Reading meme
Feb. 22nd, 2013 07:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI mean, I have a book log but I have doubts as to whether it shows up in people's friends feed.
• What are you currently reading?
Bullettime by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nihilistic_kid. This has the distinction of being the first thing I've ever read on an e-reader (my new e-reader is named Little Red Book, naturally), though I'm enjoying it to the point where I want a dead-tree version to keep in my classroom and lend out to the kind of kids who need to read books like this one.
• What did you recently finish reading?
Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger by Harvey Molotch. Loved it. Especially the part on toilets. Urban and product design meets security theory meets astute political analysis, all with a strong current of humanist ethics. Schneier recommended it, if that's any indication.
• What do you think you’ll read next?
Well, it always depends on whether I get interesting holds in at the library, but if nothing else urgent comes up, Pain, Porn and Complicity: Women Heroes from Pygmalion to Twilight by Kathleen McConnell. Check out this awesome cover. (I made it.)
So kids, whatcha reading?
• What are you currently reading?
Bullettime by
nihilistic_kid. This has the distinction of being the first thing I've ever read on an e-reader (my new e-reader is named Little Red Book, naturally), though I'm enjoying it to the point where I want a dead-tree version to keep in my classroom and lend out to the kind of kids who need to read books like this one. • What did you recently finish reading?
Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger by Harvey Molotch. Loved it. Especially the part on toilets. Urban and product design meets security theory meets astute political analysis, all with a strong current of humanist ethics. Schneier recommended it, if that's any indication.
• What do you think you’ll read next?
Well, it always depends on whether I get interesting holds in at the library, but if nothing else urgent comes up, Pain, Porn and Complicity: Women Heroes from Pygmalion to Twilight by Kathleen McConnell. Check out this awesome cover. (I made it.)
So kids, whatcha reading?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2013-02-22 02:16 pm (UTC)Light reading: Insane City by Dave Barry. I was snookered by the positive cover blurb by Carl Hiaasen, a recent radio interview that Barry gave, and the fact that the plot involves, among other things, a sympathetically portrayed Haitian refugee. There are points when I laugh because it captures the insanity of south Florida. But it's written as if to be easily adaptable into a Hollywood screenplay, and it overflows with racist, sexist and anti-Semitic stereotypes in lieu of characters.
Project-Based Reading: Rosa Luxemburg by J.P. Nettl, as well as a host of other Luxemburg bios and collections of her writings of which I will be making less use than the Nettl.
Tangential Seriousness: a 1944 collection of Poems by Adam Mickiewicz, which I picked up initially because Luxemburg's biographers claim that he was her favorite poet, rated even higher in her estimation than Goethe. Initially I checked it out to find some lines that I could pull for my project, and it has already served that purpose, but I am reading on. Based on what I've seen so far, I don't see how he's superior to Goethe, but unlike Luxemburg I have to rely on translations, since I know very little Polish.
Most recently finished reading: Very uncharacteristically for me, Wherever I Wind Up, by R.A. Dickey. Yes, it's a baseball memoir by a born-again Christian. He also happens to be my favorite pitcher in the big leagues. I gave it two stars and wrote a long review on Goodreads.
What do I think I'll read next? More things by and about Rosa Luxemburg.
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:15 pm (UTC)What is the project, if it's not a secret?
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 03:00 pm (UTC)I want to read Les Miserables next.
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 04:57 pm (UTC)Marvels currently in a golden age.
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:10 pm (UTC)Also, advance sympathies for when you finish Dance With Dragons and realize you have to wait like six more years.
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 05:20 pm (UTC)Mostly I read fanfic, because I read a book a day, but I haven't found anything good in a while that was book-length.
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:09 pm (UTC)I find reading on an e-reader automatically feels like I'm reading fanfic. I wonder if I'll get over that.
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Date: 2013-02-22 06:35 pm (UTC)As for what I'm actually reading, I started Riddley Walker recently. I'm a sucker for made-up dialect (A Clockwork Orange, The Book Of Dave, The True History of the Kelly Gang -- what am I missing?) even when the book is otherwise flawed (as indeed all those books are). I'm not sure what I think of Riddley Walker yet; at first it seemed like relatively bland post-apoc whose only point of interest was the dialect, but as I get further I think there might be more to it than that.
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 12:39 am (UTC)I see below that advertising is welcome in this thread, so I'll mention in passing this wonderful collection, with which I was involved.
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Date: 2013-02-23 12:45 am (UTC)Bollywood post-apoc would be good. Actually, if you add anything to Bollywood I'll probably watch it. I'm pretty cheap in that respect.
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Date: 2013-02-26 04:48 pm (UTC)Also, like you said in your comment further down, adding Bollywood to anything will pretty much guarantee my interest. BTW, did I tell you I picked up Makkhi (the Hindi-dubbed version of Eega/Naan Ee, the one about the murder victim getting reincarnated as a housefly), OMG (about a shopkeeper suing God after his store is damaged by an earthquake and his insurance company rules it an "act of God") and Agneepath (violent revenge movie with Hrithik Roshan, because adding Hrithik Roshan to anything will also make me watch it)?
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Date: 2013-02-26 09:46 pm (UTC)Bollywood can make anything at least entertaining to watch. I want to watch all of the above.
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Date: 2013-02-24 05:24 am (UTC)-kore on DW
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Date: 2013-02-22 08:19 pm (UTC)Also liking Moby Dick.
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Date: 2013-02-22 08:21 pm (UTC)She Nailed a Stake Through His Head edited by Tim LIeder
Rashi by Maurice Liber (Dybbuk Press edition)
BADASS HORROR edited by Michael Stone and Chris Hall
This Other Eden by Michael Hemmingson
Ok, I'll stop. It's rude to shamelessly plug the books that I publish but to forget to do it when someone asks for book recommendations seems criminal.
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Date: 2013-02-22 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 12:43 am (UTC)4,416 Hours Later: An Experiment, A Journey, & Why You're Not Thirsty
May I Kiss You On the Lips, Miss Sandra?
• What did you recently finish reading?
Zappa: A Biography
• What do you think you’ll read next?
How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?
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Date: 2013-02-23 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-24 05:26 am (UTC)-kore on DW
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Date: 2013-02-24 05:45 pm (UTC)And how are you?
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Date: 2013-02-26 04:29 pm (UTC)Other things I am currently reading: The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells, which is the second book in her Raksura trilogy. I like it, but not as much as I liked her earlier Île-Rien books. I loved those -- I just like this one. BTW, I think you'd like the Île-Rien books a lot. My favourite, The Death of the Necromancer, has just been re-released as an e-book after being out of print for years. Also, Sitepoint's PHP Master book, when I feel like being practical instead of escapist. It's the first thing I've read on PHP that's really helped me understand objects and classes -- before that, even though I've been writing PHP code for years, I could never quite wrap my brain around those.
What will I read next? Don't know yet. I have a few other e-books out from the library, so probably one of those (Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine, The Aylesford Skull by James Blaylock, Reign of Beasts by Tansy Rayner Roberts, and on a completely different note, How to Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voice by Sarah Chana Radcliffe). So probably one of those, although there are also other books I really, really want to read that I don't have yet, like the first two books in N.K. Jemisin's new series, The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun, and a new book I just heard about by Kate Griffin called Stray Souls, that's set in the same gritty magical London as her Matthew Swift series (which if you haven't read yet, you should check out -- I think you'd like them), but centred around different characters.
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Date: 2013-02-26 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-26 07:33 pm (UTC)I have less time to read than ever before so at least books last me a long time.
Not sure what to read next. The things I most wanted weren't available through the library so, thinking it over.
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Date: 2013-02-26 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-28 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-28 11:30 pm (UTC)I am getting desperate.
I am too baby-brained now to read anything mildly brain-requiring. But I am physically ill if i read complete trash. Someone on Facebook suggested the Falco series - Ancient Roman detective series, which would sensibly follow as I seem to be going back in time in Italian crime fiction.
I have also put the complete G.K.Chesterton on Kindle in the hope of learning about theology a bit from someone intelligent (rather than C.S.Lewis) (though I could just stick to the Roman Catholic detective - Father Brown stories). And I optimistically downloaded a lot of Mary Shelley but seriously, my brain can't take it. And emotionally too I think it would be too much. I am living in a haze daze doze sort of bleariness and can't think or walk or even sleep straight. Sleep lack, baby-bliss, breastfeeding hormones and constant busy-ness mean less brain than ever.
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Date: 2013-03-01 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-01 10:51 pm (UTC)Now I am onto Inspector Bordelli which is a bit darker as has his war memories (it is set in 60s though written recently I think). Not as fun as Montalbano, which is good for silly character and whimsical bits, but not bad. Both more enjoyable than Scandanavian crime fiction I was reading. If you go for Scandanavian, Wallander is probably best.
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Date: 2013-02-28 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-01 10:16 pm (UTC)There weren't many pictures—a few, showing security absurdities, and one very interesting floor plan of a unisex bathroom. It's really quite focused on design. Quite readable.