been reading

This year I’ve been do­ing a read­ing chal­lenge and all I did to­day was read – in or­der to fin­ish The Gold­en Com­pass – so I could get hyped for these new novels.

At­las Shrugged is in­tim­i­dat­ing for a mul­ti­tude of rea­sons (my first book over 1000 pages) and it seems like I have the next ten books I’ll be read­ing planned out, and that feels re­al­ly in­ter­est­ing for some­one who usu­al­ly has a lot of chaos in their life.

Here’s some of what I’ve tack­led so far:

The Gold­en Com­pass by Philip Pullman
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
Very love­ly book – read it ea­ger­ly and fin­ished it quick­ly and can’t wait to con­tin­ue the sto­ry. The con­cept of the dae­mons is su­per in­ter­est­ing – and I ap­pre­ci­at­ed how wide a breadth of feel­ing that the main char­ac­ter ex­pe­ri­ences. Also the de­scrip­tions of places, mon­sters and so­ci­ety in this book are ex­cel­lent – the world build­ing is top notch.

The ABC’s of LGBT+ by Ash­ley Mardell
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
This book is quite help­ful! I would rec­om­mend giv­ing it as a gift to any­one who’s ques­tion­ing their gen­der iden­ti­ty or cu­ri­ous about peo­ple with­in the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty. I read this book a few years lat­er than I need­ed it, but would def­i­nite­ly give it were peo­ple I knew ques­tion­ing. It was very help­ful for the au­thor to com­pile all of this in­for­ma­tion ^_^

Love Notes to Men Who Don’t Read by North Morgan
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ¹⁄₅
I was rec­om­mend­ed this book by some­one who I great­ly ad­mire, and read through the whole thing de­spite how painful it was to read. This read like a trashy ro­mance nov­el with­out any plot. This was only mar­gin­al­ly en­ter­tain­ing. Like a va­pid soap opera. There was not a page that didn’t say, „and then I went to the gym.“ If I was try­ing to be nice I would say that this is a short glimpse of a life and that his ex­pe­ri­ence was equal­ly valid, that peo­ple who are lone­ly and des­per­ate can find so­lace in the sol­i­dar­i­ty of this ex­pe­ri­ence. But … it was so pa­thet­ic to be sub­ject­ed to the main char­ac­ters per­spec­tive. He didn’t learn any­thing or show any pos­i­tive characteristics.

Le bleu est une couleur chaude by Julie Maroh
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
It was love­ly to see a por­tray­al of a les­bian re­la­tion­ship, yet so trag­ic. See­ing the de­pic­tion of Clementine’s fam­i­lies re­sponse to her part­ner was quite in­tense, and pret­ty re­al­is­tic. I near­ly cried read­ing the end of this. Read if you’re in the mood for some feels.

Nordic LARP by Jaakko Sten­ros, Markus Montola
FREE EDI­TION    AU­THOR    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
This an­thol­o­gy of LARPs was a great primer and now I have a lot more con­text on the var­i­ous games which have shaped the Nordic LARP­ing scene as it is now. Very in­sight­ful as far as ex­pos­ing the read­er to meth­ods and mech­a­nisms for how play was created.

Do An­droids Dream of Elec­tric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    5/5
This book is el­e­gant. I re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed the ques­tions that it posed about what it means to be hu­man- and where to draw the line of hu­man­i­ty at. It caught the su­per­flu­ous na­ture of many hu­man con­quests, and the sta­t­ic empti­ness that most of us ig­nore quite poignant­ly. It pro­vid­ed a sce­nario where you could see a char­ac­ter be­come more em­path­ic but be so caught up in a train of events he couldn’t stop him­self from com­plet­ing his tasks. A char­ac­ter who felt doomed to do evil, to de­stroy and cause the break down of life, of or­der. There was a lot go­ing on in this book and I ap­pre­ci­at­ed it for help­ing me es­cape reality.

Lin­coln in the Bar­do by George Saunders
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ²⁄₅
I fin­ished this book but only spent about three pages en­joy­ing it. It is a book for oth­er peo­ple, those who dwell in their sad­ness. Not a lot hap­pens in this book.

The Shape of Wa­ter by Guiller­mo del Toro
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    5/5
There is a very unique sen­sa­tion that I ex­pe­ri­ence when in re­la­tion to this sto­ry. It’s why I went to see the movie three times, every time it left me feel­ing over­whelm­ing warm and lov­ing. Fi­nal­ly a sto­ry where the mon­ster gets the girl. Also the colour sym­bol­ism in this book was per­fect. That dark green blue is every­thing. As well I was amazed also at how many com­plex words were in this book, I’m a na­tive Eng­lish speak­er and I picked out over 100 words that were new to me and this was un­ex­pect­ed and fan­tas­tic. Dyed my hair and it match­es this book, which is love­ly and a masterpiece. ❤

Thanks Co­lette for rec­om­mend­ing the Lin­coln on the Bardo.
Thanks Ja­cob for loan­ing me this copy of Mr Nor­ris Changes Trains.
Thanks Myles for all your great book rec­om­men­da­tions so far, I’ll give you a re­view of Per­di­do Street Sta­tion when I fin­ish it (I have some­what giv­en up on A Can­ti­cle for Lei­bowitz however).

 

—car­nelian king

Flom­mist Car­nelian King is a per­form­ing artist, prod­uct de­sign­er, toy mak­er and non­bi­na­ry clown cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Berlin. Copy­right © 2018 Car­nelian King.

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