Comments | thewronghands: [Book Reviews] A whole lot of seriousness, and radio talk show werewolves

thewronghands

[Book Reviews] A whole lot of seriousness, and radio talk show werewolves

Dec 09, 2006 01:45

More "Books Not To Read On A Plane": anything with a bouquet of hanging severed heads on the cover.

( The Well of the Heads: Tales of the Scottish Clans )

zenaya stomp, neurology, fantasy, selkies, mughal empire, india, scotland the homicidal, severed heads on a plane, non-american authors, book reviews, aran islands, syndication, mehrunnisa, animal behaviour, autism, evolution, fluffy fluffy werewolves, orkneys

Comments 31

docstrange December 9 2006, 07:02:01 UTC

back-blurbs

AKA the Fable of Contents

thewronghands December 9 2006, 19:45:14 UTC

Hah, yes, exactly.

feonixrift December 9 2006, 07:12:44 UTC

I really dislike getting blindsided by books; this leads to a lot of using Borders as Browsers.

thewronghands December 9 2006, 19:23:39 UTC

After a series of disappointments, I started doing that with the sci-fi and fantasy books that I could find. Unfortunately, I've read most of the readily available ones, so a good bit of the time I just have to guess. I've been able to weed out some of the truly dismal by getting recommendations from friends, but even so, peoples' tastes differ, and something that may seem like a minor flaw to a friend (say, one horribly sexist character) might drive me up a wall.

keyake December 9 2006, 07:24:29 UTC

Selkie tales tend to be the most brutal in terms of human actions towards sea-folk. Though I did pick up something rather interesting from the school library that turned out to be a decent read in terms of folklore and legends, 'MERMEN FOLK TALES' by Jane Yolen and Shulamith Oppenheim. It covers all manner of countries and water-people types as well as little stories that were fun at times. The selkie section is still pretty grim, but whathaveyou.

thewronghands December 9 2006, 19:25:51 UTC

I've liked Jane Yolen's writing before, so I'll keep that in mind, thanks!

misslynx December 9 2006, 08:11:04 UTC

Useful cautionary reviews! A couple of those books are on my wishlist; now I'm not so sure they should be. Especially the selkie one - I have a major thing about seals and selkies (as the userpic I'm using here may show), and we have another book of selkie tales that, while not all sweetness and light by any means, is certainly not as negative as that one sounds. A lot of the stories in it seem to lean toward selkie-revenge stories; be mean to seals, and bad things happen. Can't remember the title or author offhand, though, but I'll try and find the book tomorrow and post it then.

thewronghands December 9 2006, 19:29:14 UTC

It's not all "selkies die, selkies die", but there is a lot of it, and it being the very first thing you encounter made a strong impression on me that lasted for the rest of the book. (I was thinking of you in particular when I bought it, too, which made it extra horrible when the people-from-where-my-ancestors live started killing the things-I-associate-with-you. Aiee! Also, much like movies, yelling "Stop it, stop it" at books does no good.) There's at least one rescue story, and some seal-wife-escapes stuff, but yeah, it's harsh.

larksdream December 9 2006, 13:27:51 UTC

Yeah, Temple Grandin's book sort of took me aback. It just seemed a bit... odd, and I even think the word "heartless", to relate so strongly to these animals and yet be *perfectly okay* with helping kill them. Although, in a weird sort of way, she made their brief lives less sucky, so... *head spins*

"We had to eat the cows to save them."

thewronghands December 9 2006, 19:36:50 UTC

The two animals that I closely relate to that are food animals I won't eat, but I know people who differ from me on that and see it as a bonding/assimilation thing. I am not a preachy vegetarian, but I do think that if one is going to eat meat, it's important to understand where it comes from and how the animals you're eating live. (I am a lot happier eating the occasional free range chicken than I am with factory farm chicken.) So, I think it's good that she improved the conditions at these places, but it still seems like a lot of the animals live lives I'd consider pretty awful.

saigh_allaidh December 10 2006, 04:38:07 UTC

I'm one of those who believes in getting to know as many of the animals I eat as possible. I'm somewhat interested in this woman's work for this reason, however, I doubt highly that it actually changed anything in the industry and therefore would probably piss me off a lot. There is no way to really improve conditions in factory farming, not enough to truly make a difference in the lives of the animals involved. Not and have it still be factory farming and considered economically viable by the fucktards in control of the industry. More likely her work was apologetic.

thewronghands December 10 2006, 19:31:08 UTC

It sounds like many of the things she changed related directly to the walk to the slaughterhouse (a new kind of mount and holding chute), though she did also design an inspection checklist based on behaviour (if you don't stun them all with the first stroke, you fail, etc.). She didn't discuss disease and antibiotics and health; her book was more based around "why won't they walk down this hallway" and things like that.