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I'm melting. The temperature went above 30 today and it's supposed to do the same the next couple of days at least.
What I've recently finished reading
Carol K. Carr: India Black and the Widow of Windsor
I was less entertained by this than by the first novel. We still follow India Black, owner of a fancy brothel in Victorian London, except this book removes her entirely territory and has her go undercover in the service of her new British intelligence friends as a maid at Windsor, because some wicked Scots want to assassinate the Queen. As they do. India is her usual snarky self, but - honestly? What's the point of writing a plot where your main character could have been easily replaced by any other Victorian spy woman? I mean, damnit, India's a madam and (mostly formerly active) prostitute, and yet she spends several scenes dodging the advances of Prince Edward, which - it just felt like the character wasn't herself as established in the first book, and entirely out of her usual scene.
Matt Ruff: Lovecraft Country
I very much enjoyed this book and I'm very happy to have learned that HBO has just started filming the tv show. Anyway, it's a book about a small African-American family + friends in the 50s who get entangled against their will with a sorcerer of the type we generally see in, well, HP Lovecraft's works. The book is less a continual narrative and more a collection of short stories starring various family members and taking us through several eldritch horror and ghost story tropes along the way - and racism. All the racism of the 50s, complete with sundown towns and more.
Daniel Way: Venom
If I'd known the artist ahead of time, I wouldn't have picked this up. I really don't like that art style. Anyway, I did like the first chapters of this in particular, with an Arctic research station and the Venom symbiote basically replaying the movie It.
Alain de Botton: A week at the airport
It's not as deep as it might like to be, but it's a fun little look behind the scenes of an airport. I particularly liked the segment with the airport priest.
Blutch: Peplum
Jason Aaron: Doctor Strange: Blood in the Aether
I very much enjoyed Baron Mordo in this, just going wtf about everything about Stephen's life at the moment.
What I've recently watched
42. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
This was fun. I liked the first Jumanji movie better, and I feel it certainly had a better villain, but I very much enjoyed Dwayne Johnson and the rest playing teenagers stuck in a video game (they sometimes felt like more realistic teenagers than the actual teenagers, but then, they're experienced adult actors.)
43. Die göttliche Ordnung
This was advertized as a comedy-drama. I must confess, I feel that's false advertizing. Yes, there were a couple of funny scenes, but mostly it's just a drama and occasionally it's a horror story. I think the horror story aspect is - this movie is set in the early 70s Switzerland and it's about the fight for women's rights, specifically the vote - which means that we have a slightly old-fashioned, but nevertheless mostly modern country, except women aren't their own people. It's a very dystopic vibe, watching women who can't even legally have a job if their husband says no in the same age as hippy yonic power/get-to-know-your-vagina workshops, you know?
What I'm reading now
Plato's Laws (I can see the end!), Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen's Den skinbarlige sandhed om Lumikkos litterære selskab, Pontopiddan's Lykke-Per and Carol K. Carr's India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy
Total number of books and comics read this year: 153
What I've recently finished reading
Carol K. Carr: India Black and the Widow of Windsor
I was less entertained by this than by the first novel. We still follow India Black, owner of a fancy brothel in Victorian London, except this book removes her entirely territory and has her go undercover in the service of her new British intelligence friends as a maid at Windsor, because some wicked Scots want to assassinate the Queen. As they do. India is her usual snarky self, but - honestly? What's the point of writing a plot where your main character could have been easily replaced by any other Victorian spy woman? I mean, damnit, India's a madam and (mostly formerly active) prostitute, and yet she spends several scenes dodging the advances of Prince Edward, which - it just felt like the character wasn't herself as established in the first book, and entirely out of her usual scene.
Matt Ruff: Lovecraft Country
I very much enjoyed this book and I'm very happy to have learned that HBO has just started filming the tv show. Anyway, it's a book about a small African-American family + friends in the 50s who get entangled against their will with a sorcerer of the type we generally see in, well, HP Lovecraft's works. The book is less a continual narrative and more a collection of short stories starring various family members and taking us through several eldritch horror and ghost story tropes along the way - and racism. All the racism of the 50s, complete with sundown towns and more.
Daniel Way: Venom
If I'd known the artist ahead of time, I wouldn't have picked this up. I really don't like that art style. Anyway, I did like the first chapters of this in particular, with an Arctic research station and the Venom symbiote basically replaying the movie It.
Alain de Botton: A week at the airport
It's not as deep as it might like to be, but it's a fun little look behind the scenes of an airport. I particularly liked the segment with the airport priest.
Blutch: Peplum
Jason Aaron: Doctor Strange: Blood in the Aether
I very much enjoyed Baron Mordo in this, just going wtf about everything about Stephen's life at the moment.
What I've recently watched
42. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
This was fun. I liked the first Jumanji movie better, and I feel it certainly had a better villain, but I very much enjoyed Dwayne Johnson and the rest playing teenagers stuck in a video game (they sometimes felt like more realistic teenagers than the actual teenagers, but then, they're experienced adult actors.)
43. Die göttliche Ordnung
This was advertized as a comedy-drama. I must confess, I feel that's false advertizing. Yes, there were a couple of funny scenes, but mostly it's just a drama and occasionally it's a horror story. I think the horror story aspect is - this movie is set in the early 70s Switzerland and it's about the fight for women's rights, specifically the vote - which means that we have a slightly old-fashioned, but nevertheless mostly modern country, except women aren't their own people. It's a very dystopic vibe, watching women who can't even legally have a job if their husband says no in the same age as hippy yonic power/get-to-know-your-vagina workshops, you know?
What I'm reading now
Plato's Laws (I can see the end!), Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen's Den skinbarlige sandhed om Lumikkos litterære selskab, Pontopiddan's Lykke-Per and Carol K. Carr's India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy
Total number of books and comics read this year: 153