For the usual meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews! I did get a few books this week, but funnily enough I’ve finished 3/4 already! So it’s almost cancelled out…
What’s anyone else been sneaking home from the bookshop/library?
Stacking the Shelves
Author: Nicky
Clean out your ereader challenge!
Yep, sounds like a good plan. Here’s the rules and pledge levels:
- Go through your E-readers and select books youâd like to read during the challenge. The book must have been Free or Nearly Free: under $5, Kindle Deals, Netgalley, Edelweiss & author review requests only (Blog Tour reviews are not accepted this time, sorry). Anyone caught not using a free book or a book that is pirated will be removed from challenge.
- Sign up with the linky below letting us know that you plan to participate. Between now and March 8th create a post announcing that youâre participating and a list of books you hope to read during the challenge (this can change). If you donât have a blog this can be done at the Goodreads group âTwo Girls and A Challengeâ Any participant that doesnât have a starter post up by 11:59 PM EST March 8th (giving you procrastinators a little more time!) will be ineligible for the grand prize.
- Start reading your books (starting March 1st) and reviewing them, either on your blog or Goodreads, Booklikes, etc. Put the link to your review (to the review URL, not your Web Address) on the review linky available March 1st, listing your blog name and the name of the book you reviewed. When you write your review, you MUST include the challenge logo and linky somewhere on the post so that we can all check out the reviews.
Lightly Clean â 1 to 4 eBooks
Spring Clean – 5 to 9 eBooks
Deep Clean – 10 to 14 eBooks
Xtreme Clean – 15 or more eBooks
Aaaand I’ll be going for the Xtreme Clean, because hey, I for damn sure need it.
Chris Amies, Dead Ground.- Allyson Bird, Bull Running for Girls.
Marie Brennan,Deeds of Men.Lars Brownworth, The Normans: From Raiders to Kings.Brenda Chamberlain,The Water-castle.- Anna Cowan, Untamed.
- Doranna Durgin, Wolverine’s Daughter.
Frances Hardinge,Cuckoo Song.- Jason M. Hough, The Darwin Elevator.
- Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim.
- Anna Kashina, Blades of the Old Empire.
- John Lawson, The Loathly Lady.
J.M. McDermott, Maze.Natasha Mostert, The Midnight Side.Rachel Neumeier,Black Dog.- Marianne de Pierres, Peacemaker.
- Jay Posey, Morningside Fall.
David Meerman Scott,Marketing the Moon.Alex Segura, Silent City.Laini Taylor,Night of Cake & Puppets.
Mostly ARCs/review copies, with a sprinkling of Kindle sales.
Blog hop thing —
Review – The Origins of Virtue
The Origins of Virtue, Matt Ridley
Hmmm, The Origins of Virtue is an interesting examination of the possible evolutionary causes of virtue, mostly defined here as altruism. It works quite well as a supplement that falls somewhere in between three of my current classes on Coursera: one with an anthropological bent, one largely genetic, and one about morality. It draws some of those themes together quite well, for me, and explains some of the studies — and some of the pitfalls of the studies, and wishful thinking.
It’s also pretty well written: it’s divided into both chapters and sections, which makes it easy to digest and keeps the argument focused.
On the other hand, it’s a little old now (1996), and Ridley’s ideology is very obvious to the attentive reader, although camouflaged by his scientific tone. At least the last chapter unveils his ethical principles: anti-government, anti-socialism (including such familiar institutions to Brits as the NHS), pro-small collectives and curated communal living. To be fair, he does analyse some of the ways this falls down, but he mostly focuses on why government-run things doesn’t work.
I mean, I love the NHS unashamedly. I went from the diagnosis of gallstones to medication to having my gallbladder removed in the process of a couple of months, without paying for anything at the point of use, at a time when I couldn’t support myself and was in agonising pain. Throughout my life I’ll pay back into that system with my taxes, and I don’t begrudge it at all, whatever Ridley’s conclusions told him.
Review – Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
I had trouble with Invisible Cities. It’s beautiful, light, a dream of a soap bubble of a book, insubstantial and for me, really difficult. I can appreciate the writing, the dreamy nature of the book, but I can’t love it. It just didn’t quite work for me. Maybe written by Catherynne M. Valente it would have worked for me — her use of language has weight, somehow — but in this translation at least, no, Calvino didn’t work very well for me. It’s gorgeous, but I quickly got impatient with it.
It’s still a worthwhile read, I think, but don’t look for a story here: that’s not the kind of book this is. It’s more like a dreamscape.
What are you reading Wednesday
Mmm, a pretty busy week reading-wise since I last checked in!
What did you recently finish reading?
Taking “recently” as “today”, a fair few things. I read Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino, which… hmm, it’s pretty, but I don’t love it. Review coming up on the blog tomorrow. Also Anatomies by Hugh Aldersey-Williams, which was okay but more a cultural history than anything scientific. And then also Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. which is just nuts and I’m still not sure what I read, but it was pretty fun.
Monica Rambeau for the win, anyway, even if Carol Danvers is my Captain Marvel.
What are you currently reading?
A lot of things, as usual, but the one at the head of the queue is The Origins of Virtue (Matt Ridley). I’m trying to focus on the dead tree books I’ve brought with me from Cardiff or bought while I was here, or left here on previous occasions, so I don’t have to drag them back there with me when I get the train. Looks like I’ve also got a bookmark in Augustus (John Williams) and Dreadnought (Cherie Priest).
What do you think you’ll read next?
Let’s be realistic, I hardly ever answer this question accurately. I’m gonna guess that comics-wise I’ll dig into some of my Captain America comics, and maybe read Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Otherwise, I’m focusing on books acquired in 2014, because for the first time in years I’m sort of keeping up with my purchasing rate. So eyeballing that list, I’m probably going to go for the one I’m least interested in right now and try and get myself interested, so that’d be Michael Stackpole’s A Secret Atlas.
Other than that, maybe Liliana Bodoc’s Days of the Deer, because Ursula Le Guin thinks she’s the best thing since sliced bread and I meant to read it in January.
Although on the other hand I should probably just work on some of the books I’ve got started already. Katharine Beutner’s Alcestis has been giving me accusing looks for months.
Review – Batgirl: The Darkest Reflection
Batgirl: The Darkest Reflection, Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf, Vincente Cifuentes
I very much enjoyed my first foray into Batgirl — certainly much more than I did the volume of Batman I choked down a while back for a class. Barbara Gordon is fun, and I have a thing for redheads anyway, I liked the art and her interactions with Bruce Wayne, and it’s a good introduction for someone new to DC.
I had two nitpicks. One, I didn’t think terribly much of the villains. They seemed almost too easily dealt with, like Gail Simone was starting Batgirl out soft because of the point I’m about to get to. It kind of makes sense, since she is being reintroduced and she is portrayed as needing to get back into the game here, but. Eh. I didn’t really care about the villains, put it that way. It felt a little bit rushed, too, though when I flipped back through it didn’t seem too bad. Maybe because the villain I was more interested in, Gretel, had less space.
The other thing was, well… why did we have to have a miracle cure for a disabled character? I don’t know much about Barbara Gordon or how prominent she might have been as a disabled character, so maybe there have been other issues building this up, but just jumping right in and finding that she was completely paralysed and then got better “miraculously” (as several people point out), it just didn’t feel right. I thought I was okay with it at first, given the way she talks about the time in a wheelchair and insists she’s not delicate now she’s out of it, but it didn’t quite add up for me.
Still, enjoyable, and I’ll pick up some more Batgirl when I get chance.
Review – Avengers: The Enemy Within
Avengers: The Enemy Within, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Scott Hepburn, Matteo Buffagni, Filipe Andrade
Avengers: The Enemy Within is basically the conclusion of the storyline in Captain Marvel: In Pursuit of Flight and Down, so I expect that if you haven’t read those, you won’t like this one. I’m not actually reading current Avengers, but that didn’t seem to spoil this crossover event. I have no idea how to keep track of all the timelines and so on, so I just throw myself in at the deep end every time and sink or swim. In this case, Carol’s background would help with the swimming, but Avengers background wasn’t necessary.
Love Carol and Jessica’s banter, love the appearance of characters like Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow and the Wasp, love great lines like Carol and Thor’s exchange here:
Carol: You like hitting stuff with that hammer of yours?
Thor: It is an act of which I am singularly fond.
I’m not a huge fan of the art — I preferred the issues that Dexter Soy illustrated — but that’s personal taste and most of the art here does what it needs to do perfectly. All in all, I’ve really enjoyed Kelly Sue DeConnick’s run of Captain Marvel even when I didn’t enjoy the art so much. The writing is very satisfying. I love how many female characters she highlights — I’d have liked Widow to have more to say, but that’s just because she’s the character I know best.
The ending here… without spoiling it, eh, I didn’t find it that original, but I think a lot can be done with it in the right hands.
Review – The Gospel of Loki
The Gospel of Loki, Joanne Harris
I love Loki’s voice in this. I promised Joanne Harris I wouldn’t mention A Certain Actor, but actually, I think she makes her Loki pretty distinct anyway. It’s recognisably her writing, her way of getting into a character’s head — I think I could recognise the style somehow without ever knowing the author — and she makes it work very well. I’ve actually found over time that I prefer her other work, like Chocolat, to Runemarks, Runelight and The Gospel of Loki, which are ostensibly closer to my usual genre, but I still liked this a lot.
It sticks fairly close to the source texts of the Eddas, while also linking fairly closely with Runemarks and Runelight, from what I can recall of those books. But you don’t need to read any of those to enjoy Loki’s version of his own story — though it would probably help you appreciate the wry asides and the neat little twists to the tale.
If I was going to compare this to anything, I’d actually talk about Sassafrass’ ‘My Brother, My Enemy’, which gives Loki a voice to justify what he did in a similar way. The main difference is that the song gives both Loki and Odin justification for their actions, while Joanne Harris’ version shows that neither of them are really justified, and left me wanting to bang the heads of both sides together.
Anyway, definitely fun and compulsively readable, as all Joanne Harris’ work has been for me. I love some of her descriptions of Ragnarok — she nailed it, even if I couldn’t stop seeing Chris Hemsworth smashing Bifrost. (Sorry. I didn’t promise not to mention that actor.)
Review – Longbourn
Longbourn, Jo Baker
At first I was ambivalent about this — I’m not a huge Austen fan, but the idea of flipping Pride and Prejudice over to look at the people that supported the Bennets’ lifestyle seemed interesting — and then I got more interested in it and then… I put it down for a day or so while I read The Gospel of Loki, and when I got back to it, I just didn’t care. I think it helped at first that I don’t think it really is that intimately entwined with Pride and Prejudice; most of Sarah’s story is separate from theirs, or at least not so closely linked that you can’t have the one without the other. Which then got kind of irritating — why not take this and make it stand alone, as historical fiction?
Anyway, the problems with it… were mostly that I figured it all out way ahead of time, and then I didn’t care enough to properly read on. I skimmed to confirm what I expected to happen did happen, and then I didn’t care enough to fill in the details. The love triangle, particularly, just sort of exasperated me.
On the one hand, the idea of it is a worthy one — while reading a biography of Austen recently, it seemed that she was more aware of the world that conventional assessments of her reflect, but on the other hand, it also noted that she was weakest with the lower class characters. But Longbourn just didn’t work well enough for me as a story in its own right to reflect back on Pride and Prejudice, which though it isn’t exactly my favourite novel ever, is a clever and witty book.
Review – Cosmos
Cosmos, Carl Sagan
I don’t get people who find this too dry, or lacking in a sense of wonder about the world. It’s full of a sense of wonder, no less potent because Sagan was agnostic (not atheist, as some people say), and he expresses this almost poetically. While some of the science is falling out of date now, it’s still worth reading Cosmos — as a primer, and for Sagan’s clear explanations of how the world works, and how our understanding got to this point.
I actually have the DVDs of the series as well, and while I know from seeing clips the book and the series are very similar, I’m gonna have to get round to seeing it soon. And if you’ve never heard of Symphony of Science, I definitely recommend it — my favourite is ‘A Glorious Dawn’.
One of the things reading this really made me wonder is what Sagan would think of what we’ve made of the world in the last two decades. We haven’t destroyed ourselves yet, but we haven’t yet disarmed, we haven’t even convinced everybody that climate change exists, and we still haven’t gone any further from our own small planet. I wish we still had Sagan, speaking clearly and rationally about all the problems we face — particularly because he had hope for us, as well as a warning.