YES the time of readalongs is nigh at hand, as Master and Margarita is starting NEXT MONDAY (posts posted whenever on that day) and it has gotten me thinking about what's next.
I personally am on a mission to read some Tolstoy, and it must be with a group, becuase otherwise itw ill never happen in my lifetime. So! War and Peace and Anna Karenina are both possibilities (using Volkhonsky and Pevear), but what else! What have people wanted to read and have just never gotten up the energy to get through? It doesn't have to be long. Hell, Master and Margarita isn't long, but enough of us owned it and had never read it that it seemed one of those books we just needed a group push to get through. So! Tell me things! Authors! Do we want to read that one book by our beloved Wilkie that I have forgotten the name of? I don't think it's No-Name, but ha. There's some other famous one. And there's sci-fi! We haven't done sci-fi. And there's...there're other genres I've forgotten but which are probably muy importante and should be considered and read together and have GIFs applied to them.
THROW BOOK NAMES AT ME.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Thursday, September 22, 2016
American Vampire by Scott Snyder: Vampires in Old Timey Times
American Vampire by Scott Snyder is a 19th/20th century American graphic novel/comic book series I-can't-quite-distinguish-between-those-two-yet about vampires. Scary vampires. Not terrifying vampires, but not your Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, whoever else was making vampires the sexiest versions of themselves.
American Vampire distinguishes between the Old World vampires, which are more of the Bram Stoker, how-we-know-them type, and the New World vampire, which has some convenient and fun traits and also very scarily long fingers. WHY ARE LONG FINGERS SO SCARY. WHAT IN OUR EVOLUTION MADE US THINK THAT WAS A SCARY THING. You know how squirrels and rabbits and whatever just know to stay away from certain shit? I feel like we have some instinct that's like "oh, long skinny limbs and/or fingers? Get the fuck away from that." But GOOD LORD, why.
Snyder's story starts with 2 Hollywood girls in 1925, then flips back and forth between then and the 1880s/'90s and early 1900s, which is fan-damn-tastic. I read it on my lunch break at Starbucks and it was riveting. Are there a couple of dumb plot points? YEP. But there's also a lot of fun stuff moving the story forward, and some issues are written by Stephen King, so if he floats your boat, there's some bonus info for you.
Would've been 4/5 until the dumber plot points happened, which made it a Goodreads 3/5. But I'm still totally checking out the next volumes, OF WHICH THERE ARE MANY, because The Past + vampires is almost always a winning combination. This was Twilight's main fault. Aside from the heroine having no personality and the hero stalking and emotionally abusing her. ASIDE FROM THAT. Just the fact it was set now. What's she wearing? Jeans and a hoodie. Great. Riveting. Sign me up for more.
AMERICAN VAMPIRE HAS FLAPPER DRESSES. And also Old West hats. Read it if you like those things.
Monday, September 19, 2016
The Manhattan Projects: Wtf, Man
I liked the hell out of Jonathan Hickman when I read the first East of West (remember that? it's ok if you don't — I get it, life is busy), so when I saw he had ANOTHER series called The Manhattan Projects, I went "oooh." And then Jenny from Reading the End said she tried reading it and had to stop after #1 because it is entirely dudes. And I essentially POOH-POOHED HER CONCERNS and did it anyway, because #EastofWestLove.
I just finished volume 2, and wtf, man. It's all dudes.
I mean ALL dudes. I mean women do not exist in this universe. I mean that I get that he's basing it off WWII-era scientists, but if you're inventing magical science shit and Buddhist monks who can open portals with their minds, MAYBE ALSO HAVE SOME WOMEN IN THERE.
East of West is still great. But just...damn, sir. This is some egregious shit. Unless you were doing some Fight Club thing where Chuck Palahniuk said he was trying to create a space for men because they didn't have one.
Anyway.
The main lesson Jenny will take from this is that she is always right, but what should be taken from it is that sometimes people make honest mistakes and they should be called out for them but not vilified. I'll bet Jonathan Hickman is LOVELY. I would hug him, I'm like 98% sure. But I'd also say - wtf, man.
I just finished volume 2, and wtf, man. It's all dudes.
I mean ALL dudes. I mean women do not exist in this universe. I mean that I get that he's basing it off WWII-era scientists, but if you're inventing magical science shit and Buddhist monks who can open portals with their minds, MAYBE ALSO HAVE SOME WOMEN IN THERE.
 |
| damnit, Jonathan |
East of West is still great. But just...damn, sir. This is some egregious shit. Unless you were doing some Fight Club thing where Chuck Palahniuk said he was trying to create a space for men because they didn't have one.
Anyway.
 |
| Agh. |
 |
| Aghhhh. |
 |
| Agghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. |
The main lesson Jenny will take from this is that she is always right, but what should be taken from it is that sometimes people make honest mistakes and they should be called out for them but not vilified. I'll bet Jonathan Hickman is LOVELY. I would hug him, I'm like 98% sure. But I'd also say - wtf, man.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Master and Margareadalong in October!
You guys. We've talked about it. We've talked about it for so long. And now...it's finally happening.
This October, we shall read the classic tale by Bulgakov that seems to involve a cat! I have assumed it was about ships for about a decade, which I have now realized is because of the series Master and Commander, so! Let us proceed knowing it probably has nothing to do with ships, but will perhaps be great nonetheless. As is the tradition with our readalongs, let your GIFs be used liberally and let them be on-point. I SHALL SEE YOU IN OCTOBER.
Schedule:
October 17th: Chapters 17-22
October 24th: Chapters 23-26
October 31st: Chapters 27 to end
This October, we shall read the classic tale by Bulgakov that seems to involve a cat! I have assumed it was about ships for about a decade, which I have now realized is because of the series Master and Commander, so! Let us proceed knowing it probably has nothing to do with ships, but will perhaps be great nonetheless. As is the tradition with our readalongs, let your GIFs be used liberally and let them be on-point. I SHALL SEE YOU IN OCTOBER.
Schedule:
October 3rd: Chapters 1-8
October 10th: Chapters 9-16Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Was Carrie Nation Just Insane?
If you dive into temperance history in the slightest, you'll run across the 6' tall figure of Carrie Nation (later changed by her to "Carry"). She is famous for going into saloons with a hatchet and destroying all the merchandise in the name of temperance. No one wanted to mess with her because she was a giant woman wielding a hatchet.
Here's the thing. I always assumed she had just found a schtick and went with it. But the Carrie Nation episode of the hilarious podcast The Dollop, WHILE slightly reprehensible for dealing poorly with the extreme mental illness in her family, also entirely reframed her as a person and made her actions less "hilarious old woman has had enough" and much more "this was a person who needed help."
Carrie Nation lived from 1846-1911. She was born in Kentucky to slaveholding parents. Her mother, some writers say (and The Dollop proclaims) thought she was Queen Victoria, and the family treated her as such. An aunt of Carrie's acted like a weather vane at times, and a cousin decided to just live on all fours for a time until the local minister had a talk with him.
Despite her later propensity for publicity and general hatchet-wielding, Carrie was overall motivated by good (also maybe syphilis, but that's later):
Carrie was married for about a year to an alcoholic (he died soon after), from whom, if she DID contract it, she got syphilis. They had a daughter with mental health problems, which Carrie blamed on her husband's alcoholism, despite the storied history of her family.
She remarried David A. Nation, and they went around the West as he tried career after career and she started taking rocks into bars and smashing all their stock.
Carrie went from Kansas to Oklahoma, smashing up bars and rousing the local Women's Christian Temperance Unions to action. Bars started putting up signs saying "All Nations Welcome But Carrie." Throughout all this, she said she talked to God and He was directing her in what to do. She "sold photographs of herself, collected lecture fees, and marketed miniature souvenir hatchets" to support herself and, according to Wikipedia, pulled a Westboro Baptist because "[s]uspicious that President William McKinley was a secret drinker, Nation applauded his 1901 assassination because drinkers "got what they deserved."
The further research I did after The Dollop's hilarious and informed, but pretty callous and using some suspect sources, podcast, pointed to the good she tried to do, and the book Carry A Nation: Retelling the Life states that newspaper reporters looking for a story reported that she died of complications from syphilis, while the hospital itself stated heart failure as the cause.
It's extremely possible the hospital wanted to cover up that she had syphilis to protect her reputation, and it seems like it would explain some of her pacing, muttering to herself, and grandiose actions, but who knows. At the end of the day, Carrie Nation did some good things and some bad things. Her childhood with a very mentally disturbed mother sounds sad, her life with her alcoholic husband sounds sad, trying to care for her mentally ill daughter sounds sad, and her second marriage that ended in divorce in 1901 sounds sad. Her work for temperance at least gave her a passion and a drive in life, and while saying it was good the president was assassinated is The Worst, I hope she was happy at least some of the time she was here.
Here's the thing. I always assumed she had just found a schtick and went with it. But the Carrie Nation episode of the hilarious podcast The Dollop, WHILE slightly reprehensible for dealing poorly with the extreme mental illness in her family, also entirely reframed her as a person and made her actions less "hilarious old woman has had enough" and much more "this was a person who needed help."
Carrie Nation lived from 1846-1911. She was born in Kentucky to slaveholding parents. Her mother, some writers say (and The Dollop proclaims) thought she was Queen Victoria, and the family treated her as such. An aunt of Carrie's acted like a weather vane at times, and a cousin decided to just live on all fours for a time until the local minister had a talk with him.
Despite her later propensity for publicity and general hatchet-wielding, Carrie was overall motivated by good (also maybe syphilis, but that's later):
[It] seems clear in retrospect that her first and continuing impulse was to befriend the woebegone and homeless. In Medicine Lodge, Kansas, where she and her second husband, David Nation, settled in the 1890s, she was known as "Mother Nation"-not a name of irony or derision, but one that celebrated her generosity. In Kansas, as in the years before in Missouri and Texas, Carry's instincts were to look out after the poor and battered, especially women. Medicine Lodge saw her establish a sewing circle to make clothes for the destitute. Her strong belief in education (she was once a teacher) led her to make it her business that few children in Medicine Lodge had to stay home from school for want of proper clothing.
Carrie was married for about a year to an alcoholic (he died soon after), from whom, if she DID contract it, she got syphilis. They had a daughter with mental health problems, which Carrie blamed on her husband's alcoholism, despite the storied history of her family.
She remarried David A. Nation, and they went around the West as he tried career after career and she started taking rocks into bars and smashing all their stock.
After she similarly destroyed two other saloons in Kiowa, a tornado hit eastern Kansas, which she took as divine approval of her actions.
Carrie went from Kansas to Oklahoma, smashing up bars and rousing the local Women's Christian Temperance Unions to action. Bars started putting up signs saying "All Nations Welcome But Carrie." Throughout all this, she said she talked to God and He was directing her in what to do. She "sold photographs of herself, collected lecture fees, and marketed miniature souvenir hatchets" to support herself and, according to Wikipedia, pulled a Westboro Baptist because "[s]uspicious that President William McKinley was a secret drinker, Nation applauded his 1901 assassination because drinkers "got what they deserved."
The further research I did after The Dollop's hilarious and informed, but pretty callous and using some suspect sources, podcast, pointed to the good she tried to do, and the book Carry A Nation: Retelling the Life states that newspaper reporters looking for a story reported that she died of complications from syphilis, while the hospital itself stated heart failure as the cause.
It's extremely possible the hospital wanted to cover up that she had syphilis to protect her reputation, and it seems like it would explain some of her pacing, muttering to herself, and grandiose actions, but who knows. At the end of the day, Carrie Nation did some good things and some bad things. Her childhood with a very mentally disturbed mother sounds sad, her life with her alcoholic husband sounds sad, trying to care for her mentally ill daughter sounds sad, and her second marriage that ended in divorce in 1901 sounds sad. Her work for temperance at least gave her a passion and a drive in life, and while saying it was good the president was assassinated is The Worst, I hope she was happy at least some of the time she was here.
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