Another One

This one has a cat in it. :D

Not Exactly Food Porn

I can't stop watching these:

They're from China, so I have no idea what's happening most of the time, but they're just so beautiful.

What I'm Reading

Kate Atkinson, Transcription

All y'all know I love Kate Atkinson, who wrote one of my top-ten favorite books of all time, Life After Life. So I was very eager to read her new novel, which is another novel that looks at WWII and its effect on people in England. This one is about a woman who works for British intelligence during the war, helping to run a kind of a sting operation in which Nazi sympathizers and pro-Nationalist people are suckered into meeting with intelligence officer -- they think the officers are working for the Gestapo. It's not a bad novel, mind you. It has some nice moments, and it's well enough written. But it's just an okay book, not the brilliant book I have come to expect from Atkinson.


Virginia Bergin, Who Runs the World

This book won the Tiptree Award in 2017, so of course I'm interested. It's a post-plague novel, which I'm always up for. In this one, a virus killed off most of the men about sixty years before the story opens. The surviving men live in preserves, sanctuaries; the population has plummeted; women are working to save what remains of civilization.

The book is told mainly from the point of view of River, a fifteen year old girl who wants to be an aeronautics engineer, working with planes and (she hopes, someday) space flight. Traveling home with a load of apples, River finds an injured boy on the road. Any boy outside of a sanctuary dies of the virus. But this boy doesn't. What now?

The best part of this is the world-building -- what might a world made by women and run by grandmothers look like?



Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor

Colson Whitehead is one of the best writers working America today. If you haven't read his Underground Railroad, what are you waiting for?

As opposed to other books I've read by Whitehead, this one is neither speculative fiction nor magical realism. It's the story of one summer in the life of a young man and his friends in the Hamptons. The little town of Sag Harbor is summer colony built by upper-middle class black families, who have been coming to Sag Harbor for generations. Benji -- or Ben, as he wants to be called -- is the child of one such family.

If I was going to put this into any category, I'd call it a coming-of-age novel. But really it is more like a memoir. Told in a series of chapters that read more like interlinked short stories, the novel explores Benji's memories of an experiences in his community. Most of the novel deals with life on the island, though we do get brief references to Benji's life back in the city.

The strength of this novel is Whitehead's writing. Nothing much ever really happens, except Benji and his brother and his friends moving from childhood to adulthood, over this one summer; but Whitehead's writing keeps us engaged.


Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Hank Green in one-half of the Green brothers. He and John Green are famous for their YouTube channels, and John Green, of course, is famous for his YA novels. This is Hank Green's first novel.

It's science fiction, sort of, in that it's about an extraterrestrial multidimensional robot who is sent to Earth in order to see if humans are ready for galactic civilization (more or less). But it is mainly about social media and the power of social media to create and to destroy, to shape the world, in good ways and terrible ways.

It's told from the POV of April May, a young graphic artist whose spur-of-the-moment YouTube post happens to go viral. April and her best friend Andy, who films the YouTube post, are dumped into a maelstrom of fame and fortune, which only becomes worse as April discovered (through crowd-sourcing, mostly) that the subject of her video is an alien artifact.

Hank Green knows all about being media famous, and about the power of social media to help as well as to harm. So that part of this book is really good. He also knows how social media, fame, and fortune work. That part of the book is also really good. The plot, however, is a bit weak. The alien artifact robot is an obvious MacGuffin to hang this story about social media/fame on, is what I'm saying. If you don't mind that, you'll like this book.


Emily Griffin, All We Ever Wanted

This one is also about the power of social media to destroy. Our narrator, Nina, is a member of the "obscenely rich," married to a tech millionaire. She and her son and husband live in that level of society where wealth isn't even an issue -- they have so much money that they can't spend it. Her son, at one point in the story, spends a thousand dollars on something, without even letting his parents know, much less asking their permission. Nina barely registers this act.

The plot concerns the son post a picture of a younger girl (he's 17, she's 15) on social media, a picture taken while the girl was passed out at a party. The son denies posting the picture -- he says another girl did it. Now the son is at risk of being expelled from his tony academy and perhaps losing his place at Princeton.

I would have liked this book better if (a) I had cared about any of the characters and (B) if Griffin hadn't written it like a romance novel. I mean, WTF.


Pamela Dean, The Secret Country

I love Pamela Dean, yet somehow I had never read this book -- the first in a series, apparently. It's about four young cousins who inhabit an imagined world (a la the Brontes). One day two of them find magic swords, and they end up in this imagined world. To their chagrin, they now have to deal with the plot they invented. Killing kings is fine in fiction, but when you have to be the prince, it's much more horrific.

I don't like this one as much as Tam Lin, which is one of my favorite books, but it's very readable.


Dorothy Canfield Fisher, The Homemaker

Canfield Fisher is best known for writing Understood Betsy, which is one of my favorite children's books. I'd never read anything else by her, or even known that she had written anything else. This is an interesting novel about a man and a woman who are not suited for traditional gender roles. They are both miserable -- he working at his clerk's job, she being a homemaker -- until he is injured, and she has to earn a living, while he stays home with the kids.

And voila! She loves being a clerk, and is wonderful at it. Everything that made her a terrible homemoker and stay-at-home mom makes her an excellent clerk and later store manager. Everything that made him a terrible clerk makes him a wonderful stay-at-home dad.

This was published in 1924. What I can't believe is that we're STILL fighting these battles.



Nancy Springer, The Case of the Missing Marquis

This is a "chapter book," if you know that genre -- books aimed at beginning readers. It's one of series about the younger sister of Sherlock Holmes, who runs away and works as a detective after Sherlock and Mycroft decide to send her to a boarding school so that she can be turned into a decent young lady.

Each Enola Holmes book concerns a mystery, which Enola solves; there is also a great deal of social commentary, both about poverty in London and women's rights in the 19th century.

These are well-written, and if you like kids books you'll like them. If you know a kid who likes mystery novels, or Sherlock Holmes, they'll like these.

I'm in Love

Watch this. Now.

These Hard Times

Did we feel worse when Trump was elected, or do we feel worse now? Tough call.

There are things we can do. First, GOTV. And get your friends and neighbors out to vote, too.

Second, continue to resist. See Camestros Felapton on this point here.

Third, donate if you can -- the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Emily's List, to Democratic candidates running in contested seats. And if you can't donate (or even if you can) volunteer, speak out, make some noise.

Fourth, if you're a writer, or a musician, or a poet, or any sort of artist: keep doing your art. Poets, as Shelley told us, are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Trump and his snarling rabble seem important; but artists change the world in ways those filthy greedy assfaced motherfuckers never will.

Finally, don't despair, though despair seems a natural reaction. Trump isn't winning, no matter what his supporters believe. He's destroying, and that shit never lasts.

Rise up. Resist. Persevere.

My Cat (and my Book)

Both my cat Jasper and my book appear on today's File770!

Go here to see the post.

Jasper has a party to celebrate her fame

Kavanaugh and the Corruption of the GOP

Read this post at Nicole & Maggie's place, and call your reps.

Act like your rights depend upon it. Because they do.

So Attacked

I feel so attacked right now

Best Books of the 21st Century

This is an interesting list -- a lot of excellent books, and some really overrated ones. (Just FYI, I think anyone who thinks Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a good book should have their library card confiscated.)

When Did This Happen?

My kid is in a relationship, and I've been giving advice, sort of. Like, here's how relationships work, here's what you should do, here's what to expect.

This has made me think about how relationships work. Here's my list of the stages of relationships.

(1) You meet your prospective sweetie. At this stage, there is chatting and observation. We are feeling each other out. We are looking for information -- is this person decent? Do they have a bad temper? Do they like the sorts of things I like?

(2) You start doing things together -- eating meals together, going to movies and bookstores, taking hikes or whatever else you like to do. These are still "date-like" activities. They have definite boundaries, is what I'm saying.

(3) You begin hanging out for indefinite periods -- like all afternoon, or all day Saturday. You meet for lunch and then just keep hanging out together.

(4) You go grocery shopping together. You do laundry together. (These are BIG STEPS.)

(5) You spend entire weekends together -- either you stay at their place, or they stay at yours. Sex might start happening at this point, or maybe it was earlier, or maybe it's later. (Sex is important, but I don't think it's a major stage.)

(6) You move in together.

(7) You have a major fight, and figure out that your relationship can survive major fights. (This might happen before you move in together.)

(8) You meet one another's families. You figure out that you can stand their family, and they can stand yours. (It's better if you actively like one another's families, but meh, let's not count on this one.)

(9) You learn that you can put up with your sweetie's terrible habits. Like maybe they always leave their socks on the floor, instead of putting them in the laundry basket. Or maybe they never put away the milk. Or maybe they expect you to make all the medical appointments for both of you. Or maybe they expect you to kill the bugs that show up in the bathroom at midnight. In a perfect partner, you admit, these things could be changed. But in a real relationship, we cut each other slack.


Optional steps:

(10) You start talking about marriage, if you're the marrying sort.

(11) You start talking about kids, if you're the sort who wants kids.

(12) You have fights about money, if you're not wealthy.

(13) You buy each other personal items, like underwear or sanitary products.

(14) You realize you've been in a relationship with this person for over a decade

(15) Or two decades

(16) or LONGER

(17) You're an adult in a relationship. What the hell.

Sunday Links

Like many people with any sort of empathy or any sense of justice, I'm having a rough week. Some of my students have asked me how we can vote the GOP out of the Senate and the House. Sadly, in Arkansas our options are limited -- we don't have a senator up for election, and only one of our House Reps is up for re-election. Still, we do what we can.

Meanwhile, have some links:

If you need to know more about your own elections, this is a useful site.

"I wondered why, if what girls had between their legs needed to be so closely guarded, we were the ones to wear skirts."

Art for our time

#11 is my fav

The future of space travel

Men fear witches and burn women

My hero

This is accurate:

I'm liking Matt Baume a lot these days:

And this is nice

Endless Burning Anger

So, like many of you, I've been dealing with the GOP and their fawning worship of Kavanaugh.

A black man who gets angry when he is accused and shouts or screams? And so the police shoot him down? Why, what else did he expect?

A woman who dares -- ever -- to shout and scream and cry when accused? Or, hey, when she's being examined as a witness? Hysterical bitch who can't be trusted in power.

Children who cry or scream? They need a beating, obviously. They need to be put in their place.

But a white privileged straight guy who screams and threatens and cries in rage? Hey, that guy is amazing. That guy deserves a seat on the court that will decide the fate of every woman and child in the nation. That guy is a hero.

Why are conservatives -- especially religious conservatives -- reacting this way? It seems pretty clear to me. They love angry daddys who will punish bad children and keep those bad children in their place. They worship hierarchy, that Great Chain of Being, and they want Angry Daddy to keep everyone -- especially those brown and LGBT and girly people -- in their places.

This mystifies those of us who are interested in equality and justice. We don't want a country where one set of people (rich white straight men and their near kin) are treated with respect and given rights, while everyone else is abused and mistreated. We want what we were promised -- a more equal country, liberty and justice for all.

And so when we see the conservatives fawning and squeeing over someone who opposes all of that, especially when they're doing so because he pitched a tantrum, well, yes, we find those conservatives pretty deplorable.

What can you do? Nicole & Maggie have some suggestions.

Performative Reading

Ho, this is legit.

-- If you are a humanities professor, you say something that is clearly pleasure-reading, but at least vaguely cerebral. Witty mysteries about British academics are good, or the sort of science fiction that doesn't have aliens on the cover.

-- If you are a university administrator, you say that you are reading the university Common Reading book, or something by one of the writers who will be visiting for the Writers' Symposium in October. Either way, it is very interesting and you are enjoying it very much. 

Here's a Mystery

What is up with reliable scholars and otherwise intelligent people who cite The Daily Mail like it's a reliable source?

I mean, I don't expect everyone to understand how to evaluate evidence. But clearly someone who is educated should be able to do so. Surely someone who makes their living as a scholar should be able to do so.

Is this ignorance, or is it malicious? (Why not both!)

World Science Fiction

So I'm teaching a course in World Science Fiction next semester.

These are the books I'm making them buy:

Joanna Sinisalo, The Core of the Sun 

ISBN-13: 978-0802124647

Grove Press

Jo Walton, Thessaly (or The Just City) 

ISBN-13: 978-0765332660

Tor Books

Octavia Butler, Bloodchild 
ISBN-13: 978-1583226988

Seven Stories Press

N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky 

ISBN-13: 978-0316229296

Orbit

In Other Lands, Sarah Rees Brennan

ISBN-13: 978-1618731203

Big Mouth House

The Other Half of the Sky, ed Athena Andreadis

ISBN-13: 978-1936460441

Candlemark & Gleam

I'm also having them read a couple of online manga/webcomics (not the entire series, just chapters) and showing them a couple of movies. The movies aren't decided yet, but I'm thinking Snowpiercer and Train to Busan might be among them.

Thoughts? I'm especially up for short story and movie reccs.