book list, November and December 2018
Jan. 1st, 2019 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingIt's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in November and December 2018. Click on the cuts for summaries and reactions. I reserve the right to spoil all hell out of any book if spoilery bits are what I feel like talking about.
Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees
-----Yuletide reread of an old favorite. :) This is sort of like an English pastoral and/or Jane Austen novel (more for the fond but merciless social sarcasm than the romance) that took a slightly peculiar turn and wound up in Fairyland. I have never read anything else quite like it.
The Road to Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. In which Dorothy attempts to give the Shaggy Man directions to Butterfield and they wind up on a meandering journey to Oz, in the course of which they pick up Button-Bright and Polychrome as fellow travelers. Button-Bright is weirdly young in this one, and I can see why Baum aged him up a few years for all his later appearances.
Sky Island, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. The second of Trot's solo non-Oz adventures, in which she meets Button-Bright (who is travelling cross-country by means of his family's inherited magic umbrella) and they go on an accidental journey to a magical island in the sky, divided into three peculiar countries. Lovely fun, with some social commentary that remains surprisingly pointed a hundred years later.
The Scarecrow of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. In which Trot and Captain Bill have a series of mishaps-slash-adventures that end with them moving to Oz. They re-encounter Button-Bright along the way and he also decides to move permanently to Oz.
The Magic of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Another Yuletide reread, though this one annoyingly turned out not to actually contain Button-Bright. (I mean, he appears for one line in the birthday feast at the end of the book, but I don't think that counts.) That said, it's great fun and contains good material for both Trot and Dorothy. (One thing I have always loved about Oz -- and most particularly Baum's version of Oz -- is how readily he centers female characters. He still has a bunch of annoying gender essentialism, but in retrospect I am so grateful to have had these books as dear companions when I was young.)
The Lost Princess of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. In which Ozma goes missing! So do a great number of magical objects, including a dishpan that at first seems unrelated but proves surprisingly important. A good quest story, though with some... uh... let's go with uncomfortable blind spots in re: slavery. Also Button-Bright is not only a major character, he is directly relevant to the plot's conclusion.
Glinda of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. In which Ozma and Dorothy attempt to mediate an incipient war between the Flatheads and Skeezers, and get trapped in a domed island under a lake. Glinda must rescue them by reconstructing the unique magic used to submerge and raise the island. Another good quest story, though this one has two weird instances of authorial approval of violence toward animals.
A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny
-----An old favorite, like a nice mug of hot cocoa, an afghan, and fuzzy slippers on a snowy day. Which may seem like a strange thing to say about a novel that deals with the attempts of various stock horror fiction figures to open a portal that allows Lovecraftian entities to invade the earth, but if the shoe fits...! :)
State and Local Government by the People, 16th edition, by David B. Magleby, Paul C. Light, and Christine L. Nemacheck
-----My government class textbook. The course was ludicrously easy, but the book is interesting and I'm glad I read it.
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells
-----Murderbot Diaries, part 1 -- a reread just because. :)
Provenance, by Ann Leckie
-----A standalone novel set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch trilogy, but in a completely different human culture. We follow a young woman who, after risking all her funds on a thin-chance plan to undercut her brother and win her mother's favor, finds herself tangled in a number of plots involving both local interstellar politics and the newly unbalanced treaty among a handful of alien species. This is a much quieter book than the Radch series, and our heroine is very clearly a civilian (albeit more resourceful than she often gives herself credit for being), but I liked it equally well. I also like that I realized halfway through that while I was quite clear on the gender of every character except the Radch ambassador, I had absolutely no idea about the physical/biological sex of 95% of the characters, because the people of Hwae don't seem to connect gender and sex at all.
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On the audiovisual media front, I saw one movie: Mary Queen of Scots, on Christmas Day, with my family. I don't know that I'd have gone to see it of my own volition, but I enjoyed it just fine.
On the audio media front, I have continued to listen to Great Courses both via Audible and via CDs borrowed from my local library system. I am on the final lecture of a 36-lecture series about food (a "cultural and culinary history," IIRC), finished a really interesting 24-lecture series on pre-contact cultures of North America, and am nearing the end of something called "The Other Side of History" which is notionally about the daily life of (mostly) ordinary people in various periods of European and Mediterranean history: mostly Greece, Rome, and medieval England, but with a few detours into others areas and eras. The Greece and Rome parts are good, but the medieval stuff is kind of meh, honestly. *shrug*
Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees
-----Yuletide reread of an old favorite. :) This is sort of like an English pastoral and/or Jane Austen novel (more for the fond but merciless social sarcasm than the romance) that took a slightly peculiar turn and wound up in Fairyland. I have never read anything else quite like it.
The Road to Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. In which Dorothy attempts to give the Shaggy Man directions to Butterfield and they wind up on a meandering journey to Oz, in the course of which they pick up Button-Bright and Polychrome as fellow travelers. Button-Bright is weirdly young in this one, and I can see why Baum aged him up a few years for all his later appearances.
Sky Island, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. The second of Trot's solo non-Oz adventures, in which she meets Button-Bright (who is travelling cross-country by means of his family's inherited magic umbrella) and they go on an accidental journey to a magical island in the sky, divided into three peculiar countries. Lovely fun, with some social commentary that remains surprisingly pointed a hundred years later.
The Scarecrow of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. In which Trot and Captain Bill have a series of mishaps-slash-adventures that end with them moving to Oz. They re-encounter Button-Bright along the way and he also decides to move permanently to Oz.
The Magic of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Another Yuletide reread, though this one annoyingly turned out not to actually contain Button-Bright. (I mean, he appears for one line in the birthday feast at the end of the book, but I don't think that counts.) That said, it's great fun and contains good material for both Trot and Dorothy. (One thing I have always loved about Oz -- and most particularly Baum's version of Oz -- is how readily he centers female characters. He still has a bunch of annoying gender essentialism, but in retrospect I am so grateful to have had these books as dear companions when I was young.)
The Lost Princess of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. In which Ozma goes missing! So do a great number of magical objects, including a dishpan that at first seems unrelated but proves surprisingly important. A good quest story, though with some... uh... let's go with uncomfortable blind spots in re: slavery. Also Button-Bright is not only a major character, he is directly relevant to the plot's conclusion.
Glinda of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
-----Yuletide reread. In which Ozma and Dorothy attempt to mediate an incipient war between the Flatheads and Skeezers, and get trapped in a domed island under a lake. Glinda must rescue them by reconstructing the unique magic used to submerge and raise the island. Another good quest story, though this one has two weird instances of authorial approval of violence toward animals.
A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny
-----An old favorite, like a nice mug of hot cocoa, an afghan, and fuzzy slippers on a snowy day. Which may seem like a strange thing to say about a novel that deals with the attempts of various stock horror fiction figures to open a portal that allows Lovecraftian entities to invade the earth, but if the shoe fits...! :)
State and Local Government by the People, 16th edition, by David B. Magleby, Paul C. Light, and Christine L. Nemacheck
-----My government class textbook. The course was ludicrously easy, but the book is interesting and I'm glad I read it.
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells
-----Murderbot Diaries, part 1 -- a reread just because. :)
Provenance, by Ann Leckie
-----A standalone novel set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch trilogy, but in a completely different human culture. We follow a young woman who, after risking all her funds on a thin-chance plan to undercut her brother and win her mother's favor, finds herself tangled in a number of plots involving both local interstellar politics and the newly unbalanced treaty among a handful of alien species. This is a much quieter book than the Radch series, and our heroine is very clearly a civilian (albeit more resourceful than she often gives herself credit for being), but I liked it equally well. I also like that I realized halfway through that while I was quite clear on the gender of every character except the Radch ambassador, I had absolutely no idea about the physical/biological sex of 95% of the characters, because the people of Hwae don't seem to connect gender and sex at all.
---------------
---------------
On the audiovisual media front, I saw one movie: Mary Queen of Scots, on Christmas Day, with my family. I don't know that I'd have gone to see it of my own volition, but I enjoyed it just fine.
On the audio media front, I have continued to listen to Great Courses both via Audible and via CDs borrowed from my local library system. I am on the final lecture of a 36-lecture series about food (a "cultural and culinary history," IIRC), finished a really interesting 24-lecture series on pre-contact cultures of North America, and am nearing the end of something called "The Other Side of History" which is notionally about the daily life of (mostly) ordinary people in various periods of European and Mediterranean history: mostly Greece, Rome, and medieval England, but with a few detours into others areas and eras. The Greece and Rome parts are good, but the medieval stuff is kind of meh, honestly. *shrug*
