Well, I decided to handmake all my Christmas gifts this year. Since I decided it at the end of October, and NaNoWriMo ate my November, Christmas gift making took up all my free time in December. (Plus I needed something of a break from writing after NaNo.) I have been reading, though (I still commute on the metro/tram/bus at least 2 hours a day).
You'll probably have to wait until I re-read (or re-re-re-re-re-re-re-read, as the case may be) these books, but here's a list of most of what I read in November and December (in the order they are piled on my shelf, not the order in which they were read):
Another Fine Myth Robert Aspirin
*The Wanderer Alain-Fournier
*A Doll's House and Other Plays Ibsen
Myst: the Book of Atrus Rand and Robyn Miller
*Sinning with Annie and other stories Paul Theroux
Captains Courageous Rudyard Kipling
The English Patient Michael Ondaatje
Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome
Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
The Railway Children E. Nesbit
The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkein
Gifts Urusula K. LeGuin
*Dubliners James Joyce
Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome
*In Cold Blood Truman Capote
Right now I am re-reading To Swim Across the World by Frances and Ginger Park. I have not decided what will get to come on my UK trip. (On the one hand, I want to just buy books THERE! but I will need something to read in the airports on the way there. We'll see.) So there will probably be at least two more books to add to this list.
* = first time I read this book
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Note to the Faithful*
This is a bit late, but you knew this anyway: I am doing NaNoWriMo. Which means all my words are being sucked into the endless black hole of my novel this month. I am still reading, and the stack of books to review is piling high on my end table, but I haven't time at the moment. So watch out for a tumbling avalanche of reviews in December.
*Faithful, here, means the three of you who read this...
*Faithful, here, means the three of you who read this...
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The Angelic Darkness
The Angelic Darkness
Richard Zimler
When Bill Ticino's wife moves out, he is beset by insomnia and childhood fear of spirits. Hoping to reassure himself, he rents part of the house to a mysterious Portuguese diplomat. Called Peter, the new tenant brings his pet hoopoe, piles of bizarre relics, pointedly important stories, and new experiences with spirits and mystics.
As an emotional Bill starts to piece life back together, he finds that things are far from what they seem. From the feminine transvestite prostitute he interviews for an article just before his murder to the pixie-like Indian singer who seems to know far too much about the world, Bill's normal way of framing things are bent. But are any of these things really happening?
Although I was initially intrigued by the characters and their stories, the point of the book was disappointing. I expected the mysticism to reveal the deep overlap between myth and reality, perhaps breaking the boundary altogether in a step into urban fantasy. But it was about figuring out how to be gay in a straight world. Oh, well. Ok, then. This was a letdown not because I deem it an inappropriate struggle to portray, but rather because the beginning, the stories, the tone, were not well tied in to the conclusion. I was left feeling like I had started one book and finished another.
Richard Zimler
When Bill Ticino's wife moves out, he is beset by insomnia and childhood fear of spirits. Hoping to reassure himself, he rents part of the house to a mysterious Portuguese diplomat. Called Peter, the new tenant brings his pet hoopoe, piles of bizarre relics, pointedly important stories, and new experiences with spirits and mystics.
As an emotional Bill starts to piece life back together, he finds that things are far from what they seem. From the feminine transvestite prostitute he interviews for an article just before his murder to the pixie-like Indian singer who seems to know far too much about the world, Bill's normal way of framing things are bent. But are any of these things really happening?
Although I was initially intrigued by the characters and their stories, the point of the book was disappointing. I expected the mysticism to reveal the deep overlap between myth and reality, perhaps breaking the boundary altogether in a step into urban fantasy. But it was about figuring out how to be gay in a straight world. Oh, well. Ok, then. This was a letdown not because I deem it an inappropriate struggle to portray, but rather because the beginning, the stories, the tone, were not well tied in to the conclusion. I was left feeling like I had started one book and finished another.
The Shack
The Shack
William Paul Young
This tale of how God responds when bad things happen to people who want good lives has been discussed all over the place. Copies of it have even made it to Russia, which is saying something. So, now it's time for my three cents.
The scene is set with Mac losing his baby girl to a brutal serial killer. His depression grows gnarlier, his relationships falter, and he doesn't trust God anymore. After all, if the ruler of the universe were actually good, He wouldn't let people kill adorable small children. And then, God invites him out to the shack where the last bloodstained traces of Mac's little girl were found. Desperate, he goes.
When he's given up all hope, the shack is transformed into a beautiful house, and God the Father walks out of it to give Mac a big hug. The idea of God manifesting as a big black woman whippin' up great meals is delightful to me, and I am thrilled that someone finally portrayed Jesus as being Middle Eastern. The Holy Spirit as a mystical iridescent Asian woman is a bit more cliche, but still entertaining. The three of them work together to show Mac that his view of life, God, and tragedy are skewed.
Hang'in out with members of the Trinity for one-on-one chats about free will, omnipotence, forgiveness, and justice, Mac finds his depression lifting and worldview radically changing. He leaves so impressed by the truths he's learned that his friends and family eventually believe his incredible story.
Thanks to this book, I now believe in the importance of an editor and understand why self-publishing is such a bad idea. It took long, conscious effort to turn off my internal writer/English teacher/editor and actually pay attention to the story. Young uses far too much passive voice and makes sentences and ideas overly complicated, bogging them down with multiple extraneous metaphors. It's a great story, but the writing - oh dear.
William Paul Young
This tale of how God responds when bad things happen to people who want good lives has been discussed all over the place. Copies of it have even made it to Russia, which is saying something. So, now it's time for my three cents.
The scene is set with Mac losing his baby girl to a brutal serial killer. His depression grows gnarlier, his relationships falter, and he doesn't trust God anymore. After all, if the ruler of the universe were actually good, He wouldn't let people kill adorable small children. And then, God invites him out to the shack where the last bloodstained traces of Mac's little girl were found. Desperate, he goes.
When he's given up all hope, the shack is transformed into a beautiful house, and God the Father walks out of it to give Mac a big hug. The idea of God manifesting as a big black woman whippin' up great meals is delightful to me, and I am thrilled that someone finally portrayed Jesus as being Middle Eastern. The Holy Spirit as a mystical iridescent Asian woman is a bit more cliche, but still entertaining. The three of them work together to show Mac that his view of life, God, and tragedy are skewed.
Hang'in out with members of the Trinity for one-on-one chats about free will, omnipotence, forgiveness, and justice, Mac finds his depression lifting and worldview radically changing. He leaves so impressed by the truths he's learned that his friends and family eventually believe his incredible story.
Thanks to this book, I now believe in the importance of an editor and understand why self-publishing is such a bad idea. It took long, conscious effort to turn off my internal writer/English teacher/editor and actually pay attention to the story. Young uses far too much passive voice and makes sentences and ideas overly complicated, bogging them down with multiple extraneous metaphors. It's a great story, but the writing - oh dear.
Contemporary Chinese Fiction
The Picador Book of Contemporary Chinese Fiction
Ed. Carolyn Choa & David Su Li-Qun
Sadly, the only contemporary Chinese fiction I've read in the past three years is the marvelous little Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie. So when I found a collection of contemporary short stories, all translated into English for the first time, I was delighted.
The book did not disappoint. The nineteen authors cover broad territory in the twenty-eight pieces: death, marriage, love, disappointment, the change of traditions, respect, ghosts, and how to share a crowded courtyard with too many other people. Each character is carefully sculpted with a minimum of movements, fully three-dimensional and elegantly portrayed. Reflecting on bits of life in communist times, the authors manage to present a rich, deeply colored glimpse of life using deceptively simple strokes. Reading is like listening to bells and watching the wind tickle a pine: mystical and yet very connected with the dirt of life.
I am babbling because it is hard to adequately sum up how different these stories feel from what I normally read. I suggest you do what you can to find them yourself.
Ed. Carolyn Choa & David Su Li-Qun
Sadly, the only contemporary Chinese fiction I've read in the past three years is the marvelous little Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie. So when I found a collection of contemporary short stories, all translated into English for the first time, I was delighted.
The book did not disappoint. The nineteen authors cover broad territory in the twenty-eight pieces: death, marriage, love, disappointment, the change of traditions, respect, ghosts, and how to share a crowded courtyard with too many other people. Each character is carefully sculpted with a minimum of movements, fully three-dimensional and elegantly portrayed. Reflecting on bits of life in communist times, the authors manage to present a rich, deeply colored glimpse of life using deceptively simple strokes. Reading is like listening to bells and watching the wind tickle a pine: mystical and yet very connected with the dirt of life.
I am babbling because it is hard to adequately sum up how different these stories feel from what I normally read. I suggest you do what you can to find them yourself.
The Red and the Green
The Red and the Green
Iris Murdoch
I admit to not knowing much about Ireland or its history, other than that it really didn't like the English shoving it around and it has leprechauns. I also admit to planning a trek there this winter. So. Enter Iris Murdoch, whose book The Sea, the Sea was my traveling companion on my last foray to the British Isles, and who proved a fantastic wordsmith and traveling companion, particularly as I was on her home soil. Who better to introduce me to the Irish mind in the week leading up to the Easter Rising of 1916?
Her story follows various members of an extended Irish-English family as they move about Dublin in the days prior to the uprising, painting a picture of diverse households, motives, and ideals. Murdoch presents the tale in pairs of opposites: Andrew, the London-raised English cavalry officer just about to be sent to France to fight the Germans, in contrast with his admired cousin Pat, one of the junior leaders of the revolution; Christopher, a well-endowed gentleman pushing life around with the end of a walking stick until it's just as he likes it, as opposed to Barney, who muddled up his early religious devotion and can't quite seem to sort out his consequent life; Millie, the eccentric, defiantly unfeminine, incredibly alluring widow who plays her many partners against each other and is vastly different from innocent, prim Frances, who watches the restless sea with calm eyes and has been raised in the most ladylike fashion.
And then, after all the build-up, all the political arguments and riding around on bicycles and surprising each other in secrets and proposals and refusals and generally wandering around in the heads of all these men (the women are supplemental characters, really), the uprising comes in and drags them all off, and the book is finished off in eight and a half pages. We find out what happens to the bodies of all the people, but I was left frowning after how the battle affected the minds I'd been inside. Suddenly my intimately known characters became ghosts. Perhaps that's as Murdoch meant it to be.
Iris Murdoch
I admit to not knowing much about Ireland or its history, other than that it really didn't like the English shoving it around and it has leprechauns. I also admit to planning a trek there this winter. So. Enter Iris Murdoch, whose book The Sea, the Sea was my traveling companion on my last foray to the British Isles, and who proved a fantastic wordsmith and traveling companion, particularly as I was on her home soil. Who better to introduce me to the Irish mind in the week leading up to the Easter Rising of 1916?
Her story follows various members of an extended Irish-English family as they move about Dublin in the days prior to the uprising, painting a picture of diverse households, motives, and ideals. Murdoch presents the tale in pairs of opposites: Andrew, the London-raised English cavalry officer just about to be sent to France to fight the Germans, in contrast with his admired cousin Pat, one of the junior leaders of the revolution; Christopher, a well-endowed gentleman pushing life around with the end of a walking stick until it's just as he likes it, as opposed to Barney, who muddled up his early religious devotion and can't quite seem to sort out his consequent life; Millie, the eccentric, defiantly unfeminine, incredibly alluring widow who plays her many partners against each other and is vastly different from innocent, prim Frances, who watches the restless sea with calm eyes and has been raised in the most ladylike fashion.
And then, after all the build-up, all the political arguments and riding around on bicycles and surprising each other in secrets and proposals and refusals and generally wandering around in the heads of all these men (the women are supplemental characters, really), the uprising comes in and drags them all off, and the book is finished off in eight and a half pages. We find out what happens to the bodies of all the people, but I was left frowning after how the battle affected the minds I'd been inside. Suddenly my intimately known characters became ghosts. Perhaps that's as Murdoch meant it to be.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Empires of the Plain
Empires of the Plain
Lesley Adkins
This summer I visited the British Museum, where I was overwhelmed by the huge rooms full of ancient treasures. Besides the Rosetta Stone, what impressed me the most were huge relief carvings from Assyrian palaces, beautiful pictures covered in intricate cuneiform writing.
Unfortunately, I only remember Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Israel from school, and had no idea what cuneiform was or who the Assyrians were. So when I saw a book on Henry Rawlinson, the East Ind
ia Company soldier responsible for much of the work done on cracking cuneiform, I picked it up.
Rawlinson was a soldier, diplomat, and self-taught linguist in the employ of the East India Company for the first several decades of the 1800s. His greatest single feat was climbing a formidable rock face to make copies of a huge trilingual inscription recounting the victory of Darius the Great over rebels. He spent much of the rest of his life deciphering the symbols and three languages, while colleagues began to unearth colossal palaces and wall carvings bearing more cuneiform.
Following Rawlinson's career from homesick initiate to trustee of the British Museum, Empires of the Plain gives an astonishing look into the politics, trade, archeology, and linguistics of the knowledge-hungry British Empire in the Middle East. It also showcases the worth of tenacity and determination in the face of seemingly impossible tasks. If you have any interest in the Middle East, British Imperialism, ancient races, archeology, or linguistics, this book is well worth the read.
Lesley Adkins
This summer I visited the British Museum, where I was overwhelmed by the huge rooms full of ancient treasures. Besides the Rosetta Stone, what impressed me the most were huge relief carvings from Assyrian palaces, beautiful pictures covered in intricate cuneiform writing.
Unfortunately, I only remember Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Israel from school, and had no idea what cuneiform was or who the Assyrians were. So when I saw a book on Henry Rawlinson, the East Ind
ia Company soldier responsible for much of the work done on cracking cuneiform, I picked it up.Rawlinson was a soldier, diplomat, and self-taught linguist in the employ of the East India Company for the first several decades of the 1800s. His greatest single feat was climbing a formidable rock face to make copies of a huge trilingual inscription recounting the victory of Darius the Great over rebels. He spent much of the rest of his life deciphering the symbols and three languages, while colleagues began to unearth colossal palaces and wall carvings bearing more cuneiform.
Following Rawlinson's career from homesick initiate to trustee of the British Museum, Empires of the Plain gives an astonishing look into the politics, trade, archeology, and linguistics of the knowledge-hungry British Empire in the Middle East. It also showcases the worth of tenacity and determination in the face of seemingly impossible tasks. If you have any interest in the Middle East, British Imperialism, ancient races, archeology, or linguistics, this book is well worth the read.
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