Reading Rambo

The Millions listed the best upcoming books for the first half of 2018 and I have distilled that FURTHER through the filter of “very specific fiction but also nonfiction.” The full list is here ! So here we go: JANUARY This Will Be My Undoing  by Morgan Jerkins.   It's an essay collection! They remain so hot right now! She covers “Rachel Dolezal; the stigma of therapy; her complex relationship with her own physical body; the pain of dating when men say they don’t ‘see color’; being a black visitor in Russia; the specter of ‘the fast-tailed girl’ and the paradox of black female sexuality; or disabled black women in the context of the ‘Black Girl Magic’ movement.” She's doing an event with Women and Children First in Chicago in February. This looks real good. Let's all read it and discuss . The Sky Is Yours  by Chandler Klang Smith. This is getting compared to Blade Runner , which I haven't seen, but I HAVE seen Fifth Element , which seems inspired by B

It's 2018! I don't know how I feel about things! Things feel...vaguely...better than 2017. But that's mostly because of our lovely tradition of "it's a new year!" which is preeeetty arbitrary in the grand scheme of things, but also since a lot of cultures have calendars, also probably not . This new year MEANS something. And what it means is there is like a 20% chance of this year being better than the shitshow that was last year. 20% because you don't wanna tempt fate, man. I have plans for this year! Big plans! Mostly regarding books, because obvs. Last year, counting comic volumes, I read 105 books. Mostly because I was freelancing for much of the summer. This year, I'm starting a project that'll necessitate reading even more  nonfiction, which I'm very excited about, and I'd like to finish Martin Chuzzlewit  and my book proposal. Ideally both by July, but I'm not married to the Chuzzlewit  idea. My personal library is s

The Paper Magician  by Charlie N. Holmberg (a lady!) caught my eye a while back because of its cover. I mean...lookit that It also has a lady in a late 1800s dress AND she's holding an umbrella, which usually specifies whimsy of some kind? I don't know. Also paper in what way! Is SHE paper? I have questions. So it turns out magic in this 1890s/1900s world seems pretty accepted? And there's a school, and Ceony Twill, the whimsically named heroine (ah, that's why that umbrella's there) has just graduated from said school and she has to bond to a material because that is how magic works here, do not question it.  But she gets assigned to paper  because no one chooses paper because it is stupid. Why would you choose paper when you could work with metal (she wants to work with metal). But there she is, so she goes to the home of her new instructor guy whose apprentice she'll be. And the guy (Magician or "Mg." Thane) turns out to be like 30 and o

On January 20th, 2018, Chicago will host a second Women’s March. Those who attended the first remember the astounding numbers, miraculously warm weather, and surge of energy across the nation as America’s women stood up and said “we are here and we are angry.”  So we did it. Our elected leader who bragged about sexual assault and who has made countless denigrating remarks about women is still in charge. Why are we marching again?   There is a tendency in any movement for things to lag. People become complacent, they accept their new reality, and think they can make no change. It makes sense that after the draining year that 2017 turned out to be — a year where one could constantly feel buffeted on all sides by waves of racism, misogyny, cruelty, and disregard for the planet — after that exhausting year, why should people come out in January weather to stand in the streets once again and say “We are still here and we are still angry”?   The answer is because without that voi

You know what was the third bestseller of its time after Uncle Tom's Cabin  and Ben-Hur ? THAT IS CORRECT, Looking Backward  by Edward Bellamy.  No one talks about this book anymore, but it was a sci-fi utopian novel about a young man waking up in the year 2000, which is a socialist utopia . Looking Backward  spawned over 150 "Bellamy Clubs" that got together and discussed political issues, and it looks like a damn fascinating book. It is also available FOR FREE online. Here's the Project Gutenberg link . So read this not too long book with me in February and get familiar with a bestseller of the 19th century!

2017 was one of the hardest years of my life. I was cobbling together employment for six months, my mom got cancer, and I had a mouse living full time in my bedroom and ended up couch surfing for weeks. BUT ON THE PLUS SIDE, I read more books than I have any other year. Because of the cobbling together employment thing. Which, when it didn't go well, involved me sitting by the lake in June, reading. So it could have been worse. MAYBE. So! Books this year. A whole lot were comics . Because when you are dealing with depression, you want to have some minor victories. And my minor victories were almost entirely in the form of finishing a ton of comic volumes. 48 of them, anyway. SO SOME QUICK REVIEWS: COMICS Silk  Volumes 0-1. Hot DAMN, I love Silk . This took me by surprise because I don't really care about Spider-Man as a character or comic series, and Spider-Gwen  is ughhhhhhh but SILK. She was in a bunker for years! Kind of like Kimmy Schmidt. But Silk is super aweso