Livre d'Or

wychwood has a great post about books of the heart, and I'm inspired to copy the idea like what we used to call a meme in the early aughts, becasue book lists are always cool. Defined as: a list of sorts, of books that I read over and over and over when I was young and which felt formational for me in some way - they aren't necessarily my favourites these days, and I certainly wouldn't want to claim that they were the "best" books I ever read, but they're mine in a deep sense.

( booklist )

I didn't get very far through Hugo reading. I read all the short stories, and the three novels which were stand-alone or first in a series, skipping the ones that are sequels. I managed two of the six novellas, but didn't feel able to vote when I hadn't looked at the others. And I spent the last day before the voting deadline reading through the novelettes in order to be able to rank them. Plus, I happened to have seen enough of the films I felt I could reasonably vote on that category.

( my opinions )

That's brief notes on my voting choices (well, I'm not great at brief)! I'm more than happy to discuss in more detail if anyone's interested, I just wanted to get this posted rather than being intimidated by it.

So the medical school is having a drive to encourage students to engage more with arts and humanities, so we don't end up with a lot of future doctors who haven't read a novel since they finished GCSE English. And they're asking for suggestions for books worth recommending to the students.

This seems like an interesting question, so I'm throwing it open to you: if you could recommend one book you'd like your doctor to have read, what would it be? They specify that it doesn't have to be about a directly medical topic, but just something that could help very science-specialized people to understand more about being human. Non-fiction is ok but they want literary non-fiction, things like biographies, rather than textbooks.

My thinking about this is that there's no point recommending the obvious nineteenth century Dead White Men classics, because even if the students were funnelled out of anything to do with literature in their mid teens they're all high achievers, they've almost certainly all "done" Dickens for GCSE and got As for their essays. And even the ones who don't read have read The man who mistook his wife for a hat because various how to get into medical school guides push it as something to mention at interview.

So, suggestions?

Recently read: No new fiction this week. So have some links:

Cute personal account Jews and Muslims in France. I picked it up from Making Light, and it's nothing exceptional as journalism goes, just one person talking about her experiences. But it's a counter to the agitprop trying to turn Jews and Muslims against eachother, and valuable for that reason. It also very much reflects my own experience of interacting with Muslims, though mine is either in Britain rather than France, or more than 10 years ago.

Talking of positivity, I really enjoyed illusive_shelle's verse response to the horrendous anti-Muslim propaganda on American TV: #FoxNewsFact. And a bonus sweetly scathing response in prose from mrissa.

My Dad sent me this human interest story, which is rather cripspiration-ish, the thrust of the article is Deaf-blind guy marries and has a child, isn't that amazing?! But the thing is that I have a distant connection to this guy, because he was in the same ward as my brother when the latter had a serious accident in 2002. I've always been kind of haunted by the image of this young man waking up in hospital with no sight or hearing and no idea where he was and just screaming constantly. So I'm pleased to learn that things have worked out well for him, sometimes you just by chance get to the find out the epilogue of someone's story.

On a completely different topic, I really appreciated papersky's musings on mortality: Everything alive and dead to weep as one. It's not exactly fiction, but it's a lovely piece of prose, and to make it vaguely relevant to the Wednesday theme, the post and discussion contain various recs for historical biographies and collected correspondence available on Gutenberg and elsewhere.

Currently reading: Still in the early part of Imajica.

Also still following rmc28's Watership Down readthrough, which I forgot to mention last week. I was away at the weekend and I don't have a copy of the book here, so I'm a little bit behind. But there's some really fun discussion developing, and the book is holding up well not only as an adult reader but as something to savour and delve into in detail, we're doing one chapter a week and each chapter is only a couple of pages.

Up next: I still don't really have a specific plan. I've been chatting to cjwatson about some of the classic science fiction we both read, and thinking about new stuff to recommend eachother. Asimov, and how he's often better at shorter length due to having a lot more skill in exploring interesting ideas than in conventional novel techniques like plotting and characterization. Other people who do very ideas-heavy hard SF: Greg Egan, of course, and I have a ghost of a thought about Ted Chiang which I didn't quite get round to talking about.

I'm realizing there are quite a few books I really liked 5–10 years ago which I now can't quite remember well enough to recommend without rereading. And I generally don't reread very much because I'm always seeking out new stuff, but books that have stuck in my mind enough that I'm excited to share them but where I no longer remember the details seem good candidates. So possibly Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden, possibly Emma Bull's War for the oaks. (Gosh, I'm glad that I used to keep up with reviewing better than I do now, I should really get back into that habit!) Or else I should make at least a note of the examples that came up in conversation that I'm not familiar with: Stephen Baxter's Xeelee stories; Poul Anderson's Tau Zero.

Also I haven't posted to DW since last Wednesday, which does suggest that the Wednesday reading meme is good for me. I do have quite a few posts I want to make, but sometimes having an imposed structure helps with getting started.

I know I had a big stash of topics I wanted to talk about once I got past the intense festival period, but I can't remember what they all were now. So have a meme about books, via ghoti:

( 26 questions )

Anyone else want to have a go?

I'm really enjoying this thing with the Hugo voting where lots of people are reading the same stuff and talking about it. A lot of the time I'm jealous of people who are fans of TV series, because they have a much better chance than book fans of all their friends consuming the same media as them at the same time and wanting to talk about it. So with Worldcon coming to England, I'm getting a little taste of that.

It's especially fun to see excitement about Ancillary Justice spreading like contagion through my circles. I don't think it's the Greatest Book Evar!!! but it's really innovative and I think it's very well worthy of an award. I particularly enjoyed legionseagle's analysis; yes, it has something to say about gender, but it's really exciting in what it's doing with class and empire and real, solid politics. Also, I found this interview with Leckie immensely endearing.

Anyway, I'm working my way through the Hugo packet, so here I am joining in the conversation with comments on the short story and novellette slates. ( rankings and comments )

syderia asked me about e-books and paper books. It's possible everything there is to say about this topic has already been said, but let's give it a go.

( yay living in the future )

[January Journal masterlist. Anyone want the last empty slot?]

jack posted a list of his favourite books, and over on the LJ version of the post, daharyn commented: Look at all the (white) dudes on that list! This is a great example of how canon becomes canon--"oh, well, I read stuff I like," [...] ends up cutting out voices that don't fit the mold.

I am kind of resistant to diversity auditing booklists, especially ones that are just personal taste lists; it makes somewhat more sense with lists that are intended to be representative or recognize merit or significance. But then again, best-of lists are a classic way to get conversations going, so why not follow suit?

( list with slightly snarky commentary )

I've been meaning for ages to link to ursulav's brilliant Narnia response Elegant and Fine. It's about Susan, but it's not exactly the traditional Problem of Susan from The Last Battle. The definitive response to that issue is probably Neil Gaiman's 2004 short story, which takes a fairly standard third-wave feminist line that it's possible to be interested in makeup and adornment and sex without being a completely frivolous, worthless person. Rather, it's about the weird gap that happens between The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. I've also read a story I can't remember in enough detail to be able to find again, where the Pevensies' readjustment to the real world after they return from Narnia is used as an allegory for mental illness and the experience of perceiving reality in a way that the rest of the world doesn't accept.

jack has also been posting interesting Narnia discussions. In particular, S. has some good thoughts about reading Narnia as fairy-story rather than realistic novel. Note that S. is notorious for being very belligerent in internet discussions, so that's something to bear in mind if you want to disagree with his take.

I'm really interested in how much Narnia still gets talked about, both so many decades after the series was published, and among people of all ages, years after having imprinted on Narnia as kids. Lev Grossman's The Magicians completely misreads the actual substance of the Narnia series, in a way that I've only ever seen from Americans with absolutely no knowledge of Christianity, but he's pretty good on the way that the books can become a touchstone within geek social circles. rachelmanija is hosting a cool discussion, unfortunately split between LJ and DW, about the market and appetite for Narnia-style portal fantasy today.

Meanwhile, marina, who comes from an entirely different background from the typical geeks-on-the-internet, didn't imprint on Narnia but rather on Lolita. Her essay on what that book meant and means to her is absolutely stunning.

I've been planning for ages to take advantage of the weak dollar and top up my dwindling book supply with a shopping spree on Amazon. The postage makes it marginal whether it's cheaper to buy books that way rather than in local shops, but the selection of English language books is obviously much greater in Amazon's catalogue than a typical Swedish bookshop. Then hatam_soferet was generous enough to offer to bring my purchases with her when she next visits England, meaning that I can use the free shipping and not even have to pay postage at all.

I got round to putting this plan into action last night. I'd saved up the part of my budget that I consider pocket money for a week, and I was willing to go a bit over that for a one-off purchase. But between the dollar being practically worthless and books being generally cheaper in America and some handy discounts going on at Amazon, I managed to get everything that I wanted that is available to buy, and added in some random CDs while I was at it... and still spent less than half my not terribly generous weekly friv allowance. Wo0t! Having a kind friend who is willing to carry the books for me means it is actually cheaper to buy brand new books from Amazon than second hand books here or even in the UK.

( the haul )
Anyway, since I usually read about 3 or 4 books a month, this lot should keep me going until Passover time, when I might well go to Cambridge for a few days and raid charity shops for more. I am so looking forward to getting these; it will be like a fabulous birthday present to myself!