Finished Fed Up, by Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant. Meh.
Now I’m reading Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas, by Maya Angelou. It’s the third in her series of memoirs.
Finished Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas, by Maya Angelou, which was excellent.
Now I’m reading Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.
I read that last year and thought it was good but not great. Didn’t quite live up to all the praise heaped on it, I’d say.
I finished Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee, last night. It’s a middle-grade science fiction/fantasy in the Rick Riordan Presents series (which, hijack, is a pretty cool idea: the author of the Percy Jackson books wants to see middle-grade fantasies based on different world mythologies but doesn’t want to be a big old cultural appropriator, so he’s “presenting” these books written by authors of color that highlight different mythologies).
The novel stars a Korean fox spirit living on a planet awaiting terraforming by the Dragon Council. It pulls liberally from space opera traditions and Korean mythology, in a pretty cool way. Also, gender nonconformity is completely normalized: badges in the Galactic Space Force (or whatever it’s called) include symbols to show what pronouns to use for the wearer, and one major character uses “they,” and nothing is made of that fact for the entire novel except that the pronoun is used. The main character is a shapeshifter who switches gender, and other than her surprise at how much it hurts to be kicked in the crotch as a boy, nothing is made of that.
There’s a lot to like here. Yoon Ha Lee is a great author, and his Ninefox Gambit science fiction is really good. This wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, though. In the acknowledgements, he credits Riordan’s helpful advice. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of Riordan’s writing, and this book shows his influence more than I’d like.
That said, there’s not a whole bunch of space opera written for kids, espeically if you exclude the branded properties like Star Wars. And the premise is really cool. “Not as good as I wanted” was still pretty good, and I expect the target audience won’t be nearly as critical as me.
Yesterday I finished Anyone, by Charles Soule. I think it would make a good action movie. It wasn’t a perfect book, but I really enjoyed it. I’m going to pick up whatever this author does in future.
Today I started a book of short stories, Exhalation, by Ted Chiang. After reading the first couple of stories, I think it’s likely I will seek out more by this author as well.
Chiang’s other collection Story of Your Life and Others is very good; the first-named tale inspired the alien-first-contact movie Arrival.
As a read-aloud for my students, I just finished Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key. My dad has asked me to read this book ever since I started teaching, but I avoided it as pleasure reading since I 100% don’t want to read about teaching during my downtime. But it worked out great as a read-aloud. It’s about a kid with severe ADHD who gets into all kinds of trouble, and how he negotiates a less-than-ideal home nevironment, hostility from the parents of other kids, the fears of moving to a special ed class, and more.
Straight up, the author’s sense of humor isn’t mine. It’s pretty broad, pretty gross-out humor, pretty brash. His Newbery winner Dead End in Norvelt is on my worst Newbery list.
But my students were enthralled, groaning and gasping and EWWW!ing and giggling throughout the book. And it’s a pretty good way to portray a kid with serious behavior issues as a point-of-view character.
So, recommended with reservations, maybe?
Finished reading Around The World in 80 Days by Mark Beaumont. He is a British cyclist who in 2008 broke the Guinness World Record for a circumnavigation ride (18000 Miles) around the globe in 194 days beating the previous record by 82 days. His record was subsequently beaten a few times over until in 2017 he decided to have another crack at it. But this time, as the title is a homage to the famous Jules Verne novel, he set that as his challenge. The world record at that point was 123 days so he was setting the stall to smash it just under six weeks early.
He gained popularity for video documenting his journey in 2008 with a BBC documentary but in 2017 there wasn’t much commercial TV interest so he tells the story of the business behind the journey, the team behind it, logistics, triumphs and tribulations. It’s a good self-reflection of all the things around the journey good and bad, rather than a biography of himself. Enjoyable read.
Finished* Station Eleven*, by Emily St. John Mandel. I thought it was excellent, despite the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking that I’d rather read the story within a story in this novel. Maybe the author will write that someday.
Now I’m reading The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table, by Rick Bragg.
Glad you liked Station Eleven more than me, DD!
I’ve recently begun both The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O’Brian, my next in his wonderful series of Napoleonic naval adventures, and For One More Day by Mitch Albom, a kinda-sappy short novel picked by my book club. I like the first quite a bit more than the second.
I read So you Want to Get Rich as a Writer? --Let Ian Randall Strock Burst your Bubble… and Then Tell You Why There’s Still a Chance
I think he threw that phrase in with his name to help sales by putting a positive note in there, because there really isn’t a part where he tells you why there’s still a chance. Unless it’s his acknowledgment that Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Stephanie Meyer did it, but the odds are long. The last paragraph in the book starts out:
Far too true. I’ve long maintained that writing isn’t so much a career or a hobby as it is a mental disease. Strock, by the way, is one of the publishers who turned down The Traveler. In fact, he rejected the opening at a pitch party. Ya gotta keep pursuing your dreams, even in the face of opposition by the qualified. That’s how I got a doctorate.
I also read Margaret Creighton’s The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City, about the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo, NY. I wanted to read it because it’s similar in many ways to my book on Wonderland (which started only five years later), and because she also gives a bio of someone that I give a bio on, and I wanted to see how she handled it. A good book, and a good read.
Just finished Guilty by reason of Insanity by David Limbaugh, its quite good.
Finished The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table, by Rick Bragg. It was wonderful–best book I’ve read so far this year.
Now I’m reading Swampfire, by Patricia Cecil Haas.
Finished Swampfire by Patricia Cecil Haas. Meh.
Now I’m reading The Zookeepers’ War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War, by J. W. Mohnhaupt, translated by Shelley Frisch.
New thread: Will the Groundhog attend Super Bowl?
Finished The Zookeepers’ War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War, by J. W. Mohnhaupt, translated by Shelley Frisch. I thought this was excellent. It had some great anecdotes about German zoos during the twentieth century. One East German zookeeper smuggled himself across the border in a crate with a moose, for example. And then there was the time people thought it was a good idea to put an elephant on a monorail…
It wasn’t, but somehow, everybody survived, including the elephant.
Now I’m reading This Body’s Not Big Enough for Both of Us, by Edgar Cantero. It’s a funny noir about a pair of private detectives who share the same body.
I’m still reading Exhalation by Ted Chiang, a book of short science fiction stories. Actually some are rather long stories but they aren’t boring. I’ve already got another of his collections coming from the library.
I finished Patrick O’Brian’s The Reverse of the Medal, which was good but which passed over far too quickly for my liking two major plot developments: Dr. Maturin’s purchase of the obsolete but still useful frigate Surprise from the Royal Navy, and Capt. Aubrey’s trial for insider trading, both rather offhandedly mentioned.
I’ve now begun The Moving Target, the first in the hard-boiled Lew Archer private eye series by Ross Macdonald (1949). I like it so far - Archer is hired by a rich woman to find her alcoholic husband, who may be off for a weekend of heavy drinking, or may be cheating on her, or maybe is the victim of foul play.
Months ago, I thought about posting a review of this novel, and of the difficulties involved in producing a natural-sounding English translation. First of all, the reason you had not heard of it is that, according to the info in your link, that is only 1/4 of the actual novel, which is better known by the title “Legend of the Eagle-Shooting Hero” (or similar). People know it because it’s pretty much a genre-defining example of the cinematic epic wu-xia masterpiece.
I wonder, is the rest of the translation available, and, if so, did you finish the story? How did the translator handle all the different idioms/turns of phrase; references to Song or Tang poetry; honorific/humble language people use to refer to themselves (e.g., “this old man”, “this worthless disciple”, …) and others instead of pronouns; puns and wordplay; and other potential minefields?
As for the story, let’s say, do not expect realism here. It is a martial-arts fantasy in a historical jianghu setting. Good stuff.
February thread: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=889294