January Books
Feb. 20th, 2009 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeJanuary
Cheer! - Kate Torgovnik
Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld
Lady Audley's Secret - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
All the Sad Young Literary Men - Keith Gessen
Nation - Terry Pratchett
The Abbey Girls - Elsie J Oxenham
Between Mom and Jo - Julie-Ann Peters
A Little Love, A Little Learning - Nina Bawden
Cheer! was brilliant. It's like Bring It On, but as journalism. She followed three teams through a year before different major competitions. It's a bit weird in places (the black women get described as "coffee-coloured" and the like quite a bit), and she doesn't really look at some of the things that interested me in depth, like the very thin parameters of sexuality allowed the women. Apart from emphasising the utter manliness and strength of the boys, she doesn't really touch on non-hetero sexualities. One of the teams she followed was an all-girl team, and it was really interesting to see how differently they were treated than the coed teams (less funding, assuming that girls can't do stunts, getting the less talented team members).
I started Prep about a year ago, stopped somehow and took it up again at the start of the year. It was good, but quite distant. I don't feel any great attachment to the characters, and I don't think that that would be any different if I'd read it straight through. I think it's partly that I read it because it's set in a boarding school, and I am mostly interested in girls' schools, and British ones at that.
Lady Audley's Secret was quite great, if very sensationalist. All the Sad Young Literary Men was mostly quite forgettable.
Nation was lovely. I had seen Terry Pratchett speak about it at the Book Festival last year, so I got to have the memory of him singing to us when I was reading about the rewriting of the hymn. There's apparently going to be an adaptation of this at the National Theatre later this year, which I'm not sure about. I don't think that Pratchett's books necessarily transfer very well out of the written word, but the story was lovely. I'd be interested to see what they did with the set. Hmm.
The Abbey Girls was a reread that was supposed to start of a reread of the whole series before I sell them, but it turns out that I don't actually like the Abbey Girls. They are dull, and obsessed with country dancing, and their adults are rubbish. I don't care about the Abbey, and I don't care about the dancing, and I especially don't care about Joan. So I'm not going to reread them, and I just wish that I'd discovered I didn't want to keep the books at a time when people were more inclined to spend lots of money on girlsown. I don't even know prices at the moment.
Between Mom and Jo is a YA book about a boy whose mothers have split up. It is sort of an issuesy-book, but the issue isn't that he has gay parents, but about the way in which the split is handled. It was a really good, sad, sweet book.
A Little Love, A Little Learning was an accidental reread. I read it last summer but it ended up on my to be read pile by mistake and I took it away with me. It was well worth another look though - it reminded me a lot of The Fountain Overflows with the characterisation of the children, and the relationships within the family. The stepfather was wonderful, as were the descriptions of the parents' attempts to use modern methods.
Cheer! - Kate Torgovnik
Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld
Lady Audley's Secret - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
All the Sad Young Literary Men - Keith Gessen
Nation - Terry Pratchett
The Abbey Girls - Elsie J Oxenham
Between Mom and Jo - Julie-Ann Peters
A Little Love, A Little Learning - Nina Bawden
Cheer! was brilliant. It's like Bring It On, but as journalism. She followed three teams through a year before different major competitions. It's a bit weird in places (the black women get described as "coffee-coloured" and the like quite a bit), and she doesn't really look at some of the things that interested me in depth, like the very thin parameters of sexuality allowed the women. Apart from emphasising the utter manliness and strength of the boys, she doesn't really touch on non-hetero sexualities. One of the teams she followed was an all-girl team, and it was really interesting to see how differently they were treated than the coed teams (less funding, assuming that girls can't do stunts, getting the less talented team members).
I started Prep about a year ago, stopped somehow and took it up again at the start of the year. It was good, but quite distant. I don't feel any great attachment to the characters, and I don't think that that would be any different if I'd read it straight through. I think it's partly that I read it because it's set in a boarding school, and I am mostly interested in girls' schools, and British ones at that.
Lady Audley's Secret was quite great, if very sensationalist. All the Sad Young Literary Men was mostly quite forgettable.
Nation was lovely. I had seen Terry Pratchett speak about it at the Book Festival last year, so I got to have the memory of him singing to us when I was reading about the rewriting of the hymn. There's apparently going to be an adaptation of this at the National Theatre later this year, which I'm not sure about. I don't think that Pratchett's books necessarily transfer very well out of the written word, but the story was lovely. I'd be interested to see what they did with the set. Hmm.
The Abbey Girls was a reread that was supposed to start of a reread of the whole series before I sell them, but it turns out that I don't actually like the Abbey Girls. They are dull, and obsessed with country dancing, and their adults are rubbish. I don't care about the Abbey, and I don't care about the dancing, and I especially don't care about Joan. So I'm not going to reread them, and I just wish that I'd discovered I didn't want to keep the books at a time when people were more inclined to spend lots of money on girlsown. I don't even know prices at the moment.
Between Mom and Jo is a YA book about a boy whose mothers have split up. It is sort of an issuesy-book, but the issue isn't that he has gay parents, but about the way in which the split is handled. It was a really good, sad, sweet book.
A Little Love, A Little Learning was an accidental reread. I read it last summer but it ended up on my to be read pile by mistake and I took it away with me. It was well worth another look though - it reminded me a lot of The Fountain Overflows with the characterisation of the children, and the relationships within the family. The stepfather was wonderful, as were the descriptions of the parents' attempts to use modern methods.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 03:45 pm (UTC)I will probably do a list of everything I have at some point and post it, but if there's anything in particular you're looking for, let me know and I'll give you first offer on it.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 03:36 pm (UTC)I like Joan! As your journal isn't locked, I'll say nothing about the new group...
no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 03:53 pm (UTC)Yeah, the title's good but I wasn't much taken with the contents. I got it free from a bookswap though, so no harm done.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 08:16 pm (UTC)