Entry tags:	a: johnson kij, books, comics, comics: buffy, cultural appropriation
Crossposts:	http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/616988.html

• What are you currently reading?
Right now I'm reading The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson. I'm on page 68, and I'm struggling really hard. It's set in Heian Japan & written by a white woman from the US, and I just have a really hard time getting past this cultural appropriation. I feel weird reading it. I keep thinking of a post by yeloson's post: When you cut away the wrapper, appropriation is telling other people's stories for your entertainment & profit, not theirs.

I bought this book & Fudoki a while ago, used. I've read some of Kij Johnson's short stories and I liked her writing style quite a bit. I think the short stories were more recent than these books, though.

This kind of reminds me of Cat Valente's Yume no Hon. What's up with contemporary US sf/f authors appropriating Japanese culture? idk.
Anyway, I'll try a little harder. I'll also give Fudoki a chance at some point, to see if it's better.
I'm not sure if I'll be finishing The Fox Woman. I'll likely be selling it.


• What did you recently finish reading?
Buffy season 9, #16 (?) Whatever the most recent issue is: Still feeling pretty "meh" about things. Glad to see things swoop back to these characters, but overall meh.

Radical Reinvention by Kaya Oakes, which I blogged about here.


• What do you think you'll read next?
Young Avengers Presents is waiting for me at the library, so I'm going to get that.

A few weeks ago, I erupted over drinks with friends when they revealed they'd started a book club to discuss Anna Karenina & not invited me. It turns out they haven't actually met yet, so I have time to read part I & join them for their first meeting. I'm reading the most recent edition, as specified by JacquelynGill, who tells me it makes a huge a difference.

While a little despondent the other day, I stood in the library plucking random books from shelves: a few by Alison Wein, Henry James's The Wings of the Dove, Geraldine Brooks's March. idk if I'll read them or when.

In comics, I have a new Saga to read & need to read the two most recent issues of Captain Marvel.
When asking my comics guy if it's too soon to add the new X-Men comic by Brian Wood about girls to my pull list, he said, "You know Brian Wood's been writing a storyline already, right?
I hadn't!
He had been about to mark a bunch of them down to $1, so I got X-Men issues 30-35 with Brian Wood as the author. I guess some of the characters in this story will appear in the new X-Men that I want to be reading? WE'LL SEE.