reading and whatnot
Jul. 24th, 2022 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee341. I got the most excellent package of books from executrix. More poetry! *swoons*
2. I got the EOB for my surgery and for Emma's lumbar puncture. My surgery cost 25K and Emma's procedure 6K. WTF, yall? Our health care system is so fucking gross. I mean, we're only paying 1400 for my surgery and 500 for Emma's procedure, but damn. 6K to stick a needle in her back and pull it out again? And that's not the price for the pathology shit of either. I already paid the pathology bills which were like 185 for mine and like 35 or something like that for her. This is why poor people in our country just die. I am so grateful we have good insurance.
3.
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This reminds me a great deal of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad--very meta-textual, very fourth wall-breaky. I am always so pleased when the women who get to say very little (Or nothing in Lavinia's case) are given a story. Highly, highly recommended. I could drown in UKLG's words no matter the subject, so perhaps I am a bit biased.
2022 reread: still as wonderful as the first time I read it, possibly more so as I have read The Aeneid many more times in the interim and my appreciation only grown. Also, I really appreciate that Aeneas is a genuinely good guy and that Lavinia loves him truly and is loved by him truly in return.
View all my reviews
The Little Book of Perfumes: The Hundred Classics by Luca Turin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As always, Turin and Sanchez's reviews are as interesting as the perfumes themselves, like poems or paragraphs lifted from the best kinds of personal essays or sometimes like incredibly interesting snippets from chemistry papers. I enjoyed seeing their top 96 perfumes (the last four are "museum" perfumes that are not available for general consumption), and I really enjoyed seeing how many of them I had smelled. The answer: lots! Of course, tons of their favorites are Guerlain, so a lot of the time I was not on board. But my all time favorite, Chanel Sycomore, made the cut, so all is forgiven.
View all my reviews
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
My husband is a huge Scalzi fan; I think we have just about everything he's written, but I hadn't read any of his fiction until this book. I fell in love with Scalzi's writing through his blog. I stumbled on it somehow a couple of years ago and became fond of his public persona: his love for his wife (the man is seriously gone for this woman, and it is so endearing to behold) and daughter (who also makes interesting posts to his blog), his love for his animals (if you need to cry, go read his eulogy for his cat posted in 2022, I think; it is one of the most beautiful tributes to a beloved pet I've read), his liberal politics, the way he uses his clout as an established writer to help up and coming writers (for example, several times a week, he hosts other writers on his blog who post about their new books), his lack of patience with a subset of sci-fi and fantasy writers who do not want women and people of color and LGBTQ+ sullying their pristine nerdosphere. I don't know John Scalzi, and all I will ever know of him is the public persona he cultivates, but he strikes me as a very decent, earnest guy--the kind of guy we need more of in the public landscape.
I'm glad this book was my entry into Scalzi's fiction. It's just plain fun. It's a quick read, and it's a good time from start to finish. I don't want to spoil what happens, but it's full of characters you root for, genuine laugh out loud moments, excellent pop culture references, and despite the fun some moments of genuine tension and peril and also good introspection. I hope Scalzi comes back to this world because I would happily read hundreds more pages of the KPS.
View all my reviews
executrix. More poetry! *swoons*2. I got the EOB for my surgery and for Emma's lumbar puncture. My surgery cost 25K and Emma's procedure 6K. WTF, yall? Our health care system is so fucking gross. I mean, we're only paying 1400 for my surgery and 500 for Emma's procedure, but damn. 6K to stick a needle in her back and pull it out again? And that's not the price for the pathology shit of either. I already paid the pathology bills which were like 185 for mine and like 35 or something like that for her. This is why poor people in our country just die. I am so grateful we have good insurance.
3.
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le GuinMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This reminds me a great deal of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad--very meta-textual, very fourth wall-breaky. I am always so pleased when the women who get to say very little (Or nothing in Lavinia's case) are given a story. Highly, highly recommended. I could drown in UKLG's words no matter the subject, so perhaps I am a bit biased.
2022 reread: still as wonderful as the first time I read it, possibly more so as I have read The Aeneid many more times in the interim and my appreciation only grown. Also, I really appreciate that Aeneas is a genuinely good guy and that Lavinia loves him truly and is loved by him truly in return.
View all my reviews
The Little Book of Perfumes: The Hundred Classics by Luca TurinMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
As always, Turin and Sanchez's reviews are as interesting as the perfumes themselves, like poems or paragraphs lifted from the best kinds of personal essays or sometimes like incredibly interesting snippets from chemistry papers. I enjoyed seeing their top 96 perfumes (the last four are "museum" perfumes that are not available for general consumption), and I really enjoyed seeing how many of them I had smelled. The answer: lots! Of course, tons of their favorites are Guerlain, so a lot of the time I was not on board. But my all time favorite, Chanel Sycomore, made the cut, so all is forgiven.
View all my reviews
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John ScalziMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
My husband is a huge Scalzi fan; I think we have just about everything he's written, but I hadn't read any of his fiction until this book. I fell in love with Scalzi's writing through his blog. I stumbled on it somehow a couple of years ago and became fond of his public persona: his love for his wife (the man is seriously gone for this woman, and it is so endearing to behold) and daughter (who also makes interesting posts to his blog), his love for his animals (if you need to cry, go read his eulogy for his cat posted in 2022, I think; it is one of the most beautiful tributes to a beloved pet I've read), his liberal politics, the way he uses his clout as an established writer to help up and coming writers (for example, several times a week, he hosts other writers on his blog who post about their new books), his lack of patience with a subset of sci-fi and fantasy writers who do not want women and people of color and LGBTQ+ sullying their pristine nerdosphere. I don't know John Scalzi, and all I will ever know of him is the public persona he cultivates, but he strikes me as a very decent, earnest guy--the kind of guy we need more of in the public landscape.
I'm glad this book was my entry into Scalzi's fiction. It's just plain fun. It's a quick read, and it's a good time from start to finish. I don't want to spoil what happens, but it's full of characters you root for, genuine laugh out loud moments, excellent pop culture references, and despite the fun some moments of genuine tension and peril and also good introspection. I hope Scalzi comes back to this world because I would happily read hundreds more pages of the KPS.
View all my reviews
