The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman - Audiobooked this one; half of the book follows the story of the Hmong people in southeast Asia and how they came to the US during the Cold War after fighting a proxy war parallel to the Vietnam war, while the other one follows the family of Lia Lee, a child with a rare and dangerous epilepsy disorder that requires constant medication and hospital stays in a regular case. The biggest complicating factor is that the Hmong, culturally, have a very distinctive view of medicine and healing that clashes heavily with the western medicine that the hospital practices, some of it due to different cultural and religious perception on health and healthcare and a fundamental linguistic isolation that makes communication difficult when the language they speak and think on does not have words like "epilepsy". Because of this, Lia's family at different points either does not understand how or does not want to give her the medication regimen that the hospital prescribed, complicated by the lack of medical staff able to even communicate with them, as well as the ever-present disdain of foreign and "primitive" refugees by the American healthcare system and society at large. It is a somber, thought-provoking and outright shocking book that had my jaw hit the floor several times.
A Knyght Ther Was, by Robert F Young - you may know him as the author behind The Dandelion Girl, my favorite sci-fi short story of all time. A Knyght Ther Was follows a very simple, yet amusing premise: A man in the future decides to use his illicit time machine to go back in time and steal the holy grail, then pawn it off in the present. Hijinks ensue when he gets there, and finds not only the Grail gone from the location where he had cased it at, but also a weeping girl who seems connected with its sudden disappearance. Like all his stories, this one is a lighthearted romp that plays the fun trick of having a seemingly mindless premise and developing it in very interesting and elaborate ways, without ever feeling like it's getting pretentious. Highly recommended.
How to Keep House While Drowning, by KC Davis - A self-help book about dealing with executive dysfunction. Much of the advice in it is sound, but I dropped it due to its tone - I don't buy a book to be called "darling" "dear thing" "poor thing" like a child. Still, the concept of "mess [being] value neutral" and the idea of developing "systems" to take care of executive tasks rather than "methods" is useful as a way to frame every day tasks - I have to admit, some of the advice in the book was genuinely helpful, such as focusing tasks on specific areas, or more concrete examples of how to break down large tasks into smaller ones. If you can stomach an author talking to you like a child, it's actually well worth reading if you struggle with executive function.
Untouched by Human Hands, by Robert Sheckley - A wonderful collection of science-fiction short stories by Bob Sheckley. The Monsters was one of my favorite ones growing up and I tracked this collection down exclusively to read it again. It's really good, if you're into good, pulpy sci-fi from the middle of the 20th century, this is right up your alley (especially since a lot of this was published in the pulps and such). Some standouts are The Monsters (An alien species makes first contact with humans; told from the perspective of the aliens), Cost of Living (A future where the pursuit of luxury and status leads to many taking on several lifetimes' worth of debt), The Impacted Man (The contractor assigned to create our reality takes a few creative liberties that lead to odd things happening) and Keep Your Shape (A crew of an alien spaceship, from a shapeshifters' collective where each individual is assigned a purpose and task, and strict rules on shapechanging, try to discover why so many of their expeditions to earth disappear; it's a very gender story about individuality and self-determination).
Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes - Apparently this was, or is, required reading in school in the US? I never did, but I wanted to read it since I knew it inspired a common trope in western media. Is it ableist? Absolutely. Did it leave me shivering in the dark in abject existential terror at the end? You betcha. If you can stomach both outdated language as well as language that was always vile, and some very neurotypical perceptions of neurodivergence, it is a chilling read. One of the few books I find to be as good as people say it is.
Currently, I'm reading or audiobooking:
Watership Down by Richard Adams
This is How you Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Slowly re-reading the complete illustrated edition of The Lord of the Rings, with the appendices.
Reading has been a great low-energy activity for me the past few months, so I'm smashing through a number of series [1]
Currently making my way through Remnants of Filth. It's a historical fantasy BL, and much like Meatbun's other works, it's really ticking my boxes. Currently on book 4.
Nan Chan by TJQ made me sob and whenever I think about it I tear up again. I am not an emotional person but this one got me- I'm still thinking about it weeks later. I had seen reviews complaining about the slow pacing in initial chapters but I didn't notice it. The opening chapter is one of my favourites in any book ever
I don't know if I've linked this before but Run wild: Sa Ye by Wu Zhe is an ongoing series discussing how strong themes such as child neglect, addiction, loss and the poverty cycle[2] impact young people. These are all themes which are very personal to me and In my opinion they are portrayed quite well.
It's a coming of age high school romance which I don't tend to read but I'm REALLY glad I read this. The characters and humor all feel very natural. Out of everything on this list this is the one series I would wholeheartedly recommend to everyone
Bit of an outlier, but Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI by Madhumita Murgia was interesting and I don't know how to feel about it. It shares stories of how AI has intertwined itself in the lives of marginalized communities, and how it helps or hinders them.
I also re-read Scum Villain's Self Saving System by MXTX and I enjoyed it much more 5 years later, although I don't know how much of it is down to reading the official translation this time vs the fan translation last time. It reads a bit like a fanfic, but if you take it for what it is, it's fun.
Going to continue reading Remnants of Filth through the new year and into January, and then move back onto some western non-fiction again.
This is a polite way to say that I'm spending my evenings reading BL smut ↩︎
This isn't quite the right word but... how growing up in a low income area surrounded by crime affects your life chances and development?? ↩︎
just read The Great Gatsby for the first time (yes i’m in my 20s) and really liked it! I want to read some more Fitzgerald sometime. I find the cultural depictions so interesting. Kind of familiar as a country person who’s wandered around NYC feeling out of place.
also i finished gideon the ninth the other day and am mildly stricken with its brainrot.
What was your impression of The Great Gatsby? I remember finding the ending rather anticlimactic, although that could've been due to my English teacher back then ._.
i really liked it! I guess you could say that it’s anticlimactic but that’s definitely intentional.
I think Gatsby is just driven by love, and he dies defending this notion even as it's falling apart and then no one, not even Daisy, cares that he's dead except Carroway and the one drunk... It really highlights the contrast between him and Daisy: both are fabulously wealthy, but Daisy breathes money and uses up everyone around and doesn't worry about the consequences, while Gatsby has to fight for his wealth and is so concerned about how everyone sees him, but dies forgotten... it's a great tragedy!
Yeah I definitely agree that it was intentionally anticlimactic.
This reminded me of another book I've read a while back, called Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It follows a similar format where one of the most influencial characters also goes through the same thing[1] in a rather anticlimactic way. The book overall is much different from The Great Gatsby, and requires a bit of a stretch of the imagination, but still a good read regardless. Definitely would recommend it.
18+ warning though, it gets explicit in some areas
each of the books definitely have a different Vibe in terms of narrative, but the writing style keeps all of them feeling like they fit together regardless. gideon the ninth has been my favorite so far[1], but all of the books are so good.
my partner attributed it to the fact that it has, as she put it, "umineko vibes" ↩︎
After finishing the Great Gatsby I started reading Slaughterhouse-5, finished it yesterday evening. It's kind of hard to talk about because of the plot, but things I liked:
the metanarrative and the time travel. These remind me both of Lull, a short story by Kelly Link and one of my favorite things ever (the devil has a flashlight with two dead batteries), as well as of A Visit from the Goon Squad which was really good and also jumped around in time a lot.
the sick humor
deep trauma and apathy
the pseudohistorical characters
And then today I finished Julia by Sandra Newman (1984 but from Julia's perspective) and I am really pleased with it too. Things I liked:
England feels much more plausible than it does in 1984, and as such much more sinister
lesbians
SHE BITES THE HEAD OFF THE FUCKING RAT??!!
the motif of the crimes one is willing to commit in the name of the Brotherhood is so chilling. Here it's not just propaganda by the Party showing how far Winston will go, *it's what you have to say to live. You're just not allowed not to hate.
I need to read something trashy now just to balance out my ratings.
After the initial 3 books of Earthsea (I'll go back for the rest of the series at some point), and besides reading and translating a hyperspecific webnovel for fun, I've finally gotten around to starting the Wayfarers series. From what I understand, these are separate vignettes rather than a throughline of the same cast?
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet stands out at first to me in its contrast to our other recent sci-fi enjoyment, the Murderbot diaries, in how that one is very much about the difficulty of connecting esp. as someone who doesn't enjoy being a person and this one is a lot about connecting with a very varied crew [1]. That's neat and interesting. The story feels a bit cramped, at times, as it has to wander its way through so much worldbuilding and character foundations and plot development back-to-back, but overall, that seemed pretty alright since the focus is the characters, and it's interesting learning about the characters? I do have one specific qualm with how the Sianat exist in the setting, and especially how that ends up playing out toward the end of the book (spoilers, largely about finding that disconnected from the rest of the story)[2]. Mixed feelings.
A Closed and Common Orbit is very enjoyable. [3] Focusing on fewer species also gives it a better sense of depth in their relations, I think [4] I want to say I do very much understand Sidra, but I wonder how true that is? [5] I do need to take a break to process all that's in this one, and it may finally get me to start annotating my (e-)books as I read and re-read them. ...I wonder how those scribbles get saved? Something to find out later, I suppose.
There's a few light novels lined up for whenever I take a break from Wayfarers (WataNare, Zaregoto, that one webnovel mentioned above because translating it is very enjoyable, a friend mentioned The Expanse a while back, other books by Becky Chambers have also come up a few separate times so maybe those as well? Oh there's an unfinished fantasy title in this drive huh), but we also do need to get along writing some more fiction ourself (there's a small thing quite out of original scope that is competing with translation for brainspace). So next check-in will be another while.
Is nice to have ebooks metadata'd nicely, for once.
and the different views on how sex and romance factor into that connection ↩︎
I realized toward the latter half of the book that I couldn't see any resolution for Ohan that I wouldn't be bothered by to an extent; as introduced, a species that is largely plural by ideology is very interesting, but having that exist as a parasitism rather than any real symbiosis, it being maintained for religious reasons rather than personal identity compared to the rest of the crew, there being no anything in response to the murder, and having it framed as a final moment of family bonding after the fact just really don't sit well with me. I do understand why that decision was made in character, but overall, it just is a bit off. ↩︎
"I have to be a person, because I don't need a purpose and not having one drives me crazy." ↩︎
there is the nagging question of whether we are actually sex-repulsed in fiction or if it's just approached from avenues that don't really reflect a space that we find interesting? It's so hard to quantify what parts of it all stick out at me while reading, and why, but it thankfully doesn't come up very much in this one. ↩︎
Spend a lifetime dissociating, and all you're missing is being born into an array of early Resident Evil cameras. It does rather make me aware of my blindspots in a way I could almost say I'd forgotten about if there weren't any active mental threads on how to be more aware in a way that doesn't get overstimulating. And people wonder why autism relates to robots, gosh. ↩︎
Having finished the series and poked at the two monk/robot books as well, some more late-night thoughts on wayfaring species. It's a bit weird.
the ramble
The focus of the books is far and away personal relationships to others directly in one's orbit, and linguistics. And having sex.[1] But it feels like it paints species with too broad a stroke in ways that feel sometimes more like a fantasy text. And that ends up coming across oddly balanced in a way I can't quite square.
Now, granted, the Aandrisks, Aeluons, and Harmagians largely avoid this, and it's quite interesting following how they interact. The insect species whose name escapes me right now is also interesting linguistically, but something about how they are all written to be rather hegemonic feels so at odds with how often Human diversity is highlighted and the other focus characters are nearly all oddballs in their own contexts. And again, there's the Sianat. Biological plurality virus that is a cult that kills you unless you kill you or let someone else do it. It's interesting in a sense, but also doesn't work well with the conclusion of the other arcs and a bit :/ . The sloth species is sort of the same; biologic codependency in the psychological sense and each pair is a shared soul or whatever. At least they're allowed to keep existing as they are.
Really, the series is at some of its best when it is looking at meaningful biological differences in how species communicate (which does extend to Sidra and dealing with Human limitations), and at some of its least compelling when it tries to talk intergalacticly about half its composite species.
A Closed and Common Orbit remains my favorite.
which, for all its admiration of Aandrisks, also feels oddly monogamous? ↩︎
Finally got around to finishing Harrow the Ninth (sequel t Gideon the Ninth). Overall good! 4/5.
There's still a little too much unearned exposition, but it's not as bad as in the first book
the big twist/mystery is handled pretty well, and there's enough foreshadowing for it to be earned
I do really like a lot of the prose, particularly the descriptions.
the tumblr/internet humor is kind of strange?? Like on the one hand it feels like a sort of flex to be so blatant and still end up with a good story, but on the other there are some really clunky gags in the middle of otherwise heavy scenes.
but boy when the jokes land do they fucking kill me
i havnt gotten around to reading any of those books for this exact reason. i just.... dont think i could handle it? like dont get me wrong I've used tumblr for ages and stuff, but even then I don't particularly like when the mainstream tumblr jokes get used in other things.... even like youtube videos i dunno
If it helps, a lot of them aren't mainstream, at least not enough to be recognized by a non-tumblr user (me). The ones I noticed were just... weird choices adequately obvious to disrupt the flow, and there were like 5 or 6 such lines? I believe my tumbr-using friend noticed a bunch more.
it's especially strange because none of them, as far as I can tell, contribute in any way tonally or thematically or narratively? Like there are textual allusions to pop culture leading me to suspect some as-yet-unrevealed connection to modern-day earth, but that's not even this. It might just be Muir having fun writing, which I won't begrudge her, or it might be her way of lightening the tone? not sure at all.
