Books in Review

Long, long, ago, in a land far far away I used to have a LiveJournal. This was slightly post MySpace, and well before the land of blogs.  There’s things I still miss about that platform, but it’s pretty much dead like a redshirt Star Trek officer on a rocky planet.  One of the things I’ve missed is my records of what books I was reading, and yes, I could get my butt over to Goodreads and do it all properly, log my books in color coded, sharable glory, but let’s face it: I’m a rebel.  I like my boring, poorly organized lists.  I like the ability to ramble on for a while about an author without having to click a bunch of times or feel like I’m in some sort of book reading competition.  So.  Here we are.  Me writing about reading, and you reading my writing.

I read a lot of books.  I hope if you are reading this you read a lot of books too.

I just finished An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Mastery by Janna Malamud Smith.  I liked it a lot. It’s about the psychological challenges to creating and becoming truly a skilled creator.  It’s one thing to like to draw, and something entirely different to attempt to be a professional artist. I’ve pretty much come to terms with the fact that if I want to stay sane I need to create, in large amounts.

“She learned, for example, that one must welcome discouragement and anxiety in any creative task because they may be signs that will and control are giving way to something fresh and original. She had grown up among people who were convinced that anxiety was a sickness and not the freight of worry, even despair, that any difficult work carries with it.”

Just for that it was worth it.

She talks about the challenges of the importance of solitude, the struggle to go public with work, the need for peers to challenge and aid one in the deep, lonely, work of attempting to forge something new and worthwhile.

I’m also re-reading Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett on the advice and prescription of a friend.  I have been informed that I am Granny Weatherwax. I’m not sure how I feel about that.  Mostly complimented.

I’m almost done with Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Holy Hel, read this book. The prose is fluid and crisp and the meaning is… powerful.  Written from a father to a son, it is his worldview and history.  This is no memoir of fishing trips and family Christmases.  This is a book about the African-American experience in such a way as to make you ache and long for a better world.  Read it. Now. No really, now. It’s a beautiful book and it’s a window into a world many of us need to understand better.

Things have been challenging for me for a little while now.  There’s been some binge eating of ice cream.  Some people will sink into the safe and confident world of videogames, others might go drinking with friends.  I totally get that.  Me, I go read.  Book are my security blanket, my oldest friend, my go to thing when stressed.

So I got myself a real brain spinner. I’m reading Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions by Lisa Randall.  It’s mostly about particle physics. I’m really liking it. Sometimes the best way to cope with overwhelming emotions is to forget about them by engaging the logic brain.  Sometimes the answer is to run and hide. I’m down with that. Especially when I’m doing so by learning about dimensional branes.

These are postulated physics membranes that would separate multiple infinite dimensions from each other.  Before I get more than the name I’ve read about spacetime, quarks, and high speed particles. Did you know that relativity calculations are important for GPS to work?  I didn’t.

I’m also working my way through The Gospel of Loki, which is actually a bit boring and disappointing, mostly because it’s a fairly accurate blow by blow of Loki’s adventures, except without elves, and with Sigyn cast as a whiney Martha Stewart wannabe.  I’ll let you know if I like it when I’m done.

So there’s my book report.  Makes me happy.  I’m gonna take the kids for ice cream for dinner now.