Wednesday Reading Meme on Thursday
I only went 2 weeks between installments of this this time instead of months. Go me?
What are you currently reading
The Debs of Bletchley Park by Michael Smith. Nonfiction about the women who worked in Bletchley Park during WWII. This one doesn't have a lot yet (I'm about 1/3 through it) about politics and codebreaking, and is instead focusing on how and why various women were recruited, and how they dealt with the everyday life end of things. One story involved a woman being told she was being stationed somewhere else, and when she got there, she sat in a room while the officers discussed whether she should be blindfolded or just transported in a covered car. She ended up being left a the Bletchley Park gates with no knowledge of where she was and no pass. Another story involved two women getting in a catfight over lunch, each shouting that their mutual lover had told her more secrets than he had the other. They didn't stay very long after that. One of the interesting things is that there were so many people that recruitment went from "why hello there, well educated, literate friend of an official who wants to help with the war effort, you come with great recommendations!" to "Hi, you're smart, can keep your mouth shut, and need a job. Sign this document here."
Anytime I read nonfiction about Bletchley Park, or read or watch fiction in which the OSA plays a part (which most certainly does not include TV shows in which the protagonist blithely violates the OSA and reveals BP secrets to the agents of a foreign government in a show of poor codebreaking in what is apparently meant to be a Moment of Cool*) i'm amazed not only by the scope of the OSA, but also by the fact that it actually worked. You had people working together for years, sharing boarding house rooms, spending their free time together, etc, and they NEVER said a single word about their work. Not only that, but this app;ied to family members, and people who married other people who worked at BP or remained lifelong friends after, and they just...never said a word about it for decades.
Getting back on topic, the books isn't lightweight, but is less dense than a lot of WWII nonfiction. It does, though, assume the reader has a general knowledge of Bletchley Park and the OSA. It's a good read, so far, and would probably be liked by most interested in the subject.
What did you recently finish reading?
K: Stray Dog by GoRa and Gohands. A prequel to the first season of the K Project about Kuroh. It's mostly Kuroh having various adventures (including a Shounen Cooking Battle) while looking for the new 7th King. The first few chapters are pretty "LOLs that Kuroh..." but it turns more serious towards the end as it catches up with the anime. Based on the content and art, I thought this was shoujo, but it's apparently categorized as seinen.
Star Wars: Skywalker Strikes by Jason Aaron & John Cassaday. TPB collecting the first 6 issues of the current Star Wars series from Marvel, which takes place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. The first few issues feature Luke, Han Leia and Chewie sabotaging one of the Empire's plants when Vader shows up and makes things go terribly wrong (Lots of "Anakin! Stop trying to kill your kids!" from over here, while also approving of Leia ordering that her father be shot down.) In the last couple issues in the collection, Luke goes off to do some angsty soul searching stuff while Han and Leia go off on a separate mission.
-Luke goes back to Tatooine and finds Obi-Wan's diaries. I really, really hope that one is from back in his Padawan days and there are a lot of entries about how he Totally Does not Like-NO REALLY-That Annoying Manadalorian Politician Girl Satine. Give me that, comics. I need it.
-Vader finding out that Luke is his son was pretty well done.
-At one point:
LUKE: "Han! LEIA! I found slaves to rescue!"
HAN AND LEIA: "That's nice Luke. Good job."
LUKE: "We're taking them with us!"
HAN: "What...wait how..."
LEIA: "I sense a facepalm in my future."
LUKE: "Han, we can fit 50 slaves into the Falcon and easily transport a bunch of wounded and malnourished slaves who can barely walk a bunch of miles on foot, right?"
HAN: "..."
LEIA: "Yup, there it is."
(Not that there was really any other choice, but it was such an "OMG HE BROUGHT ANOTHER STRAY HOME!" scene.)
-Han's "wife," Sana (who I've known about for a while thanks to scans_daily) appears towards the end. I can't really say much about her since she wasn't in much that I read, save that she really, really hates Han (Probably with good reason. I'd argue that, even in The Empire Strikes Back Han isn't really a particularly good person yet so much as he's become attached to two certain good people and keeps getting stuck doing hero stuffs because he loves them even if he doesn't want to admit it.) and Han really doesn't want to see her.
I enjoyed this more than I expected to. I remember that when I was still reading a lot of superhero comics, I recognized that John Cassaday's art was good and warranted the praise he got, but just couldn't get into it myself, but I liked it a lot here. i do have some issues with Leia's characterization,though. At one point, Leia makes a decision that, while understandable, we know will go very very wrong. Thatin and of itself was fine because of what it was, but it's framed as if she should have just listened to Han in a way that made me uncomfortable. In another scene, it comes across as if she tends to badger Luke into going on missions, which I don't think fits at all.
Kamisama Kiss vol 14-19 by Julietta Suzuki.
These volumes mostly dealt with Nanami travelling into the past to learn about Yukiji, the human Tomoe was in love with several hundred years ago, and to break a curse that's killing Tomoe in the present. surprising no one, the Yukiji Tomoe was in love with was actually Nanami herself, while the real Yukiji was Nanami's ancestress who tricked Tomoe into thinking she was Nanami after Nanami left so that he'd protect her while she was pregnant.
I was iffy on a couple parts of the past arc, but one thing I did like was that, unlike most case where the demon boy love interest's "evil" exploits are exaggerated or misunderstood in some way, Tomoe appears to have been just as evil as he's been built up to be. (And in complete honesty, I don't think he's really changed all that much. We just only see him acting to protect Nanami, or to protect people she cares about to keep her from being upset/getting killed trying to help them without her.)
The last 2 volumes I read involved almost the entire cast going to Okinawa for a class trip, and Ami being abducted by a mermaid after Kirihito steals the mermaid's robe, and Nanami and co. having to find and save her and get the robe back. The highlight of that arc was supersuave playboy Kurama almost figuring out that he's half involved in a quasi romance, and Nanami's friends finding out about all the supernatural stuff.
Somewhere in there, Mikage comes back and effectively declares himself to be everyone's dad.
One thing that really bugged me is that twice Suzuki draws scenes in which Nanami is attacked and they're framed to look like rape. One is in the past when Tomoe is trying to convince himself that he doesn't have any gross feelings for a human and that he intends to kill Nanami. he's grabbed her kimono and in the next panel, she's drawn with bare shoulders, making it look like he's ripped her clothes off of her, but then a few panels later, we see that she's still fully clothed. The other is similar, when Kirihito agrees to give Nanami the mermaid's robe in exchange for "life force." The panels are drawn as if he's ripping off her clothes and then straddling her while she's naked, but then we see that, again, she's still fully clothed. (And he was certainly attacking her, but...not that kind of attack.)
Suzuki has done a couple iffy things in that regard as well, but I don't think either scene needed rape imagery to get the point across.
A Dance With Danger by Jeannie Lin. One of Jeannie Lin's Tang Dynasty series. In a previous book that I haven't read, the male lead attempted to assassinate a warlord and is now on the run. He goes to a magistrate friend of his and ends up in a compromising situation with the magistrate's daughter, and they have to get married. At this point, I was very confused because I had really liked Lin's first few books (haven't read the last few before this one yet) and this was reading like a Regency Romance with the numbers filed off, and the cover blurb had given me the same impression. Then the magistrate tries to have him assassinated because having a wanted criminal in the family doesn't actually appeal to him a lot. At this point, I girded my loins, my experience many many 80s and 90s romance novels telling me to expect vengeful abduction and accusations.
Instead, Our Hero goes "welp, I actually was starting to really like her and think we might have cute kids, but she actually is way better off without me, and I do need to warn some people about the angry warlord hunting me down..." and takes off. Our Heroine, for her part, figures out what happened and decides that she is TOTALLY NOT OK with her father trying to assassinate her husband and runs away from home, finagling her way aboard our Hero's ship.
His pirate captain ex-girlfriend finds all this incredibly entertaining.
A lot of the plot is a carryover from the previous book, with a bit of setting up for future books, but I wasn't lost with the plot despite the heavy reliance on the earlier book. Despite a less than great start, I ended up liking it a lot.
What do you think you'll read next?
More manga and Star Wars comics, library books.
*Not, I'm not over that one episode of Agent Carter yet, WHY DO YOU ASK?
What are you currently reading
The Debs of Bletchley Park by Michael Smith. Nonfiction about the women who worked in Bletchley Park during WWII. This one doesn't have a lot yet (I'm about 1/3 through it) about politics and codebreaking, and is instead focusing on how and why various women were recruited, and how they dealt with the everyday life end of things. One story involved a woman being told she was being stationed somewhere else, and when she got there, she sat in a room while the officers discussed whether she should be blindfolded or just transported in a covered car. She ended up being left a the Bletchley Park gates with no knowledge of where she was and no pass. Another story involved two women getting in a catfight over lunch, each shouting that their mutual lover had told her more secrets than he had the other. They didn't stay very long after that. One of the interesting things is that there were so many people that recruitment went from "why hello there, well educated, literate friend of an official who wants to help with the war effort, you come with great recommendations!" to "Hi, you're smart, can keep your mouth shut, and need a job. Sign this document here."
Anytime I read nonfiction about Bletchley Park, or read or watch fiction in which the OSA plays a part (which most certainly does not include TV shows in which the protagonist blithely violates the OSA and reveals BP secrets to the agents of a foreign government in a show of poor codebreaking in what is apparently meant to be a Moment of Cool*) i'm amazed not only by the scope of the OSA, but also by the fact that it actually worked. You had people working together for years, sharing boarding house rooms, spending their free time together, etc, and they NEVER said a single word about their work. Not only that, but this app;ied to family members, and people who married other people who worked at BP or remained lifelong friends after, and they just...never said a word about it for decades.
Getting back on topic, the books isn't lightweight, but is less dense than a lot of WWII nonfiction. It does, though, assume the reader has a general knowledge of Bletchley Park and the OSA. It's a good read, so far, and would probably be liked by most interested in the subject.
What did you recently finish reading?
K: Stray Dog by GoRa and Gohands. A prequel to the first season of the K Project about Kuroh. It's mostly Kuroh having various adventures (including a Shounen Cooking Battle) while looking for the new 7th King. The first few chapters are pretty "LOLs that Kuroh..." but it turns more serious towards the end as it catches up with the anime. Based on the content and art, I thought this was shoujo, but it's apparently categorized as seinen.
Star Wars: Skywalker Strikes by Jason Aaron & John Cassaday. TPB collecting the first 6 issues of the current Star Wars series from Marvel, which takes place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. The first few issues feature Luke, Han Leia and Chewie sabotaging one of the Empire's plants when Vader shows up and makes things go terribly wrong (Lots of "Anakin! Stop trying to kill your kids!" from over here, while also approving of Leia ordering that her father be shot down.) In the last couple issues in the collection, Luke goes off to do some angsty soul searching stuff while Han and Leia go off on a separate mission.
-Luke goes back to Tatooine and finds Obi-Wan's diaries. I really, really hope that one is from back in his Padawan days and there are a lot of entries about how he Totally Does not Like-NO REALLY-That Annoying Manadalorian Politician Girl Satine. Give me that, comics. I need it.
-Vader finding out that Luke is his son was pretty well done.
-At one point:
LUKE: "Han! LEIA! I found slaves to rescue!"
HAN AND LEIA: "That's nice Luke. Good job."
LUKE: "We're taking them with us!"
HAN: "What...wait how..."
LEIA: "I sense a facepalm in my future."
LUKE: "Han, we can fit 50 slaves into the Falcon and easily transport a bunch of wounded and malnourished slaves who can barely walk a bunch of miles on foot, right?"
HAN: "..."
LEIA: "Yup, there it is."
(Not that there was really any other choice, but it was such an "OMG HE BROUGHT ANOTHER STRAY HOME!" scene.)
-Han's "wife," Sana (who I've known about for a while thanks to scans_daily) appears towards the end. I can't really say much about her since she wasn't in much that I read, save that she really, really hates Han (Probably with good reason. I'd argue that, even in The Empire Strikes Back Han isn't really a particularly good person yet so much as he's become attached to two certain good people and keeps getting stuck doing hero stuffs because he loves them even if he doesn't want to admit it.) and Han really doesn't want to see her.
I enjoyed this more than I expected to. I remember that when I was still reading a lot of superhero comics, I recognized that John Cassaday's art was good and warranted the praise he got, but just couldn't get into it myself, but I liked it a lot here. i do have some issues with Leia's characterization,though. At one point, Leia makes a decision that, while understandable, we know will go very very wrong. Thatin and of itself was fine because of what it was, but it's framed as if she should have just listened to Han in a way that made me uncomfortable. In another scene, it comes across as if she tends to badger Luke into going on missions, which I don't think fits at all.
Kamisama Kiss vol 14-19 by Julietta Suzuki.
These volumes mostly dealt with Nanami travelling into the past to learn about Yukiji, the human Tomoe was in love with several hundred years ago, and to break a curse that's killing Tomoe in the present. surprising no one, the Yukiji Tomoe was in love with was actually Nanami herself, while the real Yukiji was Nanami's ancestress who tricked Tomoe into thinking she was Nanami after Nanami left so that he'd protect her while she was pregnant.
I was iffy on a couple parts of the past arc, but one thing I did like was that, unlike most case where the demon boy love interest's "evil" exploits are exaggerated or misunderstood in some way, Tomoe appears to have been just as evil as he's been built up to be. (And in complete honesty, I don't think he's really changed all that much. We just only see him acting to protect Nanami, or to protect people she cares about to keep her from being upset/getting killed trying to help them without her.)
The last 2 volumes I read involved almost the entire cast going to Okinawa for a class trip, and Ami being abducted by a mermaid after Kirihito steals the mermaid's robe, and Nanami and co. having to find and save her and get the robe back. The highlight of that arc was supersuave playboy Kurama almost figuring out that he's half involved in a quasi romance, and Nanami's friends finding out about all the supernatural stuff.
Somewhere in there, Mikage comes back and effectively declares himself to be everyone's dad.
One thing that really bugged me is that twice Suzuki draws scenes in which Nanami is attacked and they're framed to look like rape. One is in the past when Tomoe is trying to convince himself that he doesn't have any gross feelings for a human and that he intends to kill Nanami. he's grabbed her kimono and in the next panel, she's drawn with bare shoulders, making it look like he's ripped her clothes off of her, but then a few panels later, we see that she's still fully clothed. The other is similar, when Kirihito agrees to give Nanami the mermaid's robe in exchange for "life force." The panels are drawn as if he's ripping off her clothes and then straddling her while she's naked, but then we see that, again, she's still fully clothed. (And he was certainly attacking her, but...not that kind of attack.)
Suzuki has done a couple iffy things in that regard as well, but I don't think either scene needed rape imagery to get the point across.
A Dance With Danger by Jeannie Lin. One of Jeannie Lin's Tang Dynasty series. In a previous book that I haven't read, the male lead attempted to assassinate a warlord and is now on the run. He goes to a magistrate friend of his and ends up in a compromising situation with the magistrate's daughter, and they have to get married. At this point, I was very confused because I had really liked Lin's first few books (haven't read the last few before this one yet) and this was reading like a Regency Romance with the numbers filed off, and the cover blurb had given me the same impression. Then the magistrate tries to have him assassinated because having a wanted criminal in the family doesn't actually appeal to him a lot. At this point, I girded my loins, my experience many many 80s and 90s romance novels telling me to expect vengeful abduction and accusations.
Instead, Our Hero goes "welp, I actually was starting to really like her and think we might have cute kids, but she actually is way better off without me, and I do need to warn some people about the angry warlord hunting me down..." and takes off. Our Heroine, for her part, figures out what happened and decides that she is TOTALLY NOT OK with her father trying to assassinate her husband and runs away from home, finagling her way aboard our Hero's ship.
His pirate captain ex-girlfriend finds all this incredibly entertaining.
A lot of the plot is a carryover from the previous book, with a bit of setting up for future books, but I wasn't lost with the plot despite the heavy reliance on the earlier book. Despite a less than great start, I ended up liking it a lot.
What do you think you'll read next?
More manga and Star Wars comics, library books.
*Not, I'm not over that one episode of Agent Carter yet, WHY DO YOU ASK?