Daughter of the reading meme 3/13
I posted a long recap of my adventures at the NoVaTeen Book Festival. Some authors were veterans and others were making their debut. I enjoyed the event heartily with some grumps on maps for finding the right entrance at the high school. Other than that, it was practically down the street from me, so I really couldn't complain, especially since most YA events I've seen are either NY/Brooklyn or West Coast!
What am I reading now?
Jessica Brody's Unremembered. Last year Fierce Reads (MacMillan Kids' YA arm) had a twitter discussion with several authors and if you asked questions, you were entered for prize packs. The packs included a pile of YA books, including Brody's book. They're doing an readalong now because the second one is coming out. It's an odd book to be reading right now.
And whole lot of Shakespeare! I'm taking Warwick Business School's Shakespeare and his World class through Futurelearn, an online MOOC taught by Jonathan Bate. The course is a lot of fun so far. He's used artifacts from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to highlight/tie-in to his lectures and discussions and what they tell and don't tell us about Shakespeare. So far there's the occasional "But wasn't Shakespeare really.." in the discussions but they've mostly been shot down with facts/counter arguments. We started off with "Venus and Adonis" as a primer and then we have eight plays in rapid succession, starting with Merry Wives of Windsor. I'm planning to watch the BBC version, since the Globe one was taken down off Youtube.
What did you recently finish reading?
I did finish the audiobook for Julia Fox's Sister Queens. Glad that I listened to it. I learned quite a lot. British history classes tend to shortchange Catherine of Aragon. The tendency is to focus on the end of her life, once she's been worn down by pregnancies and miscarriages and Henry's wandering eye has found Anne. The end result is I never really appreciated what Catherine brought to the table, her family connections and her training. Juana was harder to get a handle on and I can understand the fascination on whether she was mad or dissembling or misunderstood or whatever. But it's hard to portray someone when they basically disappear from view for long periods of time as she did. (FYI, at least now I can appreciate this Yuletide treat.)
I also read Mary Robinette Kowal's novelette "Kiss Me Twice". She'd posted it to her website as a birthday present, so I'd snagged a copy to read later. It'd been published in Asimov's and nominated for a Nebula. She'd also talked about the writing of it for her podcast, so I was curious about the execution. In a near future Portland, AIs work along police detectives to solve crimes. Metta changes her display to suit her particular user, so for our lead, it was Mae West with all her wisecracks and charm. I liked the police procedural/mystery elements. The only thing that irked me was the sloppy security/firewalls/protocols necessary for some of the plot contrivances to work. If an AI has access to that much sensitive data (i.e. police, forensic, etc) and people were concerned about the AI being compromised, I'd think their security would be stronger and *not* necessarily dependent on Metta herself.
What will you read next?
More Shakespeare! Midsummer's Night's Dream is next, followed up by Henry V, two plays I'm quite familiar with. I do need to see if I can find a copy of the Branagh version. I haven't watched it in forever. I remember it being used as a heraldry example in my medieval reenactment days.
Possibly more from the pile of YA, either the winnings or the ones I acquired. Do I want dystopia, space, Russians, or library of the dead?
What am I reading now?
Jessica Brody's Unremembered. Last year Fierce Reads (MacMillan Kids' YA arm) had a twitter discussion with several authors and if you asked questions, you were entered for prize packs. The packs included a pile of YA books, including Brody's book. They're doing an readalong now because the second one is coming out. It's an odd book to be reading right now.
And whole lot of Shakespeare! I'm taking Warwick Business School's Shakespeare and his World class through Futurelearn, an online MOOC taught by Jonathan Bate. The course is a lot of fun so far. He's used artifacts from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to highlight/tie-in to his lectures and discussions and what they tell and don't tell us about Shakespeare. So far there's the occasional "But wasn't Shakespeare really.." in the discussions but they've mostly been shot down with facts/counter arguments. We started off with "Venus and Adonis" as a primer and then we have eight plays in rapid succession, starting with Merry Wives of Windsor. I'm planning to watch the BBC version, since the Globe one was taken down off Youtube.
What did you recently finish reading?
I did finish the audiobook for Julia Fox's Sister Queens. Glad that I listened to it. I learned quite a lot. British history classes tend to shortchange Catherine of Aragon. The tendency is to focus on the end of her life, once she's been worn down by pregnancies and miscarriages and Henry's wandering eye has found Anne. The end result is I never really appreciated what Catherine brought to the table, her family connections and her training. Juana was harder to get a handle on and I can understand the fascination on whether she was mad or dissembling or misunderstood or whatever. But it's hard to portray someone when they basically disappear from view for long periods of time as she did. (FYI, at least now I can appreciate this Yuletide treat.)
I also read Mary Robinette Kowal's novelette "Kiss Me Twice". She'd posted it to her website as a birthday present, so I'd snagged a copy to read later. It'd been published in Asimov's and nominated for a Nebula. She'd also talked about the writing of it for her podcast, so I was curious about the execution. In a near future Portland, AIs work along police detectives to solve crimes. Metta changes her display to suit her particular user, so for our lead, it was Mae West with all her wisecracks and charm. I liked the police procedural/mystery elements. The only thing that irked me was the sloppy security/firewalls/protocols necessary for some of the plot contrivances to work. If an AI has access to that much sensitive data (i.e. police, forensic, etc) and people were concerned about the AI being compromised, I'd think their security would be stronger and *not* necessarily dependent on Metta herself.
What will you read next?
More Shakespeare! Midsummer's Night's Dream is next, followed up by Henry V, two plays I'm quite familiar with. I do need to see if I can find a copy of the Branagh version. I haven't watched it in forever. I remember it being used as a heraldry example in my medieval reenactment days.
Possibly more from the pile of YA, either the winnings or the ones I acquired. Do I want dystopia, space, Russians, or library of the dead?