astrobstrdSo full of mercy...Registered Userregular
Kindred reads a lot better as an allegory than a character study (again, like Scarlet Letter, oddly). The book's a lot more about the spoken and unspoken power dynamics that persist in the wake of American history and her central character's "every-man" nice qualities are in service to that and to making it sort of palatable to a broad (read: white) audience. I still find it powerful and interesting, but I like her weirder stuff more and she does better character work and dialogue there when unshackled from trying to win over bigots.
Passing by Nella Larson was another novel I read in that course (20th Century African American Fiction) that owned bones.
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
I can definitely respect Octavia Butler's impact as an author to the genre. I'm just not a fan.
(And I actively didn't enjoy Kindred.)
To be honest, science fiction as a genre, especially with the classic or 'great' authors, is not something I enjoy overmuch, so...
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I decided to read The Hunger right away because it was written by a woman!
Alma Katsu!
I'm going out of my way to read more women authors this year!
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Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Hey I'm home now here are some more, not in order, except in the sense that my bookshelves have a very specific and only semi outwardly visible logical order, because I'm on my phone
Angela Carter
Gillian O'Brien
Michelle McNamara
Madeline Miller
Margaret Atwood
Irene Nemirovsky
Anchee Min
Yangsze Choo
Geraldine Brooks
Susanna Clarke
Marguerite Yourcenar
Susan Owens
Caitlin Doughty
Barbara Tuchman
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
I'm currently enraptured by Ada Palmer and getting more annoyed at the 2017 Hugo Awards. Oblivion Gate was good but not clearly better than any of the others on the list for that year. Which actually had 4/6 female authors. Charlie Jane Anders, Becky Chambers and of course N K Jemisin round out that four and I liked all their books even if my order would be almost the complete opposite of the award order. (I have no read Death's End though.)
Baru Cormorant ended exactly how I knew it would and I still wasn't emotionally ready.
Well, on to the sequel so I can destroy my feelings more!
Regarding Traitor's ending
I very nearly
burst into tears on the train. Both at what Baru had to do and that Tain Hu still helped her do it. Fuck, man.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
The best books written by women that I've read in recent memory (mostly from the last year or two, but a few favorites added in if I like, read one book by them but I want to recommend another one that I like more):
- The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt. Literary fiction. The story of a genius boy who is being raised by his still very smart and doing her best single mother. Ostensibly it's about him trying to figure out who his father is, and his search for a father figure (other than Toshiro Mifune, that is). Helen DeWitt writes genius very well, which I know is a weird thing to say, but it's absolutely true. Her characters are intelligent in an almost alien way, and while Ludo sometimes dips to unrealistic levels of it, he's also still undeniably a child, and the balance there is handled very well.
- Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters. Historical erotic thriller. The story of a poor Dickensian girl who gets the opportunity to be involved in the scam of a lifetime, posing as the maid for a very wealthy young girl with the intent to defraud her of her fortune. Full of twists and turns and queer content.
- The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller[/b]. Mythological fiction. A retelling of the story of Achilles, from the point of view of Patroclus, his close companion and lover. Shockingly true to most Greek mythological traditions, while also expanding the story and adding a great depth of character to figures that we often only see on the sidelines of the epics. Maybe a better way to read the Iliad than actually reading the Iliad (and I say that as someone who loves the Iliad).
- Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng. Literary fiction. The story of a Chinese American teenager who is found dead and her family - she's dead at the beginning, and the book drills back into everything that led to this point, the investigation of her death, and how the family moves on afterwards. The complicated baggage of family and racism and growing up in America, combined with the raw wound of grief.
- The New Boy, by Tracy Chevalier. Literary fiction. The retelling of the story of Othello, transposed to a 1970s sixth grade class in Washington D.C. The whole thing is told across the course of a single day, from four different perspectives (the characters corresponding to Othello, Desdemona, Iago, and Emilia). A bit less bloody than the original, but no less brutal or heart-wrenching.
- Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado. Short story collection - tending towards magical realism or horror. Her stories are sharp and focused and occasionally funny and occasionally terrifying and sometimes those are the exact same time.
- Mr. Fox, by Helen Oyeyemi. Literary fiction. An extremely loose retelling of Bluebeard, centered around a male author who cannot stop torturing and killing his female characters sparring with his (imaginary?) muse, who thinks that maybe he should stop. Worth it alone for the dozen different ways it manages to retell the fairly by the numbers story of Bluebeard (and his close companions in the fairy tale world), with the framing device providing some fascinating commentary on the nature of writing and relationships.
- Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson. Erotica. Yeah, that's right, it's time for some straight up erotica. Okay maybe it's not in fact all that straight up - it's a story told in first person by an unnamed protagonist who is never assigned a gender, and it plays with gender and queerness a bunch. But also sometimes it is definitely erotica. If you want to read something that isn't erotica, maybe I would suggest The Gap of Time, which is a retelling of Shakespeare's weirdest and wildest play, The Winter's Tale.
- The Master Butcher's Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich. Historical fiction. The story of a German butcher who moves to America after the end of World War I, a woman who is originally from that town, and also everyone else who lives in that town. Spans the course of a couple of decades, with most of the action happening in the interwar years, it's the story of families and relationships and tragedy in small town America during the 20s and 30s. Beautiful ugly people with beautiful ugly inner lives and wonderful and terrible things happening to them.
- Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes. Magical realism neo-noir. A South African private investigator and email scammer whose sins have been made manifest in the form of a sloth that she has to carry with her everywhere is hired for a case that is way bigger than it seems. It's neo-noir through and through, it's just that a lot of people happen to have semi-mystical animals that show their true nature in a way that is usually reserved for their actions. But don't worry, they do a whole lot bad shit too.
- The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty, by Vendela Vida. Literary fiction, with maybe a touch of neo-noir. The story of a woman who goes to Morocco on a vacation. Probably. More than that though, it's about identity - her bag gets stolen almost immediately, and honestly, even with her proof of identification, her identity was less set in stone than she would have been willing to admit. Told in the second person, which certainly does not help with the identity crisis.
- Gutshot, by Amelia Gray. Short story collection - tending towards horror. Amelia Gray's writing makes you feel all of the things that are currently crawling underneath your skin. The stories aren't necessarily about the certain fact that there is something, right now, crawling underneath your skin (although they definitely might be), but in the course of one of her very short stories, you will know that it's there. Maybe you will find its presence comforting. Maybe you will want to get it out. Maybe reading another story will fix this.
Finished Good Omens and was going to start Small Gods based on you fine internet people, but instead gonna jump on this Baru shit you all keep talking about.
I am in the business of saving lives.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
My friend finished Traitor last night and was texting me a lot. Yep.
I just grabbed "Vicious" by V.E. Schwab. I liked the color of magic books and I like the premise for this one, based entirely off of reading the back, so I have semi-high hopes!
But I want something light and breezy, to often I pick something up that is big and or dense.
I want to have fun, but still have to think, book thread!
Also something that is maybe self contained and doesn't make me want to read a thirty book long series.
Any of Becky Chambers' books. They're easy reads, warm, but not just waffle. They might make you cry but you'll feel good at the end. The 3 books are connected and have some very minor crossover characters but they're not a series and you could read any of them alone (though I guess best to read Small Angry Planet before Closed and Common Orbit)
But I want something light and breezy, to often I pick something up that is big and or dense.
I want to have fun, but still have to think, book thread!
Also something that is maybe self contained and doesn't make me want to read a thirty book long series.
Any of Becky Chambers' books. They're easy reads, warm, but not just waffle. They might make you cry but you'll feel good at the end. The 3 books are connected and have some very minor crossover characters but they're not a series and you could read any of them alone (though I guess best to read Small Angry Planet before Closed and Common Orbit)
This is a good suggestion. They have some big ideas but they're more about social constructs and they're not hard to understand.
I actually did those two backwards and they read fine.
Small Angry Spoiler, like seriously:
That book read a bit melancholy since you know bad things end up happening to Lovey but I don't think it undermined anything. If anything it gave her relationship more emotional impact.
I put off reading Canticle for ages but when I finally got round to it I thought it was a genuine classic, absolutely deserving of its reputation.
I do have a copy of this, I should read it sometime
I get something in mind I want to read next, but then posts like this happen and I'm like "yeah, I should read that," and then I'm paralyzed by indecision
Forever Zefiro on
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
Whoops, forgot to post:
I finished The Martian Chronicles. I realized way too late that this is a collection of loosely connected short stories that had originally been released in a magazine. That explains the tonal shifts! It's a good book, if at times a little heavy-handed. I was surprised to see that Fahrenheit 451 was written after this, not before, because there's one bit in there that felt like a reference to it.
Next up is a poppy (german) feminist book by a podcaster I like a lot, which I'll finish up quickly and then...I'll dive into my bookpile again!
Whoops, forgot to post:
I finished The Martian Chronicles. I realized way too late that this is a collection of loosely connected short stories that had originally been released in a magazine. That explains the tonal shifts! It's a good book, if at times a little heavy-handed. I was surprised to see that Fahrenheit 451 was written after this, not before, because there's one bit in there that felt like a reference to it.
Next up is a poppy (german) feminist book by a podcaster I like a lot, which I'll finish up quickly and then...I'll dive into my bookpile again!
Martian Chronicles is one of the few books that has made me bawl my eyes out
Whoops, forgot to post:
I finished The Martian Chronicles. I realized way too late that this is a collection of loosely connected short stories that had originally been released in a magazine. That explains the tonal shifts! It's a good book, if at times a little heavy-handed. I was surprised to see that Fahrenheit 451 was written after this, not before, because there's one bit in there that felt like a reference to it.
Next up is a poppy (german) feminist book by a podcaster I like a lot, which I'll finish up quickly and then...I'll dive into my bookpile again!
Martian Chronicles is one of the few books that has made me bawl my eyes out
Oh wow, which story did it for you? Or was it the general vibe of garbage humanity?
I got Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss from the library and as an SJW I feel obligated to tell you all it's a well reviewed lesbian coming of age story, but this writing style
I can't
I got Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss from the library and as an SJW I feel obligated to tell you all it's a well reviewed lesbian coming of age story, but this writing style
I can't
That reads like a more accessible James Kelman:
“Ye wake in a corner and stay there hoping yer body will disappear, the thoughts smothering ye; these thoughts; but ye want to remember and face up to things, just something keeps ye from doing it, why can't ye no do it; the words filling yer head: then the other words; there's something wrong; there's something far far wrong; ye're no a good man, ye're just no a good man. Edging back into awareness, of where ye are: here, slumped in this corner, with these thoughts filling ye. And oh christ his back was sore; stiff, and the head pounding. He shivered and hunched up his shoulders, shut his eyes, rubbed into the corners with his fingertips; seeing all kinds of spots and lights. Where in the name of fuck...”
Whoops, forgot to post:
I finished The Martian Chronicles. I realized way too late that this is a collection of loosely connected short stories that had originally been released in a magazine. That explains the tonal shifts! It's a good book, if at times a little heavy-handed. I was surprised to see that Fahrenheit 451 was written after this, not before, because there's one bit in there that felt like a reference to it.
Next up is a poppy (german) feminist book by a podcaster I like a lot, which I'll finish up quickly and then...I'll dive into my bookpile again!
Martian Chronicles is one of the few books that has made me bawl my eyes out
Oh wow, which story did it for you? Or was it the general vibe of garbage humanity?
Third Expedition. All those crewmen running and crying at being united with their parents and grandparents just kills me
Posts
Passing by Nella Larson was another novel I read in that course (20th Century African American Fiction) that owned bones.
(And I actively didn't enjoy Kindred.)
To be honest, science fiction as a genre, especially with the classic or 'great' authors, is not something I enjoy overmuch, so...
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Alma Katsu!
I'm going out of my way to read more women authors this year!
Angela Carter
Gillian O'Brien
Michelle McNamara
Madeline Miller
Margaret Atwood
Irene Nemirovsky
Anchee Min
Yangsze Choo
Geraldine Brooks
Susanna Clarke
Marguerite Yourcenar
Susan Owens
Caitlin Doughty
Barbara Tuchman
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Well, on to the sequel so I can destroy my feelings more!
Regarding Traitor's ending
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
I very nearly
- The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt. Literary fiction. The story of a genius boy who is being raised by his still very smart and doing her best single mother. Ostensibly it's about him trying to figure out who his father is, and his search for a father figure (other than Toshiro Mifune, that is). Helen DeWitt writes genius very well, which I know is a weird thing to say, but it's absolutely true. Her characters are intelligent in an almost alien way, and while Ludo sometimes dips to unrealistic levels of it, he's also still undeniably a child, and the balance there is handled very well.
- Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters. Historical erotic thriller. The story of a poor Dickensian girl who gets the opportunity to be involved in the scam of a lifetime, posing as the maid for a very wealthy young girl with the intent to defraud her of her fortune. Full of twists and turns and queer content.
- The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller[/b]. Mythological fiction. A retelling of the story of Achilles, from the point of view of Patroclus, his close companion and lover. Shockingly true to most Greek mythological traditions, while also expanding the story and adding a great depth of character to figures that we often only see on the sidelines of the epics. Maybe a better way to read the Iliad than actually reading the Iliad (and I say that as someone who loves the Iliad).
- Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng. Literary fiction. The story of a Chinese American teenager who is found dead and her family - she's dead at the beginning, and the book drills back into everything that led to this point, the investigation of her death, and how the family moves on afterwards. The complicated baggage of family and racism and growing up in America, combined with the raw wound of grief.
- The New Boy, by Tracy Chevalier. Literary fiction. The retelling of the story of Othello, transposed to a 1970s sixth grade class in Washington D.C. The whole thing is told across the course of a single day, from four different perspectives (the characters corresponding to Othello, Desdemona, Iago, and Emilia). A bit less bloody than the original, but no less brutal or heart-wrenching.
- Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado. Short story collection - tending towards magical realism or horror. Her stories are sharp and focused and occasionally funny and occasionally terrifying and sometimes those are the exact same time.
- Mr. Fox, by Helen Oyeyemi. Literary fiction. An extremely loose retelling of Bluebeard, centered around a male author who cannot stop torturing and killing his female characters sparring with his (imaginary?) muse, who thinks that maybe he should stop. Worth it alone for the dozen different ways it manages to retell the fairly by the numbers story of Bluebeard (and his close companions in the fairy tale world), with the framing device providing some fascinating commentary on the nature of writing and relationships.
- Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson. Erotica. Yeah, that's right, it's time for some straight up erotica. Okay maybe it's not in fact all that straight up - it's a story told in first person by an unnamed protagonist who is never assigned a gender, and it plays with gender and queerness a bunch. But also sometimes it is definitely erotica. If you want to read something that isn't erotica, maybe I would suggest The Gap of Time, which is a retelling of Shakespeare's weirdest and wildest play, The Winter's Tale.
- The Master Butcher's Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich. Historical fiction. The story of a German butcher who moves to America after the end of World War I, a woman who is originally from that town, and also everyone else who lives in that town. Spans the course of a couple of decades, with most of the action happening in the interwar years, it's the story of families and relationships and tragedy in small town America during the 20s and 30s. Beautiful ugly people with beautiful ugly inner lives and wonderful and terrible things happening to them.
- Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes. Magical realism neo-noir. A South African private investigator and email scammer whose sins have been made manifest in the form of a sloth that she has to carry with her everywhere is hired for a case that is way bigger than it seems. It's neo-noir through and through, it's just that a lot of people happen to have semi-mystical animals that show their true nature in a way that is usually reserved for their actions. But don't worry, they do a whole lot bad shit too.
- The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty, by Vendela Vida. Literary fiction, with maybe a touch of neo-noir. The story of a woman who goes to Morocco on a vacation. Probably. More than that though, it's about identity - her bag gets stolen almost immediately, and honestly, even with her proof of identification, her identity was less set in stone than she would have been willing to admit. Told in the second person, which certainly does not help with the identity crisis.
- Gutshot, by Amelia Gray. Short story collection - tending towards horror. Amelia Gray's writing makes you feel all of the things that are currently crawling underneath your skin. The stories aren't necessarily about the certain fact that there is something, right now, crawling underneath your skin (although they definitely might be), but in the course of one of her very short stories, you will know that it's there. Maybe you will find its presence comforting. Maybe you will want to get it out. Maybe reading another story will fix this.
wish list
Steam wishlist
Etsy wishlist
so periodically I get emails from Region X
... it's kind of disturbing.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Shit
Yes please everyone buy The Monster Baru Cormorant, I need this man to keep writing books
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
I'm also aggressively foisting the first book on people.
REVIEW DAT SHIT apparently
I have one or two short stories left. I guess I'll look into buying all of the Sir John Fielding mysteries next
But I want something light and breezy, to often I pick something up that is big and or dense.
I want to have fun, but still have to think, book thread!
Also something that is maybe self contained and doesn't make me want to read a thirty book long series.
I mean it's not light thematically but it's not hard to read.
I will look into it!
It sounds similar to one I've had on my backlist for a while, a Canticle For Leibowitz (in that it's post apocalyptic at least.)
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Any of Becky Chambers' books. They're easy reads, warm, but not just waffle. They might make you cry but you'll feel good at the end. The 3 books are connected and have some very minor crossover characters but they're not a series and you could read any of them alone (though I guess best to read Small Angry Planet before Closed and Common Orbit)
This is a good suggestion. They have some big ideas but they're more about social constructs and they're not hard to understand.
I actually did those two backwards and they read fine.
Small Angry Spoiler, like seriously:
I do have a copy of this, I should read it sometime
I get something in mind I want to read next, but then posts like this happen and I'm like "yeah, I should read that," and then I'm paralyzed by indecision
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
I finished The Martian Chronicles. I realized way too late that this is a collection of loosely connected short stories that had originally been released in a magazine. That explains the tonal shifts! It's a good book, if at times a little heavy-handed. I was surprised to see that Fahrenheit 451 was written after this, not before, because there's one bit in there that felt like a reference to it.
Next up is a poppy (german) feminist book by a podcaster I like a lot, which I'll finish up quickly and then...I'll dive into my bookpile again!
Martian Chronicles is one of the few books that has made me bawl my eyes out
Oh wow, which story did it for you? Or was it the general vibe of garbage humanity?
I can't
That reads like a more accessible James Kelman:
Third Expedition. All those crewmen running and crying at being united with their parents and grandparents just kills me