Wants to read Death Will Have Your Eyes
book
Rated The Faith of Beasts 8/10
<div>Ok, yes, I am invested in this series now that I'm not trying to do the audiobook. This was good, and I'm looking forward to the next one </div>
Rated The Gospel of Anarchy 8/10
To expect Taylor to devise an entire philosophy out of nothing along with the novel itself would be naïve. Expecting fiction to arrive completely out of the imagination misunderstands the act of writing. Even the most speculative or avant garde fiction hopes to connect with its readers, and readers connect when they can identify. The best fiction contains so much truth and honesty, but affords itself the benefit of creating its own facts. Taylor took an existing philosophy and manufactured a world to surround it. He lived in Gainesville between 2000 and 2004, and the description of the university town drips with humidity and rising mercury. The pressure builds in each character in a way that mimics the Florida summer. Borrowing from an existing group of people is no less valid than borrowing from an existing city.<br><br>(full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2011/07/gospel-of-anarchy-by-justin-taylor.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>)
<div>Though I was never SERIOUS-serious about it, I danced for eleven years of my childhood—a very casual education in ballet, jazz, modern, and tap— and I do enjoy learning about interesting, creative people. I hadn't heard of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, founded during the Civil Rights Movement, and Karen Valby does an admirable job introducing us to its founding dancers, showing us their lives within the company, what everyone got up to after, and the legacy they leave today. It doesn't shy away from the difficulties of being a dancer, the racism faced by everyone involved, or the ever-fluctuating demands of their director, Arthur Mitchell. Still, we see so much of the joy and the worldwide accomplishment. I'm glad I read this.<br><br>On a side note (and a bit inside baseball): I see that this is one of the titles that Lisa Lucas acquired for Pantheon before she was bafflingly laid off. It's a shame that the rich guys at the top of the ecosystem can't see the value in her work.</div>
Wants to read Kiss and Tell: A Romantic Résumé, Ages 0 to 22
Rated M Train 10/10
Loved this. Time and mourning and love and art and objects.
Rated Doctor Who: The Zygon Who Fell to Earth 8/10
The Zygons aren't necessarily my favorite (I get stressed out by the dramatic irony of their body-snatching, but that's me), but this was a good story. The Eighth Doctor is a romantic in many cases, but there are bits (like at the end of this story) that reveal some of his icier, "I know best" traits.
Rated Bog Queen 7/10
<div>The title, BOG QUEEN, is 100% what caught my attention at first (especially having read and loved The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister), and then I realized it was the next book from Anna North. I'd read and mostly enjoyed Outlawed, and I liked Bog Queen a whole lot more.<br><br>Couple of things bugged me though: Do we ever learn Bog Queen's name? Why do all the other people in the past get a name, but she doesn't? (Or if she does, why is it mentioned infrequently enough that I cannot recall?)<br><br>Also, occasionally, the chapters set in Bog Queen's time (50-ish BCE) have some dialogue anachronisms that snagged (calling someone a "weak, pathetic loser" may be accurate in feeling, but it would be phrased differently, yes?), but maybe I'm still too much in the world of Nicola Griffith's Menewood. That book is not set at the same time (600-ish CE), but there are some similarities. Both involve young women on the island eventually known as Great Britain, thrust into leadership positions and consulting with kings and trying to avoid war.<br><br>In the 2018 storyline, Agnes is an American woman who was all too ready to let the men in her life make her decisions for her, and her taking this job in England is the first time she's broken free of that. Does she come to any realizations about this? <spoiler>Not really. Instead she thinks about how it's because it's comforting to do the "easy" thing. Girl, your dad and boyfriend were plotting when you would have children! And you've never called them on it! You just went to England, found a body in a bog, and decided to get frisky with an environmental activist who seems just as "What I decide matters" as your ex! Some perspective, please!</spoiler><br><br>Still, I was invested enough in the story, even if I wanted more of the actual title character.</div>
Rated Duende 10/10
Tracy K. Smith is always great. I'm always glad to read her books.
Rated Doctor Who: The Wrath of the Iceni 8/10
I don't know the history enough to know how well this script's position about what happened rates, but this is a good story.
Rated Doctor Who: Neverland 8/10
Good stuff. Includes Lalla Ward as Romana, ends on a cliffhanger as a lead in to the next story, Zagreus. Definitely liked this one.
Rated Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites 10/10
(A review will be forthcoming, but can I say that I am fully confident in giving this 5 stars, even though I had to give it back to the library with the last 40 pages unread? Not to worry, I will rectify that absence as soon as I get the chance.)
Rated Judging a Book by Its Lover: A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere 4/10
This started out better than it ended. The title is very misleading, and I'm also not very interested in faking my way through my reading life or pretending like I've read things I haven't.
Rated Strangers on a Train 10/10
This was so great. I almost wanted to start over and immediately read it again. With this being her first novel, there's a paragraph that I think sets the stage for many of her forthcoming books' themes: <br><br><blockquote>He thought of his mother, and felt he could never let her embrace him again. He remembered her telling him that all men were equally good, because all men had souls and the soul was entirely good. Evil, she said, always came from externals. And so he had believed even months after Miriam, when he had wanted to murder her lover Steve. So he had believed even on the train, reading his Plato. In himself, the second horse of the charioteer had always been obedient as the first. But love and hate, he thought now, good and evil, lived side by side in the human heart, and not merely in differing proportions in one man and the next, but all good and all evil. One had merely to look for a little of either to find it all, one had merely to scratch the surface. All things had opposites close by, every decision a reason against it, every animal an animal that destroys it, the male the female, the positive the negative. The splitting of the atom was the only true destruction, the breaking of the universal law of oneness. Nothing could be without its opposite that was bound up with it. Could space exist in a building without objects that stopped it? Could energy exist without matter, or matter without energy? Matter and energy, the inert and the active, once considered opposites, were now known to be one.</blockquote><br><br>That's it. That's her wheelhouse.<br><br>Also, I gotta rewatch this movie. It's been ages since I've seen it.
Rated The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms 7/10
<div>I don't know that this was wholly for me, but NK Jemisin is a great enough writer (and I've enjoyed many of her other books) that I may still read the next book in the series at some point.</div>
Rated What Is Queer Food?: How We Served a Revolution 7/10
<div>This book is both a history of the queer people behind notable moments in food culture, and also an examination of what exactly it means to make food "queer." (Yes, Gay Brunch and quiche are touched upon.) For Birdsall, it is primarily about gathering the important people in one's life, people who exist in the margins, and experiencing an act of togetherness. That act can be nourishing, decadent, indulgent, or just making do with what you've got, but it all counts.<br><br>If you're looking for a book that talks more about the food itself over the people cooking it, it may not be for you. But as something that contributes to the archive of queer history, I liked it. I also spend a fair amount of time thinking about food and cooking, which began as a way to be able to eat what I wanted, but in a form I could either digest or afford. I am not a precise cook — my kitchen scale gets the most use for measuring the pasta I buy in bulk— but I've been told I'm an excellent one. I have brought dishes to many a queer potluck, organized many a queer artsy party involving food, and have helped teach my kids how to cook, so they know how to feed themselves and others as they move out into the world. Queer food is often about intent. If I were attempting to decide if a particular meal were queer in some way, I might ask myself, "What community is this meal for?"<br><br>There are moments where I may not entirely agree with Birdsall's analysis, and but I appreciate how well-sourced the book is. He is clear on where he gets his information, and also why he occasionally veers into moments of speculation. We do not necessarily want to force modern terminology upon historical figures, but we can also allow them to have fully dignified and more complete remembrances. There is a full, diverse cast of people here. And you'll learn the origin of Chiffon Cake.</div>
Rated One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This 10/10
<div>"It is a hallmark of failing societies, I’ve learned, this requirement that one always be in possession of a valid reason to exist," Omar El Akkad writes. Later in the book, he adds, "Much like the insidious foreign plot, the notion that people simply aren’t prepared for democracy is a fundamental rhetorical tool of failing regimes."<br><br>If you want to understand how the world largely works, look at how we talk about the horrors of Palestine, the occupation and destruction, and look at the parallels between that treatment and what we're expected to stomach in our own country. When you wonder why tf Greta Thurnberg has shifted her focus, it's because she understands it's all connected.<br><br>"Many people’s governments are cruel, many people’s governments are indifferent. It’s this relentless parachuting of virtue. It’s these speeches and statements of eloquently stated concern for human rights and freedom and the demand that those who abuse human rights or withhold freedom be held to account. And it’s the way every ideal turns vaporous the moment it threatens to move beyond the confines of the speeches and statements, the moment it threatens even the most frivolous parcel of self-interest."<br><br>Much has been written about this book, and much will continue to be by people much smarter than me, but let me be another person who says, if you haven't already read One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, please do. <br><br>"When the time comes to assign blame, most of those to blame will be long gone. There will always be feigned shock at how bad things really were, how we couldn’t have possibly known. There will be those who say it was all the work of a few bad actors, people who misled the rest of us well-meaning folks. Anything to avoid contending with the possibility that all this killing wasn’t the result of a system abused, but a system functioning exactly as intended."<br><br>So what are you going to do right now? How will you withhold your participation in this system? How will you lessen the damage? Your lawn signs will never be enough.<br><br></div>
Rated Blind Terror: The Gods of Frost 8/10
<div>A good, spooky gothic horror. If you liked Crimson Peak, you'll probably like this.</div>
Rated Midnight Picnic 8/10
How our living selves affect the afterlife has been, and will continue to be, a matter of debate. In literature alone, countless stories have explored the stages of death, of grieving, and that of otherworldly retribution. In <i>Midnight Picnic</i>, Nick Antosca leaves religion out of the discussion and instead explores feelings of abandonment, anger and regret.<br><br>This is no great story of redemption, nor is it one of God and ghosts. If anything, it’s about making peace with the living self before everything is gone. With Autumn and Halloween approaching, it might just be the essential book to usher in the season. It’s certainly worth a look.<br><br>(Full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2010/09/midnight-picnic-by-nick-antosca.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)