laceblade

Pioneer Girl - I had to keep reminding myself that this was a novel, & not a memoir, which is a credit to the writing.
In These Happy Golden Years, Almanzo Wilder gives Laura Ingalls a golden pin with a house on it. In the 1960s in Vietnam, Lee's grandfather encounters a customer in his restaurant named Rose. Rose leaves behind a gold pin with a house on it. It's unclear whether she forgot it, or intended it as a gift for their many conversations.
Decades later, Lee has graduated from UW-Madison with a PhD in English Literature, but cannot find a post-doc anywhere, so she's temporarily living with her distant mother & grandfather again. She starts investigating whether the Rose her grandfather met could be Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, who was in Vietnam in the sixties, three years before she died, covering the war for Time magazine.
In ways, this book reminded me of Hiromi Goto's The Kappa Child, how the Little House series is used as a touchstone for the children of Asian immigrants to North America. In this novel, the Manifest Destiny tug that Laura, her Pa, & her daughter Rose all feel is compared to Lee & her brother's desire to escape their mother's way of life, constantly opening Asian buffets in strip malls in different Midwest cities.
Lee's reading of the Little House books felt really familiar to me. The title is named after the first version Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her childhood - a single-volume autobiography called Pioneer Girl. Her story was broken up into multiple books, and reshaped (or ghost-written?) by her daughter Rose through a lot of epistolary editing.
The above is a little fragmented, but I really loved this book. I think I finished it in less than a day.


Buffy s10, #2 - I felt like this was a more solid intro to the season than #1 was. I often feel bad about shipping Buffy/Spike, but it just never goes away.
Nicholas Brendan is going to be authoring at least one issue focusing on Xander (and Dracula), & James Masters is going to be authoring a mini-arc on Spike that takes place during season 7. I'm...not really excited about either? Xander only became more atrocious to me in season 9 of Buffy, & I already didn't care for him on the show.
I was pleased by the appearance of [spoiler].


Kaze Hikaru, volumes 20 & 21 - It was nice to see Sei use her femininity as a tool in this little arc. I think volume 21 has been my favorite so far. I really liked the fleshing out of Sei's past, & the choices she makes. I find her love for Okita Souji much more compelling than Okita himself. I'm now caught up with Viz's release of this series in the US. To read more, I'll need to turn to fan-translations...


One Piece, volumes 1-3 - This is one of the most popular series in Japan, & I've never read it! Monkey D. Luffy wants to be a pirate so badly that he stabs himself in the face to impress the other pirates. Unfortunately, he can't swim & can never learn how, so the pirates are uninterested in making him part of the crew. So, Luffy decides to become THE BEST PIRATE IN THE WORLD. To do so, by the end of this omnibus, he's acquired THE BEST SWORDSMAN IN THE WORLD and THE BEST THIEF/NAVIGATOR as the beginnings of his tiny crew.
This is a fun series, & so far Nami, the thief/navigator who hates pirates, is my favorite.


Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand - Kitty and Ben go to Vegas. I didn't care for this one too much? But it ended up being setup for the next book, Kitty Raises Hell, which I liked A LOT. I like Kitty & her pack & her radio show & Ben & her family. I wanna see what happens when Cormac rejoins them in Denver, tho. I WISH KITTY WERE REAL AND WE COULD BE FRIENDS.

Finished Reading
Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn - This one is my favorite of the 3 I've read so far! ( Cut for discussion of suicidal character, which was a main plot in this book )
UGH I LOVE IT. ty again to littlebutfierce for talking these books up <3 <3 <3

Kaze Hikaru 11 & 12 - Wow, ( so spoilers )
It was all very dramatic & makes me excited for how this series will continue the intense events yet to come!!
I love every character and UGH JUST SO GOOD, I really did not expect to like this series as much as I do. I've been aware of it for some time but I'm glad I finally picked it up.

Shinjū by Laura Joh Rowland - Christ there's a lot of suicide in the books I read this week! ANYWAY, the novel begins with a double-murder that was arranged to look like a shinjū, or "lovers' suicide," in which two people are bound together & throw themselves in the water to drown because they're unable to marry - in this case, due to familial class differences. Sano Ichiro is a new yoriki working for the shogunate, & he ends up violating bushido to keep investigating this weird case, even after repeatedly told not to.
The writing doesn't do much for me, & the characters are pretty rote BUT there were a number of plot progressions that came totally out of left field for me, & I couldn't put the second half of the book down.
This is the first in a long series, so I'm willing to stay with it & see if the writing improves. I've got the next book on hold at the library.

Unico by Osamu Tezuka - I don't know why I keep Tezuka manga, as I always hate it. It had such an adorable cover!!! But I think I'm finally done for good.

A View From the Interior: Policing the Protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol by Sue Riseling - There have been a number of books published about the Wisconsin union protests. I doubt I'll ever read John Nichols', as I find him pompous & stupid. The ones written by the protestors don't really interest me either. HOWEVER, I have two checked out & this is the first one I've managed to read, written by Sue Riseling, Chief of UW-Madison Police.
The book is entirely focused on how the protests were policed, & why certain decisions were made. Riseling's style is pretty straightforward, but I found the book fascinating. The breakdown of clusterfucky project management was very intriguing, & it didn't hurt to have a book filled with characters who are super familiar to me.

Her insights into policing are great. When it's first suggested to clear out the entire building with no warning, here's her thought process:

The thought of abruptly switching gears and having uniformed police clear people out for no particular reason except "today is the day" struck me as fundamentally wrong. It is a lesson I learned a long time ago and try to continually teach to new police officers: "Can I?" and if yes, "Should I?"
Can I muster enough police officers to empty this building by 6:00 tonight? You bet. The mass arrest plans were in place, the civil disobedience plans were in place, the hard (riot) gear for police was on-site and ready for use, and the University Police force's Police Extraction Response Unit was here, along with the EOD canines. Unlike last Friday or Sunday, today I had everything I needed to make this happen.
Should I? No. It would be a ridiculous tactic, bad philosophy, and constitute an egregious use of power. The Assembly was still meeting and the building had to remain open. There was nothing to be gained from the spark that would ignite or the firestorm that would follow if we forced people out of the Capitol today. If we thought the crowds were big now, imagine how large they would be if we proceeded to shatter the trust and evict protesters without warning. Just to achieve the goal of clearing the building because we can made no sense.

Once the Assembly session was over, of course, then there WAS a reason to clear the building (the building had hours - staffing it with police was costing tens of thousands of dollars - cleaning crews couldn't do their jobs & the whole building smelled like BO & human waste - capacity hazards, etc.

She makes clear things that those within the building understand, but people tweeting to #wiunion usually did not & lots of people usually don't - that things that look like dramatic progressions have actually been agreed upon by both sides ahead of time to make more political theater.
One example is the part where Ted (full confession: my former boss & friend) is asking for troopers to accompany his staff to visit the houses of a few senators after they'd skipped town (preventing the Senate from voting on the "budget repair bill" due to a lack of quorum). Ted relays to Riseling that "conversations were occurring between various leaders and a few of the missing senators. Some of the senators had intimated that if they were found in the state, they would return to the Capitol."
Purposely concocted political theater, & yet I remember people totally losing their shit when the pages & troopers went to knock on doors.

Riseling steps into a power vacuum of controlling various police agencies (excluding the city & county cops, who refused to enter the fucking building, jackholes). The daily meetings are almost painful to read, especially the actions of Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs. The power structure and decision-making authorities are unclear, which is never good.
Once they decide to close the Capitol at 4pm on a particular Sunday, Tubbs pushes for voluntary compliance, meaning that while most of the protestors leave the building when asked, everyone's aware that a few of them will stay behind & refuse to leave.
DOA & Tubbs & others basically state that once this happens, they will refuse to open the building on Monday as usual, until those people leave.
Of course, this is never explained to protestors, & since Tubbs & the majority of the committee refuse to allow Riseling & her officers to simply arrest these protestors and physically remove them from the building (a process with which they're really familiar!!), Tubbs allows the actions of a hundred or so people to close access to the building for thousands of others, pissing everyone off.
Riseling asks lots of questions related to this - if we don't arrest the protestors who refuse to leave the building & they stay over night, then what happens Friday morning? If we only allow 354 people into the building, are these protestors counted in the 354 figure? At what point will they actually cut off people from sleeping inside the Capitol? Nobody answers her questions - always a sign of shitty management & a totally dysfunctional workplace, in my experience.

It's semi-hilarious to read about protestors sitting in the Rotunda with messages they wanted to give to the media upon their arrest, & having already discussed their techniques/etc., while unknown to them, no arrests were going to occur.

Riseling is frustrated with this, realizing that the overall goal is a political desire to limit overall access to the building, rather than to keep the peace (p. 249). Riseling's goals are safety balanced with facilitating people's rights to exercise their First Amendment rights.

It's hilarious later on, when the overall goal is to close the building, & Chief Tubbs suggests an exchange of people, allowing protestors inside to go home & shower/change, while allowing someone outside the building to come in & take their place. Riseling says that their repeated goal is to return the Capitol to regular business hours, with nobody spending the night inside the building. Given that goal, exchanging people one-to-one runs right contrary to that - the total # of protestors in the building would never decrease!

15 days into the protests, Riseling figures out that the Capitol Police's secretary has solely been in charge of logistics, which was why logistics had been failing. tbh, Capitol Police in general came off as a complete shitshow in this book.

UW Police was way more open to logical suggestions & rolling with the surroundings of reality, & also accepting leadership & pointed questions from a woman. It's clear that a lot of dudebros are not down with this.

Several times, it's clear that Republicans put themselves into dangerous positions by not being open with the police about their plans. They'd pull surprises & erode the trust with the public, & every time the police would have to come running.

Her reflections on how policing can help facilitate people exercising their rights is pretty enjoyable to read, although it's clear it's something an officer & manager must actively think about & work toward.
Passively having ideas like "let's get this shit & lockdown" & then executing plans that don't actually facilitate your overall goals ruins the settings for everyone. Overall, I liked this book quite a bit.

Tears of a Lamb, vol. 1 - I randomly picked this up from the library while home for the holidays at my home!library.
It starts off with Hasumi inexplicably having a strong desire to enter the apartment of her classmate, Kanzaki. She never explains why, so they just have nonsensical & epic arguments in front of their classmates. I almost stopped reading it after a chapter two, but I'm so glad I continued!
It turns out that Hasumi is trying to locate a ring that she thinks is in the apartment from the person who lived their two-tenants ago, who was her friend. Hasumi's also dealing with an eating disorder caused by stress, & I guess I just imprinted on her pretty strongly. I'm interested in seeing where this goes, although I think I'll need to use our library's outer-loan system to obtain future volumes.


Currently Reading
I'm kind of skimming through Brian Jacques's Loamhedge. Later Redwall books don't really do it for me, even though the earlier ones were pretty formative! I've always been a little interested in Loamhedge, though. It's the original abbey from which Abbess Germain & the other mice came, running from a plague, back in the days of Martin the Warrior.
I wanted to learn more about it, but the plot of the hare who uses a wheelchair & is seeking a magical cure to be able to walk again is making me really uneasy.
I'm heading back to Madison in a few hours, so I'll likely just skim this to see wtf happens.

FINISHED READING
Cold Fire - This was a very engrossing follow-up to the first book, Cold Magic. It's a bit of a brick, but I was never bored, and every single chapter ended on a cliffhanger. These books are a delight for me - revolutionaries and political intrigue, deceit and betrayal, Cat and Bee's fierce friendship and banter. I liked Rory a lot more this volume. I basically loved everything about it. I have Cold Steel on hold at the library, and I think this trilogy is going on my list of favorites. I know I'll be rereading them.

Kaze Hikaru, volumes 3-5 - The more I read in this series, the more I like it. Sei's love for Okita Souji is compelling. At some point, Sei's woman confidant asks Sei if she wouldn't be happy marrying Souji and bearing his children. Sei replies that no, she would prefer to show her love by protecting Souji as a remember of the Shinsengumi. <3 <3 <3!! Sei repeatedly tells those who know the secret of her sex, "I'm not a girl! I am bushi!" It's nice getting to know Kondo and Hijikata better, too.

IRB Member Handbook - I'm not an IRB member, but this book is still relevant to my job training. It's a nice distillation of why IRBs exist and best practices. Probably a little dry for those not required to read it for work, ^^


READING NOW
The Lucy Variations, which I think owlectomy blogged about. It's about being a teenager & figuring out who you are. Lucy comes from a hella rich family who's played piano internationally, until her family's tendency to place fame/piano over everything else prompts her to quit.
I like the book okay, & it's going quickly.
And I think I'll probably dig out my Mozart & Chopin music and bring it home with me this weekend, when I visit the family piano at my sister's.

• What are you currently reading?
Kaze Hikaru, volume 2. I read volume 1 a while ago, & I think I totally forgot to mention it. Anyway, a shoujo romance about the Shinsengumi. The protagonist is a girl who disguises herself as a boy to avenge the deaths of her father & brother.
My previous exposure to the Shinsengumi is the anime “Peacemaker Kurogane,” which I loathed b/c I thought was horribly paced, & also hated the protagonist.
So I know the Okita Souji is a bamf. Souji is the protag’s love interest in this series.
I’m not really digging this thus far, but I have a bunch of volumes checked out, so I’ll be reading at least a bit more, unless I get too frustrated!

• What did you recently finish reading?
Kitty Goes to Washington - So, in addition to the inclusion of congressional hearings & NIH research, I also feel like I’m just settling into this series’ ‘verse.
I really appreciate that the protagonist compares lycanthropy to a non-fatal chronic illness, & when being questioned by a confrontational senator, she talks about how depression is more likely, but it’s hard to know whether the depression is caused by the illness itself or by all of the life modifications one must make to to keep living with a non-fatal chronic illness.
And uh, as a person who’s gone through some heavy depression due to hugely anxious-making life modifications that were necessitated by a non-fatal chronic illness, HELLO, OVER-IDENTIFICATION WITH THE PROTAGONIST!

Especially after the events of the first book, I really love Kitty encountering other communities of vampires/were-animals, other ways of coping with her changed life, other possibilities.

I also like that she’s referred to non-werewolves more than once as “her pack.”
This is a thought I’d first encountered in Teen Wolf, one of the things that I like about that often-heinous TV show.

Very, Very, Sweet!, volume 2 - I don’t have much to say about this volume except that I still like it. It portrays the frustrations of trying to communicate in another language quite well, imo.

Revival, volume 1 - aka, zombie comic set in Wausau, WI. This series is pretty violent, BUT I appreciate its commitment to diversity & its locale, so I’ll probably keep up with it, although I think I don’t like it well enough to buy the comics in trade.

Kokoro - This is a classic of Japanese literature, set at the end of the Meiji era. It’s pretty dark, focusing heavily on death & suicide, with insights into human nature/etc. It’s difficult to discuss without spoiling the whole thing!
Anyway, this was part of a collection of Japanese literature I won in a Con or Bust auction, so I’m excited to read more of them in the future.