Beth’s Comments (group member since Mar 06, 2014)

Beth’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

Karen wrote: "Better late than never Beth :)
Welcome!"

Well, I joined three group reads earlier this month, so I didn't have time until now. :-)

I'll probably only have time for one or two books.
update 6/21: I'm doing 3 books

Level: Blue-blooded
Option Two: Books about members of a royal family

1.

Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse
finished 6/18/2014

2.

Age of Bronze Volume 1: A Thousand Ships
finished 6/20/2014

3.

Age of Bronze Volume 2: Sacrifice
finished 6/22/2014

I like this about as much as the stories in Fragile Things. Highlights:

The Wedding Present - I think this is one of the saddest stories in the collection.

The White Road - This fairytale retelling is probably my favorite of Neil Gaiman's poems. It's very elegant and creepy.

Murder Mysteries - This one is also very disturbing. This is my first time reading all of Smoke and Mirrors, but I've read this before. If I understood correctly,(view spoiler)[the main character killed Tink & her daughter; Raguel erased the memory, or parts of it at least (though he does dream about Tink's dead body).

I really like the story-within-a-story here. I love the ideas about the angels' work in preparation for the Creation, and it's a fascinating spin on what led to Lucifer's fall.

The angel who says "I don't care how aesthetically pleasing it would be, we simply cannot put it in the center" - is he talking about not putting the earth at the center of the universe? That's what it sounds like. (hide spoiler)]

I also think it's interesting that Marya is the fourth daughter, while things in fairy tales tend to come in threes. Even here - Marya's three tasks, for instance. Marya as the fourth, rather than third, daughter breaks this pattern.

B?

Nicole wrote: "I know we aren't planning on it currently, but does anyone else want to read an issue of Sandman once a month, rather than stopping after the first one?"

Do you mean one volume a month? Because reading one issue a month would take much longer. Just checking.

I would probably join a group read. I read Sandman a few years ago but I would like to read it again. I'd probably try to get them from the library, but if they weren't available to check out I wouldn't mind buying some of them.

edit: Since we're reading Mr. Punch, how about his other short comics, Violent Cases and Signal to Noise? Is anyone else interested in a group discussion about one of those?

reserved

reserved

I finished this yesterday.

I liked this, but it's a little too detached for me. It has some haunting moments - especially the siege of Leningrad - but I wasn't as emotionally invested as I thought I would be. Marya's ruthlessness (view spoiler)[ - killing the dogs, for instance - (hide spoiler)] makes her difficult to sympathize with sometimes. But she interesting.

Valente's writing is beautiful. I like the discussion of stories:
"A novelist writes a long kind of story, with . . . a lot of smaller stories in it, and motifs, and symbols,and sometimes things in the stories really happened, and sometimes they didn't."
and
"It's boring to keep telling stories where people just get born and grow up and get married and die. So they add strange things in, to make it more interesting when a person is born, more satisfying when they get married, sadder when they die."

Anyone else finished it yet?

Deathless 6-10-14
352 pages

Current Total:
1,378,046

U?

"She rounded the snow-swept corner into a half-sheltered alley, her breathing shallow, rough and fast." - Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
Next: 5th sentence, page 107

I don't buy books by very often but I recently bought at a library sale.

I also picked up for free.

360 pages - finished 5/20/2014 (audiobook)
Current Total: 1221495

Thanks for the link about "Closing Time."

I'm also not clear on why Goliath (view spoiler)[the alien invasion story (hide spoiler)] was called that. I know the reference but I'm not sure what David and Goliath have to do with this story??

I finished the audiobook yesterday.

reserved

"Feeders and Eaters" is truly disturbing. The matter-of-fact tone is done perfectly, which just makes it worse.

"Diseasemaker's Croup" is a neat concept. I thought this story was pretty funny.

completed yearly challenges for 2014:

He Said, She Said Challenge: 15 women writers - 2014 challenge (completed 12/31/2014)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

All About Audiobooks: Reading via Your Ears - completed in May 2015 at Level: Remixer - 6 books
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Remixer - 6 books

May 18, 2014 - May 18, 2015

Digital Downloads Freebies: A Voyage to Arcturus from LibriVox
- read 6/30/2014
Classic: The Wind in the Willows - read 11/29/2014
10-14 hrs - actually 13:Swamplandia! - finished 7/21/2014
New-to-Me Narrator: The Princess Bride finished 1/17/2015
Duet: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories 1/31/2015
Full Cast Audio: The Oresteia 4/30/2015

speaking of princesses:
"It is all very well to say that all princesses are good and beautiful and charming; but this is usually a determined optimism on everybody's part rather than the truth. After all, if a girl is a princess, she is undeniably a princess, and the best must be made of it; and how much pleasanter it would be if she were good and beautiful. There's always hope that if enough people believe as though she is, a little of it will rub off."
- "The Stolen Princess," by Robin McKinley, in The Door in the Hedge