Read Harder 2023 Task #1: Read a novel about a trans character written by a trans author.
I've read Nevada by Imogen Binnie https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58837536-nevada
"One of the most beloved cult novels of our time and a landmark of trans literature"
I liked the content, I learned a lot, but got a bit tired with the style, lots of monologue going on. š²4 #amreading#bookstodon @bookstodon
I saw some of his art online and thought it looked like āInvisible Handsā from Liquid Television, which I LOVED. Same artist! This didnāt have quite the same level of twisted, creepiness as that animated series, but I was so happy to find his work in comic form. Thereās more too.
A gay Latino returns home to the suburbs for a high school reunion and encounters key people from his past. Narrator alternates between 1st person to describe scenes and 3rd person to analyze social inequities. After a while, it feels a little like the kind of defensive writing people do on social media: itās not enough to tell a story; you have to demonstrate your grasp of the conditions that led to it.
I'm moving my 2023 book thread to #Bookwyrm, the Fediverse equivalent of Goodreads. Apparently, you can see/interact with Bookwyrm posts from Mastodon and vice versa but it took me awhile to figure out how:
I had to follow my Bookwyrm account from here + (optionally?) vice versa. Now I can Boost my Bookwyrm posts into Mastodon for you to see. Gonna try it in a few...
Reporting back on cross-posting from #Bookwyrm to Mastodon: it works! And without the expected delay of the post appearing in my Mastodon feed.
However, it doesn't pull the body of the post over, just the headline of my review (rating and image too). Which makes you have to click through, and removes discoverability since the hashtags are in the body post as well as my tag for the #Bookstodon group. Also! No way to enter ALT text for the image. š
Conclusion: at the moment, cross-posting from #BookWyrm doesn't meet all of my needs (ALT text for book cover image, hashtags for Mastodon discoverability, no importing of full Bookwyrm post text, adding additional images since I read comics too, no tagging Mastodon accounts).
I'll keep posting separately on each platform since I want to contribute to both. So resuming my 2023 reading thread here. Eh heh heh. š¬
I love Katchor's line work and style. The observations and point of view in each comic strip are always interesting, but there's a density to them (visually and conceptually) that require a lot of effort from me to parse: architecture, history, urbanity, narrative.
I think I used to read them in an alternative weekly a while ago, and that's the kind of reading pace that worked for me: one per week.
I wanted to read more mysteries. Slowly making my way through The Inspector Armand Gamache series, mostly in winter. This one strengthens a sense of continuity between the books and offers history lessons on Quebec; the long-standing tensions between French & English Canadians. If it wasnāt clear before, Gamache isnāt infallible, and we see the large-scale and deeply personal effects this has on him and those around him.
By the end, I really liked this. Up until then, it felt a bit YA in how it treated the leadsā feelings for each other. Why draw things out with the whole ānot talking to each other honestlyā trope? I have nothing against prolonging things, but it needs to be deftly done to not feel cheap. This wasnāt cheap though! I loved these boys. Their marriage (not a spoiler) feels hard-won. Plus, look at that cover. SO gay.
Written like bad streaming TV: mandatory "plot twists" clumsily done, artificially draws things out, a rushed final episode, and introducing a shadowy character in the last shot to laugh menacingly.
Frustrating, like most #DarkAcademia books. Itās got some interesting ideas and moments, but the writing doesnāt sustain them. The magic system and world-building are underdeveloped. Is it a rule that magic users are assholes?
A local artist Iām lucky to call a friend. I did not expect such a serious and mature story. The art style seems so ā¦ innocent. The villages have their own traditions, belief systems, and a shared history that I didnāt follow enough to fully understand. But I know how to load a cannon now, and there are some lovely moments beautifully drawn.
Just read Animal Life by AuĆ°ur Ava ĆlafsdĆ³ttir. Musings on life, death and light seen through the eyes of two generations of Icelandic midwives. Not much happens. But that's ok. What did I take from it? A reminder that human life is odd in some respects. Babies of other animals develop far quicker...and the earth will outlive us all. #bookToot#bookstodon#keefsreads
Just finished Lucy by the Sea by #ElizabethStrout, the last of the #LucyBarton series. Set, and I guess written, in lockdown. Not convinced either is conducive to good art. Didn't enjoy as much as the first installment. My main thoughts were that it is striking that Lucy, despite her success as a writer, has little agency over her own life and where it goes. And perhaps that shows us the effects of earlier poverty and poor parenting are hard to shake off. #bookToot#bookstodon#keefsreads
Part of the SF Masterworks Collection. Despite being nearly 60 years old the narrative around the manipulation of the truth feels incredibly prescient. Wondering whether David Whitaker had read it before he came up with #DoctorWho story The Enemy of the World. #Books#Bookstodon#SciFi#PhilipKDick
Wodehouse is by some distance my favourite author. The world he created is full of pure joy and I never bore of escaping into it. Heās one of the few authors who I can re-read over and over again. The Mating Season exhibits him at his absolute best with so many lines and turns of phrase that have you smiling ear to ear or chuckling. He was the master.
One of those books that always appears on must-read lists that has nonetheless sat unread on my pile of books for many a year. I regret now not getting round to it earlier. I found the storytelling to be incredibly vivid and though Iām not a great one for re-reading things I can imagine myself coming back to it at some point.
Not my first read of it, but my first for a very long time. Has its strengths as it adds more depth to the Holmes character and the mystery works well enough. On the negative side the Watson-Mary āromanceā is pretty weak and obviously there are elements that havenāt aged so well. Overall itās enjoyable enough without being Holmes at its absolute best.
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Peter Frankopan
Really effective. Manages to add context and a new perspective to the changing power dynamics of world history in a really entertaining way. I took a lot from it.
A find in a charity shop that I picked up largely as I had a vague memory of reading bits of it for my A-Level studies. It remains pretty readable and itās a nice not too involved overview of the Stuart dynasty.
Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks
The Essential Alan Coren
I was a bit young at the time for Corenās writing and so really knew him as the very funny man from Radio 4ās The News Quiz or Call My Bluff with Sandy Toksvig at the time. This collection shows why he was considered to be one of Britainās great comic writers. Some of his early stuff has language that wouldnāt be used today, but it mostly stands up very well.
A really interesting read. Itās I think very successful in achieving what it is trying to do and the characters are incredibly vivid. By the end I was starting to find it quite tiring spending that much time with so many unlikable characters, but it does sort of feel like that was always supposed to be the point to some degree. Iād say Iām glad Iāve read it and Iām also glad itās ended.
For the most part I really enjoyed this. For an 18th century novel it feels quite modern and itās interesting how it references the great influence Laurence Sterne had on it. Thereās enough amusement in the way the apparently simple story of one man telling another about his past love keeps getting interrupted by other tales to make it enjoyable albeit I was a little weary of the style by the end.