Currently reading
Madame Bovary
Siddhartha
Civil Disobedience and Other Essays (Collected Essays)
The Children Star
Manstealing for Fat Girls
Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New
Radio Crackling, Radio Gone
Radiant Days
Mythmakers and Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction
Footnotes in Gaza
Kraken
When I read this at Long Nook Beach in Truro I got myself a little freaked out about giant squids in the water, even though the book's not particularly horrifying.Mostly I loved KRAKEN because of Mieville's reliably surprising ideas, especially the city-magic he calls "knackery." The plot was gripping but fairly inconsequential feeling (threat of apocalypse = yawn, knowing metafiction about threat of apocalypse = also yawn). My favorite parts included the knackers mythology and the characters and plots, like the various cults, the United Magicians Assistants and Wati (the most magical organizer ever), which reminded me of the substantial pleasures of Mieville's IRON COUNCIL. What I didn't love as much was the flatness and predictability of the nerd-boy protagonist. Hey China: write some more girl heroes, eh?
Who Fears Death
I am so excited about Nnedi Okorafor!Who Fears Death is one of the best SF books I've read in recent years. I won't spoil, but if you like shapeshifters, speculative future earth, feminist awesomeness, and smart storytelling, read this and tell me what you think. Caveat Reador: If you are likely to be traumatized by graphic depictions of weaponized rape and genocide (even in the service of a critical feminist narrative), best to avoid this book. But in that case, go read her YA books, like Zahrah the Windseeker! So good!
The Magicians: A Novel
I really wanted to like this book, and it *was* gripping in parts, but so casually stupid about gender, sexuality, privilege, and the emotional life of humans (oh, and magic!) that I couldn't enjoy the neat little ideas, observations, and occasional nifty turns-of-phrase. I think this book needed an editor. Seems like a casualty of the writing-industrial complex.Oh, and another thing. The idea that these kids would graduate from magic school and have these giant magic trust-funds and just party all the time & be morose because they don't have any magic villians to fight is INSANE. Our world is full of things to fight: man-made environmental catastrophe, just for instance. Grossman starts to grapple with one potentially interesting question: what is magic for? but drops it in favor of dick jokes and video game references. I originally gave the book 2 stars but I just docked a star out of renewed annoyance. This may be an accurate portrayal of disaffected rich apolitical Harvard grads, but since they don't actually learn anything except how to grasp even more power, their story's not interesting.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Cordelia Gray Mysteries, No. 1)
Enjoyable, if weirdly conservative in its underpinnings (beware radicals!). I always get a little thrill from interconnected novels (in a series or otherwise). 13 ways of looking at Adam Dalgliesh.
The Lighthouse (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery Series #13)
I'm not much of a mystery reader but enjoyed this and went back for more. I'm curious about how Adam Dalgliesh can be in his early 40s in 1974 (An Unsuitable Job for a Woman) and also seemingly in his early 40s in 2005. I would be excited if AD turned out to be a vampire.
Boy2Girl
Oy. Really? A pre-teen straight boy learns life lessons and has fun passing as a pre-teen girl, with no real danger, social repercussions, gender confusion? Why are so many YA books about gender written in the psychological-fantasy genre?
The Sweet In-Between (Platinum Readers Circle (Center Point))
I am tired of cisgender writers writing about gender-variant people. The end.
Between Mom and Jo
The characters of the two "moms" in this felt flat to me, and the plot felt contrived. Too bad--it's a great idea for a book: a kid growing up with queer parents struggles when they split up.
Life
I was excited by the idea of this book: a near-future woman scientist's discovery of some paradigm-shifting biological sex genetic thingy. And I read the whole thing straight through (have a cold) but what I came away with was that Jones's characterizations are bizarrely homophobic and even misogynist. Certainly Jones is willing to have the one lesbian character in the book be an avowed woman-hater and the one "lesbian" sex scene is as bad as some kind of 80s-era Naiad Press romance: "...they got naked and lay between them, and hugged and kissed and nuzzled and licked and enjoyed each other..." All non-gender-conforming and/or queer people in this novel are characterized as freaks, unstable, immoral, frivolous, or ugly. Seriously? This won the James Tiptree prize?
Writing the Other (Conversation Pieces Volume 8)
I haven't found much else out there on this topic: writing fiction about characters who don't share your subject position in terms of race/gender/sexual orientation/ability/age/etc. So I was glad to find this book and glad science fiction writers wrote it. It's got some writing exercises I can imagine using in a creative-writing class. There are people to whom I'd like to give a copy (anonymously). But I wish it was better than it was, more challenging, hadn't intentionally and for confusing reasons left out class...
 - Nisi Shawl, Cynthia Ward)
Camouflage
I love Joe Haldeman's THE FOREVER WAR and FOREVER PEACE, and I heart shapeshifters obviously, so I was excited to read this novel (especially after I read an excerpt of it in the James Tiptree Anthology 2). It's a fine book: gripping, a little dirty, explains some science and math things. I got up early on a Saturday morning to finish it. All that said, the writing (language, plot, character development, and pacing) seemed hastily done, and the most interesting aspect to me (the gender shifting and sex bits) was pretty heteronormative even though there was homosexual (maybe even queer) sex. I dunno. I liked it, didn't love it.Warning: there's a nasty graphic rape scene early on, but it's meant to be nasty and isn't gratuitous.
Loving in the War Years: Lo Que Nunca Paso por Sus Labios (South End Press Classics Series) (English and Spanish Edition)
I wouldn't have re-read this if my co-teacher hadn't suggested we assign it in our experimental Queer Writing class, but you know what? It really holds up. And reading it on the heels of a bunch of New Narrative stuff made me think about how queer writers of color like Moraga have been fucking shit up for a LONG time--narrative, genre, gender etc etc--and not getting the cool points for it. What's that about?
Parrotfish
Engaging and sweet YA novel about a young translad. A bit Afterschool Special/wish-fulfillment fantasy, but who doesn't like that sometimes?
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
I didn't believe for a second that an 18 year old, even a haughty rich white 18 year old New Yorker Stuyvesant grad, would sound like this narrator. The narrator sounds like a snarky GWM in his 50s, who ridicules such imaginative new targets as gallerists, therapists, professors, and businessmen. Risky! Okay, maybe this could sound like someone who just graduated from Stuyvesant. Read that Andre Aciman book instead, if you want to read about educated rich gay boys.
