do i have your attention right now
Last night I stayed up to watch the Champions League final. Having no stake in either team - unlike a lot of other people in my FB feed (so much cursing) - I opted to root for the more aesthetically pleasing side, which, of course, worked out very well for me. Messi is pretty and has magic feet. (They were also clearly the better side.)
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A little while ago, I finally picked up my copy of A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammad Hanif, after owning it for months but never quite getting around to reading it (Wolf Hall will have to wait, the Thomases were very confusing). Halfway through the book I told
zorana84, 'This is the slashiest book I've read of late.'
'Oh, is it?' she said. 'Sounds interesting.'
You will be pleased to know that my slash goggles did not let me down, because then the book actually went there.
So what is this book about, you ask? It is in fact a taut thriller about the death of General Zia ul-Haq, former President of Pakistan. His death, I quote, is one of Pakistan’s two great political mysteries, the other being the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The established facts concerning his death are as follows. That on Aug. 17, 1988, after inspecting a tank demonstration in the Punjab, Zia boarded a C-130 Hercules - “Pak One” - to fly back to Islamabad. That he was accompanied on board by a number of his senior army generals, as well as by the American ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Raphel. That shortly before takeoff, crates of mangoes were loaded onto the plane. That shortly after takeoff, the C-130 began to fly erratically, alternately dipping and rising: a flight phenomenon known to aviation experts as “phugoid.” And that the plane crashed soon after, killing all on board.
Now take one Ali Shigri, a trainee officer in the Pakistani air force academy, and his roomie Obaid - aka the perfume-wearing, Rilke-reading Baby O - who appears to have mysteriously disappeared one fine morning, and you have a fantastic thriller, by turns dark and wickedly funny, with an unexpectedly lovely romance.
It's not exactly a happy-making book, so perhaps if that's not your cup of tea, you should give it a skip; but otherwise, do give it a try, because it's Relevant to Many of Your Interests.
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While we're on the topic of recs, I also have a couple more - fan fiction, this time. My Opinions on Glee can be summed up by 'I like Kurt', 'some of the songs are nice', and 'Santana is the best'; my viewing is, at best, sporadic. That does not explain why I wasted days reading Five Stages by thememoriesfire, and its two epic sequels, The Lights That Stop Me and Blind With Casualties.
Five Stages is about Santana - to quote the summary, "Santana deals with the coming out process; set after 2x16, "Original Song", and abandoning canon forever after that" - and it is MAGNIFICENT. It's so easy for stories in this vein to become preachy issuefic, but this is just perfect - raw, messed-up and glorious.
Apart from the three Santana-POV stories, this 'verse also has interludes featuring the other characters, and they're all great (although my favourite is Quinn).
If you read fic in this fandom at all, chances are you have already read it - but in case you haven't, go now. The power of Santana's ~feelings compels you.
http://swatkat.dreamwidth.org/292018.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth
+
A little while ago, I finally picked up my copy of A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammad Hanif, after owning it for months but never quite getting around to reading it (Wolf Hall will have to wait, the Thomases were very confusing). Halfway through the book I told
zorana84, 'This is the slashiest book I've read of late.'
'Oh, is it?' she said. 'Sounds interesting.'
You will be pleased to know that my slash goggles did not let me down, because then the book actually went there.
So what is this book about, you ask? It is in fact a taut thriller about the death of General Zia ul-Haq, former President of Pakistan. His death, I quote, is one of Pakistan’s two great political mysteries, the other being the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The established facts concerning his death are as follows. That on Aug. 17, 1988, after inspecting a tank demonstration in the Punjab, Zia boarded a C-130 Hercules - “Pak One” - to fly back to Islamabad. That he was accompanied on board by a number of his senior army generals, as well as by the American ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Raphel. That shortly before takeoff, crates of mangoes were loaded onto the plane. That shortly after takeoff, the C-130 began to fly erratically, alternately dipping and rising: a flight phenomenon known to aviation experts as “phugoid.” And that the plane crashed soon after, killing all on board.
Now take one Ali Shigri, a trainee officer in the Pakistani air force academy, and his roomie Obaid - aka the perfume-wearing, Rilke-reading Baby O - who appears to have mysteriously disappeared one fine morning, and you have a fantastic thriller, by turns dark and wickedly funny, with an unexpectedly lovely romance.
It's not exactly a happy-making book, so perhaps if that's not your cup of tea, you should give it a skip; but otherwise, do give it a try, because it's Relevant to Many of Your Interests.
+
While we're on the topic of recs, I also have a couple more - fan fiction, this time. My Opinions on Glee can be summed up by 'I like Kurt', 'some of the songs are nice', and 'Santana is the best'; my viewing is, at best, sporadic. That does not explain why I wasted days reading Five Stages by thememoriesfire, and its two epic sequels, The Lights That Stop Me and Blind With Casualties.
Five Stages is about Santana - to quote the summary, "Santana deals with the coming out process; set after 2x16, "Original Song", and abandoning canon forever after that" - and it is MAGNIFICENT. It's so easy for stories in this vein to become preachy issuefic, but this is just perfect - raw, messed-up and glorious.
Apart from the three Santana-POV stories, this 'verse also has interludes featuring the other characters, and they're all great (although my favourite is Quinn).
If you read fic in this fandom at all, chances are you have already read it - but in case you haven't, go now. The power of Santana's ~feelings compels you.
http://swatkat.dreamwidth.org/292018.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth