Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social reforms.
In 1905, she became the second female Nobel laureate (after Marie Curie in 1903), the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first Austrian laureate.
I feel like I've posted this before but it's worth repeating:
If you live in Massachusetts, you can sign up for a free e-library card from the Boston Public Library. You don't even have to live in Boston!
With an e-card from BPL, you can access literally thousands of books and other digital goodies for free through their app or your preferred e-library app! (Hoopla is my personal favorite.)
Almost finished rereading The Adversary by Julian May. I can’t recall much of what happens apart from the Marc & Elizabeth thing that sets up the last line of the next novel in the series. That last line in Intervention literally made me gasp out loud decades ago.
Incredible story arc. Possibly the best I’ve read. There are other series that are written better, but the story across the 8 books of The Saga of The Exiles - Intervention - The Galactic Milieu series is astonishing.
As a reader who really delights in connecting with people over books they love, it's a big loss to me that book-tracking sites and apps don't let you visibly mark the number of times you've read a title. I love rereading books, I find it so comforting. And it would be so cool to read some profile on a book site and realize we not only love the same book, but we reread it every year or two, too.
Our latest queer indy release: A.K. Faulkner's urban fantasy Runes of Fall:
No storm bows to reason. Quentin’s trip to the desert with his chosen family is supposed to be two days of testing the limits of their powers. Instead, a violent storm looms on the horizon, and nothing will alter its course.
Gentle readers of @bookstodon, you may be pleased to know that Haymarket Books is offering a Queer Liberation Discount this month—40% off! That includes "Let This Radicalize You" by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, I just picked up the paperback (plus a DRM-free ebook) for under $11. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1922-let-this-radicalize-you
*Went to see my barber
*Purchased 7 light novels at Barnes and Noble
*Did a beer run and grabbed 3 make your own 6 packs
Only negative from my trip was my damn mask strap broke as soon as I started walking to my haircut. The air quality sucks, so feeling a bit meh due to it...
This is a psychological thriller that delves into the privacy we have online, or lack thereof, and the cost of surrendering it as the body count piles up.
Very intrigued by the premise here, which seems quite apropos.
#Tolkien makes a lot of knowing winks to philologists in his fiction. In a letter he confesses, for instance, that the dragon Smaug's name is "a low philological jest". It is the past tense form of the old Germanic verb smugan, 'to creep, crawl'.
Swedish still has this verb, att smyga. And it is the etymological background to the name of a fishing village and resort town on the country's SW coast. Smaug should thus be named SMÖGEN in Swedish translation.
"L'amour-propre est un si étrange conseiller qu'il nous arrive cent fois par jour d'être, grâce à lui, en pleine contradiction avec nous-mêmes."
Lavinia , 1833
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil died #OTD in 1876.
Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era, with more than 50 volumes of various works to her credit, alongside her 70 novels. via @wikipedia
Paine's critique of institutionalized religion and advocacy of rational thinking influenced many British freethinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as William Cobbett, George Holyoake, Charles Bradlaugh, Christopher Hitchens and Bertrand Russell. via @wikipedia
He discovered four satellites of the planet Saturn and noted the division of the rings of Saturn; the Cassini Division was named after him. via @wikipedia
He is considered the greatest observational astronomer (of the 17th century) after Kepler and Galileo.
An engraving of the Paris Observatory during Cassini's time. The tower on the right is the "Marly Tower", a dismantled part of the Machine de Marly, moved there by Cassini for mounting long focus and aerial telescopes. Source not specified, probably C. Wolf (1827–1918) - Wolf, Charles J. E. (1902). Histoire de l’Observatoire de Paris de sa fondation a 1793, reproduced in Kragh, H. The Moon that Wasn't: The Saga of Venus' Spurious Satellite. via @wikipedia
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is published #OTD in 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime.
Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. It also popularised the term "Orwellian" as an adjective, with many terms used in the novel entering common usage. via @wikipedia
Why in the end did I decide to re-read Heinlein's Time Enough for Love? And why did it take me more than 2000 words and still not quite say everything I could about it? My review at File 770 is now live https://file770.com/paul-weimer-reviews-time-enough-for-love/
#vendredilecture "Strange Bedfellows" de l'Américaine Ina Park. La professionnelle de santé raconte les infections sexuellement transmissibles, en partant de son expérience de son médecin. C'est drôle, pas moralisateur et instructif, à la Maïa Mazaurette. Bcp aimé le chapitre sur les officiels américains qui traquaient les IST dans les années 1970, celui sur les postiches pubiens... Herpès, gonorrhée, VIH, syphilis, chlamydia... On se familiarise avec eux. L'insta d'Ina https://www.instagram.com/inaparkmd/
#Fridayreads#VendrediLecture#books Qu'est-ce que la conscience? Comment s'exerce notre rapport à ce qui nous entoure? Existe-t-il une âme dans nos corps animaux. Nos cinq sens et nos neurones nous offrent une porte d'entrée sur l'extérieur. Dans "Being you", le professeur de neurosciences cognitives Anil Seth offre des pistes intéressantes, à mon avis pas assez poussées et recouvertes de jargon, plus philosophiques que scientifiques. Dommage. #conscience
#Fridayreads#VendrediLecture#books Les chroniqueurs judiciaires ne voient jamais l'humanité en noir et blanc, les crimes sont pour la plupart commis dans cette zone incertaine où la raison cède aux pulsions. Aux éditions Marchialy, "Les Nuits que l'on choisit" d'Elise Costa sont le témoignage de cette journaliste, longtemps pour Slate, qui a couvert de nombreux procès, allant d'un palais de justice à un autre. Une fenêtre ouverte sur la difficulté d'établir la justice
#Fridayreads#VendrediLecture#books Un bonheur de lecture: "Bitch" par Lucy Cooke. L'autrice démonte les biais patriarcaux et misogynes entretenus par Darwin et ses héritiers en biologie. Non, les femelles ne sont pas des créatures passives. Oui, la définition d'un sexe est plus compliquée qu'on le croit. Dans le monde animal, il existe une diversité de rôles sexuels, de variantes au regard de l'évolution. C'est un livre pêchu, bien écrit et sourcé #biology#zoology#female#bitch