what I’ve been reading lately:
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The System of Vienna: From Heaven Street to Earth Mound Square by Gert JonkeTranslated by Vincent KlingDalkey Archive Press, 2009
In his Translator’s Afterword, Vincent Kling describes The System of Vienna as a “parody-tribute to the art of autobiography as construct,” which is a good way of putting it (109). The book starts with the story of the narrator’s birth, as told to him by his mother: the language of it makes you aware of
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Rookie Yearbook One, edited by Tavi GevinsonDrawn & Quarterly, 2012
Rookie Yearbook One features highlights from Rookie’s first school year of existence, September 2011 to May 2012. Though I am definitely older than the intended audience (it’s for teenagers; I’m 32) it was still a satisfying read. It’s a mixture of advice pieces, personal essays, and other stuff from a mixture of teen and adult
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The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne JonesGreenwillow (HarperCollins), 2006
This is the last of the Chrestomanci books, chronologically, and it’s really satisfying: it’s set in and around Chrestomanci Castle and features Cat Chant as one of the central characters, with Chrestomanci and the rest of his family making appearances, too, and it also features a new character, Marianne Pinhoe, and her large magical family,
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Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne JonesGreenwillow (HarperCollins), 2001 (Originally Collins, 2000)
Mixed Magics consists of four stories set in the same worlds as the Chrestomanci books, all during the time when Christopher Chant is Chrestomanci, the enchanter in charge of overseeing the use of magic. The longest story is almost sixty pages; the shortest is twenty pages; they’re all pretty fun. The book starts with humor,
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Conrad’s Fate by Diana Wynne JonesGreenwillow (Harper Collins), 2005
When he’s around eight, Conrad Tesdinic’s Uncle Alfred tells him he has a lot of bad karma and needs to be careful. When he’s twelve and it’s time either to continue his education or to leave school and get a job, Uncle Alfred gives him very bad news: “I’ve been doing a lot of divining
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I Don’t Want to Be Crazy by Samantha SchutzPUSH (Scholastic), 2006
The prologue/first poem in I Don’t Want to Be Crazy, Samantha Schutz’s YA memoir in free verse about getting through college while coping with an anxiety disorder, narrates the experience of having a panic attack: My hands are shaking. I try to squeeze them, try to make it stop, but now my fists are shaking,
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The Ground by Rowan Ricardo PhillipsFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012
The 44 poems in this volume are a mixture of city-poems and myth-poems; characters and allusions (Orpheus and Eurydice, Dante) recur, along with images (two different poems include the image of “a tree half aflame” inside the speaker). Phillips’s language is one of gorgeous rhythms, whether the syntax is straightforward or more complicated: “Tonight I
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Two Serpents Rise by Max GladstoneTor, 2013
Two Serpents Rise is set in the same world as Three Parts Dead, but doesn’t follow the same characters: it isn’t even set in the same city. While Three Parts Dead centered on the city of Alt Coulumb, an old city still powered by an old god, Two Serpents Rise is set in Dresediel Lex,
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Urban Tantra by Barbara CarrellasCelestial Arts (Crown/Random House), 2007 (Originally 2005)
This book, whose subtitle is “Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century,” is refreshingly queer-friendly, kink-friendly, poly-friendly, and body-positive. I’m skeptical about some of the concepts Carrellas presents, but that didn’t really keep me from enjoying the book. Take chakras: I can see the usefulness of them as metaphor/visualization technique, but I’m less convinced about things
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An Enlarged Heart: A Personal History by Cynthia ZarinBorzoi (Knopf), 2013
A number of images and moments recur in more than one of the twelve chapters that make up this memoir: a film with a scene in which an actress wears yellow stockings, snowflakes on the collar of a violet coat, a tube of red lipstick found in a different coat pocket, a bathroom with a