BOOOOOOOOKs
I read Octavia Butler's Dawn last week. Terri gave me the book after she cleaned out some boxes o' stuff cause she knows I like Octavia Butler. The novel is a sci fi story set after the human race has almost annihilated itself. An alien race saves the last survivors, but at a price. It was an easy read and quite fun, if interesting at times. I do enjoy reading Butler's novels for their creativity. She had such an amazing imagination. I like reading sci fi because it encourages me to imagine and be creative.
Two books from that I read during last semester that I forgot to write about in here:
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. This is such an excellent read. I put off reading it because I knew it had violent elements. It was assigned reading for my Lesbian Studies class though, so I did finally sit through the violence and read it. The good part was that the violence is only really bad in the first third and wans a bit as the novel progresses. It is an amazing account of what it was like to be a butch in the 50's. I really feel like I know how profoundly far we have come since that time. When I think about how we can't marry in California and how sad that makes me, I try to remind myself that I still have things to be grateful for. I can go to bars to meet other women and not be afraid that the police will rape me. I can go march in the streets and the police will protect me rather than abuse me. We have come so far. I can be grateful for that and keep fighting the good fight. I think that anyone at all remotely interested in lesbian history should read this book, one woman's account of what it was like back then.
Another book I read was Nightwatch by Sarah Waters. It is a story that is told backwards. It was a fluff novel, not anything really stimulating or intellectual. The chronology of the book bothered me because there was no reason to tell the story out of order. I think that messing with chronology is an interesting device, but it should only be used for a purpose, and there was no purpose to it here. Meh.
Two books from that I read during last semester that I forgot to write about in here:
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. This is such an excellent read. I put off reading it because I knew it had violent elements. It was assigned reading for my Lesbian Studies class though, so I did finally sit through the violence and read it. The good part was that the violence is only really bad in the first third and wans a bit as the novel progresses. It is an amazing account of what it was like to be a butch in the 50's. I really feel like I know how profoundly far we have come since that time. When I think about how we can't marry in California and how sad that makes me, I try to remind myself that I still have things to be grateful for. I can go to bars to meet other women and not be afraid that the police will rape me. I can go march in the streets and the police will protect me rather than abuse me. We have come so far. I can be grateful for that and keep fighting the good fight. I think that anyone at all remotely interested in lesbian history should read this book, one woman's account of what it was like back then.
Another book I read was Nightwatch by Sarah Waters. It is a story that is told backwards. It was a fluff novel, not anything really stimulating or intellectual. The chronology of the book bothered me because there was no reason to tell the story out of order. I think that messing with chronology is an interesting device, but it should only be used for a purpose, and there was no purpose to it here. Meh.