[booklog 2006]

[iridium]

40. The Cost of Living, Arundhati Roy. two political essays. "The Greater Common Good" attacks the propaganda of Big Dams in India, and particularly the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada River, a detailing of the ignored or unexamined costs of the dams, and also of the promises the dams fail to live up to. "The End of Imagination" is on India's nuclear tests, and again on the ways in which nationalism and patriotism are tied to such destruction. not an easy read, but she's a powerful writer, and these are things worth knowing and thinking about.

41. Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It, Geoff Dyer. "a collection of 11 personal essays covering his travels around the globe." he's a good storyteller, and occasionally his style caught me, but too often he just seemed callous, caught up in his own navel-gazing. but, at the least, it's another reminder that i want to get out and be travelling again before long, one way or another.

42. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde. hee! very tasty. i'm impressed -- a book that's full of lit references that i don't get, but which i still entirely enjoy.

43. War for the Oaks, Emma Bull. yet another re-read, but it's still a good book. and besides, i bought this copy in Minneapolis, at DreamHaven Books, to read after seeing a little of that city. it seemed appropriate.

44. Stardust, Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess. also a re-read. i'm sick and running out of books! might have to venture out and use some of the Borders/B&N giftcards i found in my piles of papers.

Comments

[desultor.livejournal.com]

in case you don't know, the eyre affair is part of a series. :)

jack schitt always cracks me up.

[iridium.livejournal.com]

heh. yeah. and l_stboy, who lent me the first one, says he has most of the rest. i am impatient to get my hands on them. :)

[queersolitude.livejournal.com]

which comic books are you into these days?

[iridium.livejournal.com]

i haven't been reading many new comic books lately, sadly. i caught up on the Blade series when my friend Heath picked up the most recent three or four books at DreamHaven. i've read some of Y:The Last Man, some of Warren Ellis' new pieces, and other bits that i can borrow from violin when i'm in Atlanta. from what Gaiman's written about it, i'm curious about Alan Moore's Lost Girls.

on the non-comic end, there's a new Cometbus or two that i haven't seen, but also haven't decided whether i like his writing enough to buy them. i picked up the most recent Doris the other day, and that's still good.

any suggestions?

[queersolitude.livejournal.com]

the latest trade back edition of Y: The Last Man is pretty good. I usually wait for the trade back to come out instead of buying the individual issues.

i am really into fables. here is a link to an intro to trade back issue #1:

http://www.dccomics.com/graphic_novels/?gn=1606

the blurb about it probably doesn't sound so interesting. but it is so creative, fascinating and well done. the latest trade back issue just came out as well. last year at comic con i listened to a panel discussion between the author and the editor and it just made me appreciate it much more.

actually, i just found its wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fables_%28comic_book%29

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if you are into alan moore but haven't gotten around to it yet, i would suggest V for Vendetta. its way better than the movie.

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i read the first issue to X-Force a while ago, and enjoyed it very much. i think i'll start reading x-force again in the near future. I don't have much to say about it beyond that. the series is finished... which i like because i can just read it and read it until i've read all of it instead of having to wait in suspense for the other issue to come out.


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Bone is very fun, cute, and interesting. I haven't finished reading the series yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_%28comics%29

[iridium.livejournal.com]

i've paged through the beginning of Fables, and now that it's in my brain i'll keep an eye out for it at my used-book shop.

V for Vendetta i've read...twice, i think. or maybe 1.5 times -- i read part of it while sleepy, and then violin brought it to me along with a pile of other comics to read while in my morphine-and-percoset haze in the hospital. (the ones i remember most clearly from that stack are V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and then entirety of Transmetropolitan. i still maintain that Transmet is in fact best read while in the midst of a morphine haze.) i liked the movie, but i think it did help that it'd been a long while since i read the comic, so the movie was more of its own thing.

X-Force -- never looked at it, but bits of it (from the Wikipedia entry anyhow) look entertaining.

and Bone i've also run across in bookstores a couple times, and at least once sat down and read big chunks of the in-one-volume collection. i'd like to read the whole thing sometime, but it hasn't percolated to the top of my list of things-to-buy just yet.

[soullessthinker.livejournal.com]

I assume you've read God of Small Things. Which is nice, but overrated.

I'd serious reccomend Bee Season and Time Traveler's Wife and Devil in the White City.

JASPER FFORDE is a god. A golden god.

[iridium.livejournal.com]

i've read God of Small Things, and enjoyed it, but as with most books only vague outliney bits stick in my head.

as for the other three -- i went out bookshopping last night, before seeing your comment, and noticed all three of those out on the sale tables. i even picked up Devil in the White City and read the back of it, but it didn't catch me enough to take it home (or even enough that i remember what it was about, now).

i ended up with two Calvino books and The Years of Rice and Salt, which i've been meaning to read for awhile.