aamcnamara (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aamcnamara) wrote2011-06-05 08:25 am
aamcnamara) wrote2011-06-05 08:25 am
Entry tags:
yes and some more books
Some books, before I go off and leave them to be returned to the library in my absence, because this afternoon I am going to be on an airplane to Massachusetts again.
Linger, Stiefvater: Some nice reversals/continuations from the first book. I am still charmed by Minnesotan werewolves. (This book is, to me, less specifically Minnesotan, though.) Although I have more patience with heterosexual romance plots in books now (versus when I was a kid), apparently if you have four main characters in a book--two male, two female--and they have All The Angst except strangely it is all heterosexual angst, I lose patience. Come on already, people, work it out. Or if you're going for the most possible angst, allow queer angst. It will make me happy.
Ascendant, Peterfreund: This has heterosexual angst too, but BONUS KILLER UNICORNS. And moral dilemmas (about the unicorns, not just about the boyfriend). I went into this knowing it would be a pretty light and fluffy read, and that's what I got (what do you mean, killer unicorns aren't fluffy?).
Wild Life, Molly Gloss: I really enjoyed this. Feminist mother and writer (of pulps, mostly) in Washington state in the 1900s(?) going off into the woods to help search for her housekeeper's daughter; strange things happen. The voice is delightful, I kept wanting to read paragraphs of it out loud to people. Would recommend, definitely.
White is for Witching, Oyeyemi: After seeing this on the Tiptree honor list and also hearing that Mieville recommended it highly, I had to get my hands on a copy. Fortunately, there was one at the library (though this and Wild Life are two I wouldn't mind owning). Disorienting, odd, lovely in peculiar ways. I want to make comparisons--it felt a bit like House of Leaves (a very little bit) and a bit like The Little Stranger (more) and a bit like that Alice Hoffman book I read once, The Probable Future, but then it's also about being a modern teenager and growing up and leaving home and family and et cetera.
Collected short stories of Dorothy Sayers: I finished all the Wimsey stories: don't read them all at once, the pattern is too simple--crime, Wimsey solves it; crime, Wimsey solves it--because there isn't enough room for the long patterns of detecting, false answers, etc. that are in novels. But they are lovely on their own, which is why they ended up scattered through the rest of my reading. Also, a couple of short stories in which he and Harriet have children, which: yay! I went on to read some of the Egg stories, which are all right but less interesting to me than Wimsey, and, well, leaving this afternoon.
Went on Friday to see Arsenic and Old Lace at the Guthrie--I had not realized how utterly ridiculous it is, because it's always advertised just as "two old ladies poison lonely, elderly gentlemen". It is pretty utterly ridiculous. Very entertaining, though! As always, set and technical design flawless.
Doctor Who: brb, shipping interspecies crime-fighting lesbians from the nineteenth century forever. Can we have a spinoff show just about them? .... Wait, you mean other things happened in that episode? Oh. Um.
Now I am going to go and try to stuff as many books into my luggage as will fit.
Linger, Stiefvater: Some nice reversals/continuations from the first book. I am still charmed by Minnesotan werewolves. (This book is, to me, less specifically Minnesotan, though.) Although I have more patience with heterosexual romance plots in books now (versus when I was a kid), apparently if you have four main characters in a book--two male, two female--and they have All The Angst except strangely it is all heterosexual angst, I lose patience. Come on already, people, work it out. Or if you're going for the most possible angst, allow queer angst. It will make me happy.
Ascendant, Peterfreund: This has heterosexual angst too, but BONUS KILLER UNICORNS. And moral dilemmas (about the unicorns, not just about the boyfriend). I went into this knowing it would be a pretty light and fluffy read, and that's what I got (what do you mean, killer unicorns aren't fluffy?).
Wild Life, Molly Gloss: I really enjoyed this. Feminist mother and writer (of pulps, mostly) in Washington state in the 1900s(?) going off into the woods to help search for her housekeeper's daughter; strange things happen. The voice is delightful, I kept wanting to read paragraphs of it out loud to people. Would recommend, definitely.
White is for Witching, Oyeyemi: After seeing this on the Tiptree honor list and also hearing that Mieville recommended it highly, I had to get my hands on a copy. Fortunately, there was one at the library (though this and Wild Life are two I wouldn't mind owning). Disorienting, odd, lovely in peculiar ways. I want to make comparisons--it felt a bit like House of Leaves (a very little bit) and a bit like The Little Stranger (more) and a bit like that Alice Hoffman book I read once, The Probable Future, but then it's also about being a modern teenager and growing up and leaving home and family and et cetera.
Collected short stories of Dorothy Sayers: I finished all the Wimsey stories: don't read them all at once, the pattern is too simple--crime, Wimsey solves it; crime, Wimsey solves it--because there isn't enough room for the long patterns of detecting, false answers, etc. that are in novels. But they are lovely on their own, which is why they ended up scattered through the rest of my reading. Also, a couple of short stories in which he and Harriet have children, which: yay! I went on to read some of the Egg stories, which are all right but less interesting to me than Wimsey, and, well, leaving this afternoon.
Went on Friday to see Arsenic and Old Lace at the Guthrie--I had not realized how utterly ridiculous it is, because it's always advertised just as "two old ladies poison lonely, elderly gentlemen". It is pretty utterly ridiculous. Very entertaining, though! As always, set and technical design flawless.
Doctor Who: brb, shipping interspecies crime-fighting lesbians from the nineteenth century forever. Can we have a spinoff show just about them? .... Wait, you mean other things happened in that episode? Oh. Um.
Now I am going to go and try to stuff as many books into my luggage as will fit.