Media Round Up: Last One of the Year
Dec. 30th, 2021 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryI'm unlikely to finish any other media this year, but if I do I'll just post about it next time I do a media round up.
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil— this is so hard to describe! It’s a collection of essays about the natural world, and also the author's life. It’s beautifully written.
A Girl Like Me episodes 30-40— The last ten episodes were rather more intense then the first 30, but still a lot of fun. There were many many schemes, and for the most part I enjoyed them. (There was one where the twist felt like a let down) Also some very pretty costumes and a lot of cuteness. The ending was good, I liked how everyone ended up!
Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis— Mostly very cute regency romance with small shoulder dragons. Unfortunately I have a squick about embarrassment/concealing information which this set off. But otherwise it was very fun, and I think people who don’t have that particular squick would like it a lot!
Beck and Call by Annick Trent— I think some in my circle recommended this a while back. It’s an m/m regency romance where the two leads are valets. It was a satisfying romance and had lot and lots of the type of material culture details that I love to see in fiction.
The Jin Yong Phenomenon: Chinese Martial Arts Fiction and Modern Chinese Literary History Ed Ann Huss and Jianmei Liu— This is a collection of academic essays about the works of Jin Yong, a extremely poplar writer of martial arts fiction who wrote in the 60’s and 70’s. The first couple of essays were all about “literary merit” and transcending genre and other such nonsense and frustrated me a lot. But the rest of the essays were more thematic and more interesting to me. This helped me understand more of the cultural and political background of wuxia fiction and will add to my enjoyment of the genre.
A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China Charles O Hucker— I checked out this really cool dictionary via ILL! It's got definitions with explanations of all kinds of Imperial titles, noble titles, bureaucratic titles, military titles ect. Unfortunately for me, a person who kinda-stora knows pinyin but still finds it confusing, all of these titles are apabetical based on Wade-Giles transliterations. However there is a table in the back for converting pinyin to Wade-Giles. There is also an index of common English translations and with these two things I’ve been able to find titles I was looking for. I haven’t read this whole thing But I have enjoyed poking around in it.
What have you been reading and watching recently?
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil— this is so hard to describe! It’s a collection of essays about the natural world, and also the author's life. It’s beautifully written.
A Girl Like Me episodes 30-40— The last ten episodes were rather more intense then the first 30, but still a lot of fun. There were many many schemes, and for the most part I enjoyed them. (There was one where the twist felt like a let down) Also some very pretty costumes and a lot of cuteness. The ending was good, I liked how everyone ended up!
Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis— Mostly very cute regency romance with small shoulder dragons. Unfortunately I have a squick about embarrassment/concealing information which this set off. But otherwise it was very fun, and I think people who don’t have that particular squick would like it a lot!
Beck and Call by Annick Trent— I think some in my circle recommended this a while back. It’s an m/m regency romance where the two leads are valets. It was a satisfying romance and had lot and lots of the type of material culture details that I love to see in fiction.
The Jin Yong Phenomenon: Chinese Martial Arts Fiction and Modern Chinese Literary History Ed Ann Huss and Jianmei Liu— This is a collection of academic essays about the works of Jin Yong, a extremely poplar writer of martial arts fiction who wrote in the 60’s and 70’s. The first couple of essays were all about “literary merit” and transcending genre and other such nonsense and frustrated me a lot. But the rest of the essays were more thematic and more interesting to me. This helped me understand more of the cultural and political background of wuxia fiction and will add to my enjoyment of the genre.
A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China Charles O Hucker— I checked out this really cool dictionary via ILL! It's got definitions with explanations of all kinds of Imperial titles, noble titles, bureaucratic titles, military titles ect. Unfortunately for me, a person who kinda-stora knows pinyin but still finds it confusing, all of these titles are apabetical based on Wade-Giles transliterations. However there is a table in the back for converting pinyin to Wade-Giles. There is also an index of common English translations and with these two things I’ve been able to find titles I was looking for. I haven’t read this whole thing But I have enjoyed poking around in it.
What have you been reading and watching recently?
