Current Reads

Pornland: How Porn has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines. It's a very depressing look at the way the porn industry - and Dines makes it clear she's talking about hardcore gonzo stuff - has set out to package sexuality in a manner that is in no way open to interpretation and degrading to the female performers and female sexuality in general. It's good, in a sickening kind of way.

Been making my way through All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear. It is a pleasant book to read slowly, being sort of slow-moving, plotwise, and full of beautiful writing.

Just got a brand new copy of Diana Wynne Jones: Reflections on the Magic of Writing, a collection of her essays/interviews/articles, etc. So excited. I was truly saddened to read about her passing a year or so ago. Her books were a big part of my childhood/teenage years, and I still enjoy reading many of her books.

Today I finished Savages by Don Winslow. It's a story about two independent pot growers in SoCal who are being targeted for incorporation by a Mexical cartel, so it's 11 kinds of fucked up. But I enjoyed it. I loves me a good OT3 anyway, so the relationship between Ben, Chon, and O is interesting to me. And the writing is very SoCal and full of slang and pop culture references, so it's got a sort of breezy feel to it, even when the events it's describing are kind of horrifying. It was a quick, exciting read full of twists and turns.

The ending

Spoiler:

I read that book when it first came out and yes, the ending is depressing and weirdly heavy for the tone of the rest of the book which is batshit crazy but in a weirdly fun way.

Yeah, the ending felt kind of out of place compared to the rest of the book, which seems like a funny thing to say considering the book opens with Chon watching that viral video of those dudes the cartel beheaded.

I want to read the prequel Kings of Cool now, which probably has a more upbeat ending, considering it should end more or less where this one began.

I have that on my kindle but haven't read it yet.

I enjoyed the movie, actually. Its a book that translates very well to film.

I'm reading Code Name Verity and crossing my fingers that I'll love it as much as the rest of you do. So far, so good. It hasn't exactly sucked me in yet, but I definitely have a healthy interest in the characters, and Verity's angry sass towards her captors makes me grin!

I bought Tana French's latest at the airport and am so so on it so far. I feel like her characters are kind of same-y, but the writing and story is still relatively compelling despite that.

I read Savages this summer, after my dad was all BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE LAST TEN YEARS. It was readable, but I was pretty meh on it, and I really really wanted to slap O, omg.

I just read 84, Charing Cross Road and cried a little at the end. It was lovely. (Then again, I'm sick and haven't really slept. So far today I have also cried at fitting dishes in the dishwasher, taking out a row of knitting, and watching Captain America. "I had a date"? Jesus. )

I wasn't in the mood for The Casual Vacancy so I'm currently reading Rick Riordan's The Mark of Athena. FINALLY, we get Annabeth's POV and an answer to the question of whether or not Annabeth has a bellybutton.

Almost done with Amy Waldman's The Submission, and I love how I can kinda sympathize or at least understand the POV of every character. Every person in the novel feels very layered and complex, and you hurt for some of them and want to knock sense into them at the same time, Sean especially.

I'm reading Cloud Atlas and I am loving it.

I just finished Damien Echols' Life After Death. There's been a great deal of media coverage of it, and they're not just trying to promote it: it's a great book and a fascinating read. Echols' is a compelling writer. It's astonishing given his early incredibly impoverished life and going to death row at 18, but he's interesting, engaging, and even downright funny. It's also completely horrifying. It's amazing he's as intelligent and sound-minded as he is after the tremendous physical and emotional abuse he experienced in there. I was a little bored by the spirituality stuff (very much not my bag), but all that is very much about how he coped with the unbearable rather than proselytizing or anything.

Now I want to read about the legal stuff with the WM3, because Echols' book is entirely about his own experience and doesn't touch on the case or the legal stuff much at all. I'm only familiar with the wikipedia entry, so I'd like to read more.

Have you watched any of the Paradise Lost documentaries? They aired on HBO initially and there are three of them.

I think Atom Egoyen is making a movie on the subject too and I'm interested to see it (Reese Witherspoon plays one of the mothers of the victims, and I belive she plays the one who originally thought they were guilty, but eventually ended up defending them).

I haven't, I want to track those documentaries down. I'm also looking for a book-version, because reading in bed is when I have the most time for stuff like that.

I am fairly sure there is a Paradise Lost book (about this case, not the John Milton one), I've seen it, but never read it.

I'm reading Nate Silver's book, The Signal And The Noise, and it's okay so far. The excerpt that made me want to read it was quoted in the Washington Post, about how Deep Blue defeated Kasparov with...a bug.

I think that excerpt sounds promising enough for me to put that book on my list, so thanks for mentioning it, p_p!

I just finished The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne Valente and I looooooved it! I loved the first book (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making) so much that I pre-ordered this one pretty much as soon as it was possible.

In this one, September finally makes her way back to Fairyland to find that people's shadows have gone missing! Figuring this is her fault on account of the way she gave away her own shadow the last time she was there, September vows to make things right and sets off for Fairyland Below. It's got the same charming kinds of characters, lovely use of language and wonderful fairytale quality that the first one has, so I was really, really pleased.

Dachelle wrote: Now I'm reading Tender Morsels by the author of The Brides of Rollrock Island, which is turning out to be good but a much more disturbing read.

I read Tender Morsels last year after the Bitch Magazine YA booklist debacle; Tender Morsels was one of the books they removed from their list for being inappropriate for YA readers. I LOVED it. I love fairy tale retellings, and Snow White and Rose Red is one of my favorites which doesn't get a lot of play when it comes to retellings. It is disturbing and a little hard to read, but I thought it was so wonderful, even if the ending did break my heart a little bit.

whatthedeuce wrote:I think that excerpt sounds promising enough for me to put that book on my list, so thanks for mentioning it, p_p!

He has a great chapter on the crash in 2008 which is complicated (there is no avoiding that) but understandable. And it has this wonderful quote:

The market was counting on [ratings agencies] to be the Debbie Downer of the mortgage party—but they were acting more like Robert Downey Jr.

Hee! I'm definitely sold!

I finished The Mark of Athena on my commute this morning and I'm OMG, WHY DID YOU LEAVE US HANGING OVER THE BIGGEST CLIFF OF ALL YOU TROLL RICK RIORDAN!!! right now. Annabeth is awesome-this book was her moment to shine and the end has left me CEASING TO BE BECAUSE I JUST CAN'T. I NO LONGER AM.

Now I think I'm going back to Dance with Dragons for a few chapters while I will myself back into existence.