mostly bookish
Mar. 5th, 2012 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ariadnes_stringUsually, when I have a free Sunday morning, I try to get up reasonably early (~7:30) and go to Mysore. But this weekend I practiced the yoga pose of sleep. I was out latish Sat. night at a work-related dinner, and then up even later finishing my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
purimgifts fic, and so didn’t go to sleep until 1:30. I woke up at 7:30 or so, and thought screw this. And I didn’t wake up again until 10:30. Can’t remember the last time I did that. It might have been in high school.
Anyway, 28 hours of freedom is not so much when you spend 9 sleeping and 4 at a work dinner, so I hardly caught up at all on TV. I did watch, out of curiosity, the House episode in which Jeremy Renner plays a dissolute rock singer. And enjoyed it very much—I forgot how much I like S4 House and I don’t think I’d seen that one before.
Nor did I realize that this image, that you see all the time on the interwebz, if from House of all things!
Also Grimm
In which I very much enjoyed the appearance of Titus Welliver and Sasha Roiz’s bare chest.
I can’t say I felt the same way about the “revelation” that Hitler was a Wessen. Call me old-fashioned, but I really think pretending that some kinds of evil aren’t 100% human is a moral dodge—and it queasily reminded me of how much of Nazi rhetoric involved calling other people animals or subhuman.
Still, I’m not too worked up about it, since Grimm still seems to have such gentleness at its heart. I loved that even though Hank went a little nutty when he was holding the coins, he still gave them up and went home. And then Nick gave him such an earnest “how’re you feeling?” when he showed up at work the next day with a cup of coffee and an apology for his partner.
Have two book recs, though (both about doctors, as it turns out).
My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese.
This is a memoir, written in the 90s, of the author’s years as an infectious disease specialist in Johnson City, TN (pop. 50,000). Which is to say, it's about his years treating AIDS in small town Appalachia before there was any kind of drug management on the horizon. I started reading it for work-related reasons, but I kept on because it’s one of the most affecting books I’ve read for a long time. Partly, that’s because it’s about a part of the world that’s more rural (and whiter) than where I live, but still very close, and Verghese’s deep affection for this adopted “country,” combined with his acute eye for the difficulties of living there as an outsider (whether as an Indian doctor, or a person with AIDS) really spoke to me. And he really lets you in on the thought processes that allowed him to form such empathetic relationships with his patients, while at the same time not shying away from the costs of practicing that kind of medicine. (It is also very sad, as you’d expect of a book about AIDS in the ‘80s).
State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
Okay, this one I listened to while driving and running. The plot line is a little preposterous, and the ending is a bit rushed, but I can recommend it to you for the following reasons.
*It’s a version of Heart of Darkness where all the parts are played by girls. (Sometimes, Patchett pretends it’s a version of Orpheus and Euridice instead, but Heart of Darkness works better). This turns out to be a great idea, just as a thought experiment—her try at a female Kurtz is particularly fun.
*It’s a book about women over 40 where the main plot is not romantic. It’s about intellectual/professional mentorship, ethics, and what bravery looks like for women. You just don’t see that too much. And this is very well done.
*It’s a great book if you like jungles, especially of the South American variety. It’s not such a great book if you don’t like epic scenes about snakes or un-anesthetized field surgery.
(I can also put it on my short list of novels about malaria, though the malaria plot line in this isn’t particularly well-worked out).
Even though I'm going to be out of town from basically March 23rd to April 1, I signed up for remix again. Possibly stupidly.
purimgifts fic, and so didn’t go to sleep until 1:30. I woke up at 7:30 or so, and thought screw this. And I didn’t wake up again until 10:30. Can’t remember the last time I did that. It might have been in high school.Anyway, 28 hours of freedom is not so much when you spend 9 sleeping and 4 at a work dinner, so I hardly caught up at all on TV. I did watch, out of curiosity, the House episode in which Jeremy Renner plays a dissolute rock singer. And enjoyed it very much—I forgot how much I like S4 House and I don’t think I’d seen that one before.
Nor did I realize that this image, that you see all the time on the interwebz, if from House of all things!
Also Grimm
In which I very much enjoyed the appearance of Titus Welliver and Sasha Roiz’s bare chest.
I can’t say I felt the same way about the “revelation” that Hitler was a Wessen. Call me old-fashioned, but I really think pretending that some kinds of evil aren’t 100% human is a moral dodge—and it queasily reminded me of how much of Nazi rhetoric involved calling other people animals or subhuman.
Still, I’m not too worked up about it, since Grimm still seems to have such gentleness at its heart. I loved that even though Hank went a little nutty when he was holding the coins, he still gave them up and went home. And then Nick gave him such an earnest “how’re you feeling?” when he showed up at work the next day with a cup of coffee and an apology for his partner.
Have two book recs, though (both about doctors, as it turns out).
My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese.
This is a memoir, written in the 90s, of the author’s years as an infectious disease specialist in Johnson City, TN (pop. 50,000). Which is to say, it's about his years treating AIDS in small town Appalachia before there was any kind of drug management on the horizon. I started reading it for work-related reasons, but I kept on because it’s one of the most affecting books I’ve read for a long time. Partly, that’s because it’s about a part of the world that’s more rural (and whiter) than where I live, but still very close, and Verghese’s deep affection for this adopted “country,” combined with his acute eye for the difficulties of living there as an outsider (whether as an Indian doctor, or a person with AIDS) really spoke to me. And he really lets you in on the thought processes that allowed him to form such empathetic relationships with his patients, while at the same time not shying away from the costs of practicing that kind of medicine. (It is also very sad, as you’d expect of a book about AIDS in the ‘80s).
State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
Okay, this one I listened to while driving and running. The plot line is a little preposterous, and the ending is a bit rushed, but I can recommend it to you for the following reasons.
*It’s a version of Heart of Darkness where all the parts are played by girls. (Sometimes, Patchett pretends it’s a version of Orpheus and Euridice instead, but Heart of Darkness works better). This turns out to be a great idea, just as a thought experiment—her try at a female Kurtz is particularly fun.
*It’s a book about women over 40 where the main plot is not romantic. It’s about intellectual/professional mentorship, ethics, and what bravery looks like for women. You just don’t see that too much. And this is very well done.
*It’s a great book if you like jungles, especially of the South American variety. It’s not such a great book if you don’t like epic scenes about snakes or un-anesthetized field surgery.
(I can also put it on my short list of novels about malaria, though the malaria plot line in this isn’t particularly well-worked out).
Even though I'm going to be out of town from basically March 23rd to April 1, I signed up for remix again. Possibly stupidly.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 04:48 pm (UTC)a lovely thing to imagine, all around