counting at war (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kerpingtack) wrote2009-11-16 10:42 am
kerpingtack) wrote2009-11-16 10:42 am
Entry tags:
you can't normalize
Most of my favorite books are my favorite books from 6th grade and under. It was just highlighted for me while I was filling out my ~OkCupid~ profile and my favorite books section looked like this:
During high school I probably would've thrown in, like, Catch-22 and some other book I enjoyed without having any particular opinion on it, or worse, a book that the person I wanted to be would like (anything by Haruki Murakami. I've given up on pretending to like him). During elementary school the list would've included Little Town on the Prairie (my faaavorite Little House book!) and Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. (Oh I guess I could include Marya Hornbacher's Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, since I did actually really love that book, but I feel a little weird putting that as a favorite.)
It's hard for me to love books like I did when I was younger. There is no deep reason for this, I am just dumb and get bored easily with Grown Up Books. (I am still at chapter 3 of The Age of Innocence.) Also a lot of them intimidate me, in that I get all hung up over 'omg I'm so brainless, everything is going over my head, I don't Get This.' Also, if I don't like your stupid douchebag characters, I sure as hell not going to read 300+ pages about them.
speculative to read list
Miyuki Miyabe's The Devil's Whisper
Shaun Tan's The Arrival
M.T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party
Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva's The Bang Bang Club (DT1945 .M37 2000)
Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things
Ander Monson's Other Electricities
Michio Kao's Hyperspace
Patricia Gaffney's Wild at Heart
Justina Chen Headley's Girl Overboard
Maile Meloy's Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It
Vladimir Nabokov short stories
Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Egypt Game
Kelly Link
Andrea Smith's Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
Susanne Colastani's When It Happens
(most of these come from stalking coffeeandink; every time I look at her book recommendations I feel an overwhelming longing for the entire world)
OMG WAIT! I CAN PUT THE SILENT MIAOW ON MY FAVORITES LIST. YESSSSS
JJB is reading a lot of our manga and it's kind of making me want to start reading manga again. After being failed by a lot of my favorite series, I forget what I lurved the most about my favorite manga: the art, the humor, the characters -- people who act the way they do because of who they are (I am articulate!!), the emphasis on relationships and the past and frondzzzzzz. I think this is why I can't get it up for most American comic books. The emphases are like completely different.
A Little Princess, Catcher in the Rye, Howl's Moving Castle, Le petit prince, Calvin and Hobbes, things by Neil Gaiman (particularly the Sandman), things by Maile Meloy
During high school I probably would've thrown in, like, Catch-22 and some other book I enjoyed without having any particular opinion on it, or worse, a book that the person I wanted to be would like (anything by Haruki Murakami. I've given up on pretending to like him). During elementary school the list would've included Little Town on the Prairie (my faaavorite Little House book!) and Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. (Oh I guess I could include Marya Hornbacher's Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, since I did actually really love that book, but I feel a little weird putting that as a favorite.)
It's hard for me to love books like I did when I was younger. There is no deep reason for this, I am just dumb and get bored easily with Grown Up Books. (I am still at chapter 3 of The Age of Innocence.) Also a lot of them intimidate me, in that I get all hung up over 'omg I'm so brainless, everything is going over my head, I don't Get This.' Also, if I don't like your stupid douchebag characters, I sure as hell not going to read 300+ pages about them.
speculative to read list
Miyuki Miyabe's The Devil's Whisper
Shaun Tan's The Arrival
M.T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party
Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva's The Bang Bang Club (DT1945 .M37 2000)
Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things
Ander Monson's Other Electricities
Michio Kao's Hyperspace
Patricia Gaffney's Wild at Heart
Justina Chen Headley's Girl Overboard
Maile Meloy's Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It
Vladimir Nabokov short stories
Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Egypt Game
Kelly Link
Andrea Smith's Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
Susanne Colastani's When It Happens
(most of these come from stalking coffeeandink; every time I look at her book recommendations I feel an overwhelming longing for the entire world)
OMG WAIT! I CAN PUT THE SILENT MIAOW ON MY FAVORITES LIST. YESSSSS
JJB is reading a lot of our manga and it's kind of making me want to start reading manga again. After being failed by a lot of my favorite series, I forget what I lurved the most about my favorite manga: the art, the humor, the characters -- people who act the way they do because of who they are (I am articulate!!), the emphasis on relationships and the past and frondzzzzzz. I think this is why I can't get it up for most American comic books. The emphases are like completely different.