Skip to main content

What I read -- June 2011

OWW: 3

“Brown Girl in the Ring” by Nalo Hopkinson. For some reason I discovered she’d done the MFA program at Seton Hill, so I got this out of the library. She certainly presents a grim view of the future of Toronto, but it was an entertaining read, and not just because I could visualize so many of the locations. The style, especially the dialog, was challenging at the start, but it was really well plotted.

“Behemoth” by Scott Westerfield. The boy got this from my mom for his birthday, and he read like 75 pages while still at her house. Win! Ed read it next (having finally been shamed into reading Leviathan). Finally I got my hands on it. Really good. Totally want the sequel. (September...)

“Aerotropolis: the way we’ll live next” by John Kasarda and Greg Lindsay. Recommended on Nicola Griffith’s blog. Got it out of the library. I found the introduction quite a slog, but by Chapter 2 I wasn’t having any trouble getting through it. I guess I’d gotten used to the style – I haven’t been reading much longform non-fiction lately. Some of the sentences were painful for me (too long, and the noun and the verb too far apart to make agreement sound right), but the information was fascinating. More about logistics and local planning than aviation. It makes me worry about Toronto. Though we have a different goal here than perhaps shipping stuff, Toronto is more about email. What this book needs is the far north (like Nunuvut) and heavy lift dirigibles. It did make me wonder, however, about whatever happened with Invest Toronto. I guess I’m not the target audience of whatever they do... I read a few days ago about someone (Philip Roth?) not reading fiction anymore. This book reminded me why I read SF – it connected to Snowcrash and Windup Girl.

Popular posts from this blog

Best TW feedback ever

Over at the dayjob, SMEs are feverishly trying to get documents back to me all marked up, in preparation for the release that's supposed to happen the week I'm back from VP. Today's best comment: Unfortunately not true. SMEs, they're so cute.

What I read: August 2023

"The Absolute Book" by Elizabeth Knox. I got it for Christmas. It was delightful, even if maybe some stuff wasn't explained completely. Or maybe that's part of why it was delightful.  "Crucial conversations" By Joseph Grenny and three other old white men. Another office book club selection. The word "candor" comes up a lot. I really resented this book.  LHC #220: "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. There was a girl at my previous company who wanted to have an office book club, and she had this book on her desk for months and months. I can totally understand this. I found portions crazy stressful to read. Like, I would be skipping ahead to see how much more in the section, could I get through it, pacing around, etc. I wanted to know how it ended, sure, but I was having weird stress dreams and stuff. If it wasn't a library book I might not have finished it at all. It was such a relief when Boris showed up again and something happened. I di

In Progress -- July 2023

  Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Nothing but thoughts.  Short Stories:  As I mentioned last month I had a dish-washing epiphany on a story that wasn't going well. I'd already changed the POV character, but I knew that wasn't enough because I had no ending. It has an ending now.  Critted  4  Got back  0    I really need to post something new. Submissions  0  Out there   0   Rejects   1 Knitting Tay Tartan cardigan  (Martin Storey). Finally finished the danglers and minor seaming and chose buttons, then had to wait to block because the space I normally block in needed to be cleared, and this would be very disruptive to my work, so I waited to block it for the night before I went on vacation. It would appear that the finishing of this sweater took 4 months, which may be a new record. It fits for the most part. Yay!  Cathar  (self). Started the month just about done with the body edging.