book list, February 2007
Mar. 2nd, 2007 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in February 2007.
New: 15
---Grendel, John Gardner (fiction: see my review)
---Remembering Satan, Lawrence Wright (nonfiction: a story of 'recovered' memory and the Satanic cult cultural psychosis of the early 1990s; sobering)
---The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France, David Andress (nonfiction: what fascinates me is the way they changed the subtitle when republishing this in America; the British version is called The Terror: Civil War in Revolutionary France, which is just as accurate and much less 'OMG, look, relevance to Iraq and stuff!', and thus more to my taste.)
---Glory Season, David Brin (science fiction: a thought experiment on a world deliberately created to be stable and pastoral, in which genetic manipulation has produced a pronounced gender imbalance -- tilted in favor of women -- and some very strange reproductive traits, such as natural self-cloning. Fascinating, though the end is too abrupt.)
---Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee (playscript: um. Yes. Well. Two incredibly dysfunctional marriages collide with each other one night after an alcohol-soaked party in the mid twentieth century. It reminds me of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, for the morbid fascination of the families in question, and I would like to see it staged some time.)
---Wish, vol. 4, CLAMP (manga: in which an angel and a human fall in love. Cute, but slight -- too much telling and not enough showing -- and this particular treatment of Judeo-Christian mythology bugs me for some reason.)
---Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales, CLAMP (manga: depressing traditional style short stories; very pretty. I like the brush style.)
---Samurai Deeper Kyo, vol. 19, Akimine Kamijyo (manga: swordfights and pseudo-deep philosophy; complications continue to pile on top of each other as Yuya's time runs out)
---Nana, vols. 1, 2 & 4, Ai Yazawa (manga: college-age people in Tokyo; love, sex, and rock. This is really not my usual thing, but it's very well done, and the sense of searching, of not quite knowing where you want to be in the world, nor how to get to wherever that place is, resonates with me and pulls me past Nana K's obsession with romance and fashion. The art style's quirky, but it grows on you.)
---Tokyo Babylon, vols. 3-4, 6-7, CLAMP (manga: the episodic adventures of a young onmyoji, his twin sister, and their secretive friend in early 1990s Tokyo. The doubled tone -- cheerful and light over creepy and downright depressing -- is handled very skillfully. Also, Seishiro is hot. Yes, I'm shallow; I admit it.)
Old: 14
---Songsmith, Andre Norton and A.C. Crispin (fantasy: a Witch World novel in the classic style; I like it, but I would have prefered if the main character had not developed a magical talent. It would have been much more interesting to see her manage without one.)
---Gold Unicorn, Tanith Lee (fantasy: sequel to Black Unicorn; in which Taniquel discovers that her half-sister is trying to conquer the world, and several people take a brief detour through hell. Literally.)
---How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card (nonfiction: I meant to just read the bits on submission guidelines, but Card's style is engaging and I ended up breezing over the whole thing again.)
---The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Heir to Sea and Fire, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Harpist in the Wind, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Lucifer, vols. 8-10 [The Wolf Beneath the Tree; Crux; Morningstar], Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Ryan Kelley, et al (comics: in which the world ends. Almost.)
---Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution, R.R. Palmer (nonfiction: a chronicle of the Committee of Public Safety, very interesting; I recommend it despite its age.)
---This Immortal, Roger Zelazny (science fiction: in which, after a nuclear war, aliens have bailed out humanity; the consequences are complicated and awkward for several reasons. Fun. This is the one where Zelazny does Greek mythology.)
---Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett (fantasy: a Discworld novel)
---Tokyo Babylon, vol. 5, CLAMP (manga: the transition point between cute and definitively creepy)
---Fruits Basket, vol. 14, Natsuki Takaya (manga: heartwarming)
February Total: 29 books
Year to Date: 64 books (43 new, 21 old)
---------------
In other news, I opened the store successfully and did not go crazy in the process. Yay me! *throws confetti*
New: 15
---Grendel, John Gardner (fiction: see my review)
---Remembering Satan, Lawrence Wright (nonfiction: a story of 'recovered' memory and the Satanic cult cultural psychosis of the early 1990s; sobering)
---The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France, David Andress (nonfiction: what fascinates me is the way they changed the subtitle when republishing this in America; the British version is called The Terror: Civil War in Revolutionary France, which is just as accurate and much less 'OMG, look, relevance to Iraq and stuff!', and thus more to my taste.)
---Glory Season, David Brin (science fiction: a thought experiment on a world deliberately created to be stable and pastoral, in which genetic manipulation has produced a pronounced gender imbalance -- tilted in favor of women -- and some very strange reproductive traits, such as natural self-cloning. Fascinating, though the end is too abrupt.)
---Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee (playscript: um. Yes. Well. Two incredibly dysfunctional marriages collide with each other one night after an alcohol-soaked party in the mid twentieth century. It reminds me of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, for the morbid fascination of the families in question, and I would like to see it staged some time.)
---Wish, vol. 4, CLAMP (manga: in which an angel and a human fall in love. Cute, but slight -- too much telling and not enough showing -- and this particular treatment of Judeo-Christian mythology bugs me for some reason.)
---Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales, CLAMP (manga: depressing traditional style short stories; very pretty. I like the brush style.)
---Samurai Deeper Kyo, vol. 19, Akimine Kamijyo (manga: swordfights and pseudo-deep philosophy; complications continue to pile on top of each other as Yuya's time runs out)
---Nana, vols. 1, 2 & 4, Ai Yazawa (manga: college-age people in Tokyo; love, sex, and rock. This is really not my usual thing, but it's very well done, and the sense of searching, of not quite knowing where you want to be in the world, nor how to get to wherever that place is, resonates with me and pulls me past Nana K's obsession with romance and fashion. The art style's quirky, but it grows on you.)
---Tokyo Babylon, vols. 3-4, 6-7, CLAMP (manga: the episodic adventures of a young onmyoji, his twin sister, and their secretive friend in early 1990s Tokyo. The doubled tone -- cheerful and light over creepy and downright depressing -- is handled very skillfully. Also, Seishiro is hot. Yes, I'm shallow; I admit it.)
Old: 14
---Songsmith, Andre Norton and A.C. Crispin (fantasy: a Witch World novel in the classic style; I like it, but I would have prefered if the main character had not developed a magical talent. It would have been much more interesting to see her manage without one.)
---Gold Unicorn, Tanith Lee (fantasy: sequel to Black Unicorn; in which Taniquel discovers that her half-sister is trying to conquer the world, and several people take a brief detour through hell. Literally.)
---How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card (nonfiction: I meant to just read the bits on submission guidelines, but Card's style is engaging and I ended up breezing over the whole thing again.)
---The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Heir to Sea and Fire, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Harpist in the Wind, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Lucifer, vols. 8-10 [The Wolf Beneath the Tree; Crux; Morningstar], Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Ryan Kelley, et al (comics: in which the world ends. Almost.)
---Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution, R.R. Palmer (nonfiction: a chronicle of the Committee of Public Safety, very interesting; I recommend it despite its age.)
---This Immortal, Roger Zelazny (science fiction: in which, after a nuclear war, aliens have bailed out humanity; the consequences are complicated and awkward for several reasons. Fun. This is the one where Zelazny does Greek mythology.)
---Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett (fantasy: a Discworld novel)
---Tokyo Babylon, vol. 5, CLAMP (manga: the transition point between cute and definitively creepy)
---Fruits Basket, vol. 14, Natsuki Takaya (manga: heartwarming)
February Total: 29 books
Year to Date: 64 books (43 new, 21 old)
---------------
In other news, I opened the store successfully and did not go crazy in the process. Yay me! *throws confetti*