Jeff

This was a fair read. I was disappointed that the scope was wide but not too deep–I would have liked less of a survey and more depth from all of the women interviewed. I was also a little disappointed that there were so few men interviewed/quoted. There are good reason for the fact that Ray mostly talks about women naked on the internet, but I would have liked to have at least some information on how men deal with Hookups, downloads, and cashing in on internet sexploration...there was virtually none.

An interesting, personal philosophy of sex. So far I'm really enjoying this–Tisdale does overreach when it comes to the ubiquity of, say, how sexuality permeates life (not everybody experiences the world as such a fully sexual thing as others do), and I have some quibbles regarding how she discusses gender, but what a great book.

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This book is over 14 years old now, and in a way that adds to the fun in reading it. In one section, she talks about ever-expanding inclusion in so-called sexual revolution, and notes that the Lesbian and Gay Parades have just become Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Parades, and she hopes for the time when they will become Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Parades.

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Turns out this is one of those books that gets better as it goes along. Though there are a few things that make the book a little “dated” (specifically, her discussions of trans issues), by the time she gets to the end, this is a nice primer of culture and sexuality, at least from one person's perspective. The strength of the book is found in the personal stories Tisdale sprinkles throughout.

The first story is one by Gene Wolfe, and this book is already worth the money–I'm not even done with the story yet. Very excited to read some good stuff...

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Update: It's all pretty good stuff. The Harlan Ellison story was good, but pretty much a one-trick pony. I really enjoyed the LeGuin story (more than I've enjoyed either of the two novels of hers I've read), and the story about Saint Judas Iscariot, by George R.R. Martin was pretty much written for me. I'm only a fourth of the way through this book and already it's probably my fave anthology, ever.
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Update: Finished this, regretfully, the other day. I love every single story in here, with one exception. Best anthology I've ever read.

About 70 pages in, and I'm loving this one. I imagine this may be intentional, but it reads a bit like a post-apocalyptic Tom Sawyer so far.
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Almost done with this one. A really good read. The story really is about a possible 22nd-Century America, but the characters are interesting enough, and there is enough plot, to keep me pretty happy. Mostly, though, I just love the style of writing, using a first-person narrator to convey the time and place through how he's providing us with the story.
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Finished up the last 100 pages last night. A satisfying ending, if more sad than I had seen coming. I'll likely pick up Spin next...

Loving this one. Lots of little short stories, disguised as chapters, though each could stand on its own. It's a tough read because of the various senses in which “man crazy” is evoked, including various types of harmful-to-women crazy men, but well worth the pain so far.

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This is a tough one to read, mostly because all of the men in it are pretty reprehensible. But the language is so brutally beautiful, I can't stop.

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And...it just got tougher to read. But well worth it. I love it when Oates is on her game in this way, but I will need to take a break before I read the next one I have of hers...sometimes the brutally honest writing needs some time to settle.

So far this is an interesting read: Rufus is giving us an almost stream-of-thought take on “being stuck”–including information gleaned from interviews combined with her own take on her own stuck-ness. I like how she flows from examples of others right into her own story, which resonates enough with me to make any review pretty biased. :)

That said, the book definitely has a patchwork kind of structure. I generally prefer more of a definite structure in non-fiction, but her personal reveals are enough to make it worthwhile for me.

Really interesting ideas here so far, though I'm skeptical of the science, possibly in part because I'm not enjoying Lambert's writing style very much–what little humor there is feels forced (and academic-ish), which isn't always a bad thing, but rubs me the wrong way here. I think the book is trying to walk a line between being a self-help book and being a pop-neurology book, and it gets tripped up.

Still, lots of what she has to say is fascinating (especially the function of using one's hands for certain tasks fending off depression), and I look forward to learning more about it all.

This is an interesting one. Roszak is examining the ways in which science has been influenced by the fact that, historically, so many scientists have been men–he takes some basic ideas about how traditional masculinity has affected science (e.g. science as “controlling” nature), and explores a bit more through analysis of metaphorical language and such just what has been influence. To oversimplify one example: Atomic theory held sway for longer than it perhaps should have because it appealed to the traditionally masculine concept of The Individual.

He often overreaches, and a few times gets the facts about the science wrong, but I still am really enjoying the book. He pointed out that the CERN headquarters has an ancient alchemist's symbol (snake eating its own tail) emblazoned on a marble floor–signifying to the physicists the universe understanding itself by creating creatures like us who can understand things), and that the valley that Mary Shelley overlooked while she wrote Frankenstein was actually the future home of CERN...and those tidbits make the book worth the read.

Really enjoying this one so far–the descriptions of what it would be like to be a mind in a purely mechanical body are quite vivid. Also, it's got queer characters, and some naughty bits.

Turns out there are quite a few naughty bits.

Liked this book quite a bit. Pelland has some complex ideas to explore, and she touches on a lot of interesting concepts–I wish that she had explored them a little bit more in-depth, even. I would have edited out at least a few of the “a machine doesn't feel” lines, but other than that, an enjoyable read which got me to think quite a bit about minds and brains.

I'm about halfway through right now, and it's a compelling read. I challenge anyone (especially men) to read this book without coming away with at least a taste of the complexity of Dworkin's ideas, given the complexity of some of the life stories she tells here. You'll no longer stand for oversimplifications of her ideas. She clearly doesn't “hate men” and isn't “anti-sex”. She's a feminist with a heartbreaking history.

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Finished it, and whew, it's a tough read. It gets more heartbreaking, and more angry, as it finishes up. I'll never read Dworkin in the same way again.

I'm going with four-stars, mostly for the brutal honesty of this book, and for everything I learned about compulsive hoarding. I would have liked to learn even more about hoarding from the book, actually; also, I would have liked for this to have been more explicitly both the author's story and her mother's story–more connections between their lives and neuroses. And, somehow, I wanted to hear (even) more about the “secret” part of the secret–more reflection on secrets and shame would have been welcome.

It was a difficult book to read for me, because, while I wasn't raised by a hoarder, there have been hoarders in my family, and a lot of this hit home–some of it makes me reframe some of my own neuroses as perhaps a bit more dangerous than I had thought. It's a good reality check.

I'm about half way through now, and this is one of the best collections of short stories I've read in a long time. Whimsical quite a bit of the time, dark a little bit of the time, and with stories that will stick with me for a very long time, I think.

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This book does not disappoint. It started strong, and each story was as good (at least) as the story before. Can't wait to read more of her stuff.

About halfway done, and I think this is my fave Butler book so far, out of a handful of books I've read by her. It's got a very simple plot structure, but a fascinating central character.

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An odd thing happened as I finished up the book–it's a great start to a larger tale, but the writing weakened as it went on. Lots of wonderful ideas here, and it's sadly refreshing to read a book with lots of people of color, but in the end the execution is lacking, for me, in a way that all of the other Butler books I've read weren't lacking. It seems like a sketch for a story, rather than a story.

I do love the idea of Earthseed as a religion, even though I'm mostly anti-religion, and because of that I'll likely read the second book as well, even though the third book of the trilogy was never written...

I'll add that Butler's dystopia is perhaps a little too realistic for me: I think she sees what is actually coming, which makes reading this book chilling.