2003 Books
Jan. 5th, 2004 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutI'm having a hard time compiling my usual list of 2003 Books I Liked.
See, I am not actually so organized as to keep a tally of books I've read during the year. In past years, doing this exercise, I have relied upon archaeological principles, i.e. where the books were located in my piles indicated when I had read them.
This year I moved house. All the books are shuffled into new places. My usual stratagem is a total loss.
Also, this year I have been reading for the Tiptree, and I don't want to discuss those books just yet.
So I have decided to break with tradition and publish Notes Toward a 2003 Reading List instead.
So with no further ado, and in no particular order...
Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn. Jessica Hagedorn is better known as a poet, I believe, but I really liked this book. It's her first novel, the book jacket says it was nominated for a National Book Award, reviews tell me it was a bestseller, and it's ten years old. I have no idea how I acquired it, and I even get the impression I may have the British edition. Oh well. It's brilliant.
Also nearly indescribable. It's set in Manila during the reign of a dictator that most people should recognize. It's split into several viewpoints and that, plus its language, can make things seem delirious, hyperreal, and highly fragmented. Which is fine with me. It's also really funny. And poignant. And sharply insightful, and angry. Everything a deeply engaging book should be.
Women of the Pleasure Quarters by Lesley Downer. Subtitled "The Secret History of the Geisha," this is actually a well-researched exploration into not only the history of the geisha per se, but her courtesan predecessors too; it also explores the position of the modern geisha. All of the book copy is vaguely creepy, but the book itself is spot on; it's the historical angle that makes it. That, and the fact that Downer is completely unsentimental about her subject, while at the same time totally non-condescending, too.
Shockingly Close to the Truth! by James W. Moseley and Karl T. Pflock. I wouldn't go so far as to say that this was a well-written book, but it was nonetheless hugely entertaining. It's a memoir of a UFOlogist-slash-prankster, rather irreverently commenting on his contemporaries on the scene, in the 60's and 70's especially. A giant slab o'gossip, really.
Final Girl by Daphne Gottlieb. I am not just sucking up because she's on my friends list; the Village Voice named this one of the top 25 books of the year, after all. (Which makes this the second year in a row that I've known someone on the Top 25 List personally. You could be next!) This is the best book of poetry I have read in a long time, and that's all I'm going to say here -- remember, I already wrote a review of it for Girlfriends.
Fat White Vampire Blues by Andrew Fox. Fox draws the logical conclusion that, if the food in new Orleans is fatty and the people in New Orleans are fat, too, then most likely, the vampires of New Orleans, who are feeding on these generously-proportioned souls, will be on the heavy side, too. And so Jules is massive.
This book turns out to be surprisingly fat-positive, though, in a way that would be a total spoiler if I told it to you, so suffice it to say that Jules' bulk turns out to come in very handy in the final confrontation of the book. I also liked it because it totally dispenses with the decadent romanticism of that other New Orleans vampire writer and goes for a different class aesthetic entirely -- one that rings a lot more true to me, at least.
...and that's it. I hope five (half my usual number) is enough to sate your curiosity for now. I'll try to do better for 2004.
I'm still not keeping a log, though.
See, I am not actually so organized as to keep a tally of books I've read during the year. In past years, doing this exercise, I have relied upon archaeological principles, i.e. where the books were located in my piles indicated when I had read them.
This year I moved house. All the books are shuffled into new places. My usual stratagem is a total loss.
Also, this year I have been reading for the Tiptree, and I don't want to discuss those books just yet.
So I have decided to break with tradition and publish Notes Toward a 2003 Reading List instead.
So with no further ado, and in no particular order...
Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn. Jessica Hagedorn is better known as a poet, I believe, but I really liked this book. It's her first novel, the book jacket says it was nominated for a National Book Award, reviews tell me it was a bestseller, and it's ten years old. I have no idea how I acquired it, and I even get the impression I may have the British edition. Oh well. It's brilliant.
Also nearly indescribable. It's set in Manila during the reign of a dictator that most people should recognize. It's split into several viewpoints and that, plus its language, can make things seem delirious, hyperreal, and highly fragmented. Which is fine with me. It's also really funny. And poignant. And sharply insightful, and angry. Everything a deeply engaging book should be.
Women of the Pleasure Quarters by Lesley Downer. Subtitled "The Secret History of the Geisha," this is actually a well-researched exploration into not only the history of the geisha per se, but her courtesan predecessors too; it also explores the position of the modern geisha. All of the book copy is vaguely creepy, but the book itself is spot on; it's the historical angle that makes it. That, and the fact that Downer is completely unsentimental about her subject, while at the same time totally non-condescending, too.
Shockingly Close to the Truth! by James W. Moseley and Karl T. Pflock. I wouldn't go so far as to say that this was a well-written book, but it was nonetheless hugely entertaining. It's a memoir of a UFOlogist-slash-prankster, rather irreverently commenting on his contemporaries on the scene, in the 60's and 70's especially. A giant slab o'gossip, really.
Final Girl by Daphne Gottlieb. I am not just sucking up because she's on my friends list; the Village Voice named this one of the top 25 books of the year, after all. (Which makes this the second year in a row that I've known someone on the Top 25 List personally. You could be next!) This is the best book of poetry I have read in a long time, and that's all I'm going to say here -- remember, I already wrote a review of it for Girlfriends.
Fat White Vampire Blues by Andrew Fox. Fox draws the logical conclusion that, if the food in new Orleans is fatty and the people in New Orleans are fat, too, then most likely, the vampires of New Orleans, who are feeding on these generously-proportioned souls, will be on the heavy side, too. And so Jules is massive.
This book turns out to be surprisingly fat-positive, though, in a way that would be a total spoiler if I told it to you, so suffice it to say that Jules' bulk turns out to come in very handy in the final confrontation of the book. I also liked it because it totally dispenses with the decadent romanticism of that other New Orleans vampire writer and goes for a different class aesthetic entirely -- one that rings a lot more true to me, at least.
...and that's it. I hope five (half my usual number) is enough to sate your curiosity for now. I'll try to do better for 2004.
I'm still not keeping a log, though.
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