The #Scifi Book Stores in #Stockholm, #Gothenburg and #Malmö are one of Sweden's most profitable businesses in book retail. They sell tabletop games as well. So at their recent equity issuance I did something unprecedented and bought some stock.
The Stockholm #Scifi Book Store is bang in the middle of the Old Town's main tourist street, where almost every other shop space offers either tacky souvenirs, meals or snacks. Big shop, hundreds of square metres on two floors. It's amazing that they can make that work!
I was in a bookshop today but they didn't have the book I wanted. So I went to the desk to see if they could order it. While I was waiting I looked at a book on the counter called A Field Guide To Tasmanian Fungi and I thought what a great book to help ID all the species I see about. I wasn't going to buy it, though, until I noticed that I knew one of the authors, who besides being a mycologist, is a keen chess player.
“From my childhood I have been,’ said I, ‘the object of the untiring goodness of the best of human beings; to whom I am so bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day.”
#OTD in 1140. The French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy at the Council of Soissons.
This council was convened by the Church to examine his book "Theologia Summi Boni", which was seen as challenging orthodox Christian doctrine. Abelard's rational approach to theology and his emphasis on applying logic to faith led to suspicions among church authorities.
kim stanley robinson’s Red Mars still stands out to me as the finest piece of science fiction i have ever read
recently found out that he had written another trilogy set in a post-nuclear california, and i was skeptical. i’ve had enough derivative mad max crap to last me six lifetimes.
i am very happy to be proven wrong. this decidedly turned out to not be fallout apocalypse porn. robinson spends his time imagining the human joys and freedoms found in inhabiting a world turned into wildlife and wild country. no idiotic fights over gasoline or nukes. instead a concern with fishing, building community, repairing old railroads, and figuring out who else lives beyond the village boundaries.
In the mood for some fiction. Nonfiction has been too depressing lately for me to read. There's enough depressing things going on in the world right now, I don't need to add to it by reading about history and politics. 😆
Big Barrel is off to the dumpster to get some grub. Jakub Żulczyk draws a picture of decline in Many Years of Hardships, translated by John and Małgorzata Markoff.
"About his large bright eyes that used to be so merry, there was a wanness and a restlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot use the expression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not like age; and into such a ruin, Richard’s youth and youthful beauty had all fallen away.”
“I passed on to the gate, and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head, put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my mother, cold and dead.”
Excerpt From
Bleak House
Charles Dickens
The Morning Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) August 1853 Dark Plate Etching (ch. 59, "Esther's Narrative") of Dickens's Bleak House, Part 18. Scanned image by George P. Landow;
John Barry's Philadelphia Spelling Book Arranged Upon a Plan Entirely New becomes the first American book copyrighted.
John Barry was a schoolmaster of the Free School of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. While no complete copy of the book exists today, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress has the printed title page and two pages of text that Barry originally deposited.
"Remember, to the last, that while there is life there is hope."
English novelist and social critic Charles Dickens died #OTD in 1870.
Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed readings extensively; was an indefatigable letter writer; and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
#Reading Adams' 1992 novel "Mostly Harmless" for the first time. I was absolutely crazy about the first two Hitch-hiker #books just seven years earlier. Why didn't I care about this one? Think it was because I was disappointed with the third and fourth ones. And this one got bad reviews.
All that stands between ten-year-old Beatrice and an amazing life are five wishes…and she’s got a plan to make them all come true! A magical and heartfelt adventure about grief, hope, and the power of human connection.
Day 11 #Bookstodon challenge: Choose 20 #books that greatly influenced you. One #book per day, for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just covers
(I've already been doing this over on Bluesky and am several days in, so I'm going to do my best to not get mixed up on the days I'm on 😆) @bookstodon#horror@horrorbooks
So many wonderful new queer-themed books published so far this #PrideMonth. It really is most heartening . . . but I need more hours in the day to read them all! 🏳️🌈📚