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Quick Hits
Feb. 24th, 2008 11:26 am1. I mentioned buying the Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin album, on a recommendation by Jeph Jacques. It's not a bad album; I like the lush instrumentation, and the lyrics aren't bad, but the lead singer's voice doesn't thrill me - it's a little nasal and kind of thin.
2. Is anyone else bothered by this line from Sade's "Smooth Operator"?
3. I just finished reading a translation of Josephus' The Jewish War. Pretty interesting. Did you know that Herod the Great left memoirs? (They didn't survive, but Josephus read them and used them as source material.)
4. I'm now reading Tom Holland's Persian Fire. I've read Herodotus more than once (at long intervals), so a lot of it's already familiar to me, but Holland does address issues that Herodotus never touched (economic ones, for example), and I'm finding it very interesting.
5. On the fiction side, I also just finished Peter Beagle's The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche. It's a bit of a mixed bag. The title story is hilarious and "Julie's Unicorn" is excellent, but I didn't much enjoy "Lila the Werewolf". The anthology also includes a few nonfiction pieces; Beagle's account of the Poor People's March in 1968 is heartbreaking.
6. I'll probably review Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon sometime soon. It's a good read; the societies described are not quite standard-issue (the culture of the POV characters is a melange of classical Roman and medieval elements, with a spicing of original ideas), and the magic system is well designed. I'll be continuing with this series.
2. Is anyone else bothered by this line from Sade's "Smooth Operator"?
Coast to coast, L.A. to ChicagoNo? Just me then....
3. I just finished reading a translation of Josephus' The Jewish War. Pretty interesting. Did you know that Herod the Great left memoirs? (They didn't survive, but Josephus read them and used them as source material.)
4. I'm now reading Tom Holland's Persian Fire. I've read Herodotus more than once (at long intervals), so a lot of it's already familiar to me, but Holland does address issues that Herodotus never touched (economic ones, for example), and I'm finding it very interesting.
5. On the fiction side, I also just finished Peter Beagle's The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche. It's a bit of a mixed bag. The title story is hilarious and "Julie's Unicorn" is excellent, but I didn't much enjoy "Lila the Werewolf". The anthology also includes a few nonfiction pieces; Beagle's account of the Poor People's March in 1968 is heartbreaking.
6. I'll probably review Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon sometime soon. It's a good read; the societies described are not quite standard-issue (the culture of the POV characters is a melange of classical Roman and medieval elements, with a spicing of original ideas), and the magic system is well designed. I'll be continuing with this series.
