It looks like I forgot to post this one; oops. Better late than never I guess.
Besides being interesting and entertaining, reading and takin a look at your reading habits can actually be an interesting excursion into memories and self-reflection/change. You can find any number of articles, videos, book, studies, etc. on the value of reading in general. You can also find pretty easily all sorts of opinions and ideas about what kind of reading really counts as reading, for example is experiencing something via e-reader the same as a physical paper book the same as a recorded book the same? I was raised to be a reader; I wasn’t allowed much in the way of tv or pop culture growing up, but I was always allowed books. In general this worked out fine for me since I’m naturally pretty good with the written word in terms of consuming and thinking/discussing it in various ways. Add to that a lot of formal education in various languages and literary traditions, and I think it’s pretty fair to say I know books and reading both in general and specific fairly well.
Being a professional academic means I have to do a certain amount of reading as work, both in the classroom and maintaining my own scholarly stuff. What this means is that I have some firm ideas and understanding about the purpose and value of reading outside of work, what I’m going to call ‘fun reading’. For about 2-3 years while working on my PhD in literature, I kept what eventually became almost 2 shelves of things I knew I wanted to read for myself, nothing to do with anything school related, but just didn’t have time for. As soon as I defended, I signed up for Goodreads and an online book review group/club. I’m reasonably sure I’ve worked through most of that original set by now, but plenty of other things have taken the places of the original “books to get to when I’m done with school” shelves/ TRB list. I’ve read nearly everything Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in the original Middle English; I’ve read all of Beowulf both in translations and the original Old English; I’ve read a good bit of Shakespeare all the way through and also quite a few of his contemporaries and not just Marlowe; I’ve read a lot more classic “literature” full text and original language than most people. Much of it is worthwhile and deserving of study, but there are a lot of times when I don’t want or need something that takes committed study to understand or appreciate.
In reviewing the kinds of things I’ve been reading for myself the past few years I’ve noticed a few patterns to do with what I’ve been reading and when/why. Before going off into some listing and categorizing, the general gist is that if I know I want something not too hard on the brain or emotions, I lean towards certain types and titles, likewise if I want something thought provoking but still more on the general entertainment side of things, and finally if I’m in the mood for something more “literary” or complex in style, content, or thought. Side-note here: I am aware of the debate behind literary vs genre fiction. I have a PhD in literature; I can read, describe, and discuss the most literary stuff out there on some level. However, there is as a much value intellectually, emotionally, and generally in things usually labeled science fiction, fantasy, young adult, etc., as there is in literary fiction. I have to admit, I personally dislike most things that fall under the latter category. I just don’t think difficult or dark automatically equals good or thing I care to read. I don’t especially like a lot of things that end up on general best seller lists either for much the same reasons. Creativity in form and style is well and good, however being difficult or opaque just because that makes it “art” is just plain stupid; similarly, dark or difficult is not always the most meaningful or interesting. ‘Art’ originally comes from words meaning ‘skill’; if you can’t be interesting without suffering or darkness, or if you can’t use common styles or techniques to express something meaningful, that would suggest a lack of skill in many cases rather and the concept of “being above such things” is more of a cover for the lack of skill or understanding. Creativity and experimentation is fine, but does not always automatically equal ‘good quality’. Ok, rant over.
- Light reading for entertainment, brain drain that still manages to be interesting
Manga: The Ancient Magus Bride, My Hero Academia, Komi Can’t Communicate
This started with Shonen Jump magazine, still in print form at the time, when I moved to a new state for a job I wasn’t really ready for. Although really, I’d gotten a little into anime about a year and a half before during graduate school, and my roommate, he who got me into Gilmore Girls, mocked the One Piece opening theme music/song. I just didn’t really get into reading graphic novels in general until much later. The three series I’ve listed as examples range from fantasy, speculative fiction and adventure with heavy emphasis on super-hero/villain, and everyday life shenanigans. The Ancient Magus Bride has a heavy basis in Celtic folklore and mythology, and I enjoy the re-envisioning of some of those traditions. There is some drama and plenty of dark bits, especially in some of the backstories, but the thing I also appreciate is how most of those characters make an effort to get beyond the things in their pasts or present, and have hope or at least willingness to face whatever is coming at them. Komi Can’t Communicate is about a bunch of high school kids, two of whom struggle with everyday social interactions, and their progress towards expanding their social circles and skills. Some characterizations and scenarios get a little cringey or cliché, but overall it’s cute and in some places pretty real about the issues someone with social anxiety might face. This is for those times when you want to see someone who struggles with something that might mean lot to them at the time, but in the long term likely wouldn’t have terribly serious implications. It’s mostly fluff with enough serious hints that it’s not total mindless “yay friends!”; not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it would get a little old after a while. My Hero Academia is probably the most mainstream in terms of comics and content, in that it’s about a group of kids who want to become professional super heroes, and have to deal with school, themselves, and threats from outside villains. This leans heavily on the American super hero tradition as well as Japanese shonen tropes, and as a result, the protagonist Deku is a little bit of a cliché since his main trait is that by luck and a lot of hard work, he might just end up saving the day in the end. The thing for me about this series besides the interesting twist on themes of social outcasts and power/responsibility is in the side characters. Bakugo is the typical frenemy antagonist, but he’s also got a good bit more depth than Deku as a character in a lot of ways and he grows throughout the series so far; Deku doesn’t really change much. Similarly, Asui is on the surface the typical good girl student, but even she has some interesting moments and character evolution, although she gets far less page time than Bakugo.
Comics: Lumberjanes
Lumberjanes bears some similarities to Komi’s story, except it’s a group of already friends and their adventures both personal and otherwise at a scouting camp that happens to be really prone to supernatural goings on. There’s a lot of friendship and learning lessons about self and others in the manner of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but a little more grown up since there a good bit of LGBTQ representation in this series and while identity in that sense is never an issues among the main group, there are hints of struggles in their pasts, and there is some coming to terms with becoming part of a couple two individuals in particular. There is also a pretty interesting mythology and world-scape in hinted at in this series and some moments or real cleverness, although they can be pretty inconsistent.
Novels: Greta Helsing series, Invisible Library series, most anything by Drew Hayes
If I don’t want any sudden sharp turns from entertaining to dark and depressing, it would seem I tend to lean towards fantasy or speculative fiction that leans a bit more on the real world linked to other world sort of story. I’m not going to go into as much detail here because that might be spoilers and quite frankly it would take much longer to give the gist or a novel series than for more serially designed tales like manga and other comics. All three of these series share the tactic of taking up well known genre traditions, frequently with literary connections, and having some fun with them. You don’t need to recognize the allusions to enjoy the characters and plot etc., but it certainly adds some depth to the narrative if you can/do. None of these series are total fluff though; they do get into some serious and sometimes dark things but there’s at least some balance with other elements going on.
- General for entertainment, thought; the types of things that require some attention or thought to fully process, but aren’t necessarily trying to be ‘literary’ (and they don’t need to either) while still being well written.
This is the type of thing I‘d want to read to unwind from work but maybe might still be in the mood for thought or learning of knowledge. This is the also the place for both non-fiction and fiction. For the non-fiction side of things I tend to lean towards popular science histories; that is, histories of something scientific for a general audience that are often reasonably popular. Recent and current titles on my shelves include Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? (mortuary science), The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine (2018 edition of history of medicine podcast in book form), and The Disappearing Spoon (history of chemistry based on the periodic table). There is a lot of history and science involved in both, but so far (I have not finished The Disappearing Spoon yet) none get too jargon loaded but still manage to maintain a high level of factual detail while also maintaining some narrative.
The other non-fiction genre I’m pretty heavily into, and probably the one I read the most of, would be cookbooks. I read these both for the information as well as the obvious practical applications. Recently, I’ve been on baking and vegan kicks, both in terms of actual cooking but also reading. I’m nearly done baking my way through Paul Hollywood’s How to Bake (almost every recipe in the book except the ones involving meat or fish which don’t belong in baking (not in my baking at least) and the sourdough section (doing that from scratch just seems wasteful to me given how much you have to throw out everyday), and I’ve also read and plan to start working through Oats In The North Wheat From The South The History of British Baking Savory and Sweet. I like both the practical explanations as well as the history these two books address, plus How to Bake has some really good stuff, although not entirely for beginners, which thankfully I am not. I haven’t started baking from Oats in the North… yet, but the historical information alone is worth the read. Of the two, How to Bake is not quite as interesting just to read, though it’s plenty good as a baking technique book; the irony is that the sometimes dreaded preface to individual recipes in Oats in the North are maybe not necessary for doing the baking, but they really are intriguing from a culinary history and info perspective. On the food side, I’m nearly done working through Vegan for Everybody (America’s Test Kitchen). I’m not a novice here either, but I do appreciate the focus on the reasoning and science behind the methods, although there’s often way too much emphasis on a favored method at the expense of the variety of options; for example, aquafaba as an egg substitute is practically the only option they have for that particular vegan conversion when there are in fact many other substitutes available. On the plus side, they do provide the first two recipes I’ve encountered in a very long time that result in edible eggplant, one of few veggies I don’t especially like; one is a veggie lasagna, and the other is an eggplant “parmesan”. I’m also starting Evolving Vegan by Mena Massoud, but so far, it feels like the spicing makes everything taste about the same, no matter which recipe (lots of paprika and cumin involved here) I’ve tried. I also prefer to do batch cooking on the weekends so I don’t need to worry during the week, and these recipes are not scaled for that. In terms of reading material, Evolving Vegan doesn’t have as much not-recipe material as most, which sometimes is a good thing, but since it’s presented as at home versions of things from various vegan restaurants, almost entirely from one US coast or the other, a little more info about the places or people the recipe came from would be interesting. Not everyone has been to or get easily get to any of the places mentioned, even pre-pandemic, so from a reading perspective, there could have been more information added for general interest.
On the fiction side, I seem to lean towards fantasy that relies on world-building and characters. This means titles like Cemetery Boys, The Goblin King, and The Perfect Assassin. These three take place in very different worlds, but all have specific mythologies and/or cultures behind them, and that’s really interesting to me. Two of the three at least hint at if not outright involve a queer romance. Most conventional romances go way too far into the personal melodrama for my tolerance, but these manage to include a love angle without overdoing it. All three involve a misfit character finding a place in their world usually by successfully but not always easily getting through an adventure or few on the way. The focus on culture and fitting in seems to be the thread I like here, and also the ‘if not happy at least not thoroughly tragic’ conclusions to all three. None of these are fluff readings as they do get serious in terms of plot, character, and meaning/themes, but they do it in ways that are thought provoking or educational about something real (LatinX bruja/brujo lore for example is central to Cemetery Boys). They also allow the good and decent to actually do some of the heroism and winning. You don’t have to be all or mostly bad or have a horrific past/present to be interesting. Decent can be literary too and in a lot of ways that takes more skill. Dark can be interesting and literary, but should not automatically equate ‘high literature’.
- Literary for style, thought, and maybe ‘entertain’ as in engage. In a lot of ways this is basically the above category with fiction, but more complex in structure, narrative, and/or style.
In this category, I’m either currently reading or have in the not so distant past read A Desolation Called Peace, Murderbot Diaries 1-5, Ninth House, and Gideon the Ninth. All of these have some degree of sci-fi, and Ninth House adds some supernatural fantasy elements. Part of A Desolation Called Peace is a first contact situation, and the rest so far is variously war/battles fought in space, politics, culture, and at least one character central to the previous novel trying to make peace with those events (of the previous novel) as well as figure out what comes next for her. Some of the cultural language elements are complex and based in real historical South American language and culture; it‘s not too surprising to learn then that the author is a trained academic, a historian I think. I haven’t finished this one, but if this one is like the first novel of the series, there will be a very hard-won victory in the end, and pieces will need picking up in the end. Not so much a happy ending as a thought provoking one.
Ninth House and Gideon the Ninth are both pretty dark but they manage to make it interesting with world building, plot, and characters as the key mysteries are investigated and at least somewhat answered; the endings are not pure tragedy either, which I appreciated, and the main characters achieve something they wanted at a heavy cost (because of course) and have paths forward. I have Harrow the Ninth (sequel to Gideon) but haven’t read it, and I’ve heard this one is more challenging both in terms of style and character than the first, but we’ll have to see. Ninth House so far is a stand-alone novel about secret societies, communicating with and controlling ghosts, personal and possibly literal demons, and murder, and even though some things are addressed or resolved, there’s plenty of opening left by the conclusion for an eventual sequel. Murderbot is so far 4 novellas, and a novel (soon to be two novels as of 4/26); on the one hand this is a classic non-human narrator/character experiencing and observing humans with some classic humanity and AI and machine technology ethics with a dash of corporate evil; on the other hand, there is plenty of comedy and general humor (see for example the acronym Murderbot (the narrator) comes up with for the AI of a spaceship it encounters in the second novella).
If I take all of this together, I’m noticing something about my own recent reading habits here; well-written but generally classic adventure fantasy for light reading, alternate culture-based fantasy and science or history based non-fiction in general reading, and sci-fi for the literary. All of the titles I’ve mentioned with the exception of the non-fiction fall into what’s often labeled “genre” fiction. While on occasion something from one of these genres gets mainstream attention and acceptance, like Neil Gaiman or J.R.R. Tolkien, they are traditionally not “literary”, except that they actually are, and not only that, they often require a bit more thought in the worlds they create because at least some of that setting and background stuff is made-up. I would argue to do that well takes more skill, not less. There’s plenty of average and bad SF/F writing published, but that’s true of “literary fiction” too.
I have used things from all 3 categories in class as well even since I added novels to intro to lit/comp 2. The Fred series by Drew Hayes is consistently popular, Binti (sci-fi novella in the Afro-Futurism category, part 1 of 3) and All Systems Red (Murderbot 1) seemed to go over well, as did Ink and Bone (Great Library #1- YA alt-history speculative fiction; I’d put this under the ‘General reading’ set) and Vicious by V.E. Schwab (the Literary group). The thing is, it seems to work better to assign things that have literary merit that students might actually enjoy reading; if it’s a struggle to get through or understand, they won’t read it. The old argument that ‘popular’ equal less literary is not true, but even if it were, if no one wants to read it, what’s the point?
medievalbooksandmore 