8 thoughts on “Culture Consumption: March 2015”

1. Hi there –

   Congratulations on getting all that reading done!

   I also had a good month, though I am at that point in the year when my TBR is expanding faster than I can get books read. I expect to add additional books when the Hugo nominations come out this Sunday, but after that I will hopefully start to whittle away at my stack.

   New books read this month:

   1. Finn Family Moomintroll, by Tove Janssen. 4 stars. A children’s book that I never managed to get read as a child. It’s a lovely book.
   2. Eric, by Terry Pratchett. 2 stars. For Mark Reads. Felt to be one of the worst Discworld books, which I would tend to agree with.
   As an aside, I see you have put three Pratchett books on your TBR pile? I have not yet read any of the three you bought, though I’ll be reading Reaper Man next month with Mark Reads.
   3. Pocket Apocalypse, by Seanan McGuire. 4 stars. I am continuing to enjoy the Discount Armegeddon books.
   4. The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley. 4.5 stars. This is a hugely ambitious and complicated book that took me about three weeks to read. It’s an awesome book, though I had trouble keeping straight which characters were in which mirrored world.
   5. The Life in Papers of Sophie K., by Octavia Cade. 5 stars. Novella. A fictionalized biography of the 19th century mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya. This did not have much of a plot, but was more a rumination on the choices a 19th century female mathematician in Russia had to make to be a mathematician. The language is beautiful, and though it is not fantasy, gives a feeling of magical realism because of the extended use of the metaphor of her unconventionality and mathematical ability as a monster.
   6. Indistinguishable from Magic, by Catherynne Valente. 4 stars. A collection of essays, most of which were originally livejournal posts, though one of her academic papers was included as well.
   7. The Best of Me, by Nicholas Sparks. 2 stars. Read for my local book club. I am just not the target audience here.
   8. Partner, by Lia Silver, which is a pen name for Rachel Manija Brown. 4 stars. Paranormal Romance, self-published. This is not my usual genre, but I read it because I follow Rachel on LJ and enjoy her blogging. This is the third Lia Silver book I’ve read and I continue to enjoy the series.

   Books re-read: none
   Mount TBR: none
   Substantive works of non-fiction: none. (Cat Valente’s book is non-fiction and is delightful, but is not the kind of big history book I meant when I made this goal.)

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   1. Wow, what a month for you! I’m a little worried about the Hugo nominations…. I’ve been hearing rumors of Sad Puppies getting their way and it’s depressing to think about. We’ll see.

      I have been adding some Pratchett! I’d read Mort years ago, and after he passed away, I surveyed some friends of mine and read some blogs about the author and decided to finish out that particular sub-series of Discworld. I think I may be more receptive to the stories now than I was then. Humor can be really hit or miss with me.

      The Valente and the Cade sound interesting. Where can I get my grubby hands on those?

      Loved the McGuire! It’s such a fun series, though I got choked up a bit in this last book.

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      1. Yeah, I’m worried about the Hugos too. Have you been following the conversation on Making Light?

         I read both the Valente and the Cade on my kindle. Almost everything I read is read on my kindle, so I have not looked to see if they are available in print.

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         1. I’m good with Kindle!

            I’m not sure where I saw the conversation…. I found links, started clicking, reading, and getting frustrated, and once I got frustrated, I had to stop.

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2. I’m up to 31 books this year.
   Books read in March:
   1. Bossypants by Tina Fey
   2. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
   3. Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall
   4. The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
   5. Joyland by Stephen King
   6. My Best Everything by Sarah Tomp
   7. The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht
   8. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
   9. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
   10. Kindred by Octavia Butler

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   1. I wanted to like BOSSYPANTS more than I did. I think some of it’s just that I didn’t watch THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN, so I’m not as versed in Tina Fey humor as perhaps I should be? That said, I’ve got both Amy Phoeler’s memoir as well as Mindy Kaling’s, and I look forward to both!

      Thoughts on TIGER’S WIFE and KINDRED? Hell, just give me your thoughts on PRINCESS BRIDE and GOLEM AND JINNI too (I’ve got the latter on my Kindle, I’m pretty sure!)

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3. I did not like Bossypants at all. It wasn’t very funny and she did not seem like a nice person. I love Mindy Kaling (if I could choose a celebrity BFF, she’d make my top five) and I think The Mindy project is hilarious, but I didn’t think her memoir was very good, either. Being a funny writer for television does not seem to translate to being a funny essayist.

   The Princess Bride is pretty much exactly the same as the movie. Kindred has a very interesting concept (a modern-day African-American woman time traveling back to the days of slavery) but I never really connected with the main character and overall, it wasn’t as good as it could have been.

   I really enjoyed The Tiger’s Wife. It’s about the war in the former Yugoslavia and a woman coping with the death of her beloved grandfather but it also has an element of magical realism and fairy tales. When I first picked up The Golem and The Jinni, I thought the concept sounded dumb, but it is well-written and a really good story. Even though the main characters are mythical creatures, I felt emotionally invested in them. The author also vividly brings turn-of-the-century New York City to life. I recommend both The Tiger’s Wife and The Golem and The Jinni.

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   1. I actually like Tina Fey’s humor, and there are things she’s done that I enjoy. I’ve just not sampled all of her work, and that left, for me, a certain disconnect with her memoir. That being said, that’s a good point about being funny for television versus being funny in a memoir. I’ll see if that holds true for me for Kaling and Phoeler’s books.

      I’ve read KINDRED and think it’s a good book, a very IMPORTANT book. However, of the Butler work I’ve read, it’s not my favorite. May I recommend the omnibus LILITH’S BROOD? Or her debut novel WILD SEED (which is in the omnibus SEED TO HARVEST if you can’t find it on its own)?

      THE PRINCESS BRIDE was a very, very different experience as a work of fiction. I found several differences between the book and the movie when I read the book in college, namely that the book was primarily satire, and the tone of that satire didn’t match the tone of the movie for me. It was a very strange disconnect.

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