January 2012
6 posts
Five for 2012
So, I’m doing the 95 books again this year but have switched to Goodreads for the main event to network the reading with some of the others doing the challenge. I’ll post my list here for those not doing Goodreads (I’m still not completely sold on it, myself - not being able to add books that haven’t been read by others on the site is a drawback for an ephemera geek) but...
4 tags
5. Down and Derby: The insider's guide to roller...
This book is a very readable introduction to the game of roller derby. It goes over the sport’s history in a fairly comprehensive way, describes how derby works and briefly explains the rules, and then looks at what it takes to play derby, and the various levels of involvement a person can have with the sport. It even has an appendix with brief discussions of depictions of derby in movies...
5 tags
4. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Good Omens is a lot of fun. The apocalypse is coming, and an angel and a demon decide to work together to try and prevent it. There are old prophecies and new teenagers determining the fate of the universe. The humour is tight, the use of irony really well done (and I am someone who feels irony has become cliche, and too often is a kind of shorthand for the author’s intellectual superiority,...
5 tags
3. Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen
I’ve been hearing about Sara Gruen for a while, and I do like horse books, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Riding Lessons seems like the adult version of the young adult series Thoroughbred by Joanna Campbell - terrible things happen, horse must rehabilitate woman, woman must rehabilitate horse, family farm is put at risk, horse-related crime, and some romantic entanglements to work...
6 tags
2. The Widows by Suzette Mayr
This book is awesome. Three elderly women decide to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel (constructed with the aid of modern science!). The Widows shifts through time between the plummeting barrel and the pasts of the three German women who ride in it.
Apart from a somewhat slow beginning, the action is expertly paced. Suzette Mayr fills her books with dark humour, and constructs characters that...
5 tags
#1. Cold Fire by Kate Elliot
Okay! I’m reviving the 95 books blog for 2012. I have no idea how many books I read in 2011, but now I’m done with grad school and I’ve got a job writing for a neurosurgeon. You can expect to see me review:
-fantasy books! -poetry! -books written by people i know! -the occasional science book! So to start: Cold Fire by Kate Elliot. This is the second book of a fairly enjoyable...
June 2011
1 post
Moved to GoodReads
I’ve become enamored of the GoodReads site, and so have moved my public reading over there, while taking control of my author page. I’ll post here also, but for my mini-reviews and to see where I’m at, visit my GoodReads page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/583427.Jonathan_Ball
Up to 60 now, which according to GoodReads puts me 18 books ahead of schedule. Here’s the...
April 2011
2 posts
31 – 40 of 95 Books
My next 10 books in the 95 Books Challenge for 2011:
31. The Inquisition Yours (Jen Currin)
I previously read Currin’s Hagiography, and this book is, to me, a great leap forward for Currin. Her surrealistic imagery seems more anchored and necessary — sometimes in Hagiography I found myself wondering if the poems would be substantively different if their images were interchanged. I...
Jonathan Ball's first 30
The fact is this, suckers — I don’t have time this year to review all of these books in detail. So instead, I’m mostly just going to list books, with maybe a note or two. But I do plan to write longer, more substantial reviews from time to time — maybe late, maybe never, some of these books will get more substantial reviews, which will show up here as they do. At least...
March 2011
2 posts
Handy Mandy's first 15
1. The Reef (Nora Roberts)
contains a witch, sex, shark attacks, pirate’s treasure, romantic drivel
2/5
2. Congo (Michael Crichton)
well researched story but the character with the most depth was the ape
4/5
3. Clockfire (Jonathan Ball)
fun yet scary book my favourite play was one called ‘acknowledgements’
5/5
4. A Dry Spell (Susie Moloney)
an intelligent read,...
2011 Starting Late
Ryan and I considered shifting the blog to another site, but have been too overwhelmed with work to do so, or to post, although we are still doing the 95 Books thing this year. I just read book 28 this morning. So this post stands as an announcement that the blog will become active again shortly.
In the meantime, I want to know who has been doing or is doing the 95 Books thing this year. Last...
January 2011
10 posts
Handy Mandy's 2010 reading list
Only read 50 books, but didn’t begin counting until July, so not a bad pace overall.
1. Walking Shadow (Robert B. Parker) 2. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) 3. ‘Tis (Frank McCourt) 4. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) 5. SeinLanguage (Jerry Seinfeld) 6. Bootleg (Damon Wayans) 7. Just After Sunset (Stephen King) 8. The Journey Prize Stories 20 [2008] 9. In the Lake of the Woods...
Handy Mandy catches up
39. Asthmatica (Jon Paul Fiorentino)
relatable tales who hasn’t masturbated with their mom’s vacuum?
5/5
*
40. Stripmalling (Jon Paul Fiorentino)
funny little book this guy writes for the masses and makes them crack up
5/5
*
41. white (rob mclennan)
halfway through this book I realized that I did not care about it
3/5
*
42. In the Dutch Mountains (Cees Nooteboom)
why is it...
Jonathan Ball's 2010 Reading List
2010 Reading List 1. Odd and the Frost Giants (Neil Gaiman) 2. Gutted (Evie Christie) 3. This Way Out (Carmine Starnino) 4. Unpublished Manuscript (Natalee Caple) 5. On Love and Death (Patrick Suskind) 6. Child of God (Cormac McCarthy) 7. The Book of Tea (Kakuzo Okakura) 8. The Age of Spiritual Machines (Ray Kurzweil) 9. Adaptation (Charlie Kaufman) 10. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman...
125-128 (Catching up... and done!)
124. How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing (Paul Silvia)
This is the best, most fact-based, practical book I’ve ever seen on writing productively, whether academically and creatively. I re-read it two or three times a year as a kick in the ass.
125. Reality Hunger (David Shields)
I would like to craft a longer post on this, but may wait until I eventually...
123. The Guardians (Andrew Pyper)
Still catching up on posts from last year (got to 128) … my review of Pyper’s latest novel was published in the Winnipeg Free Press.
— Jonathan Ball
My last two
I got all the way to 105, then called it quits, leaving me 5 books shy of my total for last year. That said there are a ton of books I read more than once and a handful that I came just shy of finishing. So a pretty good year overall.
Here are my last two. I won’t say much about them other than they are both worth checking out. Solid poetry from two great poets.
104. Fieldnotes: A Forensic...
So...?
Who’s in for 2011?
——————————
Also, I was planning to write about my experiences with the 95 Books Blog for an upcoming Lemon Hound post, but I am also very interested to hear from everyone else, especially from ryan and Jonathan as originators of the idea.
Here are a few prompts you may wish to answer but please do provide any...
Failure!
I was the desperate little caboose (with a giant caboose) trying to think his way to the top of the mountain….alas, alack. I failed. I spent too much time on the internets, likely, and not enough focused time inside a book. There’s always next year, yes?
My last three:
83. The Obituary by Gail Scott.
Like, fuck, yeah. Again. More. Again.
84. Revenge Fantasies of the Politically...
Final count: 80-something
So I stopped keeping track somewhere around August, but luckily I also stopped tidying the piles of books on my nightside table and on my book shelves around the same time, so I was able to remember all/most of the books I’ve read since then:
58. God of Missed Connections by Elizabeth Bachinsky
59. Dusie 10, The Canadian Issue
60. Cockroach by Rawi Hage
61. Neighbour Procedure by Rachel...
The last of the bunch
I had a lot of fun doing this this year and thanks to everyone for joining in the journey! Thanks especially to Jon and ryan for the idea in the first place!
83. Ink Exchange by melissa marr
This is a paranormal romance about fairies. It’s interesting cuz it uses a tattoo to connect a fairie with a human. More proof that fairies are the new vampire?
84. Ruined by Paula Morris
About a ghost...
4 tags
For fun: comics
Just the best hardcover and trade collections. Read way too many this year to actually form a complete list.
All-Star Superman Vol. 1 (Grant Morrison) All-Star Superman Vol. 2 (Grant Morrison) Batman R.I.P (Grant Morrison) Batman: Battle for the Cowl (Tony S. Daniel) Final Crisis (Grant Morrison)
Luthor (Brian Azzarello)
A look through the eyes of Superman’s nemesis. It stands out as one...
6 tags
Done. And not a moment too soon...
86. Dragon’s Eye (Anne McCaffery)
87. The Masterharper of Pern (Anne McCaffery)
88. Dragonsblood (Todd McCaffery)
I think Todd McCaffery might be a stronger writer than his mother. He gets less caught up in gender essentialism, in any case.
89. Graceling (Kristin Cashore)
Great young adult fantasy. Thanks for recommending it, Meghan. I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the...
December 2010
39 posts
giving it up
So…I haven’t picked up a book in a week. It’s Christmas. It’s my birthday. It’s NYE and I am, since the university locked me out of my office, on holidays. Eff it. Count me in for next year. the two or three titles I could add at this point won’t get me over the hump and I don’t even remember what they are.
January first I start fresh - congrats to JB...
4 tags
81. - 85. More Dragonriders of Pern (Anne...
81. Nerilka’s Story (Anne McCaffery) 82. Dragonsdawn (Anne McCaffery) 83. The Renegades of Pern (Anne McCaffery) 84. All the Weyrs of Pern (Anne McCaffery) 85. The Dolphins of Pern (Anne McCaffery)
Not much to say about these books. Good mindless sci-fi/fantasy reads. I think the one about Dolphins was my favourite, perhaps because it was the most unlike the others.
~Claire
Wuckin puh nub
70. The Location of Culture - Homi Bhabha
Picks up the threads left by Anderson and Fanon to build a model for resituating culture as both arbitrary and politically motivated, regardless of which side of the colonial debate you start from. Think of the stereotype in colonial discourse as “fetishistic, scopic, imaginary” (79) and you’re in for a ride.
71. Mrs. Dalloway -...
4 tags
80. Welling (Margaret Christakos)
Welling is the most lyric of Christakos’ poetry books, and it moves away from the exuberance of What Stirs. The poem “The Problem of Confessionality” is posted over at Lemon Hound. This is self-aware poetry, poetry that turns around to question itself. Welling is meticulous. As always, the language is bounty. The book is situated in Sudbury, exploring the variety of nostalgia and...
5 tags
79. Poets and Killers: A Life In Advertising...
Helen Hajnoczky has written a book of poetry that transforms advertisements into a poetic biography. The book succeeds most in the long poems, in my opinion, because it is in those longer poems where the craft of teasing a narrative out of the pre-existing texts tends to go in less obvious directions than the shorter poems, where both the ad and the story are clear. I was pleased that there were...
9 tags
96 through 103. (Caple through Eichhorn)
Here’s my next batch, leaving me seven books away from my personal goal of 110. I’m not going to talk about all of these, but they’re all worth checking out.
96. The Semiconducting Dictionary (Our Strindberg) - Natalee Caple
Rich and interesting, but I wish I knew more about August Strindberg since Natalee is clearly drawing deeply from his biography for her gender-bending...
More Fall Reading
63. Green Grass, Running Water - Thomas King
Coyote and friends and friends. King’s a great writer and this book is one I’ll probably come back to - I need to learn more about the role of water in this book - how it undermines authority (and cars) while perhaps moving ideas across translated space. Hrm. Maybe I am in the right line of work.
64. Woman Warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston
...
Fall Reading
So I’m switching now into stuff I read in the fall and later…note, I have to make a correction here. I realized that I counted Rita Wong’s Forage twice in the spring (numbers 17 and 23), probably because I read it twice and don’t pay close attention to what I’m doing when busy. To rectify that, I’ve switched down a number to start this post and compensate for...
2 tags
66. Scott Pilgrim (Bryan Lee O'Malley) →
I recommend Scott Pilgrim over at the Advent Book Blog (link’s in the title). Best book I read in 2010 (unless I read something better in the next 10 days).
-ryan
Reading List Continued
53. How to Write - Derek Beaulieu
A series of pieces entirely cribbed and plagiarised from other works. The pieces range from the surprisingly narrative “The Editor” in which Beaulieu uses sentences from another book that include the words “the editor” to a cheeky series that offers a bunch of interrogative questions on Tristram Shandy that could be applied to pretty much...
Summer Reading, Continued
So, I’m up to about August now and I finally started in on some of the reading for my field exams…
48. Ion - Plato
It’s been a while since I touched anything by Plato and was surprised to find that a) I hadn’t actually read this before and b) I really enjoyed it. Basically, Socrates runs in to a cool hep cat who works as a Rhapsode, performing Homeric classics....
5 tags
78. The Humbug's Diet (Robert Majzels)
A retirement home murder mystery with a sense of the ridiculous. The language of this book is sharp and meticulous. Morbid without melodrama. And what characters! Have I met another Claire in literature that I’ve liked? (I might have, but it’s 2:30am, so I’ll go with no.)
This was a one-sitting read for me. The pacing was just right. In fact, if I were to describe The...
More Summer Reading
As mentioned, I spent a good part of my summer travelling through India and avoiding my minor field reading list - which I brought with me on an eReader that I had great trouble charging reliably. Here are a few more titles from the travels:
41: The Ramayana: R. Narayan
Originally written by the poet Valmiki, this Hindu epic was one of the books I felt I had to read while travelling....
122. Seven Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges...
Though Borges strikes a compelling and articulate figure in these interviews, I found it difficult to get much out of them due to the emphasis on Argentine political and literary culture, both of which I know little about. At times the interviews read like a litany of Borges’s opinions on people I’ve never heard of before. At other moments they are a delight. Sorrentino is a clever,...
121. Sum (David Eagleman)
Subtitled “Forty Tales from the Afterlife,” Sum compiles 40 visions of the afterlife, making it structurally similar to Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams, and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, and *ahem* my own Clockfire. The premise contains an inherent danger — that each “vision” of the afterlife will be more saccharin than the last — but...
120. Talking About Detective Fiction (P.D. James)
E.M. Forster once wrote:
“The king died and the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot… . “The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.” This is a plot with a mystery in it, a form capable of high development. (Aspects of the Novel, qtd. in James...
119. Seven Nights (Jorge Luis Borges)
An excellent, slim volume collecting seven stunning lectures by Borges. Borges is an astute and complex reader, ranging widely within a single essay while staying on point. He defends Dante from Nietzsche’s remark that “Dante is a hyena making verses among the tombs” by comparing his plight with Job’s:
If Dante had always agreed with the God he imagines, it would have...
118. Neighbour Procedure (Rachel Zolf)
Although in some way I prefer Human Resources, Zolf’s newest book is a stunning examination of the language in and around the Israel/Palestine conflict. Notable not only for its depth and complexity, but also for its compositional process, as the book is crafted (I believe entirely) from found text. — Jonathan Ball
117. Unleashed (Sina Queyras)
I’m a fan of Sina and her poetry, but I’m not sold on Unleashed, which collects blog entries from a previous incarnation of her site Lemon Hound. I’m not convinced that blog entries ever need to be collected into a book — although I will admit that there is a certain way it’s interesting to read this “blog” in print, where the development and progression...
116. Catching the Big Fish (David Lynch)
A series of short meditations on film and artmaking and, unfortunately, meditation itself. Lynch might very well be the greatest living filmmaker, but he’s undoubtably lost his mind insofar as he’s joined the cult of transcendental meditationists, and his unfortunate zeal for transcendental meditation mars an otherwise fine book. Lynch is plainspoken and direct, not at all like his...
115. Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview & Other...
Whatever cash there might be to grab in the field of Bolano ephemera, this book attempts to grab that cash. After a strong introduction by Marcela Valdes, focused on Bolano’s epic novel 2666, the disconnected interviews proceed to arouse mild interest. The hyped “last interview” (with Mexico’s Playboy) consists of a bunch of nonsense questions and playful answers. At one...
114. The Certainty Dream (Kate Hall)
Surrealistic and lyrical, Hall’s poems are dreamlike and startling at their best. Line after line, Hall crafts fresh, sparkling images. My predilection is for bird poems, and Hall doesn’t disappoint:
a crow-bird held another bird I dropped them both … between the release and the impact time sounds like a bird strung over an abyss I tucked my tongue into him he was flat, he was...
37-40
So, I’m waaay behind on my posts…time for some filling in. Here’s the start, dating back to summertime. Word is, I still think I’ll make it!
37. Hyperion – Dan Simmons
Holy crap. This is the best sci-fi I’ve read in years, probably since the Otherland stuff by Tad Williams. Basically, imagine the Canterbury Tales retold only with the questors in search of the devil, who...
113. Bigfoot (Pascal Girard)
A coming of age story about youthful love and relationships wound around the tale of a possible Sasquatch sighting, starring poor “Disco Jimmy” (reluctant/unfortunate YouTube star). Extremely well-developed characters, especially Uncle Pierre, who’s obsessed with spreading the word about his Bigfoot sighting. Girard has a strong, understated style, though I admit to growing weary...
112. Wilson (Daniel Clowes)
Clowes paints Wilson in broad strokes, through a series of distinct strips (each page is a self-contained comic, with culminating “gag”) that together tell a continuing story (Wilson’s attempt to reconnect with his old lover and abandoned daughter). He’s a despicable, pathetic character, but uncomfortably recognizeable. Clowes ironizes the complex ambiguity of his story...
111. Masque (Rachel Zolf)
Although the least interesting of Zolf’s books, Masque remains an intriguing take on a tired genre — the “autobiographical novel” — as Zolf arranges fragmentary lines into a dramatic script for a family in crisis. Much of the text involves Zolf elliptically dramatizing her relationship with her father, famed journalist Larry Zolf, and examining the role of media in...
110. Indexical Elegies (Jon Paul Fiorentino)
Although I like JPF’s work, I’ve felt for a little while that he needs a change, needs to take more risks, needs to move away from his “loser” persona — and this is exactly the kind of book he’s needed to write, to add more dimension to his oeuvre. He takes the elegy and plays with its conventions without any superficial ironizing — these are affecting...