bookblogging
Jun. 20th, 2008 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeNovels/prose books:
Heyer, Georgette: Friday's Child
(utterly adorable, and romantic a la Lady of Quality, with the difference being that Sherry doesn't start out in love with Hero, and the book is about how he becomes so after marrying her in what he intended as a marriage of convenience. It ran a little long, though; for the last fifty pages, I kept wishing they'd hurry things up.
One of my favorite things about Heyer's Regencies is that they don't match up to the insulting cliche that people who don't read romances insist all romances follow. Her books are romances, obviously; they're about personal relationships and romantic relationships specifically, but they do not have cookie-cutter personalities and plots, and Heyer is perfectly willing and able to explore the course of a romance in all stages, including after marriage.
Icon in honor of a bookstore co-worker, who semi-seriously told me that if I was hit by a car on the way home from work, I'd be embarrassed that this was the last book I'd ever read. I didn't see any point to telling her that I was also reading five or six graphic novels at the same time).
Graphic novels:
Maitena: Women on the Edge vol. 1
(I keep alternating between finding this amusing and deeply annoying for the implicit acceptance of the rightness and normality of sexism, gender inequalities, and feeling like a bad person because of having cellulite. Also, everyone is white and heterosexual, and I'm getting the point where I find that hard to overlook).
Burleigh, Robert, author, Bill Wylie, artist: Into the Air: The Story of the Wright Brothers' First Flight.
Turner, James: Rex Libris: I Librarian
(Although I was surprised to see a glowing introduction by Dave Sim, I didn't let it color my expectations. I should have. I ended it up putting the book down on page fourteen, after reading the following line: "Mmmm. Hot toasty mama! Such rhythmic, swaying hips; full plump buttocks, supple lips, topped by an elegantly curved swan like neck of luminous white skin accented by deliciously coifed raven black hair. Luscious!"
I found something about that very off-putting.
Also, it was dumb of Sim to sneeringly comment, in 2007, that the Library at Alexandria doesn't exist in the modern age, but the (fictional) Middleton Public Library does. The Library at Alexandria doesn't exist anymore because somebody set fire to it, and they didn't have the means of mass production or of off-site backup storage. It doesn't not exist any more because regional public libraries are at odds with massive depositories, or render massive depositories redundant. Regional public libraries, although always good, would not have eliminated the benefit of having a central location with a massive collection of material, not in a world where long-distance travel and communication were slow and expensive and unreliable. It's just...an incredibly stupid comparison. It's not a fucking either-or, and although the Library at Alexandria, that historical famed library, doesn't exist anymore--because someone set fire to it--there is no shortage of similarly massive and varied collections in existence today, which makes the original comment utterly inane. We don't have regional public libraries instead of academic libraries or private libraries or governmental libraries. We have a lot more libraries, and a lot more kinds of libraries, period).
Johnson, Mat, author, Warren Pleece, artist: Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery
(this was...more pat than I expected. I'd been expecting...the kind of unyielding story that does not leave itself open for sequels, I guess? And you could easily write a sequel to this, or make a whole series out of it.
I can't believe I'm complaining about a work of fiction ending on a hopeful note).
Chantler, Scott: The Annotated Northwest Passage
(Oni Press. It reminds me a tad of Journey into Mohawk Country. I enjoyed that one slightly more, but this was excellent, and I appreciated the bit in the annotation about wanting to remind fellow Canadians that the founding of their country involved blood, which he says is not how Canadians think of themselves. I mean that not in a "up yours, you faux-pacifistic Canadians" way, but in an Abigail Bartlet, "It's our history" way. Or perhaps in this case, "their history." Or "your history." But anyway, I'm a denizen of modern North America, too, and the founding of my country was steeped in blood, too, and even though I am not responsible for things that were done before I was born and I do not apologize for things I didn't do, it is part of my history, and I don't think we should forget about things just because they're awkward or inconvenient or unflattering.
Also, I am crushing on Simon. I guess he's sort of a prick, but a hot one).
Manga:
Otomo Katsuhiro: Akira vol. 1
(I've read this before--just vol. 1, that is--but I was in a much better position to appreciate it this time around, now having a much broader experience with comics and manga in general. It's pretty awesome.).
Heyer, Georgette: Friday's Child
(utterly adorable, and romantic a la Lady of Quality, with the difference being that Sherry doesn't start out in love with Hero, and the book is about how he becomes so after marrying her in what he intended as a marriage of convenience. It ran a little long, though; for the last fifty pages, I kept wishing they'd hurry things up.
One of my favorite things about Heyer's Regencies is that they don't match up to the insulting cliche that people who don't read romances insist all romances follow. Her books are romances, obviously; they're about personal relationships and romantic relationships specifically, but they do not have cookie-cutter personalities and plots, and Heyer is perfectly willing and able to explore the course of a romance in all stages, including after marriage.
Icon in honor of a bookstore co-worker, who semi-seriously told me that if I was hit by a car on the way home from work, I'd be embarrassed that this was the last book I'd ever read. I didn't see any point to telling her that I was also reading five or six graphic novels at the same time).
Graphic novels:
Maitena: Women on the Edge vol. 1
(I keep alternating between finding this amusing and deeply annoying for the implicit acceptance of the rightness and normality of sexism, gender inequalities, and feeling like a bad person because of having cellulite. Also, everyone is white and heterosexual, and I'm getting the point where I find that hard to overlook).
Burleigh, Robert, author, Bill Wylie, artist: Into the Air: The Story of the Wright Brothers' First Flight.
Turner, James: Rex Libris: I Librarian
(Although I was surprised to see a glowing introduction by Dave Sim, I didn't let it color my expectations. I should have. I ended it up putting the book down on page fourteen, after reading the following line: "Mmmm. Hot toasty mama! Such rhythmic, swaying hips; full plump buttocks, supple lips, topped by an elegantly curved swan like neck of luminous white skin accented by deliciously coifed raven black hair. Luscious!"
I found something about that very off-putting.
Also, it was dumb of Sim to sneeringly comment, in 2007, that the Library at Alexandria doesn't exist in the modern age, but the (fictional) Middleton Public Library does. The Library at Alexandria doesn't exist anymore because somebody set fire to it, and they didn't have the means of mass production or of off-site backup storage. It doesn't not exist any more because regional public libraries are at odds with massive depositories, or render massive depositories redundant. Regional public libraries, although always good, would not have eliminated the benefit of having a central location with a massive collection of material, not in a world where long-distance travel and communication were slow and expensive and unreliable. It's just...an incredibly stupid comparison. It's not a fucking either-or, and although the Library at Alexandria, that historical famed library, doesn't exist anymore--because someone set fire to it--there is no shortage of similarly massive and varied collections in existence today, which makes the original comment utterly inane. We don't have regional public libraries instead of academic libraries or private libraries or governmental libraries. We have a lot more libraries, and a lot more kinds of libraries, period).
Johnson, Mat, author, Warren Pleece, artist: Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery
(this was...more pat than I expected. I'd been expecting...the kind of unyielding story that does not leave itself open for sequels, I guess? And you could easily write a sequel to this, or make a whole series out of it.
I can't believe I'm complaining about a work of fiction ending on a hopeful note).
Chantler, Scott: The Annotated Northwest Passage
(Oni Press. It reminds me a tad of Journey into Mohawk Country. I enjoyed that one slightly more, but this was excellent, and I appreciated the bit in the annotation about wanting to remind fellow Canadians that the founding of their country involved blood, which he says is not how Canadians think of themselves. I mean that not in a "up yours, you faux-pacifistic Canadians" way, but in an Abigail Bartlet, "It's our history" way. Or perhaps in this case, "their history." Or "your history." But anyway, I'm a denizen of modern North America, too, and the founding of my country was steeped in blood, too, and even though I am not responsible for things that were done before I was born and I do not apologize for things I didn't do, it is part of my history, and I don't think we should forget about things just because they're awkward or inconvenient or unflattering.
Also, I am crushing on Simon. I guess he's sort of a prick, but a hot one).
Manga:
Otomo Katsuhiro: Akira vol. 1
(I've read this before--just vol. 1, that is--but I was in a much better position to appreciate it this time around, now having a much broader experience with comics and manga in general. It's pretty awesome.).