April books
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
This is an epistolary novel set on this fictional tiny island that is mostly notable for being the birthplace of Nevin Nollop, inventor of the pangram “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The islanders pride themselves on a wide vocabulary and love of language, and have this monument to him in the only real town. One day the Z tile falls off. The council that rules the island interprets this as Nollop telling them to remove Z from their vocabularies. And then another tile falls, then another.
Based on the charming pun of the title and the pretty green cover and the premise, I sort of expected a bit of a romp with the author showing off and playing with words as his available vocabulary shrunk. But the novel is actually (appropriately) super-dark for a premise all about censorship: one strike is a warning, two strikes a beating, three exile from the island.
It’s told largely in letters between two cousins who live on different parts of the island, Ella and Tassie. They’ve both got engaging voices, though I liked Ella better, and there are some vivid moments of characterisation. =Not amazing, but well worth a look.
The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
Another book which wasn’t what I expected - clearly the joyful spasm of buying up my Amazon wishlist when I was given ALL THE VOUCHERS along with my Kindle created some slight weirdness. I was expecting a sort of modern, faintly dark fairy-tale, vaguely Gaiman-esque sort of thing. It turned out to be magical realism in a very very literary-fiction way, including the intense focus on isolated dudes and how they learn to connect to the world because of a good woman’s love - or find that they can’t.
It took me a while to read this book - make of that what you will - but at certain points the writing is genuinely beautiful. Ida, the girl with glass feet, Gustav, the grieving single father running a florist, and the lost wife of the island’s resident millionaire - a lot of the characters resonated with me a lot. I liked the shifts in viewpoint, giving us multiple perspectives.
But that might have been because Midas - who is really the main character - the super-shy, isolated young guy who’s obsessed with photography and likes how it helps him retain a difference from the world - annoyed me. He got better as the novel continued and I do think he was meant to be intially annoying; his name, among other things, is kind of telling. But. It always felt like his story rather than Ida’s; while it helped that she gets some pov bits, there is a definite element of the manic pixie dream girl to Midas and Ida, and also to Henry Fuwa and Midas’ mother - another story of the isolated dude and the ethereal girl who could maybe change it all.
Also, early on there’s this passage where Midas thinks about Ida, having found out something about her live-life-to-the-full past: To imagine her as he did now (tanned by roasting Spanish sun, leaving footprints in the golden sand, laughing her watery laugh, in nothing but her neon-pink bikini) spoiled her. He tried to focus on the present, her modest dress sense, her elegant monochrome complexion.
OK, so monochrome becomes a bit of a signifier in the novel for being cut off from life, whether by choice or compulsion or force. I don’t think these thoughts of Midas’ are at all condoned by the book itself. But honestly FUCK OFF MIDAS.
Shakespeare’s London: Everyday life in London 1580-1616 by Stephen Porter
This was interesting; it was explicitly NOT about Shakespeare, but about London and how it was growing and changing and what it was like during Shakespeare’s time there. At times it got a bit dull for me - my patience for trade statistics, it is limited - but I definitely enjoyed it. As a(n ex-)Londoner there were loads of cool little facts. Like, one of my best friends lives on the corner of Golden Lane and Fortune Street in Islington, and so reading that the Fortune theatre was built on Golden Lane in 1600, the Globe’s only competition, was this great little OHHHHH moment. Plus I highlighted like a million great little primary-source quotes on London and its people.
’Come to London, to plaguy London, a place full of danger and vanity and vice.’
His summary of Londoners was that they were ‘not vindictive, but very inconstant, rash, vainglorious, light, and deceiving, and very suspicious, especially of foreigners, whom they despise.’
every second house in Shoreditch was a brothel
‘every red-nosed rimester is an author, every drunken man’s dream is a booke, and... scarce a cat can look out of a gutter but out starts a half-penny chronicler.’
‘playing is an ornament to the city, which strangers of all nations, repairing hither, report of in their countries, beholding them here with some admiration: for what variety of entertainment can there be in any city in Christendom, more than in London?’
Scheherazade’s Facade edited by Michael M Jones
This is so fabulous you guys. SO FABULOUS. Seriously. It’s fantastic, it’s stuffed with stories by excellent authors, it got published via Kickstarter and hard work from Cecilia Tan among others, and it’s an anthology of short stories whose theme is: fantasy stories involving “gender-bending, cross-dressing, and transformation”. It is right up my street, and also probably quite a lot of your streets.
And it is SUPER FABULOUS.
The first story, The Name of The Prince by Alma Alexander, sets up the Schezerade/storytelling thing nicely but I found it the weakest story in the anthology. That is probably partly down to personal taste though, and there is loads of variation within the collection. How To Dance While Drowning by Shanna Germain hit me hardest (it is SO SAD you guys) but I loved Keeping The World On Course by Tanith Lee to pieces (it is a really charming, happy-making love story) and The Daemons of Tairdean Town by C. S. MacCath is charming and heartbreaking and full of the unexpected. Treasure and Maidens by Sarah Rees Brennan has the charming voice and plot-twist you’d expect of her work. This is such a great, varied collection. I eyerolled once, at the selkie story (“we are each of us male and female within. It is only humans who have forgotten how to change” my ARSE) but yeah. Marvellous.
The final story of the anthology, Lady Marmalade’s Special Place in Hell by David Sklar, is something really special. Partly because I love the premise so much (dominatrix dies and goes to Hell, gets position in middle management) and partly because I love the heroine so much - she journeys through Hell trying to find Princess Buttercup, a trans girl who committed suicide, so she can protect her. But mostly because the voice is the best thing ever.
For starters, honey, I don’t believe in Hell - that’s just some old man’s way of telling me reasons why I can’t be me. Like “biology is destiny” means I have to be a boy. But somebody believed in Hell - believed in it loud enough that I wound up there - with tortured screams, blistering flames, and all that sulfur stinking up my hair. But hey, as Jean-Paul Sourpuss liked to say, “L’Inferne, c’est les autres” - and I just adore les autres. So I went out to make some friends.
This was originally posted at http://lokifan.dreamwidth.org/265039.html. Comment wherever you like :)
This is an epistolary novel set on this fictional tiny island that is mostly notable for being the birthplace of Nevin Nollop, inventor of the pangram “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The islanders pride themselves on a wide vocabulary and love of language, and have this monument to him in the only real town. One day the Z tile falls off. The council that rules the island interprets this as Nollop telling them to remove Z from their vocabularies. And then another tile falls, then another.
Based on the charming pun of the title and the pretty green cover and the premise, I sort of expected a bit of a romp with the author showing off and playing with words as his available vocabulary shrunk. But the novel is actually (appropriately) super-dark for a premise all about censorship: one strike is a warning, two strikes a beating, three exile from the island.
It’s told largely in letters between two cousins who live on different parts of the island, Ella and Tassie. They’ve both got engaging voices, though I liked Ella better, and there are some vivid moments of characterisation. =Not amazing, but well worth a look.
The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
Another book which wasn’t what I expected - clearly the joyful spasm of buying up my Amazon wishlist when I was given ALL THE VOUCHERS along with my Kindle created some slight weirdness. I was expecting a sort of modern, faintly dark fairy-tale, vaguely Gaiman-esque sort of thing. It turned out to be magical realism in a very very literary-fiction way, including the intense focus on isolated dudes and how they learn to connect to the world because of a good woman’s love - or find that they can’t.
It took me a while to read this book - make of that what you will - but at certain points the writing is genuinely beautiful. Ida, the girl with glass feet, Gustav, the grieving single father running a florist, and the lost wife of the island’s resident millionaire - a lot of the characters resonated with me a lot. I liked the shifts in viewpoint, giving us multiple perspectives.
But that might have been because Midas - who is really the main character - the super-shy, isolated young guy who’s obsessed with photography and likes how it helps him retain a difference from the world - annoyed me. He got better as the novel continued and I do think he was meant to be intially annoying; his name, among other things, is kind of telling. But. It always felt like his story rather than Ida’s; while it helped that she gets some pov bits, there is a definite element of the manic pixie dream girl to Midas and Ida, and also to Henry Fuwa and Midas’ mother - another story of the isolated dude and the ethereal girl who could maybe change it all.
Also, early on there’s this passage where Midas thinks about Ida, having found out something about her live-life-to-the-full past: To imagine her as he did now (tanned by roasting Spanish sun, leaving footprints in the golden sand, laughing her watery laugh, in nothing but her neon-pink bikini) spoiled her. He tried to focus on the present, her modest dress sense, her elegant monochrome complexion.
OK, so monochrome becomes a bit of a signifier in the novel for being cut off from life, whether by choice or compulsion or force. I don’t think these thoughts of Midas’ are at all condoned by the book itself. But honestly FUCK OFF MIDAS.
Shakespeare’s London: Everyday life in London 1580-1616 by Stephen Porter
This was interesting; it was explicitly NOT about Shakespeare, but about London and how it was growing and changing and what it was like during Shakespeare’s time there. At times it got a bit dull for me - my patience for trade statistics, it is limited - but I definitely enjoyed it. As a(n ex-)Londoner there were loads of cool little facts. Like, one of my best friends lives on the corner of Golden Lane and Fortune Street in Islington, and so reading that the Fortune theatre was built on Golden Lane in 1600, the Globe’s only competition, was this great little OHHHHH moment. Plus I highlighted like a million great little primary-source quotes on London and its people.
’Come to London, to plaguy London, a place full of danger and vanity and vice.’
His summary of Londoners was that they were ‘not vindictive, but very inconstant, rash, vainglorious, light, and deceiving, and very suspicious, especially of foreigners, whom they despise.’
every second house in Shoreditch was a brothel
‘every red-nosed rimester is an author, every drunken man’s dream is a booke, and... scarce a cat can look out of a gutter but out starts a half-penny chronicler.’
‘playing is an ornament to the city, which strangers of all nations, repairing hither, report of in their countries, beholding them here with some admiration: for what variety of entertainment can there be in any city in Christendom, more than in London?’
Scheherazade’s Facade edited by Michael M Jones
This is so fabulous you guys. SO FABULOUS. Seriously. It’s fantastic, it’s stuffed with stories by excellent authors, it got published via Kickstarter and hard work from Cecilia Tan among others, and it’s an anthology of short stories whose theme is: fantasy stories involving “gender-bending, cross-dressing, and transformation”. It is right up my street, and also probably quite a lot of your streets.
And it is SUPER FABULOUS.
The first story, The Name of The Prince by Alma Alexander, sets up the Schezerade/storytelling thing nicely but I found it the weakest story in the anthology. That is probably partly down to personal taste though, and there is loads of variation within the collection. How To Dance While Drowning by Shanna Germain hit me hardest (it is SO SAD you guys) but I loved Keeping The World On Course by Tanith Lee to pieces (it is a really charming, happy-making love story) and The Daemons of Tairdean Town by C. S. MacCath is charming and heartbreaking and full of the unexpected. Treasure and Maidens by Sarah Rees Brennan has the charming voice and plot-twist you’d expect of her work. This is such a great, varied collection. I eyerolled once, at the selkie story (“we are each of us male and female within. It is only humans who have forgotten how to change” my ARSE) but yeah. Marvellous.
The final story of the anthology, Lady Marmalade’s Special Place in Hell by David Sklar, is something really special. Partly because I love the premise so much (dominatrix dies and goes to Hell, gets position in middle management) and partly because I love the heroine so much - she journeys through Hell trying to find Princess Buttercup, a trans girl who committed suicide, so she can protect her. But mostly because the voice is the best thing ever.
For starters, honey, I don’t believe in Hell - that’s just some old man’s way of telling me reasons why I can’t be me. Like “biology is destiny” means I have to be a boy. But somebody believed in Hell - believed in it loud enough that I wound up there - with tortured screams, blistering flames, and all that sulfur stinking up my hair. But hey, as Jean-Paul Sourpuss liked to say, “L’Inferne, c’est les autres” - and I just adore les autres. So I went out to make some friends.
This was originally posted at http://lokifan.dreamwidth.org/265039.html. Comment wherever you like :)