Been meaning to start a reading thread, to log & celebrate the books I read. I can't forget to maintain it until I start, so...
Listened to Redemption's Blade by @aptshadow - another interesting rework of classic fantasy tropes from the mind that brought you the underappreciated Spiderlight. This story comes alive thanks to its interesting ensemble, my favourite being the shifty artefact hunters Cat & Fisher. Read if you want classic fantasy adventure with a thoughtful twist.
On a Red Station, Drifting by @aliettedb - Family tensions play out on a space station. I liked the layers to this; political, familial, & internal conflicts winding through each other. The formalities & expectations the characters live by create a fascinating framework for struggle - its motivations & its tools - & the ending was a satisfying moment of surprising yet inevitable. Read if you like tense personal drama or want to see poetry wielded as a weapon.
Reading Arthur Ransome's first Swallows & Amazons book from 1930. Realising that Enid Blyton's Famous Five are an unabashed Ransome ripoff. It's all there, including the lovingly described voluminous meals. The first Famous Five book from 1942 is even titled "Five on a Treasure Island", echoing the preoccupation with pirate / naval fiction that Ransome's four protagonists share.
In the #Inca calendar, the month we call #May was when they harvested corn. 🌽🌽
To find out more about the Inca’s corn goddess and their fertility/agricultural/Mother Nature goddess, check out Intrepid Dudettes of the Inca Empire. Link in bio ;)
I would like to visit London one afternoon, and perhaps also Oxford another one. I'm finishing around 17 here in Reading, so I don't have much time. I'm particularly interested in visiting cool and huge bookstores, those were you can lose yourself for hours. Can you recommend me anyone? #bookstodon#books
I finished book 30 which was Terry Pratchett's, "The Carpet People". This was the great Terry Pratchett's very first book that was started when he was 17. It is a children's book, but entertaining enough for an adult, especially one who is a fan of his other works.
The world is a carpet and on this carpet live many sentient races of really tiny people. Their trees are carpet hairs, and they get varnish from achairleg. It's a rather good book.
(1/2) I have migrated to mstdn.games, and so I am writing a new #introduction.
I'm a long-time gamer, my first console being the NES. I was eventually introduced to TTRPGs via Robotech and AD&D 2nd Edition. These days I play mostly retro video games.
Before games were books, and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to a school librarian who connected me with that wide world of learning.
Finally, thanks @britt and staff for creating this space on the internet! 💙
I play #Hearthstone, mainly Battlegrounds and Mercenaries. #Communist, but haven't figured out what kind. Und, ich lerne #Deutsch, ich muss mehr üben 😅
Today's new queer indie release: J.C. Owens' MM fantasy A Winter Fox.
Albion Rasendin, the renowned general known as the Winter Fox, has only one option to save the lives of his men: surrender. After a war that nearly ripped two nations apart, Albion knows he’ll be...
Today in Labor History May 15, 1917: The Library Employees’ Union was founded in New York City. It was the first union of public library workers in the United States. One of their main goals was to elevate the low status of women library workers and their miserable salaries. Maud Malone (1873-1951) was a founding member of the union. She was also a militant suffragist and an infamous heckler at presidential campaign speeches.
'Yellowface', R.F. Kuang's latest non-fantasy novel, takes white privilege to a sinister level
"R.F. Kuang's first foray outside of fantasy is a well-executed, gripping, fast-paced novel about the nuances of the publishing world when an author is desperate enough to do anything for success."
I said to my #soul, be still, and wait without #hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without #love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet #faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the #light, and the stillness the #dancing.
Ursula K. Le Guin discussing her regrets about not using more gender-neutral language in her book 'The Left Hand of Darkness', the significance of pronouns, and the grammatical accuracy of the singular 'they':
"English has a truly ungendered pronoun only in the plural. He, she, and it are gendered, they is not. [...] Historically, and colloquially, they has been regularly used as an ungendered or bisexual singular."
Since my post on Ursula K. Le Guin's approach to gender-neutral pronouns and her being firmly in support of the singular 'they' is still getting some traction, it's also worth sharing this long but definitely interesting interview to The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) from 2017 where she revisits the subject, among several other things.
I finished reading Angela Sterritt’s memoir on our road trip. “Unbroken: My Story of Survival and My Fight for Justice and Hope for Indigenous Women and Girls” is incredibly powerful. You can order your copy today. 10/10 recommend: https://greystonebooks.com/products/unbroken
If you live in #Oakland#EastBay#SFBayArea#SFBA and like #reading#books you may enjoy checking out one of these #memoir and question and answer sessions within the next month from retired librarian Dorothy Lazard
Properly jaw-dropping moment this evening: an e-mail from my US publisher saying that "since it's a science book", they'll publish Blue Machine WITH METRIC UNITS. So I don't have to convert everything to foot pounds per square elephant. In YEARS of writing for the US, this is the first time I have ever had a hint that there is a world outside feet and inches. Progress! #Books#Metric#Science