What Are You Reading Weekend
Jan. 10th, 2021 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricPossibly the best thing I've read in the past fortnight:
RE: Thesis defense issue (2954 words) by kalirush
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion Of Your Thesis Defense (McSweeney's Post) - Luke Burns
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Academia, Fecklessness, Snakes, Why Did It Have To Be Snakes, Epistolary
Summary:
Strongly recommended to anyone who has dealt with grad school in any capacity.
Currently Reading:
Fiction for fun: Nothing, looks like.
Non-fiction for personal interest: Tillie Walden's graphic memoir 'Spinning', about figure skating. 'The Queer Child' is still on hiatus.
Poetry: Still working on Paradise Lost. Thought I was on book 10, but it turns out it's only book 9.
Lit Mag: Started the Winter Meanjin.
For work: 'Before Emotion', which I have out for review. 'The Fabliau in English' and 'Feminist Theatrical Revisions of Classic Works', intermittently. 'A New Companion to Chaucer', on hiatus / being dipped into here and there.
Recently Finished:
Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
On the good side, I really liked the protagonist of this, and the love interest: both were interesting, flawed, loveable characters who pulled me through despite... the rest being, uh, still in draft stage, it felt? Complete with some typos. Timing was off. Sudden switch between 'he'd never be interested in me' to 'let's have a fling and i'll initiate it KISS KISS' not really explained. Etc.
The supporting cast were interesting, and I wonder if the whole thing would have done better as a larger book or a duology in family-fiction / "women's fiction" or some such, with the romance thread but without depending SO MUCH on the pacing of that.
Also there's the odd fact that the sex scenes are pretty low detail but the internal monologue is wall to wall 'perving and hornt'. Just. I kind of prefer ways of conveying sexual attraction that aren't 'omigosh his abs' with 'also he's sweet and a family guy' as the decorative note?
Basically, this is a surprisingly weak book in hindsight, given how quickly and with how much enjoyment I read it.
The Good, the Bad and the Furry: Life with the World's Most Melancholy Cat and Other Whiskery Friends by Tom Cox
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book would have been more Of the Zeitgeist had I read it back in 2011 when Cox's work was first recommended to me. It is certainly odd to read 'humourous tales of other people's cats' in book form in this age of #catsofinstagram. But I like it - I like the links Cox draws between the human and the feline, and his anecdotes about people and various animals. I'm not sure if I'll bother with the rest of the cat man books, though, rather than jump straight to his newer stuff.
Gilded Cage by K.J. Charles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved this immensely and I have no idea why it took me this long to get to it. I think it's KJ's first het romance (under this name, perhaps she's had other pen names), and it's great. Much more ... gritty than her f/f work.
Ed: I normally trust KJC but I am suspicious about indentured labour in late 19th c Aus. Hmm.
Meanjin Autumn 2020 by Jonathan Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In an extremely 2020 Mood, I started the Autumn (Aus) issue mid-year and finished it in January. But there was good stuff in here! (As usual, I ignored Shannon Burns. I read pretty much everything else in Meanjin, including things written by certain Vice-Chancellors, but I am done with Burns. Their continued publishing of his bad takes, knowing they can then run counter-takes, is... a reason I seriously reconsider my subscription every so often.)
Timmah Balls' essay Why Write was brilliant.
Jono Revanche, Age, Class, Politics: do recommend.
Liz Duck-Chong, Crosses, Flags, Arches. A history of Ronald MacDonald. Absolutely fascinating.
Anna Spargo Ryan, A Conspiracy of Witches: on abortion reform, and personal experience. Tough reading.
Dzenana Vucic, Digital Intimacy and the Aestheticisation of Sound: on ASMR media
Maxine Beneba-Clarke, On writing and risk: packs several punches, IMHO
Steve Dow, Stream Drama: a really interesting look at the impact of streaming services on Australian TV.
James Panichi, Blasphemy, Italian-Style: there's a profanity divide in Italy, and Panichi writes about it fascinatingly
Lizzie O'Shea, The Secret Misfortune of the Lucky Country: on the pokie machine industry
Megan Petrie, The Rats of the Sky: A memoir piece about travel, and pigeons
Katerina Bryant, Old Wives Tales - on superstition as cultural heritage
Matt Lewin, Please Shut the Door Quietly: a short memoir piece on being a music therapist in a palliative care ward
Short fiction online:
John Kinsella (Meanjin Autumn 2020), Here be lions. I am normally bored by the realist fiction in Meanjin, and I've definitely been bored by Kinsella before, but I like this one quite a lot.
KT Bryski (Lightspeed Magazine), The Bone Stag Walks. Good story: brilliant podcast reading.
Up Next: I haven't got anything going on my kobo at the moment, so one of my recent purchases there. Maybe Jeannie Lin's 'The Lotus Palace', which I bought at xmas.
Some links:
Bob Nicholson (HistoryToday): Did you hear the one.... On Victorian distaste for 18thc jokes.
Eli Davies (Guardian): To solve the problem of loneliness, society needs to look belong the nuclear family.
Jonathan Smilges (CFSHRC), Bad listeners. This is... dense. I didn't find it as galvanizing as the twitter recommender did; partly perhaps I don't understand it; partly perhaps as a neurodivergent woman I don't get the same leeway *in which to be* a bad listener as Smilges, who I am assuming from their name is probably read by their bosses and some students as a man, does. I cannot, for instance, POSSIBLY imagine anything but implosion of my teaching career if I told a class to 'talk amongst yourselves' and email me questions, even if I was struggling that day.
Anya Groner, interview with Lee Connel (Electric Lit), The party upstairs and the super who has to clean it up.
Livia Gershon (JStor daily), How women lost status in saloon
Ben Moore and Edward Narayan (Conversation AU), What does a koala's nose know. Saw a picture of a koala and noticed their odd noses for the first time. Now I know about koala noses.
RE: Thesis defense issue (2954 words) by kalirush
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion Of Your Thesis Defense (McSweeney's Post) - Luke Burns
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Academia, Fecklessness, Snakes, Why Did It Have To Be Snakes, Epistolary
Summary:
It is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and a student needs a snake for her defense.
From: Petroski, Linda <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2020 9:40 AM
To: Kahler, Robin M. <[email protected]>
Cc: Lemieux, Annie <[email protected]>, Zhang, Wei <[email protected]>, Ortega, Richard <[email protected]>, Edelstein, Doron <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Thesis defense issue
Hello, all-
We just realized that Robin indicated that she was using a committee-provided snake for her defense, rather than one from SMO. Could you confirm that’s the plan, and who will be providing the snake if so? We’ll also need species and measurements for the files.
Thanks-
Linda
--------
Dr. Linda Petroski
Graduate Program Coordinator,
Department of Psychoceramics,
Barnett College
Strongly recommended to anyone who has dealt with grad school in any capacity.
Currently Reading:
Fiction for fun: Nothing, looks like.
Non-fiction for personal interest: Tillie Walden's graphic memoir 'Spinning', about figure skating. 'The Queer Child' is still on hiatus.
Poetry: Still working on Paradise Lost. Thought I was on book 10, but it turns out it's only book 9.
Lit Mag: Started the Winter Meanjin.
For work: 'Before Emotion', which I have out for review. 'The Fabliau in English' and 'Feminist Theatrical Revisions of Classic Works', intermittently. 'A New Companion to Chaucer', on hiatus / being dipped into here and there.
Recently Finished:
Real Men Knit by Kwana JacksonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
On the good side, I really liked the protagonist of this, and the love interest: both were interesting, flawed, loveable characters who pulled me through despite... the rest being, uh, still in draft stage, it felt? Complete with some typos. Timing was off. Sudden switch between 'he'd never be interested in me' to 'let's have a fling and i'll initiate it KISS KISS' not really explained. Etc.
The supporting cast were interesting, and I wonder if the whole thing would have done better as a larger book or a duology in family-fiction / "women's fiction" or some such, with the romance thread but without depending SO MUCH on the pacing of that.
Also there's the odd fact that the sex scenes are pretty low detail but the internal monologue is wall to wall 'perving and hornt'. Just. I kind of prefer ways of conveying sexual attraction that aren't 'omigosh his abs' with 'also he's sweet and a family guy' as the decorative note?
Basically, this is a surprisingly weak book in hindsight, given how quickly and with how much enjoyment I read it.
The Good, the Bad and the Furry: Life with the World's Most Melancholy Cat and Other Whiskery Friends by Tom CoxMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book would have been more Of the Zeitgeist had I read it back in 2011 when Cox's work was first recommended to me. It is certainly odd to read 'humourous tales of other people's cats' in book form in this age of #catsofinstagram. But I like it - I like the links Cox draws between the human and the feline, and his anecdotes about people and various animals. I'm not sure if I'll bother with the rest of the cat man books, though, rather than jump straight to his newer stuff.
Gilded Cage by K.J. CharlesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved this immensely and I have no idea why it took me this long to get to it. I think it's KJ's first het romance (under this name, perhaps she's had other pen names), and it's great. Much more ... gritty than her f/f work.
Ed: I normally trust KJC but I am suspicious about indentured labour in late 19th c Aus. Hmm.
Meanjin Autumn 2020 by Jonathan GreenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
In an extremely 2020 Mood, I started the Autumn (Aus) issue mid-year and finished it in January. But there was good stuff in here! (As usual, I ignored Shannon Burns. I read pretty much everything else in Meanjin, including things written by certain Vice-Chancellors, but I am done with Burns. Their continued publishing of his bad takes, knowing they can then run counter-takes, is... a reason I seriously reconsider my subscription every so often.)
Timmah Balls' essay Why Write was brilliant.
Jono Revanche, Age, Class, Politics: do recommend.
Liz Duck-Chong, Crosses, Flags, Arches. A history of Ronald MacDonald. Absolutely fascinating.
Anna Spargo Ryan, A Conspiracy of Witches: on abortion reform, and personal experience. Tough reading.
Dzenana Vucic, Digital Intimacy and the Aestheticisation of Sound: on ASMR media
Maxine Beneba-Clarke, On writing and risk: packs several punches, IMHO
Steve Dow, Stream Drama: a really interesting look at the impact of streaming services on Australian TV.
James Panichi, Blasphemy, Italian-Style: there's a profanity divide in Italy, and Panichi writes about it fascinatingly
Lizzie O'Shea, The Secret Misfortune of the Lucky Country: on the pokie machine industry
Megan Petrie, The Rats of the Sky: A memoir piece about travel, and pigeons
Katerina Bryant, Old Wives Tales - on superstition as cultural heritage
Matt Lewin, Please Shut the Door Quietly: a short memoir piece on being a music therapist in a palliative care ward
Short fiction online:
Up Next: I haven't got anything going on my kobo at the moment, so one of my recent purchases there. Maybe Jeannie Lin's 'The Lotus Palace', which I bought at xmas.
Some links: