> i have read <
dorohedoro - q hayashida
the complete stories - flannery o'connor

several things drew me to her writing, the language, the imagery, but what kept me thoroughly invested in her fictions and drawn to her as a writer and a thinker was her razor-sharp ability to cut through the chaff of american religion, specifically of the christian variety, and reveal its darkly glow from time immemorial. having grown up in a world, country, town, household that held certain truths to be self-evident, that leaked into the religious folds of my brain juices, i was quickly desensitized and sold a specific idea of what christian faith was, how it looked, smelled, what it would scream if you squeezed it just so... but it created what i think of as a very sterile textbook-y feel to something that, by its very nature, defied such a categorization. everything is neat, there are highlighted terms and copyrighted images that correspond to specific events,
christianity is difficult, to say the least, for so very many reasons. many of which you, my reader, may bring to the table unique from my own. but if there is one crime that i purport is most heinous from my churlish church-ish experience is the death of wonder. in an effort to combat the cold realism and age of reason that congregants perceived as a threat to their faith and, in-fact, well-being, they adapted the strange tongue of the marketeer, the iron walls of the rationalist, and the warped mask of the politician. "dinosaurs don't matter." "evolution is preposterous." "here are three concrete reasons that prove the existence of god." for the child reared in this pristine faith, there is no room for growth or query. the colors drain. o'connor tugs at the fray on this superficial religion, and what she proves is not that faith is fantasy, rather that we've intentionally blinded ourselves so that when we do find the face of god, we cannot see his disappointment.except that one,
please don't touch,
and don't bother,
"nephilim" cannot be found or explained in the appendix.
also, she's dead. that's the other reason i can't marry her.
the witcher (last wish, blood of elves) - andrzej sapkowski
there is a brand new show on the netflix called "the witcher". it is a modern day "xena warrior princess". it is a modern day "hercules: the legendary journey". i think! i don't know, i never watched those. but when i see the commercial, i am immediately transported to 1998, trying to find which channel nickelodeon has been moved to, and i stumble on a commercial with scantily clad men and women battling overdressed and overpainted orcs and elves and whatever. i feel a wave wash over me of something i would not understand until puberty began its cruel work years later. anyway, the witcher show is supposed to be great fun.
in 2015, the witcher 3 came out for pc's and xbox's and ps4's, and i sat irritably in my cramped room, stuffed into my tiny desk, staring at the claustrophobic corner that contained the milk-box-sized pc tower that i had and sweat about whether i could spare the $45 that gog.com had decided to charge for a copy of the witcher 3. it looked gorgeous, it was guaranteed to work 75% of the time (as any launch title from cd projekt red was prone to do), and it looked hornier than anything i'd played up until that point in time (even if you take fire emblem awakening into account). i bought it and it was great until my pc's ram petered out because the game was absolutely unstable for the first few months of its release. i was free, for now..
in the last month of 2018, i sat in the corner of a family christmas party in manhattan beach, my kindle gripped tightly in one hand while the other hovered over the "purchase" button for "the last wish: introducing the witcher by andrzej sapkowski" with much of the same intensity i felt in 2015. i bought it and it was great, though i only read about two pages before i was whisked away by family for the evening and wouldn't have a chance to check it out until the following year. i would also read "blood of elves" shortly afterward, and enjoy that as well. maybe some day i'll get around to playing the witcher 3... but i'm going to watch the show first, probably, maybe!
a canticle for leibowitz - walter m. miller jr.
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i cannot believe i got this wild version that a
canadian high school teacher saw fit to
publish with essay questions and
review questions?? now i HAVE to teach it.
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the sellout - paul beatty
this year i was robbed of the opportunity to attend a book club meeting for this book that would have had a nearly entirely white, female attendance. i think that if i had been able to experience that, then i would have had something scary and lovely to write here. but alas, i can only think of my goodreads review for this novel:
i loved everything about it. its humor, its style, its unrepentant demand for humanity. but what's more, i'm excited to see how this book continues to unfold for me. i know that in 20 years i'll still be having experiences that cause me to go, "oh, like the sellout."
i think it holds true. i believe i have yet to read a more frank discussion on black experience with talking about thinking about living in a racist america.
howl's moving castle trilogy - diana wynne jones

there there - tommy orange
good omens - neil gaiman and terry pratchett
i had not previously read anything substantial or novel by neil gaiman, but i had spent a number of books in the mind of terry pratchett, and the work that the two of them have come together to construct (in 1990) is made of light fantastic. the television series (written by gaiman!) is also quite lovely, too! a nice, light read that had me chuckling all the while. hyuck hyuck, hyuck... yeah that's about all i can say about that. i think one of the things i ended up enjoying about this so much was being able to engage with a humor that i was so scared of growing up: religious parody. it is wild how rife christianity is for parody with the long history it's had, so it was a bit of fun dabbling in that for a bit, too.
ender's game - arthur c. clarke

late bloomer - maré odomo

macbeth - william shakespeare & lord of the flies - william goulding
i taught both of these books in the year of our lord 2019 to over 80 sophomore students. this taught me a couple things, in turn:
- lord of the flies owns, hard, and it's better than heart of darkness.
- macbeth owns, hard, and it's actually good and not bad.

the conversations i had with my students, the good conversations we had, were never because of notes i took during a lecture in my undergrad, my grad school coursework, or even when my mentor teacher was leading by example. it was always when i took the time to listen to what they had brought to the table. kids aren't dummies, babies, or blank slates. they're individuals with complex lives that inform their unique perspectives and wild senses of humor (wild senses of humor), and they've got their own questions about the content that they're spending (or not spending) their time with, rightfully so. "macbeth" and "lord of the flies" gave me opportunities to speak to universal truths in literature and the lived experiences of my students. i was exhausted and had a sore throat at the end of every class session, but taking the time to really dive into the nitty-gritty of these novels at the behest of my wonderful children and their bizarre questions really helped me appreciate these works more and convinced me that, even if only for a short while, i would really like to continue to teach for these mountain-highs.
10 telltale signs that daddy's home - clickhole
as i read this aloud to a group of my closest friends, i laughed, i cried, i sobbed, my belly ached so bad that i couldn't breathe, my friends yelled at me, cursed me, physically assaulted me, and tried to wrench my phone from my hand... i highly recommend you do the same.
> i wanted to read/finish <
killing commendatore - haruki murakamisomething in me will not allow me to burn through this great, great novel. perhaps it is that i have exhausted haruki murakami's library of works. i saved this as an emotional fire hydrant to save me from the impending flames of unemployment, and even in the midst of these fires i cannot bring myself to read through the work in its entirety. i believe i live in fear of the day that i will have no more haruki murakami left to read.
the chrestomanci series - diana wynne jones
after finishing the "howl's moving castle" trilogy, i really wanted to dig in to jones' other works, the largest series of hers being the chrestomanci series. i began the first book and, though its timbre seemed a bit different from what i was used to previously, i know that i'm going to enjoy a lot of the same humor and wonder that i found in her other works. i have tabled it for my next panic attack.
the earthsea cycle - ursula k. le guin
it is a war crime that i have had the splendid bantam trilogy set that i've had for three years and i have only read the first book of this series. i frequently receive calls from anonymous parties at all hours making vague and specious threats regarding my fate if i don't clean up my act soon. but, and i need everyone to shut up right now so they can hear me when i say, i am a confirmed coward and will try to get to "the farthest shore" before the end of 2020.
dune - frank herbert
if you're going to read frank herbert's monolithic work "dune", do not do as i did and read it on the kindle. a work of this heft demands that you carry that weight and know the commitment you are embracing prior to your dallying through the pages. "oh, this is fun! it's very dense, i love how unwieldy it is at first... it does open up, yes?" the book does not lend well to the digital format beyond the occasional easy-access footnotes. i am utterly lost, i don't know my progress well enough to figure out how long its taken me to get to the vague point i'm at, and the work demands your full attention. maybe some day i will return.
desert solitaire - edward abbey
i love the hecking cover of this paperback. its imagery, its feel... it's a good-looking book. and there are scrawls inside too that i can make neither heads-nor-tails of. justin brown told me to read it years ago. i'd like to make good on that. but i am also a known coward.
king leopold's ghost - eric hochschild
when i was supposed to be reading something else, i was possessed by an ebook sale and purchased this to read instead. i had never been so transfixed by a piece of nonfiction in my life (even annie dillard took time for me to adjust to). i would like to finish this in the coming year, it is absolutely haunting and luminous.
ancillary justice - ann leckie
word is: there's a wild rock in this book.
the origin of satan - elaine pagels
hm.. kinda self-explanatory, but i'll include the subtitle: how christians demonized jews, pagans, and heretics. i also recommend episode 666 of "this american life" where pagels is interviewed by ira glass.
an acceptable time - madeleine l'engle
this is the final book in the wrinkle in time quintet, and i'm told that its enjoyment is fantastically manifold when read during samhain. so... i've got some time before i wind up what is one of my favorite young adult trilogies (i don't accept the 4th as canon, so,). also i want to try to read as seasonally as i can, if i can help it. it sounds... fun??
so, happy 2020, enjoy reading! later this weekend we will talk about movies and shows.
and, again, thanks.