Library thing list

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Added by oursin: and underline those you have no intention of reading. The numbers after each one are the number of LT users who used the tag of that book (that is, last time that the algorithm was done). ( Read more... )

Chinese Illustration by Frances Wood

I met Frances Wood at the Dunhuang conference, she was one of the organisers, and is a very knowledgeable woman. Chinese Illustration is the book she wrote on the history of the printed book in China for the British Library roughly 20 years ago. It is simply gorgeous. It has page upon page of lavish illustration, which are clear enough to read the Chinese inscriptions in many cases. I bought it because it had a page from my favourite book in the BL on the cover. When Bill and I went to the British Library to look at the display of Chinese books I fell in love with a book with gorgeous blue pages beautifully illustrated. The page that was opened was turned to (name) ascending into heaven along with her husband. I was very pleased to see this, as she is one of my favourite Taoist immortals and featured in my dissertation. Unfortunately the cover of the book is from another page, but it is still lovely.

The book is rather short, and as such functions as a brief introduction to illustration and the history of printing in China. Much of the information I was already familiar with but thought that it would be a good introduction on the subject. It begins with examples from religion, and has many beautiful illustrations from the BL’s dunhuang collection, as well as a few later texts. Wood then looks at themes in Chinese illustrations, and shows examples of some of the more popular stories, novels and legends. These are quite beautiful, and mostly from the Ming and Qing dynasty. She then looks at Imperial editions of texts, including encyclopaedias and illustrations of garments and palaces. This is by far the shortest section of the book with only a few examples. There is a longer section on Chinese painting for export, which are often in a totally different style to traditional Chinese painting. This is followed by a short section on colour printing, and includes the picture from the cover of the book that I liked so much. The last section is on technical illustration, and is one of my favourites, I wish it could have been longer; it includes flora, fauna, monsters and scenes from daily life. It is fascinating.

All in all a very lovely little book, not only does it contain lots of lovely pictures but the accompanying text is also very informative.

071230053

Yukio Mishima The Sailor who fell from grace with the Sea

This is the first time I’ve ever read a Japanese novel. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Now I’ve just finished it my reactions is mixed. I did enjoy the first half a great deal. I felt that the three main characters were well developed and I liked swapping between the different perspectives. I think most I enjoyed the conversations between the mother and the actress. These scenes were especially clear and distinct to me. I found the boy to be a bit strange. I can understand that the point was the isolation and disconnectedness felt by the adolescent boy in post-war Japan. However, I felt so far removed from him that his motivations didn’t make much sense to me. The gang mentality of the boys just seemed strange and a little forced. In a way it reminded me a little of The Lord of the Flies which I didn’t like at all. I think I am just not very interested in the thoughts and feelings of young adolescent boys, whatever the culture, and would prefer to read something else.

Still it was a strange and moving story. The abrupt ending surprised me. I think this was made worse by the fact that it was given away by the blurb on the back, so I was expecting something more to happen in the book. It was good to read something different for a change but I do not think I will try and find anything else to read by the same author.

Gendered Language

Thanks to oursin for pointing this article out. Really excellent look at the fallacy of different types of communication for men and women as well as "male brain" and "female brain".
May have to order the book.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2180688,00.html