Review – Wherever You Go, There You Are

Posted September 27, 2014 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn

If you’re looking for something about meditation and mindfulness that’s devoid of spiritual interpretations and the like, this is one of the closest approaches I’ve seen that still focused on the meditation aspect and not just generally being “more aware”. It has some helpful suggestions for visualisation, including details not just of picturing things but of feeling things, like his suggestions for standing meditation of imagining yourself as a tree, the part where he mentioned approaching the practice with dignity, etc.

Overall, I doubt it’s going to convince anyone who is highly sceptical to begin with, or help anyone start a practice ex nihilo. But it’s worth reading, and sitting with, and thinking about, if you can put aside scepticism and just try it.

One thing I especially liked was that Kabat-Zinn doesn’t have any thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots about this. There’s recommendations, suggestions, but also reminders that any moment of mindfulness in the day, however short, is valuable.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Stacking the Shelves

Posted September 27, 2014 by in General / 12 Comments

I haven’t gone on such wonderful buying sprees this week, but I did go to two different libraries (go on, guess how many library cards I have). So it is not particularly a small haul, all the same. And I did get some books — my partner spoils me.

Ebooks

I read Graceling a few years ago, and liked it well enough, but I wasn’t bowled over. I’m going to give Kristin Cashore another chance, evidently; my ex-housemate Ru will be pleased with me. The Language of Spells was a somewhat random choice, while Fair Game is necessary for me to read last week’s review copy of Fair Play.

Review copies

I tried to have restraint this week, see?

Library books

More Heyer, which surprises no one; I keep meaning to read Sarah Addison Allen and since I’ve misplaced Garden Spells, I may as well start there; archaeology! paleontology! and… Matt Fraction. My usual hectic mix.

What’s everyone else been up to?

Tags: books, comics, non-fiction, SF/F, Stacking the Shelves

Review – The Human Age

Posted September 26, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Human Age, Diane Ackerman

I got a proof copy of this from Bookbridgr, so I’m not sure how many of the issues are going to be dealt with before the completed book is rolled out. There were still a lot of errors at this stage — a bit where some words were struck out, problems with punctuation, etc. I think the purple prose will be there to stay, though; the writing isn’t terrible, but it’s rather overloaded, and I’m not keen on Ackerman’s flights of imagination. It’s one thing to imagine the trace we’re leaving on the earth for future archaeologists, it’s another to imagine those future archaeologists. That’s science fiction, which I don’t have any argument with, but I don’t tend to like it when that crosses over into my supposed non-fiction.

Ackerman picked an interesting topic, though, and aside from the blizzard of adjectives, this book is an easy read. It’s not a pessimistic humans-are-destroying-the-world sort of book; at one point she mentions the idea of (some) industrial landscapes being beautiful, which is apparently a growing tourist thing in some parts of the world.

Her chapters are short, though her sentences are long, and all in all it’s a quick one. I’m not impressed by her writing style, but I would like to read more on the same topic with a similar outlook.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – Bath Tangle

Posted September 25, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Bath Tangle, Georgette Heyer

I’m not entirely sure how to rate this, because I did enjoy it a lot, but it’s still not on par with The Talisman Ring or The Grand Sophy for me. Having finished it, I was just a little relieved that all the tangles of the love interests were sorted out, and that everyone got to where they intended to go (though, I would almost have enjoyed it more if someone had made an irrevocable mistake, even if it were just Gerald and Emily; the way it came out was too good to be true, and Rotherham far too in control of the whole situation).

You’ve got to like that this isn’t just a story with a tempestuous male character pulling everyone along; Rotherham may well remind the gentle reader of Rochester from Jane Eyre with his manners. Lady Serena is no Jane, however, and she gives as good as she gets. I liked that their romance is not some insipid mutual regard, but something real and passionate.

I especially like that Heyer manages to bring in a spread of characters across social class and attitudes. Obviously, Lady Serena and her cohort are privileged as heck and don’t know it, but I don’t really expect an older book like this to really deal with that aspect. I liked the realism of Serena’s indifference to class while Fanny, equally likeable, has more difficulty with being snobbish. The way Heyer handles show-don’t-tell is pretty instructive, too; scenes like Serena holding the thorny flowers, or Fanny and Kirkby, etc.

Of course, the situation itself is one of Heyer’s typical tangles, with Serena’s father putting her under the guardianship of a man she jilted. It could be pretty creepy, to be honest, but Heyer handles it well — Rotherham never takes advantage of the guardianship, and is prepared to let Serena make her mistake if necessary, even if he is manipulative.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Georgette Heyer

Thursday Thoughts: Novellas

Posted September 25, 2014 by in General / 1 Comment

This week’s prompt from Ok, Let’s Read is about novellas.

What are your general opinions on novellas or short stories in a series or otherwise? Have you read any novellas? Do you always make sure to read the novellas in a series? Do you read them where they belong (i.e. between the correct two books) or are you not too bothered about that sort of thing?

They can be interesting. Sometimes they drive me mad because they’re in some obscure anthology, which I only want for that one story. Or they’re just not available anymore. Still, they can add something interesting to a series, and I do try to read them where they belong in a chronological order. Sometimes, that really doesn’t work — I read The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, by Sarah J. Maas, for example, back before the first novel was released, and I didn’t really care enough. It’s an interesting method of trying to whet people’s appetites, but you have to make it really good if you’re going to do that.

I have a lot of opinions about short stories because I like to write them. You can’t just think of them as a watered down novel; they’ve got to have all the elements of a good novel, but concentrated. You’ve got to tighten up the writing until every word is important, every paragraph advances something. I don’t mean just plot-wise; a good paragraph could help build up the world, the characters, or yeah, the plot.

For sci-fi fans, I’d definitely recommend Alastair Reynolds. I loved Troika, which is a 100 page-ish novella, and I remember being very enthusiastic about Diamond Dogs, as well. Reynolds has that knack of taking an idea that could fill a whole novel and focusing in on it, staying with it without getting distracted, and delivering something really powerful.

Tags: Alastair Reynolds, books, Thursday Thoughts

What are you reading Wednesday

Posted September 25, 2014 by in General / 0 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?
FF: Fantastic Faux, by Matt Fraction. Which is heavily linked to the Fantastic Four title in the Marvel Now lineup, which I haven’t read, so made very little sense. On the other hand, Fraction deals very deftly with a transgendered character, making it so normal and the transition so well done that it barely registers as a big issue at all.

And you’ve gotta love the line “All of you pale before our hetero-normative cisgendered classification of family!”

What are you currently reading?
The Fellowship of the Ring. Oh, Tolkien. Oh, Frodo.

The Enchantment Emporium (Tanya Huff). Can’t remember if I mentioned this last week, but so far it’s very fun. I do have to switch my brain onto the Mary Stewart/Georgette Heyer cousin-marrying-is-okay frequency, but I do have that frequency, so that works. Casually queer, all kinds of family stuff, interesting magic.

What will you read next?
Well, Tolkien aside, I’m gonna dig back into We Are Here (Michael Marshall Smith) and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Thomas Sweterlitsch), since I’m halfway through both and certainly owe a review for the latter.

Tags: books, comics, Marvel, Michael Marshall (Smith), reading meme, Tanya Huff

Review – The Hobbit

Posted September 24, 2014 by in Reviews / 9 Comments

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Yesterday — or, by the time this goes live on my blog, the day before yesterday, the 22nd — was Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday, so naturally that constituted the final bit of excuse I needed to reread Lord of the Rings. And it never quite feels right without starting with The Hobbit. It doesn’t have quite the same cleverness that I enjoy with Lord of the Rings — Tolkien hadn’t come up with, or didn’t see the need to explain, his complicated text provenances, for example — but I still enjoy the narration, the sense of being told a story, and the fact that he expects you, dares you, to be on the ball. As a kid, I didn’t notice some of the flaws in Bilbo’s plans at all, but Tolkien’s narration gives you the benefit of the doubt there. Self-deprecating, almost.

I think the reason I dislike the Hobbit films so much is because they are adapting the book I love to blend with the films they’ve made already. I can see why they’re doing that, and why people enjoy it, but I don’t feel the desperate need to rationalise the difference between the tones of the two books. I like my dwarves goofy, the hero’s journey a little less blatant; I like that Bilbo makes his way through all the adventures because he’s a hobbit, with hobbit-sensibilities, not just a hero in hobbit form. I love that hobbits are basically Tolkien taking aspects of himself and letting them run around in this fantasy world without the illusion that of course he’d be the heroic type. It’s still wish fulfilment, but it’s a kind of wish fulfilment where the hero probably would be better off as a grocer or something else quiet, and manages despite that.

I mean, I bet a very small percentage of self-insert fanfics have the sense to admit that in reality, they’re more like the hobbits than the typical heroes. I really enjoy that Tolkien quite blatantly did that with his layers of authorship and the characteristics of hobbits as a race, and didn’t give in to the urge to over-romanticise it — while still making hobbits endearing, funny, brave, worth reading about, still pulling out aspects of character from even the most countrified bumpkin that could make them a hero.

And, let’s be honest, I just don’t understand people who don’t see the skill in Tolkien’s writing, in the way he builds up the world. Even here, where it isn’t taking the main character very seriously, he still takes the world seriously, shadowing it with the threat of the Necromancer, the Ring, the great alliances of the orcs — hinting at twisted dwarves and the complicated history of the elves, deftly bringing in little bits of lore so that they’re natural when we come to them in The Lord of the Rings. Not because he was planning it, but because he knew his world and knew how to show it to the reader.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, J.R.R. Tolkien, SF/F

Review – Rewire Your Anxious Brain

Posted September 23, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments

Rewire Your Anxious Brain, Catherine M. Pittman, Elizabeth M. Karle

Received to review via Netgalley.

I didn’t read this from cover to cover, as I’ve read other books like it before. My main interest was in seeing how solid the scientific basis of this is — one of the authors has a PhD, but I could have a PhD in literature, which would by no means qualify me to speak on neuroscience — and how helpful I thought it might be for other people who end up in the same position I’ve been in. The good news is, from my knowledge of science and my intimate knowledge of anxiety disorders, there’s a lot here that’s useful. It doesn’t just focus on targeting the conscious part of anxiety generated by the cortex — which people often try to target on its own, with CBT — but also acknowledges the contribution of the amygdala.

Generally, it seems a sympathetic and credible book that someone with curiosity and determination could work through to help cope with anxiety, whether it’s a full blown disorder or just something that crops up more often than you’d like. It’s not an exhaustive reference book of information mentioning every single disorder, every single type of medication, but it is somewhere to start. And it quite rightly encourages the reader to get the help of medical professionals, and it doesn’t dismiss the uses of medication.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, mental health, non-fiction

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted September 23, 2014 by in General / 4 Comments

This week’s top ten list prompt from The Broke and The Bookish is “Top Ten Books On My Fall To-Be-Read list”. Which is a little difficult for me, because I don’t really sort my books into appropriate seasons or anything. I just have a perpetual, massive, glorious to read list. But here are some books I’m looking forward to getting round to…

Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal. This is actually a reread of a book I wasn’t wild about the first time round, but now I have this urge to reread it and read the rest of the series, and I suspect I’ll like it more this time around. We’ll see, but I’m hopeful.
Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett. This is a reread, too. I know I’m going to love this one because I always have before, though I somewhat over-read it so that I could virtually quote it, and thus have given it a couple of years’ rest.
River of Stars, by Guy Gavriel Kay. I’ve had this since it came out, but it’s at the end of a long list of rereads of GGK’s work, so I can watch his craft developing. I started pretty well but stalled on A Song for Arbonne, which is funny, because I do like that book and it covers exactly the sort of historical period I’m very familiar with and have done work on. So hopefully I’ll get through them all and get onto this new one sometime this fall.
Friday’s Child, by Georgette Heyer. Because I haven’t read it yet, and it’s Heyer.
Blindsight, by Peter Watts. Because it’s been recommended to me a couple of times, I got a free copy, and it’s been mentioned quite a bit in one of my book groups.
Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. Because it’s about bloody time.
Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean. Ditto. And the opening, with starting at university and settling in and all of that, it seems a good time of year for that, even if I’m not a student this time.
Possession, by A.S. Byatt. Speaking of scholarship and stuff, I’ve been meaning to read this for a long time.
Little, Big, by John Crowley. I’ve had this book around far too long, and I’ve been meaning to read it. I just… never seem to have found the time. About time I fixed that.
Steelheart, by Brandon Sanderson. I generally enjoy Sanderson’s work, and this one includes superheroes. So very sold.

What about everyone else? Comment, link me, you know the drill.

Tags: Ann Leckie, books, Brandon Sanderson, Georgette Heyer, Guy Gavriel Kay, Mary Robinette Kowal, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Top Ten Tuesday

Reading Habits

Posted September 22, 2014 by in General / 1 Comment

I’m not sure where I picked this up from, but it seemed like fun, and touched on some stuff I’ve never thought to mention before. So, another meme!

(1) Do you have a certain place for reading at home?
Mostly, I flop down on my bed for it when I’m with my grandmother. I used to have all sorts of hidey-holes where I’d go to read, but I’m bigger now and can’t fit into them so well, or Grandma’s filled them with boxes or junk or something. When I’m at home, I generally read at my desk with my feet on something, or up in my bunk bed. If I’m feeling particularly bleh, I make myself a blanket fort by hanging blankets down the sides of my bunk bed and curling up on the sofa underneath.

(2) Do you use a bookmark or a random piece of paper?
Mostly bookmarks. A random piece of paper may happen if I can’t find one, but I don’t really have a good excuse for that since I have a pile of about fifty bookmarks. Wherever I go, I try and pick up some bookmarks if they’ve got any free or cheap ones. I have some very nice ones from the Bodleian library shop.

(3) Can you just stop reading or does it need to be at the end of a chapter or a certain number of pages?
I have rules about this shit. It always has to be at the end of a page or, if the paragraph goes onto the next page, the end of that paragraph. I much prefer to stop at paragraph breaks or, even better, the end of even-numbered chapters. I remember when I was a kid, I didn’t like finishing at even the end of a chapter if the last sentence was dialogue.

(4) Do you eat or drink while reading?
Yep. Snacks, water, pop — it sometimes depends, though. If I’m reading something by a writer who is really good with the sound of words, I don’t eat/drink while reading so that I can whisper the words along. I’m a synaesthete, so the words have a ‘taste’, and for writers like Tolkien, Le Guin or Richard Fortey, that’s a part of the experience I wouldn’t want to miss. I don’t eat at mealtimes; Dad trained me firmly out of that.

(5) Do you read one book at a time or several at once?
Many, many at once. I shouldn’t, in that I inevitably end up neglecting something, but I like to have different things on the go for different moods and situations. I don’t read stuff by the fine prose writers in public, because I’m embarrassed about the fact that I want to whisper them. But seriously, ‘swept’ and ‘stepped’ and ‘crept’, or pretty much anything Tolkien ever wrote, they have such a satisfying mouth-feel and taste: I don’t really get why other people find that concept so strange.

(6) Do you read out loud or silently in your head?
Oh, I didn’t notice this question in advance! Silently, mostly, but with fine prose, in a whisper. I don’t like reading aloud to someone else, though. That’s when I start stammering and tripping over the words, which is not fun for anyone involved.

(7) Do you ever read ahead or skip pages?
I don’t mind spoilers, so yes, sometimes I do. Especially in comics, I find. I flick through the book, stop at a pretty page, and end up reading quite a bit to try and figure out what’s going on. Whoops. Obviously, I don’t end up doing this with ebooks, because it’s much harder to skip ahead. And I would never, ever skip the section with Tom Bombadil, and I don’t care what everyone has to say about that.

(8) Breaking the spine or keeping it new?
Keeping it new. And therefore not lending it to my mother.

(9) Do you write in your books?
Neveeeer.

(10) What are you currently reading?
Oh, cripes. The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff, primarily. And also We Are Here by Michael Marshall Smith. And… and… it’s a long list, let’s just leave it at that.

Tagging:
As usual, whoever wants to!

Tags: books, Michael Marshall (Smith), reading meme, Tanya Huff