![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hello, book friends who haven't yet deserted me (heh). What I had anticipated to be a constantly-scrabbling-to-find-this-or-that-piece-of-paperwork process (i.e. closing) has turned out to actually be mostly waiting, with only occasional scrabbling for this or that piece of paperwork. (My lender, my realtor, and my attorney (or his paralegal, really) have all complimented me on my speed and organization. I sorta feel like, compared to when I was regularly working as an admin, I'm only halfway to where I should be, but apparently that's enough to put me in the top percentile when it comes to filling out forms/finding personal information to fork over.) In any case, I have time to read again, albeit not a lot—my as-yet-unnamed Giant Writing Project of Goth Angst is spilling out into my paper diary, my playlists, and has begun scrapbooking pieces from the Met Fashion Gala. I've redownloaded Scrivener just to have a virtual corkboard where I can organize things. Not a lot of actual writing happening as of yet, but given how complex this is becoming in my head, I think a little more outlining than I usually do is in order.
What I've just finished reading
Nothing recently! Hoping to fix that this week.
What I'm currently reading
The Cloud Roads, by Martha Wells. I picked this up as a freebie from Antigone Books, which should give you an idea of how long ago it was (this was not on my recent trip back to Tucson). I have a thing for the symbolism of wings (says the woman with the giant wing tattoo on her thigh) and I suspect that's going to crop up somewhere in my Giant Writing Project of The Dark and the Light In All of Us, so I thought I'd give this a read and see what another author's done with it. It's turning out to be a competently if somewhat artlessly written bit of fantasy about a race of winged humanoids and their political maneuverings; I feel like the author could maybe stand to learn a bit from Ann "Screw Two, Make Every Scene Serve Five Purposes" Leckie, but the pacing's moving along at a good clip and Moon's outside perspective on the Raksura is interesting.
The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin. I've only just started this one (I was listening to it while I did my hair the other day), but it's put me in mind more than anything of Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning. There's been a little less philosophy (so far), but something about the intellectual tone and the descriptions of a world with a single androgynous gender contribute to s similar sense of atmosphere. I have a feeling there will be far fewer "characters debating moralism vs. determinism while engaging in an orgy" sequences...though I wouldn't necessarily mind being proven wrong, haha. I'm interested to see if the comparison holds up; it wouldn't surprise me if this was one of Palmer's major influences.
What I plan to read next
I still have Yoga Sequencing on my plate, and now I've got another yoga book on top of that—I'm going to be a coach-in-training for the Sauganash studio's teacher training in October, and we have a new book that we're having the students read from. (Which I am 100% in favor of. When I was in training we were using Baron Baptiste's Journey Into Power, which I found almost offensively self-helpy and simplistic in its message. Obviously anything that's wrong in your life is wrong because you aren't doing hot power yoga! Start doing hot power yoga and you'll be amazed at the changes in your life! Yoga can heal the sick/make the lame walk/make blind men see/fill your wallet/find you a new job/cure cancer/bring about world peace! I'm only exaggerating slightly; I get that Baptiste was writing this as a sales pitch but man did I feel oversold to. Possibly the more so because I'd already been through the "yoga is making all of these positive changes in my life, everyone should try it!" phase and felt like I'd come to a more nuanced understanding of why it works for me, what its limitations are, and why it might not work for others.) So probably I'll be picking up Michael Stone's The Inner Tradition of Yoga.
What I've just finished reading
Nothing recently! Hoping to fix that this week.
What I'm currently reading
The Cloud Roads, by Martha Wells. I picked this up as a freebie from Antigone Books, which should give you an idea of how long ago it was (this was not on my recent trip back to Tucson). I have a thing for the symbolism of wings (says the woman with the giant wing tattoo on her thigh) and I suspect that's going to crop up somewhere in my Giant Writing Project of The Dark and the Light In All of Us, so I thought I'd give this a read and see what another author's done with it. It's turning out to be a competently if somewhat artlessly written bit of fantasy about a race of winged humanoids and their political maneuverings; I feel like the author could maybe stand to learn a bit from Ann "Screw Two, Make Every Scene Serve Five Purposes" Leckie, but the pacing's moving along at a good clip and Moon's outside perspective on the Raksura is interesting.
The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin. I've only just started this one (I was listening to it while I did my hair the other day), but it's put me in mind more than anything of Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning. There's been a little less philosophy (so far), but something about the intellectual tone and the descriptions of a world with a single androgynous gender contribute to s similar sense of atmosphere. I have a feeling there will be far fewer "characters debating moralism vs. determinism while engaging in an orgy" sequences...though I wouldn't necessarily mind being proven wrong, haha. I'm interested to see if the comparison holds up; it wouldn't surprise me if this was one of Palmer's major influences.
What I plan to read next
I still have Yoga Sequencing on my plate, and now I've got another yoga book on top of that—I'm going to be a coach-in-training for the Sauganash studio's teacher training in October, and we have a new book that we're having the students read from. (Which I am 100% in favor of. When I was in training we were using Baron Baptiste's Journey Into Power, which I found almost offensively self-helpy and simplistic in its message. Obviously anything that's wrong in your life is wrong because you aren't doing hot power yoga! Start doing hot power yoga and you'll be amazed at the changes in your life! Yoga can heal the sick/make the lame walk/make blind men see/fill your wallet/find you a new job/cure cancer/bring about world peace! I'm only exaggerating slightly; I get that Baptiste was writing this as a sales pitch but man did I feel oversold to. Possibly the more so because I'd already been through the "yoga is making all of these positive changes in my life, everyone should try it!" phase and felt like I'd come to a more nuanced understanding of why it works for me, what its limitations are, and why it might not work for others.) So probably I'll be picking up Michael Stone's The Inner Tradition of Yoga.
