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missroseroseHello, book-friends! I'm back, if a bit early; today I'm on the tail end of a cold and taking one last day to recuperate, whereas tomorrow my schedule goes back to its usual breakneck pace. So a slightly-early Wednesday reading meme it is.
I still haven't been reading as much as I'd like to; between work and condo-hunting (have I mentioned that Brian and I are seriously looking to buy a place?) and social engagements and now fighting off this cold, I've been short on either time or brainpower or both. But having to hold myself publicly accountable for my progress (or lack thereof) is one of the few things that motivates me, I've found. Which is probably why I've grown so much as a yoga teacher and massage therapist over the past couple of years, whereas my more private projects like writing or music tend to progress only haltingly.
What I'vejust recently finished reading
The Secret History of Wonder Woman, by Jill Lepore. I'm going to point you all at my Wonder Woman Book Club post again—not only because I've already put down my impressions there, but also because there's some excellent discussion going on. I love having literate friends with interesting (and differing!) perspectives on history.
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery, by Sam Kean. Fascinating to the end, Kean finishes the book with an extended examination of one of the most well-known stories in the history of neuroscience—that of Phineas Gage, the luckless railroad worker who was tamping down explosives when an errant spark blew his rod straight through his skull, damaging both frontal lobes of his brain—and, when he not only survived the blast but appeared still fully awake and cognizant, became a medical celebrity. The 'traditional' narrative of Gage's life is that, while he miraculously survived both the injury and the subsequent infection, his personality radically changed, going from an intelligent, responsible, savvy businessmen and God-fearing soul to a short-tempered foul-mouthed jerk unable to hold down a job and had to resort to exhibiting himself as a sideshow. Kean questions some of this, noting that we have no actual medical history, and in fact what little we know of Gage's life mostly comes from his town doctor's occasional case notes; going through various records, Kean discovers that Gage in fact traveled to Chile and worked for several years as a stagecoach driver, a task that (especially on windy mountainous Chilean roads) required no small amount of skill, dexterity, and reflexes. There's at least some evidence that his brain made some recovery over the years, although eventually his injury caught up with him; he began having seizures fifteen years or so after the accident, and eventually hit a state of permanent seizure before dying. It's a remarkable story, probably worth a book of its own.
Saga, vol. 8, by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. Up until the past couple of books, this series' conceit of "construct a completely unrecognizable universe filled with beings both monstrous and beautiful, then have them deal with immediately-identifiable human feelings and problems" has worked remarkably well. But while there's no shortage of humanity for the characters to explore (including, in this volume, the emotional and logistical difficulties of a late-term miscarriage), it's starting to feel just a little thin. Maybe this is just a reflection of my personality, or maybe it's something about how broadly drawn the characters have remained, but at this point I'm less interested in our star-crossed lovers and more curious about how this entire universe came to be. Anthropomorphic seals? Truth-sniffing cats? A whole caste of bounty hunters? An entire race of humanoids with TVs for heads? Surely there's a fascinating history here, but the story's been reluctant to explore it—which makes the entire thing feel just kind of...arbitrary.
Untitled, by a friend of mine. Being sick and stuck on the couch this weekend anyway, I offered to beta-read a friend's novella, and I'm not going to talk about the premise or the content because I don't think that's public information but YOU GUYS IT IS SO GOOD. Even in its current, unpolished state, I stayed up until 12:30 AM last night finishing it, I was that engrossed. I really can't wait to recommend it to you all.
What I'm currently reading
Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. In contrast to Saga, this one's all about history, as well as future. It's the twin history of two civilizations, one (humanity) fighting to stave off the end for its few survivors, and one (a race of intelligent spiders, the result of a terraforming project on another planet gone sideways) developing sentience and social structure, and eventually taking its first steps into awareness of the greater universe. It's fascinating stuff—I can't think of another example of evolutionary biochemistry used so prominently in a science fiction novel—but perhaps suffers a bit from the opposite problem, i.e. we're looking at the respective civilizations over such long periods of time that it's difficult to get attached to the characters at all. The author ameliorates this issue somewhat by focusing on a particular genetic line in the spider civilization and referring to them all by similar names, which at least helps with a sense of continuity; on the human side, the audience-stand-in character is experiencing the various episodes of the human struggle in between episodes of hypersleep. Likable as he is, however, his role as observer rather than influencer is becoming increasingly apparent, and I'm getting the distinct impression that the author's not a particular fan of humanity—not least because the humans appear to be devolving, whereas the worst aspects of the spider civilization appear to be a direct result of human influence. We'll see how it all shakes out...
What I plan to read next
Right! Books. Those are a thing I read sometimes. Um...something in paper, I think, because I've missed that. Really I should keep plugging away at Yoga Sequencing. Other than that...hm. Weirdly, I'm having trouble working up interest in anything new, probably because of the time investment problem. But I do have a book titled Between the Sheets: Nine 20th Century Women Writers & Their Famous Literary Partnerships that I picked up from a Little Free Library, read the foreword, and immediately put back down again, largely because holy crap am I going to hate this author and her entire premise. But maybe I'll pick it back up—nothing like a good argument to get one's enthusiasm flowing again, haha.
I still haven't been reading as much as I'd like to; between work and condo-hunting (have I mentioned that Brian and I are seriously looking to buy a place?) and social engagements and now fighting off this cold, I've been short on either time or brainpower or both. But having to hold myself publicly accountable for my progress (or lack thereof) is one of the few things that motivates me, I've found. Which is probably why I've grown so much as a yoga teacher and massage therapist over the past couple of years, whereas my more private projects like writing or music tend to progress only haltingly.
What I've
The Secret History of Wonder Woman, by Jill Lepore. I'm going to point you all at my Wonder Woman Book Club post again—not only because I've already put down my impressions there, but also because there's some excellent discussion going on. I love having literate friends with interesting (and differing!) perspectives on history.
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery, by Sam Kean. Fascinating to the end, Kean finishes the book with an extended examination of one of the most well-known stories in the history of neuroscience—that of Phineas Gage, the luckless railroad worker who was tamping down explosives when an errant spark blew his rod straight through his skull, damaging both frontal lobes of his brain—and, when he not only survived the blast but appeared still fully awake and cognizant, became a medical celebrity. The 'traditional' narrative of Gage's life is that, while he miraculously survived both the injury and the subsequent infection, his personality radically changed, going from an intelligent, responsible, savvy businessmen and God-fearing soul to a short-tempered foul-mouthed jerk unable to hold down a job and had to resort to exhibiting himself as a sideshow. Kean questions some of this, noting that we have no actual medical history, and in fact what little we know of Gage's life mostly comes from his town doctor's occasional case notes; going through various records, Kean discovers that Gage in fact traveled to Chile and worked for several years as a stagecoach driver, a task that (especially on windy mountainous Chilean roads) required no small amount of skill, dexterity, and reflexes. There's at least some evidence that his brain made some recovery over the years, although eventually his injury caught up with him; he began having seizures fifteen years or so after the accident, and eventually hit a state of permanent seizure before dying. It's a remarkable story, probably worth a book of its own.
Saga, vol. 8, by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. Up until the past couple of books, this series' conceit of "construct a completely unrecognizable universe filled with beings both monstrous and beautiful, then have them deal with immediately-identifiable human feelings and problems" has worked remarkably well. But while there's no shortage of humanity for the characters to explore (including, in this volume, the emotional and logistical difficulties of a late-term miscarriage), it's starting to feel just a little thin. Maybe this is just a reflection of my personality, or maybe it's something about how broadly drawn the characters have remained, but at this point I'm less interested in our star-crossed lovers and more curious about how this entire universe came to be. Anthropomorphic seals? Truth-sniffing cats? A whole caste of bounty hunters? An entire race of humanoids with TVs for heads? Surely there's a fascinating history here, but the story's been reluctant to explore it—which makes the entire thing feel just kind of...arbitrary.
Untitled, by a friend of mine. Being sick and stuck on the couch this weekend anyway, I offered to beta-read a friend's novella, and I'm not going to talk about the premise or the content because I don't think that's public information but YOU GUYS IT IS SO GOOD. Even in its current, unpolished state, I stayed up until 12:30 AM last night finishing it, I was that engrossed. I really can't wait to recommend it to you all.
What I'm currently reading
Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. In contrast to Saga, this one's all about history, as well as future. It's the twin history of two civilizations, one (humanity) fighting to stave off the end for its few survivors, and one (a race of intelligent spiders, the result of a terraforming project on another planet gone sideways) developing sentience and social structure, and eventually taking its first steps into awareness of the greater universe. It's fascinating stuff—I can't think of another example of evolutionary biochemistry used so prominently in a science fiction novel—but perhaps suffers a bit from the opposite problem, i.e. we're looking at the respective civilizations over such long periods of time that it's difficult to get attached to the characters at all. The author ameliorates this issue somewhat by focusing on a particular genetic line in the spider civilization and referring to them all by similar names, which at least helps with a sense of continuity; on the human side, the audience-stand-in character is experiencing the various episodes of the human struggle in between episodes of hypersleep. Likable as he is, however, his role as observer rather than influencer is becoming increasingly apparent, and I'm getting the distinct impression that the author's not a particular fan of humanity—not least because the humans appear to be devolving, whereas the worst aspects of the spider civilization appear to be a direct result of human influence. We'll see how it all shakes out...
What I plan to read next
Right! Books. Those are a thing I read sometimes. Um...something in paper, I think, because I've missed that. Really I should keep plugging away at Yoga Sequencing. Other than that...hm. Weirdly, I'm having trouble working up interest in anything new, probably because of the time investment problem. But I do have a book titled Between the Sheets: Nine 20th Century Women Writers & Their Famous Literary Partnerships that I picked up from a Little Free Library, read the foreword, and immediately put back down again, largely because holy crap am I going to hate this author and her entire premise. But maybe I'll pick it back up—nothing like a good argument to get one's enthusiasm flowing again, haha.
