Maryann reviews "Everything’s Better With You" by R.L. Merrill:
"A heartwarming story of family, friends, fun and love, filled with happiness, sadness, and drama. ... I highly recommend this, a story told from the heart."
Unfortunate Elements of my Anatomy, Hailey Piper
Some of Us are Very Hungry Now, Andre Perry
Someone Who Will Love you in all Your Damaged Glory, Raphael Bob-Waksberg
The Zoo Where You're Fed to God, Michael Ventura
Fifth Life of the Catwoman, Kathleen Dexter
Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories, Lauren Groff
Men, Women, and Chainsaws, Stephen Graham Jones
Where the Wild Ladies Are, Aoka Matsuda
King Clown, Mark Lages
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, Kevin Wilson
The Wild Impossibility, Cheryl A. Ossola
The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney, Christopher Higgs
Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor
Baby Geisha, Trinie Dalton
A Blue Sky, Natasha Jennings
A Common Person and Other Stories, R. M. Kinder
Beloved, Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Night at the Fiestas, Kirstin Valdez Qualde
Immobility, Brian Evenson
@bookstodon First up: Men, Women, and Chainsaws, by Stephen Graham Jones. I really enjoyed this short story. If you have ever had a revenge fantasy, this one's for you, because it's just sooooo satisfying. Recommend. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ #books#ShortStories#bookstodon
There were a lot of þursar in the forest. A lot. Like, a whole army’s worth, Sigmund following along behind Skinnhúfa, stumbling over roots and running into branches the whole way.
When they got to the camp, Skinnhúfa barked at Sigmund to stay put, left six huge jötnar to guard him, then vanished off into the crowd. Valdís followed, Eisa and Sleipnir stayed behind.
It occurred to Sigmund, as he sat himself down beneath the watchful gaze of his excessive detachment of guards, that he was a prisoner. Again. He’d never been a prisoner before all of this. The closest he’d ever gotten was detention once at school for calling out his year-seven comp sci teacher, Mr. Hennessey. That’d been a long time ago, and sort of how he’d become friends with Em. They’d gotten back an assignment, Em’s had been marked wrong in a way Sigmund’s hadn’t, for more or less the same answer. Em had tried to argue her case before the class. Mr. Hennessey had told her she was wrong, and Sigmund had known the guy’d been lying about it. So he’d said so, and wound up in detention.
The conservation of religious heritage still in use poses a number of very complex problems: "Conservation of Living Religious Heritage" (Nicholas Stanley-Price Robert Killick Herb Stovel, 2003).
"Sometimes the conservator’s instincts (to preserve material fabric and to minimize change) run counter to the religious community’s interest in continuity and renewal. The traditional desire of resident
monks to renew painted surfaces can sometimes conflict with official conservation policy, as has happened at the World Heritage site of Dambulla in Sri Lanka. At Anthony Island on Canada’s West Coast, also a World Heritage site and home to the last surviving in situ cluster of Haida Indian totem poles, the choice of ‘continuity’ as the primary conservation goal has meant allowing poles to decay, while resisting calls from conservators to have them removed to museum environments".
@bookstodon Which books have you really enjoyed, that have inexplicably low ratings on Goodreads?
Some of my faves with criminally underappreciated ratings:
American Delirium, Betina González
Zed, Joanna Kavenna
The Blizzard Party, Jack Livings
Eruption, Harry Turtledove
Harrow, Joy Williams
American Mermaid, Julia Langbein
In 2021, actor Richard E. Grant lost his wife, dialect coach Joan Washington, to lung cancer. Here, he talks about loss, sorrow, love and life's pleasures — subjects that are covered in his award-winning memoir, "A Pocketful of Happiness."
More than 100 years after its invention, the lie detector remains a controversial, unreliable device. Here's an account of how it was dreamed up by a rookie detective in Berkeley, Calif., based on society's long-held belief that the actions of the body could betray the mind.
It should be obvious that we are living in a climate emergency. It’s already here. Changes are happening everywhere, faster and faster, all around us.
The stable climate system of the past 10,000 years — the only environment human civilization has ever known — is rapidly breaking down. It will get much worse before it gets better. That’s a certainty.
But how much worse could it get? Will civilization collapse? Are we past the point of no return? What kind of future can our children expect?
There’s a book I hope you will read. It’s called “Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency.” Widely regarded as the most thorough and well-researched popular explanation of global warming and its potential impacts, I like to call this both the best book and the worst book you can read on the subject.
BEST because of its content, its organization, and its readable style — but WORST because after you’ve really learned where we could be heading, you will probably never be the same.
At one degree Celsius above baseline – the world we are now living in – vast wildfires scorch California and Australia, while monster hurricanes devastate coastal cities. At two degrees the Arctic ice cap melts away, and coral reefs disappear from the tropics. At three, the world begins to run out of food, threatening millions with starvation. At four, large areas of the globe are too hot for human habitation, erasing entire nations and turning billions into climate refugees. At five, the planet is warmer than for the last 55 million years, while at six degrees a mass extinction of unparalleled proportions sweeps the planet, even raising the threat of the end of all life on Earth.
These escalating consequences can still be avoided, but time is running out. If governments fail to act — and act quickly — we risk triggering tipping points that could push global climate chaos out of humanity’s control.
I accidentally posted something under my 2022 #book thread but it's time to live in the future! So this is officially the beginning of my 2023 book thread!
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong #books#booktodon
Not even halfway through the year and I can confidently say that this is going to be the best book that I read in 2023. Just incredible work by @edyong209. Hard to choose one brief pull fact. Hungry spiders tighten their webs to detect smaller bugs?
Anyway… about the ending. I thought the payment for her casting the forbidden spell was love lost and break up. I was surprised it was her getting access to, I dunno, “black magic”… and she's happy about it.
I'm now really curious what she's going to become. Light and Darkness? Or, just darkness?
The saint becoming the devil?
That's a plot I definitely want to watch (or read if there won't be a third season).