Seriously...how serious was last night's post meant to be? I like Margaret Atwood's writing style; some novels better than others. Oryx and Crake was written as a serious consideration of where bioengineering might lead. Atwood has consistently tried to have enough sex-and-violence offstage to prove that her novels are for adults, but not enough onstage to embarrass adults in front of their children. So the plot of Oryx and Crake is about scientists who've unleashed all sorts of bioengineered freaks upon a hypothetical future world, but a detail from their past is that the woman nicknamed Oryx started out as a porn actress. My husband and I once discussed how to interest students in a serious cautionary novel, and agreed that, in the spirit of "don't tell them it's good for them," the first thing to mention about Oryx and Crake is that it has porn stars in it.
And I would be interested in reading the sequels...but nobody needs to rush out and buy these guaranteed bestsellers for me; Atwood's a superstar writer who doesn't need the money, and whose books are sure to turn up in a library sooner or later. In fact I thought of them because I saw Maddaddam in a library last week.
What's really on my Wish List are a mix of knitting pattern books (I'm a total pattern hoarder who believes there's no such thing as too many knitting patterns) and odd, obscure books by friends and e-friends. First novels, political rants, quirky essay collections...
One that local lurkers are unlikely to buy for me, because they're frugal folks who always pick things like Rand Paul's Government Bullies or Anne Lamott's Some Assembly Required that they want to read first and then give to me, is M.C.A. Hogarth's Spots the Space Marine. Graphic science fiction is not really any of our "thing," as a rule...but I like what I've seen of Hogarth's Haikujaguar blog and Three Jaguars cartoons, so I'd like to buy her book, preferably as a new book.
I'd also like to buy, preferably as a new book, a copy of Carolroach 's Angels Watching Over Me.
And most especially, for Grandma Bonnie Peters' sake, because (in the belief that she had another copy at home) I copied some recipes out of the copy she'd shared with me and then sold it, I want a copy of the original edition of Vicki Griffin's Guilt-Free Gourmet.
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