Wednesday Reading Meme

[oneiriad]

Just this once I'll do this on an actual wednesday. Just this once.

What I've recently finished reading

Connie Willis: The Best of Connie Willis
I must confess, most of these stories were fine, but none of them would have had me looking up the author if I encountered them in an anthology. I think my favourites were "Inside Job", where the ghost of a sceptic starts haunting a fake medium, and "Even the Queen", which doesn't have much story, but I like its particular bit of future!tech.

Nella Larsen: Passing
This was quite different from Quicksand. It felt more plotted out, somehow. Tighter. I will look forward to the movie. And I've gotten interested enough in the author to get hold of a biography, as you do.

Mike Mignola: Abe Sapien: Dark and terrible and The new race of man

J. Dufaux: Murena: Le Banquet
I was annoyed with one. Murena's the main character, but he literally does - well, I suppose getting amnesia and get kept as a sex toy by a villainess is something, but. All the plot happens around him.

Gerard Way: The Umbrella Academy: Dallas

Tarleton Gillespie: Custodians of the Internet: platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media

Garth Nix: Sabriel
This was fun. I like that Sabriel is young, but obviously well taught and capable, albeit ignorant about many details about the Old Kingdom.

Olivier Boucquet: Snowpiercer: Terminus

Leslie Feinberger: Stone Butch Blues
If I'd known what I was going into for the first several chapters, I might not have read it. It's an interesting book, though.

Frances Andreasen Østerfelt: Marie Curie - et lys i mørket
The art of this is gorgeous, but the narrative is weak. Which puzzles me, because Marie Curie's life story shouldn't feel weak.

Rick Remender: Venom

Greg Rucka: Wonder Woman: Godwatch


What I've recently watched

58. the Vvitch
I very much enjoyed this. The setting - New England wilderness, the tiny family trying to survive on their own after having been cast out by the Puritan villagers, the sense that you're never really sure if the things happening are simply wild beasts and starvation and paranoia, or actual supernatural events.

59. Venom
Aka the soulmate AU between a mess of a journalist and an alien tentacle monster that nobody thought to ask for. It's fun. It's not what I'd call a good movie, but fun.

60. Victoria & Abdul
Gorgeous movie, but maybe not terrible exciting.


What I'm reading now

S.A. Chakraborty's The City of Brass, which so far isn't really catching my interest, and Tommy Orange's There There, which is.

Total number of books and comics read this year: 219

Comments

[isis]

Unfortunately I agree with you on The City of Brass, which felt like it should have been more interesting than it ultimately was. (I liked the ending, though, and will look for the second book when it comes out.) But I had a really hard time getting engaged with it.

Sabriel is excellent, but the next two books, Lirael and Abhorsen (really they are two halves of a single doorstop-book) are my favorite part of the series.

[luzula]

Leslie Feinberger: Stone Butch Blues
If I'd known what I was going into for the first several chapters, I might not have read it. It's an interesting book, though.

Spoil me?

Also, check this out. : ) I really liked it, even not having read Passing for years.

[oneiriad]

Spoilers: Stone Butch Blues is the story of Jess Goldberg, a working class butch Lesbian, and the first chapters deal with her growing up in pre-Stonewall US. They're nasty - there are two quite explicit rape scenes and really, a lot of the atmosphere in the first part of the book is quite unpleasant. I think it's a good book, but I'm not sure I'd have picked it up if I'd known beforehand.

[luzula]

Hmm. Is there warmth and human companionship in it as well, or is it all misery?

[oneiriad]

There is human kindness and love and friendship and moments of happiness along the way. But - well. It's blues.

[oneiriad]

So far, I think what leaves me unenthused about The City of Brass might be that it feels - formulaic? One character is an orphan who turns out to be the super-special heir of the old, lost royal family of the magic kingdom next door, for crying out loud.