boxofdelights: (Default)
boxofdelights ([personal profile] boxofdelights) wrote2020-01-22 10:44 pm
Entry tags:

you got a way with words/you got away with murder

• What are you reading?

Whose Story Is This? Old Conflicts, New Chapters, by Rebecca Solnit.

• What did you recently finish reading?

Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi. While I was in the middle of this book, I happened to listen to a podcast with Philip Pullman, who offered some of his criteria for not reading books: he doesn't like reading novels in the present tense, and he doesn't like novels that begin with a pronoun.

Trust Exercise's first sentence is, "Neither can drive."

Those are good rules, I decided.

But then I really liked the second part of the book, which is told from a different point of view. Was it worth slogging through those miserable high school years to get to the second part? I can't decide.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Witchmark, by C.L. Polk, for SF book group.

• What are you watching?

Going slowly through season 4 of The Good Place with Neal. How does Jason suddenly get handsome just by combing his hair different? I failed at that trick so much!

And I saw Dessa! I missed her opening act to go to the first half of book group for Parable of the Sower. I like living in a city small enough that you can see Dessa in a room with 200 people, and musical enough that she'll come. While the string quartet was leaving the stage and being replaced by a drummer and guitarist, Dessa wanted to read a poem, but she didn't want to hold the mic. She tried filling the room with her voice, and the people in back said that worked, but she decided to stand on a chair in the middle of the room instead. slightly blurry photo of a woman standing on a chair among seated people, reading
enemyofperfect: a spray of orange leaves against a muted background (Default)

[personal profile] enemyofperfect 2020-01-23 06:06 am (UTC)(link)
I'm so glad you got to see Dessa and part of the book group too!
Edited (Octavia Butler must not be omitted) 2020-01-23 06:07 (UTC)
bibliofile: Fan & papers in a stack (from my own photo) (Default)

[personal profile] bibliofile 2020-01-23 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
Standing on a chair in the middle of the room? Makes too much sense, almost.

re: Trust Exercise
I'm kinda done with reading about other people's high school miseries. Are you allowed to skip that part and go directly to the adult section? But that's a different conversation.

I have more than one Rebecca Solnit book on my mental to-read list. I haven't seen that one, I think, but it still sounds interesting.
lunabee34: (Default)

[personal profile] lunabee34 2020-01-23 11:55 am (UTC)(link)
I'm glad you enjoyed the Dessa concert. It sounds awesome.
jesse_the_k: iPod nestles in hollowed-out print book (Alt format reader)

[personal profile] jesse_the_k 2020-01-23 03:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh! Love that photo of Dessa streaming energy.

Do you do audiobooks? I have her memoir-of-a-decade-long-heart break My Own Devices which she does an excellent job narrating.
maribou: (Default)

[personal profile] maribou 2020-01-23 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm so happy for you re: Dessa.