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Saturday, June 14th, 2008
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11:24 pm - The Savage, David Almond and Dave McKean
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The book I was most excited to see in store today was The Savage, by David Almond, and illustrated by Dave McKean. Me being the ginormous McKean fangirl that I am*. It's a graphic novel, format-wise quite similar to Isobelle Carmody's Dreamwalker, illustrated by Steven Woolman (I know, I know, which won't mean anything to most people, but it's a great book). There's the story, and then there's the story within the story.
In Dreamwalker, the protagonist is illustrating a comic book based off a nightmare; in The Savage, he's writing a story, as part of a way of dealing with his father's death. In both, some pages have panels, some are simply illustrated text. In both, what's been written turns out to be not-just-a-story - the protagonists interact with their characters, and finish the story together.
Asides from the structure and the format, the tales don't have much in common though. (I got sick of saying 'story'.) In The Savage, the protagonist, Blue is writing about a wild boy, unconstrained by society, but also having to learn love. And as the boy does so, Blue is able to come to terms with his father's death, and to come closer to his remaining family. Also, the Savage scares the hell out of the boy who bullies him.
I'm sure the librarians and teachers will have great fun with this 'sophisticated picture book', for it is ripe for dissection. Because, you know, it has issues. (The Dreamwalker has themes, but not issues.)
It has 'issues', but I won't hold that against it. It's a story well told, and sympathetically illustrated - the adults tell Blue that the bully is really trying to hide his own weakness and insecurities, as you do, but in McKean's illustrations you can see that. And are just plain gorgeous besides, perfectly toned for the story. The palette might be melancholy greens-and-blues, but it's not at all angsty. Instead it's sensitive and affecting, and beautifully presented. Lovely.
* I bought a book about ninja cats simply for his illustrations. Turned out to be a very good book about ninja cats, and I bought the sequel not-just-for-the-illustrations. Varjak Paw FTW!
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11:05 pm - The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness
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Last time I was at work with Kim, she was reading The Knife of Never Letting Go, and she was impressed. Today at work it had actually come out, and Kim told us that we should all read it. (It was a nice day at work, today. The bosses were away :p)
It was a bit awkward getting into it, stylistically, but when it had me hooked, it had me hooked. It's exciting. And interesting. There's plenty of stuff to think about, and like my favourite science fiction, it's got an idea at the seed of it that's intriguing. And we get to see various ways of it playing out - some more tragic than others.
I don't want to spoil anything, because the story keeps its secrets so well, and you want to be suprised. The only thing I wasn't so happy with was the ending - it's a quite shocking change, and I'm almost angry at it. It's an ending that says there's going to be a sequel (as opposed to simply being abrupt but natural). In fact, I think I would have preferred it to have ended half a chapter earlier, and not given me that unpleasant shake, whilst still being a satisfying ending.
So I'm a bit annoyed, but really, I enjoyed the book so much I'm not going to hold it against it, and I'm going to recommend it to everyone, and I'll sit here impatiently waiting the second.
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| Thursday, June 5th, 2008
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6:03 pm - books books
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| Sunday, June 1st, 2008
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1:37 pm - Book aimed at getting kids outdoors without ignoring girls!
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Yesterday, we received a reader for a book called 'How to Eat a Huhu Grub', by Nick and Conrad Turzynski. It's an outdoorsy type book, with advice about bush survival and knife upkeep, guides to identifying native birds, trees, and fish, and activities like bottle rockets and making paper from sheep dung. The publisher's description calls it a Kiwi version of 'The Dangerous Book for Boys' but for me it has a clear advantage above being New Zealand-specific: it's not gendered.
It is such a nice change, after such titles as 'The Outdoors Book for Adventurous Chaps' and 'Boy Mechanic' to have a book that could've gone the boys-only route but didn't. Asides from being fun, it also turns out that things like knife care really are useful to know. Even if the most commonly used component on my leatherman is the file...
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| Saturday, May 24th, 2008
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10:01 pm - Battlestar Galactica 2.10 - Pegusus
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| Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
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6:21 pm - No, book, no!
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I have nearly finished reading In Search of Ancient New Zealand, a pop-science type geological history by Hamish Campbell and Gerard Hutching. It's easy enough to read that I've put up with the poor prose, and the fact it really could have done with another proofread. But. Talking about the Last Glacial Maximum as it occured in New Zealand:
Glaciers would have certainly formed on the major North Island volcanic cones of Ruapehu, Tongariro and Taranaki, but subsequent climatic warming and volcanic eruptions have erased the geological memory of any glaciers. There is no evidence.
And now I can't trust anything this book says. Indeed, I threw a hissy fit at it. Because not only are there still glaciers on Ruapehu (albeit very small ones), but there is certainly evidence of glaciers. I was looking at it last weekend! But now I know what fools we were, thinking those were lateral moraines we were climbing up. I'm sure my glaciologist lecturer will be very disappointed when I tell him. I may as well not do my mapping project, being as we clearly imagined the whole thing.
What the hell, book? Really, if I'd been further than 10 pages from the end of the damn thing, I'd be throwing it away in disgust.
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| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
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10:13 pm - Most relaxed field trip ever
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So, last weekend I was on a geology field trip up to the Central Plateau. Which, unlike every other field trip I've been on, was actually quite relaxing. We didn't have to do work in the evenings! It makes an amazing difference to stress levels. Although the trip to the hot pools probably helped too.
On Saturday night then, most everyone was drinking. Some of them were still drunk in the morning. I, instead, had a very intense debate with one of the boys in my class, Ben. I'm not even entirely sure what we were debating most of the time, but the point that got me all worked up was when he told me women are more emotional than men, that this is scientific fact.
For context: I had been talking about my anthropology lecturer who told us that female anthropologists are all ethnocentric (more so than men). This is so because they are all studying gender. It annoyed me to no end (and one girl actually walked out).
So when Ben says to me, bitter sexist anthropology lecturer is right, I am immediately on the defensive. First, he is telling me that my work is never going to be as good as a man's, because I am a woman, and I am too emotional. (I am quite sensitive about this because I do tend to be an emotional person, and I am not comfortable with it. I don't see how it affects my work though). Second, he is telling me that my feelings towards the lecturer's statement are not justified; I am over-reacting. He is not saying either of these things, but that is how it reads.
Being on the defensive, I wasn't arguing as well as I could. I wanted to know how they could have really proven such a thing, how you can take socialisation out of it. Rather than saying, even if they have proven this, I bet it's on bell curves that overlap very closely - the average might be different, but you can't say anything about any one person based on such statistics. Rather than saying, which emotions are you talking about?
He might've felt confident telling me he wasn't particularly emotional, but see, it sure sounded that way when he'd been describing to me how he liked riding his motorbike. There are stereotypically male emotions as much as stereotypically female ones: you get the anger and ambition associated with testosterone, while us ladies get the sympathy and sadness and love. Maybe each sex is more susceptible to different chemicals, but I will not accept that women are more emotional than men. More emotionally expressive, yes. But that's a socialisation thing.
(Oh, for Heian Japan, where men were supposed to be sensitive and cry a lot, and it was bad manners not to cry when someone told you something sad. I would've done awesome.)
It was actually fun, though I do wish I had used my better points. Scaring people by debating really intensely with them is great. I don't know if he thinks he upset me or not? ( I more couldn't stop thinking about it from an intellectual perspective, an is my position justified perspective.) But I'd already astounded him that night, with the revelation that I don't see pictures in my head. I am just a total freak, really.
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| Thursday, April 10th, 2008
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10:12 pm - Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service = A-OK
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So, I got the first volume of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service today. And, my gosh, if it isn't just as good as everyone said. I looked at it in the first place because I'm a sucker for a nicely presented comic, and when I found Graphics actually did have it in, I snatched it up today.
It had me from the first episode. Zombies! Creepy and hilarious! (Probably not the sort of thing you want to be reading around other people, because your facial expressions get interesting.) I have decided I must inflict it upon everyone and anyone who doesn't run away fast enough.
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| Monday, April 7th, 2008
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11:07 am - Naruto is a total angst-fest.
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Often, I will decide on my favourite character in a series before I read or watch it. Mello, for example, in Death Note, or if we go way back, Ken in Digimon. (I also have a thing for fucked up boy geniuses with inferiority complexes.)
My bosses' daughter is rather into Naruto. And I guess I'd seen it referenced enough that when she was showing us her trading cards*, I was able to point at Gaara and say, "I like him." Except that I would've been referring to him as 'the sand boy'.
This weekend I read volumes 11-16 (Mum had bought them for the library - I hadn't actually read beyond volume 4). I read the first half of that on Saturday night.
Wow, I thought. Why didn't Kate tell me Gaara was a psychopath? I'll have to take that up with her next week.
Then on Sunday I read the rest. Oh my gosh, does Naruto have the angstiest backstories or what? Yow. It was sad. I kind of have trouble following everything, what with not having read a whole chunk, but Gaara as a little kid was incredibly effecting.
Anyway, I'm reassured my favourite-character-meter is not totally off.
* She says she's not a complete geek because she doesn't actually play them. Um, whatever you say, dear.
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| Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
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9:22 pm - What is with comics, and their frenetic use of emphasis? Let's find out!
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( Reading for March )
I am so sad, Eternal Sabbath #4 arrived on Saturday, but #3, which I ordered at the same time, has yet to come. Alas, because I am really liking that series.
Months are long. And yet I have finished one book in the last ten days? What have I been doing with myself! Probably thinking about rocks. Or writing poetry about rocks. Or poetry about poetry...
I also wrote a letter! There was an article in the NZ Book Council magazine about italics. And, oh fool, the author thought she would talk about the mysterious multitude of italicised words to be found in comic books. The article was 'Slanted and Enchanted', by Ashleigh Young. I wrote this explanation because she stated she couldn't find a reason for the prevalence of these 'italics'. Well, you're not going to get far with the wrong word.
( All about bold lettering! )
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| Monday, March 24th, 2008
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8:01 pm - Finally started watching Battlestar...
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Asides from eating chocolate all weekend, we also finally watched the Battlestar Galactic miniseries, which William lent me ages back, but was intimidating in its three hour long-ness. I am very glad I watched it, and did not just go to bed.
( Here I ramble. A lot. )
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| Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
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10:04 pm - if only I weren't so cheap, I would've just bought the CDs in the first place
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I am probably killing my record player playing a bent record. I don't think I would've noticed except that the needles bobbing up and down... I really need to get all the Cure albums on CD, because every so often I need to geek out and play them again. I can't play the music videos anymore either, because they're only on tape and we no longer have a VCR!
Oh, technological progress. And of course it would only actually skip-and-repeat on my favourite song.
This is the latest lot of Mello drabbles... One Amazing Thing is inspired by an EE Cummings poem (Sweet Spring). Which is not my favourite EE Cummings poem, but it's up there. Who needs a one word prompt when you can turn it into a whole poem? And M, Not the Famous Detective probably only makes sense if you've read Another Note.
( One Amazing Thing - prompt 2, spring )
( And Then There Was One - prompt 13, decisions )
( M, Not the Famous Detective - prompt 19, famous )
( Just Nightmares - prompt 37, monsters )
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| Sunday, March 16th, 2008
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12:37 pm - Many Waters - Madeleine L'Engle
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I finished re-reading Many Waters again last night. It's one of my favourite books; I used to get it out again and again from the public library before I ever found my own copy. It is the 'third in the Time Quartet', which is the sort of chronological ordering that annoys me - it was written in 1986, the others in 1962, 1973, 1978 - they're all very spread out.
This is probably the most Christian of any of her kid's books - but then, it is a retelling of the story of Noah's Ark, when Sandy & Dennys mess with one of their father's tessering experiments and get transported back to Noah's time. I think it was less strange to read that when I was younger, and less pagan, and hadn't been studying geology at uni for two years. I have no difficulty accepting seraphim and nephilim and virtual unicorns.
It's more when one of the seraphim comments that this is a younger sun than what Sandy & Dennys are used to - and whilst strictly that's true, a few thousand years is a negligible timespan in the life of our sun. So the idea that the age of the sun would make a difference irks me.
( Read more... )
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| Friday, March 14th, 2008
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8:45 am - 50 drabbles prompts 'need' and 'sinful'
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I have a whole bunch of these written that just need to be typed up. Typed up, and, you know, cut brutally down. I am not very happy with how that went for 'Unrepenting', although it may just be I'm bitter I had to cut my favourite line.
Title: Should You Need Me
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: PG
Characters: Mello + Matt
Words: 100
A/N: Written for the ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif) 50drabbles challenge, table 2, prompt 39 - 'need'
( Should You Need Me )
Title: Unrepenting
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: PG
Characters: Mello
Words: 100
A/N: Written for the 50drabbles challenge, table 2, prompt 45 - 'sinful'
( Unrepenting )
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| Friday, February 29th, 2008
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9:27 pm - I'm not wordy, I'm loquacious?
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Today, I have been hard at work on my report for the Te Muna fieldtrip. I have now finished my Lithostratigraphy. It is almost three pages long, in a 10pt font. It is supposed to be 1-2 pages.
Oh, god. I suppose I can blame the imprecision of page counts? It all fits if I only make the font tiny!
See, I got the comment in my field notebook that I was too wordy. Which is true. I thought, hey, at least I'll write an ace report. Now I feel like I should be warning Cliff, "You ain't seen nothing yet."
So much for 'a very BRIEF summary report'.
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| Thursday, February 21st, 2008
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10:08 pm - Criminal Minds eps 2.19 & 2.21
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You know what's annoying? Trying to pay your bloody uni fees and, for no reason at all, the credit card transaction won't go through. Grr.
Criminal Minds tonight. Oh no, I just looked up the episode guide and only two left this season! However am I to fill my Thursday nights now?
( Open Season! )
My computer is kicking me off now, night night.
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| Friday, February 15th, 2008
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9:15 pm - more 50drabbles pieces
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8:20 pm - Watch Her Fall (a Death Note drabble)
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| Friday, February 1st, 2008
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8:22 pm - Reading for January '08
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( Fiction for January )
In the Night Garden was the best book I read this month. I knew it was necessary for me after ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) coffeeandink posted about its sequel. It is amazing, filled with stories within gorgeous stories, with invented mythology, and characters who choose to be monsters. Now I am waiting for In the Cities of Coin and Spice.
( Non-fiction for January )
The best non-fiction book was The Norton Classic Fairy Tales, mostly because it gave you several different versions of various tales all next to each other, and it was really interesting to compare them. Maria Tatar writes an introduction for each type of story, then you get versions of the story from different cultures, including a modern-day retelling for most. At the end of it, you have a bunch of essays by various fairy tale scholars - some of which I enjoyed, others that irked me. I'm not very big on Freudian interpretations, see.
It amused me to see the way in which the stories changed - particularly Little Red Riding Hood. When you know the version where the woodchopper rescues them (The Grimms' version), people say, ah, but originally there was no rescue (Charles Perrault). But here we have 'The Story of Grandmother' - which is a folk version on which Perrault's was presumably based - in which the girl tricks the wolf, and rescues herself. Score!
And next to these, two modern retellings, in which Red Riding Hood is not conned by the wolf - 'she whips a pistol from her knickers', as Roald Dahl says (and you really should read that poem, and then this one).
A most worthwhile book!
( Manga for January )
Aside from the joy of more Nana, the most exciting manga for me was Eternal Sabbath. I liked the simplicity of the art, and the female scientest protagonist Mine, and how she related to Ryousuke, who is a genetically engineered being who can pretty much infiltrate himself into anything. Mine knows what he can do, and he knows she knows, but neither can do anything about it. I'm looking forward to reading more - and also pleased it's only eight volumes. I'm very bitter about all these series that run into the twenties.
( Comics for January )
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| Thursday, January 31st, 2008
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4:55 pm - Muse - 'Black Holes and Revelations'
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I listened to this album again yesterday, in the hopes that it had gotten better in the time since in came out. No such luck. It still fails to feel like an album to me, rather than just a collection of songs - and there's a whole bunch of them towards the end that are of so little effect that I can't even be bothered hearing them.
Now, I probably shouldn't critisise them for trying a new direction, but to many of the songs sound like bits from other bands, and I can pick a different influence for every song. Muse already had a sound, and it seems telling to me that this album got the best reviews from people who, previously, didn't like them.
I like the last song, and maybe the first four songs. I especially like 'Starlight', which seems to me as if it is about the effects of time dilation on human relationships. But you probably have a different interpretation. Sadly, few of the lyrics are sufficiently oblique for my tastes. But that's just me; I prefer metaphors to bluntly making a point, when it comes to songs.
Probably it's the songs that talk about space I like most. Because I am a geek.
So, sorry album, I really wanted to like you, but I think I'm going to have to just pick and choose.
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