What Am I Reading Wednesday - November 3

What I Finished Reading This Week

Dharma Punx – Noah Levine
I read Levine’s Against the Stream and The Heart of the Revolution about a decade ago, but never got around to reading this, his first book. It’s a memoir of his childhood and early adulthood as a drug-addicted criminal and how he got clean with the help first of Alcoholics Anonymous and then Vipassana Buddhism. As in his later books, Levine’s prose is workmanlike, but in this volume Buddhism takes a backseat to Levine’s retelling of his life story. Overall, it was a pretty good read, with the best meditation instructions I've encountered anywhere (although anyone looking for a book on the intersection of punk rock and Buddhism would be much better served by reading Brad Warner). I appreciated Levine’s honesty even about things that don’t cast him in the best light: he doesn’t try to burnish his childish, destructive mindset prior to getting clean, for instance, or his deeply flawed expectations that eternal bliss and enlightenment would be his just as soon as he traveled to “exotic”—his characterization—Asia. Which is why I found it a bit odd that sex was the one thing Levine seemed to be coy about. Then I learned that in 2018, official investigations bore out at least some of the multiple allegations of rape and sexual misconduct against him, which is probably why the copy of this book that I read had found its way into a Little Free Library. So, yeah.

Deadpool: The Complete Collection vol. 2 – Daniel Way et al.
Way writes an excellent Deadpool: humorous, insane, zany, often triumphing despite himself, and as with the first volume, this book made me laugh out loud more than once. The artists’ depictions of women are decidedly...retrograde...such that I don’t know that I would have paid for this new, but the strength of Way’s writing definitely made it worth acquiring secondhand.


What I Finished Reading At Some Point In The Past Four Months

A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet – Becky Chambers

This book was not for me. From the copy and reviews I was expecting something along the lines of the Imperial Radch series: immersive worldbuilding and labyrinthine intergalactic politics. ( Read more... )

Weirdly, my favorite part of the book was Corbin: a thoroughly unpleasant, misanthropic, arrogant white male, because in contrast to so many, many books, movies, comics, TV shows, you name it in which the thoroughly unpleasant, misanthropic, arrogant (white) male is the guy everyone secretly finds the most sexiest, intriguing, charismatic, and all around bestest, the other characters in Small, Angry Planet roundly dislike Corbin for being thoroughly unpleasant, misanthropic, and arrogant. I found that really refreshing.

TL;DR: I read it, it mostly failed to land for me, and I'm unlikely to read the subsequent volumes.

The Northern Fiddler – Alan Feldman & Eamonn O’Doherty
The Northern Fiddler was written in 1979, when anthropologists and amateur folklorists “rediscovered” Irish traditional music, and boy is it dated. ( Read more... )

TL;DR: read it for the tons of obscure tunes and the interviews with the subjects, but skip Feldman and O'Doherty's contributions

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch – Rivka Galchen
In Germany in 1614, a town magistrate and two villagers accuse a widow of witchcraft. They’re drunk and disregard proper legal procedure for lodging the accusation. Although the widow is illiterate, she’s no fool and neither is her youngest son, who also happens to be Johannes Kepler. So she—or rather her male guardian—countersues for slander. The slander case mysteriously disappears into a bureaucratic black hole. The case against her accelerates by the day as more and more accusers emerge.( Read more... )

Girl, Wash Your Face – Rachel Hollis
There was a time when you couldn’t set foot in a bookstore, drug store, or big box store without seeing this book. I got the impression that the author was an Internet famous, probably Christian, decidedly rah-rah mommy blogger. Nothing I’d go out of my way to read, but when it showed up in a Little Free Library, I took the plunge. I liked it much more than I thought I would. ( Read more... )

M, King’s Bodyguard – Niall Leonard
This was a serviceable beach read mystery. It is loosely based on a historical person: William Melville, an Irish peasant who became the first head of Britain's secret service. The novel opens as Melville and his German counterpart must foil an assassination attempt at Victoria’s funeral. ( Read more... )

If you’re looking for a historical mystery rooted in period setting, dialogue, and backstory, this is not the novel for you. But if you’re looking for “James Bond thriller in late-Victorian Era Theme Park” it’s worth the read.

The Silver Bough vol. 2 – F. Marian McNeill
This volume covers the festivals between Candlemas (early February) and Harvest Home (late August). In contrast to volume 3, which covers the period from Halloween on, many of the observances McNeill catalogs here—Valentine’s Day, Easter, etc.—are relatively modern. That said, the chapter on Beltaine is fairly robust, and there are some other gems as well. Apparently wild carrots played a major role in Scottish religious and folk rites from the pre-Christian era to the early 20th century. Who knew?


What I Am Currently Reading

Star Mother – Charlie Holmberg
I’m a little over 50 percent of the way through. Like many of Holmberg’s recent offerings it started out strong but petered out by the 30 percent mark.

The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
Stretching this one out, because I immediately want to restart it when I’ve finished, and I’ve read it so many times that less and less of it fades from memory between each reread.

Isolde – Rosalind Miles
Plugging away. The juxtaposition between excellent narrative description and tin-eared bodice ripper dialogue is not working very well for me.

Manx Fairy Tales – Sophia Morrison
This is thoroughly delightful.


What I’m Reading Next

I have exercised good self-control for two weeks running, and not acquired any additional books.



What I Still Have Left To Review

The Crone ・ The Kingdoms ・ The Last Graduate ・ Senlin Ascends ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (1) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (2) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (3)

これで以上です。