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What I've been reading
I read Attachments, because I liked both of Rainbow Rowell's YA novels, but it pretty much just annoyed me. It alternates between chapters made up of illicit email exchanges between two friends who work at a newspaper together and third-person chapters from the perspective of the nightshift IT guy who's supposed to be monitoring their email but who has instead gotten caught up in their lives in lieu of living his own, which is kind of a cute idea, except it made it kind of annoying to read because the two women come across as these superficial twits, whereas the guy is a real, properly-realized person. Also the ending is the worst glurge ever.
I read A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, which is—okay, so there's a particular Victorianist that I totally fangirl, because I find his work interesting but also hilarious, and I would have genuinely asked for James R. Kincaid RPF for Yuletide if I thought there was the slightest chance of anyone writing it for me. But it turns out that he and a friend who is a novelist and a fellow professor at USC have anticipated me to some extent by writing cracktastic self-insert RPF involving a.) Strom Thurmond, b.) a fictional aide to Strom Thurmond with a book proposal and an impossibly chipper and obtuse epistolary style, c.) a fictional lecherous and venial editor at Simon & Schuster, d.) the hapless assistant to the aforementioned editor, who while not being hit on by his boss or stalked by their newest contracted author, hires our heroes to work on the project, which mostly entails boggling at the latest dispatch supposedly directly from the mind of Strom Thurmond and bickering with each other in memos. I can't exactly recommend it in an unqualified way, as it can kind of get bogged down in its own ridonkulousness, but it is also kind of amazeballs. Also now I have someone to ship Jim Kincaid with.
I read The People in the Trees, which is a sort of alternate history faux-memoir by a disgraced Nobel laureate that's getting a lot of buzz that I thought was very deserved, as it's really gripping and well-realized.
I reread Spinsters in Jeopardy, which is the first Inspector Alleyn mystery to have his son Ricky in it. The plot is a rehash of the drugs + satanic cult front plot from Death in Ecstasy, where I wasn't thrilled with it either, but I do love the bits with Troy and Ricky and on the whole it is a more enjoyable book.
I reread The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson because it's awesome. I love his fanwank about how the mythological gods were just particularly awesome human warriors and kings who developed followings after their deaths and his elaborate crossover with the Trojan war.
I reread The Once and Future King for Yuletide requesting purposes.
What I'm reading next
Well, that depends on when my Yuletide assignment arrives…
I read Attachments, because I liked both of Rainbow Rowell's YA novels, but it pretty much just annoyed me. It alternates between chapters made up of illicit email exchanges between two friends who work at a newspaper together and third-person chapters from the perspective of the nightshift IT guy who's supposed to be monitoring their email but who has instead gotten caught up in their lives in lieu of living his own, which is kind of a cute idea, except it made it kind of annoying to read because the two women come across as these superficial twits, whereas the guy is a real, properly-realized person. Also the ending is the worst glurge ever.
I read A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, which is—okay, so there's a particular Victorianist that I totally fangirl, because I find his work interesting but also hilarious, and I would have genuinely asked for James R. Kincaid RPF for Yuletide if I thought there was the slightest chance of anyone writing it for me. But it turns out that he and a friend who is a novelist and a fellow professor at USC have anticipated me to some extent by writing cracktastic self-insert RPF involving a.) Strom Thurmond, b.) a fictional aide to Strom Thurmond with a book proposal and an impossibly chipper and obtuse epistolary style, c.) a fictional lecherous and venial editor at Simon & Schuster, d.) the hapless assistant to the aforementioned editor, who while not being hit on by his boss or stalked by their newest contracted author, hires our heroes to work on the project, which mostly entails boggling at the latest dispatch supposedly directly from the mind of Strom Thurmond and bickering with each other in memos. I can't exactly recommend it in an unqualified way, as it can kind of get bogged down in its own ridonkulousness, but it is also kind of amazeballs. Also now I have someone to ship Jim Kincaid with.
I read The People in the Trees, which is a sort of alternate history faux-memoir by a disgraced Nobel laureate that's getting a lot of buzz that I thought was very deserved, as it's really gripping and well-realized.
I reread Spinsters in Jeopardy, which is the first Inspector Alleyn mystery to have his son Ricky in it. The plot is a rehash of the drugs + satanic cult front plot from Death in Ecstasy, where I wasn't thrilled with it either, but I do love the bits with Troy and Ricky and on the whole it is a more enjoyable book.
I reread The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson because it's awesome. I love his fanwank about how the mythological gods were just particularly awesome human warriors and kings who developed followings after their deaths and his elaborate crossover with the Trojan war.
I reread The Once and Future King for Yuletide requesting purposes.
What I'm reading next
Well, that depends on when my Yuletide assignment arrives…
