it had some good insights, but also some staggering heteronormativity and generalizations (like that women, more focused on matters of family and relationship, don't spend as much time thinking about the “big questions” of life as men do).
Has some interesting concepts but overall is just plain dippy. I could distill all the useful information from it into two pages in a pretty large font.
This book is really strange. It gets full marks for setting up a suspenseful, creepy atmosphere, full of inexplicable portents and surreal, mysterious events. But it's ultimately unsatisfying, leaving everything unresolved. It feels incomplete.
I found the earlier two plays (The Garden Party and The Memorandum) boring at best and incomprehensible at worst; however, I'm glad I stuck with it, as The Increased Difficulty of Concentration was good, and the loosely-connected trilogy of Audience / Unveiling / Protest were really brilliant. I suspect I might have enjoyed these more if I had a better understanding of the political context and subtleties.
Far more of a cookie-cutter fantasy novel than its predecessor, Wyrd notwithstanding. Kept my interest, mostly, though the politics and history got a bit convoluted, and I missed the feeling of inevitability from the first novel. Demoted a star for equating homosexuality with evil/unclean magic.
Pretty much every story in this collection is just bad. The Harlan Ellison one is okay. Lots of moralistic BS and “loss of innocence” stuff and pedestal-putting of women, of course. Also a very ugh rape story.
I had this one on my shelf largely because I remember reading it as a kid, or one much like it, though now I'm not so sure this is the same collection. The Stephen R. Donaldson story “Mythological Beast” is one I remember reading in a collection I'd gotten from the library, and is notable largely because it triggered one of my earliest experiences of déjà vu.
I really like this book and I'm not sure I can find words for exactly why. It's not exactly fine literature, but Duncan's writing style is very readable and the book is extremely successful at evoking an emotional high.
It's interesting to me as a Saints fan, of course, and one who got into football in 2010, the season after their 2009 Superbowl win – I enjoyed learning about the franchise's history and experiencing secondhand the lead-up to the 2009 Superbowl. And as a football geek in general, I enjoyed getting a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes to create a great team.
Duncan serves up a great mix of reporting to put the Superbowl win in context: historical details, the impact of Katrina, descriptions of New Orleans and its residents... not to mention all the details you'd expect from a book about the Saints: details about the players and coaches, the strategy, the locker room speeches, how the important games played out. It really gives a sense of how everything came together for the team and for New Orleans.
I still can't decide if this would be a good book for long-time Saints fans (maybe they know this whole story already?) or for football fans in general (maybe you have to be a Saints fan to care?), but my suspicion is that folks in both camps would get something out of it. And if you're like me and a relatively recent convert to Who Dat Nation, this book is awesome.
Oh, right, okay, these are pretty much the canonical example of Really Well-Written Short Stories. And they're, um, mostly quite good. But dramatic irony bums me out, as does some of the weird *ism stereotyping going on.
Brilliant. Madcap. Uncontrolled chaos that occasionally breaks, like ragged clouds, to reveal unexpected revelations. Space opera at its best. Fantastic, inventive, marvelously complicated, filled with characters you can't decide whether to loathe or love. Layers and layers of story that keep you changing your mind about whose side you're on. There's so much action it feels like a condensed version of a 1000 page story, but I couldn't imagine it written any other way.
I think I lack some of the necessary background to really follow the finer points of this (knowing nothing about Deleuze etc.) but even so, it blew my mind. Can't stop seeing everything I enjoy through this lens now. I'm still processing, but this may have fundamentally reoriented the way I approach entertainment.
I bought this because I liked something the author blogged, I think. I was hoping it would be sort of like Anita Blake, but it is... a very un-weird romance story. It was okay, just not what I was hoping for.
Don't ask me how I wound up with a copy of this book, because I don't know. It must've been in the depths of one of those library sale grab bags, once upon a time.
It's less science than a collection of hearsay, apocrypha, and late 19th century cultural imperialism and casual racism. For all that, I found it oddly fascinating. The author catalogs, for example, the marriage rituals of (I can only assume) every society he's ever heard of. Sometimes the lists cross the line into exhaustively repetitive and dull (especially since there's very little analysis), but I actually thought it was kind of neat to think about the big picture of humanity and how our beliefs and taboos and rituals vary from culture to culture.
Even Mantegazza, while clearly a product of his time, seemed oddly open-minded at moments. You have to roll your eyes at all his talk of “the lower races” and the role of women in marriage, and don't even get me started on his views of masturbation and homosexuality (mostly amusing, but also sad). But then he talks about the hypocrisy of religion and standards of fidelity, and how even modern Italian culture isn't so far removed from “the savages”.
Some of my favorite anecdotes:
“William Tegg states that the Ostiacks, by way of making sure that their women are virtuous, are in the habit of tearing out a tuft of hair from a bear's pelt and presenting them with it; if the woman unhesitatingly accepts this gift, it is for the reason that she is free of any sin; if she were not, she would refuse it, being sure that at the end of three years' time the bear would come to life and eat her.”
“Among the Loango Negroes... Marriage is not finally consummated until after three nights' experience. On the first two mornings, the girl leaves the young man at cock-crow; but on the third she stays with him until broad daylight, thus signifying that she is content with him.”
“[Among] the Aeta of the Phillipine Islands... The suitor asks the girl of her parents, and the latter send her into the forest before sun-up. The young man may not leave home until an hour later, when he must go and track her down, bringing her back home before sunset. Should he be unable to accomplish this, he must desist from any further attentions to her.”
“A man may be in love with a girl without his love being requited. He then seeks to procure a lock of her hair and, covering it over with grease and with red earth, he carries it about with him for a year. This makes the girl so sad that she frequently dies of a broken heart, and the result may be a bit of bloodthirsty vengeance.”
“In the customs of East Prussia... when a woman remarries for the second or the third time, musicians climb up on the roof of the house as the bridal pair enter and serenade them down the chimney, so that the couple may not be struck dead.”
“Among the Ossets of the Caucasus, there is still in use a ceremony reminiscent of others yet more ferocious. The widow and the saddle-horse of the deceased are led three times about the grave, after which the woman can no longer be the property of any other man, nor may the horse ever again be mounted by another.”
“The Assanian women, of an Arab tribe inhabiting the south of Kartum, reserve for themselves a fourth of their liberty; every fourth day, they may go to live with the lover of their choice. Outside of this, the Assanian women are no more immoral than any others.”
“Among the Naudowessis, the marriage rite consists in letting fly arrows at the heads of the bride and groom, who are placed one alongside the other for the purpose. Those who shoot the arrows are the nearest relatives of the couple. A simpler ceremony is that of the Navajos, which consists in eating porridge from the same vessel.”
“After the second marriage, if the husband does not like his wife, all he has to do is take the measurements of the first one according to the width of the coffin and put them up beside the bed where the new wife sleeps, and the latter will not be there to trouble him for more than a year.”
“Certain of the Californian aborigines, when they wish to keep their women in line, paint themselves with black and white streaks and jump out suddenly at the latter to frighten them; they believe that this keeps them quiet.”
Kindle highlights:
He waited for her early next morning at the tourist beach, a deserted, artificial curve of white sand. The day was already sullen and humid, with hidden light penetrating the cloud and heat resonating from the limestone buttresses above the town. Faint residual smells clung in the corners of the sea wall: the previous day's fish, salt, perfume, fried food. For a moment it seemed to Cave like a language, but when he listened it had nothing to say.
‘This was a culture of engines,' Julia Vicente said. ‘Some architectural, some sacrificial, some both.'
Cave sat on the sand, and around him everything was suspended in light; everything like a film, wrapped in cameraman sublime, documentary sublime. Light, silhouettes, warmth like a perfect saturated colour, all at once. Distant objects seemed too large. In the end, he told himself for the hundredth time in his life, you are the only description of what there is. All that counts is to be there.
The shutters banged in the wind under an eggshell sky.
Back in London he barely thought of her, yet soon found himself outbound again on a 787 Dreamliner from Heathrow. ‘Before you ask,' he told her when she found him on her doorstep five hours later, ‘I have no memory of buying the ticket, let alone making the decision.' He'd brought the clothes he stood up in, he said; a credit card and his passport. She laughed. ‘I've got someone here,' she said. ‘But I can get rid of him tomorrow.' ‘I don't mind,' Cave said. She shut the door. ‘Yes you do,' she called from inside. After that, he made the crossing two or three times a year; visits between which the rest of his life suspended itself like a bridge.
a condition of anxiety which founded not just his memories of Autotelia but of himself.
Very readable, with plenty of practical tips, homework assignments and personal anecdotes. Would recommend this to anyone looking to get more comfortable with speaking.
Neat premise: a radio telescope picks up a signal from the stars, which turns out to be translatable as instructions for building a computer, as well as a program to run on it. The computer is, of course, an AI. Charming antiquated tech (punch cards!) and even some okay female characters (passes the Bechdel test).
Some of these pieces are absolutely excellent (the summary of the Hugo controversy, the critical analysis of Janelle Monae's music and the essay about Lemmings are standouts, as is the occult history of Doctor Who written in the format of a Choose Your Own Adventure). I enjoyed most of the shorter pieces relating to things I haven't seen, though I'm a bit annoyed to unexpectedly have had The Wasp Factory spoiled for me. (I don't normally mind spoilers, but if I'd known ahead of time that it's one of the rare stories that has a pivotal twist/reveal that will change the entire way you approach the story, I would've avoided this chapter. Ah well. Note bene: If you haven't read The Wasp Factory, and intend to, don't read this chapter.)
The Last War in Albion started out quite strong, even for someone who hasn't read V for Vendetta, but seemed to kind of lose its way when it devolved from its interpretation of said comic as an act of magickal warfare and began simply recounting (at length) the mundane politics surrounding the comic's publication. That one might be more interesting to someone who has read the graphic novel, but I'm unsure.
Finally, the podcast transcriptions were remarkably dull, even the ones relating to fandoms I follow – I didn't expect to be bored by an interview with someone who adapted one of my favorite novels for TV, as well as wrote a couple of episodes of Doctor Who, and yet I was.
I recommend picking this up, if only for the title essay, but maybe don't do like I did and try to read it all in one go.
A heartfelt, funny and insightful book that's essentially about blogging – about how technology affects the way we connect with each other (for better and for worse). Perfect airplane read.
An extraordinarily moving, powerful, thought-provoking and inspiring collection of essays. Kept wishing they were blog posts so I could pass them around my social network for discussion. Solnit's writing is lyrical and intimate, even as she tackles some very complex topics with unflinching courage, grace and – above all – optimism. This collection is full to the brim with honesty, truth and hope. I wish I could make it required reading.
I love Kat's poetry. She blends her incredible emotional sensitivity with her attunement to the natural world, making metaphors of the changing of seasons, the unpredictability of weather, even the firing of pottery. The ebb and flow of the world around her echoes the ebb and flow of her own heart and her connections to others. She feels things deeply and sees herself as rooted within the world in a way that I have always envied. I can't always relate to everything she's saying, but I love that she's saying it (and I love that I was able to buy this chapbook on Kindle).
Interesting concept, but the execution is only okay. Trying too hard to be Atlas Obscura maybe? Not a lot of details given and the tone jumps around a lot.
Intricate threads of destiny all woven together, tying several people to each other over the course of hundreds of years and multiple reincarnations. There's an aspect of Groundhog Day (you're stuck repeating this until you get it right) that is somehow very satisfying. It's a compelling, easy read, with characters that are three-dimensional and human and believable. The elements of predestination and prophecy add an intriguing layer to the story, keeping you guessing whether and how each person will fulfill their Wyrd. I love how the same souls tend to reveal their essential characters from one lifetime to the next, while still being completely different people.