If the apocalypse comes, beep me.

Buffy ,'Selfless'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Consuela - Sep 25, 2022 10:23:52 pm PDT #27447 of 28067
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

I splurged this week on Kate Beaton's new book Ducks. I haven't finished it yet: it's pretty long and quite heavy in its subject matter. But it's SO GOOD. She's so impressive as an artist and writer.

Anyway, here's a link to a New Yorker review: [link]


DavidS - Sep 25, 2022 10:54:36 pm PDT #27448 of 28067
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

I splurged this week on Kate Beaton's new book Ducks. I haven't finished it yet: it's pretty long and quite heavy in its subject matter. But it's SO GOOD. She's so impressive as an artist and writer.

I also bought it and read it this last week. I agree with your assessment! It is soooo good. It's sort of a hard sell, especially if you're coming to it from Hark, A Vagrant. It's not funny with the Bronte jokes.

But it does completely immerse you into that world, and it's a world I do kind of know from memory (having lived in very northern Canada for 18 months of my childhood) and also experience doing construction work out of college. Those very masculine realms and the ingrained sexism (and racism) and culture.

It's just so rich and artfully done that it takes you to places you haven't been and makes you feel them. You will not just know but understand more about the world because she's so good at creating her experience. You can read about capitalism, or environmentalism or sexism but she parses all those complex liminal spaces and you understand the weight of things. Their context. Their human value and cost.

It's really masterful. It did remind me a bit of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. Very different in subject but similarly adept at catching ambiguities.


Tom Scola - Sep 26, 2022 5:17:23 am PDT #27449 of 28067
Mr. Scola’s wardrobe by Botany 500

On top of everything else, it’s just a gorgeously-made book: The dust jacket, the leafing, the paper stock. It was well worth the 40 bucks to me.


Sue - Sep 26, 2022 8:38:23 am PDT #27450 of 28067
hip deep in pie

I got to her book launch last week. She gave a bit of a presentation, then did an interview. I didn't stay around to get my book signed because the line was long and I thought I might give my copy away. (And a friend who grew up with her said he could get it signed for me if I wanted)


DavidS - Sep 26, 2022 9:56:58 am PDT #27451 of 28067
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

And a friend who grew up with her said he could get it signed for me if I wanted

Oooh, the Haligonians were on my mind as I read it. Now I want to go to Cape Breton.


Sue - Sep 26, 2022 11:22:22 am PDT #27452 of 28067
hip deep in pie

Now I want to go to Cape Breton.

You might want to wait until it dries out and turns itself upright again. Fiona hit it hard.


DavidS - Sep 26, 2022 11:58:40 am PDT #27453 of 28067
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

You might want to wait until it dries out and turns itself upright again. Fiona hit it hard.

I saw! Well, they can use my tourist dollars come spring, I guess.


Tom Scola - Sep 26, 2022 12:26:04 pm PDT #27454 of 28067
Mr. Scola’s wardrobe by Botany 500

Photos from the Maritimes.


-t - Oct 04, 2022 1:18:11 pm PDT #27455 of 28067
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

Dracula Daily: IJWTS that it was a pretty clever move by Stoker having Mina figure out the connection goes two ways. Her Ideal Womanhood gets kind of tiresome, but she can be an interesting character. The adaptations where she ends up a vampire really irritate me


sj - Oct 06, 2022 10:39:51 am PDT #27456 of 28067
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."

Has anyone here read the Troll Fell series by Katherine Langrish? They have the whole trilogy at my volunteer job and I was thinking of getting them.