What Are You Reading Weekend
Oct. 20th, 2019 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricCurrently Reading:
Fiction: Robin Hobb's The Mad Ship, which is due back and has holds, much to my aggravation. AJ Demas' 'Something Human', which was just re-released for non-Amazon platforms. And, on backburner, Tony Birch's 'Ordinary People' (e-book expired and I'm on a waitlist again)
Poetry: haven't touched Paradise Lost for a while
List mag: Latest Meanjin, still.
Academic: None, although I had a quick flick through Burgwinkle's 'Sodomy, Misogyny and the Law' this week.
Recently Finished:
Meanjin Winter 2019 by Jonathan Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bought this in hard copy, having accepted that I actually really hate reading Meanjin online.
Of note:
Katherine Murphy's 'What Happens Next', on how to 'save politics'. Notable for its obvious but naive assumption that Labor would probably win the 2019 election.
Alexis Wright, A journey in writing place. I want an anthology of Wright's essays on narrative and literature, they're incredibly good.
Benjamin Wilkie, Menzies, Scotland and the Australian liberals - argues for a strong influence of 'Scottishness' on Australian neo-liberalism in its infancy (alongside the strong presence of working-class Scots-descended Australians in the union movement).
Ben Pobjie, The Saving Grace of Captivity, on zoos.
Tanya Vavilova, The problem with everything (me and you), a memoir piece on queer dating, trauma, and much more.
Melanie Cheng, All the other stories, a memoir about memoir-writing. I was thinking about this when I (unplanned) attended a NYWF event on privacy and ethics in memoir writing, with all-white panellists.
Karen Wyld, review essay, And still the birds sing - reviews recent indigenous fiction.
Jeff Sparrow, review essay, Nostalgia for a working class.
Ruby Hamad, review essay, The forming of our modern notions, on the racialisation of sex difference.
Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Re-read to go with the family bedtime reading of Little Women (and now we're bedtime reading Good Wives, so perhaps I should count it twice this year). Remains very enjoyable, albeit with an uncomfortable-for-me streak of 'your parents aren't really happy until you're married'. And I noticed this time the strong streak of anti-art/anti-ambition. Everyone's gotta recognise that talent =/= genius and settle down into business, like the hardworking Protestants they are.
The Gluten-Free Cookbook by The Australian Women's Weekly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Small but useful! The polenta cupcakes were good, although they don't last long. I'm torn between relief (these are all PRACTICAL recipes, many call for 'gluten free self raising flour mix', everything is easily available in Aus) and the sense that most of it is so usefully localised that it will be difficult for me to use when I go back to Europe.
Online Fiction:
Azar Abidi (Meanjin, Winter 2019), When the Angel comes: set during the overthrow of the Shah in Iran.
Brandon Taylor (Guernica Mag), Anne of Cleves, an engaging story in which an engineer dates a lit scholar, and discomfort ensues.
Victoria Manifold (The Lifted Brow 43), Mina and Mirka move to the village. CN for... body horror, probably? Emetephobia (but not enough to bother me)? Who knows what else, this is a Very Odd story.
Up Next: AN ENORMOUS PILE.
Music notes:
Here is a really good version of Bread and Roses:
I think it's in a slightly lower key than many versions? I couldn't sing the lead line but I feel less like the whole thing is out of reach (maybe it's just that there's a deeper-voiced black woman filling out the bottom of the range more audibly than the altos in the Pride movie version did).
Fiction: Robin Hobb's The Mad Ship, which is due back and has holds, much to my aggravation. AJ Demas' 'Something Human', which was just re-released for non-Amazon platforms. And, on backburner, Tony Birch's 'Ordinary People' (e-book expired and I'm on a waitlist again)
Poetry: haven't touched Paradise Lost for a while
List mag: Latest Meanjin, still.
Academic: None, although I had a quick flick through Burgwinkle's 'Sodomy, Misogyny and the Law' this week.
Recently Finished:
Meanjin Winter 2019 by Jonathan GreenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bought this in hard copy, having accepted that I actually really hate reading Meanjin online.
Of note:
Katherine Murphy's 'What Happens Next', on how to 'save politics'. Notable for its obvious but naive assumption that Labor would probably win the 2019 election.
Alexis Wright, A journey in writing place. I want an anthology of Wright's essays on narrative and literature, they're incredibly good.
Benjamin Wilkie, Menzies, Scotland and the Australian liberals - argues for a strong influence of 'Scottishness' on Australian neo-liberalism in its infancy (alongside the strong presence of working-class Scots-descended Australians in the union movement).
Ben Pobjie, The Saving Grace of Captivity, on zoos.
Tanya Vavilova, The problem with everything (me and you), a memoir piece on queer dating, trauma, and much more.
Melanie Cheng, All the other stories, a memoir about memoir-writing. I was thinking about this when I (unplanned) attended a NYWF event on privacy and ethics in memoir writing, with all-white panellists.
Karen Wyld, review essay, And still the birds sing - reviews recent indigenous fiction.
Jeff Sparrow, review essay, Nostalgia for a working class.
Ruby Hamad, review essay, The forming of our modern notions, on the racialisation of sex difference.
Good Wives by Louisa May AlcottMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Re-read to go with the family bedtime reading of Little Women (and now we're bedtime reading Good Wives, so perhaps I should count it twice this year). Remains very enjoyable, albeit with an uncomfortable-for-me streak of 'your parents aren't really happy until you're married'. And I noticed this time the strong streak of anti-art/anti-ambition. Everyone's gotta recognise that talent =/= genius and settle down into business, like the hardworking Protestants they are.
The Gluten-Free Cookbook by The Australian Women's WeeklyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Small but useful! The polenta cupcakes were good, although they don't last long. I'm torn between relief (these are all PRACTICAL recipes, many call for 'gluten free self raising flour mix', everything is easily available in Aus) and the sense that most of it is so usefully localised that it will be difficult for me to use when I go back to Europe.
Online Fiction:
Up Next: AN ENORMOUS PILE.
Music notes:
Here is a really good version of Bread and Roses:
I think it's in a slightly lower key than many versions? I couldn't sing the lead line but I feel less like the whole thing is out of reach (maybe it's just that there's a deeper-voiced black woman filling out the bottom of the range more audibly than the altos in the Pride movie version did).
Bread and Roses
Date: 2019-10-20 12:48 pm (UTC)Re: Bread and Roses
Date: 2019-10-20 11:11 pm (UTC)