Booklog 11: Late edition, with ladies
It is December! It has actually kind of been December for A WHILE now. However, I finally have my rather pitiful booklog for November...
- Orlando by Virgina Woolf
I have read and very much liked some other Virginia Woolf, but I had not read this before. It is HILARIOUS: all the documentary evidence is that she wrote it for the lolz and to make her girlfriend Vita Sackville-West happy, and it is just as fun as that sounds. It is a ridiculous, very very very queer in pretty much all senses gender-bendy romp through the aristocracy though time. I mean, who doesn't want that? :D
- Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers
I re-read this one because it is Harriet's Darkest Hour and I love Harriet and wanted something where it is about how great she is. And it is! Peter falling for her is a leeettle on the unbelievable side simply through speed, not her greatness, and I forgot how AMAZING Miss Climpson is in it. She rocks my world. I love her - I mean, the whole concept of her running a temp agency that is actually a secret investigative division is BRILLIANT, but she herself is just a joy here. Loooove.
- Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
This is the MOST SCOTTISH BOOK I HAVE EVER READ, but I mean that in a good way. :D It could be very cheesy: it is about the life of a woman from the Highlands, her childhood and then being a farmer and stuff, and that is very easy to sentimentalise and make corny and rubbish. But Gibbon really doesn't: Chris is maybe a little sentimentalised, in as much as lots of readings have her as an analogue for Scottish identity, but she's not... hmm. She's not shown as perfect in the way that makes that twee, rather than moving. She's a fighter, she makes mistakes, and she as herself matters more than some of Gibbon's reputation as an uber-political writer would imply. There is a LOT of stuff about Scotland, and about how people engage with the world politically/artistically (which were the same thing, for Gibbon, as far as my Obviously Deep Studies have told me), but it doesn't forget that there are actual people involved.
(Well, I can see the argument that the death of a certain character and the reasons for it are a bit ridiculous. But I wasn't too bothered by it and thought it was easy to handwave as being part of how those people understood the situation and fit it into their heads.)
- The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey
This was a very literary sort of murder mystery. I liked it: I am enough of a murder mystery snob to think that it would have been better had it engaged with its genre more, rather than trying quite as hard to be 'literature' - specifically, I think the denoument lost something from not taking just a few more leaves from, like, Agatha Christie's book - but it was very charming and fun.
- Accelerando by Charles Stross
I knew the big twist of this one already, and I don't know if that added to the effect of it seeming less polished than his later work that I love, but it is still very good!
...provided you like hard concept SF with post-humans and uploading minds and discussions about what constitutes sentience and personhood, anyway. I do like that sort of thing, luckily! It was quite overwhelming to read - lots of detail, very fast - but then that was part of the point, to express one of the points of the novel: what's it LIKE to live through the singularity? What would it feel like, as an experience? And I enjoyed Stross' answer. (And the people. For someone who is as concept-oriented as he is, he is good at people. And several of them are not straight/white/cis/dudes! I realise he shouldn't get magic points just for remembering that people who aren't the same as him exist in the world, and as with everyone he could do better in probably more ways than I realise, but oh it does make reading him SO much more fun.)
- Detection Unlimited by Georgette Heyer
I like her regency romances way better, but as her murder mysteries go this was pretty good! There was the sad random picking on the Polish, but it didn't turn out to be that guy, and the actual twist is pretty good.
I also read some poetry and a bunch of textbooks, but I don't think I could review poetry and I am absolutely sure that my pontificating about my textbooks would be boring and take longer than I have right now, so consider yourselves spared. *g*
Also I haven't seen the latest Good Wife yet - mostly because I have a standing agreement not to watch the episodes for the first time without Herr Professor, which hasn't been able to happen yet - but I have been seeing HINTS OMG and oh god flail. Especially because it's been getting better and better. I LOVE that Wendy is back, I love that stuff is getting ready to hit the fan on MANY LEVELS, and I love that Diane just effortlessly brings the show back to the point when Eli starts threatening to make it all about him: she just goes, NO. And lo, it is done. :D (Although the best moment of the whole last episode was Alicia smacking down Jackie. YES. I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR THAT AND IT WAS BEAUUUUUUUTIFUL. You BUY THAT BOY A CAR, Alicia!)
And the last Community episode was absolutely perfect in pretty much every way, and that is all I have to say about it. ♥ COMMUNITY ♥
Oh and also: I am not in bandom, but omg, THIS IS THE BEST CHRISTMAS SONG AND RELATED VIDEO OF ALL TIME AHAHAHAHAHA. It has single-handedly put the festive back in my festive season. I may be listening to it on repeat until January. It is amazing. Hee.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/75639.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
- Orlando by Virgina Woolf
I have read and very much liked some other Virginia Woolf, but I had not read this before. It is HILARIOUS: all the documentary evidence is that she wrote it for the lolz and to make her girlfriend Vita Sackville-West happy, and it is just as fun as that sounds. It is a ridiculous, very very very queer in pretty much all senses gender-bendy romp through the aristocracy though time. I mean, who doesn't want that? :D
- Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers
I re-read this one because it is Harriet's Darkest Hour and I love Harriet and wanted something where it is about how great she is. And it is! Peter falling for her is a leeettle on the unbelievable side simply through speed, not her greatness, and I forgot how AMAZING Miss Climpson is in it. She rocks my world. I love her - I mean, the whole concept of her running a temp agency that is actually a secret investigative division is BRILLIANT, but she herself is just a joy here. Loooove.
- Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
This is the MOST SCOTTISH BOOK I HAVE EVER READ, but I mean that in a good way. :D It could be very cheesy: it is about the life of a woman from the Highlands, her childhood and then being a farmer and stuff, and that is very easy to sentimentalise and make corny and rubbish. But Gibbon really doesn't: Chris is maybe a little sentimentalised, in as much as lots of readings have her as an analogue for Scottish identity, but she's not... hmm. She's not shown as perfect in the way that makes that twee, rather than moving. She's a fighter, she makes mistakes, and she as herself matters more than some of Gibbon's reputation as an uber-political writer would imply. There is a LOT of stuff about Scotland, and about how people engage with the world politically/artistically (which were the same thing, for Gibbon, as far as my Obviously Deep Studies have told me), but it doesn't forget that there are actual people involved.
(Well, I can see the argument that the death of a certain character and the reasons for it are a bit ridiculous. But I wasn't too bothered by it and thought it was easy to handwave as being part of how those people understood the situation and fit it into their heads.)
- The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey
This was a very literary sort of murder mystery. I liked it: I am enough of a murder mystery snob to think that it would have been better had it engaged with its genre more, rather than trying quite as hard to be 'literature' - specifically, I think the denoument lost something from not taking just a few more leaves from, like, Agatha Christie's book - but it was very charming and fun.
- Accelerando by Charles Stross
I knew the big twist of this one already, and I don't know if that added to the effect of it seeming less polished than his later work that I love, but it is still very good!
...provided you like hard concept SF with post-humans and uploading minds and discussions about what constitutes sentience and personhood, anyway. I do like that sort of thing, luckily! It was quite overwhelming to read - lots of detail, very fast - but then that was part of the point, to express one of the points of the novel: what's it LIKE to live through the singularity? What would it feel like, as an experience? And I enjoyed Stross' answer. (And the people. For someone who is as concept-oriented as he is, he is good at people. And several of them are not straight/white/cis/dudes! I realise he shouldn't get magic points just for remembering that people who aren't the same as him exist in the world, and as with everyone he could do better in probably more ways than I realise, but oh it does make reading him SO much more fun.)
- Detection Unlimited by Georgette Heyer
I like her regency romances way better, but as her murder mysteries go this was pretty good! There was the sad random picking on the Polish, but it didn't turn out to be that guy, and the actual twist is pretty good.
I also read some poetry and a bunch of textbooks, but I don't think I could review poetry and I am absolutely sure that my pontificating about my textbooks would be boring and take longer than I have right now, so consider yourselves spared. *g*
Also I haven't seen the latest Good Wife yet - mostly because I have a standing agreement not to watch the episodes for the first time without Herr Professor, which hasn't been able to happen yet - but I have been seeing HINTS OMG and oh god flail. Especially because it's been getting better and better. I LOVE that Wendy is back, I love that stuff is getting ready to hit the fan on MANY LEVELS, and I love that Diane just effortlessly brings the show back to the point when Eli starts threatening to make it all about him: she just goes, NO. And lo, it is done. :D (Although the best moment of the whole last episode was Alicia smacking down Jackie. YES. I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR THAT AND IT WAS BEAUUUUUUUTIFUL. You BUY THAT BOY A CAR, Alicia!)
And the last Community episode was absolutely perfect in pretty much every way, and that is all I have to say about it. ♥ COMMUNITY ♥
Oh and also: I am not in bandom, but omg, THIS IS THE BEST CHRISTMAS SONG AND RELATED VIDEO OF ALL TIME AHAHAHAHAHA. It has single-handedly put the festive back in my festive season. I may be listening to it on repeat until January. It is amazing. Hee.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/75639.html. Please comment there using OpenID.