On Language

Noam Chomsky, 2007 [1975, 1977]

(August 2014)

Dense.

  

Summer Lovin’

Well, that was an abortive attempt at a summer. It’s been the wettest, shortest, and sickest that I can remember in a long time. And now I’m back in school.

Neuromancer

William Gibson, 1984

(August 2014)

  

The best laid plans, eh? I’ve been doing a fair bit of domestic travel this summer for seminars and the like, and figured that getting a stack of reading lined up would be a good way to eat up all those hours on the shinkansen. I’d finally got hold of a Harper Voyager edition of Count Zero, and what with it being Neuromancer’s 30^th anniversary it seemed like a good idea to read straight through the entire Sprawl Trilogy and stick up one huge megapost at the end of the month.

What We See When We Read

Peter Mendelsund, 2014

(August 2014)

A fascinating little book, this. But, perhaps fittingly, one that’s very hard to capture the experience of reading at a remove. Easy to read, hard to say what reading it is like.

Orlando

Virginia Woolf, 1928

(August 2014)

  

My kids are, as is now mandatory, huge fans of Frozen. Fortunately it’s a pretty good movie; I don’t know if my increased tolerance for schmaltz is due to parenthood or if it’s simply concomitant with the increased confidence of age, but god I love me a showtune. Let it Go has inevitably joined Jabberwocky and Where the Wild Things Are in the limited pantheon of things I can recite the words to by heart.

  

Rat Queens

Vol .1: Sass and Sorcery

Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch, 2014

(July 2014)

Now y’see sass is one of those words that rubs me up the wrong way. Just a little mind, more of a brief flick than a full on rub, but it undeniably goes against the grain and leads to what should be a very pleasant sensation feeling a little awkward for all concerned.

  

Look to Windward

Iain M. Banks, 2000

(July 2014)

I’m going to cop out of this one slightly. Firstly, I figure that after going so thoroughly to town on Inversions we could probably all do with a bit of a break from overthinking Banks.