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What I Just Finished Reading
The Mystery of the Cupboard – Lynne Reid Banks
Banks makes me realize how much the recent fiction-writing trends disagree with me. This excellent book touches on gender discrimination, class discrimination, the tension between tradition and modernity, and what happens when families aren’t honest with each other—and it’s just part of the story. No one engages in long internal monologues about the injustices done to this or that character—the injustices just are. No characters have forced and unnatural conversations through which the author virtue-signals readers. This restraint makes the injustices the characters face that much clearer, the author's understanding of what's virtuous that much more obvious, and the story that much more poignant.
The Shadow Cabinet – Maureen Johnson
I thought this book was the end of the series, and it’s clearly not. Bah. End verdict: Johnson still writes some of the best worldbuilding, best descriptive passages, and snappiest dialogue, but alas, this is a bridge book and not the satisfying conclusion I thought it would be.
Looking Good – Lynne Lucianno
This book examines changing trends in American male body image from the 1950s through the 1990s, and it’s an overall excellent read. Lucianno organizes her discussion of these changes through four lenses: hair, physical fitness, cosmetic surgery, and sexual (dys)function, an approach that largely works. Common wisdom says that women worry about these things and men don’t; what’s striking about Lucianno’s examination is how much they do, and how much effort they expend to hide that fact. The volume’s already close to 20 years old, but it largely stands the test of time.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Strangler Vine – M.J. Carter
This book seems to have entered my roster of annual late spring reads.
Martin the Warrior – Brian Jacques
The next volume in my effort to finish books I started many years ago.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms – N.K. Jemison
The Fifth Season did precisely nothing for me, but this is readable. The worldbuilding is intriguing, although very much words-on-a-page versus forget-myself engrossing. All of which makes this the perfect volume to read during my commute.
泥棒と初恋 – 直野 儚羅 (Dorobou to Hatsukoi – Naono Bohra)
The first chapter is a story-within-a-story, which I didn’t quite follow (although I wasn’t trying very hard). Hopefully the subsequent yomikiri are better.
What I'm Reading Next
At this point, who knows? Things I’m considering are the final Preacher volume, Indra Das’ The Devourers, or any of the other novels (e.g. Senlin Ascends) I’ve taken breathers from during the last month.
これで以上です。
The Mystery of the Cupboard – Lynne Reid Banks
Banks makes me realize how much the recent fiction-writing trends disagree with me. This excellent book touches on gender discrimination, class discrimination, the tension between tradition and modernity, and what happens when families aren’t honest with each other—and it’s just part of the story. No one engages in long internal monologues about the injustices done to this or that character—the injustices just are. No characters have forced and unnatural conversations through which the author virtue-signals readers. This restraint makes the injustices the characters face that much clearer, the author's understanding of what's virtuous that much more obvious, and the story that much more poignant.
The Shadow Cabinet – Maureen Johnson
I thought this book was the end of the series, and it’s clearly not. Bah. End verdict: Johnson still writes some of the best worldbuilding, best descriptive passages, and snappiest dialogue, but alas, this is a bridge book and not the satisfying conclusion I thought it would be.
Looking Good – Lynne Lucianno
This book examines changing trends in American male body image from the 1950s through the 1990s, and it’s an overall excellent read. Lucianno organizes her discussion of these changes through four lenses: hair, physical fitness, cosmetic surgery, and sexual (dys)function, an approach that largely works. Common wisdom says that women worry about these things and men don’t; what’s striking about Lucianno’s examination is how much they do, and how much effort they expend to hide that fact. The volume’s already close to 20 years old, but it largely stands the test of time.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Strangler Vine – M.J. Carter
This book seems to have entered my roster of annual late spring reads.
Martin the Warrior – Brian Jacques
The next volume in my effort to finish books I started many years ago.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms – N.K. Jemison
The Fifth Season did precisely nothing for me, but this is readable. The worldbuilding is intriguing, although very much words-on-a-page versus forget-myself engrossing. All of which makes this the perfect volume to read during my commute.
泥棒と初恋 – 直野 儚羅 (Dorobou to Hatsukoi – Naono Bohra)
The first chapter is a story-within-a-story, which I didn’t quite follow (although I wasn’t trying very hard). Hopefully the subsequent yomikiri are better.
What I'm Reading Next
At this point, who knows? Things I’m considering are the final Preacher volume, Indra Das’ The Devourers, or any of the other novels (e.g. Senlin Ascends) I’ve taken breathers from during the last month.
これで以上です。
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