August novel-reading
Sep. 17th, 2010 02:16 pmHi, I've been super-busy, which means the stuff I mean to write about but haven't got around to is piling up, which means that this entry keeps getting pushed back. Or maybe it's less that I've been busy by the standards I'm used to than that even everything day-to-day has taken on the character of the busy, being new and in need of active attention and adjustment. Joanne and her kids have come home and we are all living in what was formerly only their home and now is mine as well. I will probably have more to say about the many changes that is bringing to me.
My class has now met twice, and settled down, apparently stably, to nine people. The second one especially had a level of conversation with which I am very satisfied, and the democratic grading seems to be going smoothly. I am kind of drunk on the power of being able to dictate (or to have already dictated) the schedule on which people read, and to hear their reactions as they do -- also and relatedly, to say effectively, "Before we have this conversation, go and look at Foucault." We start in next week on Stranger in a Strange Land, which reminds me of August:
Lifelode is Jo Walton's most difficult book to find, which is a shame because I think it's probably her best. I made the NVCL pick up a copy, though! It is about housework and trying to deal honestly with the people around one (especially in a polyamorous context) and relativistic time dilation in a fantasy world with meddling gods, and it's sad and gentle and exciting and I really liked it.
This concludes year four (!) of my book log; stats will follow. Edit: Actually, I'll just put them in here. Cower before the felicity of my numbers!
In the year starting September 1st, 2009, and ending August 31st, 2010, I read 55 narrative books, of which 11 were books I'd read before and 44 were new to me. (That's an average of about four and a half books a month. For a while I averaged six, but for whatever reason I seem to read less in the summer.) 34 and a half were by women (with 17 individual authors represented) and 1 by someone who identifies neither male nor female. 13 (by 6 individuals) were by authors I know to be people of colour. I wrote at least a sentence of review or description of 18.
My class has now met twice, and settled down, apparently stably, to nine people. The second one especially had a level of conversation with which I am very satisfied, and the democratic grading seems to be going smoothly. I am kind of drunk on the power of being able to dictate (or to have already dictated) the schedule on which people read, and to hear their reactions as they do -- also and relatedly, to say effectively, "Before we have this conversation, go and look at Foucault." We start in next week on Stranger in a Strange Land, which reminds me of August:
Samuel R. Delany, [Trouble on] TritonTriton is a difficult and unsettling book; I'd tried starting it several times before this one and foundered in the first fifty pages or so, which would probably have happened again if I hadn't been doing so much careful reading of Delany lately. It still came across as flat and chilly in those early parts, because it takes a while to become obvious just how unreliable a narrator the protagonist is; then, as it does become obvious and they flee from that revelation into further and more extreme attempts to embrace their narrative regardless, it became unexpectedly compelling to me. It's about how if you are a selfish jerk who refuses to self-reflect, you will not be happy wherever you go, but it would be easy to do that in a facile way, and Delany does not; he evokes the psychology very carefully, convincingly, and with an oddly unyielding compassion.
Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (reread)
Jo Walton, Lifelode
Thomas Disch, Camp Concentration
Lifelode is Jo Walton's most difficult book to find, which is a shame because I think it's probably her best. I made the NVCL pick up a copy, though! It is about housework and trying to deal honestly with the people around one (especially in a polyamorous context) and relativistic time dilation in a fantasy world with meddling gods, and it's sad and gentle and exciting and I really liked it.
This concludes year four (!) of my book log; stats will follow. Edit: Actually, I'll just put them in here. Cower before the felicity of my numbers!
In the year starting September 1st, 2009, and ending August 31st, 2010, I read 55 narrative books, of which 11 were books I'd read before and 44 were new to me. (That's an average of about four and a half books a month. For a while I averaged six, but for whatever reason I seem to read less in the summer.) 34 and a half were by women (with 17 individual authors represented) and 1 by someone who identifies neither male nor female. 13 (by 6 individuals) were by authors I know to be people of colour. I wrote at least a sentence of review or description of 18.