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highlyeccentricCurrently Reading: 'The Guest Cat'; 'Gone to Earth'; a weird collection of psych and sociology stuff on love, for work; Steinbeck's play Of Mice and Men, over and over every night for a week. Aaargh. Theatre.
Recently Finished:
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I *loved* this. I loved everything about it: the setting, the metaleptic narrative style with its wry asides to the reader, the many references to classic fantasy... And most of all I loved the Marquess. The Marques is every problem I have with the fate of the Pevensie children, wrapped in a hideous bow.
My biggest problem with this book is I really, really want to share it with my little sister and she's probably not the right age yet.
Founding Friendships: Friendships Between Men and Women in the Early American Republic by Cassandra A. Good
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was both very useful to me and kind of annoying as a book. It got my back up with 'working class and black people just don't leave records so that's why my book is about rich elites'. Well, yes, that is a strategic problem, but just because YOU don't have the skills to work with the kind of records that do exist doesn't mean no one does. (Seriously, you can't tell me the underground railroad didn't involve a whole range of cross-sex collaborations that might usefully be described as friendship)
On the other hand: the stuff about not having a precise vocabulary to describe the thing: YEP. THAT.
Moral Panic 101: Equality, Acceptance and the Safe Schools Scandal by Benjamin Law
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
YES THIS.
Damn, this is an incredibly well-researched and /useful/ essay. Aside from a fascinating history of the media beat-up around Safe Schools*, it's got all sorts of useful subsections. The section on school-age gender transition is particularly interesting, and useful if (like me) you're the sort of person whose friends expect you to explain this stuff at parties.
*An interesting comparison point: the Meanjin long essay by Dennis Muller on how journalism got Australia the Royal Commission. Funny that the clerical abuse exposé was driven by a relatively tabloid-y paper, the Newcastle Herald, while the Safe Schools beat-up came from the august pages of The Australian. But also, I wonder if the latter would have been *possible* if the former hadn't succeeded. If The Australian saw in the clerical abuse exposé not an ethical imperative but a method of driving up sales, and have been shopping around for something sufficiently scandalous ever since.
Blue Eyed Stranger by Alex Beecroft
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Oh gosh, this was a weird experience for me. As a romance: it's VERY GOOD. A++ I approve wholeheartedly.
As a study of historical re-creationism, I'm not sure if it's IRRITATING or SPOT ON. This guy's Viking re-enactment group are called Bretwaelda. An Old English word for an *English* war-band. The characters throughout keep consistently mixing up Saxon and Norse culture *without ever referencing the Danelaw as a justification*.
The spiel on the Victorian origins of blacking up in Morris Dancing completely ignores the probable, much older (as in, pre-dating the blacking up) links between Morris dance itself and appropriation/bad imitation of Moorish culture, and the much firmer links between early 20th c Morris Dance and American minstrelsy.
And the thing about the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance completely ignores the fact that the reindeer horns in use, which have indeed been radiocarbon dated to the 11th century, nevertheless *postdate the extinction of reindeer in England*. They were BROUGHT to Abbotts Bromley at some point between falling off the reindeer and their first appearance in the written record in the 17th c.
This is all very infuriating, but also, exactly how historical re-enactors work.
View all my reviews
Also finished: Griffith Review 56, and two m/m romances (KJ Charles and Cat Sebastian's respective latests).
Up next: I have a Lot of Books right now. My enthusiastic purchasing of all the lit mags ever is catching up with me, it seems. But also Jordan L Hawk's latest was released yesterday - I haven't bought it yet but it's only a matter of time.
Music notes: I haven't made any useful progress with the habit tracker of late, so no reward purchases. I did buy the Thirty Days of Yes mixtake, because I'm in favour of marriage equality themed things with profit to Twenty10 and the GLCS.
As of yesterday I have remembered that the 90s/early 2000s band Garbage existed, and hooo boy. I had forgotten how *fascinated* I was by Androgyny and Cherry Lips - and by Shirley Manson. I guess I was not such a straight child after all. Hooo boy.
Recently Finished:
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. ValenteMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I *loved* this. I loved everything about it: the setting, the metaleptic narrative style with its wry asides to the reader, the many references to classic fantasy... And most of all I loved the Marquess. The Marques is every problem I have with the fate of the Pevensie children, wrapped in a hideous bow.
My biggest problem with this book is I really, really want to share it with my little sister and she's probably not the right age yet.
Founding Friendships: Friendships Between Men and Women in the Early American Republic by Cassandra A. GoodMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was both very useful to me and kind of annoying as a book. It got my back up with 'working class and black people just don't leave records so that's why my book is about rich elites'. Well, yes, that is a strategic problem, but just because YOU don't have the skills to work with the kind of records that do exist doesn't mean no one does. (Seriously, you can't tell me the underground railroad didn't involve a whole range of cross-sex collaborations that might usefully be described as friendship)
On the other hand: the stuff about not having a precise vocabulary to describe the thing: YEP. THAT.
Moral Panic 101: Equality, Acceptance and the Safe Schools Scandal by Benjamin LawMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
YES THIS.
Damn, this is an incredibly well-researched and /useful/ essay. Aside from a fascinating history of the media beat-up around Safe Schools*, it's got all sorts of useful subsections. The section on school-age gender transition is particularly interesting, and useful if (like me) you're the sort of person whose friends expect you to explain this stuff at parties.
*An interesting comparison point: the Meanjin long essay by Dennis Muller on how journalism got Australia the Royal Commission. Funny that the clerical abuse exposé was driven by a relatively tabloid-y paper, the Newcastle Herald, while the Safe Schools beat-up came from the august pages of The Australian. But also, I wonder if the latter would have been *possible* if the former hadn't succeeded. If The Australian saw in the clerical abuse exposé not an ethical imperative but a method of driving up sales, and have been shopping around for something sufficiently scandalous ever since.
Blue Eyed Stranger by Alex BeecroftMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Oh gosh, this was a weird experience for me. As a romance: it's VERY GOOD. A++ I approve wholeheartedly.
As a study of historical re-creationism, I'm not sure if it's IRRITATING or SPOT ON. This guy's Viking re-enactment group are called Bretwaelda. An Old English word for an *English* war-band. The characters throughout keep consistently mixing up Saxon and Norse culture *without ever referencing the Danelaw as a justification*.
The spiel on the Victorian origins of blacking up in Morris Dancing completely ignores the probable, much older (as in, pre-dating the blacking up) links between Morris dance itself and appropriation/bad imitation of Moorish culture, and the much firmer links between early 20th c Morris Dance and American minstrelsy.
And the thing about the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance completely ignores the fact that the reindeer horns in use, which have indeed been radiocarbon dated to the 11th century, nevertheless *postdate the extinction of reindeer in England*. They were BROUGHT to Abbotts Bromley at some point between falling off the reindeer and their first appearance in the written record in the 17th c.
This is all very infuriating, but also, exactly how historical re-enactors work.
View all my reviews
Also finished: Griffith Review 56, and two m/m romances (KJ Charles and Cat Sebastian's respective latests).
Up next: I have a Lot of Books right now. My enthusiastic purchasing of all the lit mags ever is catching up with me, it seems. But also Jordan L Hawk's latest was released yesterday - I haven't bought it yet but it's only a matter of time.
Music notes: I haven't made any useful progress with the habit tracker of late, so no reward purchases. I did buy the Thirty Days of Yes mixtake, because I'm in favour of marriage equality themed things with profit to Twenty10 and the GLCS.
As of yesterday I have remembered that the 90s/early 2000s band Garbage existed, and hooo boy. I had forgotten how *fascinated* I was by Androgyny and Cherry Lips - and by Shirley Manson. I guess I was not such a straight child after all. Hooo boy.