octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

Mary Oliver is such a wonderful writer. Being a writer myself, I know that writing isn't effortless, but her poetry always gives me that impression - she has this very relaxed, almost meditative approach to the natural world that characterises her verse. It never comes across as laboured or formal, and it makes her work such a pleasure to read. There's actually a few lines in one of the poems here - "What We Want" - that talks about what people want in poetry: "something / inexplicable / made plain" (17), and it's such a great way of putting it. Oliver's language is not quite plain, I think, but it's approachable in the very best of ways. 

I do love the Smithsonian Backyard series. The illustrations are always gorgeous, and this book's no exception. But better than that, they're excellent examples of science communication for kids. There's nothing cutesy or saccharine about this, which is kind of a feat when your main character is a ladybird. Instead, it's a day in the life of a predator, basically, as the ladybird stalks aphids and is stalked by other creatures in turn. The illustration of the looming ant, in particular, is a clear example of threat, and the necessity of constant effort, as the ladybird is thwarted again and again in its desire to feed and store up fat for winter, is genuinely compelling.

They're great little books. 

I wanted to like this more than I did - the cover's so gorgeous, and I always like books about books. This one has a particularly interesting structure, bouncing between contemporary events and historical record in the form of journal entries, and I understand from the author's note at the back that a lot of this is based on actual fact (not entirely surprising, given all the references to various writers and their lives and publishing relationships scattered through the pages). Adimi spent a year sifting through archives for documented material, and it shows. 

It shows a little too much, perhaps. I'm left feeling that this rather fragmented narrative, which is honestly quite sparse in places, works more for me as a teaser for an actual history book. I'd read that book! In fact, it makes me want to go and find a biography on Edmond Charlot. I'll add it to the list... 

I got an early copy of this for review purposes, and I enjoyed it. I didn't love it, and I think it's flawed in a couple of major ways, but the one thing I have no argument with is the prose, which is rich and lovely. Also done very well is the building sense of community treachery, as petty grudges and existing power relations curdle into something vengeful and sinister. We like to think that small communities look out for each other, but when the witchfinder comes to town, finger-pointing is both base opportunism as well as self-protection, and the ease with which these people (particularly the men) turn on the women in their midst is appalling, and presented in an enormously convincing manner.

Less credible, however, is the main character, who continuously makes decisions of such astounding stupidity that she becomes increasingly hard to like, or to root for. There's really only one outcome for such vacuous self-sabotage, and the fact that it doesn't end up that way makes the ending feel unearned, frankly. 

I am hesitant to say, of this bird guide for children, that occasional illustrations look a little weird about the face (especially as, living on the other side of the world, half these birds are not personally known to me)... but some of them look a little weird about the face. Others have delightful little faces, but it's not a model of artistic consistency is what I'm saying.

As a basic field guide for kids, albeit one that's limited to a few dozen summer migrants, it's easy to understand, and I do like that the illustrations show the birds at their exact size, no scaling up or down. The information's pretty limited, but then this is for beginner birdwatchers, and is more concerned with letting young readers know what food they can put out in their gardens to attract extra birds. I suppose if this book gets kids interested enough to offer up sunflower seeds and bits of fruit, then it's done its job and they can no doubt get more detailed guides from the library. 

This is an extremely readable academic history of stuntwomen - not a subject I've ever spent a lot of time thinking about, but I came cross the book and thought why not, and I'm glad I took the chance. I know little more about the history of film than I do stuntwomen, so it was fascinating to discover that stuntwomen have been doing their thing for close to a century now, and that there was actually significant opportunity for them to do so in the early days of film... opportunities that tapered sharply off in the thirties or so, when studio inclinations to hire men in wigs to do the dangerous work made life a lot harder for their female counterparts.

That difficulty was compounded, over decades, by labour organisations that prioritised stuntmen, an abundance of sexual harassment, and the added difficulty of performing stunts while wearing very little, which meant that the safety padding so available to their male counterparts was frequently denied them. The slow development of industry standards, often spearheaded by a small group of women who risked (and often received) blacklisting for their efforts, is immensely frustrating to read, and no doubt would have been worse to experience. The sheer joy that these women experience in their chosen profession, however, radiates through the pages... even if I cannot possibly sympathise with the horrifying desire to throw oneself from a building onto a pile of cardboard boxes. Rather them than me on that one.

It's very well-written. I'm glad I read it. 

I'm back in Christchurch for a few months at the moment, which means that I can plunder the Christchurch public library for this series (generally, my usual small-town library does not run to stuff like this). As always, it was thoroughly enjoyable. The artwork in this series is so beautiful, and so detailed, that it's always a pleasure to look at. And I especially enjoyed the structure, which was very loosely connected chapters on the various characters, who are all separated by vast amounts of geography, but who are all experiencing moments of boredom and are finding small ways to cope with it. I think that's one of the really appealing thing about this series for me: there's such a sustained focus on daily life, where everything's important, no matter how domestic or small-scale. It's very slice-of-life, and that's fascinating to me in a historical story set in a part of the world I've never been to. 

Nicely told historical short about a dinner party in an ancient (now destroyed) city in Africa. The speculative element comes in when a fortune-teller is persuaded to join the party. Leprous, off-putting, he gives a potted future of Audoghast that tells of its eventual destruction. There's nothing especially groundbreaking here, I don't think, but the prose is easy and gentle and has an appealing feel to it. I don't know that I've read any of Sterling before - I've come across this story in a Best of volume - and his writing style seems enjoyably undemanding, so maybe I'll look up more of him in the future. Irritating that the only named female character is a whore, though. 

This is one of those books that is somehow both terribly depressing and still has a gleam of hope in it, and that's due entirely to the somewhat demented optimism of the author. I'm calling it "demented optimism" because the bravery he shows is so appalling that it's hard to encompass. The book, written in jail and smuggled out on slips of paper supplied by a sympathetic guard, is basically the last testament of the journalist and communist Julius Fuchik, who was captured by the Gestapo after the Germans took over Prague in WW2. Fuchik, who was doing his damnedest to work against the Nazis, was imprisoned for months, tortured, and then executed. Somehow, in the last days before his death, he remained optimistic that the invaders will be defeated and a better world is round the corner for everyone. I'd call it a defense mechanism, except from the sound of it he never gives up a single one of his compatriots, no matter how badly he was hurt.

Perhaps he just believed that, all evidence to the contrary, deep down most people were as brave and loyal as he was. Perhaps that's what keeps him optimistic. I hope he died thinking that. I hope it helped. 

I really enjoyed the Once Upon a Time tv series, but the few tie-in books I've read have not been spectacular, and this, unfortunately, continues that trend. It's set before the series proper, when young Regina makes a friend. Things do not go well. It's Regina, things never go well for her, so I can't say that I'm exactly surprised at the general failure of her life. I am a little surprised, however, at the streak of viciousness that she shows at the end. Now, viciousness is certainly a major part of her character, but the Young Regina of the show, before her unfortunate encounter with Snow White and the consequences thereof, was kind and sweet. Her final actions here undermines that presentation in a not particularly illuminating way, which seems a waste. The whole thing's a bit superficial really; the book's greatest advantage is that at least it's over quickly.