Wednesday Reading Meme
Sep. 4th, 2019 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
David King’s The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia, which grew out of King’s personal collection of Soviet photographs: in many instances he has the original photograph, the doctored photograph (before publication, Soviet censors would cut out or cover over politically inconvenient people in photographs - no more Trotsky standing next to Lenin!), and a third version of the photograph in which yet more faces had been blotted out with ink after purges. People would actually go through their own photograph albums and ink out family members after their arrests. Fascinating stuff.
What I’m Reading Now
Katrina Leno’s Summer of Salt, which I picked out for the reading challenge “a book you chose for the cover.” The cover made me think it was an f/f YA romance; then the blurb made me think the two girls on the cover were actually sisters; then I started reading the book and I discovered that the heroine has both a sister (a twin! I love twins!) AND ALSO a potential girlfriend, and also she lives on a mildly magical island and her twin sister can float.
...and then it occurred to me that maybe I should save the book for F/F Friday, so I will write about it at more length then, and will just say for now that so far I’ve been enjoying it a lot.
In between going to a wedding this weekend and Labor Day, I haven’t been to work since last Thursday, so I’ve had little chance to continue in Wired Love (I’ve set it aside to read on my work breaks to give myself a treat to look forward to). However, there have been two exciting happenings: An Imposter has shown up to impersonate C (this is not proven yet, but like Nattie I find it VERY hard to believe that a loud young man with bear grease in his hair could be C; my feeling is that it’s a fellow telegraph operator who got angry because C & N kept flirting all the time), and now Nattie and her new friend Cynthia (who is a singer) are having a secret bohemian feast using whatever dishes they can lay their hands on.
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve got two reading challenges left: “a book in translation” (for which I intend to finish Kristin Lavransdatter) and “a book outside your genre comfort zone,” for which I tried to read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. In the introduction, the main character finds a dead body hanging from a tree; then she gets raped in the second chapter (and then the rapist dies of heart failure! in the act!) and I decided this was a little too far out of my genre comfort zone, actually.
So I’ve got another book lined up for that one: Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls. Eventually maybe I will learn how to find grown-up books for grown-ups that I like?
David King’s The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia, which grew out of King’s personal collection of Soviet photographs: in many instances he has the original photograph, the doctored photograph (before publication, Soviet censors would cut out or cover over politically inconvenient people in photographs - no more Trotsky standing next to Lenin!), and a third version of the photograph in which yet more faces had been blotted out with ink after purges. People would actually go through their own photograph albums and ink out family members after their arrests. Fascinating stuff.
What I’m Reading Now
Katrina Leno’s Summer of Salt, which I picked out for the reading challenge “a book you chose for the cover.” The cover made me think it was an f/f YA romance; then the blurb made me think the two girls on the cover were actually sisters; then I started reading the book and I discovered that the heroine has both a sister (a twin! I love twins!) AND ALSO a potential girlfriend, and also she lives on a mildly magical island and her twin sister can float.
...and then it occurred to me that maybe I should save the book for F/F Friday, so I will write about it at more length then, and will just say for now that so far I’ve been enjoying it a lot.
In between going to a wedding this weekend and Labor Day, I haven’t been to work since last Thursday, so I’ve had little chance to continue in Wired Love (I’ve set it aside to read on my work breaks to give myself a treat to look forward to). However, there have been two exciting happenings: An Imposter has shown up to impersonate C (this is not proven yet, but like Nattie I find it VERY hard to believe that a loud young man with bear grease in his hair could be C; my feeling is that it’s a fellow telegraph operator who got angry because C & N kept flirting all the time), and now Nattie and her new friend Cynthia (who is a singer) are having a secret bohemian feast using whatever dishes they can lay their hands on.
What I Plan to Read Next
I’ve got two reading challenges left: “a book in translation” (for which I intend to finish Kristin Lavransdatter) and “a book outside your genre comfort zone,” for which I tried to read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. In the introduction, the main character finds a dead body hanging from a tree; then she gets raped in the second chapter (and then the rapist dies of heart failure! in the act!) and I decided this was a little too far out of my genre comfort zone, actually.
So I’ve got another book lined up for that one: Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls. Eventually maybe I will learn how to find grown-up books for grown-ups that I like?
no subject
Date: 2019-09-04 10:58 pm (UTC)Everybody wins! I hope this book is as delightful as it sounds.
Also, that book woman books sounds like it is A Little Much. I don't blame you for bailing.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-05 01:59 am (UTC)It's possible that book woman got everything out of its system in those first few chapters, but it is ALSO possible that it just continues like that all the way through, so I was like naaaaah. Let's hope I have more luck with City of Girls.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-05 12:09 pm (UTC)Oh man, that sounds fascinating. I knew it was done officially, but the fact that families would go and censor their own personal photos? Chilling.
(Side note: have you seen The Death of Stalin? The end credits play with that phenomenon of censoring "politically inconvenient" people from photographs.)
no subject
Date: 2019-09-05 03:24 pm (UTC)Actually, it probably wasn't objectively the very best, but it was tailored exactly 100% to my interests. I saw it in theaters. I loved it so much I nearly went back and saw it a second time. Very dark comedy is EXACTLY the right way to play late Stalinism and all the Politburo members were perfectly cast (and Zhukov! The way he walks in and casts off that cape-thing he's wearing! PEAK ZHUKOV). I wasn't totally sold on their Stalin, but he did die very early so that wasn't a big problem.
Ahem. Anyway, yes, doctoring photographs. Not only did people censor their own photographs; it was common for teachers to have children get out their textbooks and the whole class would censor out the faces of the recently purged together.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-05 12:28 pm (UTC)Good luck with CITY OF GIRLS! I would've bailed on that other one, too.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-05 03:25 pm (UTC)