LibraryThing Author: Maggie Brasted

WildMaggie is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.

See Maggie Brasted's author page.

Random books from WildMaggie's library

Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear

The beast in the garden : a modern parable of man and nature by David Baron

The courts of chaos by Roger Zelazny

Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman

Every Dream Interpreted by Veronica Tonay

The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich

The handmaid's tale by Margaret Eleanor Atwood

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Interesting libraries: AndrewWheeler, WrenaissanceWoman

LibraryThing authors: Maggie Brasted (WildMaggie), David Liss (davidliss)

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WildMaggie's reviews

Reviews of WildMaggie's books, not including WildMaggie's

 

Member: WildMaggie

Library276 books — see library

Reviews9 reviews — see reviews

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

Tagsfiction (155), nonfiction (111), animals (47), fantasy (34), wildlife (30), mystery (29), British (21), history (16), environment (14) — see all tags

GroupsBookMooching, Maryland Librarythingers, The Green Dragon

Favorite bookstoresBarnes & Noble Booksellers - Rockville Pike, Book Alcove

About me I am a book lover in a family of book lovers. We have long since filled all our bookshelves, added more, and still have stacks of books that haven't found shelf space. I discovered librarything on bookmooch.com, a book trading site. I love that bookmooch books are going to someone who really wants them; like finding a new family with a big fenced yard for your beloved big dog who hates being cooped up on a shelf.

In my professional life away from reading and swapping books, I am a contributing author to a newly published work--Wild Neighbors: the humane approach to living with wildlife. Here’s the link to details:

Book Details

About my library I've only just begun to add my books to Librarything. It's slow going, shelf by shelf. What's cataloged so far is a rather random mishmash of books from the collection; selected more because of the convenience of their location than any other reason. Whether they're representative of the whole is a very open question. It will all get here one day.

Also onBookMooch

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Real nameMaggie Brasted

LocationUSA

Favorite authorsNone specified

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/WildMaggie (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/WildMaggie (library)

Member sinceApr 16, 2008

Leave a comment

You're right, Handeland does specifically say that Jimmy and Liz are not all white, although they do not know what their backgrounds are exactly. However, there is nothing other than a couple of references to darker-than-your-average-white-person's skin color to make the reader consider them anything else. Handeland may have intended the characters' race to be ambiguous, but she *coded* them as white when she wrote them, if that makes any sense. It's as though they are "white plus."

From what the reader is told, there's no way of knowing what that "something else, not white" in these character's backgrounds may be. And yes, just because Handeland has mentioned that Liz Phoenix has dark brown hair with reddish highlights down to her ass before she cuts it all off doesn't mean she's white. Just because she has blue eyes doesn't mean she's white. Just because Jimmy's last name is Sanducci and his father is definitely Italian doesn't mean he's white. I know all that, I see it every day in my own family. And yet I got zero sense reading this book that these characters saw themselves as anything other than white-- they simply acknowledge that it is unlikely that white is all they are. The "something else" seems to be irrelevant to how they live their lives. The people they identify with are not the black characters or the native american. How can I tell? Well, one clue is that race is not explicitly mentioned for white American characters, but is mentioned for everyone else. Handeland is no different from most mainstream authors in this. So I stand by the parts in my review where I brought up the Magical Negro stereotype and referred to the main character as white, even though technically it may not be true.
Yep, I think you got it. I knew that couldn't be you since you're so active on the BM thread over here.
Hi Maggie,

Just wanted to let you know that your BM link takes me to a member who hasn't been active in over 500 days. I'm guessing that's not you.
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