Readathon: Post the Last

Omg. Today.

Today actually kicked major ass. I worked on a ridiculous amount of music, read, drank multiple almond milk/banana/cranberry juice smoothies, finished all my hummus, and bought a cardigan, pencil skirt and necklace.

LOOK AT HOW PRETTY MY NECKLACE IS

Book-wise (which I guess is the point of all this), I caught up to last Friday's reading for Harry Potter (yay...), finished a couple chapters of The Drood Murder Case, actually picked up How the Irish Saved Civilization (it's been a while) and learned a li'l something about St Patrick, almost lost my shit over Mary Wollstonecraft's writing in Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and FINISHED Lamb.

Yes, I finished a book I'd already started.

If I can just reproduce here the first sentence of Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and we can bear in mind that it was written in 1792, that'd be swell:

After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial.

I'd use the 'BOOM' gif again, but it's possible to have too much of a good thing. She is amazing. And she died at 38, FIVE YEARS after writing this. While in childbirth. Damnit. But at least her daughter's legacy allowed Boris Karloff to be steadily employed. That seems worth her dying. To give birth to that person.

I very much liked my bouncing-around method of reading. Otherwise I only would've looked at two books and would thus be sad. No, ALL THE BOOKS. All of them.

I leave you with my favorite drawing of Anne of Cleves, done, of course, by Kate Beaton:

Readathon: Post the Second

I have a ton of music I need to be working on, so I've been alternating between that and reading. I'm about 60 pages from the end of Lamb, and I'm nearing the halfway point of The Drood Murder Case, which is basically a collection of essays written by a REALLY enthusiastic Drood fan in the 1950s.

Drood's a half-finished novel, and as it is in fact The Mystery of Edwin Drood, there are a ton of mysteries left unsolved (thanks for dying, DICKENS). This author guy has some theories. A lot of theories. And as far as I can tell, they are awesome theories. Like WHO IS DICK DATCHERY. Oh, he has an idea. And I now completely agree with him and will fight anyone who disagrees because they will be WRONG.

Got through some of Half-Blood Prince, and am slowly remembering how pissed off I was when I read it the first time and was SO CONVINCED that Ron and Hermione would finally make out, and then JK engineers this stupid fight which then is PROLONGED because Ginny told Ron he wasn't any good at kissing (wait, that sounds wrong) and, let's be fair, he probably isn't at that point, but AGH. Ron/Hermione might not make a lot of sense to me anymore, but I still want them to make out.

And here're some GIFs I'll probably never get to use in a normal post:

CARRY ON MY FRIENDS.

Readathon: Post Uno

READATHON IS HEEEERE. Ok, I have pictures. And yes, I was supposed to start at 7, but I passed out last night WITH MY CONTACTS IN, so when I awoke at 7:45, a good deal of time was spent showering and making myself un-disgusting.

Now, first hour survey that I missed two hours ago:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. It is gorgeously sunny and I expect to see people wandering around in shock like you would if you were a fire poker employed at the Beast's castle and it's right after Belle kisses him.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Weirdly enough, I think it's The Drood Murder Case. 

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

I've been looking forward to the item pictured below for DAYS and I am glad it isn't in fact gross.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I sing opera. I ship a lot of couples. If I could be a cryptozoologist-opera singer, I'd consider my life made.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

I've baaarely participated before because of Circumstances, so I'm really just looking forward to sitting down and getting a lot of my partially-read books done so the poor library can have them back.

All right, book pile.

Said books are:

The Drood Murder Case
The Invisible Woman
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Sapphire Blue
How the Irish Saved Civilization
Lamb
Half-Blood Prince
Passions Between Women

I expect to read 50 pages of one book today.

Nah, I started and read some of Half-Blood Prince, for I am super-behind in the Harry Potter Readalong, which is kind of bad since I'm, y'know, hosting it. I've actually started pretty much all the above books but I have such a terrible problem with finishing things, so here goes an attempt at that. You will also note that almost all of them are library books. Yes. I own two of the above, and one of them I've read before. This is Not a Great Thing, but there it is.

FOOD THINGS. Right. Well. I'm being rather lame, and my food today will consist of juicing cucumbers, carrots, apples and spinach; and also some hummus and this marvelous, Peptobismol-y looking thing:

THAT is almond milk, banana and straight-up cranberry juice. None of that cranberry juice cocktail shit. And it is delicious. 

READATHON ONWARD.

Harry Potter Readalong, Half-Blood Prince II: "Dumbledore's man through and through, aren't you, Potter?"

And yet again, I did not finish the reading. LOOK LIFE IS BUSY RIGHT NOW. But I did do some of it. And I skimmed the other parts. So we're all set.

Regarding this section: I. Love. Backstory. I love backstory so much, if you give me 5% current day situation and devote the rest of your book to backstory, I WILL LOVE YOUR BOOK 95% MORE. This is a big reason I'm liking A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I started prior to Saturday's readathon because I have no regard for your "standard practices."

So when they just spend large amounts of time visiting Tom Riddle's past, oh so very happy am I. Then it reverts back to present day and there seems to be some trouble on the Quidditch team, and okay. I guess I'm on board with that. But sekritly I'm hoping there'll be more backstory. And then there is! Oh happy day. We also get flights of verbal fancy with Dumbledore:

"From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundations of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork."

Nice.

I was reading some section involving Harry hating Snape (you know how it goes) and tried to think, did I EVER hate a professor. Because it seemed an important feeling to remember; Harry's attitude towards Snape seems ridiculous otherwise. This is his teacher. He shouldn't act the way he does towards him.

I was such a huge suckup in school, it was hard to think of a professor I disliked on a personal level. I had absolutely no social life in college (think of your college experience, then subtract all interaction with friends/sports/activities, and you have my four years) and I spent my free time in office hours or asking my TAs to work with me in coffee shops on my Russian/German grammar (btdubs: I might have had crushes on said TAs).

BUT then I remembered. A certain professor who decided she hated me on the first day of class. In terms of personal compatibility, it was like taking two items and trying to fit them together, but the points all jar against each other. We went so far as having a special meeting to discuss our mutual dislike.

this probably would have made the meeting go better

So now that that's resurfaced in the ol' brain, I'm with you, Harry. There's no getting around it. You're just gonna hate him. But make sure you call him 'Professor' Snape, 'cause that's just basic politeness.

The other thing I want to touch on — because recap posts seem pointless, we all having just read all or, y'know, part of the section — is the Harry/Draco thing. One of the main things I've noticed in this reread is how dissatisfied I am with how the characters are paired off.  JKR, I love you, you know I do. But you cannot write romance for shit. And I don't think you know how your characters actually feel about each other when it comes to happy squishy love feelings.

So there are a ton of Harry/Hermione shippers, and a ton of Harry/Draco shippers. I used to be vehemently anti-both, because I only wanted canon. Obviously in the last couple of years, things have changed and I've gotten far more sympathetic towards non-canon pairings.

thank you, Alison Brie

There's a lot to support Harry/Hermione in the text. Way more than Ron/Hermione, actually. But when I've had Harry/Draco explained to me — damnit, it makes a lot of sense. And does anyone really believe the Ginny thing? Yeah, sure, Harry. You just happen to fall in love with a girl — who creepily enough looks like your mom — after you've ignored her for five books, and even in the book where you're supposed to 'realize' you like her, you spend the whole time stalking Draco.

SLUGHORN...how about that guy.

The Graveyard Book: Hey, I Liked a Neil Gaiman Book

"Someone killed my mother and my father and my sister."  

"Yes. Someone did." 

"A man?"" 

"A man." 

"Which means,' said Bod, "you're asking the wrong question." 

Silas raised an eyebrow. "How so?" 

"Well," said Bod. "If I go outside in the world, the question isn't 'who will keep me safe from him?'" 

"No?" 

"No. It's 'who will keep him safe from me?'"

After reading Good Omens -- which is stellar and if you haven't read it you should, good Lord, get on that -- I had a theory based on basically nothing that you were either a Neil Gaiman fan or a Terry Pratchett fan. Meaning, more precisely, a fan of their writing. I'd tried Stardust and disliked it, then American Gods and disliked it, and what I ended up deciding was that Neil Gaiman has good ideas, but is not great when it comes to getting them down on paper.

I'd like to change that conclusion a bit and say that Neil Gaiman is actually quite good at children's lit (also at writing Doctor Who episodes, but that is beside the point). Because The Graveyard Book is simple and excellent.

For the maybe two of you who haven't read it, it concerns a young boy named Bod whose family is murdered at the very start of the book, and he is then adopted by the ghosts of the nearby graveyard. So he grows up in a graveyard and gets all sorts of fun graveyard powers. It's unusual and keeps your interest, but never descends into some sort of Home Alone-esque slapstick situation (even though that is a very real possibility at one point in the book). The tone is well-maintained throughout the book, so bully for you, Gaiman. 

I did, towards the end, semi-panic about how he was going to wrap things up with so little space left, but wrap it up he did. He also obviously spent quite a bit of time in graveyards while writing this, as he gets the epitaphs down rather well. I visited the Quincy, Massachusetts cemetery across from the church with John Adams's crypt a couple years ago, and was rather surprised by the sassiness of people in the 18th century (we in Illinois pretty much start our tombstones in the 1820s).

One of them read:

"Stop here my friend and cast an Eye
As you are now so once was I
As I am now so must you be
Prepare for Death and follow me."

Thanks, Puritans.

So yes! Gaiman. Not bad. That's a relief. Maybe I can finally read Coraline. 

Readathon? More like ReadaFUN, amirite?

Readathon? Readathon. This Saturday. Very exciting. I HAVE BOOKS I WILL FINISH. Because I like piles of things and lists, here are the things I'm contemplating working on:

Lamb, Christopher Moore
Half-Blood Prince, Rowling
The Drood Murder Case, No Idea Who Wrote It
How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill
Passions Between Women, Emma Donoghue
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

THAT'S DOABLE RIGHT? Given that the last readathon I participated in, when I was visiting my parents and therefore BUSY eating things I didn't have to pay for, I read Winnie the Pooh annnnd that's it.

But it's not like I'm actually gonna read all of those. I just like options. When I take a bath, I bring like three books with me. Because what if. What if. But if I don't finish Lamb this week, I'll kick my own ass. I have like 100 pages left. I also just renewed The Drood Murder Case at the library, but it was the kind of renewal where I had to bring it in and they were like "Have you tried renewing it?" and I had to be like "Yeah, I renewed it all the times, and then the computer said 'WE CAN'T JUST LET YOU HAVE IT FOREVER YOU KNOW' and now you have to check it back in and let me check it out again, unless someone else requested this book of essay theories from the 1950s concerning a half-finished Dickens novel."

(they didn't)

And now I have this whole thing about trying to read the mainstays of feminist literature, hence Vindication, because Mary Wollstonecraft was smart and awesome and all those things. And basically 5000% ahead of her time. I'm actually reading Fear of Flying by Erica Jong right now, which is ALSO considered feministy, but more in a 1970s, trashy/sexytimes kind of way. I assumed the whole book would be kind of gross and free lovey, but the opening has been awesome and surprisingly funny. So DO NOT PRE-JUDGE ERICA JONG.

Current plan is to go to the Chicago Cultural Center and read, because it is beauteous and used to be our library (but then it was too small), and then I shall eat things. So. Pretty psyched about that.

What? Oh, that's just our former library's TIFFANY DOME

I've had How the Irish Saved Civilization on my Goodreads currently-reading list for over a year now. So it'd be nice to finish it. Especially since I REALLY liked it; I am just easily distracted by anything ever. SO current plan: finish a couple books, eat some things, comment hilariously on other people's blogs, don't stay up too late because I Am An Adult Damnit and a good readathon to be had by all.

Harry Potter Readalong, Half-Blood Prince I

Few things.

1. I absolutely did not get past page 21 in the reading this week and unfortunately we are now at the point of the readalong where I do not know the books well enough to remember things.

2. I have things to say aside from Horace Slughorn anyway, so I am ok with this.

First, ANNOUNCEMENTS. People seem to be all right with making this book happen in THREE weeks instead of four, as it's a bit shorter than the last couple, so we're going to change the reading for next week to be Chapters 8 through 18, which ends on QUITE a cliffhanger, let me tell you.

With this change, we'll have a spare week in the month, which is fantastic because regardless I was going to make us take a week before Deathly Hallows and read The Tales of Beedle the Bard. If you do not have a copy of this, please obtain one from your local library. Or just buy it 'cause it's like eight bucks and it is excellent.

Also I forgot to include this DA list
that someone made and it is awesome and
probably the only HP item I would want
so here you are

ALSO, I have made a promise that due to JKR's terribleness at shipping couples, we in the HP Readalong would be on the lookout for Harry/Draconess in these last two books. Because I don't see it. But I am open to it, because Harry/Ginny is kind of dumb.

Now. The beginning of this book. I had a hard time starting it, because the first chapter makes me cry and there's no getting around it and it's not like the other books where you've got a nice buildup and THEN tears it's just immediate tears, so. Hard to pick it up knowing that.

Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance. I'm not sure what it is about JKR's writing style that makes characters so real, but it's true and I can't handle their deaths. When I first read this, around 1 a.m. the night it was released, I read that Amelia Bones had been killed and I had to put the book down because she had just BEEN there and saying "A corporeal Patronus" and someone had killed her and WHY. 

I think it can be harder with more ancillary characters, because you don't see them so much as Harry Potter Characters. I have reasons I dislike Sirius Black. It's hard to dislike Amelia Bones because there's not a lot about her in the book.

Chapter 2 (where I, of course, stopped): This is one of the only times Bellatrix isn't an insane caricature. Her calling Narcissa "Cissy" always strikes me, as well as the "your own sister?" line, because the way Bellatrix has been portrayed up to now, you kind of think she wouldn't call on family ties as a reason to not kill/injure someone. The scene leading up to the meeting with Snape is probably the most human we ever see her. She's not always evil, damnit. And we can't know what she was like before Azkaban (saving that one scene with Barty Crouch, but I guess by 'before Azkaban' I mean 'before Voldemort').

I've read the opening chapters a few times, but I really think I've only read HBP once. And now I have 17 chapters for next week. Bring on the Slug Club indeed.

Books I have been meaning to read for a billion years (or thereabouts)

Who knows if I'll ever actually get to these. But one can hope.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Obviously. I made it like 50 pages into this over a year ago. It's been wedged between my bed and the wall since then. Look, it's REALLY good. It's also a million pages long. WHY DID YOU DO THIS, SUSANNA CLARKE WHY. I remember having a copy of this while in college. Another copy was given to me in 2009 in a New York City hotel room by a friend visiting from Germany. And it remains unread.

John Adams. I've started this so many times. I've owned it for over ten years. That is EMBARRASSING. I was in high school when I bought it. I didn't even know how to drive, or that Evelyn Waugh was a gentleman and not a lady, or that hummus is delicious. THAT IS HOW LONG I HAVE OWNED THIS BOOK. I think I made it to his marriage with Abigail right before visiting Boston three years ago, but then I stopped again.

Little Altars Everywhere. I read The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when I visited my best friend, who at the time lived in Houston. That book will forever be associated with Houston for me, and I loved both of them. So I got the first in the series when I got back home, and promptly never read it. Which is ridiculous, because Ya-Ya is awesome and you should read it.

Daniel Deronda. I know I've owned this since at least 2007, because I have a picture of my Unread Books Shelf on facebook (hahahaha it used to just be one shelf) and it's on there. My EXCUSE for this is, of course, that I was permitting myself one George Eliot a year so I didn't run out prematurely. But now it's the last one. And after I read it, there won't be any more. And if my experience with the end of Edwin Drood was any indication (even though there's a ton of Dickens I haven't read but IT'S HIS LAST ONE), I will be a weepy mess when I read it. Ooh but I hope it has people kissing in it. People kissing is my FAVORITE.

Shirley. I think most girls at some point get real excited about Jane Eyre, try reading absolutely any of Charlotte Bronte's other books and then...kinda...drift away. Because wow. Ma'am, people do not want novels about the Industrial Revolution. They want crazy ladies locked in attics and rugged gentlemen going MAD with desire for tiny governesses. That, please. Not "The farmers have upset the wagon that was carrying the new cotton gin into town!" That is not thrilling to our young souls.

The Divine Comedy. Oh man, did I have a plan summer of 2007. "This summer!" said I. "This summer I will read Paradise Lost, Pilgrim's Progress, and The Divine Comedy! Oh, how learnèd I shall be come autumn!" Then I spent over a month reading Paradise Lost, because it's written like this:

Not uninvented that, which thou aright 
Believ'st so main to our success, I bring."

So I've owned a very nice copy/translation of The Divine Comedy for six years and done nothing with it whatsoever.

Good luck gettin' read, books.

No one knows who George Sand is, so let's fix that

Okay, so what my last post proved is that no one knows shit about George Sand. We're about to change all that. GATHER ROUND ME, CHILDREN, FOR I HAVE JUST DONE INTERNET RESEARCH.

George Sand was born in 1804 with the EXTREMELY FRENCH ladyname of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin. Good. Job. So she was born right when Napoleon was all 'KABOOM! I am your emperor' and as far as I know, the French were like 'Hey, we just killed a whole bunch of people trying to end that, but ok.' So she's born when that's going on, and also the same year that the Napoleonic Code is adopted, which is basically all "I'm gonna be an asshole to women." 

She eventually has something to say regarding that. But as a baby she was probably pretty chill about it.

When she's 18 (let's skip all those formative years), she marries a guy called "Baron Casimir Dudevant," making her (in my mind) Baroness Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin-Dudevant. Which is awesome.

Nine years later (1831) she leaves her husband, because, according to one thing I read, she found his will and he was a total dick to her in it in a name-calling way, and bounces about until ACTUALLY separating from him four years later. At this point, Napoleon's been imprisoned, the Bourbon monarchy restored, then the Bourbons overthrown by the Orléans family, and the July Monarchy's in power for a while. If you've never studied French history, the 19th century's a shit show and about ten billion different people are in power.

Indiana, the novel I mentioned the other day, was written in 1832, so the year after she left her husband. There's a lot in there about how awful the Napoleonic Code is and how women have no rights and maybe someone's in a terrible marriage and would like to leave it please.

The husband's adultery was still no ground for divorce unless he brought his mistress home. However, the wife's adultery could land her in jail for up to 3 months and was certainly a ground for divorce. (x)

So Sand's boppin' around after the July Monarchy's in control, and she's havin' affairs with basically all the young French writer gentlemen, including Prosper Mérimée (who wrote the story the opera Carmen is based on) and Alfred de Musset, who was an overly dramatic poet who wrote a book about their relationship after it ended. She wrote a novel in response years later ("THIS IS HOW IT REALLY WENT DOWN") but that is beside the point.

The point is that she adopted the name George Sand and had a ten year affair with Chopin. The pseudonym seems to be because...y'know. It was the 1830s and ladies weren't published so much. Also, after she left her husband and was off in the Latin Quarter in Paris, she started dressing like a dude, because greater freedom and the like. Plus...

plus there's that.

She once said "Chopin coughs most gracefully." 

Which I think we should all love her for. 

Sand was an important figure in the 19th century French literary scene, which we might not pay a TON of attention to in 21st century English-speaking countries, but we should. Because Balzac and Zola and Stendhal and Hugo and Dumas and Flaubert. Hurrah for all of them. 

Especially Balzac, 'cause he is awesome.

George Sand probably loved carrot cake

I hope if George Sand were living today, she'd write for Jezebel. But only if she were like 30. When you're older, it's not so much the site for you. But then the question is WAS Sand funny enough for Jezebel? Maybe. But because her work seems to be primarily "Women's rights! Serious things!" I am not sure. And I base this entirely off the one book of hers I've read, Indiana.

Fun story about Indiana, I was taking a French lit course, and I remember thinking 'Huh. We haven't had a paper due in awhile.' And ON THAT VERY DAY, I show up to class and everyone gets out their five page papers and I, of course, go "Merde." But the professor gave me the weekend to finish it, which ended up being a Simpsons moment, because the University of Illinois had their first snow day in 30 years that Monday, and I had to spent it indoors, staring at Indiana and trying to figure out how it was a literary precursor to Naturalism. FUN TIMES.

There're some literary figures I almost never think about, know very little about, and yet am PRETTY sure we'd be super-awesome friends. One of them's George Sand, only she'd be like the exasperating friend who keeps getting herself into annoying and melodramatic relationship situations.

Like we'd go out to lunch and Chopin would show up and hover around the table and she'd be like "OMG Chopin we are trying to have lunch" and he'd be like "BUT GEORGE I LOVE YOU" (only in a whispery way, because he was shy) and I'd be like "Should we split some carrot cake?" because I do not like getting involved in these situations but Chopin would hear me and be all "CARROT CAKE IS OUR CAKE, GEORGE WHY MUST YOU EAT IT WITH OTHER PEOPLE" and I'd stare at the menu until he went away and then George and I would talk about how men are dicks and never just let you enjoy cake without making it about them.

Harry Potter Readalong, Order of the Phoenix IV: "When you say 'Sirius,' are you talking about Stubby Boardman?"

Let's get one thing clear right from the start on this. McGonagall gets hit by four Stunning spells to the chest. They bring her inside. Do you go back to the common room and say "She's not exactly young, is she?"

FUCK NO. You RUN YOUR ASS DOWN TO THE INFIRMARY and you pound on the door WHILE SOBBING and you find the fuck out whether she is alive and what you can do and how you can help if at all but WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU EVERY STUDENT IN GRYFFINDOR EXCEPT MAYBE LAVENDER THIS IS REALLY THE FIRST TIME I'VE LIKED YOU. DAMNIT GRYFFINDOR.

 

 Ginny. Luna. Neville. Good Lord, I love them.

"Ginny?" Harry asked fearfully. "What happened?"

But Ginny shook her head and slid down the wall into a sitting position, panting and holding her ankle.

"Anyway, one of them grabbed Ginny's foot, I used the Reductor Curse and blew up Pluto in his face, but..." 

"DON'D GIB ID DO DEM!" roared Neville, who seemed beside himself, kicking and writhing as Bellatrix drew nearer to him and his captor, her wand raised. "DON'D GIB ID DO DEM, HARRY!"

 I love this book. I love it a ton, and I'm glad at least some have grown to dislike it less when it's read more closely. Yes, Harry's annoying in it. Yes, it's understandable when you pause two seconds and think about it. Neville's parents, the twins' exit, Umbridge, Luna Lovegood, Amelia Bones and her corporeal Patronus line, Bellatrix Lestrange fighting, Snape's memories, Dumbledore's Army, Madam Puddifoot's teashop, Harry's interview with Rita Skeeter, Dumbledore's exit, any interaction McGonagall has with Umbridge, THERE IS SO MUCH IN THIS BOOK THAT IS THE BEST.

And I will admit it. This readalong made me cry when Sirius showed up at the Department of Mysteries, which has never ever happened before. Because he left 12 Grimmauld Place the second he heard that Harry was in danger. And that makes me like him the tiniest bit. So, good job, readalong.

I want Neville to marry Ginny. And Harry to maybe marry no one. And I want there to be more Harry Potter books because while we might critique parts of them and have logic issues with minutiae, we are spending SIX. MONTHS. re-reading them, and I will do that for NOTHING else on this planet. J.K. Rowling's writing came into this world over 15 years ago, which is a ridiculously short amount of time considering how beloved she is around the entire world. Harry Potter is lovely and wonderful and brings people together and I am so very grateful it exists.

First 50 Pages, ANOTHER INSTALLMENT

You know when it gets to Thursday and you're like "DAMN all I've updated about this week is a 1980s stunning tv drama about a lion man"? Yeah, so, welcome to another edition of I Review the First 50 Pages of Books Because I Can't Seem to Finish Any.

Valencia, Michelle Tea. I saw this when I was making a list for people of important lesbian lit and doin' some research, 'cause really I'm just all up in Sarah Waters and Emma Donoghue. But this was on a bunch of other people's lists, so when I was at the library, I picked it up. And immediately almost put it down, because it seemed so very Not My Sort of Book. The main character (who is Michelle Tea) lives in San Francisco in the '90s and is very...does drugs/gives herself tattoos/doesn't hold a job/becomes a prostitute for a while/etc. I don't do that kind of book. Except THIS IS SO GOOD. She's a poet, and you can tell from her prose style, which has delightful sentences such as:

We were two stoned girls peeping clumsily at each other around racks of shrimp-flavored chips and squat tins of nacho cheese.

I'm going to read all her other books.

Ruby Red, Kerstin Gier. Did you know the Germans are really good at children's lit? I base this entirely on this book and Inkheart (which I LOVE). So Tika recommended this and it's all fun and time travely. And not in the shitty way that Time Traveler's Wife was time travely. Instead of "She pops randomly back in time and doesn't know where she is and it's really boring" it's "She pops randomly back in time and look! People wearing fun wigs! Hurrah!" THAT'S the time traveling I want. I will read the second of this series.

The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens, Claire Tomalin. This book is awesome. Sure, we know not a ton about Nell Ternan because NO WRITING FROM HER EXISTS for a good period while she was involved with Dickens (that's what we in the words business call "suspicious"), but there's a lot known about her parents and environment and stuff that can be inferred from silence. And Claire Tomalin's just a talented biographer lady. I'm disliking Nell Ternan less through this book.

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss. Sometimes I think I just don't have the temperament for fantasy lit. I couldn't do Game of Thrones because there's a sentence in the first chapter about a sword and it says "It was a splendid weapon, castle-forged, and new-made from the look of it." NOPE. DONE. I'm not dealing with that shit. Fucking "castle-forged." So Name of the Wind has some of that, but I have decided to skim over it, because Pat Rothfuss's blog got me through some rough days of temping, and I feel like I owe it to him to actually read his book. It's not bad so far.

I also picked up the next Vampire Academy book from the library. You thought that saga was over, but you were wrong.

TICKLED BABY POLAR BEAR

Murdery things, subterranean lion men, lady music

YOU GUYS I READ SHARP OBJECTS. And basically it was ok-not-great. This is Gillian Flynn's first book, and while it involves murder (hurrayyy kind of), it's also got a lot of shit about the narrator girl and cutting, but instead of normal cutting, she cuts WORDS into herself, and I'm sure this is supposed to be very interesting, but I was mainly exasperated by it because it seemed like a Literary Thing.

I was SLIGHTLY surprised by one of the twists, but overall, meh. Gillian Flynn's good if you read her quickly. Otherwise it kind of feels like a waste. Her prose isn't good enough to single her out as a writer, so it's mainly a plot-driven read. And she's really into psychotic women, which I can get behind, but if that's always your plot device, then your books are going to get predictable.

In this GIF analogy, Flynn's books are Dustin Hoffman, trying oh-so hard.

In the past, I've mentioned how life is EXCITING because new awesome things are being created all the time, while there are also thousands of things that have been around, sometimes for centuries, that we just haven't found yet. I found TWO on the weekend, which makes me very happy indeed.

One is the singer Jen Foster, whose music I just like. Someone used her song 'Venice Beach' in a fanvid, and I looked for her albums on Spotify and ended up liking basically all her music (except I Just Wanna Be Happy, because those lyrics are the sentiments of a 12-year-old, but it's on her first album, so consider slack for her CUT).

The OTHER is the 1980s stellar tv show of stellardom Beauty and the Beast. I was flipping through Netflix and it was like "Oh, you like Xena? Here're some other dated shows from the past three decades you'd probably like." And there it was, with the show summary: 

A NYC district attorney shares a deep bond with a subterranean-dwelling lion man who becomes the love of her life.

How do you NOT watch that? All these years, including 1990 when I saw the VHS tapes in our video rental store, I thought it was an old timey fairytale version of Beauty and the Beast and like...set in the 1700s. Because what am I supposed to think with this?

It's got curlicues and shit

But no. 1980s New York City. And Linda Hamilton is WORKING the '80s fashions. She made me regret they aren't around anymore, which is damn impressive when you're wearing shoulder pads and giant blazers. Also she and Ron Perlman have the greatest speaking voices of all time, so when they're in scenes together I'm like "Yessss talk moooore!"

In other news, I'm finishing the first Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which isn't really grabbing me, but neither did the first Lord Peter Wimsey by Dorothy L. Sayers, and now I am a GIANT fan of him. Plus later Agatha Christies rock the house. So. On I shall go.

Harry Potter Readalong, Order of the Phoenix III: "*are you quite sure you wouldn't like a cough drop, Dolores*?"

I'm basically furious with myself for not having done any of the reading this week, because as I skim it, I see that all the best parts of the book are pretty much in this particular section. Good job, me.

First of all, does anyone remember when this book was coming out? J.K. Rowling let loose a rumor. The rumor was that someone important would die. This turned out to be THE MEANEST THING EVER because there are about three times you think someone's going to die before someone actually does.

Time number one — I think — is here with Arthur Weasley. 'THIS IS IT' I thought as I read it the first time. 'NO NOT ARTHUR WHAT WILL MOLLY DO NOOOOOO.' But then it was okay. The second one was much, much worse, but we haven't gotten there yet.

"I forgot," he said.
"Lucky you," said Ginny coolly.

Just to remind everyone AGAIN that Ginny is a badass and let's all appreciate the shit out of her during this readalong. I don't even want her to end up with Harry anymore. He doesn't deserve her. Let Ginny go off on her own and found some kickass wizard detective agency and someday she'll run up against a Moriarty type, only then they'll fall in LOVE and end up getting married and having wizard ninja babies. Yes, that.

The scene at St. Mungo's in the closed ward is another in my 'Most Memorable' category. This is another reason I love book 5 so much. MOST of the scenes that have stuck with me are from it. But the Longbottoms....oh, just.. just Neville and his parents and their backstory and what he's gone through and the effects of what Voldemort's done and it becomes so REAL and I love J.K. Rowling to tiny bits I really do.

But as they left, Harry was sure he saw Neville slip the wrapper into his pocket.

AHHHHHHH. Nope. But immediately followed by one of my favorite lines in the whole series:

"Look, I didn't learn joined-up writing for nothing, you know!"

Gilderoy, I love you so.

An unkempt Rita Skeeter, who informs H/R/Hr that the Ministry is putting pressure on the press, which — HI young adult series, more lessons like this please. And Dumbledore refusing to be arrested. Sigh. This was basically the greatest of all sections. Ending with not only another McGonagall/Umbridge standoff, but the Weasleys' exit, which is one of the best parts of the entire series. My. Gosh.

Say Anything is Really Just a Remake of The Barretts of Wimpole Street

Does everyone know about the Brownings? Sweet, romantic story where she was this bedridden (kind of), acclaimed poetess, and he was this dashing young man six years her junior who was all Say Anything holding up a boombox outside her window in love with her. And they got married and it's really cute.

BUT -- and this is not my area, so this is wholly based off what I learned like eight years ago in my Victorian lit class -- he was kinda jealous of her and her fame and awesome poetry. Because he wrote poems too. Mostly monologuey, dramatic poems, a conclusion I base entirely off 'My Last Duchess' and 'Ulysses,' which isn't even BY him but because we read it at the same time as My Last Duchess, I keep thinking they're both by Browning (Tennyson wrote 'Ulysses' and it is the shittiest of poems because ODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE FOREVER you bastard).

This is all to preface that I've kind of always seen Robert Browning as this lesser poet next to EBB, because while my 18-year-old I-feel-things-more-deeply-than-you self broke down crying in class while reading aloud from one of her Sonnets from the Portuguese (IT'S REALLY BEAUTIFUL OK), his stuff was kinda "Eh. This is all right."

And check out how awesome she looked.

BUT THEN. I was waiting for a friend at a cafe, and I grabbed a book at random off my shelf before heading over, because why would I bring a book I've already started, and it was a book of poetry I've had for yeeeears but never opened. So there I am, in this cafe, starting this extraordinarily long poem by Robert Browning, which I'm dimly aware is seen as his masterpiece, and I'm thinking 'You know...this is excellent. I would even say amazing. Look at his way with words! Robert Browning is a genius and you have never given him full credit for this! Maybe he WAS just unfairly overshadowed by EBB in her lifetime!'

Then my friend showed up, and I was all ready to go into how I had misjudged Robert Browning all these years, when I looked at the cover, and under Aurora Leigh and Other Poems, it of course said -- 'By Elizabeth Barrett Browning.' 

 Wah-wahhhhhh.

Sorry, Robert. Maybe next year.

"I hate the way you make me feel!" Top Ten Characters I Would Crush On

I wasn't going to update today. I wasn't. But then I saw on Alley's blog that Top Ten Tuesday's topic was AMAZING and so here we are. Thanks, Broke and the Bookish, for being awesome.

Top Ten Characters I Would Crush On

It's supposed to be "...if I were a fictional character," but screw that, I DO crush on these people.

...yes.

1. Moiraine Damodred, The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan. THIS IS THE FIRST PERSON THAT CAME TO MIND. And I read that book ten years ago. Moiraine is a badass. She's an Aes Sedai, which is...I dunno, some kind of lady wizard? It's been a while. I just remember she's awesome and when she started screaming at the end of one chapter I FROZE THE SHIT UP because Moiraine doesn't scream. So whatever was happening was really. really. really bad.

2. Jamie Fraser, Outlander, Diana Gabalalabadon.  Um, shut up, because Jamie is perfectly calculated to make everyone fall in love with him. "Oh, you're handsome and tall and brave and funny and strong and the only person who truly gets you is me? Okay then."

3. Florence Banner, Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters. How can you not be in love with Flo? If you're a Kitty devotee, get out. Right now. Okay, fine. I GUESS you can crush on Kitty, because why wouldn't you, but FLO IS DEVOTED TO A CAUSE. And that is hot. She's all responsible and sure of herself and I am on board with this.

4. Marian Halcombe, The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins. If any of you left Marian off your list, you need to rethink that quick, because there is a DUTY to the Cult of Wilkie, and that duty is to be always in love with Marian. 

Only replace "on a girl" with "on Marian"

What do you even say about Marian? She's perfect. She's a Victorian ninja woman who also happens to be stunningly clever and has a rather nice backside (thank you, Wilkie). We bless the day she was created.

5. Helena Landless, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens. Bella Wilfer from Our Mutual Friend also competes for this spot, but right now I have a giant soft spot for Helena. She and her twin brother Neville come to England from India. In Dickens's last few novels, he started creating interesting women who had actual personalities. This is part of the description for Helena and Neville:

An unusually handsome lithe young fellow, and an unusually handsome lithe girl; much alike; both very dark, and very rich in colour; she of almost the gipsy type; something untamed about them both; a certain air upon them of hunter and huntress; yet withal a certain air of being the objects of the chase, rather than the followers.

Also...y'know. This photo surfaced from the Broadway production:

6. Etienne St. Clair, Anna and the French Kiss, Stephanie Perkins. Ugh. Fine. Yes. I am totally into Etienne. He is awesome. And really sweet. And has great hair. Which is remarked on a LOT in that book. But he's also 18, soooo...that might not work out. Unlike all the others listed above, which of course have a high probability of success.

7. Cathy Ames, East of Eden, John Steinbeck. CATHY IS TOTALLY EVIL AND I UNDERSTAND THAT. That doesn't mean I wouldn't make out with her. But I would probably worry about getting stabbed while doing it. 'Cause she'd have no problem with that.

8. Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen. This one's more for old-time's sake. I used to love him because he's funny, but when I re-read it, he just seems kinda like Catherine's gay best friend. But sure, let's list him on here. Because he IS funny. And that's attractive, damnit.

9. Will Ladislaw or Dorothea Brooke, Middlemarch, George Eliot. Really either one.

10. Kinda...sorta....in a very distant way...Bellatrix Lestrange. *runs away*

March = Getting Things DONE

March was a stellar month for reading, people. And by reading I mean 'for me finishing books.' Since that so rarely happens, let's examine them in all their mostly super-easy glory:

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The Wilder Life
Diana Victrix
Moranthology
Surpassing the Love of Men
Anna and the French Kiss
Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together

I'm feeling bewildered too, Kirk

FINE three of those are half the Scott Pilgrim series and they take like half an hour to read, but WHATEVER THEY ARE SEPARATE BOOKS. I'm also about halfway done with Lamb and Order of the Phoenix, and working on a bio of Nell Ternan named The Invisible Woman which is QUITE good, plus I just started The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin because I am now obsessed with the Supreme Court.

I already did reviews of a lot of the above books. Wilder Life was entertaining, plus I enjoy non-fiction books where people go out  on adventures — especially adventures that involve butter churns. Diana Victrix is delightful, camping in New Hampshire turn of the century wonderfulness.

Anna and the French Kiss...I actually liked quite a bit. It's not the ultimate in greatness, but in terms of a YA novel about a girl who falls in love with a seemingly perfect boy, I'd recommend it a million times over Twilight. And unlike Twilight, where the heroine's friendships consist of statements like "I shambled along behind Jessica, not bothering to pretend to listen anymore" because excuse me but she's TRYING to think about a guy she likes, Anna has actual friends who actually matter to her.

Also, St. Clair (super-dreamy boy Anna is in love with) does things like tell Anna "You have perfect hair" which -- GOOD LORD -- men, please take note. My Kindle comment for that is just "Damn, boy." Another amazing thing he did merited a "Well fuck, that was pretty perfect" and near the end, "DAMN YOU ST CLAIR AND YOUR PERFECTION."

As opposed to Edward, where...I'm not retyping my whole Goodreads review of Twilight, so there it is.

That book makes me have these
feelings

Confessions of a Shopaholic...I admit that by the end, I was fairly done with it. As in, yes yes, you're going to end up with the guy, and right now things are finally coming together for you, and I have other things to re—WHAT it ends with you doing WHAT? My gosh, woman.

On the plus side, it's made me cut back my spending by, oh, A BILLION PERCENT. Because she is the magnification of one's bad spending habits. And when you see her faulty logic with making a purchase and go "Oh, Becky," in about another two seconds you realize that while she used it for buying a pair of boots, you used it yourself for buying a cookie the other day and that's a $1.35 expenditure you didn't need to make, ma'am. You didn't need to. Because you have chocolate at your desk.

Oh, and zombie musical closed Saturday. And yes, the cast ended up at the bar across the street, recounting Jennifer Lawrence stories that have all been made into GIFs.

What else would we do?