all books all the time

Between moving, extreme distraction, & cramming for a Japanese assessment test I haven't been doing v. much reading at all. Here are two things I've read, briefly, anyway:

Leche - R. Zamora Linmark. I felt really uneasy about this novel, which is a shame because I'd been anticipating it so much since having read Rolling the R's. This novel is a vague sequel, with Vince now grown up and returning to the Philippines (from which he moved to Hawaii as a child) in the wake of having won a community beauty pageant. I think there is a lot worth looking at in terms of claiming an identity (Filipino, in this case) as a third culture kid, as a diasporan, etc. & of course, of course a lot of that is going to be about culture clashes & stuff. But... I still felt like this book was written v. much from the perspective of a US American, & some of the "lol isn't how they do things here [in the Philippines] strange?" stuff, for me, crossed the line into patronizing & offensive.

Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris. This could possibly be the last of Harris' Harper Connelly books, as a lot of overarching plot threads get tied up here. It feels like it would be a good place to stop, anyway. I've enjoyed the other books in this series: suitably creepy novels about Harper, a woman who can sense the dead ever since she got hit by lightning as a teenager. She's parlayed this into a career as a private investigator, of sorts. The series shows her & her stepbrother/manager/now lover Tolliver dealing w/skeptics, true believers, people who don't want the secrets of the dead uncovered, & also, hey, making a living as a small entrepreneur & how both growing up poor & still not being v. class-privileged affect that. There's also a lot of stuff about going on w/your life after childhood abuse. Anyway: overall this book was v. satisfying, & I would be pleased if Harris ended here.

Women, Race & Class - Angela Davis. ( Read more... )

Cyclecraft: The complete guide to safe and enjoyable cycling for adults and children - John Franklin. ( Read more... )

The Role of the Academic Librarian - Anne Langley, Edward Gray and KTL Vaughn. ( Read more... )

How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff. ( Read more... )

Blowout - Susan Vaught. ( Read more... )

Grave Sight - Charlaine Harris. ( Read more... )

From Outside In: Refugees and British Society - Edited by Nushin Arbabzadah. ( Read more... )

Dark Moon - Lori Handeland. ( Read more... )

Kobal: The Mysteries of the Septagram - Paul Bryers. ( Read more... )

The Self Sufficient-ish Bible: An Eco-Living Guide for the 21st Century - Andy & Dave Hamilton. ( Read more... )

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... )

Cries and Whiskers - Clea Simon. ( Read more... )

Stealing Buddha's Dinner - Bich Minh Nguyen. ( Read more... )

Speciesism - Joan Dunayer. ( Read more... )

Father of the Four Passages - Lois-Ann Yamanaka. ( Read more... )

Last Scene Alive - Charlaine Harris. ( Read more... )

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.

Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community - Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer. ( Read more... )

Farthing - Jo Walton. ( Read more... )

The Machine's Child - Kage Baker. ( Read more... )

Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity - Edited by Mattilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore. ( Read more... )

Murder by Magic: Twenty Tales of Crime & the Supernatural - Edited by Rosemary Edghill. ( Read more... )

Greywalker - Kat Richardson. ( Read more... )

Making Peace with the Things in Your Life: Why Your Papers, Books, Clothes, & Other Possessions Keep Overwhelming You - and What to Do About It - Cindy Glovinsky. ( Read more... )

Home, and Other Big, Fat Lies - Jill Wolfson. ( Read more... )

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Readers' Advisory: The Librarian's Guide to Cyborgs, Aliens, & Sorcerers - Derek M. Buker. ( Read more... )

Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell. ( Read more... )