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Seen on Freecycle today: stuffed prating dog. Turns out it was a typo for “praying,” but I’d be into a prating dog, at least as long as I could turn it off.
Ilona Andrews, On the Edge: Rose lives on the Edge, in the gap between the world of magic and the mundane world; only some magic-users can cross between without horrific shock. Rose’s magic is unusually strong for an Edger, putting her in danger from those who’d like to use her to breed more warriors; she ekes out an existence supporting her two younger brothers (a changeling and a necromancer) and keeping her head down. Until one day a noble shows up at her door and bullies her into agreeing to a deal: if he succeeds at three challenges she gives him, she’ll be his. I’m conflicted! Declan, the enormous gorgeous noble guy, is a parody of the alpha male, ordering Rose around and insulting her and withholding information. On the other hand, Andrews does seem to know this, and lets Rose explain something about his privilege to him, and he eventually listens. But then he still does know best; I wanted him to grovel more—though given Rose’s circumstances, it’s not like I blame her for succumbing. Totally enjoyable, though I want to read more of the Magic series more than I need to know about this world.
Daniel Abraham, A Shadow in Summer: In this world, poets can literalize their poetry into slaves who have to do the poets’ bidding. Cities who control one of these beings have huge advantages both militarily and in trade—in fact, their presence protects a loose agglomeration of cities from being overrun by an expansionist nearby power. This book, first in a “quartet,” follows one boy who walks away from his training as a poet and one who doesn’t, along with a woman working for a major trade house associated with the expansionist power and her apprentice. It’s very engaging, with everyone ethically compromised; interesting worldbuilding and good palace intrigue.
David Suisman, Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music: This is a truly excellent book, seamlessly melding technological, social, and marketing histories, tracing the path that the music industry followed in the twentieth century, marking both the dynamism and the exploitation that characterized the industry. Suisman details how hits were made, giving a prehistory of payola that I never knew—there was a tradition of paying vaudeville etc. performers to sing particular songs to spur sales of sheet music. There’s a great chapter on the Black Swan label, an African-American-owned and -run music label, and why it ultimately went out of business. And every chapter is like that—some central concept like the use of performers’ images to sell records, with all its complexities in terms of economics, social effects, and political background explored, all feeding into the story of how music came to be ubiquitous in American life.
Tom McCarthy, Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment: Connecting ideals of masculinity, economic development, and environmental concern, McCarthy retells the history of the automobile in the US and thus the history of the US in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. There were a number of interesting bits, especially the clash of concepts of masculinity when the auto first came in (joyriding rich man v. salt of the earth without a car) and the way in which automakers saw “waste” as a problem, which did not always equate to environmental destructiveness.
Stephen M. Murphy, Their Word Is Law: Bestselling Lawyer-Novelists Talk About Their Craft: Question: what demographic characteristics do you need to avoid the question “How does your experience as [X] affect your writing?” I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count! Mostly I got the sense that the combination of lawyer and novelist tends to bring out the worst characteristics of both. Ulp.
Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island: Free LibraryThing Early Reviewer book. Parts of the book are quite engaging, and Boyes plainly sets out the small, intertwined community that made it so easy for a few powerful men to take over the country’s financial and political institutions and drive them first towards the sky and then into the ground. But overall, the book is not well organized, which is troublesome when you’re trying to explain the complicated maneuvers that led to the current mess. It sort of proceeds chronologically, but I never quite understood what was going on at any particular point. Somehow, money showed up and was spent, and then it was gone. Apparently, that’s how Icelanders feel, too.
Ilona Andrews, On the Edge: Rose lives on the Edge, in the gap between the world of magic and the mundane world; only some magic-users can cross between without horrific shock. Rose’s magic is unusually strong for an Edger, putting her in danger from those who’d like to use her to breed more warriors; she ekes out an existence supporting her two younger brothers (a changeling and a necromancer) and keeping her head down. Until one day a noble shows up at her door and bullies her into agreeing to a deal: if he succeeds at three challenges she gives him, she’ll be his. I’m conflicted! Declan, the enormous gorgeous noble guy, is a parody of the alpha male, ordering Rose around and insulting her and withholding information. On the other hand, Andrews does seem to know this, and lets Rose explain something about his privilege to him, and he eventually listens. But then he still does know best; I wanted him to grovel more—though given Rose’s circumstances, it’s not like I blame her for succumbing. Totally enjoyable, though I want to read more of the Magic series more than I need to know about this world.
Daniel Abraham, A Shadow in Summer: In this world, poets can literalize their poetry into slaves who have to do the poets’ bidding. Cities who control one of these beings have huge advantages both militarily and in trade—in fact, their presence protects a loose agglomeration of cities from being overrun by an expansionist nearby power. This book, first in a “quartet,” follows one boy who walks away from his training as a poet and one who doesn’t, along with a woman working for a major trade house associated with the expansionist power and her apprentice. It’s very engaging, with everyone ethically compromised; interesting worldbuilding and good palace intrigue.
David Suisman, Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music: This is a truly excellent book, seamlessly melding technological, social, and marketing histories, tracing the path that the music industry followed in the twentieth century, marking both the dynamism and the exploitation that characterized the industry. Suisman details how hits were made, giving a prehistory of payola that I never knew—there was a tradition of paying vaudeville etc. performers to sing particular songs to spur sales of sheet music. There’s a great chapter on the Black Swan label, an African-American-owned and -run music label, and why it ultimately went out of business. And every chapter is like that—some central concept like the use of performers’ images to sell records, with all its complexities in terms of economics, social effects, and political background explored, all feeding into the story of how music came to be ubiquitous in American life.
Tom McCarthy, Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment: Connecting ideals of masculinity, economic development, and environmental concern, McCarthy retells the history of the automobile in the US and thus the history of the US in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. There were a number of interesting bits, especially the clash of concepts of masculinity when the auto first came in (joyriding rich man v. salt of the earth without a car) and the way in which automakers saw “waste” as a problem, which did not always equate to environmental destructiveness.
Stephen M. Murphy, Their Word Is Law: Bestselling Lawyer-Novelists Talk About Their Craft: Question: what demographic characteristics do you need to avoid the question “How does your experience as [X] affect your writing?” I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count! Mostly I got the sense that the combination of lawyer and novelist tends to bring out the worst characteristics of both. Ulp.
Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island: Free LibraryThing Early Reviewer book. Parts of the book are quite engaging, and Boyes plainly sets out the small, intertwined community that made it so easy for a few powerful men to take over the country’s financial and political institutions and drive them first towards the sky and then into the ground. But overall, the book is not well organized, which is troublesome when you’re trying to explain the complicated maneuvers that led to the current mess. It sort of proceeds chronologically, but I never quite understood what was going on at any particular point. Somehow, money showed up and was spent, and then it was gone. Apparently, that’s how Icelanders feel, too.
