catching up!
Sep. 3rd, 2007 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionWhat the Dog Did: Tales from a Formerly Reluctant Dog Owner - Emily Yoffe. Yoffe's daughter begged her for a dog, & eventually this lifelong cat lady gave in & they adopted a rescue beagle named Sasha. Eventually she ends up becoming a dog person, even fostering several rescue beagles & ending the book w/her quest for a companion for Sasha. For the most part, I found her voice a little too snarky & trying too hard to be clever.
Also, it was hard to feel sympathy or connection w/some of the dog owners she talked about. She tried to demonstrate something along the lines of "Look how crazy people are, even when dogs act totally nuts, we still put up w/them & spend loads of money on them." But sometimes I just end up being furious @ how dumb some people who have dogs are. For example, one woman was in the habit of taking her 70-lb. golden retriever puppy (on a leash) on bicycle rides w/her in the park, while she was wearing headphones, no less. This dog had never received any training whatsoever. Should I have been surprised to hear that one day, the puppy ran after a squirrel, dragging her off the bicycle & resulting in her leg being broken in 27 places? I was also disgusted to hear childhood stories from folks whose parents raised beagles as hunting dogs, & just shot any that were sick or otherwise unsellable. One woman's father shot a few of her companion dogs, too. Ugh. Overall this was a pretty unsatisfying book.
Kitty Takes a Holiday - Carrie Vaughn. I love these books so much; they hit so many of my buttons, especially in terms of just plain fun reading, so well. This one, the third, was awesome, & made me realize another thing I tend to love about the slightly smutty paranormal urban fantasy that I've been gulping down over the past year: the chosen family. That is a huuuuge reading kink of mine, & Kitty's adventures this time revolve around gaining a pack, both wolf & non. I was reminded of Robin Hobb's Nighteyes: WE ARE PACK! So much love!! I could wish the overused "ancient Native magic turned evil" plot device wasn't there, but it wasn't handled really tritely/offensively (& hey, @ least there were a Native presence of people trying to fight the evil, & also some really incompetent white folks using evil magic). Or maybe I was just blinded by the love for Kitty, Cormac & Ben. I think this is the first time I've ever been tempted to write to an author w/suggestions for future pairings (actually, I want Kitty to be poly). Ha!
Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friends - Edited by Megan McMorris. The companion piece to Woman's Best Friend, edited by the same woman, didn't fill me w/the same general squeeingness. Part of that was b/c some of the essays seemed ridiculously short, ending as soon as they started getting interesting. I was pleased that @ first, this anthology didn't seem to be going down the dating-marriage-kids-&-a-pet route that the other one did, but eventually most of the pieces did turn that way. Yawn. I was surprised by how many focused on the horror of being a "crazy cat lady"--apparently if you're single & have a cat, or, gasp, more than one, many people see you as pathetic & transferring affection to cats over people. I had no idea--I thought "crazy cat ladies" were basically hoarders--although it's true that the gendering of the notion is peculiar. This is all covered in some of the more interesting essays. Anyway--a light read, not as glorious as the dog one, but I did tear up once or twice.
A Snowflake in My Hand - Samantha Mooney. This is a memoir written by someone who worked at NYC's Animal Medical Center, which treats pets for cancer & other serious illnesses. Mooney worked w/cats. I thought this would be illuminating or at least interesting, but it wasn't even written v. well. Sigh.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life - Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp & Camille Kingsolver. Kingsolver moves her family to a farm in Virginia so that they can grow as much of their own food as possible, as a reaction against the extremely oil-wastefulness of the industrial food structure in this country. A lot of the book is basically gardening porn, which I loved; Kingsolver is a good writer! But I also wished that she would've spoken more about the privilege that allowed her to uproot her family, move to a farm, & basically farm in addition to their professional jobs (writing, &, I believe, college professorship). She does talk about how local, healthy, tasty food is not the sole province of the rich, which I agree w/& is v. important. And she does a fantastic job in focusing on the pleasures of local food: how much more delicious than supermarket specimens trucked thousands of miles, & how odd that we have grown to expect food as cheaply as possible in this country, @ the expense of flavor.
I took issue w/some of what she said about vegetarianism/veganism. I will credit that it's easier to eat local if you eat animal products. But she says, "I'm unimpressed by arguments that condemn animal harvest while ignoring, wholesale, the animal killing that underwrites vegetal foods"--ie. bugs, rabbits, etc. that are killed accidentally when harvesting vegetables. Uh, I don't think I've ever encountered a veg*n that denied this stuff happened. Has she never heard of the concept of "least harm"? She says "Animal harvest is at least not gratuitous"--which is a ridiculous argument to me. Dead is dead; creating more death (of animals for meat) & saying that it's somehow better b/c you meant to do it? I don't buy it (to me it's kinda like, are the deaths of soldiers from friendly fire any less tragic than those incurred in battle w/the enemy? Dead is dead!). She also brings up the point that veg*nism worldwide is not feasible for people who live in certain climes; I'm not going to argue either way on that point, but it's pretty obvious that in a lot of the western world, @ least, it's pretty damn feasible, if not easy!
Anyway, whatever, clearly for her local trumps everything else, which is fine, whereas for me local is important, but so is respecting life. As she says, "A hundred different paths may lighten the world's load of suffering" (whose suffering, though? The happy pasture-raised animals that still end up as dead as their brethren in feedlots?). I did think it was funny that she was so down on veg*nism for making local harder or even impossible, whereas during her entire year-long experiment, her family was still buying commercial, non-local grains. Anyway--I liked this book, for the most part; it's well-written, & persuasive on the merits of local eating, & there are recipes throughout.
The Blood Books, Volume Two - Tanya Huff. This comprises Blood Lines & Blood Pact, both of which are creepy as hell. Vampires & werewolves generally don't creep me out, but mummies & zombies, when done seriously & not as a parody? Eeep! Also, I was glad to see the poly relationship (however uncomfortable) between Vicki, Henry, & Mike continues, even if neither of the men seem to want that situation to go on long-term.
Real Vampires Have Curves - Gerry Bartlett. For the most part, I thought this book was fairly fluffy & reasonably harmless: chick lit meets vampires. Not as fun & tasty a concoction as other fluffy books I've read, but whatever. But then near the end, it turns out that the only black vampire in the book is the one that has been killing other vampires (well, him & a wacko mortal who thinks vampires are demons). SIGH.
No Humans Involved - Kelley Armstrong. More fun Armstrong supernatural smut, yay! I've pretty much always liked Jaime Vegas's character. I mean, I've certainly had days where I feel like my friends have all the kickass powers/talents & what I can do doesn't amount to much & ends up w/me having to be bailed out. Anyway--so I was happy that this book focused on her. Also, there's a really hot scene in it. Yay. Two minor complaints: why, when there's suspicion that humans are trying to tap into black magic by killing children, are Jaime & co. told to check out South African magic? Yay. Not. Also, why the title of the book? Humans being involved is a large part of the plot. Hm.
Tripping to Somewhere - Kristopher Reisz. I read the first few chapters of this teen urban fantasy on the author's website & was intrigued. Sadly, the book as a whole was disappointing. It's basically a magic-infused teenage lesbian Thelma & Louise, but w/o the oomph. I found it hard to care about the characters or their fates, & hard to believe in what they were after. Funny/ridiculous typo: there's a fictional band, Pins & Needles, referred to several times in the book. The last time, it says "PMS & Needles." Ha! Also, @ one point Zurich is mentioned as being in SWEDEN.
Blue Bloods - Melissa de la Cruz. When I heard about this book, I liked its conceit: vampires as the descendants of the Pilgrims. But in practice, what this meant was reading a book about obnoxious rich brats @ a NYC prep school. The text is laden w/the names of designer labels, too. Also, I'm not excited about reading a book where all the powerful people are white patrician-types. At one point, a fashion photographer says that most people in fashion, including models, are Blue Bloods (vampires) & "You just know--in the shape of the eyes & a certain overall bone structure." Ie. white. Yaaaaay. Plus there were tons of typos & bad grammar bits in this book, arrgh.
We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists - Edited by Melody Berger. Like all the Seal anthologies I've read, there are weak pieces, & good pieces, but the fact remains that Seal's the one that keeps putting out anthologies on topics I find interesting--which says a lot in itself. Anyway--lowlights include a short, tired piece by feministing.com's Jessica Valenti, which sounds like it could've been excerpted from Full Frontal Feminism. On top of the negative reports on how the book treats race (not to mention how Valenti's defenders have treated POCs who've brought this up), I don't think I'll be reading that one. My main complaint was that a lot of pieces just seemed really short--like 3 pages short. Eh? I did appreciate Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's piece on recognizing different forms of resistance as activism (tho' I shudder to think that an act of consumption like buying lipstick would be considered such); Alexia Vernon's thoughts on traditional incest narratives & why they should be broadened; Mary Christmas's piece on anti-sex worker bias among feminists; & several others--mostly by the women of color who contributed to the collection (of which there were a fair amount, yay).
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son - Tim Wise. I was sort of dubious about this, despite (or b/c of?) all the props I've heard for Wise in anti-racist circles. But this is quite a good book; I think he explains white privilege in ways that would be useful, & heard, by white folks new to the concept. Of course, this is in part b/c--as he recognizes--often whites are more willing to hear from other whites on this subject.
Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer Asian/Pacific American Activists - Edited by Kevin K. Kumashiro, Ph.D. I was chuffed to see a few folks I know in here, hee. Besides that, I definitely appreciated that they included mixed-race folks, & obviously there was also a lot of talk about the pressure to either be queer or Asian, depending on which situation you're in. One essay talked about starting a group for queer Asians & getting a lot of resistance for wanting to keep it closed (to queer Asians). Ohhhhh I could identify w/that one. In this person's case, it was even suggested that they allow white men who were interested in Asians (rice queens!!) to attend events. Barf. Anyway, this is the sort of book that I think is radical just for existing; a lot of the content felt like conversations I've had w/my friends, or journal entries I've written, & it was v. validating to see these concerns shared publicly in print.
Also, it was hard to feel sympathy or connection w/some of the dog owners she talked about. She tried to demonstrate something along the lines of "Look how crazy people are, even when dogs act totally nuts, we still put up w/them & spend loads of money on them." But sometimes I just end up being furious @ how dumb some people who have dogs are. For example, one woman was in the habit of taking her 70-lb. golden retriever puppy (on a leash) on bicycle rides w/her in the park, while she was wearing headphones, no less. This dog had never received any training whatsoever. Should I have been surprised to hear that one day, the puppy ran after a squirrel, dragging her off the bicycle & resulting in her leg being broken in 27 places? I was also disgusted to hear childhood stories from folks whose parents raised beagles as hunting dogs, & just shot any that were sick or otherwise unsellable. One woman's father shot a few of her companion dogs, too. Ugh. Overall this was a pretty unsatisfying book.
Kitty Takes a Holiday - Carrie Vaughn. I love these books so much; they hit so many of my buttons, especially in terms of just plain fun reading, so well. This one, the third, was awesome, & made me realize another thing I tend to love about the slightly smutty paranormal urban fantasy that I've been gulping down over the past year: the chosen family. That is a huuuuge reading kink of mine, & Kitty's adventures this time revolve around gaining a pack, both wolf & non. I was reminded of Robin Hobb's Nighteyes: WE ARE PACK! So much love!! I could wish the overused "ancient Native magic turned evil" plot device wasn't there, but it wasn't handled really tritely/offensively (& hey, @ least there were a Native presence of people trying to fight the evil, & also some really incompetent white folks using evil magic). Or maybe I was just blinded by the love for Kitty, Cormac & Ben. I think this is the first time I've ever been tempted to write to an author w/suggestions for future pairings (actually, I want Kitty to be poly). Ha!
Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friends - Edited by Megan McMorris. The companion piece to Woman's Best Friend, edited by the same woman, didn't fill me w/the same general squeeingness. Part of that was b/c some of the essays seemed ridiculously short, ending as soon as they started getting interesting. I was pleased that @ first, this anthology didn't seem to be going down the dating-marriage-kids-&-a-pet route that the other one did, but eventually most of the pieces did turn that way. Yawn. I was surprised by how many focused on the horror of being a "crazy cat lady"--apparently if you're single & have a cat, or, gasp, more than one, many people see you as pathetic & transferring affection to cats over people. I had no idea--I thought "crazy cat ladies" were basically hoarders--although it's true that the gendering of the notion is peculiar. This is all covered in some of the more interesting essays. Anyway--a light read, not as glorious as the dog one, but I did tear up once or twice.
A Snowflake in My Hand - Samantha Mooney. This is a memoir written by someone who worked at NYC's Animal Medical Center, which treats pets for cancer & other serious illnesses. Mooney worked w/cats. I thought this would be illuminating or at least interesting, but it wasn't even written v. well. Sigh.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life - Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp & Camille Kingsolver. Kingsolver moves her family to a farm in Virginia so that they can grow as much of their own food as possible, as a reaction against the extremely oil-wastefulness of the industrial food structure in this country. A lot of the book is basically gardening porn, which I loved; Kingsolver is a good writer! But I also wished that she would've spoken more about the privilege that allowed her to uproot her family, move to a farm, & basically farm in addition to their professional jobs (writing, &, I believe, college professorship). She does talk about how local, healthy, tasty food is not the sole province of the rich, which I agree w/& is v. important. And she does a fantastic job in focusing on the pleasures of local food: how much more delicious than supermarket specimens trucked thousands of miles, & how odd that we have grown to expect food as cheaply as possible in this country, @ the expense of flavor.
I took issue w/some of what she said about vegetarianism/veganism. I will credit that it's easier to eat local if you eat animal products. But she says, "I'm unimpressed by arguments that condemn animal harvest while ignoring, wholesale, the animal killing that underwrites vegetal foods"--ie. bugs, rabbits, etc. that are killed accidentally when harvesting vegetables. Uh, I don't think I've ever encountered a veg*n that denied this stuff happened. Has she never heard of the concept of "least harm"? She says "Animal harvest is at least not gratuitous"--which is a ridiculous argument to me. Dead is dead; creating more death (of animals for meat) & saying that it's somehow better b/c you meant to do it? I don't buy it (to me it's kinda like, are the deaths of soldiers from friendly fire any less tragic than those incurred in battle w/the enemy? Dead is dead!). She also brings up the point that veg*nism worldwide is not feasible for people who live in certain climes; I'm not going to argue either way on that point, but it's pretty obvious that in a lot of the western world, @ least, it's pretty damn feasible, if not easy!
Anyway, whatever, clearly for her local trumps everything else, which is fine, whereas for me local is important, but so is respecting life. As she says, "A hundred different paths may lighten the world's load of suffering" (whose suffering, though? The happy pasture-raised animals that still end up as dead as their brethren in feedlots?). I did think it was funny that she was so down on veg*nism for making local harder or even impossible, whereas during her entire year-long experiment, her family was still buying commercial, non-local grains. Anyway--I liked this book, for the most part; it's well-written, & persuasive on the merits of local eating, & there are recipes throughout.
The Blood Books, Volume Two - Tanya Huff. This comprises Blood Lines & Blood Pact, both of which are creepy as hell. Vampires & werewolves generally don't creep me out, but mummies & zombies, when done seriously & not as a parody? Eeep! Also, I was glad to see the poly relationship (however uncomfortable) between Vicki, Henry, & Mike continues, even if neither of the men seem to want that situation to go on long-term.
Real Vampires Have Curves - Gerry Bartlett. For the most part, I thought this book was fairly fluffy & reasonably harmless: chick lit meets vampires. Not as fun & tasty a concoction as other fluffy books I've read, but whatever. But then near the end, it turns out that the only black vampire in the book is the one that has been killing other vampires (well, him & a wacko mortal who thinks vampires are demons). SIGH.
No Humans Involved - Kelley Armstrong. More fun Armstrong supernatural smut, yay! I've pretty much always liked Jaime Vegas's character. I mean, I've certainly had days where I feel like my friends have all the kickass powers/talents & what I can do doesn't amount to much & ends up w/me having to be bailed out. Anyway--so I was happy that this book focused on her. Also, there's a really hot scene in it. Yay. Two minor complaints: why, when there's suspicion that humans are trying to tap into black magic by killing children, are Jaime & co. told to check out South African magic? Yay. Not. Also, why the title of the book? Humans being involved is a large part of the plot. Hm.
Tripping to Somewhere - Kristopher Reisz. I read the first few chapters of this teen urban fantasy on the author's website & was intrigued. Sadly, the book as a whole was disappointing. It's basically a magic-infused teenage lesbian Thelma & Louise, but w/o the oomph. I found it hard to care about the characters or their fates, & hard to believe in what they were after. Funny/ridiculous typo: there's a fictional band, Pins & Needles, referred to several times in the book. The last time, it says "PMS & Needles." Ha! Also, @ one point Zurich is mentioned as being in SWEDEN.
Blue Bloods - Melissa de la Cruz. When I heard about this book, I liked its conceit: vampires as the descendants of the Pilgrims. But in practice, what this meant was reading a book about obnoxious rich brats @ a NYC prep school. The text is laden w/the names of designer labels, too. Also, I'm not excited about reading a book where all the powerful people are white patrician-types. At one point, a fashion photographer says that most people in fashion, including models, are Blue Bloods (vampires) & "You just know--in the shape of the eyes & a certain overall bone structure." Ie. white. Yaaaaay. Plus there were tons of typos & bad grammar bits in this book, arrgh.
We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists - Edited by Melody Berger. Like all the Seal anthologies I've read, there are weak pieces, & good pieces, but the fact remains that Seal's the one that keeps putting out anthologies on topics I find interesting--which says a lot in itself. Anyway--lowlights include a short, tired piece by feministing.com's Jessica Valenti, which sounds like it could've been excerpted from Full Frontal Feminism. On top of the negative reports on how the book treats race (not to mention how Valenti's defenders have treated POCs who've brought this up), I don't think I'll be reading that one. My main complaint was that a lot of pieces just seemed really short--like 3 pages short. Eh? I did appreciate Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's piece on recognizing different forms of resistance as activism (tho' I shudder to think that an act of consumption like buying lipstick would be considered such); Alexia Vernon's thoughts on traditional incest narratives & why they should be broadened; Mary Christmas's piece on anti-sex worker bias among feminists; & several others--mostly by the women of color who contributed to the collection (of which there were a fair amount, yay).
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son - Tim Wise. I was sort of dubious about this, despite (or b/c of?) all the props I've heard for Wise in anti-racist circles. But this is quite a good book; I think he explains white privilege in ways that would be useful, & heard, by white folks new to the concept. Of course, this is in part b/c--as he recognizes--often whites are more willing to hear from other whites on this subject.
Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer Asian/Pacific American Activists - Edited by Kevin K. Kumashiro, Ph.D. I was chuffed to see a few folks I know in here, hee. Besides that, I definitely appreciated that they included mixed-race folks, & obviously there was also a lot of talk about the pressure to either be queer or Asian, depending on which situation you're in. One essay talked about starting a group for queer Asians & getting a lot of resistance for wanting to keep it closed (to queer Asians). Ohhhhh I could identify w/that one. In this person's case, it was even suggested that they allow white men who were interested in Asians (rice queens!!) to attend events. Barf. Anyway, this is the sort of book that I think is radical just for existing; a lot of the content felt like conversations I've had w/my friends, or journal entries I've written, & it was v. validating to see these concerns shared publicly in print.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-09-03 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-04 05:05 am (UTC)Yeah, I like Jaime Vegas too, and I was very glad that the book didn't focus on JUST the witches. The previous book in the series was a tad disappointing. I still like the werewolf characters best, I think because they're so raw and not necessarily human.
re: Blue bloods
Thanks for the warning! I too am way past reading about patrician, privileged people from the northeast/New England/New York, have been for years. So I'll probably never read a book by John Updike, and I disliked Dead poet's society -- I'll cope. Somehow.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 07:48 pm (UTC)The scenes in this book w/Jaime & Jeremy--OMG SO HAWT!!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 09:51 pm (UTC)I will credit that it's easier to eat local if you eat animal products.
This is really interesting to me. I'd estimate that probably 80-85% of what Andy and i eat comes from the farmers market -- including animal products (meat, eggs, cheese). Yet, cheese* aside, animal products were the last thing i found at the market. After we moved into our apartment, it took me about a month of steadily attending the market every single saturday before i found eggs (i've since realized that this is probably because, in the summer, eggs sell out really FAST), and it took me another month before i noticed that someone was selling pork (a little while later i found someone selling beef -- that took longer because they only came biweekly). These days there are so many meat merchants that our beef and pork sellers have both stopped selling at the market because there was too much competition, so meat has certainly gotten more prominent and easier to find. Still, the vast majority of what's available at the farmers market is non-meat.
Granted, not being a vegetarian i must admit that i'm not 100% certain what, if anything, a veg*n would need beyond such produce as is available at my local market. I haven't seen, for example, any soy products. On the other hand, i have seen, i think, as least 2 vendors selling dried beans. I've also started seeing Washington state (everything at the market must be grown in WA state) grains.
* Our market abounds with cheese merchants. There are 4 that have been around the market for as long as i've been going to it, and occasionally another one pops up temporarily.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 07:46 pm (UTC)We don't get any dried beans *sniff*. That'd be nice! Local lentils or something, har har.