Reading Wed– Thursday
Mar. 10th, 2016 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. "LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?"
BRB, crying forever.
Here, with the 11th book in the Discworld series, we hit the first really great one. (Okay, I I know this is about the fourth time I've claimed a book to be first "great" one, but seriously, even though Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards! are beautiful and funny and deliciously sharp satires, this is the first one that takes on the grand questions of human existence). Death - as in, The Grim Reaper, The Hooded One, The Destroyer; you know, the tall skeleton with the robes - is fired. It seems he's developed too much of a personality, and as The Auditors - the guys in charge of gravity and holding atoms together and generally making sure that reality operates - put it, "Personalities come to an end. Only forces endure." And so Death gets the traditional gold watch, a short lifespan, and is kicked out of the office. Not sure what else to do with himself, he ends up working as a handyman on a small farm, where - for the first time in all the ages of existence - he experiences being tired, being sick, regret, making friends, passing time, and unfairness.
Meanwhile, with no Death, life on the DIscworld is still ending, but there is no "moving on". Windle Poons, 130 year old wizard, is glad to finally die, but he finds himself still stuck in his body. This leads to a parallel storyline in which Windle also figures out some stuff about himself and the meaning of existence, all while battling against the weird consequences of an overabundance of life force. I always forget that this is the book with the sentient malls as creatures evolved to be the predators of cities, but the idea is weirdly lovely and a perfect fit for the themes of the book. Overall, I found the plots to be really great halves of a whole, though in reading reviews (and Mark Reads, who I always disagree with so I'm not sure why I keep reading him) it seems most people strongly prefer one to the other, but I think they're both necessary.
Overall, it's a book about the cycle of life and death, the importance of giving meaning to inescapable realities, and learning how to be a little less lonely in a big world, and yet somehow it's still really funny. How does Pratchett do that?
Life Without a Recipe by Diana Abu-Jaber. I'm a big fan of Abu-Jaber, which is why I scooped up this book immediately on finding out that it existed. It's a memoir of her life, tied together by frequent referrals to food. There's not really a single topic or focus here; much as the title suggests, it's a meandering path through Abu-Jaber's life, covering subjects as diverse as the contentious relationship between her single, American, Catholic grandmother and her sociable, Jordanian, Islamic father; her own history of romantic relationships, good and bad; her decision to have children, the realization that she biologically can't, the adoption process, and finally the experience of raising a daughter; and the death of several close family members. This lack of plot makes the book move slowly at some points, since there's nothing really to drive you on to the next page, but it was redeemed for me by Abu-Jaber's gorgeous prose, which can be heart-breaking or deep or simply funny. For example, this passage:
The mixer purrs, whirling around the careful minutes. From her stool, she watches closely. It’s Gracie’s first birthday and her first taste of chocolate. The room smells like a bloom of sugar and cocoa. Out of the oven, all day, the cake sings to her from its high place where we’ve tried to keep it hidden. She creeps into the kitchen, points at the top cupboard. “Ca,” she informs me. At her party, she is briefly shocked by the singing and candles. High-chair–bound, she receives the first fascinating slice. She considers it for a long moment, then picks up a hunk. “Ca.” She carefully nibbles. She stops suddenly, staring, motionless. Then all at once, all the cake is going into her mouth. Her face is covered in chocolate; she lifts fistfuls of cake; there are chunks in her hair. She grins fiercely, bares her teeth; she looks angrily awake, flabbergasted that this is the first she’s known of such a thing. She is a sugar priestess. Her fist waves in the air, face thrown back, mouth open, as if to say All chocolate is mine.
A good book if you're in the mood to drift along with a thoughtful, insightful narrator.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Sweet Jazz by Ursula Renee. An interracial romance set in Harlem in the 1930s. Cass is the singer at a "coloreds" only club, The Big House; when weeks of auditions have failed to find a single saxophone player to fill a hole in the club's band, the owner vows to hire the next person who knows how to play. This turns out to be Randy, a white man who's new in town. Cass stands up for Randy when many of the club's employees and customers resent his hiring, and they develop a slow friendship that eventually turns into love, despite Cass's reluctance to enter into a relationship after a life of bad experiences. This, of course, leads to even more resentment, which they have to face together.
I was initially reluctant about the premise - it seems an iffy choice to write a interracial historical romance in which the setting dictates that most of the on-screen prejudice is from black people towards the only major white character. But it actually worked out really well; a repeated theme is that Randy has the choice to leave the Big House and get a job elsewhere anytime he wants, while the black characters can't escape racism so easily. Cass understandably fears that he might eventually get tired of the hardships and choose to abandon her.
The writing was fairly basic (not terribly so; I just happen to prefer a bit more purple in my prose), but I liked the characterizations, and I liked how detailed the world-building was. A lot of time was spent on Cass and Randy's friends, family, past, rivals, jobs, etc, so that there was a much wider focus to the book than is typical of most romance novels. The ending was bit abrupt, but overall I enjoyed it, and would definitely read more by the author.
What are you currently reading?
I JUST GOT THE NEW BEN JANUARY BOOK OFF NETGALLEY I AM SO EXCITED. I HAVEN'T EVEN OPENED IT YET BUT SO EXCITED.
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. "LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?"
BRB, crying forever.
Here, with the 11th book in the Discworld series, we hit the first really great one. (Okay, I I know this is about the fourth time I've claimed a book to be first "great" one, but seriously, even though Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards! are beautiful and funny and deliciously sharp satires, this is the first one that takes on the grand questions of human existence). Death - as in, The Grim Reaper, The Hooded One, The Destroyer; you know, the tall skeleton with the robes - is fired. It seems he's developed too much of a personality, and as The Auditors - the guys in charge of gravity and holding atoms together and generally making sure that reality operates - put it, "Personalities come to an end. Only forces endure." And so Death gets the traditional gold watch, a short lifespan, and is kicked out of the office. Not sure what else to do with himself, he ends up working as a handyman on a small farm, where - for the first time in all the ages of existence - he experiences being tired, being sick, regret, making friends, passing time, and unfairness.
Meanwhile, with no Death, life on the DIscworld is still ending, but there is no "moving on". Windle Poons, 130 year old wizard, is glad to finally die, but he finds himself still stuck in his body. This leads to a parallel storyline in which Windle also figures out some stuff about himself and the meaning of existence, all while battling against the weird consequences of an overabundance of life force. I always forget that this is the book with the sentient malls as creatures evolved to be the predators of cities, but the idea is weirdly lovely and a perfect fit for the themes of the book. Overall, I found the plots to be really great halves of a whole, though in reading reviews (and Mark Reads, who I always disagree with so I'm not sure why I keep reading him) it seems most people strongly prefer one to the other, but I think they're both necessary.
Overall, it's a book about the cycle of life and death, the importance of giving meaning to inescapable realities, and learning how to be a little less lonely in a big world, and yet somehow it's still really funny. How does Pratchett do that?
Life Without a Recipe by Diana Abu-Jaber. I'm a big fan of Abu-Jaber, which is why I scooped up this book immediately on finding out that it existed. It's a memoir of her life, tied together by frequent referrals to food. There's not really a single topic or focus here; much as the title suggests, it's a meandering path through Abu-Jaber's life, covering subjects as diverse as the contentious relationship between her single, American, Catholic grandmother and her sociable, Jordanian, Islamic father; her own history of romantic relationships, good and bad; her decision to have children, the realization that she biologically can't, the adoption process, and finally the experience of raising a daughter; and the death of several close family members. This lack of plot makes the book move slowly at some points, since there's nothing really to drive you on to the next page, but it was redeemed for me by Abu-Jaber's gorgeous prose, which can be heart-breaking or deep or simply funny. For example, this passage:
The mixer purrs, whirling around the careful minutes. From her stool, she watches closely. It’s Gracie’s first birthday and her first taste of chocolate. The room smells like a bloom of sugar and cocoa. Out of the oven, all day, the cake sings to her from its high place where we’ve tried to keep it hidden. She creeps into the kitchen, points at the top cupboard. “Ca,” she informs me. At her party, she is briefly shocked by the singing and candles. High-chair–bound, she receives the first fascinating slice. She considers it for a long moment, then picks up a hunk. “Ca.” She carefully nibbles. She stops suddenly, staring, motionless. Then all at once, all the cake is going into her mouth. Her face is covered in chocolate; she lifts fistfuls of cake; there are chunks in her hair. She grins fiercely, bares her teeth; she looks angrily awake, flabbergasted that this is the first she’s known of such a thing. She is a sugar priestess. Her fist waves in the air, face thrown back, mouth open, as if to say All chocolate is mine.
A good book if you're in the mood to drift along with a thoughtful, insightful narrator.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Sweet Jazz by Ursula Renee. An interracial romance set in Harlem in the 1930s. Cass is the singer at a "coloreds" only club, The Big House; when weeks of auditions have failed to find a single saxophone player to fill a hole in the club's band, the owner vows to hire the next person who knows how to play. This turns out to be Randy, a white man who's new in town. Cass stands up for Randy when many of the club's employees and customers resent his hiring, and they develop a slow friendship that eventually turns into love, despite Cass's reluctance to enter into a relationship after a life of bad experiences. This, of course, leads to even more resentment, which they have to face together.
I was initially reluctant about the premise - it seems an iffy choice to write a interracial historical romance in which the setting dictates that most of the on-screen prejudice is from black people towards the only major white character. But it actually worked out really well; a repeated theme is that Randy has the choice to leave the Big House and get a job elsewhere anytime he wants, while the black characters can't escape racism so easily. Cass understandably fears that he might eventually get tired of the hardships and choose to abandon her.
The writing was fairly basic (not terribly so; I just happen to prefer a bit more purple in my prose), but I liked the characterizations, and I liked how detailed the world-building was. A lot of time was spent on Cass and Randy's friends, family, past, rivals, jobs, etc, so that there was a much wider focus to the book than is typical of most romance novels. The ending was bit abrupt, but overall I enjoyed it, and would definitely read more by the author.
What are you currently reading?
I JUST GOT THE NEW BEN JANUARY BOOK OFF NETGALLEY I AM SO EXCITED. I HAVEN'T EVEN OPENED IT YET BUT SO EXCITED.
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no subject
Date: 2016-03-14 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-14 05:47 pm (UTC)And yeah, I totally sympathize with you on not enough space for books! I need to drop off a pile of mine at the secondhand store any day now.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-16 08:01 am (UTC)