Reading Wednesday
Jan. 5th, 2022 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby The first Reading Wednesday of 2022!
Just finished in 2021: Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill. This was really useful in terms of helping me put *gestures vaguely around* in perspective. I wouldn't say it cheered me up, except insofar as all of the plagues it talks about are either over or theoretically controllable (that things like cholera, malaria, and HIV are not under control is more about capitalism than about science). But it was a fascinating read, with the caveat from last week about outdated language.
Every You, Every Me by David Leviathan. This one was recommended to me in one of those "YA literature that doesn't suck" discussions that I seem to regularly get into. And...it doesn't suck! Actually it was quite engrossing and I couldn't put it down. It's about a boy, Evan, who is depressed after the loss of his friend Ariel. He starts receiving mysterious photographs of both of them, from situations that no one else could have witnessed, and along with Ariel's boyfriend, tries to track down who is sending them.
It's absolutely a teenage angstfest, but I actually don't mind that in YA. What grates on me is YA that 1) lacks depth in its prose and 2) condescends to the reader. This is quite beautifully written and allows the sort of space for the imagination that I don't see much in writing for teenagers. And Evan's brooding feels authentic—he and Ariel are oddball kids and their characterization is thoughtful and realistic.
The end is a bit of an ass-pull, but it is immediately followed by an afterword that explains how Leviathan worked with photographer Jonathan Farmer. Farmer supplied the photos, which Leviathan hadn't seen, as he was writing the story, so the conclusion to the mystery wasn't decided in advance. It's a cool idea and I'm here for it.
Just finished in 2022: The Second Shooter by Nick Mamatas. SPEAKING OF COOL IDEAS what if you wrote a noirish conspiracy thriller and a metaphysics broke out? This is one of those books where the less you know about it the better. But nevertheless I require you to read it so I'm going to try to explain why you should read it.
Freelance journalist Mike Karras is commissioned to write a book about the phenomenon of the second shooter in mass killings and assassinations. This draws the ire of an Alex Jones expy, and Karras finds himself followed, hacked, and forced off the grid as he stumbles into a plot to "murder America."
Naturally, if you think that the political thriller is the point of the book, it's because you haven't read any of his others—it gets much, much weirder than that. This is a book about Situationism, immigration and identity, and the Society of the Spectacle. It hits bizarre twist after bizarre twist, until it hits a Dyachenko-level twist towards the end. It's also extremely funny. If you're into weird fiction that does literary things with genre, and/or radical left politics, you will absolutely love this one.
Currently reading: Reading the Obscene by Jordan S. Carroll. I bought this because of the cover. (Kidding; he's also an internet friend of mine who writes on topics that I'm interested in. But it has one of the best covers I've ever seen, so I needed to make sure you saw it too.) This is a fascinating examination of editors of works deemed "obscene" in the 20th century and the way in which obscenity is geared towards middle-class male professionals. It's not an argument I've heard before but it makes a huge amount of sense.
Just finished in 2021: Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill. This was really useful in terms of helping me put *gestures vaguely around* in perspective. I wouldn't say it cheered me up, except insofar as all of the plagues it talks about are either over or theoretically controllable (that things like cholera, malaria, and HIV are not under control is more about capitalism than about science). But it was a fascinating read, with the caveat from last week about outdated language.
Every You, Every Me by David Leviathan. This one was recommended to me in one of those "YA literature that doesn't suck" discussions that I seem to regularly get into. And...it doesn't suck! Actually it was quite engrossing and I couldn't put it down. It's about a boy, Evan, who is depressed after the loss of his friend Ariel. He starts receiving mysterious photographs of both of them, from situations that no one else could have witnessed, and along with Ariel's boyfriend, tries to track down who is sending them.
It's absolutely a teenage angstfest, but I actually don't mind that in YA. What grates on me is YA that 1) lacks depth in its prose and 2) condescends to the reader. This is quite beautifully written and allows the sort of space for the imagination that I don't see much in writing for teenagers. And Evan's brooding feels authentic—he and Ariel are oddball kids and their characterization is thoughtful and realistic.
The end is a bit of an ass-pull, but it is immediately followed by an afterword that explains how Leviathan worked with photographer Jonathan Farmer. Farmer supplied the photos, which Leviathan hadn't seen, as he was writing the story, so the conclusion to the mystery wasn't decided in advance. It's a cool idea and I'm here for it.
Just finished in 2022: The Second Shooter by Nick Mamatas. SPEAKING OF COOL IDEAS what if you wrote a noirish conspiracy thriller and a metaphysics broke out? This is one of those books where the less you know about it the better. But nevertheless I require you to read it so I'm going to try to explain why you should read it.
Freelance journalist Mike Karras is commissioned to write a book about the phenomenon of the second shooter in mass killings and assassinations. This draws the ire of an Alex Jones expy, and Karras finds himself followed, hacked, and forced off the grid as he stumbles into a plot to "murder America."
Naturally, if you think that the political thriller is the point of the book, it's because you haven't read any of his others—it gets much, much weirder than that. This is a book about Situationism, immigration and identity, and the Society of the Spectacle. It hits bizarre twist after bizarre twist, until it hits a Dyachenko-level twist towards the end. It's also extremely funny. If you're into weird fiction that does literary things with genre, and/or radical left politics, you will absolutely love this one.
Currently reading: Reading the Obscene by Jordan S. Carroll. I bought this because of the cover. (Kidding; he's also an internet friend of mine who writes on topics that I'm interested in. But it has one of the best covers I've ever seen, so I needed to make sure you saw it too.) This is a fascinating examination of editors of works deemed "obscene" in the 20th century and the way in which obscenity is geared towards middle-class male professionals. It's not an argument I've heard before but it makes a huge amount of sense.
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Date: 2022-01-05 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-05 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-06 01:54 pm (UTC)Makes sense— there’s a long tradition, after all, of leaving bits of some Classical texts untranslated, so they can only be read by scholars, who are presumed to be above getting aroused by them.
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Date: 2022-01-06 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-08 12:21 am (UTC)Also apropos of nothing I always think of those clouds when I read his name (even though spelled differently, and prolly pronounced differently too).
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Date: 2022-01-08 12:33 am (UTC)I think this will be up your alley! He hasn't really done hardcore Lovecraftian stuff for awhile—I Am Providence was a big fuck-you to the genre.
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Date: 2022-01-18 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-18 08:15 pm (UTC)