September 2017 Reads

I was traveling during the first half of September and thus got a little less reading done last month than usual. But I managed two good short-story collections as well as another Discworld novel and a free short Kindle book!

Late Victorian Gothic Tales - Edited/Intro by Roger Luckhurst (2005)
"And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that struck him; its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed! How lacking in all harmony! He was amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism of the day, and the real facts of existence. He was still very young."

With a long and detailed introduction as well as a long list of resources, this collection stands up as a good mix of stories from a very specific slice of time. I appreciated that the 12 stories/novellas here included offerings from both male and female authors - some well-known (e.g. Kipling, Wilde, Doyle) and some I'd not come across before (Bithia Mary Croker). The general collection gives a good sense of the atmosphere of the genre of a whole as well as the 10-year slot that the stories here fit into. Pick this up if you're at all interested in Gothic literature, appreciative of late 19th-century writers, or want to get a little more background to forerunners like Poe or later authors like H. P. Lovecraft.

Related Reads:
(See compilation given by the editor)

Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett (1994)
"Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it was something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep, and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you."

I found this offering by Pratchett (the 4th in the Rincewind/Wizards timeline) a little harder to read than others of the Discworld series due to the proliferation of footnotes, asides, and representations of different languages and cultures for the "cross-cultural" aspect. However, it was still a fun read and left me wanting more Discworld stories.

Insistence of Vision - David Brin [Short Story Collection] (2016)
"To live, we must think. Our thoughts must encompass the entire range of possibility."

Unlike the bulk of other SciFi short stories I've come across (Philip K. Dick collections, for instance), Brin's stories aren't short and snappy pieces so much as slices of larger worlds. The general feeling I got after reading most of the pieces here was that of wanting to hear more. I wouldn't say this is a generally undesirable thing, it's just different. And some stories in Insistence are based off and related to his other works (which helps explain some of those feelings).

While I wouldn't necessarily recommend this collection to someone completely unfamiliar with Science Fiction, I enjoyed it overall. Those who are already David Brin fans - or who've read a good amount of SciFi already - will probably find this a good addition to round out their library. I also appreciated reading the author's thoughts via a couple of essay like pieces and occasional between-chapters commentary.

Related Reads:
The Postman (Brin)
The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories

The Female Soldier, or The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell (1750)
"These Reflections must possess the Reader with generous Sentiments of this our Heroine, who by her Subtlety, and ready Inventions, destroyed in the Embrio every Thing advanced by her Fellow-Shipmates that she imagined might be a Means of exposing her Virtue."

I had this on my to-read list for quite a long time before it occurred to me to check if it was available for free on Kindle (spoiler: yes!). This little book is a fascinating, not entirely credible, ostensibly from-the-source account of an Englishwoman who disguised herself as a man and served in the Royal Marines in the early 1700's. Stylistically, it's very "of its time", with embellishments and assurances of Hannah's Female Virtue abounding and all Nouns capitalized. This makes for a bit of difficult reading, but if you're interested in history - especially of 18th century accounts - this is a good little sample to check out.

Related Reads:
Bloody Jack series (Meyer)
A Soldier's Secret (Moss)
Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder, and Piracy
Moby Dick (Melville)

August 2017 Reads Part 2

(continued from Part 1 and delayed due to travel, oops!)

I've been reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels in chronological sub-series order. While technically the books can can be read in any order, following the storylines is helpful. That said, there's a lot of different thoughts and recommendations on where to start in the vastness of Discworld, and my overall recommendation is to just start anywhere, as long as you start!

I'm leaving out the "Recommended Reads" sections for this grouping, as there's a lot of overlap and things I've previously recommended for Pratchett reads.

Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett (1992)
"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are."

Lords and Ladies continues the Witches storyline, which I started earlier this year. This particular book involves Elves - which, in this world, are unconcernedly cruel - and veers a little darker than previously-read novels. I appreciated the elements of old/folk magic that were tied in (iron horseshoes, etc). I felt it had a good mix of humor and peril-seriousness.

The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett (1983)
"Either dragons should exist completely or fail to exist at all, he felt. A dragon only half-existing was worse than the extremes."

This is Pratchett's first Discworld novel and the first in the Wizards (Rincewind) storyline. It's different in tone than the Witches storyline; it feels a little more like true-fantasy and a little heavier and more world-building . I think it's a good place to start for anyone wanting to get into the Discworld series - although I'm happy with where I started (Equal Rites). It's also divided up into several short books, which is a different format than all the following novels.

The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett (1986)
"Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn't take you seriously until you'd actually killed them, by which time it didn't really matter anyway."

Pratchett's second novel continues the Wizard storyline adventures; the end here feels fairly "neat" (not a cliffhanger), though still left open for the further adventures. I have to say that I particularly enjoyed the "computer programmer" druids in this offering. As always, Pratchett is unendingly clever.

Maskerade - Terry Pratchett (1995)
"Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. And because the theater was fiction made flesh, she hated the theater most of all. But that was it - hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned."

I switched back to the Witches storyline with Maskerade, the 5th book in this sub-series. This is a riff on Phantom of the Opera, and felt a little Dr. Who-esque to me. Coming back to the Witches series after reading the first few Wizard books, I realized just how much I had been appreciating the woman-heavy cast. I liked the further development of Agnes/Perdita, who's a very different character than her predecessor Magrat, but very likable (and frustratingly realistic) in her own way.

Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett (1998)
"All witches who'd lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn't, the reason being that the words got in the way."

This, the 6th and final novel in the Witches storyline, brings vampires into the mix. It veers a bit more serious (while still retaining Pratchett's signature humor). I was sad to have this storyline end.

Sourcery - Terry Pratchett (1989)
"In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find..."

Switching back to the 3rd Wizard novel with this one - it's somewhat darker in storyline and tone. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the other Discworld novels I've read so far, but that's not to say I disliked it as a whole. It seemed to me to be a more conventional, serious take on the plot thesis of Equal Rites, its predecessor by a few years.

Faust Eric - Terry Pratchett (1990)
“Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, 'Are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

This book is a kind of in-between novel for the Wizards timeline - sort of a "what happened to Rincewind while he was away" tale. It has a fairly clever rendition of Hell, which Rincewind finds himself venturing into after a beginner-conjurer mistakes him for a demon. I felt the characters weren't as strong here, but it's more forgivable in this more simplistic side-story. It was a bit of a light relief after the more serious Sourcery. 

August 2017 Reads Part 1

I got through another interesting mix of books this past month. Half were Terry Pratchett novels (see part 2), and half were more serious books - a mix of fiction and non-fiction.

You Are A Badass - Jen Sincero (2013)
"We only get to be in our bodies for a limited time; why not celebrate the journey instead of merely riding it out until it’s over?"

I actually had a hard time getting through this book my first read-through. It starts out (and continues the trend) encouraging readers to "manifest" things and believe in the good of the Universe, and veers too close to Prosperity Gospel type stuff for my taste. Also, the author is dismissive of anxiety and depression.

But, to be fair, on my second reading (the one where I decided to go through and take notes), I found some actually helpful things I could glean. Overall, then, my caution is that the reader should know that there's a fair helping of "the Universe wants to bless you"  "all you have to do is believe" and "just do it" lines - all phrases that I find excessively cringey. But there's still some helpful and go-get--'em and even practical advice that even I found helpful.

Related Reads:
The Happiness Project (Rubin)

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel - Tom Wainwright (2016)
"Buy cocaine in Europe or the United States and it is an uncomfortable certainty that you have helped pay for someone to be tortured to death in a place like Reynosa. People ought to know this. It is a testament to the success of cartels in laundering their images that millions of customers buy drugs each year without giving a moment's thought to the fact that they are funding unimaginable suffering."

I thought this book was well-written and engaging, a happy surprise for me as I don't always mesh well with the writing styles of journalists/reporters/editors. The weaknesses for me were that the statistics given become dated quickly (through no fault of the author) - for instance, more states have legalized marijuana since the book's publication - and sometimes the author's parallels to business were a bit of a stretch. But I'd widely recommend the book for, among other things, its genuinely fascinating look into the facets of drug cartels and discussion of the impact of legalization.


The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick (1962)
"They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate - confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped."

(Quick note: I haven't seen the Amazon Prime series, although I've heard it's fairly divergent from the book, in the general tradition of PKD adaptations) I found this an interesting, though strangely short-feeling, read. It's a blend of the things I've come to associate with PKD - clever, uncomfortable, terse, and depressingly realistic.

Related Reads:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick)

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami (1991)
(Translated from Japanese to English by Alfred Birnbaum)
"Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope."

Hard-Boiled Wonderland is a curious mix of fantasy and speculative fiction, and (by all accounts) quite different even (or perhaps especially) among other contemporary Japanese novels. The nameless characters, the unicorn skulls, the subterranean fish-god worshipers... it's a reality-bending journey that somehow carries a pragmatic thread throughout.

I've only read one other Murakami book, but I found this to be (perhaps strangely) the more straightforward of the two. This one seems to be a good starter book for those interested in Murakami/modern Japanese fiction.

Related Reads:
Neuromancer (Gibson)
The Three-Body Problem (Liu)
The Giver (Lowry)

(to be continued in Part 2)

July 2017 Reads Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

Big Little Man: In Search of my Asian Self - Alex Tizon (2014)
"Our early years in America were marked by relentless self-annihilation, though of course we did not see it that way at the time."

Even though I'm not at all the author's main target audience (Asian-American men), I found this exploration of self and culture enlightening. There are a lot of things to unpack here, including how Asian men are portrayed in modern media and in American culture in general. And though a number of points weren't new to me and I didn't really mesh with or relate deeply to Tizon's overall writing style and experiences, it's hard to be unaffected by things like the author's methods of self-harm as a young man as he attempted to make his features more "Western" - an ideal pushed not only by his surrounding culture, but by his immigrant father.

That said, I admit to struggling with my reaction to this book because I read Tizon's posthumously published piece "My Family's Slave" first. In Big Little Man, Tizon barely gives a passing mention to his "Aunt Lola", which feels like a huge erasure despite his later attempt to give her a voice. Thus, to me his book was overshadowed by the unspoken issue of Lola's story and his family's treatment of her, and I finished it feeling conflicted.

Related Reads:
Fresh Off the Boat (Huang)

Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)
"Afterwards they would return to America to fight on the Internet over their mythologies of home, because home was now a blurred place between here and there, and at least online they could ignore the awareness of how inconsequential they had become."

This was something of an eye-opening read about modern-day immigrants from African countries, Nigeria specifically; I can't recall that I've read anything in this specific genre before. The characters felt real to me, and I enjoyed the story layout and the switching between points of view (not something I'm always a fan of) as well as the descriptions of the actions and reactions of the characters. The format of including blog posts (written by the main character) at the end of certain chapters threw me off a little, and I wondered if this added to the slight feeling I had that the book was already tending towards being dated.

Related Reads:
Between the World and Me (Coates)
The Nanny Diaries (McLaughlin & Kraus)

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden (2017)
"The forest of Lesnaya Zemlya was not like the forest around Moscow. It was wild and crueler and fairer. The vast trees whispered together overhead, and all around, Konstantin seemed to feel eyes."

This is a magical and dark Russian fairy tale; it deals with the struggle of the balance between religion and old stories and tradition. The book winds through historical references and contains some unsettling dark fantasy-violence. I wish it had been a little more developed in some areas and perhaps a little less by-the-book in others. That said, I'm a lover of both Russian novels and fairy tales, so this novel (the first by its author), though not perfect, hit a sweet spot for me.

Related Reads:
The Moorchild (McGraw)
American Gods (Gaiman)

Papa Married a Mormon - John D. Fitzgerald (1955)
(my version: First Printing, copyright 1976)
"He believed... that some day all men would realize they were God's children and when they hurt by word or deed another man, they were hurting God."

This semi-autobiographical family history is set in the Utah Territory days. It's less factual than I first thought; with a bit of internet research I found that quite a number of details were changed in this telling (Fitzgerald admits that his book is about "the people who made Utah history and not history per se."). I wondered why the author didn't stick closer to the actual facts of his family history, which seemed like it would be interesting enough. As it is, Fitzgerald portrays what seems to be a generally accurate picture of Utah frontier life, which is fascinating for anyone at all interested in American Frontier history and/or Mormon history. I especially appreciated reading about the surprisingly tolerant views that Fitzgerald's family held on religion.

With that background, I feel like I also have to include a few content notes: there's some casual racism towards Native Americans in general as well as Mexican and Chinese immigrants (at least in part due to the recorded viewpoints of contemporary figures in the book), and Fitzgerald quotes instances of, but seems to breeze by or even excuse, early Mormon pioneer practices such as taking Paiute children away from their parents to "civilize" them in white schools.

Related Reads:
The Great Brain series (Fitzgerald)
The Blue Tattoo (Mifflin)

Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett (1991)
"Mirrors give plenty, but they take away lots."

This is another fun Discworld read that pulls from various fairytales for (sometimes darkly) humorous inspiration. Something I haven't mentioned before in my other Pratchett reviews is that I've appreciated how female-heavy the main character cast is - and that I find the characters (Granny Weatherwax in particular) really well done. It's also a note on how far I've come from my Christian Fundamentalist, Harry-Potter-banned childhood to even feel okay with reading a book with the word "Witches" in the title.

Related Reads:
Ella Enchanted (Levine)

July 2017 Reads Part 1

One word to describe July's mix of books? Multicultural (I decided the word encompasses Discworld, as well).

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End  - Atul Gawande (2014)
"We've created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets - and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near certainty that those tickets will not win."

Written by a surgeon, Being Mortal deals directly with death, fatal illnesses, and end-of-life care, making it a somewhat depressing and sometimes uncomfortable read. However, it's also a helpful and necessary read, especially for anyone in the medical field or those who have elderly relatives. Gawande draws from various studies, his personal experiences - both as an observer and as a surgeon - and his family background (his parents were from India) to discuss the issues surrounding mortality and aging, including the balance between individual independence and assisted care.

Related Reads:
Musicophilia (Sacks)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (2007)
"She was my Old World Dominican mother and I was her only daughter, the one she had raised up herself with the help of nobody, which meant it was her duty to keep me crushed under her heel."

It's hard to accurately describe this book's style - it's off-beat and rapid-fire, punctuated with smatterings of strong language and violence, code-switching, and nerd-culture references. The focus is on members of a Dominican Republic immigrant family, with footnotes relating to Dominican culture and history interspersed. Layers of understanding are added as the book cycles through the stories of different family members, and it manages to be striking, evocative, sad, funny, and sage all at once. I related deeply to certain parts and facets of the book and not at all to others; I think most readers will find this to be true in different ways. All in all, Diaz' book is breathtaking in the whiplash-from-a-roller coaster kind of way.

Related Reads:
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)

The Little Friend - Donna Tartt (2002)

"But most eloquent of all were the stories passed down to her - highly decorated items which Harriet embellished even further in her resolute myth of the enchanted alcazar, the fairy chateau that never was."

Donna Tartt's second novel The Little Friend is also the most polarizing of her three books. I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so all I'll note plotwise is that the book leaves the reader with a lot of open ends, which surprised and temporarily frustrated me. But exploration and description rather than pat endings are a hallmark of Tartt's writing style; for me, it's a satisfactory trade-off. Her uncanny ability to write through a child's eyes and the way she lovingly depicts the setting (semi-rural 1970's Mississippi) results in a tantalizing read. Despite - or perhaps because of - its imperfections, this is a novel that will grab you and compel you to pour over it multiple times to revel in certain passages and to try to work out what you might've missed.

Related Reads:
The Secret History (Tartt)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Jackson)
Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh)

The Help (Stockett)

Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett (1988)
"Because the past is what people remember, and memories are words. Who knows how a king behaved a thousand years ago? There is only recollection, and stories. And plays, of course."

I enjoyed this book perhaps just a bit less than Equal Rites (its chronological predecessor), but Pratchett's humor interspersed in this wry sort-of re-telling of Macbeth, chock full of witches and ghosts and plots and schemes, made for a surprisingly satisfying light-fantasy read and left me eager for more Pratchett/Discworld novels.

Related Reads:
The Once and Future King (White)
The 13 Clocks (Thurber)

(to be continued in Part 2)

June 2017 Reads, part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

Honeybee Democracy - Thomas Seeley (2010)
"One valuable lesson that we can learn from the bees is that holding an open and fair competition of ideas is a smart solution to the problem of making a decision based on a pool of information dispersed across a group of individuals."

This both reads like a textbook and manages to be fascinating. Seeley, with a keen observer's care, goes over, in detail and supported by studies, various aspects of aspects of social bee behaviors like swarming and choosing an ideal nesting site. You'll learn a lot. It does get a little repetitive by the end, and some of the conclusions about what humans can learn from bee behavior seem like a stretch, but it's interesting nonetheless. A must-read if you're at all interested in beekeeping.

Related Reads:
(See sources cited throughout book)

Everland - Wendy Spinale (2016)
"What more is left here for you but faith?" Pete says, extending a hand to me from the open window.
..."And a little bit of pixie dust," Bella adds, pouring the rest of the gold into my hand.

This Young Adult fiction book is basically a Steampunk retelling of Peter Pan. I liked the overall premise and setup of the book - it's similar to the fantasy-fiction that I liked to read and write as a teen. But I came away with the feeling that the idea was better than the result here. And since this is the first of a as-yet-incomplete trilogy, there were some pieces in the story that seemed to be left hanging.

Everland's point of view switches between two characters (the main protagonist and main antagonist) throughout, but there really wasn't much difference between the character's voices. I found myself wishing that it wasn't written in the first person; I think the only thing this adds is that it makes the book a bit more distinct from the original story. One of its stronger points is interesting descriptions and the sometimes-clever integration of steampunk elements. Overall, though, the main thought I came away with was that this story would work better - and seem fresher - in graphic novel form.

Related Reads:
Ella Enchanted
Girl Genius comic series
Peter Pan

The Art of Neighboring - Jay Pathak & Dave Runyon (2012)
"We all need to get back to the basics of what he commanded: love God and love others. Everything else is secondary."

This book has been lingering on my to-read list for years. I was somewhat disappointed that the focus was more on why we should be good neighbors (because Jesus teaches that we should) rather than teaching how to best connect to people in various situations. There were some good insights and a few specific suggestions, but it wasn't as helpful as I was hoping, though I'd allow that it's still a fine starting point.

Related Reads:
(See resource list in the back of book)

The Road - Cormac McCarthy (2007)
"He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke."

In reading this, I continued my Post-Apocalyptic genre trend as well as started my sub-goal of reading more by McCarthy. The tone is harsh, stark, and much more individualistic than the others of this genre I've read in recent months - though the ending was a bit more hopeful than I was anticipating. McCarthy's poetic, stream-of-conscious style, imagery ("By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp"), and descriptions serve to make this an absorbing and emotionally-wrenching read.

Related Reads:
The Postman (Brin)

June 2017 Reads, part 1

June's mix of books was another varied one, though it leaned a little heavier on the SciFi side. I ended up having to return a number of the books to the library before I had a chance to fully go back through them and jot down my thoughts - one unfortunate aspect of having a limited amount of time with most of the books I read.

The Postman - David Brin (1985)
"Where is it written that one should only care about big things?"

This was one of the more hopeful of the Post-Apocalyptic books I've read, which I have no complaints about. Any specifically SciFi aspects of it felt fairly light. Probably the main thing that bothered me was the several instances of Deus ex Machina, and I'm still unsure how I feel about the gender roles as presented. Still, it's engaging and interesting despite the number of related books I've read recently. And once I learned that the book was first published in several parts in novella form (not uncommon for the genre), I felt that the structure made more sense.

Related Reads:
Alas, Babylon (Frank)
Earth Abides (Stewart)
The Philip K. Dick Reader ["The Turning Wheel"]

The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu (2006)
(Translated from Chinese to English by Ken Liu in 2014)
"Sometimes I thought life was precious, and everything was so important; but other times I thought humans were insignificant, and nothing was worthwhile."

I missed the boat on reading this a few years back when it was at a popularity peak. The story is fairly math/physics/computer-science heavy, but uses language that the average non-STEM-field reader can generally follow. I did feel that someone in related fields would find more to appreciate here. China's Cultural Revolution and surrounding history also plays a fairly big role; an overall knowledge of it would be helpful, although their are footnotes in the English edition that offer brief additional insight. Wresting with certain difficult philosophical questions is also major part of the book.

There were definitely differences between the structure and tone of this book and what I'd normally expect from a book written by an American author - I had envisioned the book going a completely different way at the beginning than where it ended up. The translator's note about quality of translation gave a bit more explanation here. I'm not sure I'm invested enough to say I'll definitely find and read the sequels, but I wouldn't rule it out, either.

Related Reads:
Ender's Game (Card)
Ready Player One (Cline)

It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too) - Nora Purmort (2016)
"I fought the urge to try to feel things before they happened and instead tried to feel what was actually happening."

The author went through several devastating events within a period of a few short weeks, and she writes about her experiences and emotions with unflinching clarity and surprising humor. Even though I'm pretty sure Nora and I have very dissimilar personalities, the book reads like a conversation with a friend, and I kept finding pithy and relatable quotes. It's a book to pick up if you've "gone through some shit" or want to better understand the thought processes and coping mechanisms of someone who has.

Related Reads:
There is No Good Card for This (Crowe & McDowell)
Bossypants (Fey)

(continued in Part 2)