What Are You Reading Weekend
May. 5th, 2018 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricWhat are you currently reading: Simone de Beauvoir's 'Memoirs d'une jeune fille rangée', prompted by #theunreadbookshelf2018 april challenge to read your longest-standing unread book. Once I got past the first twelve pages it became more engaging, and, completely predictably, my french reading speed is already picking up.
Also: Meanjin autumn 2018; Alice Pung, 'Unpolished Gem'; Ellen van Neerven, 'Comfort Food' (poetry). Plus Charlotte Bronte's 'Villette', which is giving me many feelings. Torn between wanting to shake the heroine and save her from her own stupidity, and convince her to run away with me. So, this is gonna be to 30-ish me as Portrait of a Lady was to 21-ish me, I guess.
Recently Finished: A surprising amount, although a lot of it is work-related. Starting back at 9th April, ending up at 1st May, here we go.
The Lemon Tree Café by Cathy Bramley
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Wow, this was a weird read. I was initially skeptical of it as a straight-people-romance thing, but got sucked in enough to buy further installments (I read as the four-part ebook series, not as the final novel).
But. But. The subplot with the protag's experience as a rape survivor was SO BADLY handled in the fourth book, with bonus seriously weird implications re: trans women. No thankee.
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mixed review: I was engaged by this, and spent huge chunks of time scouring the internet for facts on late Q'ing dynasty china so I could start to differentiate between historical fact and historical fiction. The prose style is a bit... flat, though. What really limited my appreciation of this book is the lack of historical fiction imagination vis a vis sexual culture: in a harem court there's mysteriously no f/f goings on going on. The extra-marital het plot seemed forced, especially since the protag already HAD a relationship of sorts with a eunuch: it seemed to me that the prevailing ethos was what eunuchs were not only en mass non-men, but even undesirable /when the protag was actually sleeping with one/, and that just. Hurt my queer little brain.
The Best Australian Poems 2016 by Sarah Holland-Batt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
As usual with these collections, a mixed bag, but some excellent contributions. I've been posting some to tumblr.
Then: Mrs Dalloway, again; a book of essays on Virginia Woolf which I dipped into; and book 8 of the Confessio Amantis, which convinced me I needed to read more of it.
Three Arthurian Romances: Poems from Medieval France: Caradoc; The Knight with the Sword; The Perilous Graveyard by Anonymous
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
ARTHURIAN ROMANCE IS SO WEIRD YOU GUYS. I don't know the source texts well enough to comment on the translation or anything, but I suspect soon I will - i have dog eared the corners of this and I have QUESTIONS.
I also have QUESTIONS about the general plot. Especially 'The Perilous Graveyard'. Gawain, kidnap a girl because he owes a guy a favour? MY BOY WOULD NEVER.
View all my reviews
Music notes: last week was a Good Week. The full Janelle Monáe album dropped and I am Into It. Plus a new Missy Higgins album released, which I had no idea to expect but Spotify helpfully emailed me. I like it; I will probably be very into it when I get over the urge to loop-listen to Dirty Computer for weeks on end.
Also: Meanjin autumn 2018; Alice Pung, 'Unpolished Gem'; Ellen van Neerven, 'Comfort Food' (poetry). Plus Charlotte Bronte's 'Villette', which is giving me many feelings. Torn between wanting to shake the heroine and save her from her own stupidity, and convince her to run away with me. So, this is gonna be to 30-ish me as Portrait of a Lady was to 21-ish me, I guess.
Recently Finished: A surprising amount, although a lot of it is work-related. Starting back at 9th April, ending up at 1st May, here we go.
The Lemon Tree Café by Cathy BramleyMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
Wow, this was a weird read. I was initially skeptical of it as a straight-people-romance thing, but got sucked in enough to buy further installments (I read as the four-part ebook series, not as the final novel).
But. But. The subplot with the protag's experience as a rape survivor was SO BADLY handled in the fourth book, with bonus seriously weird implications re: trans women. No thankee.
Empress Orchid by Anchee MinMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mixed review: I was engaged by this, and spent huge chunks of time scouring the internet for facts on late Q'ing dynasty china so I could start to differentiate between historical fact and historical fiction. The prose style is a bit... flat, though. What really limited my appreciation of this book is the lack of historical fiction imagination vis a vis sexual culture: in a harem court there's mysteriously no f/f goings on going on. The extra-marital het plot seemed forced, especially since the protag already HAD a relationship of sorts with a eunuch: it seemed to me that the prevailing ethos was what eunuchs were not only en mass non-men, but even undesirable /when the protag was actually sleeping with one/, and that just. Hurt my queer little brain.
The Best Australian Poems 2016 by Sarah Holland-BattMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
As usual with these collections, a mixed bag, but some excellent contributions. I've been posting some to tumblr.
Then: Mrs Dalloway, again; a book of essays on Virginia Woolf which I dipped into; and book 8 of the Confessio Amantis, which convinced me I needed to read more of it.
Three Arthurian Romances: Poems from Medieval France: Caradoc; The Knight with the Sword; The Perilous Graveyard by AnonymousMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
ARTHURIAN ROMANCE IS SO WEIRD YOU GUYS. I don't know the source texts well enough to comment on the translation or anything, but I suspect soon I will - i have dog eared the corners of this and I have QUESTIONS.
I also have QUESTIONS about the general plot. Especially 'The Perilous Graveyard'. Gawain, kidnap a girl because he owes a guy a favour? MY BOY WOULD NEVER.
View all my reviews
Music notes: last week was a Good Week. The full Janelle Monáe album dropped and I am Into It. Plus a new Missy Higgins album released, which I had no idea to expect but Spotify helpfully emailed me. I like it; I will probably be very into it when I get over the urge to loop-listen to Dirty Computer for weeks on end.