Not much this month, but maybe more will come as the weather cools.
Just Jane, Lavender (Y)
Really read like a historical romance that had turned into a teen novel. Our heroine (originally Lady Jane, but now that she's sympathetic to the rebellion in her new home in the American Colonies she goes by Jane) is terribly plucky and whatnot, and her love is true. Not a great read, overall. One star.
Dungeon: Twilight, Vol. I: Dragon Cemetary (Y)
The first volume in the third series (of many) of the Dragon graphic novels by Sfar and Trondheim. They are not translating and publishing them in the US fast enough for me. Dramatic quests, flawed heroes and villains, and a good leavening of humor mark the whole series. The Twilight series seems to be aiming to wrap up a lot of threads from the other series. Some swearing, dismemberment and cartoon nudity may limit what schools purchase the book. Three stars.
Day of Tears: a Novel in Dialogue, Lester (Y)
A fictionalized version of the largest slave auction in American history, with each character having a voice and a variety of experiences and views. Well put together. Three stars.
Fever 1793, Anderson (Y)
A fictionalized version of the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793, told through the eyes of a teen girl who works in her family's coffeehouse. Lots of good detail and drama, even though it reads fairly modern. Three stars.
July seems to be a traditionally busy month for the Collective. It was four years ago this month that we (well, Sarah) started blogging (I know this because the original Smelltone blog is still out there, gathering dust). In November of that same year, we moved the blog to our own site, and there it has remained ever since (not counting a migration from Greymatter to Movable Type and from our "free with ISP" page to a formally hosted one).
I have sometimes toyed with the idea of a minimalist news site, one that only tells you the news that you really need to know, and only updates you when there is actual new news. But since most people I know are habitual news trawlers, I don't think it would be for anyone but me, and since I would have to do significant news checking to make the site, it would mean I was reading more news than my minimum daily allowance. Instead of that, here are a few sites that allow you to skip a lot of cruft if you wish to.
Regional Public Information Network
All of the Puget Sound area government organizations that tell you when some urgent event needs your attention, all in one place.
Newseum's Front Pages
The Newseum collects just the front page from papers arount the world, a quick way to see what the top one or two stories are in any given area, with the nice option of visually averaging out how important a story is globally. Takes some poking around to get the region you want.
Wikipedia Main Page
Wikipedia gives you links to articles related to what's in the news, an assortment of randomly selected information, today's holidays and anniversaries and links to a more exhaustive list of same.
The Psycho Ex Game, Markoe and Prieboy. Yes. Not flawless, but enjoyable. It was impossible for me not to speculate on which stories had been pulled completely from experience, and which had been given writers' embellishments (or just plain invented). Further fueling that impulse is the fact that Recipe Cards have been posted by (or at least on behalf of) the authors. Also available: the song that started it all. I've been a fan of Ms Markoe's work for more than twenty years, and while I don't think this is the best book she's been involved with creating, it does have a unique voyeuristic appeal.
(I'm getting "bandwidth exceeded" errors from the links to the book's website; I'm hoping they'll get more bandwidth at the beginning of the month (i.e., tomorrow))
Hey! Report that dead bird (in King County, at any rate) to the Public Health Department in a surprisingly detailed form.
Facilities replaced a bunch of lights at work, at the request of some higher ups who thought the old lights made it a bit dim and dreary here (they were right). Unfortunately, the new bright lights make the ratty carpet and worn desks that much more apparent. Oh well.
You should totally read Jason's essay on various Georges.
Start the countdown to a House, M.D. episode featuring Mothball Huffing.
Maybe it was just because we were strangers, but, for being the 4th happiest population, Icelanders sure weren't very personable. Or maybe I'm simply in error imagining that happy people are personable.
Update: See the Original data (and an interactive map if you're running Flash).
Today I saw a kid with a snake painted across his face, though it was a rather simple snake: at first I thought someone had just drawn a line across his face with a fat-tipped dark green marker. But then I saw the little red tongue sticking out of one end (the "business" end?). I was reminded of John Candy's SCTV character, Harry, the Man with the Snake on His Face. His snake was more elaborate, though.
Here at FP, we do science so you don't have to!
Experiment 1, Field: Economics.
Can you pay for purchases at the Fred Meyer self-serve checkout only using pennies?
Answer: sort of. I got through $2.00 in pennies (buying a soaker hose, toothpaste and two baking pans) when the attendant asked if I was really going to pay with all those pennies. I indicated that I was. She suggested that I just give her the rolled pennies, since putting them in one at a time would take all day (a good inference, since it was taking quite a while to feed in all those pennies). So she took the rolled pennies and credited them to my purchase. I paid for the rest with paper money. My recommendation is to only buy small things with pennies, and avoid any time when there is a line.
Experiment 2, Field: Physics
Can you make an air conditioner with a fan and some ice?
Answer: yes! I used an Archie McPhee Sumo Fan and a metal mixing bowl filled with ice cubes. I placed one before the other, and turned the fan on. I was immediately more comfortable.
Some of these forced perspective photos of cars are good, though very few of them make any attempt to sustain the illusion.
the accidental, Smith. Yes. This is Ali Smith, not Zadie Smith of On Beauty, though this book, too, performed well (this one took first place) in the Tournament of Books. There is much I might have disliked about this book: the narrative style is flashy, there are not-infrequent somewhat extended passages where a narrative voice becomes fascinated with words, the structure does not lend itself to inattentive reading, those sorts of things. But the only features of the novel that bothered me were the typesetting (I never before realized how much easier to read a fully justified line of text is than ragged-right) and the title (for reasons I can't possibly discover, I could not think of the title without starting to compose a song to the tune of "The Carioca" ("oh, have you read the accidental? It's really very continental..." or "It's only somewhat sentimental..."); ugh).
Update: To clarify somewhat, I'm a big fan of flashy narrative and am frequently myself fascinated with words to the point of distraction, but it's been so long since I've read an author who could do those things in service of the story and the characters, rather than as an intrusive plea for attention, that I've taken to looking for simplicity. I suspect it may be easier for attention-seeking works to get published, so I have a notion that a simply written work that made it to my library shelves is more likely to be well crafted. Ali Smith's verbal and structural games proved to be a delightful surprise.
I'll only preface this list by saying that I read a lot of magazines last month.
Not Like I'm Jealous or Anything: the Jealousy Book (Y)
An anthology of writing by authors of teen lit (many of my favorites) on the subject of jealousy, from relationship jealousy to being jealous of a sibling, a peer, or even a car. With only a few weak pieces, this is overall a fabulous collection of writing. Some content will keep this at a high school level in school libraries. Four stars.
Odder Jobs: More Portraits of Unusual Occupations, Schiff (Y)
Follow up to Odd Jobs, with more of the same beautiful occupational portraits and short descriptions of the jobs. I hate to complain, but there were several instances of two or more people from the same workplace-- there was more stretching to fill the space. Three stars.
The areas of my expertise: an almanac of complete world knowledge compiled with instructive annotation and arranged in useful order ... by me, John Hodgman
I loved this book and spread it over several months of reading. Five stars.
Spook: science tackles the afterlife by Mary Roach
Another quite fun and funny book from Roach-- I like her taste in research. Four stars.
Generation S.L.U.T (sexually liberated urban teens): a brutal feel-up session with today's sex-crazed adolescent populace by Marty Beckerman
Brutal, yes, raw like an open wound, with a whole lot of caring behind the hurt. It's a portrait of a generation, but I don't have enough info (read: am too old) to know if it's really on the money or not. It does make me want to keep an eye on this Beckerman-- great writer. Four stars.
The art of gaman: arts and crafts from the Japanese American internment camps, 1942-1946
Lovingly made and lovingly photographed handiwork from the internment camps, with detail on the difficulty in finding art materials, and the necessity to maintain dignity. Four stars.
On Beauty, Smith. No. I chose this due to its performance in the Tournament of Books. I started to hate it with the first sentence, but forced myself to give it more of a look. It finally defeated me ten pages in with its power of making me not give a rat's ass about any of the characters. Oddly (since the author is from London), I found the idiomatic English overdone, as though she is writing for an American audience of hyper-Anglophiles. Even the American character speaks like a Brit—"How am I meant to react?"—though this is not consistent, as she later says "ass", which her husband re-figures to "arse". All in all, very distracting.
The First, Second, and Third Books of Swords, Saberhagen. If you like that sort of thing. I re-read these to see whether I missed anything cool in Ardneh's Sword. The refresher did clear up the otherwise-inexplicable pointless character from AS, but, if anything, made the latter work even more of a disappointment in retrospect. There's not even the slightest hint, in the fairly explicit exegesis presented in the Swords books, of the direction Saberhagen would, twenty-odd years on, decide to retrofit into the saga. I can construct a somewhat tortuous chain of reasoning by which the two ontogenies are not outright incompatible, but the author should be shooting for a very satisfying click as all the pieces fit together, not "Well, if you interpret what Draffut said this way, I suppose it still makes sense...."
On their own, the three original Swords books are just fine, as is the Empire of the East before them. I don't have any immediate intent to re-read the eight Lost Swords books.