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Books Recommendations Watchlist

Shit, Actually by Lindy West: ROFL Funny Book

I recently read Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema by Lindy West — and it was just what I’d been looking for! Hilarious relook at old blockbuster movies, with tons of punchlines thrown in. Nobody is spared (not even the movie Fugitive, which as per West is “the only good movie“, haha) and every single movie trope and trick is held to the microscope for a close and hysterically funny analysis.

Trust me, this book makes you laugh like crazy. Pick it up on one of those downer days, and watch your gloom evaporate.

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To Be Read Books

Book Quote: On the Enduring Charm of Fantasy Fiction

“I write fantasy because it’s there. I have no other excuse for sitting down for several hours a day indulging my imagination. Daydreaming. Thinking up imaginary people, impossible places. Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored. Making it tell the same tale over and over again makes it thin and whining; its scales begin to fall off; its fiery breath becomes a trickle of smoke.

It is best fed by reality, an odd diet for something nonexistent; there are few details of daily life and its broad range of emotional context that can’t be transformed into food for the imagination. It must be visited constantly, or else it begins to become restless and emit strange bellows at embarrassing moments; ignoring it only makes it grow larger and noisier. Content, it dreams awake, and spins the fabric of tales. There is really nothing to be done with such imagery except to use it: in writing, in art.

Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.”

~ Patricia McKillip, in Faces of Fantasy by Patti Perret

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Art & Illustration Books Memes Recommendations Watchlist

Japanese Mythology Recs: Ogiwara, Mononoke & Moribito

Dragon Sword Wind Child

Lately, I’ve been consuming speculative fiction centered around Japanese mythology / Shinto creation mythology. Putting up a few reviews here as part of the Japanese Literature Reading Challenge 2021.

Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara

This book is part of the Tales of Matagama series but you can also read it as a standalone. Saya lives in the village, with no memory of the past. She finds comfort in her worship of the God of Light and his children. But the God of Light has been at eternal war with the Goddess of Darkness, and only the Water Maiden can wield the Dragon Sword and bring that war to an end. Saya’s world comes crashing down when she discovers that she is that Water Maiden.

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Art & Illustration Books Memes

Kindred by Octavia Butler #VintageSciFiMonth

Kindred by Octavia Butler was published in 1979 and is my second book for the Vintage Science Fiction Month (not a reading challenge) of January 2021. I chose to go with the graphic novel version from Damian Duffy (adaptation) and John Jennings (illustration).

Kindred is not “comfort read”. It’s not the book to choose when you’re down with pandemic fatigue. But it IS a science fiction classic that is a must-read for understanding the issues of race and slavery in Antebellum South.

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Books Memes

The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle

The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was originally published in 1891, and is my first selection for the 2021 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Conan Doyle is obviously famous for his Sherlock Holmes series, but this lesser known book was apparently one of his favorites. It’s set in the Middle Ages — a period in history that I really like to read about.

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Books

The Firebird Chronicles (Books #1-3) by T. A. White

The Firebird Chronicles is a new space opera series by T. A. White. You would have to read the series in order, starting with the crackling Rules of Redemption.

The Plot

Kira Forrest has been in hiding for several years since the last battle against the scourge of the dangerous and power-hungry Tsavitee. She is famous as both war hero and deserter, and now lives on the fringes as a space-ship salvager.

But then one day, she rescues a child of the Tuann, a technologically advanced alien race that distrusts all humans. Soon, she gets snowballed into inter-galactic treaties and intrigue. She may have to give up her hard-won freedom, in order to find out more about her own roots, and save the world.

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Art & Illustration Memes

Friday Face Off #2: Book with “Moon” in the Title

The Friday Face Off meme was created by Books by Proxy  and hosted by Lynn. For each week’s theme, we select a matching book and compare its different book covers across editions. Perfect for a visual fix!

Theme for Friday Face Off #2 is:

Books with ‘Moon’ in the Title

I’ve decided to take a lighter note on this, and go with P.G. Wodehouse’s Full Moon. A very funny book involving an artist, a pig and a castle. Mayhem ensues!

When the moon is full at Blandings, strange things happen: among them the commissioning of a portrait of The Empress, twice in succession winner in the Fat Pigs Class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. What better choice of artist, in Lord Emsworth’s opinion, than Landseer? The renowned painter of The Stag at Bay may have been dead for decades, but that doesn’t prevent Galahad Threepwood from introducing him to the castle – or rather introducing Bill Lister, Gally’s godson, so desperately in love with Prudence that he’s determined to enter Blandings in yet another imposture. Add a gaggle of fearsome aunts, uncles and millionaires, mix in Freddie Threepwood, Beach the Butler and the gardener McAllister, and the moon is full indeed.

Although I find the centre cover to be the funniest, the first one looks the most eye-catching. And the third one matches the story the best! Hmm, tough choice. I think I’ll go with the first one for this Friday Face Off #2, which manages to catch the comedy of manners without looking too absurd!

{Edited: January 10, 2021, to fix the image glitch.}

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Books Memes

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny: #VintageSciFiMonth

What if the Gods were alien invaders on another planet? What if they jealously guarded treasures of the advanced technological variety from the non-Gods? And, what if one day, someone decided to open up those treasure vaults to the rest of the world? That’s the theme of Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.

Lord of Light is a 1967 science fiction book and is my first book for the Vintage Science Fiction Month (not a reading challenge) of January 2021.

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Index Memes To Be Read Books

2021 Reading Challenges & Memes

Reading Challenges & Memes

It’s time to set out reading goals for 2021. I’m not fully certain of my own commitment levels, nor am I very clear about the rules yet … But the reading challenges and memes below are the ones I most hope to participate in. If you’re reading this, perhaps you too will find some interesting prompts in here. (Will also update this list from time to time.)

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Art & Illustration Memes

Friday Face Off #1: Dressed in White

The Friday Face Off meme was created by Books by Proxy  and hosted by Lynn. For each week’s theme, we select a matching book and compare its different book covers across editions. Perfect for a visual fix!

(I’m obviously late to this meme, but so eager to grapple with book cover art!)

Theme for Friday Face Off #1 is:

Dressed in White – could be a person could be a landscape – or something else completely?

In Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, there is literally a character dressed in white, a mysterious figure at the heart of this classic Gothic mystery from 1859. A gallery of a few of its book covers below:

My own personal favorite from these is the Vintage Collins edition in the middle row, to the left. I think that cover captures the theme of the mysterious lady seen at night, dressed in all white, very well indeed. This has been a fun Friday Face Off!