We Want It!

[helloladies]

Because we haven't quite managed to work out a way for us to consume ALL the entertainment yet: to keep us from emerging haggard and zombie like after regular all night box set marathons, book splurges and music overload we've set up this monthly space where we can express our pure fannish glee at the fact that so many projects of awesome potential are continually being made. All of our past wants and desires can be found in the We Want It! tag.

Books

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: Yes, I know, how very original of me. Most of you will have seen the almost universally enthusiastic reviews, so there isn't much I can add. But what really made me want The Night Circus was holding a copy in my hand at the bookshop the other day. This book is a thing of absolute beauty. Part of me still can't believe I managed to put it back and walk away.



The Good Husband by Gail Godwin. The other day I read a Margo Lanagan interview at the blog because writing is my vice where she listed some of her favourite books, and the inevitable result was that all the ones I haven't read were added to my wishlist. The Good Husband particularly stood out — it's set in a college town, it focuses on two couples, and it seems to be the exact kind of book Eugenides' The Marriage Plot left me in the mood for.



Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban also stood out: Margo Lanagan says this is one of the books that showed her "how far you can push language and still retain sense and story"; and when I saw Patrick Ness at the Edinburgh Book Festival a few months ago he also named it as a book that had influenced him. If two of my favourite authors recommend it, then I really have to read it asap.



The Literary Lives of Mary Elizabeth Braddon: A Study of Her Life and Work by Jennifer Carnel. Welcome to another edition of "Ana tortures herself by coveting obscure and expensive scholarly books she will probably never get her hands on". I think that the fact that I couldn't even find a cover image for this book speaks volumes. But I've just finished Braddon's Henry Dunbar and once again I'm in awe of her. While many Victorians were busy being Victorian, Mary Elizabeth Braddon was going, "Don't mind me; I'll just be over here being incredibly subversive and questioning gender and class in my sensational novels which you'll dismiss as brainless trash. Oh, and being an actress and living with a man outside the Holy Bounds of Matrimony and just generally being awesome." I would love to read her biography.



The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began by Stephen Greenblatt : Laura Miller is to blame for this one. Plus it's by the author of Will in the World, which I only read bits of but really enjoyed. (Note to self: finish it.)



Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps by Lise Eliot: To be honest, it will probably be a long while before I can read another book debunking gender essentialism. It's not that they've stopped being awesome, but I've read so many of them this year, both for fun and for my dissertation, that they have started to seem samey. When I feel ready again, though, it's Lise Eliot's book that I want to read.



Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale by Betsy Hearne: SurLaLune completely sold me on this one (especially by mentioning it side by side with Marina Warner's From the Beast to the Blonde, which I adored). I find Beauty and the Beast/East of the Sun West of the Moon/Eros and Psyche tales absolutely fascinating - there's so much potential there for exploring female desire and agency and sexuality. I've yet to come across a retelling that takes full advantage of this potential in all the ways I dream of, but I remain forever hopeful. And meanwhile, reading awesome meta commentary on the tale would be just the thing.



The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell: Ha — glancing downwards I see that Jodie and I are of one mind. I swear I hadn't seen her list before I made mine! Saundra Mitchell earned 352566 cool points in my book last month, and The Vespertine, set in 1889 Baltimore and Maine, sounds like a great introduction to her work.



Tris and Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison is a YA retelling of Tristan and Isolde. The GoodReads average rating and a few blog reviews I've seen indicate it might be in fact the very opposite of awesome, but the cover! I'm helpless before such a pretty cover.

Television

Lost in Austen ITV mini-series: It's all Jodie's fault! I'm saving this series — about a modern-day woman teleported into Pride and Prejudice — for Advent with Austen. It sounds like a complete delight and I can't wait to get to it.

---

This month I am all about the books.

Books

'All Men of Genius' by Lev AC Rosen:





I'm sure it's not cool to be oh so excited about each new Shakespeare retelling, but YAY NEW SHAKESPEARE RETELLING!

Twelfth Night is kind of my nemesis play. I love it, oh how I love it! When I saw it performed I thought I would burst with love for our pixie haired, cross dressing heroine and her dashing military jacket. But the ending is so sixteenth century romantic solutions! Lawks, how lucky, everyone has ended up in love with the 'correct' gender for the times and can get happily married. Tralala, off to the church we go. You have no idea how much I want the cross dressing to lead to same sex romance in that story (and yes I'm well aware that is an unreasonable ask of a sixteenth century play).

I have great hopes that a steampunk retelling will bring me something new and interesting to set alongside the original canon. I'm sure a gay brother must change the dynamics of the play's final two couples. Just bring me my same sex cross dressing romance literary world! Like you have more important things to be doing than catering to my whims?



'Pym' by Mat Johnson: In my last year of university I took a course on the history of mountains. I think this may have set my reputation as a bit of an oddball in stone (ha, if you think it was weird telling people about this course, ask me about my dissertation title) but taking this course was just the outward manifestation of a weird obsession I'd been pursuing quietly for many years. I am addicted to stories about snowy, rocky, difficult explorations up mountains, or just across the frozen tundra. 'Pym' sounds like it combines sci-fi with the snow and looks into the difficulties that often appear under the inevitably claustrophobic conditions of Arctic explorations.



'Sister Mischief' by Laura Goode: Seriously, I might have given into temptation before this post even comes out and bought this one. I've heard that this book was about hip-hop bands, friendship and ladies falling in love with each other. No lie, the thought of such an unusual combination of desirable elements has me flipping out, especially since reading 'Coconut Unlimited' taught me that just because I'm not into hip-hop doesn't mean I won't like hip-hop novels.



'Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell: I'd heard about 'Shadowed Summer' from Chasing Ray and Bookshelves of Doom. Both sites instructed people to ignore the cover. And I put it on the never ending 'want' list. Then a couple of weeks ago Renay linked me to a post from Mitchell about the whole 'there are no books for boys' pile on and 'Shadowed Summer' went way up my mental list. When you say good things, people listen and then maybe they buy your books.



'Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans' by Rosalyn Story: My interest in this book is totally down to a the thoughtful review it received at Read Red so I urge you to check it out. A novel of Hurricane Katrina, a subject which doesn't seem to be permeating the US media that makes it to the UK quite as much as you might expect.



'The Kingdom of Gods' by N K Jeminsin: I'm so excited that this series comes straight out into paperback, so I don't have to wait ages to be able to get each installment. Loved 'The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms' and 'The Broken Kingdoms' is nestled on my bookshelf waiting for me.The cover is so dark and pretty. It will look beautiful awaiting me on my shelf.

---

Ah, university. Keeping me from mainlining TV shows (The Secret World of Alex Mack, Suits) and book series (Temeraire, The Dresden Files). However, I am learning amazing things about the future secondary history teachers in my area, most notably that they never do their reading assignment and express surprise when they find out I have. a;slkd;aksdksdl;; I weep for our future.

Television

Suits: To be fair, I have seen the pilot episode of this series and I was super charmed by the two male leads. I was less charmed by the super skeevy sexual harassment story line that used a plot device I find problematic given the state of success in taking down dudebros who do crap like this. Why couldn't it have been a pro bono case about kittens? I could have used an episode of Mike cuddling furry balls of adorable kittens and Harvey lint rolling himself every time Mike left his office. Anyway, the rest of this series has gone on my wishlist for after all my excessive amounts of coursework are done.

Books

When she Woke by Hillary Jordan: There's been some buzz about this book, but as per usual I am drowning in coursework and miss it all until someone actually reads and reviews the book. I caught this review of the title by Adult Books for Teens (sorry, I just cannot write the number, I can't, ugh, let's all just pretend). I've read some of the books it's been compared to, but not all. I really enjoyed the The Handmaid's Tale even though it was chilling. I am curious to check this book out, hopefully before 2016.



Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor: In a shocking twist, I want a book that I saw Ana and Thea co-review recently. It looks really fascinating and the cover is gorgeous and I am a sucker for a great cover. I remember when this author's first book, Lips Touch: Three Times went around a few years back. I never managed to get hold of it for reading, and think I was treading back into fandom by that point, anyway. But now I have a chance to read this title as an introduction to Taylor. That's another goal for 2012: introduce myself to a wider variety of lady authors.



The Shattering by Karen Healey: In my defense (since I've been begging for a new book by Karen Healey for ages), this book dropped right after I went back to school! I am barely reading novels. Yesterday my entire afternoon consisted of a few treaties, the Cherokee Constitution and 87 pages of literature theory. I am suffering knowing this book is out there and I want to put my hands (or at least my digital footprint via my nookcolor) all over a copy. I loved Guardian of the Dead and all the reviewers I trust have loved this title, too, so I am hopeful!



The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson: Okay, so this is the UK cover and I one of you have to buy me a copy of this book with this cover and send it to me in the US because the US cover makes me want to cry tears of blood. This is a classic example of how to kill a book with an awesome premise: make it look like a thirteen year old is attempting to self-publish their first creative writing assignment. It's just a complete trainwreck, what were they thinking? Someone needs to be scolded and put into a corner for a timeout, because even I can open Photoshop, layer three photos over each other and adjust the opacity, and I haven't used Photoshop in over a year. Ugh, I'm sorry, this has nothing to do with how interesting the book sounds, I just have a lot of FEELINGS about covers for books and most of them revolve around "don't make it suck, you're a professional, just don't make it suck." COVER FEELINGS ASIDE, the last book I read by Johnson was Suite Scarlett, and it was lovely and complicated and problematic, and so I am excited to read this one, which is completely different in tone and premise. Also, folding a story into history! I am such a sucker for history.



Still Life by Louise Penny: So I was talking about books with my professor and eventually I mentioned that in 2012 I am planning to focus on women writers in my reading. He then mentioned this author and got really excited and I rarely see him get excited about anything that doesn't involve history or politics so of course I had to check this out. Dudes getting excited about women writers! It's amazing and thrills me every time. Also, people I really admire and respect getting excited about books and wanting to share them with me makes me get all warm and fuzzy (whatever, I really like my professor, okay, I would be bros with him if it wouldn't creep him out). I am so pathetically easy to please.

I don't read many mysteries because they make me feel silly when I read reviews and people go, "Oh, that was too easy to figure out!" when I certainly didn't figure it out. The last one was Three Bags Full, which I enjoyed mostly because how farcical it was, but also at the same time, fully human and painful (and I didn't figure it out, no surprise there) but I looked this author up. This seems to be the first featuring the particular detective she writes about and I do love me some fictional police work, so I've added it to my list of books to eventually get my hands on as an introduction.

Comments

[myfriendamysblog.com]

I've heard really great things about Louise Penny. I used to love reading mysteries because I think they often explore issues in our society in a way that feels organic to the story and also the darker/more troublesome part of humanity but I haven't read any lately. I need to do that.

I read The Shattering. That's all I'll say about that, lol. I did finish it which is SO RARE these days.

Suits seems like the kind of show I'd like, I've caught a few episodes but figured it would be better to go back to beginning to really watch it.

[renay]

Oh no, Amy, you don't get to say that and then drop it completely! THAT SOUND SO OMINOUS, "I READ IT. I FINISHED IT. I CAN SAY NOTHING MORE." a;sd;alskda;lsd

You might like Suits! I know that Law & Order has shows that focus on the lawyers, but this is a little different in tone and I really like the premise itself because it lends itself to lots of gay. But uh, that's me. XD

[nymeth]

So, Jodie, what was the title of your dissertation? ;)

Renay, I'm the same with mysteries. People are all, "FINGERSMITH, WHO DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING, SOOOOO OBVIOUS, HAHAHAHA", and I'm like "Huh, I didn't, because apparently I'm really dumb". :|

[renay]

YES, FISTBUMP OF SOLIDARITY.

I never figure mysteries out and have so often gotten that reaction from people that it turned me off the entire category. :/ Susan badgered me for ages to start reading the Sherlock Holmes stories and it was so hard because I would read a mystery and go "OH HOW CLEVER!" and then someone one be all "predictable tripe". I had understandable qualms about getting back into them. I don't think we're dumb at all, not anymore! I just think other people read too many mysteries. XD

Good to know Fingersmith has one, I will remember this for when I go look at reviews and try not to feel bad.

[nymeth]

Yes, I think familiarity with the genre is what makes a difference. Apparently Fingersmith would have been far more predictable if I had read The Woman in White first. This is my way of telling you NOT to read that first, not even a plot summary :P

[renay]

I will never read that, anyway, based on discussions about the book in my Lit Theory class. Why go looking for things and characterizations of women that are going to piss me off in classical literature? There's plenty in contemporary!

[nymeth]

It's SUCH a complicated book, though, even in that regard. One heroine = UGH ARGH SHUT UP. The other one = pretty much as awesome as a Victorian man writing a woman EVER gets. Wilkie Collins likes to mess with my brain and I keep coming back for more. He writes awesome subversive ladies, draws attention to feminist issues such as legal disenfranchisement, lack of property ownership, and ridiculously sexist marriage or inheritance laws, and then ALMOST ruins it all with other female characters or infuriatingly conventional endings. (But I still love him. A lot.)

I can easily imagine you throwing the book across the room, though, so yeah :P

[renay]

I have been working on not chucking books across the room so hard their pages fall out. I'VE BEEN SEEKING HELP FOR MY RAGE ISSUES. But maybe I will read that book after Fingersmith and then make you discuss it with me so I can deconstruct it. You know, when I have time to read again, sob sob sob.

[bookgazing]

Something along the lines of 'An examination of the rhetorical structures supporting contextually realistic arguments for the existance of witchcraft in 16th century Europe'. Just mentioning that I was taking a history course on witchcraft was generally enough to spook people (the historical part seemed to pass many by) except for my Canadian friend who revealed that over there, there are wait lists to get on to the final year course about Salem. Canada is my spiritual home y'all.

[renay]

UM, EXCUSE ME, YOU WROTE A PAPER ON WITCHCRAFT AND HAVEN'T SHARED IT WITH ME???? Jodie, I thought we were PALS. I am calling shenanigans.

[bookgazing]

No one is seeing this! It was 5 years ago, imagine how much worse my writing was then. Revoke your shenanigans please!

[renay]

Jodie, I would never judge you harshly, who do you think I am, Judgment Girl? (Don't answer that, and it wouldn't even be applicable in this context anyway, I see that look on your face!) Would you be appeased if I let you read my terrible Northanger Abbey paper, or worse, my American West paper about the horrible, treacherous business of cows? I will throw every horrible writing assignment at you I have ever done.

OR MAYBE I SHOULD JUST HOLD THE BOOKSHOP AU HOSTAGE FOREVER. :|

SHENANIGAN REVOKE DENIED.

[bookgazing]

Gah, what?! I will look for it then I promise. Just keep in mind that it's not a feminist history focused paper, so you might be disappointed.

If I remember rightly the main ideas of theory that I included were:

Bad deeds in history don't necessarily mean ignorance, stupidity or plain evil lying were all rife - complex internal contextual logic led to these evil things much liek they do today
Witchcraft accusations are often pushed as a big conspiracy against women, but we should consider that there were a wealthy of other, less outlandish ways to successfully accuse a woman of a crime - so let's look at why so many people picked witchcraft.

and then I analysed a long transcription of a speech by a church leader for biblical arguments that showed what rhetorical constructs caused people to really believe in witchcraft. I'm not sure if the dissertation gives a full over view of the complex 'well yes they believed in it' but also 'witches were women (IMPORTANT!)' and 'sometimes people took advantage' deal. It was a pretty messed up time (mass female destruction), but also much more complicated than the popular image of the time.

I came away feeling that it comforts modern people to reduce it down to a conspiracy by men who knew perfectly well that witches didn't exist (although there was SO some of that going on as well), or the ravages of a bunch of anti-intellectuals. Oh the brutal injustice of the past, oh the stupidity of the easily led, right? It means we get to feel superior to the past, when it reality our society is similar in complexity to theirs. We also create contextually logical, arguments that are sometimes damaging (although in many parts of the world we're less likely to include death/severe punishments as a logical end to these arguments) and we also have lots of people who oppose those arguments (less well known fact, there was quite a body of witchcraft scepticism and it has been argued that Shakespeare didn't believe in witches, despite including them in Macbeth).

Also I wrote the last two thousand words and got it checked in something like three weeks, over the Christmas holiday. Don't expect the sentences to be graceful.

[nymeth]

We wants it too! I'll swap it for my thesis ;)

I trust that you won't think it's weird that your description reminded me of Terry Pratchett's Witches books. LOVE.

[renay]

Ahaha, I didn't mean to start A Thing where your work became the world's most coveted piece of writing. I AM CLEARLY A TRENDSETTER.

I read other things outside feminist theory, I swear. ;) I AM getting a minor in history, after all. I admit to less knowledge about the subject, but every time I came across references it was largely a brute force economic tactic to disenfranchise women for their property. I know there is certainly more to it, but I've never been able to get into the details beyond that.

Nothing can be worse than the one time I wrote a 15 page paper in three hours and proofread it twice. NOTHING. You cannot defeat me on this point. :D :D :D

[bookgazing]

'it was largely a brute force economic tactic to disenfranchise women for their property.'

Oh it was totally about taking property, money and power from women, as well as society's fear of unattached women in many cases.

But you have to wonder 'Why witchcraft?' in a world where women could be pretty easily criminalised for anything the powers that be wanted. I mean if you're going to enact a conspiracy against women, why not choose a more sensible sounding fake accusation, when it's easy enough to accuse women (especially women without close male family support like widows, single women, childless women, or women from vulnerable sections of society like the poor) of a whole bunch of other charges. Get a witness to say 'I saw the miller's wife sleeping with her neighbour' or 'I saw her stealing', much as you'd get one to say 'I saw her being witchy' and you were pretty good to go (huge generalisation, but it was relatively easy to get a woman convicted of things in a patriachal society if you tried hard enough).

If we believe witchcraft was driven by a conspiracy of high power dudes who wanted a wide spread disenfranchisement of women, then sexual accusations would probably have worked just as well. An increase in cases of female sexual misconduct would have reinforced societally accepted ideas that without strict guidance and control women were wanton, enabling people to justify take any financial control from them (something along the lines of ladies can't be trusted with money, because it makes them get ideas and become harlots would probably work) and allowing for increased social control (listen to your preachers more ladies, or risk being accussed).

So, I kind of think witchcraft was sexist (undoubtedly witches WERE women, all the influential texts decsribed them as such and convictions of men as witches were low, because people saw witches as women) but it was also in many cases not a creepy, knowing conspiracy against the women. Doesn't make it better, a lot of women died and the men were still sexist in their persecution, but I feel like our modern position on sexism makes it really important to recognise the fact that witchcraft convictions didn't always come from a place of 'I know this wman isn't a witch, but let's burn/drown her anyway'(oh look I'm attempting to make history relevant to modern life, surely this is madness).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that people really buy into this idea of the moustach twirling villian of sexism when it comes to history. 'Mwahaha we form a cabal and make the conspiracy against the ladies.' It makes people feel better, because they can distance themselves from the sexism of history (oh we would never act like that, for these people were evil opportunist individuals, prejudice is over, let us talk of something else). But really that knowing sexist disenfranchisement wasn't the only thing going on (although, totally, it existed a lot). Sexism throughout history was often much more like today, where sexism was hugely prevalent and highly institutionalised. People created reasons that in the context of their society made sexism seem logical, this contextual logic 'concealed' the fact that gender privilege was unfair and the logic permeated through society until it became something people didn't even think to question. Very similar to the way that many other historical acts of prejudice were constructed and very similar to the way prejudice is kept alive today (except thankfully our society has become more death punishment adverse, so it's rarer to see legally sanctioned capital punishment as a result of these prejudices).

Haz ranted, sorry, I know I did not need to explain that to you, but it drives me made to see the 'superior to the savages of the past' mind set still so embedded in other peoples mind and I dive into any space to talk about it :)

[irisonbooks.wordpress.com]

Aaaaaah. Your thesis sounds amazing. I took a class on witchcraft and I loved the subject so much, especially in historical context combined with gender studies. Any way I can persuade you to share?

[bookgazing]

It's sitting in all your inboxes now.

[dancesontrains]

Thanks for linking to Goodreads; I could just add the ones that interested my to my 'to-read' list :D

[nymeth]

You're most welcome :D

[renay]

JINX FOREVER, now you have to read Graceling. :D

[renay]

You are very welcome! :D

[bookgazing]

Real shallow, but as I haven't read an MJ book yet the main reason I want Name of the Star is because of the cover girls hair. Oh sure, Jack the Ripper mystery, spooky co-incidences...hair like a rockstar!

Also AHHHH Lost in Austen there is so much stuff in there that makes me want to blab, but it's so much fun to discover it along the way. Maybe I will just allow myself a tiny 'Oh Wickham my love' to tempt you to it more.

[renay]

Wait. You follow her on Twitter and are a MJ cheerleader and haven't read any of her books yet? MY WORLDVIEW HAS BEEN TILTED.

I really will have to have you or Ana (while she's still there) get me a copy of that book and pay you somehow or pay you in a book you don't have access to yet. I just can't in good conscience buy the US version, it's an atrocity.

[bookgazing]

I have The Bermudez Triangle here, but everyone keeps telling me it's not the best one to start with, so I keep putting it off, but all her books sound amazing and I like her 'social media for good' ethos. I am also (not to tilt the world clean off it's axis, but...) a Rees Brennan cheerleader to the max and I won a signed copy of her first book, still haven't read it. I tend to be won over by the blog, follow for ages, get the book, worry it won't be as good and put off reading it. I tried to get over that last year by reading books by authors whose blogs I liked and had mostly happy results.

Brenna Yovanoff is the exception to this rule, in that I read The Replacement, liked it a lot, came to the blog and now think SHE MUST WIRTE THIS BLOG FOREVER.

So I guess the lesson is that I think good blogs are great marketing tools, y'know for catching me at least.

[renay]

No, I absolutely understand that. I resisted reading books by John Green and John Scalzi for ages because I loved their video/blogs and didn't want to be brutally disappointed. However, I think Johnson's works hold up to her internet writing just fine. They're definitely what I think of as quintessential contemporary YA, though, so it depends about your feelings on what constitutes a good story there.

If I were trying to get someone to read her work, this is the order I would suggest:

1. Devilish
2. The Bermudez Triangle
3. Girl at Sea
4. The Key to the Golden Firebird
5. 13 Little Blue Envelopes
6. Suite Scarlett

This doesn't include The Last Little Blue Envelope or Scarlett Fever, and obviously, The Name of the Star because I have not read them so I have no clue how she handles direct sequels. I do disclaim that a lot of reviews make me think that her most widely-accepted and well-liked book is Devilish and I think it's a good introduce to her style which is awesome without being a very good story itself. It could also be that I was beyond tired of Faust at the point at which I read it.

THIS COMMENT HAS GONE ON TOO LONG. You didn't even ask for this. *g*

[bookgazing]

So it seems like I could read The Bermudez Triangle first (as it's second on your list and Ana enjoyed it) without needing to go off hunting for a whole lot of other books first (seeing as how I own The Bermudez Triangle it seems sensible to start there anyway). Then I could go back to the start of your list and work through in order.

Oh and I love contemporary YA! Mostly I like the ones where the protagonist is on some kind of physical journey/is making things happen, like adventuring or event creating contemp situations, but I'm also down for some introspection and simple romance.

[renay]

Yep! That seems to be a good path (and it's seriously not that I anti-rec Devilish, it's just, ugh, Faust. It pains me in my soul.)

I am very, very tough on contemporary YA, I've noticed. You are probably nicer about it than me. >.>

[nymeth]

The Bermudez Triangle was actually the one I started with and I loved it. However, considering that I've only read that and 13 Little Blue Envelopes, you should listen to Renay and not me. I'll also use her list for future guidance :P

[renay]

How did you like 13 Little Blue Envelopes? I found it pretty charming, and I'm super excited there's a sequel, although also torn because I really liked the ending to the book. I found it appropriate, I guess. Unexpected and painful loss is unexpected and painful.