Wow. A beautiful collection of poems deeply rooted in the experience of being on the sea and in the tiny towns of the Alexander archipelago. Reading tWow. A beautiful collection of poems deeply rooted in the experience of being on the sea and in the tiny towns of the Alexander archipelago. Reading them conveys a deep love of the people, the fish and the connections between them all....more
I picked this book up from a Little Free Library, based on a vague sense that Seth was a writer people said nice things about so I might want to readI picked this book up from a Little Free Library, based on a vague sense that Seth was a writer people said nice things about so I might want to read it. I flicked through and saw that it was all in verse and thought there was no way this could be good. Oh, how wrong I was.
The book tells a few small stories, of the relationships between yuppies in the Bay Area back when home computers were a novelty and the big business were tied to the defence industry. It tells these stories with astonishing beauty; enough that I cried at the end, over the fate of a character who 150 pages earlier I'd decided I disliked and was the author of most of his misfortunes. That's a strength of the book in general: every character is deeply flawed, but the book holds them all with enough compassion that I still cared what happened to them.
And yes, it's all in verse. Sonnets. Onegin stanzas- intricate rhyming scheme and all. 14 chapters of them, the titles of which themselves make the table of contents into a sonnet that summarises the story. While there are moments at which the brilliance of the craft distracts from the story, they are very few, and the form actually serves the book very well, driving it with a pace and lightness of touch that had me read the book in a week and want to start over again immediately....more
This book is a lot of fun. For once, an alternate history that isn't about the Nazis winning. Of course it's plenty about the real USA and how governmThis book is a lot of fun. For once, an alternate history that isn't about the Nazis winning. Of course it's plenty about the real USA and how government does and does not work, but it's also an action story with engineers and scientists for heroes and a really engaging vision of a different way 20th Century technology could have unfolded. Towards the end it suffers a little from trying to cram too many ideas into a fairly short book, but the momentum of the story kept it going....more
It's not often that I read books about cooking. It's even rarer that I read "manly" books about going out into the wilds and hunting elk and bear. YetIt's not often that I read books about cooking. It's even rarer that I read "manly" books about going out into the wilds and hunting elk and bear. Yet this somehow managed to be both of these things and quite wonderful.
The premise is simple: man who likes to hunt and forage (but disdains showily macho hunter culture and is just a tad hippy) discovers a vintage French cookbook that is Wagnerian in its ambition and Biblical in its influence, and decides to put on a 3-day feast with a total of 21 recipes from the book. Much of the story hinges on gathering the ingredients, which range from game he hunts himself and mushrooms he forages for through absurd misadventures in fowl-rearing to simply tracking down suppliers of things that have gone out of fashion as food. Many of the interesting characters are the food suppliers, and the book is filled with stories of where things came from and how delightfully obsessive the people involved are.
This book's a perfect companion to the Michael Pollan narratives that have become so very popular over the past few years, but it takes a much less lecturing tone. Simply by the example it sets out, it reminded me of all the reasons food is simply more appealing when it hasn't been mass-produced....more
I read this in a day and bought the sequel immediately after. I'm impressed with the number of things Killjoy fit into one short book:
* A magical realI read this in a day and bought the sequel immediately after. I'm impressed with the number of things Killjoy fit into one short book:
* A magical realist thriller about supernatural forces * A morality tale about careless wielding of power * A bit of Practical Anarchism 101 (though it may be bewildering if you have no familiarity at all with the ideas anarchists grapple with) * The kind of loving critique of utopian anarchist communes that can only have come from someone who has lived in one and seen the challenges of making them live up to their own ideals....more
I got this on the strength of Stålenhag's paintings, which I'd seen online and made up a completely different backstory for (standard dystopian scifi)I got this on the strength of Stålenhag's paintings, which I'd seen online and made up a completely different backstory for (standard dystopian scifi). What he actually does is much more interesting: it's very much a young boy's fantasy but told well enough to be an engaging read as an adult. And of course the paintings are gorgeous: a very familiar 80s European suburbia made strange and unsettling....more
Strong end to a fantastic trilogy. Along with developing everything that Sword set up, it does a fantastic job of deploying comedy. I can think of verStrong end to a fantastic trilogy. Along with developing everything that Sword set up, it does a fantastic job of deploying comedy. I can think of very few other writers who've managed to have real laugh-out-loud comic relief that not only doesn't detract from all the serious things in the book but actually develops the plot and builds the world further.
I really want to read more about the Presger, and to read a book or short story that looks at Breq through other characters' eyes....more
Book 2 of this series gets much heavier than #1, as the backlash to Lewis & co's activism starts to really bite. I knew something about most of thBook 2 of this series gets much heavier than #1, as the backlash to Lewis & co's activism starts to really bite. I knew something about most of the incidents it recounts, but there is a real grim intensity to seeing them all put together in one well-told, well-drawn story....more
I liked this even better than the first volume, which I already loved. It's mostly slower paced, but it manages to be simultaneously E.M.Forster in spI liked this even better than the first volume, which I already loved. It's mostly slower paced, but it manages to be simultaneously E.M.Forster in space, chapter after chapter of excellent world building, and a wonderfully sharp critique of the modern world.
I do definitely recommend reading these in order. Direct references back to Ancillary Justice are explained enough that I don't think reader would be lost starting here, but I don't think I would have got anywhere near as into it without the setup of book 1....more
I had been meaning to read this for a while, since it's such a sacred text to the environmental community and it didn't disappoint. It's really a compI had been meaning to read this for a while, since it's such a sacred text to the environmental community and it didn't disappoint. It's really a compilation of Leopold's essays written over some years, in three parts:
The book starts with the actual sand county Almanac, which is a set of short observational essays representing one full year in the life of the farm he and his family retreated to on weekends. This was my favourite part of the book; above all else Leopold was a wonderful observer of nature and painter of scenes. There is some editorialising in this, but it's done with a rather light touch. More than anything else, it's a call to simply pay more attention to the rhythms of nature even as technology and urbanisation make it more and more possible to ignore them.
The middle part is a serious of descriptive and reflective essays written as Leopold travelled around North America. These are rather patchy, somewhat more editorial, and overwhelmingly sad. He had a very clear vision of what had already been lost to short-sighted overdevelopment, and how much more was on the cusp of being lost, and reading it 60-odd years later is actually quite upsetting. I like to tell myself that the destruction we've visited upon our own world was largely a product of ignorance, but essays like these are reminder of how untrue that is, at least for the "new world". We've had people calling this out for at least three generations, and yet we still have to fight the notion that nothing we do has any consequences.
The book closes with a set of much more prescriptive essays, about what should be done to halt the destruction. These made good for thought, but fall short of the perfection of his descriptive work. I found myself alternately agreeing, being made to think about concepts I hadn't considered before, and being frustrated by a few shortcomings: - Leopold's vision doesn't scale to the size of population we have today. Perhaps in 1966 it would have worked to put brakes on urbanisation, but today we can't do that without turning entire continents into sprawling exurbia. I'm not sure if this was a blind spot of his at the time, or just something that hasn't translated to today. - At times his focus on wilderness and emptiness is too narrow, and misses bigger systemic problems, such as the consequences of urban/suburban households all driving out to their dachas or the wilderness all the time. I suppose this is another instance of "does not scale". - Sometimes he just seems indefinsibly optimistic about human nature, arguing that most if not all of the cultural change we need can come just from persuading people to intrinsically value nature. It makes sense that he should feel this way, since doing exactly that seems to be his greatest skill, but the faddishness of environmentalism since Leopold's time shows up the weakness of such an approach.
All in all, a great read - just take the polemical part with a pinch of salt, and consider the ways our collective experience since this was written critique it....more
The most interesting, mind-bending comic I've read. The basic conceit is that every image on every page is of the same spot, a room in the house the aThe most interesting, mind-bending comic I've read. The basic conceit is that every image on every page is of the same spot, a room in the house the author grew up in, in New Jersey. The time frame shifts from before there was a recognisable earth (possibly before the history of the universe?) to some way into the future, and as the book goes on it jumps around more and overlays progressively more stories on top of each other. Some are told in a fairly linear way over a few pages, while others are dropped and picked up later, and others just left to be inferred.
I loved the sense of the hugeness of history and smallness of today that this book conveyed better than I've ever seen done with writing. And I loved the sections where different stories progressed at different speeds.
I read this in one evening, but I know I'll be back, probably jumping in and out in a less linear way. One thing to remind myself as much as anyone else: the book was published in December 2014, which is relevant because some of its storylines are in the recent past or near future....more
Wow. In the classic way of much great sci-fi, this book uses a couple of outlandish inventions to explore the human society of its time. The inventionWow. In the classic way of much great sci-fi, this book uses a couple of outlandish inventions to explore the human society of its time. The inventions themselves are interesting, but their reflections in earth society much more so.
This is partly a book about China--particularly about how the horrors of the Cultural Revolution still shape survivors even now--but it also has a lot to say about globalised culture, especially the divisions within the environmental movement.
The first 2 or 3 chapters are set in the Cultural Revolution and are absolutely harrowing. If you have a hard time getting through them, it's worth knowing that the book doesn't stay that dark....more
A beautiful book that powerfully illustrates its key claim: that the Native history of Seattle may be dramatically changed and challenged, but it's neA beautiful book that powerfully illustrates its key claim: that the Native history of Seattle may be dramatically changed and challenged, but it's neither past nor complete. A few things I particularly appreciated:
* The vivid description of the multi-ethnic Seattle of the early pioneer days. It made me wish that hadn't been wiped out, and wonder what kind of hybrid culture could have emerged in a Seattle or a Vancouver that had allowed it to keep flourishing. * A clear sense of how the contemporary Tribes of the region relate to ancestral and language groups. * A much clearer portrayal than I've seen elsewhere of who "Chief" Seattle really was and why he commanded so much respect and attention. * Many mentions of individuals and families who weren't necessarily individually notable. A lot of them are very brief sketches, but they still mean much more than just saying "we know there were Shilsholes and Muckleshoots working at this mill", etc. * The powerful sense of continuity of Native Seattle even among all the hardship and forced change. * The atlas section at the end that brings the immediate pre-Settler period to life though its list of place names and explanations of their significance.
That atlas was what I thought the whole book would be, but it's actually much more interesting in the context of all the stories that precede it....more
VanderMeer's use of negative space is stunning. I spent the first couple of chapters frustrated with omissions but it quickly became clear that they wVanderMeer's use of negative space is stunning. I spent the first couple of chapters frustrated with omissions but it quickly became clear that they were both deliberate and masterful. I'm not quite sure what this book is, but I know I loved it....more
Total cliche, but I read this over the MLK Day long weekend, prompted in part by the President-Elect foolishly and thin-skinnedly attacking John LewisTotal cliche, but I read this over the MLK Day long weekend, prompted in part by the President-Elect foolishly and thin-skinnedly attacking John Lewis. But I had been meaning to read this for a while...
Anyway, it's an important story well told. For me it filled in some gaps in knowledge (from across the pond our curriculum about this era pretty much stops at MLK and Malcolm X), and made a lot of the background feel more real. There's something about the pettiness of the colour line that's been really getting to me lately--all these things that would have been so easy for whites to concede and make black peoples' lives materially so much harder--and this book captures that well. It also humanises some of the key figures who I'm use to hearing discussed in a rather hagiographic way; of course John Lewis himself the most of all, and I love the digression about him preaching to the chickens....more
An absolute delight! As a thought experiment about different ways gender might work, this is already an excellent, compelling book, but its genius isAn absolute delight! As a thought experiment about different ways gender might work, this is already an excellent, compelling book, but its genius is that it's also a compelling story, a great exploration of how people react to the unfamiliar, and an exposition of Le Guin's daoism, and a critique of nationalism. Somehow she managed to cram all of those things into one not especially long book and make it work well as all of them together.
I'm very late to discovering how great Le Guin was--this is the first non-YA novel I've read by her--and wishing I'd started much earlier....more
Wow. This is the first real world-building scifi I've read in a while that wasn't a continuation of an existing world, so the first few chapters wereWow. This is the first real world-building scifi I've read in a while that wasn't a continuation of an existing world, so the first few chapters were a bit of a wade as it set the scene. Then the book took off and I couldn't put it down.
A lot's been made of the way Leckie handles gender, and it is an interesting detail. Personally, I also really appreciated a related part of this world: that languages are hard. So much scifi waves away all language problems with some kind of magic translator, but in this book it's repeatedly made clear that characters have to invest time and effort into learning each others' languages, those who haven't put in the effort simply can't communicate, and those who have routinetly find some things easier to say in some languages than others. It's one of those details that helped make a world in which there's a lot of almost-invincible tech and so on feel that much more real....more
I read the poem as a teenager, and I've gradually been getting more interested in graphic novels, so when I saw a graphic novel version--with GinsbergI read the poem as a teenager, and I've gradually been getting more interested in graphic novels, so when I saw a graphic novel version--with Ginsberg's involvement, so I knew it wouldn't be a horrible hack job--in Powell's recently I couldn't resist.
The poem is just as viciously powerful as when I first read it; though I can only imagine it would have had more impact when it was published, in 1956. The only detail that marks it as in any way dated is the repeated references to typewriters. The significance of the age is more that it shows the disaffection and societal failure it recounts as not only not being novel--I knew that, though it's good to be reminded--but even older than I had realised. The boomer generation has somehow managed to spin this fable of rebellion having been invented in the mid-late 60s, whereas here is a long poem from 10 years earlier that oozes vitriol at the establishment and recounts insistently all the "collateral damage" of an epoch that these days seems to get romanticised as being before everything got so damn complicated.
For me, apparently unlike for most of the reviewers on Goodreads, the illustrations added quite a lot. They're beautiful in themselves, the style feels very appropriate, and they fit both the individual images and the cacophonic succession of images very well. They also add something else unexpected: by letting the book put each breath of the text on a new page, they make the poem fit the print format much better than in the text-only edition I had read before, letting it flow more naturally than it can all squashed onto one page....more
I never took graphic novels seriously enough, until a friend gave me this book for my birthday. With no text at all, it tells the universal immigrantI never took graphic novels seriously enough, until a friend gave me this book for my birthday. With no text at all, it tells the universal immigrant story more beautifully than I had ever experienced before. Few books have warmed my heart like this one....more
This is the book to read when beginning to tire of Iain Banks's non-scifi formula. It starts out seeming, well, pretty formulaic, but as the plot deveThis is the book to read when beginning to tire of Iain Banks's non-scifi formula. It starts out seeming, well, pretty formulaic, but as the plot develops it becomes clear that the author realised he was in danger of falling into that sort of rut, and decided to play with the expectations that he'd set up. The result is one of his lighter and more laugh-out-loud funny novels, even though at the same time it has some pretty pointed things to say about a thoroughly regrettable period of recent history, and in hindsight about the things that white men get away with. My one criticism is that at times the protagonist's political rants--which were clearly Banks speaking through a character--get self-indulgently long. Even agreeing with him I found myself wanting him to shut up and move the story on at times.
This book also captures the zeitgeist of 2001/02 London really beautifully - a time I remember particularly vividly because it was the last couple of years of me living in London's orbit.
I would recommend not reading this one until you've read a few of his others. It stands alone, but some of the surprises would have had less impact if I'd read it with a less of an expectation of what Iain Banks did....more
There's a love story with fairly traditional elements of circumstances coming between the lovers.
There's clearThis book is several things interleaved.
There's a love story with fairly traditional elements of circumstances coming between the lovers.
There's clearly some autobiography, from an author whose own life gives her plenty of material.
There's a lot of exploration of the dislocation of being an immigrant and the ways in which the assumed community of people from the same place easily falls flat. I identified strongly with a surprising amount of that, given that my circumstances are very different from the characters'.
There's a mourning for Nigeria. Just as with Teju Cole's writing, I see so much of my Turkey in the author's Nigeria.
There's an extended essay about race, racism, and especially how those play out in the USA. This is mostly done very well--if the protagonist's blog were real I'd be a subscriber--but towards the end of the US section it starts to feel like a lecture is intruding on the story.
There's an interesting format experiment in which Adichie basically implements Brecht's ideas about giving away the story before telling it so that suspense doesn't interfere with the other things you're supposed to feel. Only Adichie does this far more deftly than Brecht, so it never detracted from the enjoyment of the story.
It does a surprisingly good job of carrying all these elements, albeit at times feeling a little overloaded. I enjoyed reading it and felt at times like it was really hitting hard....more
After dipping with Vol 2, I think the Testament series hit its peak in Vol 3. The Job story struck me as particularly well done, both as a dramatic stAfter dipping with Vol 2, I think the Testament series hit its peak in Vol 3. The Job story struck me as particularly well done, both as a dramatic story in itself and as the best-working correspondence between ancient and modern timelines. The rest of the book comes pretty consistently close to that standard....more
I loved this book, but must warn you to be careful with it. It messes with reality so effectively that it gave me nightmares twice, and made me miss mI loved this book, but must warn you to be careful with it. It messes with reality so effectively that it gave me nightmares twice, and made me miss my bus stop when I was nearing the end of the story....more
This book kind of blew my mind (and brought back my rabid Iain Banks fandom, after the slight disappointment that was Excession). It took me a long tiThis book kind of blew my mind (and brought back my rabid Iain Banks fandom, after the slight disappointment that was Excession). It took me a long time to read, partly because it's 600 pages long and partly because the hardback copy I have is too heavy to want to take on vacation, but also because it's thematically so huge that I kind of needed 4 months to digest it.
There are, of course, several interleaved plots, but the overarching one (introduced early enough for this not to be a spoiler) is a conflict about whether Hells should exist. This being the universe of the Culture, this is not a metaphysical question, but a purely ethical one, because civilisations can choose to have a hell or not, and that choice has become a major division between and within civilisations.
As I read the book, and plenty happened in my own life and the world in that time, what made me really love it was the number of parallels I saw between its techno-fantasy world and the real world around me. The sadism embodied in the Hells, the repugnant status-quo-at-all-costs reasoning used by those who would justify them, the sometimes hopeless-looking idealism of those who would get rid of them, and the weaknesses and limitations of all the would-be good actors all felt like biting commentary on events this year that Banks couldn't have exactly foreseen. And then there's the moral ambiguities of just what steps may or may not be justifiable in service of a noble goal (not exactly a new theme for the Culture novels, or the best exploration of it I've seen, but certainly an engaging one), and the multiple levels of different actors manipulating each other. Of all the Culture novels, even as it has one of the more outlandish plots, I think it's the one that has most to say about the world we actually live in.
NB: If you haven't read any of the Culture books before, don't start with this one because it definitely seems to assume you know something of its world. ...more
This is one of the most extraordinary and inventive books I have ever read. The author just lays on layer after layer of strange, and manages to makeThis is one of the most extraordinary and inventive books I have ever read. The author just lays on layer after layer of strange, and manages to make it work by the sheer audacity of keeping going.
I'm deliberately saying nothing about content because much of the pleasure of this book comes from discovering the world it creates, so I don't think I can say anything descriptive without taking something away from that. Just read it!...more
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