forestofglory: A green pony with a braided mane and tail and tree cutie mark (Lady Business)
[personal profile] forestofglory
Recently I am finding that some of the books that I am most excited to read and get the most enjoyment out of are non fiction. I have a special interest in the history of China (especially the material culture) so most of the nonfiction I’ve been reading has been focused on that. At the start of the year I posted a long rec list inspired by The Worldbuilders Bookclub but since then I’ve read several more excellent nonfiction books. So I wanted to make a recommendation list based on things I’ve read so far this year.
Read more... )
forestofglory: A green pony with a braided mane and tail and tree cutie mark (Lady Business)
[personal profile] forestofglory
Friend of the blog quartzen has started a challenge on Storygraph called Worldbuilder's Book Club with the goal of reading twelve non-fiction books in different categories to inspire worldbuilding.

I thought it would be fun to do a rec list based on the challenge. I have recommended one or two books in each category. Many of these books can fit into multiple categories, but I tried to put them into the ones that make the most sense to me. This list reflects my somewhat eclectic interests, which include Chinese history, urban planning, and ecology.

I'm especially interested in books about food and material culture and books about how people in the past understood the world. I've also tried to choose books that are good for worldbuilding, things that showcase unexpected connections and highlight interesting details.

I like to read books by experts writing about their area of expertise, and so I read a fair number of academic books, a trend that’s reflected in this list. Academic books can skew more expensive, so t's worth checking your local library or looking for used copies.
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[personal profile] bookgazing
White, yellow and red book cover of Kameron Hurley's The Geek Feminist Revolution featuring an illustration of a llama


It's the start of July. I am trying to review Kameron Hurley's essay collection, The Geek Feminist Revolution. In my wisdom, I have decided an analysis of her essay, "I'll Make The Pancakes: On Opting In And Out of the Writing Game", would make a great entry point for my review. I reread it to remind myself of the piece's fundamental points:

The more women writers I read, from Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler to Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Toni Morrison, the less alone I felt, and the more I began to see myself as part of something more.

It wasn't about one woman toiling against the universe. It was about all of us moving together, crying out into some black, inhospitable place that we would not be quiet, we would not go silently, we would not stop speaking, we would not give in.


It's hard to see the keyboard when you're trying not to cry.

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renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
[personal profile] renay
I will never be able to thank [twitter.com profile] KateElliottSFF enough for her Omniscient Breasts essay.

Some recent reading because I've been, as stated mournfully several times, very unconscious recently. Don't even ask how long it took me to stay awake to read some of these books.



Reading detail! )
renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
[personal profile] renay
Well, since I got carried away about all the books I'm looking forward to (I have since read one of these books, it was AMAZING so clearly I have great taste), I've since banned myself from Edelweiss. Every time I try to go there it redirects me to Ace of Base's "I Saw the Sign", which'll hopefully have the result of convincing me not to type the URL for any reason ever. I didn't link to it, either, because I like everyone here and don't want to send you down that dark path, especially of the university presses. Don't Google it. Just move on, and enjoy a long life filled with experiences and way less mindless drooling over books not out yet, many of which will be hella expensive textbooks.

I've also acquired a Marvel Unlimited account. I want to read ALL the Captain America in order to be able to cry the maximum amount of tears when Captain America: Civil War drops. But I want to do it in some semblance of order to prevent confusion. I realize this is hopeless, yes. Let me have my dreams! So many comics!

(I'm also tempted to read Iron Man but everything I've heard about Superior Iron Man has made me livid so probably not the best idea.)

Reading the last week:


More thoughts, no real spoilers! )

I'm currently reading Uprooted and will finish it this week. I'm over the moon about it, which I'm sure is a surprise to exactly no one reading this.
nymeth: (Default)
[personal profile] nymeth
Cover for The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore, showing a vintage comic picture of Wonder Woman

A riveting work of historical detection revealing that the origin of one of the world’s most iconic superheroes hides within it a fascinating family story—and a crucial history of twentieth-century feminism

Wonder Woman, created in 1941, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, no superhero has lasted as long or commanded so vast and wildly passionate a following. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also had a secret history. Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman’s creator.
(...)
The Secret History of Wonder Woman is a tour de force of intellectual and cultural history. Wonder Woman, Lepore argues, is the missing link in the history of the struggle for women’s rights—a chain of events that begins with the women’s suffrage campaigns of the early 1900s and ends with the troubled place of feminism a century later.

Wonder Woman has been fighting for women’s rights for a very long time, battles hard fought but never won. This is the story of her origins—the stuff of wonders, and of lies.
Before I start telling you about Jill Lepore’s The Secret History of Wonder Woman, I need to tell you a little bit about myself: my history as a reader has undoubtedly influenced my experience with this book, and so it seems reasonable to talk about it.Read more... )
renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
[personal profile] renay


There's a moment with particular books when you pick them up and read them and put them down and feel like you can take on the world. That happens to me with films, too, exiting a dark theater into the glaring sunlight, feeling massive with possibility. Maybe your possibility is different than mine. No, your possibility is definitely different than mine because the fullness I feel generally translates itself to 8,000 words of fanfic that I'll write but never have the guts to publish.

Great stories do that, though. They make you want to tell your own stories that reach out and grab someone like the story you just experienced did to you. Or better yet, they make you want to tell your own stories even better. In that post-story moment you know for a fact you have a story in you somewhere that will make someone feel like you're feeling, make them feel even more powerful than you feel. We're all storytellers, after a fashion, even if the stories take their sweet time leaving our heads. Eventually we find the story that sends us careening past uncertainty and fear to tell our own, whatever form they may take. Read more... )
nymeth: (Default)
[personal profile] nymeth
White cover with the same text in the quote that follows in red and black font
She didn’t write it.
She wrote it, but she shouldn’t have.
She wrote it, but look what she wrote about.
She wrote it, but “she” isn’t really an artist and “it” isn’t really serious, or the right genre—i.e., really art.
She wrote it, but she wrote only one of it.
She wrote it, but it’s only interesting/included in the cannon for one limited reason.
She wrote it, but there are very few of her.

I should start by warning you that this post will be quotes heavy: How to Suppress Women’s Writing is so great that I just want to cite the whole thing at anyone who’ll listen.Read more... )
Reviewed at: Novel Readings

(You?)
renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
[personal profile] renay
cover of Reading Women with a black and white photo of a woman on the ground reading a book, with pink text and a blue bottom with the author's name in white.


Reading Women by Stephanie Staal: I picked up this book by Staal largely because of Ana's review of the title that I found when going through her archives. However, I caused lots of problems for myself by reading it; great job, self! The beginning was rocky, as I found the opening pages of the novel almost too grandiose in its language and sweeping phrases. It felt very much like Staal was trying to paint a dramatic picture of an ordinary life to draw readers into a situation that otherwise was similar to many other situations except in the solutions Staal found to deal with it. To be blunt, she was overwriting and doing it pretty badly. It turned me off initially — it took me four weeks to get over those qualms and my initial reaction to actually read the book. However, once the beginning passes passed and we reach the true premise, I'm glad to say it levels out. I'm not the only one who felt this way; Ana did, too, which comforted me. I am glad we shared that in common, because unfortunately, we shared little else in common in our reactions. Read more... )
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