7.
Title: [Manhood in America: A Cultural History]
Author: Michael Kimmel
Genre: Masculinity
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Masculinity IS Book 1
Date Completed: January 22, 2016
Rating: ***


In the introduction to Manhood in America: A Cultural Study, Michael Kimmel outlines the work of his book as seeking “how the definition of masculinity has changed over time” and how those definitions and experiences have “shaped the activities of American men” (1).  He admittedly focuses on the definitions and assertions of “straight white men” as “the dominant version” of manhood in order to forward an understanding of just one of many masculinities (4-5).  In this way, Kimmel’s book is a broad, informative, and flawed text, articulating the historical anxiety of dominant white male masculinity without nuance or great insight. Kimmel’s research is both extensive and limited – he well-documents masculine definitions and demonstrations from significant and varied primary sources, but with an eye towards the extreme expostulations and anecdotal that (I believe) ultimately detract from his ethos.  The project seeks to generate a history of dominant American manhood, and does so by moving between historical periods, and finding the “real men” in each period’s cultural artifacts.


8.
Title: [Lady Susan]
Author: Jane Austen
Genre: Nineteenth Century
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Victorian IS Book 2
Date Completed: January 25, 2016
Rating: *****

Lady Susan is a manuscript work from Jane Austen, published posthumously by her family. A short epistolary novel, Lady Susan follows the actions (and reprisals) of the titular character, who becomes a widow just before the novel's opening, and is unapologetically and thoroughly a Flirt, much to the approbation of society and family, save the approval of one friend.

Lady Susan's letters to her dear friend Alicia fully demonstrate her true character, as much as her letters to family and suitors demonstrate her dedication to social manipulation.  Lady Susan, and Alicia, not only accept the label of "Flirt," but revel in it, and glory in their ability to influence, gain hearts, and destroy proposals.  Lady Susan woos men not for true interest, but because she believes she should be adored, and figuratively collects the hearts of her lovers not unlike Margaret of Valois.

The novel clearly tries to present Lady Susan as repugnant for her social faux pas and her maternal failings, but I think there's something more to be said about a woman of her confidence and beauty, in the time and society in which she's found. It's a delightful romp, and certainly one for any who enjoy Austen.  

6.
Title: [Medea]
Author: Euripides
Genre: Drama
Medium: Kindle
Acquisition:
Date Completed: January 16, 2016
Rating: *****

Euripides' Medea, first performed in 431 BCE, is a drama revealing the lethal consequences of abandonment and jealousy, following Jason's preferment of his new bride, the daughter of Creon, over his former wife, the titular Medea.  Though the play can be easily appreciated without familiarity with the general mythology (as I myself approached it), Medea has a longer narrative in Greek mythology than that of Euripides' drama. In the play, Medea seeks revenge against both Jason and Creon for her current abandonment in a gendered cacophony of spite, manipulation, a woman's method of murder (poison), and magic. It is a complicated meditation on the idea of atonement and punishment, and the tenuous position of the forgotten wife.  Though Jason is, to modern readers, clearly in the wrong, the character of Medea is complicated, as her actions may prevent contemporary readers from sympathizing with her plight, while opening the character as a fascinating object of study for gender and agency.

I reread Medea specifically to inform a reading of another text, and it lost none of its fascination in a second reading.

4.
Title: [The Missionary]
Author: Sydney (Lady Mary) Owenson
Genre: Victorian Novel
Medium: Broadview Paperback
Acquisition: Independent Study
Date Completed: January 13, 2016
Rating: *

Early Gothic novels rely on a consistent series of tropes in order to relate horror and excitement in readers, without challenging their own identities or standard morals.  In order to protect the British sense of propriety, Gothic tales are most often set in foreign environments (allowing for the assertion that such nefariousness could never happen "here"), historically (to protect a sense of progress), and often draw on themes of religious extremity or superstition - evil monks, threatening monasteries, and the Devil himself.  Sydney Owenson's The Missionary pulls heavily on these traditions, placing a Portuguese Franciscan by the name of Hilarion in India in the seventeenth-century, where he seeks to save the poor pagans from their heretical beliefs. Ownenson's work is not intended as a Gothic, however, and where the later will draw on long descriptive passages to increase tension and enjoyable anxiety in the reader, Owenson saturates page after page with purple prose of the missionary's piety and divine dedication, preaching a perfection of soul and religious fervor which rankles the modern sense of imperialism, racism, and intolerance.  It is, in a word, abysmal.

Hilarion meets his match in the Brahmian prophetess and priestess Luxima, whose perfection in her own faith and culture is a match for the missionary's; as such, an Indian guide suggests to Hilarion that her conversion to Christianity will be the ultimate conquest, and through her the missionary may reach multitudes who otherwise placate the monk with polite smiles and nothing more.  Taking this advice, Hilarion engages in what I'll describe a series of tactical assaults on the young woman, challenging her not just philosophically, but directly violating the tenants of her religion by touching her and seeking her out in the place of her most intimate worship.  Luxima's challenges to Hilarion are the only passages I found engaging, as Owenson captures Luxima's own sense of certainty in the face of Christian assurances, allowing the "rude pagan" the same eloquence and superiority of her would-be converter.

Though I did not enjoy the novel, and would only recommend it to scholars interested in studying Orientalism and Victorian imperialism, I managed to tease a potential thread related to my own research, and potentially a final project - the fetishization of the priestess, most notably her hair and her veil.

5.
Title: [Through the Woods]
Author: Emily Carroll
Genre: Graphic
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Library Book
Date Completed: January 14, 2016
Rating: ****

I have extremely vivid memories of reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark when I was eight years old.  I checked out the books from our school library, and devoured them.  I can trace much of who I am today to those books, as they inspired a love and fascination with the macabre and the frightening (and also a fear of the dark).  Like many, I'd wager, what has stuck with me through the years is less the narrative than the dripping India-ink illustrations made of nightmares and dark whispers.  Today, when I picked up Emily Carroll's Through the Woods I was brought back to that first viewing of Schwartz's ghost stories, and gleefully devoured the entire thing in one sitting.

This is not to say that Carroll's illustrations are the same - far from it, Carroll's art is more similar to the graphic genre in which she writes. But like Scary Stories, Through the Woods often relies on imagery which draws from a sense of Freudian uncanny- the familiar becoming unfamiliar, and thus horrific. The stories are beautifully executed and precisely constructed, and it was a sweet joy to read.

3.
Title: [Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama]
Author: Alison Bechdel
Genre: Autobiography
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Library book
Date Completed: January 12, 2016
Rating: ****

Alison Bechdel is a compelling American comic artist known for her strip "Dykes to Watch Out For", and whose 2006 graphic memoir Fun Home, describing her relationship with her father before his suicide, was produced as a wonderfully successful Broadway musical in 2013. The show has won fifteen awards to date, including five Tony awards in 2015. The complexity and spirit of Fun Home is moving and engaging, drawing a parallel course between the author's own coming out as a lesbian and her closeted father's attempts to pass and remain buried in one of the ornate closets of his painstakingly-restored Victorian house. There's a tension in Bechdel's writing, given the highly personal content of her work, and an awareness of the potential conflict which will arise when she succinctly outs her father, whose life is successfully secreted until her book.  There's much to say, but not here, because this is a review of her second parental examination, and not a return to Bechdel's father.

Are You My Mother? claims to be the companion of Bechdel's earlier memoir, illuminating her mother where she once examined her father.  Frequently claims to be, I'll emphasize, as Bechdel repeatedly reminds the reader that she is writing this "book about [her] mother," and even finishes the text with her mother claiming subjectivity.  This constant reminder is required, though, because the book is not truly about Bechdel's mother - indeed, she is physically and subjectively absent for much of the story, perhaps reflecting her ornamental role in the false narrative of her deceased husband. What Bechdel shares of her mother is both a repetition of what is shared in Fun Home, and almost completely overshadowed by Bechdel's psychoanalytic readings of why her relationship with her mother is so emotionally difficult for the comic.  The book isn't about Bechdel's mother - it's about Bechdel herself, and her attempts to find a spiritual mother, to come to terms with her decision to not be a mother, to make peace with her sense of failing in the eyes of her mother. It begs for approval much like Bechdel herself seeks her mother's approval, but it makes no space for the purported subject of her narrative - her mother is influential, but peripheral. The psychoanalytic saturation of the content is burdensome, distracting from the humanity of the story, and distancing the text from the actual relationships - a distance that I think Bechdel may feel she needs, whether or not she does this purposefully. Whereas the house of Fun Home stands as a foreboding and constant symbol of Bechdel's father, whose stoic face is nearly constantly present, the dominant image of Are You My Mother? is Bechdel's own profile as she seeks reassurance from other women in her life - most frequently her therapists, but also her mother, heard most often over the phone. The pages are saturated in an eerie orange-red, the tangee lipstick of her mother forecasting the turmoil and aggressive potential of the story, the color rendering even the most ordinary of scenes slightly ominous.  Though Bechdel's father is described as having the temper in her childhood home, her mother's red suggests she is a far greater threat to the developing artist, and literally and figuratively colors each of their interactions, succinctly marking them as aggressive and hostile.

So why four stars? I enjoy reading about Bechdel as much as I would have enjoyed actually reading about her mother, and found the book engaging and entertaining, even with its endless citations of Virginia Woolf and Winicott. This may not be for everyone, but it was still for me, and I'm looking forward to going into the details in the not-too-distant future.

2.
Title: [Blood Noir]
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Vampires
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Originally preordered, re-read
Date Completed: January 6, 2016
Rating: ****

Blood Noir is, like most Anita Blake books, filled with angst, but of a different sort than we see in the books immediately preceding - this angst is professional, and how the monster-hunter manages to both love and murder the supernatural.  When a serial-killing vampire reappears in Vegas, Anita takes off while Jean Claude is still asleep, the better to slip away.  The bounty hunters Edward, Bernardo, and Olaf are back, and Anita navigates local supernatural politics, local law enforcement, and her own killer instincts as she seeks out a real, material threat.  Anita is a better vampire hunter than she is a partner or a lover, and I appreciate when the books find a balance of the two.  This book earns four stars from me less for its actual content, and more for the welcome change from the last one.

1.
Title: [Skin Trade]
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Vampires
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Originally preordered
Date Completed: January 3, 2016
Rating: Bah

In the case of my relationship with Anita Blake, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and after a year of wading through all of her adventures I'm finding her tiresome.  The affective saturation of the ongoing Blake narrative has reached a critical mass devolving into an endless parade of anonymous sex and the angst that Blake's puritanical views then inspires.  I find Richard loathsome, Anita unreasonable, and the introduction of new lovers tiresome.  This novel in particular seems stagnant; Anita realizes the use value of Jason when she agrees to accompany him home to face his physically abusive father who is dying from cancer.  This relationship, if actually developed, would have been far more compelling than the shallow circus of doppelgangers and a high-profile wedding.

This novel is a low point for me, but I've already pushed through and started Blood Noir, in which Anita regains her professional status, is not entirely shedding her identity anxiety.

Books Read in 2015

Books Read in 2015

1.  Jason by Laurell K. Hamilton. Paranormal Romance. 1.6.14. **1/2
2.  How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny.  Mystery.  1.9.15. *****
3.  Tales of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong.  Urban Fantasy.  1.12.15. ***
4.  Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty.  Memoir.  1.25.15.  ***
5.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Fiction  1.30.15. *****

6. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.  Fiction.  2.1015. *****
7. Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket.  YA.  2.13.15. ****

8. Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs.  Urban Fantasy.  3.5.15. ****
9. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Gothic. 3.9.15. *****
10. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore. Graphic Novel. 3.13.15. ***
11. The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall. Appropriative Novel. 3.21.15
12. Reality Hunger by David Shields.  Nonfiction. 3.22.1513.
13. Prudence by Gail Carriger.  Steampunk.  3.28.15. ***.5

14. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.  Fantasy. 4.2.15. *****
15. Beowulf trans. by Seamus Heaney. 4.12.15. *****
16. The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells.  Scientific Romance.  4.19.15. ****
17.  All the Copyright course readings.
18. 1005+ pages of student essays.
19.  Master of O by Ernest Greene.  BDSM.  4.2015. ***

20. Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton.  Vampires. 5.7.15.
21. The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires. 5.10.15.
22. Joker bu Brian Azzarello, ill. by Lee Bermejo.  Comicbook.  5.11.15. ****
23. Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires.  5.13.15.
24.  Bloody Bones by Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires. 5.19.15.
25. The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires. 5.25.15
26. The Princess in Black by Shannon Hale. Children's chapter book. 5.26.15. ****

27. Otherworldly Nights by Kelley Armstrong.  Urban Fantasy. 6.1.15. ***
28. A Little Night Murder by Nancy Martin. Cozy Mystery. 6.3.15. ***1/2
29. Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires. 6.2015.
30. Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires. 6.19.15.
31. Catwoman Volume 1: The Game by Judd Winick and Guillem March.  Comic. 6.20.15. ***
32. Catwoman Volume 2: Dollhouse by Judd Winick and Guillem March. Comic. 6.20.15. ****
33. Gotham City Sirens: Union by Paul Dini and Guillem March.  Comic. 6.20.15. Rubbish.
34. Batman: Heart of Hush by Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen, and Derek Fridolfs. Comic. 6.24.15. ***1/2
35. The Girl with the Iron Touch by Kady Cross.  Teen Romance Steampunk. 6.25.15. ***

36. Shifting Shadows by Patricia Briggs.  Urban Fantasy; Short Stories. 7.9.15. ***
37. Medievalisms by Pugh and Weisl. Cultural Studies.  7.10.15.
38. Soranus' Gynecology Trans. by Owsei Temkin. Gynecology. 8.2015. *****
39. INventing the Middle Ages by Norman F. Cantor. Cultural Studies. 7.2015. ***
40. The Shock of Medievalism by Kathleen Biddick. Cultural Studies. 7.2015. ****
41. How Soon is Now? by Carolyn Dinshaw. Cultural Studies. 7. 2015. ****

42. Murder on Fifth Avenue by Victoria Thompson. Cozy Mystery. 8. 2015. ***
43. Murder in Chelsea by Victoria Thompson. Cozy Mystery. 8.2015. ***
44. Murder in Murray Hill by Victoria Thompson. Cozy Mystery. 8.2015. *****
45. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Vol 2 by Alan Moore. Comic. 8.13.2015. ***
46. The Replacement by Brena Yovanoff. Fantasy. 8.17.15. ***1/2
47. The Killing Joke by Alan Moore. Comics. 8.18.2015. ****1/2
48. Horns by Joe Hill. Horror. 8.20.15. ****
51. The Coldest Girl in Cold Town by Holly Black. YA Vampire Romance. 8.2015. **

49. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg. Gothic. 9.1.2015 ****
50. Uncle Silas by Sheridan Le Fanu. Gothic. 9.9.15. *****
52. The Lifted Veil by George Eliot.  Gothic. 9.16.15. ***
53. Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. 9.16.15. *****
54. Narcissus in Chains by Laurell K. Hamilton. 9.21.15. ***
55. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Gothic. 9.22.15. *****
56. She by H. Rider Haggard. Gothic. 9.2015. ***

57. Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton. Urban Fantasy. 10.2.15. ***
58. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Gothic. 10.7.15. *****
59. The Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sara Ahmed. Affect Theory. 10.2015. ****
60. The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells. Gothic. 10.14.15. *****
61. Dracula by Bram Stoker. Gothic. 10.21.15. *****
62. The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Gothic. 10.28.15. *****

63. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Gothic. 11.4.15. ****
64. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Comic Memoir. 11.10.15. *****
65. Othello by William Shakespeare. Drama. 11.10.15. *****
66. Manners & Mutiny by Gail Carriger. Steampunk YA. 11.14.15. ****1/2
67. Incubus Dreams by Laruell K. Hamilton. Vampire. 11.2015. ***

68. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Theatre of the Absurd. 12.3.2015. *****
69. Micah by Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires. 12.4.15. **1/2
70. The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. Horror. 12.15.15. *****
71. The Harlequin by Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires. 12.27.15. **
72. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin. Horror. 12.28.15. ****
73. Breed by Chase Novak. Horror. 12.30.15. ****
74. Pirates Past Noon by Mary Pope Osborne. Early Chapter Book 12.9.15.
75. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare. Drama. 11.2015. ***** (forgot to add to original review list)

December 2015

68.
Title: [Waiting for Godot]
Author: Samuel Beckett
Genre: Theatre of the Absurd
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Work Text
Date Completed: December 3, 2015
Rating: *****

I love Waiting for Godot, and all of its wonderful potential and confusion and mess and dirt and philosophy. I love twisting and turning and trying on new ideas, and I love the discussions that come from my students.  This semester I taught Godot (briefly) through the framework of the "politics of waiting," asking my students to read this account of a production at San Quentin (pages 19-21), this great article on historically significant productions, and Rich Cluchey's interiew. We ended on a high note.

69.

Title: [Micah]

Author: Laurell K. Hamilton

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Medium: Paperback

Acquisition: Ancient History

Date Completed: December 4, 2015

Rating: **1/2

Micah is a brief hiccup of a novel which barely accomplishes one thing - finally sharing the story of Micah's infection. It's fairly useless, and could have been much better shared in a longer narrative. It was literally over before I knew it - I went from saying, "I'm nearly done, so I'm just going to finish before bed" to "Oh, that's it" in about two breaths.  In the end, it's not such a bad thing, since I was only picking up a book to take a one-evening break from research and grading, and I easily got through the whole thing.  Onwards through the series; once I'm done with Anita I intend to read all of Discworld in order, which is something else I've never done.  

70.

Title: [The Stepford Wives]

Author: Ira Levin

Genre: Horror (Yes, I say horror) 

Medium: Paperback

Acquisition: End-of-semester treat

Date Completed: December 15, 2015

Rating: *****

The plot of Ira Levin's suburban novel is so well known that its title has become lexicon - "Stepford" alludes to an eerie kind of perfection and conformity that implies a lack of personhood or deep thought.  This is precisely what Levin creates in his novel about a young family moving from the city to the suburbs, and finding that their previously-motivated female neighbors have all adopted the mien of a "housefrau" (Levin's word) over their earlier ambitions.  

Films do not do Levin's novel justice; the original narrative has a simple and concise elegance that the 2004 rendition, for example, has no hope of reaching.  It tries to do too much, give too many answers, be too progressive, when Levin did it all so much better.  There's not much more I can say without spoiling a few things, so I'll simply say that I highly recommend it.  

71.

Title: [The Harlequin]

Author: Laurell K. Hamilton

Genre: Disappointment

Medium: Hardback

Acquisition: Goodness knows when 

Date Completed: December 27, 2015

Rating: **

"I don't do women" said Sylvie.  Sylvie Baker.  The werewolf.  The lesbian werewolf.  The lesbian werewolf whose rape is registered as all the more horrific for her sexual identity, and whose lesbian partner is also recognized in the series.

After-the-fact, I remembered having a very big problem with this narrative slip the first time I read it, and it seems all the more careless and sophomoric in the rereading.  Laurell K. Hamilton is certainly not the first best-selling author to suffer from continuity errors, nor will she be the last. I have a difficult time accepting errors in defining characteristics, however, especially when the protagonist is herself so bigoted against said-characteristic (Anita is an admitted homophobe at this point in the series). 

It also occurred to me this time around that the narrative must be extraordinarily dull for anyone standing outside of Anita's inner dialogue; the action, exposition, and development all take place almost exclusively in Anita's head, or through mind-to-mind communication between a few characters.  From the outside it must look like a lot of mute posturing, staring off into space, and then sudden explosions of physical violence and/or Anita screaming.  

I've never minded the developing sex, and prefer an active Anita to her prudish early self, but at this point in the series I can understand why so many long-time fans gave up on her.  I won't, because I know better things are coming, but this mid-series lull isn't making it easy to carry through with my plan of reading everything in order, for once.  

72.

Title: [Rosemary's Baby]

Author: Ira Levin

Genre: Horror 

Medium: Hardback

Acquisition: End-of-semester treat

Date Completed: December 28, 2015

Rating: *****

Rosemary's Baby, written seven years before Stepford Wives, shows that Levin's claim to subtle horror is no accident, and his simplistic style and even pacing belie the potential for emotional impact.  Like many others, I came to Rosemary's Baby through the Mia Farrow film, so the conclusion was well known to me when I began the story; blissfully, I have forgotten nearly everything else, so I lose no pleasure in the reading. I envy those who are not familiar with the plots for their ability to approach Levin cold, taking what he has to say without the lens flare of Hollywood production.

At its core, Rosemary's Baby seems like a rehearsal for Stepford Wives, utilizing the same cultural politics as motivation for a resoundingly creepy tale.  Though relying on the supernatural instead of the mysterious ad potentially scientific, Rosemary's Baby carries the same flavor, and the same potential for alarm.  Levin wants his readers to question those they know best and trust most, which is where his true horror lies.  Again, highly recommend.  What a treat.  

An interesting tidbit:

Mr. Levin was less pleased, however, at the tide of popular Satanism his work appeared to unleash.

“I feel guilty that ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ led to ‘The Exorcist,’ ‘The Omen,’” he told The Los Angeles Times in 2002. “A whole generation has been exposed, has more belief in Satan. I don’t believe in Satan. And I feel that the strong fundamentalism we have would not be as strong if there hadn’t been so many of these books.”

“Of course,” Mr. Levin added, “I didn’t send back any of the royalty checks.”

-The New York Times

73.

Title: [Breed]

Author: Chase Novak

Genre: Horror 

Medium: Kindle

Acquisition: Conference colleague rec

Date Completed: December 30, 2015

Rating: ****

When a fellow panelist discovered I was the one who put together two panels on Monstrous Maternity, her first reaction was to suggest this book.  It's taken me a couple of years to get around to it, but boy, I'm glad I did.

The premise is a familiar (first-world?) problem: fertility.  Specifically, the narrative follows a high-powered, old-money New York couple as their struggle to produced the paternally-desired heir drives them to the extreme treatments offered by an Eastern European doctor, who happens to have an astounding success rate.  Their initial experiences are shady enough to be cringe-worthy, and the tone of the early chapters is wonderfully ominous, with strong pacing. Immediately after the treatments the couple begins behaving strangely, but they get what they paid for when they have twins (...) five months later.  The second half of the novel rediscovers the family ten years later, and explores the side effects of those strange fertility treatments.  

The critique of fertility treatments and genetic manipulation is heady stuff, and unabashedly critical; the relationships and cultural institutions that spur the narrative are complex and contentious, giving space for consideration to impetuses both big and small. That said Novak doesn't go to great lengths to drive home social messages, and I'd think the novel could well be enjoyed for the slow creep of a horror it is, without becoming beleaguered by politics. 

When I described the plot to my partner, a little more explicitly than here, since I didn't have to worry about spoilers, he responded, "You know why he wrote that book, right?  To have it made into a movie."  Perhaps - it'd make a really great flick.  But it's a pretty good read on its own, and one I'd recommend to readers of modern horror.  

74.

Title: [Pirates Past Noon]

Author: Mary Pope Osborne

Genre: Early Chapter Book 

Medium: Paperback

Acquisition: It's the 7-year-old's

Date Completed: December 9, 2015

Rating: 

First-Born was far more prepared for a trip to the dentist than I, so I borrowed his initiative and his chapter book during his cleaning. I don't know that I've ever read such an early chapter book before, and I think I'd like to try to get him into something with a little more thought, but it's a neat (and very very very brief) introduction to different places and times, and he likes them well enough.  

Fall Semester: Endless articles; 296 student essays (3-6 pages each) plus student classwork/prewriting  

November 2015

63.
Title: [The Turn of the Screw]
Author: Henry James
Genre: Gothic
Medium: Broadview
Acquisition: Victorian Gothic
Date Completed: November 4, 2015
Rating: ****

The Turn of the Screw is a typical Victorian ghost story, featuring an isolated and abandoned governess and her two mysterious charges.  Though my professor challenged my reading, I maintain that the children are themselves the most threatening figures in the story, and find that this reading is far more engaging.

64.
Title: [Fun Home]
Author: Alison Bechdel
Genre: Comic Memoir
Medium: Broadview
Acquisition: Affect Theory
Date Completed: November 10, 2015
Rating: *****

This was my second reading of Bechel's graphic memoir, after approximately nine years, this time for a class on affect theory.  Bechdel's illustrations and voice are compelling, and her struggle with her father's suicide and the development of her personal identity will engage the reader from the very beginning. For class, we are framing our conversation through Jose Munoz's "disidentification," with great success.

65.
Title: [Othello]
Author: Shakespeare
Genre: Drama
Medium: Folger
Acquisition: Work Text
Date Completed: November 10, 2015
Rating: *****

63> Both the gothic course and the affect course were amazing. I'm working on my term papers now, and it's both exciting and terrifying.  I gave a smashing paper on [Fun Home] a couple of weeks ago for Affect, and I don't think I'm going to be able to meet it.

64> I agree - it's one of the things I like best about teaching. The most exciting time is when a student comes up with something that's just so darn smart, that I've never thought of before.  It's wonderful!

66.
Title: [Manners and Mutiny]
Author: Gail Carriger
Genre: Steampunk YA
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Preorder
Date Completed: November 14, 2015
Rating: ****1/2

Manners and Mutiny is the final installment of Carriger's Finishing School series, which works backwards from Parasol Protectorate to develop the history of some familiar faces.  The plot is consistent with the rest of the series, and actually develops characters from the beginning, which I appreciate.  As a whole I didn't find it to be the most thrilling, but it did follow through with much that was promised, and for that I appreciated it.  A clean finish.

67.
Title: [Incubus Dreams]
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Ancient History
Date Completed: November 2015
Rating: ***

It's been interesting reading this series straight through for the first time, in fairly close order (not back to back, because teaching and grade school, but certainly closer than before). I'm tempted to say that Incubus Dreams is the book that signals the full shift of Anita Blake from profession to personal; earlier texts introduce some kind of balance between Anita's jobs as an animator and consultant, but in Incubus Dreams that balance is nearly gone - it's almost entirely personal. This is significant because one would thing serial killer vampires coming to time would register more on her professional level, but even the vampire side is marginalized for sex scenes.  I maintain that I don't have a preference for the two sides - I accept the development for what it is - but the moral grandstanding and angst can be a bit difficult to swallow when reading them so close together.

I like Nathaniel.

Also, in the course of research I came across an academic chapter on Anita Blake called "Sleeping With the Enemy."  Fun.  Perhaps I'll read it, when my real research is through.


75. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare. Drama. 11.2015. ***** (forgot to add to original review list)

October 2015

57.
Title: [Cerulean Sins]
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Too long to remember
Date Completed: October 2 2015
Rating: ***

Although the trajectory is a long one, Cerulean Sins may well be the tipping point at which Anita Blake books become less about police consulting, vampire slaying, and zombie-raising, and more about metaphysical sex and the psychology of supernaturals.  The court case of this volume is peripheral, and arguably useless; it's an opportunity to keep favorite characters (Zebronski) active, while offering little by way of development or interest; the conclusion is itself gratuitous.  I've long offered the terms "vintage Blakers" and "progressive Blakers" to distinguish between two fan bases of the series - those who prefer the police-consultant-Blake, and those who enjoy the sexual narratives - and my current re-reading of the series has challenged my own camp.  While I don't mind the evolution of the series, I find that the plot lines are more careless and less neat when the focus becomes the ardeur over Blake's professional escapades.  I also have no patience for the excessively "emo" characters which accompany the later.  Add in inconsistency - for example, Anita realizing that Musette is not Master enough to tell if she's lying, and then her later insistence that Asher is in trouble because Musette can sense a lie - and the novel is not nearly as satisfying as I found it the first time.

58.
Title: [The Picture of Dorian Gray]
Author: Oscar Wilde
Genre: Gothic
Medium: Broadview
Acquisition: Victorian Gothic
Date Completed: October 7, 2015
Rating: *****

59.
Title: [Cultural Politics of Emotion]
Author: Sara Ahmed
Genre: Affect Theory
Medium: Papeback
Acquisition: Theories of Culture
Date Completed: October 2015
Rating: ****

60.
Title: [The Island of Doctor Moreau]
Author: H. G. Wells
Genre: Gothic
Medium: Broadview
Acquisition: Victorian Gothic
Date Completed: October 14, 2015
Rating: *****

61.
Title: [Dracula]
Author: Bram Stoker
Genre: Gothic
Medium: Broadview
Acquisition: Victorian Gothic
Date Completed: October 21, 2015
Rating: *****

For my course I completed a reading of masculinities in the novel, questioning the roles of men and identifying the threat of Dracula. I read some great secondary sources, and pushed my readings of the novel forward beyond my previous scholarship; it was a very useful exercise.

62.
Title: [The Beetle]
Author: Richard Marsh
Genre: Gothic
Medium: Broadview
Acquisition: Victorian Gothic
Date Completed: October 28, 2015
Rating: *****

This atmospheric, threatening, and engaging story, told from four points of view, was actually more popular than Dracula at the time, and its horror well-translates to the modern reader.  I devoured the text and its complexities, and can't wait to read its problematic representations for my term paper. The question of why this fell out of favor is unanswered; fans of the gothic should seek this out at once!