Dear Dead Kite-flier, you're ruining my life!

Today we're going to deviate from our usual course. Instead of a book that I'm currently reading, buying, stalking, or have just finished, I'm going to monopolize a few of our minutes together to talk about a book that keeps ruining my life.

 
First, I have to get into some blasphemy, so maybe brace yourself or take a minute to go get some coffee or tea. I like to imagine that Heaven (capital H, there) has as one of its many perks, the option to meet all the people that you'd like to have met. Some of them will have lines around them, I imagine, and others will have printed FAQ guides because they're really tired of answering the same questions. This probably flies in the face of Christianity and most other things, but if I'm going to be around for eternity, I will need something to sate my curiosity. Well, one of the first people I'm going to bother in Heaven is Benjamin Franklin, and I'm going to tell him that he kind of ruined my life.

An artistic rendering of the meeting between me and Dear Benny Boy.

It happened like this: Years ago, some ambitious social studies teacher decided that we should read excerpts of Franklin's autobiography. They left out the juicy parts about Franklin's appetite for a party and stuck to his list for self-improvement. Then they made us make one... and I've been trapped in a list ever since. If I remember correctly, Franklin had 13 things on his list and admitted to never being able to balance all of them at once. My current list looks like this:

1. Reading
2. Writing Skyla
3. Other writing
4. Conferences, articles, professional development
5. Teaching prep
6. Housework and errands
7. Family and friends
8. Exercise and meditation
9. Healthy food and vitamins
10. Driving

It exhausts me just to type it and there are goals that are very neglected. Like driving. Remember that song lyrics,"If I was the king of the world, I tell you what I'd do: I'd throw away the bars and the cars and the wars..." - I also would throw away the cars, or at least make sure they came with chauffeurs so that operating them did not lead to me throwing up from fear. Basically, though, my point is that I could have done without Franklin's example and all of this pressure to improve. As we learned with Faust, sometimes books really are the road to damnation! (Or, at least, keeping track of your progress and obsessing over your shortcomings, which is probably the same thing. Sisyphus, remember?)

Meta-magical: books about books... with books in them!

Ah, Paradise!

In a blog about books, this was bound to happen. Welcome to the post about books about books -- with books in them!

This is one of those books I shelved many, many times when I worked at the bookstore and, I admit it, it's true, I'm sometimes a bit of a cover snob. "Potato Peel?" I thought. "Not for me." Happily, a search for epistolary novels for my sister kept putting this one right under my nose and I finally borrowed it from the library. This is such a delightful book. It celebrates the love of readers for their books, the fortitude of humans in the face of terror and war, and our essential need to communicate with one another. The characters are real and moving, the voices are distinctive, and the way that everyone misreads everyone else is hilarious. There is a character who tries to model herself on Miss Marple and she had me laughing myself out of my chair. If you need a literary ray of sunshine and enjoy a novel in letters, this is the one for you!

I think the "on the corner" in the title got me thinking about The Shop Around the Corner in You've Got Mail, and so I was won over! The plot is every book lover's fantasy - a young, bright woman moves to the countryside, gets brought into the community, and matches residents with books that will change their lives. The descriptions of the Scottish countryside were wonderful and the secondary characters grabbed my interest. Unfortunately, there's a whole romance plot that's sort of shoe-horned in at the end and it doesn't make sense or add much to the overall story. I would have been much happier with a girl-goes-off-on-a-bookish-adventure-and-succeeds story without the book falling into the whole "a woman must have a man" to be happy cliche. I was also sometimes put off by the main character. The author tried to make you sympathize with her, but even her "bad" fortune seemed pretty sunny (and sometimes too good to be true). A fun little read, but not to be taken too terribly seriously!

The Game-changers (part 5): Scholarship and Criticism (and one outlier)

When my students search for research, I always feel like they manage to find papers on par with Calvin's!

This entry should probably be much longer than it's going to be, as I've been guided by wonderful scholars and mentors at Bethany College, West Virginia University and by brilliant, supportive colleagues and friends at my current institution -- but these are the works I really remember, and return to, as touchstones in my research. I do want to note, however, that books are really nothing next to those amazing folks who have helped me to understand them, apply them, and keep going! I think those folks know how grateful I am to them, but consider this my general reminder - and sincere thank you! - before we dive into the books!

I'm going to start with the most unpopular title first. A professor gave me Paglia's work in undergrad because I was very enamored of gender studies. [I still am, but they feel like too much of a minefield for me to live there. Better to try to outrun my man-eating tigers on the page!] I know that her theories are out of favor, but what her work taught me was that academic writing can be passionate and beautiful as well as dry and informative. I know that my own writing has yet to ascend to those heights, but I think lovely phrases are a fine thing to aspire to!

I got the pleasure of hearing Dr. Kincaid speak once and his pleasant, irreverent manner quite matched the fun he seemed to be having in his book! What he taught me was that (1) much of what we consider "current" or "modern" issues can be traced back to the Victorians and (2) academic work can be both funny and fun!

This is one of the texts I used while writing my dissertation and I hope it isn't petty to admit that I'm incredibly jealous of its wonderful insights and wish that I had been clever enough to write it myself. It traces the proliferation of Victorian products and advertising and demonstrates how those products and their appeals shaped beliefs about race, empire, gender, and the monarchy - just to name a few. A stellar example of what scholarship should look like!

I love the clear, comprehensive, and original work of Sharon Macdonald and I wish I had the money to own the many works she has edited and contributed to. I discovered her work through another collection, Theorizing Museums, and then used this volume for the bulk of my dissertation. It's a wonderful introduction to the work going on in museum studies, as well as a general history of museums, world's fairs, and exhibitions.

If I was a cannier - and far more organized - scholar, my dissertation might have looked something like this! I discovered this book during an independent study and it radically altered the course of my scholarship, gave me a new appreciation of Mr. Dickens, and is still shaping my current work. Thanks to a wonderful professor who gave me the opportunity to travel abroad and a wonderful colleague who saw me safe into the labyrinth of London, I have even been to Albertopolis! 

[Time for a fun side story: When my mom heard I was going to London for research, she insisted on meeting me there. Thank goodness she knows me better than I know myself! I was in a small fishing village in Wales when she landed in Manchester and somehow she convinced a cab to take her there, tipping him some $200 for the effort. When I returned from the workshop to get my hotel key, the girl at the desk said, "Oh, your mum has the key, dear." Now, I didn't even know I had a mum, exactly, but I burst into happy tears that I was no longer traveling alone and that my diet of meat, meat, meat [much like the Monty Python song spam, spam, spam] would soon be supplemented, because I knew mom would help me find actual food! We enjoyed a once in a lifetime trip, complete with my anxiety attacks, mom's breezy confidence, and a great time in Dublin before take off. We did not see hedgehogs in the park, so we probably need to plan a return trip!]

I'm including Mr. Peart here because he doesn't fit with any of my other entries, and because I think he would like to be elevated into the company of scholars! Also, I've been writing about he and his bandmates for a long time now and I still take comfort from this strange, painful travel memoir, even if I do have bones to pick about how he writes about fans (who do you think is buying this book, Neil?) and the fact that his wealth allowed him a coping strategy foreign to those of us who are not rock stars... I once presented a comparison of this work to Tennyson's In Memoriam to a a room of Victorian poetry scholars. Terrible idea. Terrible. But I had fun -- and isn't that ultimately what my particular scholarship has always been about? Need proof? Check out my latest piece here!

Baking up some great reads!

I'm kicking off today's posts with one of my favorite recipes. I started making it one summer and told my grandmother how good it was and that I would bring her the recipe. Canny grandma replied, "Or you could just bring me the cake!" So, for the next several years, I rarely visited her without a cake in tow! The following reads center around food and made me crave everything from sparkling cider to jam-infused cake!

I've been a fan of Allen's writing since I read and fell in love with Garden Spells. This book centers around Emily Benedict, who moves in with her grandfather in a small town steeped in mysteries, and Julia Winterson, a baker in the small town looking to escape. In this offering, I loved the way Allen blended the real and the magical (although the whole town buying into the magic seemed a stretch at times) but the ending came too quickly and the book felt unfinished. I need a sequel - and one of Julia's cakes!



My favorite feel-good movie is You've Got Mail, so when I saw a book advertised as the written equivalent, I had to buy it! I agree with the assessment on several levels: there's mistaken identity, romance that doesn't proceed immediately into raciness, and a protagonist that knows her craft... and loses her establishment. The setting was one the author obviously knows and she paid tribute to the food and culture of the area. The one thing that fell a little flat for me were the two male characters. The male protagonist suffered from the author's attempts to make him appeal to every woman. He had a six-pack, an English accent, was intelligent, came from money, cooked, was good at sports... it was just a little too much to swallow in a single person! On the other hand, his rival was too flat - too self-interested and one-dimension-ally "bad" to be believable. A fun read - fluffy as the icing on the cover - but not to be taken too seriously!

The Game-Changers (part 4): Science Fiction

"In Science Fiction, we dream." - Ray Bradbury

I must begin by admitting that I was enamored of and ensnared by fantasy long before I ventured into science fiction. It once seemed cold to me, too bound up in metal and the darkness of the spaces between the stars to allow for human concerns. Yet, I was influenced by science fiction quite early, without realizing it, when shows like Dino-Riders and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe melded fantasy's magic with science fiction's technology... without seeming contradiction. I didn't even realize how much science fiction had entered into my own writing until I told a professor about my novel and he said, "It sounds like you're staging a fight between genres - science fiction against fantasy." Who knew? Below, you'll find those science fiction titles that continue to resonate with me!

I could include Bradbury under a number of headings (fiction, horror, fantasy) but I think he most often thought of himself as a science fiction writer. I don't think I've ever encountered a better writer for the short story form; his descriptions are positively luminous. This is my favorite collection of his work; I often curl up with favorite stories on rainy nights!

I have no idea what drew me to Vurt in the first place, but I've never gotten its strangeness - its images - out of my head, so I recommend it as a story that will trouble you, get under your skin, and stay with you like the feathers to which its characters are addicted!

 All scholars, especially those who teach English, should probably own a copy of these two. They imagine a universe that's being written out, erased, and over-written like text, a universe in which characters have multiple destinies unfolding on different "folds" or pages. Wildly different from anything else I've ever read, and heartbreaking at times, these ones make me madly envious as a writer!

 I've mentioned before that I once considered Star Trek that corner of nerdom where I was boldly refusing to go, but it snared me in the end, even unto reading the novels! Prime Directive is my favorite for story and I love The Return because it shows that Shatner and I have something in common -- we can't let a good character go!

As a runner up, I must mention the ghastly, purple prose, overdone, The Price of the Phoenix, in which fan fiction sneaks its way into publication. I don't love because it's good; I love it because it demonstrates the strength of the Kirk/Spock myth and its pull on the imagination of others besides myself. Hey, even Roddenberry himself had that little t'hy'la footnote (just sayin')!

For those unfamiliar with the Kirk/Spock myth, it looks a little something like this! :) If you want a better explanation, I'm fond of this article by Henry Jenkins!

And I'm ending things with a book I just finished. It was so freaking adorable that it rekindled my faith in the whole damn genre, and I've been recommending it to everyone I can think of. Chambers creates an entire cast of believable characters that really resonate, while navigating concerns about species, sexuality, and space travel -- and being humorous on top of that! My writerly hat goes off to her in a very respectful sweep! If you have any flickering of interest in science fiction at all, this one's for you!

Sword-wielders!

This is Skyla. Or, rather, this is a drawing I found on DeviantArt that best approximates what my female heroine looks like. Here's her connection to the white blade she bears:

The killing had come easier. 

Flashes of deadly light failed to mark her, and when her would-be killers dropped their worthless weapons, her sword was still in her hand. There in the air high above the kingdom, the slavers lost their lives to a sharp and shining horror. Staring up at moons circled by remnants of her own magic, she thought of the ship that had crashed. I would have destroyed you, too, if you had attacked.

Or, here: 

Small of frame, she failed to reach the shoulder of many of the warriors who followed her banners, but those who had sworn their swords to her service never lost sight of her on the battlefield. Her silver hair flowed to the small of her back; wind-caught, it was Navalia’s unofficial pennant, a swirling cloud of icy glitter that seemed to flash with sword sparks. Those mortals that served her looked past the slight tapering of her ears, the depth of her ancient eyes, and the sharpness of her teeth. They remembered her as inhuman only in battle as she regenerated severed limbs or arose from blows that would have ended their lives. They could not trace her strength, for the muscles that rippled in the arms of her warriors were absent from her body. Warriors new to court often doubted her ability to lift the sword bound at her waist. 

Because of her and the pleasure I've had telling and re-telling (and retooling) her story year after year, I have a certain affection for literature's sword-wielding women, and they feature in two of my latest reads! But before I turn to them, I thought I'd recap some of my favorite sword-bearers below!

 My favorite Civil War soldier, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, resplendent with decorative blade! Professors, too, can fight!

Definitely not the sword-bearer of choice for any aspiring feminist, but I still enjoy the candy bar nature of the pulp paperback (delicious but definitely lacking in nutrition!)

Who can resist a franchise where magical powers are revealed upon holding aloft one's sword? He-Man, She-Ra and Skeletor remain favorites of mine! [Guilty admission: I got He-Man/Thunder Cats in the mail today!]

 I love to imagine Tolkien reading about named blades in Beowulf and Song of Roland at university, then going on to give us Glamdring and Orcrist!

 Oh, Thorin... you break my heart every time, you bastard...

[This is how I feel when faced with any spider...]

Cutter Kinseeker with his sword New Moon, inherited from his father. Most of ElfQuest is free here, so if you haven't made the acquaintance of this charming swordsman yet, I can't urge you there in strong enough terms!

I was very much in love with Mark Hamill at one point. The saber definitely helped to inspire my affection!

He might be "the worst pirate you've ever heard of," (especially if you take the sequels into account), but Captain Jack Sparrow is also a fine hand with a blade and I love the overblown nature of this particular clip!

Claymore is enchanting... and often gut-wrenchingly dark. I love it for its portrayal of women warriors and I'm impressed at the level of violence it convinced me to endure. It just goes to show that good storytelling can make you suffer through a lot!

I haven't followed this series closely since the fourth book, but I heartily recommend the first three for their portrayal of one of the few gay characters in fantasy. Great fun!

Berserk is every bit a match for Claymore when it comes to battle sequences and dark themes. I can never again watch the final episode of the original anime (nightmares!!) but I love the story, the sword-wielding Guts, and I'm eager to see its most recent retelling.

 This quirky film, Sucker Punch, still troubles me. I'm convinced there's a paper there, comparing it to Dickens and Carroll... and it just plain old creeps me out. Nonetheless, its sword scenes are everything I want for my own heroine, as are those in Kill Bill.

 Kenshin may be the fiercest (and most adorable) swordsman on this list - and he does it all with a reverse blade weapon! I'm looking forward to introducing him to my graphic novel class in the fall! I'm also including his friend Sanosuke, even though Kenshin annihilates that massive sword of his...




Now that I've set quite the precedent for sword-carrying protagonists, let's get down to the books!

I had high hopes for this book because I've really enjoyed other titles by Roberson (especially her Robin Hood series). The voice was excellent in this one; Sandtiger was a distinctive speaker with fully-realized gifts, history, and flaws, as was Del - the woman you can see there on the cover. Unfortunately, the story fell into that fantasy-post-Tolkien trap of being a series of adventures on the way to somewhere and none of them were particularly interesting. Del does insist on saving some sandtiger cubs (her companion is named for his prowess against such beasts) so that made the cat-lover in me happy, but it wasn't enough to make me want to read book two. 

As a Conan fan, I've long been aware of Sonja... but I was surprised when her name appeared in a list of best comics for women, until I read that Simone is well known for taking exploited female characters and giving them a feminist spin. She does a great job in this first episode of Sonja, giving her a viable backstory, a female antagonist, and female sidekicks. I did find the art a bit "blocky" for my taste, and I still don't understand why the comic industry makes beautiful covers that differ wildly in art style from the work within. Are they trying to trick us? All in all, a good revival of the Red Devil; I'm excited to see what's in store for book two!