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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
BritMandelo has commented on (15) products
Secret Feminist Cabal A Cultural History
by
Helen Merrick
BritMandelo
, August 18, 2012
This was a satisfying book on several levels: as an academic I was thrilled, and as a feminist I was thrilled, and as an SF nerd I was thrilled. (The book acknowledges but doesn't engage as much with queer feminisms, except in the closing "where we're at now" chapter, which also engages more with race and class than the other chapters.) All of the blind spots in the text are at least accounted for and acknowledged, and honestly, it's a very fulfilling read. The predominant focus of the text is on examining the real taxonomies and activities of SF feminists and feminisms from the beginning of the genre until now, with special attention to recognizing that women didn't just "show up" in SF in the sixties: we've always been there, and we've always been doing the job. I'd heartily recommend this book.
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Brave New Worlds
by
John Joseph Adams
BritMandelo
, August 17, 2012
This was a well-put-together anthology that, eight times out of ten, satisfies. There were bad stories; have you ever counted how many useless, hideous dialogue-attribution adverbs are contained in "The Minority Report?" Have you? Phillip K. Dick had interesting ideas but he was not the most talented writer in the world. The Orson Scott Card was also bland and clunky. The good stories, though, are very good--memorable, crunchy, complicated stories about human nature and the social world. You might have read them before, but they're worth reading again. It's also interesting to see how much variety there can be in the idea of "dystopia."
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Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
by
Alison Bechdel
BritMandelo
, August 16, 2012
This comic was a treat to read. It's at times a drama, at times a social commentary, and at times a comedy, but it's always a story, about hundreds of things. It deals with getting older, with new generations of activists coming in where you used to be, with gender, with sexuality, with partnership, with roles, with affairs and with simple things like "partner has a debt problem just like her father." It's a comic that also deals with race and class. Bechdel did a good job with this book. I enjoyed it. Having such a large cast means getting to take on so many different themes and issues through each character. I was especially interested in, as the years went by, the growing representation/visibility of trans characters in the strip, including Jasmine's teenager. There's just so much going on in "Dykes to Watch Out For."
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Dust
by
Elizabeth Bear
BritMandelo
, August 15, 2012
The generation-ship is not a new idea, but I adored this particular handling of it. The splintered ship's intelligence, fueled by the religious language and fervor of the original builders; the five-hundred year gap that rendered the ship itself in places dead and in places teeming with bizarre new life; the technology and the interpersonal battles--all of it tense, delightful, strange. The worldbuilding is perfect. The nature of non-binary gender on the Jacob's Ladder pleased me deeply, also; it simply is. The spectrum of sexuality and romance and affection displayed throughout is challenging in the best way, upsetting expectations and norms easily and, again, without comment. As for the plot, it's fast and heavy, properly dense even in quieter moments, driven equally by war and danger as by interpersonal relationships. Thumbs up. The ending is quite a kick in the gut, mixing the survival of the ship with the loss of the character we've arguably been closest to throughout the narrative, so the reader has trouble sifting through their own emotions--also great. Another thing: the epigrams are awesome. Lots to chew on, lots to think about, each chapter.
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Stories of Your Life & Others
by
Ted Chiang
BritMandelo
, August 14, 2012
This collection--with stories spanning from 1990 to 2002--was a dense read, but thoroughly enjoyable. Where Chiang's stories work, they work, exercising the mind as thoroughly as the heart. "Stories of Your Life" is a good example of this--moving, intense, and smart. "Division by Zero" made me tear up, and it was about math. On the other hand, a few of the stories didn't quite work for me, despite the meticulous, slow build-up to a big punch of an ending that makes some of his fiction so brilliant. For example, the endless dialogue describing the scientific theories between characters in "Seventy-Two Letters" taxed my interest in the characters to the point where I no longer cared much about the ending. It's a delicate balance to maintain between the scientific exposition and the story, but 95% of the time, Chiang does a fine job. This is a totally worthwhile buy; great read.
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Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy: 20 Dynamic Essays by the Field's Top Professionals
by
Analog and Isaac Asimov's Science Fictio
BritMandelo
, August 13, 2012
This was a book from the 90s, and in some ways it's still extremely relevant--the bits about hard SF worldbuilding are pretty fascinating, for one. On the other hand, it's quaint to the extreme in other places; I had to giggle a little at a paragraph that referenced a computer file that was 600kb as "huge." The essays by Jane Yolen, Connie Willis and Robert Heinlein were all deeply engaging. Many of the Asimov essays don't speak to me; on the other hand, his work doesn't speak to me, either, and his essays grow from his work. So, take that opinion with a grain of salt. Overall, I'd say it's a useful book to add to the writing reference library, but it's beginner-level and won't have anything new to say to someone who's been working in the field for longer than a few months.
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Rule 34
by
Charles Stross
BritMandelo
, August 12, 2012
Stross's newest book (in the same near-future SF world as "Halting State") was as fast-paced as its predecessor, mixing some astoundingly awesome worldbuilding with a layered thriller plot involving 3D printers, crime syndicates, global financial collapse, and a truly creepy antagonist. (Or, is ATHENA the antagonist?) The patchwork-construction of the narrative is fun, bouncing the reader here and there throughout the complex plot. It's also a fairly queer book, with one lead character a lesbian and the other a man who doesn't label, but has both a wife and boyfriends. Liz is my favorite part of the book: a burn-out police inspector with an on again, off again relationship to a poly queer woman auditor and a personal life that's mostly nonexistent. She's deeply sympathetic and her narrative voice is excellent. Overall, I had fun reading this. Stross is a talented writer, and Rule 34 is an example of what makes him so enjoyable. Phenomenal prose, for one thing, and engaging characters for another.
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Working Sex Sex Workers Write about a Changing Industry
by
Annie Oakley
BritMandelo
, August 11, 2012
The takes on the sex industry in this collection are, as Annie Oakley stresses in the introduction, real first and foremost, and not designed for salacious pop-news titillation. The book includes song lyrics and poetry, as well as personal essays, which gives it an interesting off-the-cuff, performance-art feel. (Considering Oakley's position as a performance artist, that makes sense.) There are essays from a variety of people, doing a variety of jobs, from phone-sex operation to prostitution to porn acting, and a nice gender and sexuality spectrum is included also. Issues of intersectionality - race, economics, et cetera - are paid special attention to, to make a point of the different ways in which the sex industry is portrayed and perceived based on the privilege of the respective audience and speaker involved. A fast read, often upsetting or depressing, but worth the purchase for the down to earth perspectives contained within it, about an industry that's so often dehumanized, silenced, and effaced in our culture - which nonetheless thrives on it.
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Take Me There Trans & Genderqueer Erotica
by
Tristan Taormino
BritMandelo
, August 10, 2012
This is a brilliant collection that has so much going for it; hot sex, a wonderful range of stories, and a respect for the bodies and identities of the characters in them that makes it even more delicious. The stories are positive, beautiful, and refreshing. I would recommend it with high praise to any genderqueer or trans* readers - not just for the power and pleasure of the sex in the book, but for the loving ways in which bodies and identities are dealt with, the ways in which a restrictive language can be loosened up, and the freeing discourse on queer desire. Taormino's introduction is also fabulously moving. Seriously, a double thumbs-up. I can't think of another book like this one that has such an emotional impact alongside its thrilling sexual escapades.
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Wave in the Mind Talks & Essays on the Writer the Reader & the Imagination
by
Ursula K Le Guin
BritMandelo
, August 09, 2012
This was a collection of essays on reading and writing, mostly reprints. Throughout it are repeated many of the same themes and ideas, down the years that the collected pieces were originally written: lots of re-occurrence of the Virginia Woolf quote from which the title is taken, for example. Other bits I recognized from Steering the Craft. That doesn't diminish the gentle pleasure of most of these pieces, though; like the meandering explorations of rhythm, and craft, and what it means to be a writer, waiting. The high point of the book is undoubtedly the final piece, a poem titled "The Writer on, and at, Her Work," that seems to encompass and describe uniquely the bodily reality of being a writer, and of the gendered strictures on doing/being that attempt to limit women's writing. It's a brilliant long-form poem that nets in its precision and its clarity an ounce of the big Truth. Good stuff; great stuff. Worth the whole book and then some--and I liked the rest of the book, too.
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(10 of 12 readers found this comment helpful)
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Dyke Strippers Lesbian Cartoonists A To Z
by
Various, Roz Warren
BritMandelo
, August 08, 2012
This is an amusing encyclopedia of lesbian cartoonists, published in 1995. It's necessarily a bit out of date, but it's still a handy and entertaining read. Each author has a sampling of cartoons in the book, and some also have long interviews and asides (like Alison Bechdel). The art varies from sketchy single-panel pun comics to longer graphic stories with detailed illustrations; there's a lot of variety in the collection, and it has motivated me to look up a few comic artists/cartoonists I hadn't heard of before. Always nice. It's best described as a sampler, but it's a well put together sampler, and worth reading.
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How to Write a Dirty Story: Reading, Writing, and Publishing Erotica
by
Susie Bright
BritMandelo
, August 07, 2012
Bright's how-to is a beginner's book, and read from that angle, it seems like it would be pretty useful - quite a lot of focus on the psychological and social aspects of writing erotic stories, for yourself or for publication, which I found nice. The breakdown of small publishers and big house publishers here is brutally honest, and I'd like to airlift a copy of it into every writing manual I've read in the past few years. But mostly, it was fun. It's a chatty book that talks openly about writing on sex; not just erotic novels but sex scenes in any novel. Not a bad thing to have on a reference shelf.
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(1 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
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Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers Workshop
by
Kate Wilhelm
BritMandelo
, August 06, 2012
This was an odd book - sort of like Stephen King's "On Writing;" half how-to manual and half biography. It was a fun read, though. The history and development of the Clarion workshop was the best part of the text for me, told as it was from a personal and invested angle. Wilhelm is great at anecdotes, and her stories about Clarion, its instructors, its moves and its madness were highly entertaining. The how-to bits resembled the same material in Damon Knight's "Creating Short Fiction," also largely inspired by their time at the Clarion workshops, with a few differences. (Personally, I like "silent partner" better than "Fred," too.) Overall: a nice bit of sf history, and worth picking up for that
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Ultimate Guide to Kink: Bdsm, Role Play and the Erotic Edge
by
Tristan Taormino
BritMandelo
, August 05, 2012
This is quite the book - 500 pages of essays by various experienced contributors, from the famous Midori to first-time writers who predominantly work in BDSM education and seminars. Frankly, I loved it. The inclusion of lenses of gender and race to discussions of kink makes this book a complex and inclusive read in a way that I haven't seen often, elsewhere. (I'm not surprised, as Taormino also edited the wonderful Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica.) The first half of the text is "how to" reading, while the second half has more to do with headspace, theory, and personal manifestos. The topics cover a diverse range of behaviors and identities that can be included under the kink umbrella, and each is treated with dignity and respect. The intelligent commentary included on risk, health awareness, safer sex practices, and negotiation - in nearly every chapter - makes this a good introductory read for a someone exploring this territory for the first time, while the material itself and the writers contributing it make the book double-thumbs-up even for someone with a great deal of experience. There were some chapters I cared less for than others, but I suppose at some level that's a matter of personal preference. ("Yikes!" reactions are personal, after all.)The exception: I found the chapter by "FifthAngel" on sadism to be a little too over the top, and his insistence on his definition of the word "sadist" while deriding other peoples' definitions of the word rubbed me the wrong way. Overall I'd say this is probably the most inclusive, complete informational book on kink that's available for purchase right now. Taormino has done a great job at organizing their contributors so that a range of attitudes and voices are on display, even when in disagreement with each other (like that chapter I didn't care for, which is at odds with other authors in the text). I can't say again how nice it is to read a smart, well-organized book on kink from a variety of contributors who are queer and inclusive of trans* and queer folks, as well as writers like Mollena Williams who deal with intersections of race and kink.
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Kurt Vonnegut The Last Interview
by
Tom McCartan, Kurt Vonnegut
BritMandelo
, August 04, 2012
This was at once immensely sad and immensely uplifting. Vonnegut's comedic voice, his down-to-earth discussions of the writing life, and his genuine love for his craft all come through in these interviews; so do his fatalism, his disappointment in his country, and his depression. I'm not going to gloss over the fact that there are some problematic moments - most of the discussions of women made me wince - but overall, I found this little book a bittersweet pleasure to read. I'd recommend it for any reader of Vonnegut, and really, most writers, too. I did cry a bit, during the reading. His life, and his words, are worth some tears.
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