Book stuff
Feb. 2nd, 2004 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeTrying to keep up with my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50bookchallenge stuff, but forgot what with Cleo taking a nosedive off my desk.
Just did a quick catch-up now, but I think I've forgotten some. Oh well.
4- Impossible Things (Connie Willis); this was a birthday present, and my goodness was it ever fantastic. A collection of short stories, science fiction for those who like authors who haven't forgotten that humans are the primary motivation for any story. The funny stories made me laugh until I cried, and the sad stories clawed at my heart in a way no book has in a long time. I can't recommend this book enough. I will be buying everything this author has ever written as soon as I have money.
5- An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Kay Redfield Jamison); as you may have gathered from the first three books I read this year, I've developed something of an obsession with reading about mental health. This was the book I was looking for, although that doesn't mean I'm going to stop reading on the subject. I quoted from her book in an entry in my journal, here, and that passage, perhaps, can better explain than I why I fell in love with this book. It is beautiful and dark and funny and vibrant and passionate, but, above all, it treats its subject with the utmost compassion.
6- The Winter King: The Warlord Chronicles I (Bernard Cornwell); after about six years I have come back to my obsession with Bernard Cornwell. This is the first in his so-called Warlord Chronicles, his re-imagining of the Arthurian Legend, as told by Derfel Cadarn, an imaginary warrior in Arthur's army. In this world, Arthur is not Christian, but a reluctant pagan, a reluctant hero, but a hero nonetheless. Merlin's magic is waning, and the only hope according to him and his apprentice Nimue is to bring the old gods back to Britain. Lancelot is not the shining hero the romances make him out to be, but an opportunistic coward more concerned with his appearance than with governing his country. It's a very entertaining read, and extremely well-paced and well thought-out. Cornwell is a master raconteur.
7- Enemy of God: The Warlord Chronicles II (Bernard Cornwell); see above
8- Excalibur: The Warlord Chronicles III (Bernard Cornwell); idem
9- The Crying of lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon); Oedipa Maas is appointed executor of the estate of an eccentric billionaire, and soon finds herself embroiled in a centuries-old conspiracy. I can't figure out whether I loved or hated this book, but it was intense and it was surreal. Every time I decided I loved it, something would happen to make me hate it, and just as I was about to throw it across the room in disgust, something else would happen to reconcile me to the story. In other words, I'm not surprised it's required reading for so many postmodern literature classes now.
10- Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones); I read this in one sitting, as it's exactly the kind of book I love. Absolutely charming, the story was novel and yet steeped in popular lore which gave the obsessive part of me that loves attention to detail a nice warm feeling. It's a children's book (probably anywhere from ages eight and up) about a young girl named Sophie who is cursed by a witch and who makes a few unlikely friends in her quest to remove the curse, notably a wicked wizard, his apprentice, and a fire demon.
11- The Snow Spider: The Snow Spider Trilogy I (Jenny Nimmo); Gwyn Griffiths, on his ninth birthday, discovers that he is a wizard. With some help from his grandmother, of course, who gives him five very special presents, four of which he is to use, one of which he is to keep safe. To say that I was incredibly impressed by this first story would be putting it mildly. From the apparition of Arianwen, the snow spider, to the unleashing of nameless horrors on the harsh Welsh countryside, Jenny Nimmo effortlessly weaves Welsh myth and modern storytelling in a beautiful story of acceptance, forgiveness and rebirth.
12- Emlyn's Moon: The Snow Spider Trilogy II (Jenny Nimmo); in this story Gwyn must team up with his neighbour Nia to help his cousin Emlyn who long ago lost his mother. Together they must help him and his father regain the stability they lost, using the magic that Gwydion has only recently begun to master, and tapping into the very real potential that Nia herself didn't know she possesses.
13- The Chestnut Soldier: The Snow Spider Trilogy III (Jenny Nimmo); Nia's cousin comes to stay with her family after being badly wounded, but the man that Gwyn's grandmother nicknames the "chestnut soldier" is a mystery to them all. It's only when a horse in the village dies and other strange events begin to take place that Gwyn begins to suspect that the same great evil he fought before has come back, and that he must once face down the same terrible foe once and for all.
14- Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Gregory Maguire); as it turns out, Dorothy was something of a nincompoop who didn't know much of anything and spent her time in tears, Toto was an annoying yappy dog, and the Wizard of Oz was a tyrant. You can't read this book and come out of it without feeling that Elphaba, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West, really got the short end of the stick in the whole story. However, the book isn't about Dorothy. Dorothy only gets about twenty pages of screentime in a four hundred page book. This is a book about Elphaba, and about Oz, and about the nature of good and evil, and what makes us who we are. What makes a person wicked? Are we born evil? There are Animals in Oz. They speak and reason, just like people, yet the Wizard of Oz orders Banns on them, and they are then treated like animals or second-class citizens and are imprisoned and penned up when they protest. Elphaba finds this immoral and wrong, and becomes a terrorist in order to free them. The political and religious landscape of the land of Oz is suddenly rich and complex, and we are no longer allowed to dream in technicolour. We are forced back into the world of the mundane, where green is green, and not emerald-coloured. But it is well worth it, in my opinion.
50bookchallenge stuff, but forgot what with Cleo taking a nosedive off my desk.Just did a quick catch-up now, but I think I've forgotten some. Oh well.
4- Impossible Things (Connie Willis); this was a birthday present, and my goodness was it ever fantastic. A collection of short stories, science fiction for those who like authors who haven't forgotten that humans are the primary motivation for any story. The funny stories made me laugh until I cried, and the sad stories clawed at my heart in a way no book has in a long time. I can't recommend this book enough. I will be buying everything this author has ever written as soon as I have money.
5- An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Kay Redfield Jamison); as you may have gathered from the first three books I read this year, I've developed something of an obsession with reading about mental health. This was the book I was looking for, although that doesn't mean I'm going to stop reading on the subject. I quoted from her book in an entry in my journal, here, and that passage, perhaps, can better explain than I why I fell in love with this book. It is beautiful and dark and funny and vibrant and passionate, but, above all, it treats its subject with the utmost compassion.
6- The Winter King: The Warlord Chronicles I (Bernard Cornwell); after about six years I have come back to my obsession with Bernard Cornwell. This is the first in his so-called Warlord Chronicles, his re-imagining of the Arthurian Legend, as told by Derfel Cadarn, an imaginary warrior in Arthur's army. In this world, Arthur is not Christian, but a reluctant pagan, a reluctant hero, but a hero nonetheless. Merlin's magic is waning, and the only hope according to him and his apprentice Nimue is to bring the old gods back to Britain. Lancelot is not the shining hero the romances make him out to be, but an opportunistic coward more concerned with his appearance than with governing his country. It's a very entertaining read, and extremely well-paced and well thought-out. Cornwell is a master raconteur.
7- Enemy of God: The Warlord Chronicles II (Bernard Cornwell); see above
8- Excalibur: The Warlord Chronicles III (Bernard Cornwell); idem
9- The Crying of lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon); Oedipa Maas is appointed executor of the estate of an eccentric billionaire, and soon finds herself embroiled in a centuries-old conspiracy. I can't figure out whether I loved or hated this book, but it was intense and it was surreal. Every time I decided I loved it, something would happen to make me hate it, and just as I was about to throw it across the room in disgust, something else would happen to reconcile me to the story. In other words, I'm not surprised it's required reading for so many postmodern literature classes now.
10- Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones); I read this in one sitting, as it's exactly the kind of book I love. Absolutely charming, the story was novel and yet steeped in popular lore which gave the obsessive part of me that loves attention to detail a nice warm feeling. It's a children's book (probably anywhere from ages eight and up) about a young girl named Sophie who is cursed by a witch and who makes a few unlikely friends in her quest to remove the curse, notably a wicked wizard, his apprentice, and a fire demon.
11- The Snow Spider: The Snow Spider Trilogy I (Jenny Nimmo); Gwyn Griffiths, on his ninth birthday, discovers that he is a wizard. With some help from his grandmother, of course, who gives him five very special presents, four of which he is to use, one of which he is to keep safe. To say that I was incredibly impressed by this first story would be putting it mildly. From the apparition of Arianwen, the snow spider, to the unleashing of nameless horrors on the harsh Welsh countryside, Jenny Nimmo effortlessly weaves Welsh myth and modern storytelling in a beautiful story of acceptance, forgiveness and rebirth.
12- Emlyn's Moon: The Snow Spider Trilogy II (Jenny Nimmo); in this story Gwyn must team up with his neighbour Nia to help his cousin Emlyn who long ago lost his mother. Together they must help him and his father regain the stability they lost, using the magic that Gwydion has only recently begun to master, and tapping into the very real potential that Nia herself didn't know she possesses.
13- The Chestnut Soldier: The Snow Spider Trilogy III (Jenny Nimmo); Nia's cousin comes to stay with her family after being badly wounded, but the man that Gwyn's grandmother nicknames the "chestnut soldier" is a mystery to them all. It's only when a horse in the village dies and other strange events begin to take place that Gwyn begins to suspect that the same great evil he fought before has come back, and that he must once face down the same terrible foe once and for all.
14- Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Gregory Maguire); as it turns out, Dorothy was something of a nincompoop who didn't know much of anything and spent her time in tears, Toto was an annoying yappy dog, and the Wizard of Oz was a tyrant. You can't read this book and come out of it without feeling that Elphaba, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West, really got the short end of the stick in the whole story. However, the book isn't about Dorothy. Dorothy only gets about twenty pages of screentime in a four hundred page book. This is a book about Elphaba, and about Oz, and about the nature of good and evil, and what makes us who we are. What makes a person wicked? Are we born evil? There are Animals in Oz. They speak and reason, just like people, yet the Wizard of Oz orders Banns on them, and they are then treated like animals or second-class citizens and are imprisoned and penned up when they protest. Elphaba finds this immoral and wrong, and becomes a terrorist in order to free them. The political and religious landscape of the land of Oz is suddenly rich and complex, and we are no longer allowed to dream in technicolour. We are forced back into the world of the mundane, where green is green, and not emerald-coloured. But it is well worth it, in my opinion.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 07:41 am (UTC)I lost/sold/threw out this book, but it was an interesting take...