Elizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hermionesviolin) wrote2023-03-01 04:25 pm
hermionesviolin) wrote2023-03-01 04:25 pm
Entry tags:
culture consumed (February, 2023)
books
(Also skimmed LOTS of picturebooks attempting to figure out what to buy the younger nibling for his birthday next month.)
[local library LGBTQ+ book club -- for Black History Month] Real Life by Brandon Taylor -- This book was a lot heavier than I expected, and I don't know what to say about it it, but T. S. Mendola's Los Angeles Review of Books review is really fucking good. [feminist sff book club] Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper -- sentient vagina dentata! trans woman horror author! I did not like this as much as I had hoped to, which was a bummer.
[local library LGBTQ+ book club] Matrix by Lauren Groff (historical fiction for Women's History Month) -- which unlike the last couple novels I'd read, read really quickly; I enjoyed it a lot; in a post-book Wiki dive, I ended up reading this review which talks about the ways in which Groff does a disservice to medieval life:
audiovisual media
***
In the spirit of Reading Wednesday:
Currently reading: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid for work book club
(Oh, and as previewed last entry, Abby are slowly making our way through Stephanie Burt's poetry collection We Are Mermaids -- but very slowly, since she's also messaging with another friend about it, so she has to get through one poem before we can move on to a next one.)
Reading next: not sure exactly, since after work book club I'm flying to California with Abby for family stuff.
I will maybe make more progress on my "currently reading" pile? (By which I mostly mean finishing Laughing at the Devil: Seeing the World with Julian of Norwich by Amy Laura Hall-- which I was reading when we flew to Utah in August, I think.)
[Edit: Oh, and Abby finished reading my library copy of Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker & Jules Scheele -- more accurately a graphic history of queer theory -- and gave it back to me, so I may try to read that before it's due back at the library.]
I have various Mardi Gras picturebooks coming in for me -- on my continuing theme of, "What books to get the niblings?" But once I finalize O's books for April, I'll be ~done for a bit since I'm almost entirely set for M's books for June. (Though then there's Christmas 😂 And I'll wanna pack a stack of library books for when we visit -- which will probably be late April/early May, inshallah.)
My next book club book is Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden (and likely its sequel, Symbiosis) for feminist sci-fi book club in mid-April.
Followed by How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones (memoir) for local library LGBTQ+ book club in April.
- read Abby a lot of picturebooks -- I've relaxed my tracking of Every Single Picturebook I Read on GR, so I don't have a full total, but it was about 15 (the 10 on my GR, 3 firefighter books I didn't log, 2 merkid books I didn't log)
highlights:- Bathe the Cat written by Alice B. McGinty & illustrated by David Roberts -- a really fun book with casual queer representation
- The Twelve Days of Christmas in Texas by Janie Bynum -- found while looking for picturebooks for a friends' kiddo who's really interested in Texas right now, and which I liked surprisingly much
- And That's Their Family! written by Kailee Coleman & illustrated by Jamie Malone -- we read this at a friends' house actually; their copy had just arrived and they were excited about it; explicitly includes poly families (among others) and has lots of casual diversity representation in the illustrations beyond just the text
- Bathe the Cat written by Alice B. McGinty & illustrated by David Roberts -- a really fun book with casual queer representation
(Also skimmed LOTS of picturebooks attempting to figure out what to buy the younger nibling for his birthday next month.)
audiovisual media
- we watched Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Special on HBO Max because FB had suggested a Tor article about it before it came out (we hadn't seen any of the first 3 seasons, but didn't really need to have -- basically you just need to know that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are a couple)
- Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin at the Harvard Film Archive (primed by having read in January the picturebook A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington written by Carole Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders & illustrated by Byron McCray)
***
In the spirit of Reading Wednesday:
Currently reading: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid for work book club
(Oh, and as previewed last entry, Abby are slowly making our way through Stephanie Burt's poetry collection We Are Mermaids -- but very slowly, since she's also messaging with another friend about it, so she has to get through one poem before we can move on to a next one.)
Reading next: not sure exactly, since after work book club I'm flying to California with Abby for family stuff.
I will maybe make more progress on my "currently reading" pile? (By which I mostly mean finishing Laughing at the Devil: Seeing the World with Julian of Norwich by Amy Laura Hall-- which I was reading when we flew to Utah in August, I think.)
[Edit: Oh, and Abby finished reading my library copy of Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker & Jules Scheele -- more accurately a graphic history of queer theory -- and gave it back to me, so I may try to read that before it's due back at the library.]
I have various Mardi Gras picturebooks coming in for me -- on my continuing theme of, "What books to get the niblings?" But once I finalize O's books for April, I'll be ~done for a bit since I'm almost entirely set for M's books for June. (Though then there's Christmas 😂 And I'll wanna pack a stack of library books for when we visit -- which will probably be late April/early May, inshallah.)
My next book club book is Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden (and likely its sequel, Symbiosis) for feminist sci-fi book club in mid-April.
Kirkus Reviews: “An Afrofuturist love story, set inside a giant space-creature, about two women of different castes.” Summarized by one reader as, “feels as if The Stars Are Legion [Kameron Hurley] and An Unkindness of Ghosts [Rivers Solomon] had a charmingly messy child that takes itself far less seriously than either of them. It reminded me of both, but it's entirely its own, very weird thing.” Matriarchal alien society (includes trans people); one reviewer says, “book has a sapphic romance as well as representation of polyamourous relationships”(For once, I have actually read both books referenced in a "for fans of X and Y." I felt very ~proud of myself.)
Followed by How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones (memoir) for local library LGBTQ+ book club in April.
no subject
no subject
Looking back on your DW for whether there was more in comments about it than just your GR review reminded me that you had recced a Matrix fic from Yuletide, so I'll have to read that at some point :)
Edit: Er, written, not recced. My reading comprehension is great 😂
no subject
<3 <3 <3