Tyson, Death by Black Hole; Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist vols. 9-10 (#10-12)

[kate_nepveu]

I'd heard people speak highly of Neil deGrasse Tyson's science writing previously, but it wasn't until his Daily Show appearance (and sequel) that I made reading something by him a priority. Death By Black Hole: and Other Cosmic Quandaries seemed like the best place to start.

( cut for length )

The ninth and tenth volumes of Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist continue to be excellent. These contain an arc of consequences from volume 4 (the Lab 5 arc and associated developments), which are exciting, emotional, and surprising. And, to my joy, include much more in the way of characters acting collaboratively, which was a thing that annoyed me about the original anime. I only disliked one thing, where I felt that drama overrode logic in the timing of a revelation, but it was minor. Read them together, as volume nine ends on a cliffhanger, but definitely read them.

Originally posted to my booklog.

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Not for the challenge, but possibly also of interest: The Rabbi's Cat 2, by Joann Sfar, set in 1930s Africa, graphic novel collection of two stories, the second of which the author states was deliberately written as an anti-racism story. I didn't like this as well as the first, but I still enjoyed quite a lot of it.

Refugee boy, Benjamin Zephaniah, 3/50

[cyphomandra.livejournal.com]

Zephaniah famously turned down the Queen’s offer of an OBE due to his rejection of the concept and history of that Empire (interview, and rejection poem, here.) He’s better known as a poet, but he's also written at least four children’s books.

Refugee Boy is about Alem Kelo, a boy with an Ethiopian father and an Eritrean mother. The war between the two means that his family is safe in neither place, and instead his father takes him to the UK, where they have friends there working for peace – and leaves him. Alem is placed initially in a children’s home, and then with a foster family, as his application for refugee status progresses through the British legal system.

( Vague spoilers. )

"The Arab Table," "Brown Girl In the Ring"

[floriatosca.livejournal.com]

1. The Arab Table by May S. Bsisu
I'm a big fan of cookbooks, because the chattier ones tend to give a lot of cultural context along with the recipes. This book definitely counts as one of the chattier ones. There's an introductory anecdote to go with each recipe, as well as sections on subjects like the culinary traditions of different parts of the Arab world and holiday customs (including a guide to Ramadan etiquette for non-Muslims). The recipes seemed pretty accessible to me, although not all of the ingredients are stuff you can find at your nearest supermarket or even your nearest internationally-leaning health food store (Bsisu does give mail-order sources in the back of the book), and the book includes some vegetarian recipes, which I appreciated.

2. Brown Girl In the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
This was an interesting read, and very different from my previous experiences with urban fantasy (which leaned much more towards elves than orishas.) I really liked the world building in this. Post-apocalyptic Toronto felt like a real, plausible community and not just a place for the plot to happen. The story's supernatural aspects are grounded in Caribbean spirituality, which was an interesting change from the more European or Christian influenced cosmologies of a lot of the fantasy novels I've read. This book also got me interested in "Ti-Jean and His Brothers," which Hopkinson references in her author's notes.