Reading is awesome

[viciouswishes]

First, happy birthday to spartacusjones.

Books I've read recently:

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

This book really bothered me. It is a very antagonistic toward all religions, of course. I wanted to read this books after I saw Dawkin's Root of Evil documentary. The documentary is way better even if it's still in your face. My biggest problem with this book was how he compared the oppression of atheism by fundies to that of the oppression of gay people. I'm sorry, Dawkins, but you deserve a bitch slap for that. It's just as dumb as someone claiming to be the Rosa Parks of their cause. If you don't know why, maybe you need to step out of your straight, white male intellectual world. I stopped reading it in the middle.

Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham

White I really enjoyed The Hours, I didn't enjoy this as much. It's well written and I read all of it. Typical Cunningham, there's the gay son that no one understands and is abused by his daddy. Also there's a gay kid who kills himself a'la Chopin's The Awakening. Every bad that could ever happen to a family happens in this book. The best character, Casandra, a drag queen, doesn't get an ending, besides a mention that she's dying of AIDS. Cunningham also pulls my big pet peeves - writing from a child's POV and having one women's trauma be centered around her father's molestation of her. Incest is not the new black, and there were two different incest parts. Blah.

Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

I couldn't get through this book of short stories. I tried to read about 3/4 of the stories and only got through one of them. Most of them, I felt were scenes and not stories. I also found a certain repetitiveness in them of women being between 30-35 and not knowing what they were going to do with their lives and then not really doing anything with them anyway. It felt a little too Mary Sue for my tastes.

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

I love the Vagina Monologues. I've seen the play several times so I'd heard them all and many of them I could remember seeing as I read them.

Murder in the Dark by Margaret Atwood

Atwood the kind of writer that I want to be. Her short prose are wonderfully compact and a solid structure and foundation. The little bits of details rock. The book's title story is haunting. I stayed up all night reading this. Fabulous.

Captain America: Winter Soldier, Vol. 1 by Ed Brubaker

Brubaker's always a solid plotter and I'm looking forward to read the next one. It's definitely an interesting take on Steve and Bucky's relationship, in a slightly homoerotic, May/Decemeber angsty romance way.

Fables Vol. 8: Wolves by Bill Willingham

Still enjoying it greatly. I *heart* Snow. It was fun to see Cinderella and Bigby work together on their espionage mission. And then it got a little sappy.

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham

Loved it. At first, I wasn't super keen on the changing art styles, but then I really enjoyed it. My favorite tale was probably Frau Totenkinder's. Both the art and the writing were so well matched.

The Cat with a Really Big Head, and One Other Story that Isn't as Good by Roman Dirge

*shrugs* This was something given to me by an ex, mostly I think to make fun of my actual cat. It was very much something written by a 20-something writer in an adult cartoonish style, complete with art.

Cable/Deadpool Vol. 1: If Looks Could Kill by Fabian Nicieza, Mark Brooks & Patrick Zircher

Cable and Deadpool are hilarious together. I like how Cable was just like "of course, the blue people are evil cultist." I think that the writers did a great job at balancing angst and hilarity. Remember, the funny books can actually be funny.

I'm currently reading both The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler and enjoying them greatly. One is my home book and the other is my lunch break one.

Comments

[amaresu]

Are Snow White and Bigsby capable of being anything but sappy? When they're getting along that is.


Why don't I have any Fable icons? When did I get rid of those?

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

Yes, there is major sap when they're getting along. Now, I'm kind of like, "but I liked them when they were all snarky."

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

Hahahaaaaaa, I loved Moore's book, the short story one. I do agree with the sameness of protagonists, but maybe being a woman in her thirties made it more readable for me. Though I didn't identify with any of them. Though, it should be noted: no incest! :)

If you give any of them a second chance, I'd rec "people like that are the only people here" if you haven't read it before.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

No incest is definitely a plus. ;)

I'll have to check the story out. Actually, it's one of those books where I was like, perhaps I'll keep it and then try to read when I'm in my thirties.

[shaddyr]

These Fables books sound interesting.

I'm a total SF geek and I don't break out of that reading preference unless someone (with taste I trust) recs something.

Thanks!

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

Fables would definitely be qualified as fantasy, so not quite sci-fi, but next to each other in most bookstores. ;)

I definitely think you'll enjoy them. I thought that Vol. 1 was interesting but a little sluggish; however, the story takes right off in Vol. 2.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

I didn't realise that The Vagina Monologues was a book before it wen to stage,a lthough that makes sense. We were suppsed to go and see the production but both years it arrived slap bang in the middle of the examination period and there just wasn't any time. I'll have to pick the book up.

The Colour Purple is a wonderful, wonderul book that I first read a couple of years ago. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

*adds books to to-buy list*

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

If you do get a chance to see The Vagina Monologues, I'd highly suggest it. It's a powerful production that translates so well into community theaters.

I just finished The Color Purple last night and loved it. I was happy for the happy ending as I was worried there for a while. *g*

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked Cable/Deadpool. (The ampersand does nothing!) Volume 2, with Cable's massive power-up, plus an Xmen crossover, is my favorite, though I also heart the Civil War books.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

I finished Vol. 2 yesterday. (I read most of it during commencement.) And it was definitely super awesome. Cable's wacky cartoon for kids version of his lobotomized self was hilarious.