Wants to read City of a Hundred Fires
book
Rated The Death of Bees 10/10
<div>This was an ARC I received almost a decade ago, and to my regret, I hadn't read it until now. What a great book. Grim in some respects, but also very funny in others. Everyone is a fully realized character and full of their own loneliness that manifests in different ways, but there's also some nice oases of camaraderie too.</div>
Rated I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records 9/10
<div>Though the book starts out with a somewhat Feminism 101-style justification for its own existence, I'm willing to forgive that because I know it has to be there. Music bros will always want to wheedle away at a woman who dares to assert authority. After that, the book becomes a compelling oral history of a unique time in Manchester music and art history.<br><br>You've perhaps heard the legends about the bands involved (Joy Division/New Order, Happy Mondays), the go-big-or-go-home spending habits (1200 person club capacity in a weird building! expensive office furniture!), and seen or read other histories documenting the post-punk and Madchester years. That prior knowledge is helpful here, but this book isn't meant to be a definitive biography. Instead, this group of voices — musicians, managers, club staff, designers, artists, etc. — aim to fill in the gaps. Bands, music journalism, and music-as-business in that era, as we know, were (and still are!) male-dominated affairs, and even though Factory was better than most of its time, it still had its shortcomings. Not to mention, how Factory has been spoken about since did not always provide a full picture of how the women kept the show running while the men would often prioritize being "personalities."<br><br>Still, this isn't an act of revenge. For the most part, the women speak warmly about the others they worked with, and they all seem to give a pretty fair accounting of what it was like to live through Factory's various stages of existence. They speak honestly about the challenges, but not all of those challenges were gender-related. There are, of course, several funny stories. Factory Records, The Haçienda, and everything else that these women helped create was something really special. It gave us a lot of great art, and I'm glad that some of the story was recorded here.</div>
Wants to read Drinking with Men: A Memoir
Rated Doctor Who: The Skull Of Sobek 6/10
This one is just okay, but I so enjoy listening to Paul McGann's voice that I'm going to round up to three stars. It's worth listening to for a sense of continuity as one goes through the Lucy stories, but it's not AMAZING.
Rated Doctor Who: Thicker Than Water 8/10
<div>I accidentally listened to this WITHOUT having heard Arrangements For War first, so I was a bit like "....? I seem to have missed some things," but it was still a good story all the same. I'll go back and listen to part 1 now. I always enjoy Evelyn as a companion though.</div>
Rated Doctor Who: Regeneration Impossible 10/10
Oh this was great, and I didn't even mind that another person was doing both voices, as they're very close. Even though they barely ever remember it happening, I always enjoy multi-Doctor stories.
Rated Your Dazzling Death: Poems 9/10
<div>Beautiful, sad, heartfelt, fair. I liked this collection very much, and though some might disagree, I'm glad I read this before I read LETTERS TO FORGET by Kelly Caldwell. These poems provide some outer perspective on the inner turmoil Donish's partner went through.</div>
Rated Gallifrey: Pandora 8/10
The plot thickens. Romana is written quite well in these, as is Leela.
Rated Doctor Who: Excelis Dawns 8/10
<div>Normally, I'm less into the Fifth Doctor stories for whatever reason, but having him be exasperated by Iris Wildthyme's gleeful shenanigans is a great place for him to be. This is a good first part to the story, so I'm looking forward to listening to the next installments.</div>
Rated How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy 8/10
<div>A really great starting point for how to think about what is essential to your life, how to pay better attention to what's around you, to look for context, and resisting the idea of being just another product for ye olde algorithm.</div>
Rated The Essential Ginsberg 10/10
Although I'm not 100% with Ginsberg on everything (and who is?), this is still a great collection of poems, letters, journal entries, essays, and photos. Not a quick read (which is great if you're in the mood to really savor something), though a fascinating read.
Rated Dept. of Speculation 10/10
If I had read this earlier, it would have probably snuck into my Top 5 for the year post that I wrote. This book is as great as everyone said it is.<br><br>With its short chapters, <i>Dept. of Speculation</i> lends itself well to dipping in and out of its pages to remind oneself of its little bursts of feelings, but it’s also a good book for a full reread. Watching the reality of another couple’s ups and downs inevitably inspires reflection on one’s own relationships. How can we improve? Are we past the point of no return?<br><br>(Full review appears at <a href="http://persephonemagazine.com/2015/03/3-book-recommendations-illuminating-womens-lives/">Persephone Magazine</a>.)
Wants to read If Beale Street Could Talk
Rated The Body's Question: Poems 10/10
This is me shoving the book into your hands.<br><br>(Full review at <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-bodys-question-by-tracy-k-smith.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>")
Rated Collected Fictions 8/10
<div>Call it my "Summer of Borges" — on Bluesky, the book club I often participate in read a selection of Borges stories over the month of July. Mostly, they were from Labyrinths and The Aleph, but we were all reading from different collections and editions. I put in library holds for two different Borges books and figured I get to everything eventually, depending on what arrived first — Labyrinths (with the William Gibson intro) and this one — and between the two, I was able to read everything picked for that month.<br><br>But afterward, I thought, "Well, I may as well read the rest of it, right?" So technically, I did not reread anything that was covered in the other book, but this still had a whole lot of fiction that we didn't touch upon, and I think I found more I really liked in this, especially some of his later work. I appreciate the strangeness and unusual format of some of his stories — always appreciate a big swing! — but some of the more straightforward fiction was more my style. Blame my brain fog, maybe! I can respect the stuff that didn't quite resonate with me nonetheless.<br><br>Also, call this another instance of "make-up work" from stuff I never read when others did because I didn't finish college, ha. Really, it's better that I read this stuff not in my contrary late-teens/early-20s. I would've glazed over and then faked it for the quiz later. That said, books come to us when they come to us, and I'm glad I finally got to Borges. I can see his influence in so much other media now.</div>
Rated Threads of Empire: A History of the World in Twelve Carpets 7/10
<div>Rugs and textiles in general are not my usual field of interest, but I AM interested in dissecting periods of history through a less typical lens, so this was an interesting read, even though sometimes I glazed over a bit. Admittedly, I read a Netgalley ARC of this that did not yet have the photos included, so I was probably not fully grasping the details. Armstrong does an adequate job pointing out how colonization and weaving have been interlinked, while also pointing out that certain types of rugs' popularity are often dictated by those colonial forces in ways that we might not realize. I definitely learned some things about a part of the world I'm less familiar with.</div>