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January Book List
Seven books this month, two graphic novels, one nonfiction, four novels.
National Geographic Traveler: Rio de Janeiro by Michael Sommers
Travel guide for the city and region of Rio de Janeiro that I picked up on a whim from a dollar store. It was originally published just before the year 2014 so every now and then it makes reference to "upcoming events" in 2016 and such, which was a little disorienting to read. Most of it is recommendations for various museums and other tourist spots by neighborhood, but there's also a bunch of history and other interesting details in it.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Vol. 2 by Hayao Miyazaki
It's been a while since I saw the movie, but based on what I remember and comments I've seen on this, this volume is basically where the movie content ends.
Anyway, the art is extremely detailed and attractive but I find the story suffers somewhat from being a war/politics narrative and I have trouble keeping track of who's fighting what in this sort of story. There are the Doroks and the Torumekian Empire and the Valley of the Wind and also the bug keeper people. The bug keepers are kind of a mercenary culture, the Valley of the Wind is a tiny kingdom that pretty much has to fight for the much larger Torumekian Empire or else, and I thiiiiink the Doroks are who the Torumekians are fighting? When they're not fighting each other because there's some sort of power jockeying going on behind the scenes?
In fairness to Miyazaki though, I am also writing these thoughts up several weeks after I actually read the comic.
Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones
First book in the Chrestomanci series, of which I have read/owned several but never actually the first one. This made for a bit of unintentional dramatic irony since the Chrestomanci book I remember best is the one about Chrestomanci's backstory and in this one the central character, Cat, spends a great deal of time confused and intimidated by Chrestomanci and unsure of what the guy's actual deal is.
The basic plot concerns a pair of orphaned siblings named Gwendolen and Eric (aka Cat). While Cat is relatively meek and ordinary his sister Gwendolen is a powerful and ambitious budding witch and in pursuit of her aspirations, she convinces a powerful magician called Chrestomanci to take her and her brother in. However, life at Chrestomanci Castle is not quite what they expect and Gwendolen in particular chafes under the restrictions that are placed on her. Gwen starts a campaign of rebellion and trouble making, dragging her brother into trouble in the process.
I quite enjoy DWJ's writing voice so this was a fun, breezy sort of read for me. There are some uncomfortable bits though- perhaps related to the fact the story first was published in 1977 there's a scene involving corporal punishment directed at the siblings. The plot as a whole also hinges on an abusive sibling relationship, so fair warning to anyone who might find that triggery.
The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase by Christine Merrill
Regency romance novel about a couple who marry for practical/arranged reasons (he's poor but has a property that her family wants to get a hold of, and her father buys him an army commission in return for marrying his daughter) before the hero heads off to fight in the Napoleonic wars for seven years. They eschew having sex before he leaves so naturally our hero, Gerald, is not happy about the fact our heroine, Lillian, gave birth to a son ten months after he joined the army. He is also not happy that his con artist in-laws have turned his family home into a 24/7 party center/informal gambling den. Gerald comes home expecting to deal with a HEARTLESS JEZEBEL, only for Lillian to pledge her loyalty to him because she's frankly miserable with the current situation.
A lot of the drama/conflict comes not just from Gerald's distrust of Lillian but also that her son was born after she was raped by one of her family's guests. Gerald does get his head out of his ass once Lillian outright tells him what happened, but Lillian also loves her son despite the circumstances of his birth whereas Gerald thinks they should send him away- so essentially a mixture of trauma recovery and both leads wanting a peaceful family life but having differing feelings about how that should happen. So how much you'll enjoy this probably depends on how you feel about that kind of content.
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery
Second in the series about a romantic young girl living in P.E.I. around the early 1900s with ambitions of becoming a professional writer. In this one Emily, our heroine, starts going to high school but in order to obtain her guardian's permission she isn't allowed to write fiction while she's there (though poetry and nonfiction writing is reluctantly allowed). What follows is a mostly slice-of-life affair where Emily makes her first forays into writing professionally, gets into conflicts with the aunt she's staying with, and has wistful interactions with her various love interests
Teddy, the primary one, is a sweet enough kid but unfortunately also the least developed; Perry is a scrappy farmhand with ambitions of Making Something of Himself and probably my favorite except for That One Thing He Says At One Point; and Dean is a brooding poetical guy who readers seem split between "He's the Hades to Emily's Persephone! Such chemistry!" and "ARE YOU KIDDING ME HE'S LIKE THIRTY AND KEEPS FLIRTING WITH AND MANIPULATING THIS GIRL WHO'S STILL IN HER EARLY TEENS." Guess which camp I'm in!
Also Emily straight up has psychic powers, which just gets weirder to me every time it comes up.
The Sandman: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman
Third volume in Neil Gaiman's much vaunted comic book series. While the previous two volumes were arc-centric, this one is a collection of short stories set in the same universe and featuring Morpheus as a minor character in each. This volume is also one of the ones that mildly traumatized me as a young, sex-repulsed teen because I picked it up after one of my parents brought a couple of volumes home and the first issue in this one involves a woman getting raped and abused by a guy. (Although it was not as traumatizing as GODDAMN JOHN DEE IN THE FIRST VOLUME, CHRIST)
Anyway. In the first story more SPECIFICALLY it's about a writer who holds the muse, Calliope, prisoner after buying her off another, retired writer and uses her to skyrocket his career. Story number two is about a cat who journeys to the heart of dream country on a revenge quest and the knowledge she obtains there. Story number three is about the first performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream; before an audience of the fair folk themselves. And story number four is about a retired superheroine who is isolated by her superpowers and her downward spiral into suicidal depression.
No. 3 is my current favorite, probably because it's the least depressing and/or skin-crawly of the lot.
National Geographic Traveler: Rio de Janeiro by Michael Sommers
Travel guide for the city and region of Rio de Janeiro that I picked up on a whim from a dollar store. It was originally published just before the year 2014 so every now and then it makes reference to "upcoming events" in 2016 and such, which was a little disorienting to read. Most of it is recommendations for various museums and other tourist spots by neighborhood, but there's also a bunch of history and other interesting details in it.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Vol. 2 by Hayao Miyazaki
It's been a while since I saw the movie, but based on what I remember and comments I've seen on this, this volume is basically where the movie content ends.
Anyway, the art is extremely detailed and attractive but I find the story suffers somewhat from being a war/politics narrative and I have trouble keeping track of who's fighting what in this sort of story. There are the Doroks and the Torumekian Empire and the Valley of the Wind and also the bug keeper people. The bug keepers are kind of a mercenary culture, the Valley of the Wind is a tiny kingdom that pretty much has to fight for the much larger Torumekian Empire or else, and I thiiiiink the Doroks are who the Torumekians are fighting? When they're not fighting each other because there's some sort of power jockeying going on behind the scenes?
In fairness to Miyazaki though, I am also writing these thoughts up several weeks after I actually read the comic.
Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones
First book in the Chrestomanci series, of which I have read/owned several but never actually the first one. This made for a bit of unintentional dramatic irony since the Chrestomanci book I remember best is the one about Chrestomanci's backstory and in this one the central character, Cat, spends a great deal of time confused and intimidated by Chrestomanci and unsure of what the guy's actual deal is.
The basic plot concerns a pair of orphaned siblings named Gwendolen and Eric (aka Cat). While Cat is relatively meek and ordinary his sister Gwendolen is a powerful and ambitious budding witch and in pursuit of her aspirations, she convinces a powerful magician called Chrestomanci to take her and her brother in. However, life at Chrestomanci Castle is not quite what they expect and Gwendolen in particular chafes under the restrictions that are placed on her. Gwen starts a campaign of rebellion and trouble making, dragging her brother into trouble in the process.
I quite enjoy DWJ's writing voice so this was a fun, breezy sort of read for me. There are some uncomfortable bits though- perhaps related to the fact the story first was published in 1977 there's a scene involving corporal punishment directed at the siblings. The plot as a whole also hinges on an abusive sibling relationship, so fair warning to anyone who might find that triggery.
The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase by Christine Merrill
Regency romance novel about a couple who marry for practical/arranged reasons (he's poor but has a property that her family wants to get a hold of, and her father buys him an army commission in return for marrying his daughter) before the hero heads off to fight in the Napoleonic wars for seven years. They eschew having sex before he leaves so naturally our hero, Gerald, is not happy about the fact our heroine, Lillian, gave birth to a son ten months after he joined the army. He is also not happy that his con artist in-laws have turned his family home into a 24/7 party center/informal gambling den. Gerald comes home expecting to deal with a HEARTLESS JEZEBEL, only for Lillian to pledge her loyalty to him because she's frankly miserable with the current situation.
A lot of the drama/conflict comes not just from Gerald's distrust of Lillian but also that her son was born after she was raped by one of her family's guests. Gerald does get his head out of his ass once Lillian outright tells him what happened, but Lillian also loves her son despite the circumstances of his birth whereas Gerald thinks they should send him away- so essentially a mixture of trauma recovery and both leads wanting a peaceful family life but having differing feelings about how that should happen. So how much you'll enjoy this probably depends on how you feel about that kind of content.
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery
Second in the series about a romantic young girl living in P.E.I. around the early 1900s with ambitions of becoming a professional writer. In this one Emily, our heroine, starts going to high school but in order to obtain her guardian's permission she isn't allowed to write fiction while she's there (though poetry and nonfiction writing is reluctantly allowed). What follows is a mostly slice-of-life affair where Emily makes her first forays into writing professionally, gets into conflicts with the aunt she's staying with, and has wistful interactions with her various love interests
Teddy, the primary one, is a sweet enough kid but unfortunately also the least developed; Perry is a scrappy farmhand with ambitions of Making Something of Himself and probably my favorite except for That One Thing He Says At One Point; and Dean is a brooding poetical guy who readers seem split between "He's the Hades to Emily's Persephone! Such chemistry!" and "ARE YOU KIDDING ME HE'S LIKE THIRTY AND KEEPS FLIRTING WITH AND MANIPULATING THIS GIRL WHO'S STILL IN HER EARLY TEENS." Guess which camp I'm in!
Also Emily straight up has psychic powers, which just gets weirder to me every time it comes up.
The Sandman: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman
Third volume in Neil Gaiman's much vaunted comic book series. While the previous two volumes were arc-centric, this one is a collection of short stories set in the same universe and featuring Morpheus as a minor character in each. This volume is also one of the ones that mildly traumatized me as a young, sex-repulsed teen because I picked it up after one of my parents brought a couple of volumes home and the first issue in this one involves a woman getting raped and abused by a guy. (Although it was not as traumatizing as GODDAMN JOHN DEE IN THE FIRST VOLUME, CHRIST)
Anyway. In the first story more SPECIFICALLY it's about a writer who holds the muse, Calliope, prisoner after buying her off another, retired writer and uses her to skyrocket his career. Story number two is about a cat who journeys to the heart of dream country on a revenge quest and the knowledge she obtains there. Story number three is about the first performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream; before an audience of the fair folk themselves. And story number four is about a retired superheroine who is isolated by her superpowers and her downward spiral into suicidal depression.
No. 3 is my current favorite, probably because it's the least depressing and/or skin-crawly of the lot.
no subject
I've also been planning on re-reading the Emily series soon; my aunt got them for me when I was a teenager, but I've not touched them since. It looks like I'm going to have Thoughts on the boys.
I only vaguely remember Emily being psychic, so it looks like that'll also be fun to rediscover.
no subject
This is my first time reading the Emily series and the second Montgomery property I've properly read. (My family owns a one-shot novel of hers, Jane of Lantern Hill, which I've read a few times.) There's some definite values dissonance going on due to both the era and L.M. Montgomery being distinctly Christian but I've found it mostly just makes things more interesting for me. The main source of :\ is that I'm less sympathetic to some characters than the narrative is, such as Dean Priest and Dr. Burnley.
(Dr. Burnley is a bigger character in the first book than the second, and the father of Emily's best friend Ilse. He neglects his daughter and is a misogynist because of Sad Backstory Reasons that never cut it for me.)
If you're rereading the first book anytime soon I'd also be forewarned that there's some animal/pet death and loss in it.
But yes, the boys and a lot of the characters in general are worth some Thoughts I think. And I rather like Emily herself on the whole even if I frequently have different opinions from her.
no subject
Funnily enough, while I've read quite a bit of her works, I haven't got to Jane of Lantern Hill yet. It's been years and years since I read it, but I suspect you might like The Blue Castle. I might be remembering it more fondly than it deserves, mind you, but yeah.
(Oh boy. Yeah, I'm not gonna be a fan.)
Also thanks for the heads-up re: potential triggers.
no subject
I had to look up The Blue Castle but once I did I sort of remembered it! Never read that one, of course, but I'd heard a bit about the plot and that it's aimed at an older audience than her usual novels. Although based on what I know about Montgomery and the era I am assuming that doesn't necessarily mean it's filled with SEX DRUGS N' ROCK N'ROLL :V Might be interesting to see how much contrast there is though.
(For similar reasons I'd like to check out Louisa May Alcott's A Long Fatal Love Chase someday. Just hearing the plot summary with the context of having already read Little Women was astonishing.)
(On a side note I imagine an Emily AU where Dr. Burnley is the parent who's not in the picture for mysterious and tragic reasons would be fun.)no subject
XDDD No. No sex, drugs, or rock 'n roll, sad to say.
(...Colour me intrigued!)
(Someone please write a fic of this.)