Media Round Up: Unexpected Gap
Jun. 14th, 2024 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryI finished a book today and went to write my thoughts in the running file I keep for these round ups, and aprently I haven't updated the file in a while, oops? Anyways I checked good reads and I have finished a couple of other books -- but they were things I read with the kid, and one very short graphic novel. And I don't remember any of those enought to write about them. (I haven't stopped reading but I've been reading a bunch of fic and academic papers as background for my translation, and I don't write note on either fic or academic papers)
So I'm just going to post all the reviews I found. But umm its been a while so I'm just going to hope past me knew what she was talking about.
The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, trans Jesse Kirkwood— This is the book I just finished! It was sweet and relaxing. It’s about a father and daughter who run a restaurant and a food detective agency together. They use detective work to recreate dishes their clients remember. Each story is centered around one client. This definitely one of those stories where running a small business is unrealistically low stress, but there’s lots of descriptions of delicious sounding food, and it's very charming. Also I want to shout out to the translator because this reads very smoothly!
A Journey to Love— I watched most of this drama up to ep 35/40 and then I bunch life happened and I couldn’t watch for a couple of weeks, and it was in the middle of a sad part and it’s hard to go back, so I don’t know if I’ll ever finish. But I really enjoyed watching it! It’s adrama about two assassins accompanying a crossdressing princess on a dangerous diplomatic mission. Some bits of it are really brutal, but there’s a lot of softness too! It can be a bit of emotional whiplash! Anyways there are many great characters, and some complex political stuff and I’m glad I watched it.
The Baker and the Bard by Fern Haught— This cute graphic novel about a baker and a bard who are friends. They are sent to look for some special mushrooms, and get pulled into a quest! This was a very fast read for me, but very sweet and the art is lovely. I like the slightly muted color palette.
The Dragon King's Daughter: Ten Tang Dynasty Stories Trans Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang— More Tang Dynasty stories, some of these are from the TPGJ (the massive collection of stories that I’ve translated a few of with my tutor) but I’m not sure which ones, because there is very little explanatory text providing context here. There’s an introduction, which I was not impressed with (too much uncritical admiration of my anti-blorbo Li Shimin), and like one sentence about the author of each story.
This collection has longer and more complex stories than the last one. However I found the stories more intellectually interesting rather than emotionally engaging. I'm interested in all the dragons and fox spirits and such, but I don't like the way the women are traded around like objects, or all the relationships where people barely meet and then declare their undying love
Hidden and Visible Realms: Early Medieval Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic Compiled by Liu Yiqing translated by Zhenjun Zhang— More stories written in literary Chinese. This collection actually predates the Tang Dynasty but many of the stories ended up in the TPGJ aways. Most of these are very very short so not a lot of story but I think it helped me understand the folklore of this period a little better. There are footnotes giving some historical and literary context but I wish they were a bit more detailed
Eva Evergreen and the Cursed Witch by Julie Abe— The Sequel to Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch which I read out loud to the kid over many bedtimes. The twist at the end of the last book ment that this one had much higher stakes then the last one and was bit more of a typical adventure story. It was still very fun, but I liked the more slice of life tone that the first one had better.
Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods by Grace Lin— I love Grace Lin’s middle grade novels and picture books so I was excited when I learned that she’d written a food history book! This book is mostly retellings of food myths, and even the stories that have some basis in history have been told in mythological ways. So this isn’t very helpful in terms of knowing what people ate historically but it is a lot of fun! It also has lovey illustrations. As you might guess from the title, the book focuses on foods you are likely to find in American Chinese restaurants, and I appreciate the way the author treats these foods with respect!
Ancient Detective eps 19-24— I thought this ended well, and I enjoyed some of the characters that showed up only in the last arc!
So I'm just going to post all the reviews I found. But umm its been a while so I'm just going to hope past me knew what she was talking about.
The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, trans Jesse Kirkwood— This is the book I just finished! It was sweet and relaxing. It’s about a father and daughter who run a restaurant and a food detective agency together. They use detective work to recreate dishes their clients remember. Each story is centered around one client. This definitely one of those stories where running a small business is unrealistically low stress, but there’s lots of descriptions of delicious sounding food, and it's very charming. Also I want to shout out to the translator because this reads very smoothly!
A Journey to Love— I watched most of this drama up to ep 35/40 and then I bunch life happened and I couldn’t watch for a couple of weeks, and it was in the middle of a sad part and it’s hard to go back, so I don’t know if I’ll ever finish. But I really enjoyed watching it! It’s adrama about two assassins accompanying a crossdressing princess on a dangerous diplomatic mission. Some bits of it are really brutal, but there’s a lot of softness too! It can be a bit of emotional whiplash! Anyways there are many great characters, and some complex political stuff and I’m glad I watched it.
The Baker and the Bard by Fern Haught— This cute graphic novel about a baker and a bard who are friends. They are sent to look for some special mushrooms, and get pulled into a quest! This was a very fast read for me, but very sweet and the art is lovely. I like the slightly muted color palette.
The Dragon King's Daughter: Ten Tang Dynasty Stories Trans Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang— More Tang Dynasty stories, some of these are from the TPGJ (the massive collection of stories that I’ve translated a few of with my tutor) but I’m not sure which ones, because there is very little explanatory text providing context here. There’s an introduction, which I was not impressed with (too much uncritical admiration of my anti-blorbo Li Shimin), and like one sentence about the author of each story.
This collection has longer and more complex stories than the last one. However I found the stories more intellectually interesting rather than emotionally engaging. I'm interested in all the dragons and fox spirits and such, but I don't like the way the women are traded around like objects, or all the relationships where people barely meet and then declare their undying love
Hidden and Visible Realms: Early Medieval Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic Compiled by Liu Yiqing translated by Zhenjun Zhang— More stories written in literary Chinese. This collection actually predates the Tang Dynasty but many of the stories ended up in the TPGJ aways. Most of these are very very short so not a lot of story but I think it helped me understand the folklore of this period a little better. There are footnotes giving some historical and literary context but I wish they were a bit more detailed
Eva Evergreen and the Cursed Witch by Julie Abe— The Sequel to Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch which I read out loud to the kid over many bedtimes. The twist at the end of the last book ment that this one had much higher stakes then the last one and was bit more of a typical adventure story. It was still very fun, but I liked the more slice of life tone that the first one had better.
Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods by Grace Lin— I love Grace Lin’s middle grade novels and picture books so I was excited when I learned that she’d written a food history book! This book is mostly retellings of food myths, and even the stories that have some basis in history have been told in mythological ways. So this isn’t very helpful in terms of knowing what people ate historically but it is a lot of fun! It also has lovey illustrations. As you might guess from the title, the book focuses on foods you are likely to find in American Chinese restaurants, and I appreciate the way the author treats these foods with respect!
Ancient Detective eps 19-24— I thought this ended well, and I enjoyed some of the characters that showed up only in the last arc!
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