365 Books: Halfway

[rushthatspeaks]

Well, that was the six months that was. Halfway is actually 182.5, but I don't think you can round a book down.

Some things I have learned:

-- I can read a new book every day, no matter what else is going on in my life. In point of fact, there have been a couple of months here where having to read something and write about it as a daily obligation has been a lot of what has been keeping me sane.

-- However, I have to read whatever I feel like reading. Planning ahead farther than tomorrow hasn't worked, and sometimes planning for tomorrow doesn't work. If I try making myself read something I don't want to, I get the most extraordinary feeling of mental toothache.

-- I have no idea what books other people find interesting. At least, as far as the metric of how many people comment on the entries. I get it wrong every single time. People are interested by the things I thought were probably only me, and I don't get as much discussion on books that I know a lot of people read. May have something to do with my timing.

-- I do have some idea whether a review is any good. Which is a relief. I don't post them until I no longer think they're actively terrible, but I can tell that some are better than others, and people do seem to like more the ones I think are better.

-- I am better, at the moment, at reviewing nonfiction. I have concluded it is because I have not worked out an internal metric for how much information about fiction I ought to give in a review. I seem to feel that such pieces of information as genre of novel and name of the protagonist would be sufficient for everyone reading to go 'I can't read that now, the reviewer told me too much about it'. In short, I seem to have an over-sensitive spoiler-field, which is ridiculous, because I read fiction reviews myself and know about how much I would like to be told in them. It is just very difficult to make myself write that way.

-- On the other hand, reviewing nonfiction is much more tiring. If I am writing about a book of essays with many contributors, I seem to feel I have to go into really thorough detail, because I don't want to leave out any significant contributions, so I practically go essay by essay. If it's by one person, it's still not as intuitive to me as talking about the shape and structure and effectiveness of fiction. I can talk about structure till the cows come home.

-- Writing every day improves your writing. Yes, yes, who knew. Honestly, I knew this anyhow. It's just good to have the reminder.

-- If I could make my living this way, that would be a fine thing. ... I would in fact rather like to be a paid book reviewer. I had not been certain of that before starting this. I would not want it to be my only job, because I need to do something for large chunks of my time that does not involve sitting, especially sitting in front of a computer. But I enjoy this so when I'm not paid for it that I ought to try to figure out how to be paid. I mean, aside from collecting these into a book, which I have always fully intended to do. I suspect that money could get me past the mental toothache of not-wanting-to-read-xyz-now.

-- The more I read, the more I want to read. All right, I knew that already too.

-- This is awesome. I would still rather be writing fiction, at any given moment. And I knew this. But it's very useful to have it confirmed.

I think that about wraps it up for the moment.

Questions? Issues with my Oxford commas? General commentary? Please, please, more book recommendations?

Comments

[dorothean]

Recommendations! I don't know what you're likely to have read already (you are one of the few people I'm aware of who seem to be significantly more well-read than I am, it's kind of exhilarating to observe how that informs your writing) so here are just some things I would enjoy reading your reactions to. I have enjoyed all these books (some more than others, but I've only listed problematic ones that I think are problematic in an interesting way) but have no idea whether you will -- I think our tastes align only in some places!

Also, not all of these are readily available, but I own everything listed except for the Tiptree biography and would be pleased to lend you a selection by mail. :D

Fiction:

Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie.
Any of Robin McKinley's novels, particularly Spindle's End or one of the Damar books.
Vonda N. McIntyre's novelizations of the second, third, and fourth Star Trek movies, if you have seen the movies already
The Golden Ocean by Patrick O'Brien.
Fairy tales by George MacDonald (Penguin edition)
Any children's/YA novel by Virginia Hamilton (my favorite from childhood is The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl, but I think it's out of print)
Likewise, any YA novel by Margaret Mahy.
Clifton Fadiman, The Mathematical Magpie (this is actually the sequel to a similar collection but I haven't read the first)
Isaac Asimov, I, Robot
Neil Bartlett, Skin Lane
Gioconda Belli, The Inhabited Woman
Anjana Appachana, Incantations and Other Stories
Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter (this is a trilogy of novels)
Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero
Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters
Assia Djebar, Fantasia
Penelope Farmer, Penelope or Charlotte Sometimes
Kate Grenville, Lilian's Story
Charles Williams, Descent into Hell

Nonfiction:

Julie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
Alan C. Tribble, A Tribble's Guide to Space: How to Get to Space and What to Do When You Get There
Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic
Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains
Phyllis Rose, Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man

Okay, I'll stop there. Sorry if I've listed anything you've already reviewed -- I didn't start following your reviews right away and I don't think you have a masterlist up anywhere (apart from the tag).

[rushthatspeaks]

This rec list is very shiny, because it has two kinds of book: books I have read and like (or that are by authors I like), and books I have not read. And that is a very good sign.

And I haven't read most of them, which is also happy. Robin McKinley is one of the writers of my childhood and I desperately love her, although everything since Sunshine has felt a notch down to me. I, Robot is also one of the books of my childhood. And I keep forgetting that there is a great plenitude of George MacDonald because I get sucked back into rereading Lilith and The Princess and the Goblin over and over and over and over...

The Phillips Tiptree bio is one of the best biographies I have ever read.

And I haven't read any of the rest of these.

THANK YOU. I may well take you up on the lending thing but I should check the two library systems (public, university) in town first, so I will let you know.

[adrian_turtle]

I am really enjoying your reviews. I use them more often than I comment on them (sometimes deciding to put something on list of books to get from the library someday, sometimes deciding to take one OFF that list, and sometimes pointing S to your review to back me up about why he should read something.)

As for recommendations, have you read anything by Gillian Bradshaw? I love all her historical fiction, though A Beacon at Alexandria is generally regarded as her best. I don't think her sf is worth reading, except *maybe* to consider exactly what's wrong with it.

[houseboatonstyx]

Oh, Charles Williams, any and all. It might be good to start with _War in Heaven_.

[zxhrue.livejournal.com]

I don't always comment, but I have been really enjoying these reviews, and have certainly added a few books to my queue based upon them.

suggestions of books you might enjoy:

Divakaruni, Chitra Banejee. 2008. The Palace of Illusions

Ghosh, Amitav. 1992. In an Antique Land

Seth, Vikram. 1986 The Golden Gate

or any of the Riverside stories by Kushner and/or Kushner and Sherman, but in particular The Privilege of the Sword

[larryhammer]

+1 for The Golden Gate -- I'd love to hear your take on that.

And for that matter for the book that sits next to it on my shelf, Frederick Turner's Genesis.

---L.

[earis.livejournal.com]

Hey, this endeavor of yours is currently my favorite thing going. Your reviews have encouraged me either to finally read that book that's been sitting in my to-read list or to put a book on the to-read list. So congratulations for having such an awesome journal and I think that you are an excellent book reviewer.

Good luck with the back half!

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

*happy*

Thank you.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Let's Talk about Love by Carl Wilson (one of a series of books about music albums) a music critic looks at whether he should be hating Celine Dion and somewhat adjusts his preferences. Along the way, there's a lot about Francophone culture and the construction of taste.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that sounds *exactly* the sort of book I like.

[redbird]

The way you're doing this, "Hey, I read that one last year! I liked it" isn't a likely response, I think. Comments on a specific thing, or disagreements, maybe. But a chunk of what I'm getting out of these is the facts in your summaries; I've never read about Pico della Mirandolla, for example, so I learned stuff from your review. There are plenty of other people for whom I might nod, or think of some other fact about the person, but assume it was in the biography even if you hadn't mentioned it, and not bother commenting.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, and thank you.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"I found this interesting" and "I had something worthwhile to say about this" don't map all that well for me.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I am really enjoying these reviews, though I don't always comment (part of that is a flist of over 600, causing me to barrel along mercilessly)

Adam Thirkell, The Delighted States (on translation, and literature, and communication, and culture)

Farah Mendlesohn, A Short History of Fantasy

Lisa Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction

Patricia Meyer Spacks Desire and Truth

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of those. Thank you!

[angstnokami.livejournal.com]

Vera Nazarian, Dreams of the Compass Rose

(Not sure if you've read it already or not...)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have not! I shall do so.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I would love if you (or anyone else, really) would read RITES OF SPRING by Modris Eksteins. It's one of my top fave books about WWI, and I want to re-read it someday, to hopefully remind myself how cool it is.

I've been enjoying the books you've written about that are outside my usual reading (for example, all the theater books) - it gives me new things to look for! And you've made some of them sound like I can't live without reading them.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

*notes down title because I haven't read anything good about WWI in way too long* Thanks!

[larryhammer]

I don't think you can round a book down

Not without paraffining or otherwise solidifying it first, and even then you'd have to be careful with the direction you use the file or sandpaper. Not sure you can still call it a book at that point.

---L.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

You might freeze it in dry ice for the alteration process. That could mess up the binding glue, I suppose, but mostly the book should be all right when thawed.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I like reading your reviews, even when I don't have anything to say, or the energy to say it with.

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying pretty much all of your reviews, but haven't been commenting much because I don't have anything particularly insightful to say about them. I'm now really curious about The Face in the Frost, as Bellairs is one of those classics that I somehow missed. But "If it scares rushthatspeaks, I should not touch it with a 10-foot pole" is probably a good rule of thumb for me.

Recommendations (some of which you've no doubt read, but I'm never sure which ones they are...):

POD, by Stephen Wallenfels. Dystopian YA novel about an alien invasion. Very dystopic. Very weird. In some ways very realistic in that way that makes dystopias extra-creepy. Bounced off my psyche with this resounding thud, and I'd kind of like to see your reaction.

The Kalevala, Tales of Magic and Adventure, trans. Karrina Brooks. Fairly new prose-and-poetry illustrated translation of excerpts from the Kalevala.

Last Speakers by K. David Harrison. Written by my thesis advisor, who is an anthropological linguist studying endangered languages.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The Face in the Frost is a lights-on, door open, people in room, daytime book for me. But it is *so good*, and the funny and sweet bits are really funny and sweet. And it does not do the traditional horror straight-down-a-mineshaft ending; it's not out to get the reader.

I have not read any of those, and thank you!

[sovay]

In short, I seem to have an over-sensitive spoiler-field, which is ridiculous, because I read fiction reviews myself and know about how much I would like to be told in them. It is just very difficult to make myself write that way.

Have you asked your friendlist, just to see what other people's spoiler preferences actually are? I have no idea myself, except everyone else seems to care more than I do.

Issues with my Oxford commas?

Your Oxford commas are lovely.

[pameladean]

Oxford commas rule!

Something you said in a recent review made me think that, if you have not read Sarah Monette's The Bone Key, you might like to. I have an extra copy if you need it.

P.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I love The Bone Key. I read it one story at a time under the cash register at a job I didn't like very much, and it helped me keep the job longer than I could otherwise have managed. I hope there's a second Booth collection. Thank you for the rec and offer! I always appreciate recs where somebody tells me I'd like something and they are perfectly right.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Oxford commas are love.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I *love* this image!!

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

I love these reviews. I love your voice in them, and find something interesting in each review, whether or not I'm particularly interested in the book itself. I'm not all that spoiler-sensitive myself--by the time I get to read the book, I've usually forgotten any details about the review--but I know others (notably my wife) hate them. If it's any use to you, when I was doing reviews, the rule of thumb was: no plot details past the thing that gets the plot really moving. In other words, it's okay to say Frodo volunteers to be the Ring Bearer and who is in the Fellowship, but it's spoilery to say what happens to Boromir above Rauros.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

That is helpful! Thank you.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I was just telling someone (after she told me that the 90s were the heydey of children's books -- what?) that if she wanted to understand contemporary YA, she needed to read both Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and Holly Black's Tithe.

Which I still think is true. So if you haven't read either of those by any chance, I'll rec them both. (As well as, well, nearly everything else by both authors.)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have read those! And thank you. I am looking forward to the next Holly Black immensely.

[erinlin.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to let you know, I may not always comment but I read every one.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I love how broad your horizon is - you read books about everything and anyhing, and I've made several discoveries (which, alas, I have not followed up on - there is never enough time to read all the books I'd like to read).

I'm looking forward to the next batch!

[seishonagon.livejournal.com]

I'm very much enjoying these.

And for complete crap to read on a rainy day, I would absolutely love to see your take on the godawful Hellblazer novels. Particularly the strangely delightful novelization of the Constantine movie.

I own them if you need to borrow them. *crawls under rock in fanshame*

Also, for actual good books, Daniel Abraham, Shadow In Summer. And Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, which I see in interesting dialogue with the Jemisin novels.

For interesting historical fiction, the works of either Steven Saylor (start with Roman Blood or Roma, depending on which series you want to jump into) or Benita Kane Jaro.

For a work of interesting nonfiction, there's a book about the women who were almost accepted as part of the Mercury program. I've never read it, but have intended to. I can't remember the name at the moment, because I'm exhausted, but it seems like something you'd find interesting.

Also, The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin. It's almost a self-help book, but then is very interestingly not. It's written by a woman who is, among other things, a paid book reviewer.

And for those times when you only have a brief time, there's a wonderful book of Buddhist cartoons put out by Tricycle Magazine. It's very short, and very quick, and very (pardon the pun) enlightening.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Speaking of short Buddhist things, _Zen Flesh, Zen Bones_.

And much more important, Blyth's _Zen in English Literature_. This was LONG before the "Zen and" books. For one thing, he categorizes neatly whether a poem is objective about being objective, subjective about being objective, objective about being subjective, or subjective about being subjective. His example of the latter is

On Himself

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I lov’d, and next to Nature, Art;
I warm’d both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Blyth segues through my memory into another recommendation: Salinger's Glass family stories, from the 1950s, when the narrator could say of his siblings, "several of whom, it seems oddly worth mentioning, use ballpoint pens."

No kin to Elinor Wylie's _The Venetian Glass Nephew_.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I've been reading these and enjoying them, although I shamefacedly think this may be my first comment. You're doing something impressive here, and you're doing a good job of it -- I like your prose voice, and you make books that I would never seek out myself seem interesting. I have a few of your reviews in my "read this soon" list now. Recently "Poetry and the Police" and the "Oration on the Dignity of Man" have been particularly interesting.

Anyway, I just finished Bruce Sterling's "The Caryatids" and I want to recommend it, not because it's necessarily the best book ever, but because like most of Sterling's work it is just wickedly, incessantly _interesting_. There is a lot going on in here, probably more than the plot can hold, and I'm curious to read your thoughts about it. Also I might be able to get you a copy, for certain values of "a copy".

Anyway, be well, and good luck with the second half of this noble project!

[gallian.livejournal.com]

Very much enjoying these. You've added to my reading list significantly these past months. Our reading lists don't generally overlap much I know, but some recs I'd love to see you review:

Defiant Birth: Women who resist Medical Eugenics
The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal
Veronica Decides to Die

[chomiji]

I am also very pleased with your Oxford commas.

I don't always have much to say about the reviews, but I have read most of them, and they are interesting to me.

I'm rather hesitating to suggest things to you because in many ways, I'm not that widely read. Did you ever read Sally Watson's YA historicals? They have various issues (they were written in the 1960s), but they really sparked off my interest in historical fiction when I was an adolescent. Watson is the ancestor of Dunnett in my reading choices. Another possibility would be Tove Jansson's The Summer Book.

I'm not going to ask you to read my favorite Cherryh novels ... the Foreigner books are among my least favorites of hers, so I think we are CJC incompatible. ;-)