(Some of this entry is lifted or rehashed from my LiveJournal.)

This year, I want to get through some of the big books that have been laying in my to-be-read pile. So, a while ago, I picked up the World Treasury of SF (out of print).

The book is huge, heavy, and has over 1,000 pages, so it's a bit tedious to haul it out and prop it up to read. The stories started out pretty good. But after about 100 pages, a small annoying fact became blaringly obvious...

All the stories were written by men, for men, about men. Occasionally a female character would show up, and she would be a cardboard cutout, just getting in the way of the men.

It is making me cringe.

So, in response, I started reading some James Tiptree Jr., who is a feminist. I had gotten interested in Tiptree from reading reviews of the biography of Alice Sheldon that recently came out. It sounds fascinating, and I'm waiting for the paperback edition to come out.

From the very first Tiptree story in Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, I was hooked. And on the second story, I was addicted! Tiptree is the coolest! The stories are very intelligent, mostly end-of-civilization type, very hard to put down once you've started. Wow, I can't believe it's taken me this long to discover Tiptree!

And since the first story in Her Smoke was kind of about bird flu, I decided it was a sign to start reading the book, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching. It's available online for free reading, at that link.

I am 100 pages in, and I gotta say, this book is terrifying. It's totally nonfiction, very researched with over 3,000 footnotes, but it reads like a horror story. We're all gonna die!

Yeah, so the book really messed up my mindset. In response to That, I've taken up reading Thoreau's Journals again. *relieved sigh* His writing is like a breath of fresh air. Not ordinary air, but spring time air, with maple sap starting to flow to be turned into sugar and snow melting and good things.

And, of course, I am still reading Darwin's Descent of Man. I am not sure when I started reading this book, but it's been more than just months... it may be approaching a year! ha.

I'm not concerned about the slow reading of Darwin. I am concerned about the magazines that keep piling up. Even tho I read my mags at work, and now on the treadmill, the next magazine shows up and the last one isn't even read yet. humph.

Static8 > Journal > Archive > 22 Mar 2007 Entry