nonfiction yay!
Jan. 27th, 2005 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittySo, I have finished two nonfiction books in the past twenty-four hours, and they were both awesome. Go out and read them, all of you!
Call Girl by Jeanette Angell
This book reminded me strongly of Bare by Elisabeth Eaves, but it was actually much better than Bare. Angell is not afraid to talk about the good and bad aspects of being a call girl. She talks about both how the job helped her survive while she got her job as a college professor off the ground, how much fun it was for her, and how abuse, addiction, and manipulation can make sex work emotionally and physically dangerous. Her stories about her colleagues and clients were both funny and touching. Interestingly, I saw myself most in the madame Angell worked for, who uses sincere love and caretaking as tools to get what she wants - a contradiction I understand pretty well from earlier days as a manipulative bitch of a girlfriend. *grin* Probably my favorite thing about the book is that Angell doesn't seem to have a simple answer to the question, "Is sex work a good thing?" She bravely explores the concepts of trafficking and the screwed-up notion of women's sexuality that cause men to seek out prostitutes. Like Eaves, she was doing sex work and academia at the same time, but unlike Eaves, she wrote about her classes and how she felt about them. Seeing both sides of the coin made it an even more interesting read.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
I went into this book thinking that I knew something about comics. And I did. I've read all the Sandman and Hothead Paisan stuff there is, plus X-men, Kabuki, Bondage Fairies, Love and Rockets... when people at my parties talk about comics, I nod and sound intelligent.
But there is a big difference between enjoying a genre and understanding how it works, and I am now going to be reading comics with entirely new eyes.
This isn't just a book about the history of comics and what comics are out there and worth reading. This book goes much, much deeper than that. McCloud answers questions like, "How does time work in comics?" "Why are most comics simplistic action sequences?" and, perhaps most interestingly, "Why are we able to identify with characters that are sketchy lines on a page?" If you have even the slightest interest in comics, you should read this book. If you don't, and your loved ones do, read it anyway - you might come to appreciate the genre more and wow your sweeties by making intelligent comments about idiom versus craft.
Call Girl by Jeanette Angell
This book reminded me strongly of Bare by Elisabeth Eaves, but it was actually much better than Bare. Angell is not afraid to talk about the good and bad aspects of being a call girl. She talks about both how the job helped her survive while she got her job as a college professor off the ground, how much fun it was for her, and how abuse, addiction, and manipulation can make sex work emotionally and physically dangerous. Her stories about her colleagues and clients were both funny and touching. Interestingly, I saw myself most in the madame Angell worked for, who uses sincere love and caretaking as tools to get what she wants - a contradiction I understand pretty well from earlier days as a manipulative bitch of a girlfriend. *grin* Probably my favorite thing about the book is that Angell doesn't seem to have a simple answer to the question, "Is sex work a good thing?" She bravely explores the concepts of trafficking and the screwed-up notion of women's sexuality that cause men to seek out prostitutes. Like Eaves, she was doing sex work and academia at the same time, but unlike Eaves, she wrote about her classes and how she felt about them. Seeing both sides of the coin made it an even more interesting read.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
I went into this book thinking that I knew something about comics. And I did. I've read all the Sandman and Hothead Paisan stuff there is, plus X-men, Kabuki, Bondage Fairies, Love and Rockets... when people at my parties talk about comics, I nod and sound intelligent.
But there is a big difference between enjoying a genre and understanding how it works, and I am now going to be reading comics with entirely new eyes.
This isn't just a book about the history of comics and what comics are out there and worth reading. This book goes much, much deeper than that. McCloud answers questions like, "How does time work in comics?" "Why are most comics simplistic action sequences?" and, perhaps most interestingly, "Why are we able to identify with characters that are sketchy lines on a page?" If you have even the slightest interest in comics, you should read this book. If you don't, and your loved ones do, read it anyway - you might come to appreciate the genre more and wow your sweeties by making intelligent comments about idiom versus craft.
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Date: 2005-01-27 07:06 pm (UTC)"Reinventing Comics" isn't quite as good, but still worth reading. To be fair, he's talking about some completely different ideas ... and it's a rare sequel that lives up to the impact of a great first book like that.
I haven't been a big comics reader, but I started reading "Akira" after that, and I'd like to read more good examples of the art ...