This week I'm wrapping up the audio of Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann. This is the second audiobook in a row for me with truly raw depictions of people just scraping by and trying to make the best of their situation. Tillie's narration is heartbreaking. Next audio read needs to be something not so heavy.
Related: now I feel like I should watch "The Walk" starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (not a bad thing)
A Flat Place by Noreen Masud on #trauma and its link to land - #review
The flat landscapes metaphorically represent the erasure of #history and personal trauma, much like the draining of the fens removed the natural history and biodiversity.
I'm reading Kij Johnson's collection of speculative fiction, The Privilege of the Happy Ending (https://bookwyrm.social/book/1442804/s/the-privilege-of-the-happy-ending). So far each story is a surprise. Give it a shot if you're looking for something different (and there's quite a bit in this to try!)
Weekend reading! I'm about to start A Radical Act of Free Magic by HG Parry & I can't wait. Her first book in this duology, A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, was absolutely superb, so I have high hopes! #weekendreading#amreading#bookstodon#books
The titular character of Daniel Chacon's new short story collection, The Last Philosopher in Texas: Fictions and Superstitions, came to him as he was walking his dog in Pecos, the windblown West #Texas town where his father once lived. https://www.texasobserver.org/the-chicano-time-traveler/
I am becoming more and more obsessed with post-WWII social criticism and its intersections with left-leaning 50s science fiction. #history#scifi#sciencefiction#books
#AmReading Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. It’s loosely a family saga about Native Americans from the “Indian Wars” (bloody massacres) of the late 19th century onwards. It’s pretty grim reading descriptions of brutal “Indian schools” and “prisoner of war” prisons designed to strip people of their culture, language and heritage to produce upstanding Christian Americans. It’s not going to be easy going #books#bookstodon
OMG @bookstodon I just got the best first review a writer could wish for. Forgive me for this little bit of self-promotion.
"The characters are everything, Lailu (cover) is perfect, Daisy is so relatable and there’s a host of supporting characters to love including shifters, vampires and a whole host of magical creatures.
The writing is great, the book flows effortlessly and kept me reading even when I really needed to go to bed."
Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos, the first book in the Galician language.
The book is framed between poems 1 and 36, which constitute respectively the prologue and epilogue. It also manifests a circular structure as it begins with a composition in which a young girl who is invited to sing takes the voice and ends with the same voice of the girl who apologizes for her lack of ability to sing the beauties of Galicia.
There is a lot going on in Pieter van Laer's 1630s "Self-Portrait with Magic Scene" (e.g. #earlymodern#alchemy and #magic, and #books). But have a look at the paper cone in the right foreground of the painting. Likely seeds or #peppercorns are spilling out. This is relevant for #PaperHistory and #BookHistory, dear #histodons.
The first copies of the children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum were printed by the George M. Hill Company.
During the subsequent decades after the novel's publication in 1900, it received little critical analysis from scholars of children's literature. This lack of interest stemmed from the scholars' misgivings about fantasy, as well as to their belief that lengthy series had little literary merit.
I can't wait to see this! I watched Reading Rainbow as a kid, and then later would watch it as a teen after my high school classes, just to relax and feel good about the world. I know a lot of folks feel lovely and warm about this show, I'm so happy they're doing a documentary on it.
Artificial Intelligence: What Is Behind the Technology of the Future? by Gerhard Paaß & Dirk Hecker (2024)
The English translation of the book “Künstliche Intelligenz – Was steckt hinter der Technologie der Zukunft?” originally published in German (Springer Vieweg, 2020), this book is addressed to the general public, from interested citizens to corporate executives who want to develop a better and deeper understanding of AI technologies and assess their consequences.