Hello, book-friends! Well, it looked for a moment like my schedule was slowing down, but bookings have been picking right back up again—I booked two new people this week on the strength of my yoga classes. Between that, my teaching schedule, and trying to have a social life, I'm starting to veer dangerously close to overextended again; yesterday was supposed to be my day off, but I spent basically the whole day cleaning and grocery shopping and running errands that had gotten put off due to work. Wednesday I was either cleaning house, massaging, or teaching (with a short break for a piano lesson) from about 9 AM to 10 PM, hence why I'm playing catch-up this morning. I sense the need for a SOMA day soon...I have this weekend blocked off because Ian is visiting, and I hope he's down for movies and shows and other things that involve a lot of sitting, heh.
What I've just finished reading
Girl Waits With Gun, by Amy Stewart. I read somewhere that Stewart was basing this story on her own family history, which I have no trouble believing; history is messy and rarely streamlined, and much like its heroine, this reluctant-girl-detective story takes its time finding its way. That said, unlike many similar character-driven attempts, there is an identifiable arc and even a resolution of sorts, although more on an emotional level than a logistical one. That does leave plenty of dangling plot threads to be taken up in the sequels; Constance's new career as a deputy being one, Fleurette's interest in performance and the broader world outside being another. (While it's absolutely appropriate to the time and their characters, I can't help but bristle at Constance and Norma's constant infantilization of Fleurette—I get that her bohemian interests weren't quite respectable for 1914, but she's sixteen! Practically grown up! They've got to let her make her own decisions at some point, and the flapper movement is right on the horizon...) If there's one real issue with the narrative, it's that we don't get as strong a sense of Constance's character as do gruff, stolid-but-loyal Norma or flighty-and-creative Fleurette; but given that her whole arc is, in an understated way, her own search for identity, that actually sort of works. I'm not sure if I'm going to immediately listen to the rest of the series, but for a cozy comfort-read it'll definitely be on the list.
The Wicked & The Divine Vol. 6: Imperial Phase, Part 2, by Kieron Gillen et al. Still enjoying the heck out of this series. Ensemble pieces like this are extremely difficult to pull off without the various arcs all spinning out of control and away from each other (see: Orphan Black), and so far my gut says they've done a remarkable job keeping it all coherent. I'm definitely going to have to re-read these all in a line when the series is finished to get a sense of how well the themes and arcs mesh and hang together—its harder to judge when you're reading one or two trades a year—but certainly they're doing a good job of ratcheting up the stakes. (Man, just when you'd got used to Woden's general shitheadedness, you find out you don't know the half of it...I wonder if the authors have something to say about accepting people of questionable integrity into one's social circle, heh.) Things appear to be hurtling towards the conclusion; hopefully they'll be able to stick the landing.
Lumberjanes Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy, by Noelle Stevenson, et al. I have a lot of friends who love this series, and I can see why people do—the umpteen synonyms for "charming" I tend to see in descriptions are all perfectly applicable. That said, the cartoony style doesn't really do a lot for me; it's cute, and I can absolutely get why people like a story of plucky girl-scout-esque characters solving a supernatural mystery, but not having been a Girl Scout back in the day, I suspect I'm missing some of the nostalgia, and overall it lacks the chewier depth of more character-driven pieces that's my personal preference.
What I'm currently reading
Caesar's Last Breath, by Sam Kean. Kean has a distinct talent for humanizing science, largely by telling the stories of the people involved in major discoveries or events related to a given field. (Appropriately enough, one of his first subjects in this story is quoted as having said to photographers taking pictures of Mt. St. Helens: "You've got to put a human being in the goddamn thing...a little human interest is what means so much to the goddamn public.") So far my favorite anecdote has been that of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier (a husband and wife chemistry team in pre-Revolutionary France) and their discovery of oxygen, thus rendering the then-dominant theory of "phlogiston" irrelevant. Not only did they publicly demonstrate the existence of oxygen, but proceeded, in the celebration afterwards, to put on an entire neo-Greek play, in the format of a trial, about the triumph of oxygen over phlogiston in the court of science. Which strikes me as possibly the most pre-Revolutionary French thing ever, and also kind of amazing, and also horrible since it was literally being funded (as was all of Lavoisier's research) by the obscene taxes levied on the peasantry. But muddled moral foundations are hardly unusual in the field of scientific progress; another story concerns the scientists who invented the Haber-Bosch process, by which nitrogen in the air is captured and rendered into fertilizer; literally half the food on our planet is now grown using such artificial fertilizers. Arguably they did humanity a great favor by (as their celebrants put it) conjuring bread from the air, they both won Nobel prizes for their work...and they both died shunned as war criminals (Haber is most infamously known for synthesizing chlorine gas to perpetrate the gas attacks of WWI, and Bosch discovered a process for extracting liquid fuel from coal that fueled the Luftwaffe throughout WWII). It certainly provides some food for thought on the subject of what happens when you divorce ingenuity from moral integrity.
The Secret History of Wonder Woman, by Jill Lepore. "William Moulton Marston, who believed women should rule the world, decided at the unnaturally early and altogether impetuous age of eighteen that the time had come for him to die. In everything, he was precocious." I love when I can tell from the opening line of a story that I'm going to enjoy it.
The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. My efforts at research notwithstanding, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm really the best audience for this book. The dreamlike picaresque atmosphere is effective at evoking the topsy-turvy zeitgeist of Stalinist Russia, but I'm having a hard time staying interested; it makes me wonder if I'm missing something. Friends who enjoyed it, what should I be looking for? Or is this a book you can't analyze, only experience?
What I plan to read next
Honestly, I think I've got plenty on my plate already what with the Wonder Woman Book Club (and I haven't made any progress in Yoga Sequencing at all this week), but![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ivy sent Brian and me The Hope of Another Spring, an absolutely stunningly-produced art book featuring ink drawings and diary entries from a Japanese-American man interred during WWII. I'm definitely eyeing that one.
What I've just finished reading
Girl Waits With Gun, by Amy Stewart. I read somewhere that Stewart was basing this story on her own family history, which I have no trouble believing; history is messy and rarely streamlined, and much like its heroine, this reluctant-girl-detective story takes its time finding its way. That said, unlike many similar character-driven attempts, there is an identifiable arc and even a resolution of sorts, although more on an emotional level than a logistical one. That does leave plenty of dangling plot threads to be taken up in the sequels; Constance's new career as a deputy being one, Fleurette's interest in performance and the broader world outside being another. (While it's absolutely appropriate to the time and their characters, I can't help but bristle at Constance and Norma's constant infantilization of Fleurette—I get that her bohemian interests weren't quite respectable for 1914, but she's sixteen! Practically grown up! They've got to let her make her own decisions at some point, and the flapper movement is right on the horizon...) If there's one real issue with the narrative, it's that we don't get as strong a sense of Constance's character as do gruff, stolid-but-loyal Norma or flighty-and-creative Fleurette; but given that her whole arc is, in an understated way, her own search for identity, that actually sort of works. I'm not sure if I'm going to immediately listen to the rest of the series, but for a cozy comfort-read it'll definitely be on the list.
The Wicked & The Divine Vol. 6: Imperial Phase, Part 2, by Kieron Gillen et al. Still enjoying the heck out of this series. Ensemble pieces like this are extremely difficult to pull off without the various arcs all spinning out of control and away from each other (see: Orphan Black), and so far my gut says they've done a remarkable job keeping it all coherent. I'm definitely going to have to re-read these all in a line when the series is finished to get a sense of how well the themes and arcs mesh and hang together—its harder to judge when you're reading one or two trades a year—but certainly they're doing a good job of ratcheting up the stakes. (Man, just when you'd got used to Woden's general shitheadedness, you find out you don't know the half of it...I wonder if the authors have something to say about accepting people of questionable integrity into one's social circle, heh.) Things appear to be hurtling towards the conclusion; hopefully they'll be able to stick the landing.
Lumberjanes Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy, by Noelle Stevenson, et al. I have a lot of friends who love this series, and I can see why people do—the umpteen synonyms for "charming" I tend to see in descriptions are all perfectly applicable. That said, the cartoony style doesn't really do a lot for me; it's cute, and I can absolutely get why people like a story of plucky girl-scout-esque characters solving a supernatural mystery, but not having been a Girl Scout back in the day, I suspect I'm missing some of the nostalgia, and overall it lacks the chewier depth of more character-driven pieces that's my personal preference.
What I'm currently reading
Caesar's Last Breath, by Sam Kean. Kean has a distinct talent for humanizing science, largely by telling the stories of the people involved in major discoveries or events related to a given field. (Appropriately enough, one of his first subjects in this story is quoted as having said to photographers taking pictures of Mt. St. Helens: "You've got to put a human being in the goddamn thing...a little human interest is what means so much to the goddamn public.") So far my favorite anecdote has been that of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier (a husband and wife chemistry team in pre-Revolutionary France) and their discovery of oxygen, thus rendering the then-dominant theory of "phlogiston" irrelevant. Not only did they publicly demonstrate the existence of oxygen, but proceeded, in the celebration afterwards, to put on an entire neo-Greek play, in the format of a trial, about the triumph of oxygen over phlogiston in the court of science. Which strikes me as possibly the most pre-Revolutionary French thing ever, and also kind of amazing, and also horrible since it was literally being funded (as was all of Lavoisier's research) by the obscene taxes levied on the peasantry. But muddled moral foundations are hardly unusual in the field of scientific progress; another story concerns the scientists who invented the Haber-Bosch process, by which nitrogen in the air is captured and rendered into fertilizer; literally half the food on our planet is now grown using such artificial fertilizers. Arguably they did humanity a great favor by (as their celebrants put it) conjuring bread from the air, they both won Nobel prizes for their work...and they both died shunned as war criminals (Haber is most infamously known for synthesizing chlorine gas to perpetrate the gas attacks of WWI, and Bosch discovered a process for extracting liquid fuel from coal that fueled the Luftwaffe throughout WWII). It certainly provides some food for thought on the subject of what happens when you divorce ingenuity from moral integrity.
The Secret History of Wonder Woman, by Jill Lepore. "William Moulton Marston, who believed women should rule the world, decided at the unnaturally early and altogether impetuous age of eighteen that the time had come for him to die. In everything, he was precocious." I love when I can tell from the opening line of a story that I'm going to enjoy it.
The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. My efforts at research notwithstanding, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm really the best audience for this book. The dreamlike picaresque atmosphere is effective at evoking the topsy-turvy zeitgeist of Stalinist Russia, but I'm having a hard time staying interested; it makes me wonder if I'm missing something. Friends who enjoyed it, what should I be looking for? Or is this a book you can't analyze, only experience?
What I plan to read next
Honestly, I think I've got plenty on my plate already what with the Wonder Woman Book Club (and I haven't made any progress in Yoga Sequencing at all this week), but
ivy sent Brian and me The Hope of Another Spring, an absolutely stunningly-produced art book featuring ink drawings and diary entries from a Japanese-American man interred during WWII. I'm definitely eyeing that one.
