Re: What Have You Read Lately? (2024 Edition)

[hmaria1609]

A graphic novel version of Hamlet with the full text must either have a lot of very crowded captions and word and thought balloons, or a massive page count.

This is "Hamlet" manga edition I read from the library. The layout of dialogue in the play and thought balloons were easy to follow. The manga was over 400+ pages.

I've read and own previous Manga Classics titles including Pride and Prejudice, Anne of Green Gables, Jane Eyre, to name a few.

[Parasaurolophus]

August's haul (with a timely report, for once!):

Keith M. Parsons - Drawing Out Leviathan: Dinosaurs and the Science Wars: A philosophy book on dinosaurs! And one that promises to tackle the social construction question (which W.J.T. Mitchell promised and never delivered on)! How exciting! Except that it's totally meh. It's light on philosophy (even of science), and so, so weak on the social construction (basically, the silly Latour stuff is silly, and that's it, apart from [justifiably] grousing about Mitchell). There's a whole vast universe of things to say about palaeoart and skeletal mounts and how these differ from or sometimes inform science, how they're constrained by science but responsive to classification, etc. But there's none of that in here. I suppose, to be fair, there hadn't yet been much serious work done on social construction when this was written, but even so, the outlines are right there–Parsons even delves deep into the AMNH Brontosaurus skull fiasco! Instead, much of the text reads as a series of petty scores being settled. Oh, and weirdly he spends a whole chunk of a chapter on Ostrom/Bakker and the Dinosaur Renaissance, but somehow concludes that almost nothing they postulated was borne out by subsequent science. But... even by 2001 it was clear (to almost everyone) that Ostrom/Bakker had been substantially correct all along, and that the evidence against ectothermy (and for some version of endothermy) in particular was reaching a critical point. So that was weird, and the rest was meh.

Steve Fiffer - Tyrannosaurus Sue: The Extraordinary Saga of the-Largest, Most Fought Over T. Rex Ever Found: Journalist writes like a journalist, which makes it an easy but frustrating read, and light on the details I'd have liked to learn (while heavy on the things journalists like to write, like describing what their interlocutor looks like/is wearing). The account here is very sympathetic to the Larsons, whom I'd mixed up with the Waltons in my head, so it was nice to come away with a better image of them. The angle here is very much big-government-against-the-little-guy, although that's warranted to a large extent. Bakker shows up a bunch to make some highly annoying interventions. I guess I learned some things, although it's hard to really pin down just what–and I was not intimately familiar with the Sue story before (I knew its broad strokes but no details).

James Herriot - James Herriot's Cat Stories: Read it to the hatchling, and we enjoyed it. It's just a collection of stories published in the other books, but we haven't read all the others, so there was plenty of new stuff in there. A lot of tear-jerkers too.

Becky Chambers - To Be Taught, If Fortunate: A space exploration novella with a fair bit of xenoecology, for which I have an insatiable appetite. It was fun, and good. Not cloyingly positive, like much of her other work (good as that is).

Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep: Found this on the free shelf a few months ago, and decided to read it to open up space for dinosaur books/because we have to downsize for a while. Basically, a space opera: a ship fleeing a powerful enemy crashes on a planet inhabited by group minds who coordinate via soundwaves (rather than mystical mumbojumbo like in a lot of '70s scifi). My expectations were quite low, but I was pleasantly surprised: the worldbuilding is quite detailed and well done, actually. I can see why it won the Hugo. The '90s sexism is there, but not too bad, especially past one early scene. I'm curious about the two follow-up novels, which I didn't expect at all.

[apl68]

I Was a Stranger, by Sir John Hackett.  Hackett was a British general who wrote a bit on military history after retiring from active service.  He's perhaps best known for The Third World War:  August 1985, in which he used his insider's perspective to envision what a war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact might look like without the usual apocalyptic sci-fi speculation.  I've known of his work for many years, but never read any of it.

Only recently I learned that in the 1970s he published a memoir of his experiences in the Market-Garden disaster of September 1944.  He was with the British airborne forces at Arnhem, was seriously wounded toward the end of the fighting, and was turned over to the Germans for treatment just before the remnants of his unit tried to break out toward Allied lines.  After he received lifesaving surgery, members of the Dutch Resistance sneaked him out of his hospital and hid him in a Dutch household.  They spent the next several months nursing him back to health.  Eventually the Resistance helped him escape to Allied territory.

Though it's a fairly exciting wartime memoir in places, what really stands out here is the human interest.  The people in the occupied Netherlands were facing famine by this late stage of the war, yet still worked to shelter and feed trapped Allied servicemen, Jews, and other refugees.  Hackett found himself with a family who bonded with him over shared Christian commitment, and essentially made him one of the family as they nursed him to health.  It's an extraordinary example of what willing people with the right spirit can do in the worst of times.  It's also a fine glimpse at the mundane reality of life in wartime under enemy occupation.

The title comes from Jesus' words in the Gospel of Matthew:  "I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me to drink, a stranger and you took me in, sick or in prison and you visited me.  Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me."  He goes on to warn that those who refuse those in need have in effect refused him, and will be punished for it.  The family that took in the wounded Hackett demonstrated just how much they had taken Jesus' instructions to heart.