Sorry I have't been posting much, I'm not having the most brilliant time at work or just generally and so I've gone a little bit into hibernation other than on twitter where at least everything is brief.
But a lot of reading in July which is a nice thing to be able to say!
Halfway Human - Carolyn Ives Gilman
Bookworms, Dog-Ears & Squashy Big Armchairs - Heather Reyes
Chloë Sevigny - Chloë Sevigny
Ghana Must Go - Taiye Selasi
AfroSFv2 - Ivor W Hartmann (editor)
The Bondswoman's Narrative - Hannah Crafts
Queer City - Peter Ackroyd
Louisa May - Norma Johnston
Romeo and/or Juliet - Ryan North
July reviews
Halfway Human - Carolyn Ives Gilman An interesting look at the way cultures interact and the dangers and benefits of an outsider coming into contact with a culture (almost) wholly unlike their own. Tedla is a really interesting character and then Valerie as their friend/saviour/? is nicely complex and torn between possible routes. What I will say is that I was completely blindsided by the truly horrible sexual violence that appears part way through the book. It was a very important element of the story as a whole but reader beware.
Bookworms, Dog-Ears & Squashy Big Armchairs - Heather Reyes This is a lovely read for a book lover and has set me off with a whole HEAP of other book recs which is always fun <3 it's an A-Z so you can dip in and out or read straight through like I did.
Chloë Sevigny - Chloë Sevigny This was one of the coffee table books in my Air BnB in Margate, it's an essay at the start and end sandwiching hundreds of photographs. It was the perfect, beautiful, browsing for a holiday and if I wasn't a little bit in love with her before I really truly am now. Whilst simultaneously being sceptical about the level of quirkiness.
Ghana Must Go - Taiye Selasi This was one of the books I was recommended when I asked for books about exile and it was a great place to start. It's the biography of a family really, one spread across the world through betrayal and failure but still tied together. It says a lot about the ways we hurt each other even when we're trying so hard not to and also about the places we look for a feeling of belonging. Really glad I picked it up.
AfroSFv2 - Ivor W Hartmann (editor) I preferred the first of these anthologies, these were novellas rather than short stories really and they were all more in the dystopia vein which is fine but maybe I wasn't quite in the right place for that? I mean they were still great stories and some really interesting world building but I didn't quite click this time. I might revisit a couple.
The Bondswoman's Narrative - Hannah Crafts This was the Emotions Book Club read this month, Hannah Crafts was an escaped slave who wrote this book in the mid-nineteenth century. The central character is literate and light skinned but still a slave and throughout the novel her attempts at escaping, or finding a way of surviving where she is, are struck down but she persists. One of the most interesting detours is when one of her mistresses tries a beauty treatment that leaves her in accidental blackface and how people interact with her. I'd never have read this without the club and it was definitely interesting, perhaps more traditional than I'd expected but that's why you shouldn't assume things I guess!
Queer City - Peter Ackroyd I was really enjoying this book until I got to the last chapter or so, he's a much better historian with a bit of distance and his comments on the latter half of the twentieth century are truly horrendous and stupid. But if you stop earlier than that there are some really interesting stories in here and he generally does a good job of not putting modern categories onto historical people but showing their actions and presentations and leaving it as a question. I'd say there are quite a few detours out of London and in a way I'd have liked a bit more focus on whether London is different/unique but generally (imagining the ending didn't exist) this is a good book.
Louisa May - Norma Johnston I've read a lot of Louisa May Alcott's books (including Hospital Sketches, Moods and a lot of her more gothic short stories) but it was nice to actually read a biography and get some of the nonfictional background to her life. I liked that this book started way back with her parents' childhoods because i think they illuminate a lot of what happens later and it was interesting to see the elements of her ficiton pop up in her life but I have to admit I'd never realised quite how bad her health was towards the end of her life. Imagine the radical books she might have written if she'd lived longer?
Romeo and/or Juliet - Ryan North How do you "finish" a choose your own adventure? I found the original plot line and I also married Orlando from As You Like It, lived a long and happy life alone and I played the Nurse sidequest and read the two adventures within the adventure (and the adventure within the adventure within the adventure :-P) but there are lots of endings I have't got to yet so it's going to live by my bed for when I need a bit of distraction. ps I LOVE IT <333
This entry was originally posted at https://morganmuffle.dreamwidth.org/1411139.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
But a lot of reading in July which is a nice thing to be able to say!
July reviews
Halfway Human - Carolyn Ives Gilman An interesting look at the way cultures interact and the dangers and benefits of an outsider coming into contact with a culture (almost) wholly unlike their own. Tedla is a really interesting character and then Valerie as their friend/saviour/? is nicely complex and torn between possible routes. What I will say is that I was completely blindsided by the truly horrible sexual violence that appears part way through the book. It was a very important element of the story as a whole but reader beware.
Bookworms, Dog-Ears & Squashy Big Armchairs - Heather Reyes This is a lovely read for a book lover and has set me off with a whole HEAP of other book recs which is always fun <3 it's an A-Z so you can dip in and out or read straight through like I did.
Chloë Sevigny - Chloë Sevigny This was one of the coffee table books in my Air BnB in Margate, it's an essay at the start and end sandwiching hundreds of photographs. It was the perfect, beautiful, browsing for a holiday and if I wasn't a little bit in love with her before I really truly am now. Whilst simultaneously being sceptical about the level of quirkiness.
Ghana Must Go - Taiye Selasi This was one of the books I was recommended when I asked for books about exile and it was a great place to start. It's the biography of a family really, one spread across the world through betrayal and failure but still tied together. It says a lot about the ways we hurt each other even when we're trying so hard not to and also about the places we look for a feeling of belonging. Really glad I picked it up.
AfroSFv2 - Ivor W Hartmann (editor) I preferred the first of these anthologies, these were novellas rather than short stories really and they were all more in the dystopia vein which is fine but maybe I wasn't quite in the right place for that? I mean they were still great stories and some really interesting world building but I didn't quite click this time. I might revisit a couple.
The Bondswoman's Narrative - Hannah Crafts This was the Emotions Book Club read this month, Hannah Crafts was an escaped slave who wrote this book in the mid-nineteenth century. The central character is literate and light skinned but still a slave and throughout the novel her attempts at escaping, or finding a way of surviving where she is, are struck down but she persists. One of the most interesting detours is when one of her mistresses tries a beauty treatment that leaves her in accidental blackface and how people interact with her. I'd never have read this without the club and it was definitely interesting, perhaps more traditional than I'd expected but that's why you shouldn't assume things I guess!
Queer City - Peter Ackroyd I was really enjoying this book until I got to the last chapter or so, he's a much better historian with a bit of distance and his comments on the latter half of the twentieth century are truly horrendous and stupid. But if you stop earlier than that there are some really interesting stories in here and he generally does a good job of not putting modern categories onto historical people but showing their actions and presentations and leaving it as a question. I'd say there are quite a few detours out of London and in a way I'd have liked a bit more focus on whether London is different/unique but generally (imagining the ending didn't exist) this is a good book.
Louisa May - Norma Johnston I've read a lot of Louisa May Alcott's books (including Hospital Sketches, Moods and a lot of her more gothic short stories) but it was nice to actually read a biography and get some of the nonfictional background to her life. I liked that this book started way back with her parents' childhoods because i think they illuminate a lot of what happens later and it was interesting to see the elements of her ficiton pop up in her life but I have to admit I'd never realised quite how bad her health was towards the end of her life. Imagine the radical books she might have written if she'd lived longer?
Romeo and/or Juliet - Ryan North How do you "finish" a choose your own adventure? I found the original plot line and I also married Orlando from As You Like It, lived a long and happy life alone and I played the Nurse sidequest and read the two adventures within the adventure (and the adventure within the adventure within the adventure :-P) but there are lots of endings I have't got to yet so it's going to live by my bed for when I need a bit of distraction. ps I LOVE IT <333
This entry was originally posted at https://morganmuffle.dreamwidth.org/1411139.html. Please comment there using OpenID.