Wednesday Reading Meme
Nov. 30th, 2016 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I’ve finished the first two books in Pamela Dean’s Secret Country trilogy, The Secret Country and The Hidden Land, and these books, you guys, these books are so damn weird. Actually I think you could say this about all of Dean’s books - they are shaped differently from the usual run of books, which is one of the reasons I love them but also means that I spend a lot of time going “Wait, wait, what just happened? What is happening? What even is the nature of this magical land and why is it full of people quoting Shakespeare?”
I am partway through the third book, The Whim of the Dragon, but dragging my feet on it because the death of one of my favorites has been not so much foreshadowed as fated, but in such a way that I keep hoping against hope that it won’t happen and am going to be terribly upset when it does. A VERSION OF HIS DEATH IS DESCRIBED IN LITERALLY THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK, WHY DID I GET SO ATTACHED.
What I’m Reading Now
God, so many things. Too many things, which is honestly part of the problem: I need to buckle down and finish a few because I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed by my partly read pile. Aside from The Whim of the Dragon, I’m also reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, which I’m also dragging my feet on because it’s about the Vietnam War and nothing good ever happens in Vietnam War books.
And I have two books from NetGalley. First is Debra A. Shattuck’s Bloomer Girls, which is about the history of American women in baseball in the 19th century and so far mostly seems to consist of iterations of the fact that women played baseball. The second is John Kim’s The Angry Therapist, which I think I would enjoy more if Kim didn’t strike me as super full of himself and yet also bizarrely insecure. He keeps saying things like, “When I began my blog, where I talk about therapy and also my motorcycle and my tattoos because I am just that cool, I had no idea that it would one day have a million zillion bazillion hits and also revolutionize therapy” (I’m paraphrasing, he’s probably not actually this bad), and it’s like, c’mon dude, there’s no need to be so modest; you’re not that great.
Maybe once I’m past the introduction he’ll start talking more about his theories and less about himself.
What I Plan to Read Next
I found a book on NetGalley called Speaking in Cod Tongues, which is about Canadian cuisine. How could I say no to a food memoir/possibly road trip book? NetGalley speaks to all my worst impulses.
And then NetGalley had a book called How to Be Ultra Spiritual, which is about… the commercialization of spiritual stuff I think… anyway it looks hilarious, of course I had to request it.
I’ve finished the first two books in Pamela Dean’s Secret Country trilogy, The Secret Country and The Hidden Land, and these books, you guys, these books are so damn weird. Actually I think you could say this about all of Dean’s books - they are shaped differently from the usual run of books, which is one of the reasons I love them but also means that I spend a lot of time going “Wait, wait, what just happened? What is happening? What even is the nature of this magical land and why is it full of people quoting Shakespeare?”
I am partway through the third book, The Whim of the Dragon, but dragging my feet on it because the death of one of my favorites has been not so much foreshadowed as fated, but in such a way that I keep hoping against hope that it won’t happen and am going to be terribly upset when it does. A VERSION OF HIS DEATH IS DESCRIBED IN LITERALLY THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK, WHY DID I GET SO ATTACHED.
What I’m Reading Now
God, so many things. Too many things, which is honestly part of the problem: I need to buckle down and finish a few because I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed by my partly read pile. Aside from The Whim of the Dragon, I’m also reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, which I’m also dragging my feet on because it’s about the Vietnam War and nothing good ever happens in Vietnam War books.
And I have two books from NetGalley. First is Debra A. Shattuck’s Bloomer Girls, which is about the history of American women in baseball in the 19th century and so far mostly seems to consist of iterations of the fact that women played baseball. The second is John Kim’s The Angry Therapist, which I think I would enjoy more if Kim didn’t strike me as super full of himself and yet also bizarrely insecure. He keeps saying things like, “When I began my blog, where I talk about therapy and also my motorcycle and my tattoos because I am just that cool, I had no idea that it would one day have a million zillion bazillion hits and also revolutionize therapy” (I’m paraphrasing, he’s probably not actually this bad), and it’s like, c’mon dude, there’s no need to be so modest; you’re not that great.
Maybe once I’m past the introduction he’ll start talking more about his theories and less about himself.
What I Plan to Read Next
I found a book on NetGalley called Speaking in Cod Tongues, which is about Canadian cuisine. How could I say no to a food memoir/possibly road trip book? NetGalley speaks to all my worst impulses.
And then NetGalley had a book called How to Be Ultra Spiritual, which is about… the commercialization of spiritual stuff I think… anyway it looks hilarious, of course I had to request it.
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no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-01 03:31 am (UTC)I have only read half of The Secret Country, but this is definitely my impression. I should finish it, eh?
no subject
Date: 2016-12-01 12:28 pm (UTC)