been increasing and I can see why TBD's interest waned. Maybe we'll try again in a year. Querk!
Rogue Protocol, The Murderbot Diaries #3, Martha Wells -- Another quick installment of my favorite clinically depressed artificial person as it tries to navigate the social realms of humans, AIs, and evil corporations, all while pretending it isn't an illegally autonomous partially organic construct. A well-plotted adventure albeit ending with more of a cliff being hung from than previous novellas, related to the larger arc rather than the immediate adventure plot. <3 Murderbot.
On Wings of Song, ed. J.D. McClatchy -- Yeah, it took a year. Not the collection's fault, though to my surprise, the last third, as selections shade into birds used symbolically (think Shelley's skylark and Keats's nightingale), was the most interesting. I think this is now my current favorite anthology of bird poems.
American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang -- Yes, I'm only just getting to this. Yes, I should have read it years ago. Damn good story told damn well. This will be one of the last books we give up when the Great Culling comes, because TBD will need it as they navigate being Chinese-born in a white-dominant society. I want to know the sources for Yang's version of the Monkey King story.
In progress:
Boxers & Saints, Gene Luen Yang -- Boxer Rebellion, told as a two-volume YA graphic novel (or duology?) that's completely dedicated to the POVs of two young participants, one a Boxer and one a Catholic convert. Am almost done with Boxer, the first part.
The Poetic Old-World, ed. Lucy H. Humphrey -- A tourist anthology of poems associated with various European locales, which means a mix of poetry about the places themselves and about people or stories associated with same. I'm not really the audience for this, namely a traveler looking for some local color (thus the inclusion of “John Gilpin's Ride” for London) -- in contrast to, say, Longfellow's Poems of Places, which is aimed at a reader at home looking for evocations of places they haven't been to (yet). The relatively small size (“only” 500+ pages) means at best a couple entries for each location. (Belgium apparently consists of Bruges.) I do appreciate finding place poems more recent than Longfellow, though, so I'm keeping with it -- am about ~⅓ through.
Rise of Humanity, Zhai Zhu -- Still bounding along with the adventure. The treatment of female characters is unfortunately about par for the course in wuxia -- there are, at least, strong women but with one exception they are stuffed into stereotype roles, some more sympathetic than others (and then there's the demons…). Am up to chapter 362, with less than 100 translated chapters left (whereupon I'll be waiting for a while).
---L.
Subject quote from Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells.
no subject
Date: 15 August 2018 06:32 pm (UTC)I read it last year, I think, when
(Do you already have Laurence Yep for TBD? He also writes a great Monkey.)
no subject
Date: 16 August 2018 06:13 am (UTC)In some ways, Yang's ABC would've made a better Joy Luck had it been around when Joy Luck was, if that makes sense. But we need all we can get, really--and I mean it in the broader sense of fuzzy-edged Asian Am representation, where the pan-, blurry nature of the Asian Am-ness is a virtue instead of a curse. (People ten years my junior seem often to think that Joy Luck's blurriness is a curse, since Tan opened the doors enough for resonance outside Chinese Am urban conclaves. I am not "we" when the walls move inwards, after all.)
no subject
Date: 16 August 2018 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 August 2018 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 August 2018 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 August 2018 04:48 pm (UTC)