May books

[jinian]

Dear Dodie, Valerie Grove. gwyneira read this. It was interesting, but I always come away from biographies with a vague wish that I hadn't read them. Even depressing fiction usually has story-engineering in it, so maybe I expect that sort of thing from histories too, which would doom me to unease. Plus, in this one I'm not sure I'd have liked Dodie Smith, though I really like her books; that's a bit of a problem for the childhood holdover in my mind that idealizes authors.

A Paradigm of Earth, Candas Jane Dorsey. Oh, wow. This is not at all a comfortable book, but I was amazed and got my heart yanked right out and probably need to buy this to keep forever. Queer in SF in a really lovely way, with sexuality a complex issue second only to the meaning of family. Recommended.

Firethorn, Sarah Micklem. An interesting beginning, in which a harassed young serf goes on a vision quest, goes limp and annoying as the wisdom we are told she's gained completely fails to appear. No, I don't want to hear about how she is all in love and stupid over an overprivileged man, I want something interesting to happen. To add insult to injury, there is apparently a sequel on the way, so this one doesn't bother to end.

One Good Turn, Carla Kelly. Has some decidedly annoying points, but it's not bad considering it's being a romance novel.

Nice, Charles Holdefer. Bounced right off the first pages, which I found much too precious yet also somewhat unpleasant.

Theatre Shoes, Noel Streatfeild. My second Streatfeild, this builds nicely on Ballet Shoes, with this crop of talented kids getting scholarships from the Ballet set. All the kids are very easy to identify with, and the books are just sweet, I like them a lot.

Conrad's Fate, Diana Wynne Jones. It's not Charmed Life, and the world-hopping bits seem a bit contrived, but I certainly enjoyed it.

The Stone War, Madeleine E. Robins. I got really involved in this NYC post-magical-apocalypse story, though a few things didn't quite work for me. Lots of interesting magical stuff, a well-drawn largish cast, excellent creepy deserted city. DO NOT read any of the cover blurbs, which spoiled me for a nice moment. (That one is on the front! Sheesh, people!)

Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell. Arch and silly mystery-by-missive with a nicely androgynous narrator. Lots of fun.

Dragonshadow, Barbara Hambly. I am still looking askance at these post-Dragonsbane books, but I liked this one and still found it sufficiently complicated.
Knight of the Demon Queen, Barbara Hambly. This, on the other hand, was not a novel. It doesn't end. I am annoyed. I stop.

The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton with annotations by Martin Gardner. I emphatically disrecommend the Gardner annotations to any first-time readers who don't want spoilers. I was able to enjoy the novel as an odd little allegory despite them, but they annoyed me.

Moongather, Moonscatter, and Changer's Moon, Jo Clayton. My infrequent diversion of finding used Clayton in trilogies still seems to work out well, but I'll be out of her work eventually. I like the way her stories are told with lots of circling back, showing memories or meeting people again or changing between weakness and strength. I could see that this set was early work, but I liked the spikiness of it very much.

Nobody's Son, Sean Stewart. Very fine post-fairy-tale. Not sure what I can say about it except that people ought to read it.

Tell Me Lies, Jennifer Crusie. Witty, fun, really annoying when the heroine started doing very foolish things.

The Plant Hunter's Garden, Bobby J. Ward. Much more focused on the lives, trips, and personalities of a dozen or so modern plant hunters than anything about their gardens, but aside from the misleading title this is fairly interesting. I would have liked more depth of information about the plants or how the trips were planned and executed.

Repetitive Strain Injury, Emil Pascarelli and Deborah Quilter. Now, instead of my wrists aching, my shoulders ache! Hurrah! [Actually, now it is July and neither hurts unless I type on the laptop too long for a couple of days. I think trading off hurting body parts was quite helpful.]

The Isis Pedlar, Monica Hughes. Turns out I've read this one too. Shares with last month's The Dream Catcher the depressing beginning in which the hopeful thrust of the last book's ending clearly got nowhere. Since this is the last book set on Isis, I guess this ending continues being good after the book is over, but one has to wonder.

A Company of Swans, Eva Ibbotson. From http://www.livejournal.com/~minnow1212/142458.html. Charming, with some truly satisfying scenes (even if I could see one of them coming for miles). Ending maybe a little too (spoiler in source).

32AA, Michelle Cunnah. From read_o_rama. Sort of sweet, but also awfully irritating. I think I don't like stories that revolve around anyone's body parts. The rest of it was entertaining, but I did not find her tits to be engaging characters. (Can I say they were rather two-dimensional without getting smacked?)

Mr. Impossible, Loretta Chase. From oyceter. It's an entertaining romance novel, but I think I find the genre conventions too annoying to want to read any but really well-recommended romance novels. Also the title feels anachronistic, which would've been so easy not to do.

The Edge on the Sword, Rebeccca Tingle. Historically reasonable novel about a kickass girl, excellent.

The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby. A meandering book log, less entertaining than I'd heard.

How To Suppress Women's Writing, Joanna Russ. So good and made me so mad. I want to read her more recent work on this topic, maybe through interlibrary loan since the SPL hasn't got any.

Thursday, Catherine Storr. Quiet, slow-moving mystery/retelling about a girl whose best beloved friend disappears and her search for him. Very good.

A Wolf at the Door, ed. Datlow/Windling. Retold fairy tales for youngish kids. None stick out in my memory as especially good, but I was very much not the target audience.

Shadow Family, Miyuki Miyabe. Odd, clinical Japanese mystery about a murdered man who maintained an imitation family on the net with several other people.

Five Quarts, Bill Hayes. Lots of trivia and explanation about human blood, mixed up with reflections on his partner's HIV-in-the-blood. Well done.

Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang. Well. It's Ted Chiang. You should read it. Excellent short stories.

The Hallowed Hunt, Lois McMaster Bujold. Good even though it's not Paladin of Souls. Possibly more accessible? A more typical novel plot, anyway.

The Year of the Griffin, Diana Wynne Jones. Beloved comfort reading. I want more school adventures with Elda.

Instant Relief, Peggy W. Brill with Susan Suffes. From jenett. I think yoga works better for me overall, but when I'm stuck with a headache already so I can't do the yoga, the Brill exercises can help.

Crafts:
Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, Joelle Hoverson. Some good simple ideas for speedy knitting projects.
Knit Wit, Amy Singer. The knitty.com girl's main advice: buy the expensive yarn, because it's pretty and you want to play with it lots. Some nice patterns.

Comics:
Alice 19th 4-5, Yuu Watase. I suspect mangaka are paid by the character (as in person, not as in word).
Ceres 5-7, Yuu Watase. See previous.
Fruits Basket 6, Natsuki Takaya. Love the Fruits Basket.
Kare Kano 1, Masami Tsuda. I'd read this before but forgotten. The author's note sounds like volume 2 is very different, but isn't there an anime about these characters? Will have to read #2.
Mars 6, Fuyumi Soryo. Growing ever more dark and overwrought, and I find it disturbing that there are no real solutions, just problem-ignoring.
Sgt. Frog 1, Mine Yoshizaki. Really, really stupid. I am amazed that anyone bothered buying the right to this; maybe there's a popular anime. [Later: Some people apparently like it a lot.]
Top Ten 1-2, Alan Moore et al. Police drama in superhero land. Good stuff.
Tsubasa 3-4, CLAMP. Go Syaoran go! Also, more Fai please.
XXXholic 1, CLAMP. Tales from Casa Dimension-Witch. Not so fun.

(Books not otherwise noted probably came from rilina, read_o_rama, or limyaael, since there were several of those and I didn't keep good track.)

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Didn't you read KIT's WAR and RATS SAW GOD too, or did I miss them last month?

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Rats Saw God will be in the forthcoming June Books update (note that I do not forecast a time, as I didn't take notes while reading those). Kit's Wilderness I need to track down, since I don't see it there.

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Plus, in this one I'm not sure I'd have liked Dodie Smith, though I really like her books; that's a bit of a problem for the childhood holdover in my mind that idealizes authors.

I have this problem too -- probably why it took me six months to read James Thurber's letters, where his misogyny is even more evident than in his published stuff. And I'm not sure I'd have liked Dodie Smith either.

Theatre Shoes, Noel Streatfeild

That's one of my favorite Streatfeilds. Movie Shoes (or The Painted Garden, the much preferable UK title) also has the Fossils in it (in person, though sadly not Petrova).

The Edge on the Sword, Rebeccca Tingle.

There's a sequel, Far Traveler, which I read this month and haven't logged yet. It wasn't quite as good, I thought, because the heroine wasn't quite as cool, but still worth reading.

[eub.livejournal.com]

A Paradigm of Earth

It had some wonderful scenes around family. In less of a comforting way than I think I had in mind picking up the book.

How it set up the narrator's emotional situation in the early part of the book jarred me a bit -- the storytelling technique didn't seem as holy-whoa-that's-good as in Black Wine.

Nobody's Son

I mention that I liked the princess a lot.

[diony.livejournal.com]

Many, many of these books make me go 'ooh! I need to reread that!' (like Thursday and Nobody's Son).

And there is a Kare Kano anime, although I'm waiting to finish the manga (which is fascinating) first.