Reading Wednesday 29/11
Nov. 29th, 2017 09:23 pmRecently read: The fifth season by NK Jemisin. (c) NK Jemisin 2015; Pub Orbit 2016; ISBN 978-0-356-50819-1
This s swept all the awards a couple of years ago, and I already enjoyed Jemisin's debut, The hundred thousand kingdoms. Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fivemack gave me this as a seder present earlier in the year, so I'd been meaning to read it for a while.
And I started it around when I was moving and then didn't have any time for reading for several months. Then I had to go to our other campus for work (Chelmsford is not that far away at all as the crow flies, but a pig to get to by public transport), so I had several hours of train journey to get into it. And when I got home I just ignored the world until I'd finished it, because I was absolutely absorbed. Basically it's one of the most brilliant books I've read in a while, and I can quite see why everybody was raving about it. It's also absolutely horrific, about the most upsetting book I've ever managed to complete.
( detailed review )
Currently reading: I'm sort of a bit dipping into a couple of very contrasting things:The secrets of enduring love by Meg John Barker and Jacqui Gabb.
I really liked the idea of a relationship guide based on actual empirical evidence, and also one that doesn't assume everybody is heterosexual and monogamous by default while throwing in a few exceptions for the sake of diversity. I'm also a fan of Barker's writing and thinking about sexuality and relationships already.
I think this isn't going to work for me as a self-help book, or teach me how to make my relationships last, which is a bit disappointing, but on the other hand I didn't have high expectations that the book would be able to do that. What I'm enjoying about it is that it looks at how people actually behave in relationships, and describes things in a morally neutral way. There's very little in the way of a moral stance about what a 'good' relationship should look like, either in terms of its constitution (mono or open or poly or gender combinations or whatever), or in terms of what the people involved actually do. Some people have very intertwined lives, some are mutually independent. Living together, co-parenting etc are just one option among many, not inherently more real.
The one place I've found where authorial opinions seem to bleed through is that the authors appear to disapprove somewhat of maintenance sex, having sex more as a deliberate choice to keep the relationship going than out of pure mutual lust. Which is interesting because other authors I've read who look at evidence rather than heterosexist assumptions seem to be quite pro maintenance sex.
Anyway, I am mostly enjoying being nosy and reading about other people's lives! The people seem real and vivid to me, partly because they're well written, and partly because the book is diverse and doesn't just hew to lazy stereotypes based on gender.
Paradise lost by John Milton
This feels like one of those books anglophones ought to read at some point in their life.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cjwatson lent it to me, and I've been reading random pages and just getting my head into the very dense poetry. I haven't yet found the courage to sit down and read it in order from the beginning.
Up next: I would really appreciate some recommendations for something thoroughly cheerful to contrast with the Jemisin. There are a couple of books on my to-read list but I wasn't sure they'd be upbeat enough to get over tFS. Like,ghoti_mhic_uait passed on to me A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseni, which I do want to read, but I'm not quite in the mood for life under the Taliban.
This s swept all the awards a couple of years ago, and I already enjoyed Jemisin's debut, The hundred thousand kingdoms. Then
fivemack gave me this as a seder present earlier in the year, so I'd been meaning to read it for a while. And I started it around when I was moving and then didn't have any time for reading for several months. Then I had to go to our other campus for work (Chelmsford is not that far away at all as the crow flies, but a pig to get to by public transport), so I had several hours of train journey to get into it. And when I got home I just ignored the world until I'd finished it, because I was absolutely absorbed. Basically it's one of the most brilliant books I've read in a while, and I can quite see why everybody was raving about it. It's also absolutely horrific, about the most upsetting book I've ever managed to complete.
( detailed review )
Currently reading: I'm sort of a bit dipping into a couple of very contrasting things:
I really liked the idea of a relationship guide based on actual empirical evidence, and also one that doesn't assume everybody is heterosexual and monogamous by default while throwing in a few exceptions for the sake of diversity. I'm also a fan of Barker's writing and thinking about sexuality and relationships already.
I think this isn't going to work for me as a self-help book, or teach me how to make my relationships last, which is a bit disappointing, but on the other hand I didn't have high expectations that the book would be able to do that. What I'm enjoying about it is that it looks at how people actually behave in relationships, and describes things in a morally neutral way. There's very little in the way of a moral stance about what a 'good' relationship should look like, either in terms of its constitution (mono or open or poly or gender combinations or whatever), or in terms of what the people involved actually do. Some people have very intertwined lives, some are mutually independent. Living together, co-parenting etc are just one option among many, not inherently more real.
The one place I've found where authorial opinions seem to bleed through is that the authors appear to disapprove somewhat of maintenance sex, having sex more as a deliberate choice to keep the relationship going than out of pure mutual lust. Which is interesting because other authors I've read who look at evidence rather than heterosexist assumptions seem to be quite pro maintenance sex.
Anyway, I am mostly enjoying being nosy and reading about other people's lives! The people seem real and vivid to me, partly because they're well written, and partly because the book is diverse and doesn't just hew to lazy stereotypes based on gender.
This feels like one of those books anglophones ought to read at some point in their life.
cjwatson lent it to me, and I've been reading random pages and just getting my head into the very dense poetry. I haven't yet found the courage to sit down and read it in order from the beginning. Up next: I would really appreciate some recommendations for something thoroughly cheerful to contrast with the Jemisin. There are a couple of books on my to-read list but I wasn't sure they'd be upbeat enough to get over tFS. Like,
ghoti_mhic_uait passed on to me A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseni, which I do want to read, but I'm not quite in the mood for life under the Taliban.