Space Station Mir

18. Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver and illustrated by Kei Acedera. This charming fairytale for this economically-conscious age was the perfect segue into the writing and reading class for fourth and fifth graders that I begin teaching tomorrow. There's this certain mood and tone, a particular cadence and use of words that has become prevalent in children's literature and that I absolutely adore. It's almost a kiddie version of my beloved nineteenth-century narrator. Except a wise-cracking, cynical-but-I-still-believe-in-magic kind of kid narrator. I recognize it from classics like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe , Lemony Snicket's books, and Catherynne M. Valente took it to linguistical heights with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making . Liesl & Po begins: "On the third night after the day her father died, Liesl saw the ghost. ... It was as though the darkness was a sheet of raw cookie dough and someone had jus...

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is a little more challenging than it would normally be for me, as I've read significantly fewer books at this point in the year than any other year in recent memory. Of course, I've also read far more academic articles and parts of academic books at this point in the year than any other year in recent memory! 1. Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver (review to come) 2. Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy 3. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin 4. The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord 5. Every Boy Should Have a Man by Preston L. Allen 6. Contact by Carl Sagan 7. Shattered Pillars by Elizabeth Bear 8. Triton by Samuel R. Delaney I don't really have more that I think deserve to be on this list, but I'm sure there will be more before too long!

These are the last three books we read for my Utopian Science Fiction class, I highly recommend Woman on the Edge of Time and less so Wild Seed , I was less taken with Patternmaster . 15. Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy What really drew me in about Woman on the Edge of Time was the social status of the protagonist. Connie is an older, minority (Latina) woman who has been hospitalized repeatedly for mental instability. She is essentially the lowest of the low on society's totem pole. And it is amazing what this means society can do to her, all sorts of oppression, down to the grossest of experiments and most invasive procedures can be inflicted on her because of her inferior social position. And yet, Connie has access to another world, a world where the social distinctions that oppress her; race, gender, class, even her mental condition (that only questionably exists in the first place) have been eradicated. Mattapoisett is a town on this new Earth, that has evolv...

Top Ten Tuesdays are over at the Broke and the Bookish! Top Ten Books on My Summer TBR List Books I'm Teaching! 1. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg 2. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi Books for My Academic Work 3. Sappho in Early Modern England by Harriette Andreadis 4. Early Modern Metaphysical Literature by Michael Morgan Holmes For Fun 5. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson 6. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel 7. The Wet and the Dry by Lawrence Osborne (ARC from LibraryThing!) 8. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell 9. Night Film by Marisha Pessl 10. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

2. Porn & Revolution in the Peaceable Kingdom by Micaela Morrisette Another Tor. com short story or "novelette." Summary: A sentient slime mold can't keep his pet human from rutting with the neighbors' pets and feral humans. My Thoughts: I wonder if merely switching the roles of humans and animals in society is a "novum"* or a mere costume-change. I think the novum, or estranging device, in this story might be methods of reproduction. In the story, animals (including bacteria) reproduce asexually, while humans remain sexual, in order to maintain their evolutionary inferiority. *Novum means "strange newness" It is the term that sf critic Darko Suvin uses to denote the device of estrangement in an sf novel. Favorite Quotes: "She had a big bathtub shaped like a conch shell that Tim could fill with different human-safe soaps so the taps spilled out warm bubbling water in just the right combination of perfumes and cleansers....

I promised myself I'd read more short stories this year, and Tor.com has a-plenty. 1. Jacks and Queens at the Green Mill by Marie Rutkoski Summary: A spirit plays a game of cards in an alternate Chicago. Favorite Quotes: "'Silk and ice,' he said, running the words together so that they sounded like silken ice ." "Music floated out. It infused the night, rich as brassy ozone, light as pattering rain."

I do enjoy a good travel book and there are many on my to-read list, but here are some of my favorites so far! Top Ten Tuesdays are over at the Broke and the Bookish. 1. A Taste of Adventure by Anik See 2. What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge It's a kids' book, but it introduced me to Nice, Rome, Naples, and other places I want to go someday. 3. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Paris to Pamplona...(and Lady Brett Ashley to boot). 4. Logavina Street by Barbara Demick She stays in one place the whole time, but learning about Sarajevo during the Bosnian War was really fascinating. I didn't know much about Czechoslovakian history before (not that I do now, but I know more than I did). 5. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks Speaking of Sarajevo, this fictional book traces the movement of the Sarajevo Haggadah in time AND place. 6 A Year in the World by Frances Mayes She is such a beautiful writer and I'm kind of jealous of the apparent wealth ...