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What I read -- September 2019


“The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter. Got it for Christmas. As a small, light collection of short stories, this was a perfect thing to carry on the bus. Also, as non-research, I didn’t have to take notes. 

LHC #50: “Lovecraft Country” by Matt Ruff. I was attracted by the idea of Lovecraft with the opposite of his horrific racism. The first chapter seemed like just a list of SF authors, but after that the story settled and was really readable. 

LHC #51: “The Refrigerator Monologues” by Catherynne M. Valente. About 90 pages into this, I was thinking I had missed something and was going to have to go back and read it again when I finished, just so I understood who was who. But then I realized that wasn’t the point, it didn’t matter who all the stupid superheroes were and who the archvillains were, they were never going to win or be vanquished. Or if they were, it didn’t matter. The girls were already dead. 

LHC #52: “Bad Paper: Chasing debt from Wall Street to the Underworld” by Jake Halpern. This book was full of crazy characters. I was reading along, and one person threatened witch craft on another, and I thought to myself, “Why isn’t Abigail doing that in WWS?” I must have requested it because of Buffalo, because people in Toronto find Buffalo fascinating (in my experience, we think about Buffalo way more than Americans do). 

LHC #53: “Vassa in the Night” by Sarah Porter. Baba Yaga! It made me curious to know the legend better, to know what was from the original, and what was converted, because I think a lot was.

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