Attempting a booklog for 2015: Part 1

We'll see how well I keep it up.

Book 1: Unnamed PW review. Noting for book count

Book 2: Unnamed PW review. Noting for book count

Book 3: Unnamed PW review. Noting for book count

(Heh. Sense a theme? I took on a few extras over the break.)

Book 4: Two Serpents Rise, Max Gladstone. I'd read the first book late last year; technically, these are standalone novels set in his amazingly well-designed world in which gods exist (although most of them have been defeated by humans in recent years), and magic is ruled by contract law. If that sounds boring, you're missing the point of pretty much every black-box magic system anyway. Here, there's a real-world metaphor that actually makes it more interesting, and that's on top of the fabulous world-building. Also, Gladstone does a great job of having his books center on people of all races (helped by his alternate history). In this book, a risk management expert named Caleb is tasked with finding out who poisoned a city's water supply with demons (as one does), and the mystery involves gambling, alt-universe extreme sports (really), dangerous business meetings, and more. Really good stuff.

Book 5. Pulphead: Essays, John Jeremiah Sullivan. These essays range from personal memories of Sullivan's time working for Andrew Nelson Lytle to a profile of Axl Rose. They're all wonderful, and wonderfully-written. Read him. If you're not sure, here's a list of his essays on the web (many of which were expanded for the book). Just read it.

Book 6: Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine. Hell, I wish I'd had a single book I really disliked on my initial list (even the review ones were all good). I keep saying "just read it," but it's true. This is a mix of poetry and essays about race in America, and is amazing. It will make you angry at times (it's filled with microagressions, the sort I used to be oblivious to because people save them for when other white folks are out of hearing range), and make you gasp in awe at Rankine's writing prowess at others ("You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed."). So good, and so important.

Book 7: What We See When We Read, Peter Medelsund. It's not quite Understanding Comics, but this book (by the head designer for Knopf), is a look at both how we interact with the words on a page in a literal sense (skipping ahead, scanning for information, etc), and at some of the interactions between reading and the senses (how we form images of characters, etc). It's more free-form than anything, but is vital for anyone fascinated with the thought processes involved when our brains consume fiction.

Book 8: Dark Entries, Ian Rankin and Wertehr Dell'Edera. I'm a big fan of Rankin, of course, and seeing him write a John Constantine graphic novel was unexpected (and since I'd largely stopped paying attention to Vertigo years back, I missed this book's release). In this one, Constantine learns that a new reality show about a "haunted" house might have some actual supernatural elements. When he's asked to investigate, he finds out that things are much worse than he'd originally thought. It's a fun and brutal story, and Rankin does a great job of capturing Constantine without ever feeling like he's aping Moore, Delano, or Ennis (the three essential writers of the character). Basically, if you like Rankin or Constantine, you should like this.

Book 9: Missing Person, Patrick Modiano. I try (with mixed success) to make it a point to read at least one book by each year's Nobel Prize winner in Literature. And I'm a sucker for amnesia stories (Amber remains one of my favorite series). This uses the amnesia and the private detective tropes, but is a story of identity and nationality and all sorts of other things. The plot is that a detective named Guy Roland decides to finally take on the mystery of his own lost past. It's a tiny novel, but well worth the read (and props to the translator, who clearly understands Modiano's style). From what I've heard, this is Modiano's most accessible work in English, but I'll probably try another just to get a better sense of him.

Book 10: Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948, by Noah Berlatsky. I'm a sucker for pop culture studies, and have been a big fan of WW over the years. This book pretty much does what it says on the cover, and is pretty damned readable for an academic work (although I do have a mild rant about formatting: if your notes contain additional content and commentary as opposed to just page sources, you should use either footnotes or endnotes at the end of the chapter. This book uses endnotes at the end of the book, which is extremely annoying). It's interesting in the sense that, unlike a lot of literary analysis, Berlatsky approaches the subject with the presumption of conscious authorial intent, which makes sense given Marston's background. Likewise, it allows the use of a Freudian lens (something I often side eye), given the ere in which Marston wrote. I do occasionally get frustrated by the presumption that Peter's art was subject to the same thoughts (without more of an understanding of why Peter might be on the same page, I'd rather go with a less conscious set of assumptions, although the outcome might be the same), but that's a minor quibble. There's stuff that gets triggery in here -- there's talk of subjects like rape and incest alongside sex and bondage -- but it's all presented believably and with a hefty amount of research.

Attempting a booklog for 2015: Part 1

We'll see how well I keep it up.

Book 1: Unnamed PW review. Noting for book count

Book 2: Unnamed PW review. Noting for book count

Book 3: Unnamed PW review. Noting for book count

(Heh. Sense a theme? I took on a few extras over the break.)

Book 4: Two Serpents Rise, Max Gladstone. I'd read the first book late last year; technically, these are standalone novels set in his amazingly well-designed world in which gods exist (although most of them have been defeated by humans in recent years), and magic is ruled by contract law. If that sounds boring, you're missing the point of pretty much every black-box magic system anyway. Here, there's a real-world metaphor that actually makes it more interesting, and that's on top of the fabulous world-building. Also, Gladstone does a great job of having his books center on people of all races (helped by his alternate history). In this book, a risk management expert named Caleb is tasked with finding out who poisoned a city's water supply with demons (as one does), and the mystery involves gambling, alt-universe extreme sports (really), dangerous business meetings, and more. Really good stuff.

Book 5. Pulphead: Essays, John Jeremiah Sullivan. These essays range from personal memories of Sullivan's time working for Andrew Nelson Lytle to a profile of Axl Rose. They're all wonderful, and wonderfully-written. Read him. If you're not sure, here's a list of his essays on the web (many of which were expanded for the book). Just read it.

Book 6: Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine. Hell, I wish I'd had a single book I really disliked on my initial list (even the review ones were all good). I keep saying "just read it," but it's true. This is a mix of poetry and essays about race in America, and is amazing. It will make you angry at times (it's filled with microagressions, the sort I used to be oblivious to because people save them for when other white folks are out of hearing range), and make you gasp in awe at Rankine's writing prowess at others ("You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed."). So good, and so important.

Book 7: What We See When We Read, Peter Medelsund. It's not quite Understanding Comics, but this book (by the head designer for Knopf), is a look at both how we interact with the words on a page in a literal sense (skipping ahead, scanning for information, etc), and at some of the interactions between reading and the senses (how we form images of characters, etc). It's more free-form than anything, but is vital for anyone fascinated with the thought processes involved when our brains consume fiction.

Book 8: Dark Entries, Ian Rankin and Wertehr Dell'Edera. I'm a big fan of Rankin, of course, and seeing him write a John Constantine graphic novel was unexpected (and since I'd largely stopped paying attention to Vertigo years back, I missed this book's release). In this one, Constantine learns that a new reality show about a "haunted" house might have some actual supernatural elements. When he's asked to investigate, he finds out that things are much worse than he'd originally thought. It's a fun and brutal story, and Rankin does a great job of capturing Constantine without ever feeling like he's aping Moore, Delano, or Ennis (the three essential writers of the character). Basically, if you like Rankin or Constantine, you should like this.

Book 9: Missing Person, Patrick Modiano. I try (with mixed success) to make it a point to read at least one book by each year's Nobel Prize winner in Literature. And I'm a sucker for amnesia stories (Amber remains one of my favorite series). This uses the amnesia and the private detective tropes, but is a story of identity and nationality and all sorts of other things. The plot is that a detective named Guy Roland decides to finally take on the mystery of his own lost past. It's a tiny novel, but well worth the read (and props to the translator, who clearly understands Modiano's style). From what I've heard, this is Modiano's most accessible work in English, but I'll probably try another just to get a better sense of him.

Book 10: Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948, by Noah Berlatsky. I'm a sucker for pop culture studies, and have been a big fan of WW over the years. This book pretty much does what it says on the cover, and is pretty damned readable for an academic work (although I do have a mild rant about formatting: if your notes contain additional content and commentary as opposed to just page sources, you should use either footnotes or endnotes at the end of the chapter. This book uses endnotes at the end of the book, which is extremely annoying). It's interesting in the sense that, unlike a lot of literary analysis, Berlatsky approaches the subject with the presumption of conscious authorial intent, which makes sense given Marston's background. Likewise, it allows the use of a Freudian lens (something I often side eye), given the ere in which Marston wrote. I do occasionally get frustrated by the presumption that Peter's art was subject to the same thoughts (without more of an understanding of why Peter might be on the same page, I'd rather go with a less conscious set of assumptions, although the outcome might be the same), but that's a minor quibble. There's stuff that gets triggery in here -- there's talk of subjects like rape and incest alongside sex and bondage -- but it's all presented believably and with a hefty amount of research.