roach's reviews
269 reviews

 

I have been hesitant to tackle Mithu M. Sanyal's award-winning book about sexualized violence, simply called Vergewaltigung (transl. Rape), for a long time now but I'm very glad I finally committed time to this. I didn't regret it either as this was easily one of the most gripping non-fiction books I've read so far and will end up being one of the best books I'll read all year.

Sanyal manages to compile an incredibly thorough and well-researched text about the titular crime. What meaning it carried throughout history and the changing society, where its overwhelming notoriety over other acts of violence comes from, and the many different ways of how we talk about and react to the subject itself.
It's safe to say that everyone of us finds rape despicable and rates it as one of the worst things a human can do to another. But we probably rarely think about the effect even the concept alone, without actual act, has done to us on a sociological level. If nothing else, I think this book should be some sort of essential reading when it comes to the subject (or problem) of gender roles and how brutally they shape us as well as the way we treat each other.

Sanyal talks about how the public treats perpetrator and victim, and how that might hinder the way people can heal or change. She talks about the way rape has been used politically to demonize marginalized groups. How and why efforts to prevent rape are still so unequal between male and female experiences. Why we give the simple word "rape" so much power in itself to a degree that makes it difficult to talk about this subject in the first place in an arguably self-sabotaging way.
She also explores how the subject of sexualized violence, in media as a whole, is almost always dissected through the women that experience it. And through that, even with the best intentions, often ends up putting a disproportionate extra burden on them, while we rarely even allow ourselves (collectively) to fill the equally important gap of the involved men. Because no one wants to talk about men in this context. Even in cases when they experience sexualized violence themselves. Which is why it's so powerful and thought-provoking when Sanyal dissects this phenomenon from so many different perspectives and contexts.

It has also challenged me in ways I didn't expect. Not, for example, in the way I, as a man, might treat or perceive women, but rather how I treat and perceive men, and through that might help perpetuate a whole different cycle that I didn't see from this perspective before.

I have immense respect for Sanyal for being able to write about such a difficult, inherently uncomfortable, and touchy subject with so much intellect and empathy but also refreshing bluntness when needed, and present it all in such a genuinely gripping read.
I highly recommend this to anyone, even if (or maybe especially if) you are afraid of how difficult this read might be. I definitely was. And yes, of course this is a heavy and serious subject. But I think Sanyal has a great talent of not overwhelming the reader and delivering the information in a rather comfortable voice.
I'll definitely be thinking about this book for a long time after having put it away. 

Interesting ideas and conceptually cool collection, but I just haven't been in the mood for short stories.

 

I'm actually a bit conflicted on this book.
I was very stoked to read a much longer than usual story illustrated by Junji Ito and also see how his style would suit a story that's a bit more grounded than his usual work. And, of course, his art is amazing as always. Lots of fantastic, horrific panels in here, as expected.
But I have to say, as far as the story itself goes, I sometimes wished I would have read the original novel instead because I felt like I was missing some deeper atmosphere or more thorough exploration of the character. The pacing of the manga also maybe was a bit too brisk for what I'd expect or want from such a conceptually rich story of tragedy.
Still a great read, but maybe I was a bit too hyped going in. 

 

(Quote translated from German.)

I don't claim to know much about the subject, but I remember a bit of the German literary period of "Sturm und Drang" (transl. "storm and stress") from high school and how it was a movement to embrace strong emotions in storytelling.
So, I was very curious when I stumbled over Wagner's Die Kindermörderin that was written as part of that movement and aims to tackle the consequences of sexualized violence. Rape, to be exact.
I wasn't expecting too much given that this doesn't seem to be a very notable play in comparison to the big titles of the time but I thought it could be interesting at least to see how such a difficult and heavy subject was discussed and worked through in fiction during that time.

Maybe unexpectedly so, Wagner's story deals more with the societal shame of sex out of wedlock than really focusing on the problem of physical violence and missing consent. Obviously sensibilities have changed in regard to that. But exactly this difference could have made for a curious sociological time capsule.
Unfortunately, I never felt like the themes were explored in a very satisfying or interesting way. The characters are not very interesting, especially the male main character and perpetrator of the crime with his wishy-washy moral compass and unconvincing character development. At least in the second half, the woman gets more opportunity to express herself, which probably made for the better bits of writing. But for the most part, this was surprisingly dull and doesn't do a great job at digging into the actually interesting bits of this complicated conflict.

It would be interesting to see this play actually be performed on stage, even if just because it does seem surprisingly gruesome at points, but there are long stretches of little interest throughout. 

 

This might sound weird to some people, but when I found out that Japanese adult video star Kaho Shibuya wrote a book about the industry and it actually got an English translation, I was genuinely excited.
While there is plenty of English language literature about the Western porn industry with its unique experiences, economy, and history, the Japanese one is an entirely different beast and insider information about it rarely leaves the local language. And Kaho Shibuya, having been a genuinely huge name in that business over the last decade as well as having been a professional journalist before that with a passion for writing that apparently still lives on, it was a perfect match.
And so, Shibuya's The Japanese Porn Industry Unmasked gives a really thorough and interesting account of all the different elements of that environment as well as personal anecdotes, which can be quite funny at times.

She talks about the marketing, the legal work, sex worker's rights in Japan, and the workplace culture on set... The hierarchies between different kinds of adult film actors, how people get into this line of work in the first place and what to look out for if one was actually interested in joining it, with very concrete data and advice.
But also how professionals make fake cum, how actresses (and actors) prepare their body for ridiculous sexual activities without harming themselves, and how the infamously aggressive censoring in Japanese adult media changes the production.

If this subject is something that interests you, then this might be a definitive read, at least when it comes to English language media. It's very informative, well-structured, and gives a very genuine point-of-view from a charming author who has experienced a lot of this world first-hand. 

I'm not usually one to read cook books, but this one caught my eye and it's really nicely made.
The Afghan/German author put together a whole bunch of cool national recipes from his home country of Afghanistan, giving some neat insight into their kitchen culture, and drawing some connections between Afghan and German cooking. It's all presented in a really stylish way with lots of cool photography.
Really enjoyed flipping through this book and I copies a couple of the vegetarian recipes to try myself sometime.

Thought I'd get through it quicker. The novelty wore off.

 

This winter, I was in the mood to give some arctic scifi a shot and Alan Dean Foster's Icerigger sounded perfect for that. A small group of people in a more or less distant future crash-land on a completely frozen, desolate planet with few signs of life strewn about. Even more interesting, the native inhabitants of this planet seem to live medieval lives, which makes for some interesting genre-clashing of scifi and fantasy at points.

I really adore the setting and setup. There are lots of cool idea here with great potential and Foster definitely manages to string together a rather lighthearted, easy-to-read romp. The characters aren't are rather flat and the stakes never bear that much weight, but it got drama, action, and comedy. It made for a decent read with a couple highlights here and there.
It just never became great and it left some things to be desired for me. I wish the book would have spent more time exploring the ice cold wilderness with its limited flora and fauna more than it did. The bits there are are fun, but the book focuses much more on the medieval culture of the indigenous hosts. That is interesting too, but there could have been more.
The final act also delivers some oddly sudden and abrupt action pieces that felt very disconnected. A couple of ideas that could have been fleshed out to make for their own adventure all sort-of discarded to the final pages of the book. One of them including an encounter with another group of brand-new characters that could have made for their own adventure, which makes me wonder if they show up in one of the sequel books again.

Either way, this was a decent read at least and I enjoyed my time with it fairly well. But it didn't leave me very satisfied and I hope the sequels will give me more of what I want from this setting. 

 

(Quote translated from German.)

Clever! Die Show, die Wissen schafft was a German trivia game show about science that ran between 2004 and 2009, where guests would try to answer questions about live experiments. I remember watching it quite a lot when I was a kid and I have a bit of nostalgia for it.
When I recently remembered this show, I also remembered that there used to be a couple of merchandise products that were advertised during the show and so I thought it would be a funny thing to hunt down an old copy of this tie-in book for a couple of cents online.

Reading this was a neat little stroll down memory lane at first. It's neat to see a piece of media related to something familiar from childhood that was new to me, as I had never gotten one of these books back then. And the book is nicely produced as well with formulaic but neatly edited text about different science experiments and the occasional added picture from the show. The writing was in the exact same style as the writing of the show, which is fairly charming and humorous. I could easily hear the lines said by the voice of Wigald Boning, the show's goofy "scientist", in my head. So much so that I'm almost positive that these texts are mostly copied straight from the show notes.
The book also implements the quiz element of the show by giving the reader questions to answer and therefore guess the outcome of each experiment themselves, as if a participant in the show. It's neat and was probably a good little time-waster for a kid back when it came out.
But reading this book cover to cover like one reads most books was probably not the best idea as things started to become very repetitive and dull after a while. A lot of the experiments and questions also dealt with really basic little everyday knowledge that just isn't interesting enough to read a couple pages of elaborate explanations about.
And considering that all of these experiments must have been taken from the show, I don't really see a point in grabbing this book instead of just watching the episodes. 

 

(Quote translated from German.)

I was very interested in a xenofiction story set in war-torn Iraq. Even more intriguing when I learned about the real-life inspiration of it: A news story that went viral in 2003 when lions were roaming the streets after the zoo was destroyed by bombs during the US invasion.
The set-up was obviously ripe for an exploration of war and freedom through the eyes of a non-human, uninvolved point of view.

While the concept in itself is really cool and I enjoyed Niko Henrichon's art quite a lot, Brain Vaughan's writing was lacking. His initial idea is very cool and I give him props for that, but the character dialog is a bit too one-note and edgy. The constant bickering between the lion characters became tiresome fairly quickly and the story was plagued by some typical tropes of fiction that tries to be a bit darker and shocking than it probably needed. Some of it comes across as ridiculously dramatic and gratuitous, without actually adding much to or making us of the genuinely great setting.
I still had a decent time with this short read overall, but I get everyone who isn't able to overlook the weak aspects of this graphic novel. It certainly could have been much, much better.