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House of Many Ways - Diana Wynne Jones. Read more... )

Race Manners for the 21st Century: Navigating the Minefield Between Black and White Americans in an Age of Fear - Bruce A. Jacobs. Read more... )

Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White - Frank H. Wu. Read more... )

Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities - Timothy Beatley. Read more... )

Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam - Edited by Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera. Read more... )

The Wealth Inequality Reader - Edited by Dollars & Sense and United for a Fair Economy. Read more... )

Wicked Game - Jeri Smith-Ready. Read more... )

Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction - Robert J.C. Young. Read more... )

Ill Wind - Rachel Caine. Read more... )

Heat Stroke - Rachel Caine. Read more... )

Chill Factor - Rachel Caine. Read more... )

Windfall - Rachel Caine. Read more... )
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Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals - Karen Dawn. Read more... )

The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 - Edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith. Read more... )

Halfway to the Grave - Jeaniene Frost. Read more... )

Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing - Edited by Delia Sherman & Theodora Goss. Read more... )
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Tempting Danger - Eileen Wilks. Read more... )

Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money & Achieving Financial Independence - Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin. Read more... )

Lonely Werewolf Girl - Martin Millar. Read more... )

The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege - Robert Jensen. Read more... )

Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity & the Cultural Politics of Space - Rick Bonus. Read more... )

America Is in the Heart - Carlos Bulosan. Read more... )

Magic Burns - Ilona Andrews. Read more... )

The Stone Key - Isobelle Carmody. Read more... )

Living and Working in Britain, 6th Edition - David Hampshire. Read more... )
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Air - Geoff Ryman. Read more... )

Making Waves: An Anthology of Writings By and About Asian American Women - Edited by Asian Women United of California. Read more... )

Succubus on Top - Richelle Mead. Read more... )

Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live - Martha Beck. Read more... )

Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage: The First Quarter Storm and Related Events - Jose F. Lacaba. Read more... )

Romancing the Dead - Tate Hallaway. Read more... )

Wolf Tales - Kate Douglas. Read more... )

Topography of War: Asian American Essays - Edited by Andrea Louie & Johnny Lew. Read more... )
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The Alchemy of Stone - Ekaterina Sedia. Read more... )

Personal Demons - Stacia Kane. Read more... )
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Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization among Post-1965 Filipino Americans - Leny Mendoza Strobel. Read more... )

Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction - Edited by Nalo Hopkinson. Read more... )

She's Fantastical: The First Anthology of Australian Women's Speculative Fiction, Magical Realism and Fantasy - Edited by Lucy Sussex and Judith Raphael Buckrich. Read more... )

From Dead to Worse - Charlaine Harris. Read more... )

Best New Romantic Fantasy 2 - Edited by Paula Guran. Read more... )
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My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon - Edited by P.N. Elrod. Read more... )

Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora - Martin F. Manalansan IV. Read more... )

Iron Kissed - Patricia Briggs. Read more... )

Hum Bows, Not Hot Dogs!: Memoirs of a Savvy Asian American Activist - Bob Santos. Read more... )

Personal Demon - Kelley Armstrong. Read more... )

The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed Heritage Asian Americans - Edited by Teresa Williams-Leon & Cynthia L. Nakashima. Read more... )

Getting in Ttouch with Your Cat: A New & Gentle Way to Harmony, Behavior, & Well-Being - Linda Tellington-Jones. Read more... )
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TNR Past, Present, and Future: A History of the Trap-Neuter-Return Movement - Ellen Perry Berkeley. Read more... )

Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World - Edited by Jessica Hagedorn. Read more... )

Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History - Catherine Ceniza Choy. Read more... )

The Outlaw Demon Wails - Kim Harrison. Read more... )
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The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad - Minister Faust. Read more... )

Asian Americans: Oral Histories of First to Fourth Generation Americans from China, the Philippines, Japan, India, the Pacific Islands, Vietnam and Cambodia - Joann Faung Jean Lee. Read more... )

Cat Culture: The Social World of a Cat Shelter - Janet M. Alger and Steven F. Alger. Read more... )
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Please Do Feed the Cat - Marian Babson. Read more... )

The Little Guide to Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Blocks: A Manual for Artists, Activists, Entrepreneurs, Academics and Other Ambitious Dreamers - Hillary Rettig. Read more... )

Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals - Edited by Steven Best, Ph.D and Anthony J. Nocella II. Read more... )

Kitty and the Silver Bullet - Carrie Vaughn. Read more... )

GenXpat: The Young Professional's Guide to Making a Successful Life Abroad - Margaret Malewski. Read more... )

Smoky Mountain Tracks - Donna Ball. Read more... )
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Grave Surprise - Charlaine Harris. Read more... )

Real Murders - Charlaine Harris. Read more... )

Fourth Comings - Megan McCafferty. Read more... )

An Ice Cold Grave - Charlaine Harris. Read more... )

On the Prowl - Patricia Briggs, Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, & Sunny. Read more... )

Smoke and Mirrors - Tanya Huff. Read more... )
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No More Bull! The Mad Cowboy Targets America's Worst Enemy: Our Diet - Howard F. Lyman with Glen Merzer and Joanna Samorow-Merzer. This short book felt like it didn't really provide a ton of information not covered in other books, like Mad Cowboy (Lyman's previous book), but it was quick & readable. I didn't know about the possible connection between Alzheimer's & meat & dairy, though--v. frightening. There's also an extensive recipe section, which has a lot of basic stuff for beginners.

Brother, I'm Dying - Edwidge Danticat. Absolutely wrenching. Haitian-American novelist Danticat gives us an account of her father & uncle's lives, looking backwards from their deaths: her father's of pulmonary fibrosis, & her Uncle Joseph of pancreatis, which occurred while he was in detention in Miami after requesting asylum. Even though Joseph was 81 & ailing, & had just had his church in Haiti burned down & his life threatened by gangs, he was thrown into detention & didn't receive proper medical care (I actually remember writing letters through Amnesty International requesting an investigation into the circumstances of his death, when this happened).

Joseph was a second father to Danticat for years, while her parents were in the US working. The book portrays the agony of families separated this way really well--& also what it feels like when Danticat & her brother are sent to rejoin their parents in New York:
"Uncle seemed sad," Bob answered for me. "I think he was sad to see us leave."
"I suppose that's how it is sometimes," my father said in a whisper of a voice. "One papa happy, one papa sad."

Others in Danticat's family make multiple migrations as well, spurred in part by the political turbulence going on in Haiti: to Cuba, to the Dominican Republic, to the US, sometimes leaving & reclaiming children in the same way. And even though this is obviously sad & painful, it also shows the strength of family bonds, how people are willing to step up & take care of children who need it, how supportive of each other Danticat's family is.

The writing is clear & simple; Danticat doesn't need to use fancy tricks in order to break your heart.

Smoke and Shadows - Tanya Huff. This book is the first in a new series following Tony & Henry from Huff's Blood series. Unfortunately, it left me kind of cold. I think that's partly because Vicki & Mike are missing, & the interplay between all four of them adds more interest than when it's just Tony & Henry. Also, the premise: seven years ago, a wizard fleeing the destruction of her world opened a gate into ours. Now, the gate is open again & the Shadowlord is trying to destroy this world, too. It just made me feel like, weren't vampires & zombies etc. on Earth enough? The secondary-world stuff just felt kind of annoying. Also, the wizard, a woman named Arra who works in the same TV studio as Tony, is really irritating. I'll probably end up reading the next Smoke book, anyway, but if it's like this one I'll probably put it down.

Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America - Linda Furiya. Furiya grew up in the only Japanese American family in Versailles, Indiana. Her memoir has some good insights about shame, & how white friends alternately acted like her family's cultural differences were exotically exciting or anathema. I got frustrated w/the zillion typos & other errors (for example, each chapter ends w/a recipe, & one recipe appears twice; also, who was the fact-checker that thought that Finland was famous for its hot springs???), though. The writing is decent enough, but I finished the book feeling like something had been missing.

Mortal Engines - Philip Reeve. I knew I had to read this book when I saw the first sentence: "It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea." In this book, Municipal Darwinism holds sway over Europe--now the Great Hunting Ground; cities & towns chase each other & devour the weaker ones. The barbarian static cities of the Anti-Traction League--that include China & India--are behind a huge wall. London has plans, however, to open up that part of the world. Tom Natsworthy, a Third Class Apprentice in the Guild of Historians, gets caught up in these plans inadvertently when he saves the city hero, Head Historian Thaddeus Valentine, from girl assassin Hester Shaw. The book is fundamentally a fun adventure story, & it succeeds on this one. There's also some critique of imperialism & war & growth for growth's sake, which was reassuring, since it was set out pretty quickly that the non-European nations were barbaric for not having traction cities. This is the first book in a series, & I'll be continuing on to read the next one for sure.

Grave Sight - Charlaine Harris. After being hit by lightning as a teenager, Harper Connolly can sense dead people, & how they died. She & her stepbrother Tolliver use this unique skill to make their living, although often the same people who hire them are disgusted & disbelieving. Harper & Tolliver are in Sarne, Arkansas, paid to locate the body of a teenage girl. But when the body is found, & that of her boyfriend, someone else is killed, Harper gets threatened multiple times, & the sheriff advises them not to leave town just yet. In all of Harris' books that I've read, I like that she writes about small towns like someone who knows them well (as I believe she does): with a good eye for both their charms & their weaknesses; she doesn't condescend, either. Here she captures the oppressive atmosphere of a small town where most of the people seem to have it in for you (Harper's talent must come from the devil, & why did she stir up all this stuff, etc. etc.). I also like that her characters are people who have to work for a living, & that they tend to be rather matter-of-fact. Sometimes this means they end up sounding a bit similar, though; I'm not sure that Harper sounds all the different from Lily Bard or Sookie Stackhouse to me just yet.

behind!

Jan. 27th, 2008 07:56 pm
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Starting off 2008 by letting this journal sit too long. Here are mostly-brief writeups of what I've read thus far:

Felinestein: Pampering the Genius in Your Cat - Suzanne Delzio and Cynthia Ribarich. Read more... )

The Shadow Speaker - Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. Read more... )

Parrotfish - Ellen Wittlinger. Read more... )

Not Home, But Here: Writing from the Filipino Diaspora - Edited by Luisa A. Igloria. Read more... )

Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race, Place, and Time - Edited by Patricia Justine Tumang and Jenesha de Rivera. Read more... )

The Feeling Good Handbook - David D. Burns, M.D. Read more... )

Learn to Play Go: A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game - Janice Kim and Jeong Soo-hyun. Read more... )

The Blood Books, Volume Three - Tanya Huff. Read more... )

The Thread That Binds the Bones - Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Read more... )

Extras - Scott Westerfeld. Read more... )

The Sherwood Ring - Elizabeth Marie Pope. Read more... )

Poltergeist - Kat Richardson. Read more... )

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex - Edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Read more... )

Stormwitch - Susan Vaught. Read more... )

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy - Edited by Nalo Hopkinson & Uppinder Mehan. Read more... )

The Rules for Hearts - Sara Ryan. Read more... )

Dime Store Magic - Kelley Armstrong. Read more... )

Industrial Magic - Kelley Armstrong. Read more... )

PopCo - Scarlett Thomas. Read more... )
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On the Goddess Rock - Arlene J. Chai. Read more... )

One Tribe - M. Evelina Galang. Read more... )

The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings about New York City - Edited by Bino A. Realuyo. Read more... )

Rolling the R's - R. Zamora Linmark. Read more... )

The Road to Hell - Jackie Kessler. Read more... )
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Talking to the Moon - Noel Alumit. I loved Alumit's first novel, the devastating Letters to Montgomery Clift, so I was psyched to see he had a second one out. Jory Lalaban is a Filipino mail carrier who gets shot by a white supremacist (an obvious reference to the murder of Joseph Ileto).

The novel flashes between this incident (& his subsequent hospitalization) & memories of his past, beginning w/his youth as an orphan growing up in the Philippines who ended up in the seminary. Eventually Jory rejects Catholicism & turns to a local, pre-colonial pagan religion, for which he becomes a community spiritual leader when he & his wife, Belen, move to Southern California. Belen is convinced she's been cursed by her mother for marrying Jory (& taking him from the church); the biggest supporting evidence for her belief was the tragic death of their oldest son, Jun-Jun, as a child. Emerson, their second child, grows up feeling second best (& also, btw, gets beyond-the-grave telephone calls from Jun-Jun).

The novel switches between the viewpoints of Jory, Belen, Emerson, & Michael (Emerson's Taiwanese ex-boyfriend; I found his opinions on people who identify as Asian American interesting to hear), & also v. quickly between the past & present, sometimes without much of a marker to indicate. I didn't find that problematic--I thought it was obvious, & liked it--but I read a review where someone found that confusing. Hm.

Anyway--another thing I loved was a little subtheme about naming, which comes up w/both Jory's first & last names, Emerson, & Michael.

This is a really poignant, beautiful book. I finished it on the subway & kind of wished I'd been @ home so I could sit w/it & probably cry a little.

Magic Bites - Ilona Andrews. In this slightly grim fantasy novel, Atlanta is in shambles due to random surges of magic that leave technology useless. Kate Daniels, a mercenary, finds herself investigating the murder of her guardian & in so doing, must work v. carefully to stay on the good side of both the Pack, a group of shapechangers, & the Masters of the Dead, necromancers who control vampires. I enjoyed this a lot. My only nitpick was stylistic: Kate has a tendency to leave out contractions a lot ("did not" instead of "didn't"), but not enough to make it a speech quirk of hers; it just sounds awkward.
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Holidays Are Hell - Kim Harrison, Lynsay Sands, Marjorie M. Liu, and Vicki Petersson. Read more... )

The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee: Observations on Not Fitting In - Paisley Rekdal. Read more... )

Ask Me No Questions - Marina Budhos. Read more... )

I See Red in a Circle - Ceres S. C. Alabado. Read more... )

Dogs I Have Met: And the People They Found - Ken Foster. Read more... )

The Professor's Daughter - Emily Raboteau. Read more... )

The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood - Kien Nguyen. Read more... )
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The Vampire Tapestry - Suzy McKee Charnas. Read more... )

Rebolusyon! A Generation of Struggle in the Philippines - Benjamin Pimentel. Read more... )

Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America - Nathan J. Winograd. Read more... )

Prom Nights from Hell - Meg Cabot, Kim Harrison, Michele Jaffe, Stephenie Meyer, Lauren Myracle. Read more... )
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Hell's Belles - Jackie Kessler. Read more... )

The Language of Baklava - Diana Abu-Jaber. Read more... )

The Nymphos of Rocky Flats - Mario Acevedo. Read more... )

Crown Duel - Sherwood Smith. Read more... )

Gods and Pawns: Stories of the Company - Kage Baker. Read more... )

The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense - Suzette Haden Elgin. Read more... )

Twilight Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko. Read more... )

The Mirador - Sarah Monette. Read more... )

Vampire Academy - Richelle Mead. Read more... )

Many Bloody Returns: Tales of Birthdays with Bite - Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner. Read more... )

Devilish - Maureen Johnson. Read more... )

Prom Dates from Hell - Rosemary Clement-Moore. Read more... )

Fly on the Wall - E. Lockhart. Read more... )

Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience - Edited by Chandra Prasad. Read more... )
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The Secret History of Moscow - Ekaterina Sedia. When I got a sampler of this book @ WisCon in May, I was so pleased to find an urban fantasy novel that doesn't use the same old boring, overdone Celtic/faux-Celtic themes. Instead, we are shown modern Moscow, where suddenly people are disappearing & turning into birds. I couldn't wait to read the whole book, & I wasn't disappointed. This is splendid: sort of grimly terrifying in bits & sprinkled w/dry observations that made me laugh out loud in other bits, & also there's bits that had me really wide-eyed w/wonder.

Galina, whose sister Masha gave birth in the bathroom of their apartment & then turned into a bird & disappeared, finds herself in an underground world, after diving through a subway window w/two other folks investigating the disappearances. This underground is populated by those who have been left behind or wounded by life in Moscow: mythical creatures, forgotten or reduced to children's tales, & other humans who were scarred enough by the surface world to find their way in. Galina & her above-ground compatriots join forces w/Zemun, a cow who created the Milky Way, & various other figures from Russian history & mythology (like Elena, a Decembrist's wife), in order to find out what is happening w/the people-turned-birds.

Throughout the book I was torn between delight @ the underground world & sadness, because everyone has their own sorrows that have resulted in them gaining entrance to the world below. Galina, who has been in & out of mental hospitals for years, knows her mother dislikes her & prefers Masha--Galina herself seems to prefer her sister over herself. Yakov, a cop, has repressed memories of his tumultuous marriage & child. The denizens of the underground world are frozen as they were when they came through, which is sometimes especially horrifying, & the underground is definitely no paradise.

I kind of felt like the resolution of the book came a bit suddenly--a few chapters from the end, I was wondering if this book would end on an unannounced cliffhanger, but it's a stand-alone. I found the ending terribly sad, & a bit shocking (although I suppose not, really, but nevertheless I was shocked as things unfolded). I also liked how the book critiqued tourism & Western capitalism. Not in a preachy way, mind you, & there certainly isn't any Communist nostalgia here either. The characters in the book just recognize that, despite official public discourse, both systems have serious flaws for ordinary folks.

I'm glad this book stands on its own, but I also really want a sequel!
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The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection between Women and Cats - Clea Simon.Read more... )

Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith, and Sexuality - Edited by Sarah Husain. Read more... )

Growing Up Brown: Memoirs of a Filipino American - Peter Jamero. Read more... )

Thin Air - Rachel Caine. Read more... )

Translations of Beauty - Mia Yun. Read more... )

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