bookshelves: to-read
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Abiah
read and liked
Nancy's
review of The Atrocity Archives (The Laundry, Book 1):
"I have had this on my bookshelf for what seems like forever, & after spending this month reading a ton of Chaosium publications, I decided I'd read this one as well. As happens a lot with me, after I finished it I wondered what else on my shelf I've ...more "
"I have had this on my bookshelf for what seems like forever, & after spending this month reading a ton of Chaosium publications, I decided I'd read this one as well. As happens a lot with me, after I finished it I wondered what else on my shelf I've ...more "
bookshelves: currently-reading
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bookshelves: travels-and-places
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by Michael Chabon
I like the reviewer here on goodreads who recommends the book to closeted carnies. HA. ]]>
Abiah
read and liked
Tuckova's
review of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay:
"This is the slowest take-off I've ever endured and not given up. Prague, gay Jews, World War II, and ...I don't care about any of them. How did this get a Pulitzer?
Maybe 5 paragraphs that sang; the rest of it was, ehn, okay, but I really don't ...more "
"This is the slowest take-off I've ever endured and not given up. Prague, gay Jews, World War II, and ...I don't care about any of them. How did this get a Pulitzer?
Maybe 5 paragraphs that sang; the rest of it was, ehn, okay, but I really don't ...more "
bookshelves: women-and-children
it's dystopian lit at it's finest - a first person recounting of "the necessary" vs. "the dispensible" in terms of maternal identity and social contribution. In this society, childless men and women with undistinguished existence (though the librarian hints that, "a lot of people who read books end up here") are permitted the option of registering at the age of 50 (women), or 60 (men since their sperm is viable longer) to become part of the Reserve Bank, where dispensible people are housed in great comfort and periodically harvested in a humane way: eggs, a kidney, a portion of a liver, a cornea until their "final donation" when they give up all their organs and tissues. To pass the time and up their productive contribution, they participate in 'humane' clinical trials of drugs, exercise or psychology which are really anything but.
What's good about this is the implicit permission that the society members have given - first to the whole evolution of social roles and ideology behind being needed vs. dispensible; there's excellent subtext on the price of abortions (which are perfectly legal and available) to female necessity and the issue of handicap. There's no hunted animal atmosphere from the get go. Everyone knows what they are getting into. They have accepted it as a reasonable price. Of course, when walking and swimming and eating and attending art shows, the caged animal issues are clear, but the disposables must try to work through it. They attend therapy, they take antidepressants, they interface with photos and dossiers of the people who will be saved by their donations in order to move toward acceptance and being part of the bigger good.
If Sarah Palin weren't an illiterate halfwit, this is the kind of book I would expect to have predicated the "death panel" claims (no matter how clearly erroneous and stupid they are in 2009) - there's a lot in this book on the sanctitity of human autonomy and medicine, the disgusting nature of human testing (no matter how cleanly we try to gussy it up with consent forms and responsible, empathetic clinical oversight), and the role of women and feminism in society - the risks of focusing on 'production' as the ultimate good. ]]>