So, Wednesday night we watched The People v OJ Simpson (which was STUPID ENTERTAINING) and I ate a funny-tasting frozen chicken patty. A few hours later, I started feeling…off? Achy and crampy. I fell asleep, and then I woke up at 3am feeling like death, and couldn’t sleep because my whole body hurt and cramped, and then when morning came I realized I couldn’t really stand or walk? Like I was just incredibly, incredibly weak. So Steve took our daughter to preschool and the babysitter offered to take the baby overnight (SOLD!) and I told my THREE FRIENDS flying in that afternoon that they would have to Uber themselves to my door.
And all day Thursday I shivered under a blanket while making occasional dashes to poop uncontrollably, and it was terrible, and I couldn’t do anything or move or walk to the kitchen and then my friends came and pretended it wasn’t weird that I was receiving them from a fainting couch with a dog draped across my useless legs. I am hoping that by the time you read this I will be slightly better.
So, basically, I did. not. do. a. link. roundup. I DID read a terrifying book about The Station nightclub fire, which helped place my temporary illness into perspective. What are YOU reading? I’m so sorry. Mallory and I are both having bad weeks. We love you.
I’m reading Loving Day–I’m simultaneously enjoying the good story and prose and pissed that I broke my ladies-only author rule to read an awful lot about some guy’s boner.
ETA: Sorry about the death-patty, Nicole. Feel better soon!
heheheheh “death patty”
I too am sorry about the death-patty! But also it is relevant to last round-up’s article about the six things the food-safety guy never eats? I appreciate your acting out the story in a way to help us understand it better.
Here is a good link about “Uagadou” one of the new “wizarding schools” that JK Rowling announced in her — I don’t actually know what she’s doing here, if this is like for a new book or something? Or someone else is going to write a book? Is she just haphazardly filling in backmatter or something? Anyway, good.
https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2016/02/0…
(I actually don’t remember where I found this, so if it was here, at THE TOAST, and I just forgot and am inadvertently trying to take credit for someone else’s link-rounding, you just let me know and I will apologize and make sure you get the acclaim you deserve)
So 11 total – Tiny Europe has 3 goddamn magic schools and Africa just has one school? *sigh*
(i know this is completely fictional but still)
that being said, i’m glad we’re getting more backstory. future books filling in histories and stories of the other magic schools would be AMAZING. i’m hoping there’s a school in South Asia. i would die from joy.
Man, and Africa seems like such a great opportunity for a ton of magic schools exploring its incredibly long and diverse history.
Like, for example:
a school in Cairo founded during the Mamluk Sultanate that got taken over during the colonial period and remodeled as a British school. How do the students there struggle with the conflict between national identity and the legacy of colonialism? Are the teachers there still English, or Oxbridge-trained? Is the student body growing increasingly diverse?
What about a school that’s smack in the middle of the Sahara, and has been around since before even the Arab colonization of North Africa? Are they proud of their ability to endure for fifteen hundred years? But does this come with a set of hidebound traditions that are almost willfully obtuse in the modern age?
Or a school that was founded in old Rhodesia, that is in the process of being reformed and remodeled, as the people there try to find a way to keep the school while stripping it of its colonial implications?
Or a *new* school that was founded in the 80s or 90s, one where they were trying (maybe unsuccessfully) to create a modern school that was unencumbered by colonialism, and that also ran into conflict with historical home-schooled wizards in secret societies like the Ogboni?
This is not even looking at the possibility raised in the article of wizard schools in Timbuktu or Djenne that held the legacy of, like the Songhai empire.
Man dang I don’t know, I feel like you could write a million novels just about the Wizard Schools of Africa.
These are fantastic! You should write the hell out of these ideas!
I am an enthusiast for the history of Africa, but not really an expert; still, I would read the hell out of it if someone who really knew their stuff decided to write A History of Wizards in Africa
When I first heard there was going to be an African magic school, I immediately hoped for something involving the Egyptian Pyramids. How rad would that be!
I would read all of them, please start writing asap. We don’t really need Rowling here, do we?
(to be fair, JKR’s piece says there are many schools in Africa, and Ouagadou is the biggest & most enduring. she knows one would be far too few!)
but yes. there is so much potential here. the wizarding world in HP canon is so based in European traditions so I have no concept of how much magic itself is European magic versus some kind of universal constant that’s adapted differently by wizards in every culture. and then how do you separate the magic customs of any given African society from the European colonial ones, and how did European wizards come to Africa anyway, was colonization a Muggle enterprise they stayed out of? or did they consider parts of Africa remote & untamed enough to be great hiding places from Muggles? There’s totally a European wizarding school in Africa put there because it’s “hidden” and “remote,” right?
[several excited mental tangents later] I want to read a cultural linguistic analysis of how colonial languages did or did not change African spells in different cultural/geographical contexts. Damn you JKR and your infinitely expandable universe!!! Damn you in the nicest way possible!
Anyway. I like this post you linked quite a bit, it’s very adept at critiquing the culture & context Rowling is writing in, and riffing on that, without declaring her a colonialist monster.
I want to read a cultural linguistic analysis of how colonial languages did or did not change African spells in different cultural/geographical contexts.
Dang, I don’t know how well this would hold up under close scrutiny, since I don’t feel like we ever got a very good reason why all the wizard spells are in fake-ass Latin in the first place.
wizard kids in Ghana or Nigeria growing up listening to their parents do magic in their local language, getting sent to a Hogwarts-like wizarding school, hearing “Wingardium Leviosa!” and just turning to each other and laughing like “that sounds RIDICULOUS” but they HAVE to learn British English and fake wizard Latin to pass exams, and they hang out with kids from all over the country and European expats too, and gradually the spell language shifts, the older British wizards are mad cause the kids are doing better magic using words that didn’t even exist back in their day…
I believe the reason is “sounds magickier that way.”
… which actually I could believe as an in-universe reason too, honestly. We see spells, in particular some of the most powerful spells, where the caster’s self-confidence and sincerity of intentions affect the outcome — you can’t cast a Patronus Charm unless you really believe you can, you can’t cast a Cruciatus Curse unless you really desire to cause your target unbearable pain, etc. So maybe all magic spells depend, to a greater or lesser degree, on the caster’s belief that they’ll work, and the dog-Latin incantations end up playing the same role as the ritual wand movements — they help make you feel like you are Doing Magic, For Real, which makes your spells more likely to work especially if you are a young, inexperienced, or insecure wizard, but they aren’t really truly necessary, as we know because we sometimes see powerful, experienced, confident wizards doing wandless or silent magic.
Patricia Wrede did some interesting stuff with language and spells in Mairelon the Magician and Wizard’s Ward — basically you can’t/shouldn’t cast in your native language. I think it’s something about magic being easier to control in a language you don’t usually speak/think in, and when one cocky evil British dude starts casting in English, things go really wrong.
This could be, though I got to say that this means that wizards are, for all intents and purposes, omnipotent, and the only reason they can’t just do whatever they want all the time is because of what amounts to a psychological block.
This is not my preferred form of wizardry.
It always made me wonder what one said to cast a Bat-Bogey Hex – do we have the Latin word for booger?
Other than “it sounds magic that way”, my own theory is that the Latin spells in Harry Potter came from the Middle Ages (or perhaps later). Not only is Medieval Latin a bit different from Classical Latin, but over the ages wizards and witches who weren’t that great at Latin mangled a few words while inventing spells.
You know, it’s a weird thing about English in general that our technical vocabulary is mostly in Greek and Latin. I believe in many other languages there’s a lot less of that, like if you were naming a disease involving water in your lungs you wouldn’t go grab another language’s word for “lung” and end up with “pneumonia,” you would just use your own words for those concepts. In cultures where there is a scholarly language like Sanskrit I could imagine that being used for spells, but in other places, wizards might just use their own language, or older/fancier words from their own language.
When my friend who knows Latin complained about HP pronunciations I claimed it was Church Latin. I don’t know if that’s actually true but I have to imagine they would develop their own pronunciations like the church did.
That’s true of the technical vocabulary of several other European languages, though. “Pneumonia”, for example, is a word that also exists in French, Portuguese, and Spanish. I agree, though, there would be a “Greek/Latin is cool” thing for the Wizarding World as well (see also: Snape inventing Sectumsempra).
I agree about Sanskrit and other older/fancy words from people’s respective cultures, and I’ve had a similar thought to the Church Latin thing*. I like the way you think!
* The pronounciation sounds influenced by Church Latin with a mix of people’s English accents thrown in.
Right, it’s not *unique* to English. I wouldn’t dare claim anything is unique to English, there are too dang many languages! It is notably *visible* in English, I think, because we can switch registers between Germanic and Latinate vocabulary, whereas French is almost entirely made of Latinate words to begin with. But it’s true that Greek roots like “pneu” stick out in either case.
This is a place where Rainbow Rowell’s theory of magic in Carry On would be really interesting – how does colonialism, the language of the colonizers and any creoles that might arise impact what words/phrases have magical uses?
I LOVE how her magic works and it has so many implications for what happens when your culture is a globally dominant one or one that is colonized and repressed. Carry On fanfic might break my brain with the meta, though.
Oooh, I would love to see that. And yes, I also loved how her magic worked, and especially how the power of certain phrases shifts over time.
I REALLY want her to fill in the geographical holes because there’s so much potential there… Both for excellent stories, expanded world and increased diversity because that is important.
On a similar note I’m now imagining the implications of colonization in Australia/South Pacific on magical education… Postcolonial magic history would be fascinating…
10/10, would read.
Please write this!
I don’t know if everyone already knows this or not, but on tumblr there is (or was) a lot of this type of headcanon and I really liked some of the posts my friends used to link me to. Including a lot about languages and magic.
i would read all of these novels. even pay cash moneys for them…just sayin’.
I kinda groan and shudder whenever I hear Rowling is adding to canon again and have to resist the urge to strip naked and run into the streets with “DEATH OF THE AUTHOR” painted over my chest, you know?
That’s a very good article, but the 3rd-grade geography nerd in me is still wondering why you would name a school basically after the capital of Burkina Faso and then say it’s in Uganda.
well, what if you knew basically nothing about Africa?
And here I was looking for a good costume idea for Carnaval 😉
Rowling is adding to canon again
This critique always baffles me, because it’s always going to be her world, right up until the day she dies. She didn’t sign a contract sealing it off when she published the last book.
At least she’s providing new material to the fans who care, rather than revising what she already wrote.
Yes. I wouldn’t mind as much if it were actually in a new book that one could critique based on actual execution as well as ideas; this just feels to me like she’s constantly plucking at my sleeve saying “and, and, and”–I don’t want to deal with an author telling me ideas about what she thinks and means; I want a goddamned text I can think about without her peering over my shoulder and adding in tiny little drips and dribbles.
Wagadu and the eastern side of the Rwenzori Mountains is roughly like imagining that an ancient group of Irish wizards relocated to Ukraine in order to get away from British landlords.
I am so here for academic historians really getting into the issues raised by Uagadou (and by political scientists trying to justify some of the frankly silly world-building in Harry Potter). And then in the comments, people are talking about historically plausible wizarding schools. (I’ve been reading Timothy Burke’s blog for a while, he is generally great and should make more appearances on Toast round-ups.)
That said, a surprising number of English aristocrats went on trips to Eastern Europe during the middle ages, and I think the Irish have got a legend that Finn MacCumhail conquered his way all the way down to Vienna, so I don’t know!
I wish that Rowling would have sat down with some of these guys first and then made up wizard schools *afterwards*, but what can you do.
(I also kind of get the feeling that Rowling is sick to fucking death of wizards at this point. I know I would be.)
I’m a Swarthmore alum and Tim Burke’s blog always gives me a nice cozy feeling (even if the topic isn’t cozy); it’s just, “oh, Swarthmore, land of the weird and earnest, how I miss you sometimes.”
That is a good link!
Totally unrelated: I just realized this morning that I think we have mutual facebook friends! I was scrolling through my newsfeed and saw a comment on an article an acquaintance posted about possibly stopping/slowing the aging process and was like, “…that is a name I have seen before!”
So if that is you, then what a small world we live in! And if not… Then I have just been odd on the internet and hopefully no one will pay me any mind!
You can tell if it is me because 1) there frankly aren’t that many Braaks in the English-speaking world, and 2) I am a terrifying monster-bird that feeds almost exclusively on bone marrow.
I KNEW IT
I think there are a lot of mutual friends amongst Toasts, especially those of us who’ve migrated around from early-Jezebel days.
I regret not making more of you my fb friends at the time, but ehhhhhhhh.
I’ve reunited with some LJ friends here, which is awesome.
This is so weird to me, because there’s already a canonical American school (The Salem Institute, which was directly mentioned in Goblet of Fire.)
I suppose it’s one of the allegedly many smaller schools of witchcraft & wizardry?
That was a Witches’ Institute and so misogyny dictates it can never be a “world-class” university. (WTF even is a “world-class” wizarding school when every magical kid in the country gets invited to it?)
I’m still so mad about the school in Japan. Mahoutokoro 1) okay, means “magic place” in a very strict “i have jammed two nouns together with no regard for actual language functions” but 2) you screwed it up anyway because the sound should change from t to d when you smash those into a compound word and 3) your pronunciation guide is all fucked up (ma-hoot-o-koh-ro? really?).
And I’m not even really going to touch the issues with 1) linguistic diversity in Asia means that every other Asian witch who wants to go here would have to learn Japanese (Asia: not actually all one culture!), 2) the history of Japanese imperialism makes even me, a diaspora Japanese, side-eye the choice to put the only magic academy in Asia here, and 3) really? You really fucking put it on Iwo fucking Jima? That’s not a loaded choice AT ALL.
well what was she supposed to do? It’s not like other places in Asia like China or whatever have a long tradition of remote communities where people go to learn magical secrets.
Also the school in South America is “Castelobruxo” (“witch-castle” which, I don’t know Rowling, are you even trying anymore?) and seems to be exclusively run by the Portuguese, and yeah I don’t know, that seems like maybe she should have thought about it a little harder?
(Especially considering that South America has had — and still has — a history of schools of magic on the Chiloe archipelago! Like, I get that you don’t necessarily want to use real religious practice as the basis of your magic school, but also can we maybe avoid the implication that no one in South America knew anything about magic until the Europeans showed up and started murdering everyone?)
Maybe wizards have bad naming conventions? Hogwarts is hog warts, Beauxbatons is Nice Wands, Durmstrang is just Strum und Drang. Might as well call the other ones Witch Castle and Magic Place.
Well, definitely wizards have bad naming conventions. BUT I do have to say that I think it is amazing that the name of the all-girl wizard school in France is a joke about dicks.
I wish, but it’s not all-girl – they just went that way in movie casting, but there are definitely male Beauxbatons students mentioned in the book.
Castelobruxo wouldn’t be run by the Portuguese since it’s in Brazil.
I’m having a hard time with this too. I can imagine that Hogwarts-type schools could be a European thing, with other cultures having their own schooling practices. I can even imagine European colonialism leading to teaching/learning magic being repressed and becoming a subversive thing. That still doesn’t explain Castelobruxo or how it ended up there, or why there aren’t any big schools elsewhere in South America.
Well, in this case I guess I don’t mean run by the Portuguese so much as a I mean “seems to be a product of the Portuguese colonization of Brazil”
Thanks for clarifying.
That still doesn’t make much sense since Portugal doesn’t have its own magic school, which is why I think the whole Castelobruxo thing is really vague and there’s little explanation about how or when it was created.
Doesn’t it make sense if the national language of Brazil is Porrtuguese? (And that fact is a result of colonization,of course, but if the school post-dates the colonization, the name makes sense.)
Yeah I think the name only doesn’t make sense in that it doesn’t make sense for the only wizard school in South America, which already boasted an ancient tradition of magicians and warlocks, to be definitively a product of European colonization.
Ha, my husband was complaining about this too, and then I complained back at him that the Russian one is a nonsense compound (it’s two words jammed together with key sounds of each one missing – kind of like a portmanteau but not in a way that’s valid in Russian). Also it means “sorcery creator,” which, like the Japanese one, is a really boring name, unlike Hogwarts or Durmstrang.
The linguistic and cultural barriers are an issue with all of these. With Uagadou, for example. There are so many languages in Africa, what kind of problems with a student run into when trying to go there?
Even the European schools don’t seem well thought out, but at least there’s three of them and the homeschooling or foreign students stuff works for some of the smaller countries.
African magic schools you say? I’m just going to leave this here….
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IYJEG0/ref=d…
I wonder if these schools will be referenced in the upcoming movie? I know that the American school, Ilvermorny (I still can’t believe that’s the name of the American school, eesh), is supposed to play a part in Fantastic Beasts.
Also, I kind of feel like JKR should let other writers write about non-UK/European schools at this point? It’s like with Star Trek or Star Wars–at some point, the world is just too big for one person to write about.
If the Harry Potter universe DOES go that route, with lots of writers taking up the mantle of writing spin-offs, I will be both extremely excited to read such books AND extremely excited about the sure-to-ensue debates about canon vs. fanon treatments of the wider universe and what gets to be canon.
Well, there’s pretty much an infinite supply of Harry Potter fanfic, and I’m certain that there’ll be new fics written now placed in these new schools.
Long before the series ended, there were debates about canon vs. fanon, and many fans declaring with each new book that they preferred fanon or thought such-and-such fic was better written. So it won’t be a new debate, at any rate.
Oh man, we can relive the heady days of fandom_wank c. 2004.
It’s like with Star Trek or Star Wars–at some point, the world is just too big for one person to write about.
That’s why there’s literally millions of fanfic online. 😛
I don’t know whether anyone should get paid to publish stories in her world, unless she wants to go that route.
I almost teared up at that picture. Oh god it is just the saddest. I hope someone is reading you stories and doing the voices and gently feeding you broth.
RIGHT?! I opened the page and was like, “Oh no, not Beth, AAAUUUGGGH.” My bestie/co-worker likes to tease me sometimes by randomly playing the music from the rose-petal-strewing scene after Beth dies, and it pretty much always makes me want to curl up on my couch and weep. (That makes her sound like the Worst Friend Ever but it really is quite funny.)
Prompted by this post, I just watched this scene on youtube at work. I’m not sure why I thought that was a good idea, because now I’m trying to hold back my tears in my open office of 30 people. Did I mention I’m the only women who works here?
this is the funniest / most specific / DEVASTATING teasing i have ever heard of it, and i love it very much.
RIGHT?! I opened the page and was like, “Oh no, not Beth, AAAUUUGGGH.” My bestie/co-worker likes to tease me sometimes by randomly playing the music from the rose-petal-strewing scene after Beth dies, and it pretty much always makes me want to curl up on my couch and weep. (That makes her sound like the Worst Friend Ever but it really is quite funny.)
I watch Little women at least once a year and still cry at the scene. It is perfect.
Definitely one of my favorite movies and I still cry at that scene. Heart. breaking.
I’m reading QUEEN OF THE NIGHT and thinking up interview questions for Alexander Chee, so get excited about that, y’all.
I bought a copy last night on my way home from work after the article linked in yesterday’s Roundup and I read three pages and put it down because I need to finish this other book first or I will ::never:: finish it so what I’m saying is you and I are essentially twins.
Eee, very exciting!!!
Nicole, feel better! Better weeks for everyone!
Reading! I just finished The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, which was GREAT and I can’t believe I waited so long to read it!!!! So fantastic. Now I’m working on Flight of the Sparrow, which is a retelling of Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative, which is interesting but I’m only like ten pages in so it might still suck. (Mostly because my blog reviews are on YA captivity narratives coming up, and it popped up on my radar and was cheap.)
As soon as the library gets it back I’m reading City of Women. I cannot wait.
I feel you yo. I’m having a fucking terrible week. I broke my tailbone last week, Well, I might have broken it, the doctors don’t want to bother xraying me ’cause it doesn’t make a difference to how they treat it (IT MAKES A FUCKING DIFFERENCE TO ME.), they did say they could give me painkillers, but then DIDN’T GIVE ME PAINKILLERS. I also rolled my ankle last night, which sounds like nothing but this is the ankle with a torn ligament that every time it starts to heal I roll it again and then puke from the pain.
There’s also house drama and now I have a cold.
FUN WEEK GUYS.
Oh nooooo, I sympathize with your broken tailbone. 🙁 My mom broke her tailbone in a gardening incident a little over a decade ago, and at the hospital the doctors confirmed it was broken then shrugged, “Well it’s your butt, there’s not much to be done frankly” which, well, they do kind of have a point. My mom is a trooper with an unreasonably high pain tolerance so she didn’t do much pain management, but the poor woman couldn’t sit properly on a chair for a year. All you can do is make sure anywhere you rest your broken butt is extremely well padded! Put extra pillows on EVERYTHING. Be the Princess in ‘Princess and the Pea’.
Yep. I fell down the stairs last February and banged my tailbone a good one, and it still aches if I sit in certain positions.
Tailbones suck. I’ve bruised mine about a hundred times (I fall off things a lot. and I seem to land on my bum.) and I know I’ve done some permanent damage because I haven’t been able to sit against a wall for years; but its normally cleared up in a few days, and this time I honestly think its getting worse! I left it a week to go to the doctor because I hate getting the ‘*shrug* nothing we can do’ response from doctors (Like literally it sends me into a screaming rage.), and I told him straight up that I know what a bruised tailbone feels like and this is not it, and I still got a ‘*shrug* soz’ from him.
I’m really angry that he didn’t give me painkillers though, even after I said that I’ve been popping ibeproufen like candy and its not doing anything and I have to sit for my job and any sitting longer than 20 minutes causes back spasms.
*sigh* I’m just so tired of being in pain. It just makes the winter depression spiral I’m in 10,000x worse because now even when I do work up some energy to get out of bed, the actual act of getting out of bed hurts. a lot.
I did a primal scream and a dramatic “NOTHING IS OKAY” after reading this!!
WHY IS NOTHING OKAY.
WOW, that really is a terrible week! I’m so sorry! I hope you can get some painkillers pretty quick smart and that you have a heat pack and basically that you heal very soon.
400mg ibuprofen and lemsip are the only reasons I’m currently upright.
I had to look up Lemsip. We don’t have that in the US, that I’ve seen. Does the medication make it taste gross, or is it heavily flavored enough?
It’s gross in an alka-seltzer kind of way. Medicinal but also inherently gross.
I can’t believe they didn’t x-ray it! I once thought I’d broken mine and they sent me to get an x-ray and it turned out it was just a pilonidal cyst. Of course, if the first doctor had bothered to look at my butt when I said it hurt, we probably could’ve skipped the x-ray business. Why are doctors so cavalier when it comes to asses? They are very important!
I got a nice feel up in my bum crack; but since its the NHS getting an xray is a big hassle and they don’t like to ‘waste’ resources unless they really have to.
Since its not higher up in my spine its unlikely to cause permanent problems or paralysis, just long term pain, and sure you can live with that no problem, right?
(I’m constantly broken and in pain, and when people ask me why I don’t go to the doctor, its because of shit like this, unless they can immediately tell what the problem is, or fix it immediately all you get is a pat on the back and told to ‘wait and see’, which I’m fucking tired of.)
Yes! God yes. And *then* when you do wait and see like they always tell you and things get bad they ask why you didn’t come in sooner!
I’m good enough at first aid that I can manage anti-inflammatories and ice; I genuinely would have to be unable to walk or stand before I’d consider going straight to hospital or the doctor.
And A&E is such a hell hole, I’d honestly have to be dying before I’d go. I don’t want to sit around for 4 hours to be given a bandage and told to rest at home, I can prescribe that for myself.
Right? Yes. Why do that to yourself. I’m just not a good judge of how serious things are.
That sucks– I hope you get the good drugs soon and feel better!
I mostly had a very good experience with the NHS, during one year when I was living in the UK. (Coming from the US where everything costs mega-bucks, it was quite dumbfounding to just walk away without paying anything. I stood around with my wallet out, like an idiot, on more than one occasion).
The only thing that got me, though was that, at one point, I was having some weird health problems and couldn’t walk properly. They told me that I couldn’t have a cane or crutches because I walked (read: hobbled laboriously) into the hospital by myself.
Dodgy chicken is the worst thing. Sorry it got you. I trust that the Toasterie will fill the gaps admirably. Wishing both of you better weeks next time around.
Feel better! I hope Sansa is doing well beside you (not going to pretend I’m not sad about a lack of a picture, but it’s quite understandable).
I’m simultaneously working on “The Visiting Privilege” by Joy Williams and “The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty” by Vendela Vida (the former in print and the latter in audiobook format). Looking forward to a snowy reading weekend.
Not reading anything currently, but ordering the shit out of that Station nightclub disaster book. I don’t know what it says about me but I love reading about things like this (that could have easily been prevented). And amusement park disasters.
Maybe this is why I’m debating going back to school for occupational health…
Theme park disasters are fascinating (and horrible). Everyone who tries to get into restricted areas/stand up on the rides: don’t. It is a terrible idea.
Random: has anyone watched the video NPR posted of the surgeon operating on Reeses peanut butter cups and Oreos? IT LITERALLY MAKES ME CRINGE WITH PAIN AND DISGUST and NPR acts like its so cute and charming? I think they used the word “hypnotic”??? Anyway, I’ve had a nightmare about it for 2 days running. No one asked for playful surgery videos.
I’ve watched it and it doesn’t bother me, but it seems like a “love it or hate it” thing. I think the “hypnotic” term was more for its association with ASMR. I know those videos work for one of my friends with ASMR, but it’s definitely not for everyone.
No I am with you. I am all about weird youtube things people find calming. You’re making a cake the size of a matchbox? Sign me up. Creating a soundscape that is meant to imagine what the dwarves’ chambers in the Lonely Mountain would sound like? I will put that on repeat. But surgery, in any way, shape or form? Le fuck no. Nothing about that is calming or soothing, all it does is reawaken my phobias. So clearly there is a whole category of ASMR stuff that I nope away from. (Who finds doctors appointments calming?! Who?!?)
*sheepishy raises hand*
Me three. I love the doctor appointment role plays.
There’s a video out there of a dude doing surgery on a teddy bear that has real animal organs in it. I find it hypnotizing and also gross, but it freaked out a few of my friends.
I hope that, now that we are reading this, you feel much improved! Food poisoning is the worst.
Although I probably would not have crashed if I drove in, I’m taking a snow day today and telecommuting. It is lovely to be working from my kitchen table, looking out my big, bright windows. A cloud of grackles just descended on my apartment, since our building is covered in wild grape vines, and once winter sets in all the birds want to do is perch on our window and eat the tiny little sun-dried raisins.
Is everyone having crappy weeks this week? Is this a universal phenomenon?
Love you! Feel better!
I think it might really be a universal crappy week.
mine started out SO well and really tanked, but I think this weekend is gonna be just what we all need.
Me too! Started out fabulously then careened downhill. Really hoping this weekend lives up to my high, over-scheduled expectations!
Yup. Basically slept badly all week because my poor partner is sick and kept having terrible, heartbreaking coughing fits during the night… and now I have a bad cold and have been startling my office all day with my loud sneezing. Yay…
My week has actually been a normal, pleasant week, but this is probably because I had a miserable week *last* week, and the universe is trying to make it up to me.
I too ate something funny at the end of last week, was quickly and grossly ill, and still currently feel “off” days later. Much sympathy and empathy towards any food poisoning victims, including you, Nicole!
Nothing in my week has been objectively that crappy, but I have been feeling really tired most days (and also vaguely nauseous some of the time), and a few nights ago when my partner texted me to say he was going to the pub with colleagues I ended up sitting around for a few hours not sure if I should cook or not (and if I should make enough for two, etc.) in a very cold flat because our boiler was out of order at the start of the week and I hadn’t realised its timer was still all wrong. I ended up crying when he got home because I had been cold and hungry and was very grumpy.
I had such a brilliant weekend, but it did involve two nights of heavy drinking and being with my friends for 3 days straight, both of which are rarities for me and I’m still exhausted. I need a liver detox and 3 days of alone time.
I second the universality of this awful week. I have been exhausted all week long, had a migraine earlier this week (actually the exhaustion is probably related to that), and terrible dreams about my partner having to go to the hospital and then I never see her again. I am off to go light some candles or incense or something for all of us.
I had a migraine too! So miserable. What are you doing, Universe?!?
This week is the anniversary of my dad’s death so yeah…it’s terrible. Took an Uber home Wednesday night despite surge pricing because I really only had 15 minutes of holding my shit together left in me – not the 30 required for the bus ride.
prayers and hugs to you.
Ubering is often really great self-care!
There’s no *reason* for mine to be crappy, but it is? also I learned this morning that a close friend was assaulted recently, and I don’t know what to do to be *there* for her other than texting her and being available if she needs it.
I do not have personal experience with this, but I do not think you could go wrong with food gifts, be they meals or just treats for her to enjoy, if that is an option.
That’s a good idea! thanks!
I just found on via social media that a guy I know’s brother just died and it made me so sad. Crafting that condolence text was very difficult. It’s so hard for it to sound sincere and not canned.
Right? it’s a situation where you aren’t directly involved but you still have feels and sympathy for someone else and also it can really effect your current mental state. 😐 emotions are weird
I came down with a mysterious illness that has totally and literally incapacitated me last week so it’s been a solid sucky two weeks for me.
I hate my fucking job and have had dreadful crying bouts of insomnia (and random daytime crying bouts too) as a result, so yeah. Universally crappy week.
oh most certainly.
Yeah this week has pretty much sucked all-round.
This is my last day at work before surgery and this week has been a Mad dash to do ALL THE THINGS, so, yes.
My week has been fairly pleasant, but I thin kit’s because last Saturday my workday was SO AWFUL that everything else seems fine in comparison? At least I no longer want to burn down the library.
I’m still the Before Lady in an infomercial, so yup.
Hahahaha yeeeah.
I have an ear infection and it’s the worst, so I sympathize. Also I had food poisoning after a wedding last summer and wow was it awful. Throwing up on a plane was something I could have gone without crossing off my bucket list.
After Mallory announcing she was going to a monastery retreat, I now really, really want to go to a monastery retreat. Like this one in Kentucky. Who’s with me?
I would love to go on a monastery retreat! I’ve visited the Abbey of Gethsemane and it is lovely. I was snowed in for three days last week and tried to do my own self-directed spiritual retreat but met with abysmal failure. I need structure, evidently.
Go. Go to that one in Kentucky. Just go.
(It’s just up the road from my hometown. I would not be the person I am today without it. I wasn’t even Catholic when I was around. Thomas Merton said “I have been looking for the center of America” and that was it.)
Well dang now I FOR SURE want to go! Thank you for sharing. 🙂
That looks awesome and I would totally do that. I may need to bookmark that page.
Things I’m reading: My friend J is starting a new blog to showcase her thoughts on language, ecology, literature and gender. There is just one tiny little post up there right now but I can’t wait to see all the awesomeness she’s going to be posting. https://niamhfern.wordpress.com
And this thing has lots I want to comment on and critique: http://www.topologymagazine.org/essay/editorial/o…
I can’t wait to read more either, that mix of topics sounds fascinating. Bookmarked 🙂
I’ve added her to my reader. Those topics are right up my alley 🙂
I am reading The Swans of Fifth Avenue, which is sort of a historical fiction of Truman Capote cavorting with rich society women in 1950s Manhattan. I bought it because it was supposed to be hilarious, but so far it is just terribly beautiful and sad.
Also my husband and I had an ENORMOUS hours-long fight last night that went way past my bedtime, and I’m pretty sure a dude on the train this morning was trying to fondle me, so in conclusion, everything sucks and I’m tired.
A dude on the train fondled me this morning! He put his hand right under my butt, and when the train shook a bit and I moved he took a big ol’ handful and squeezed. Of course it happened as we’re coming into a stop so when I turned around and yelped he scurried off the train like a COWARD.
Anyway, I’m sorry you and your husband had such a bad fight. Hopefully some clarity came from it, or you’re moving towards clarity because of it? Either way: sending good vibes your way. And that book sounds really great, I think I need it.
Ewwwwwww, that’s awful. Train fondlers are the WORST because when it’s crowded and jostled they can so often play it off like they didn’t mean to touch you. That’s what this dude did this morning, I spent a few minutes going “is he really…am I just imagining…no I’m pretty sure…” BLEH.
And thank you for the vibes. Between that and setting up some counseling sessions I think things are going to get better 🙂
AAAAARRRGGGGHHH FUCK THAT GUY
The book gets more sad. So depressing.
That’s a bummer! I am really enjoying it but it is definitely NOT the light, frothy read I was going for.
Guys, I did a terrible thing yesterday, I spent a good half of my workday reading a PDF version of Me Before You, oh god what have I done
(also reading the latest Matthew Shardlake and a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine so the week isn’t a total wash)
Eleanor of Aquitaine is my favorite!
I just read Me Before You this week! It’s weird, I could see how I should’ve hated it based on other things I’ve hated, but I loved it.
this is approximately my feeling too! I see you, Moyes, I SEE you pulling the emotion-strings, so why is it WORKING?!
Exactly! Yes! I never fall for books like that WHY DID I LIKE IT SO MUCH AUGH
(lbr probably because the ending is not Hollywood)
Has anyone read the sequel? I got it from the library before finishing the first book, but then I read the jacket copy immediately after I finished #1 and I was filled with rage. TOO SOON. Now I’ve cooled off a little and I’m ready to consider trying it, but if it sucks I won’t bother.
/finds PDF
I actually just read both for the first time and in quick succession the last two days!
The sequel definitely doesn’t suck. It’s…different, for sure, but I liked it, and I think it really works as a good companion piece and follow up to the first on a lot of levels. V. v. curious to hear what others thought, though.
I support your “terrible thing.” I loved that book.
I love that book. It just hit me, for whatever reason, and I sobbed in a way I rarely ever do when reading. Also I LIKE the conclusion, so I refuse to read the recent sequel or acknowledge its existence.
SAME HERE, it ended quite well, and while I would love the chance to hang out with the characters a little longer (Lou’s family, especially!), the odds of a sequel wrecking something I liked are too high.
This week I am *not* reading Twitter because it’s been so ridiculously glitchy and horrible and bad that I have had to just put it away.
I’m trying to catch up on Serial and Canadaland, in listening. For reading, I was looking up the highest prices ever paid for famous people’s archives, and I found this great NY Times article from 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/books/review/Do…
This week I am glued to twitter for periods of time until the Ghomeshi coverage makes me sick to my stomach and/or rage crying, and then I stop and stay away, usually until the next day.
I feel like Toasties want to know about this lady who showed up at her own funeral after her husband sent hit men to kill her. Good story, mostly happy ending.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/w…
This was an excellent story, thank you for sharing. I wonder, though – is there a fundraiser for her? I suspect her life will not be easy, especially since it seems that her community is upset that she went to the cops?!?
That was a great story! But this:
Rukundo told the ABC she’s gotten backlash from Melbourne’s Congolese community for reporting Kalala to the police
makes me stabby. HE TRIED TO HAVE HER KILLED, what is there to lash back about?
“Surprise! I’m still alive!” she replied
#goals
What I wouldn’t give for a picture of the look on his face.
That was such a great story! I feel like she kept her wits about her, stayed patient, and handled it like a champ.
Two thoughts:
1) This woman has solid-brass ovaries and she is my newest hero.
2) “Rukundo said that Kalala tried to kill her because he thought she was going to leave him…”
WELL IF SHE WASN’T THINKING ABOUT IT BEFORE I CERTAINLY HOPE SHE IS NOW.
Oh Nicole I am so sorry – you are experiencing a particular nightmare of mine (without vomiting). Thoughts for a speedy recovery!
I too am having a crap week. Dealing with a manipulative lazy co-worker who is senior to me and I came down with the more brutal of head colds. I am back at work today despite not feeling it and when the co-worker inevitably asked me for help, I gently said I was snowed under and still not feeling great and he proceeded to bombard me with “Oh so I’m going to have to do x all on my own???” (yes, it’s your job and you’re on £8K a year more than me…) and “I thought we were the type of team to help each other out” “I like to think we could do each other favours” and other disappointed-in-me comments. Ugh.
Wow that coworker sounds like The Worst 🙁
That coworker is awful.
I actually went on Twitter this morn to see if you were ok, Nicole! Feel better soon!
I am reading Marion Nestle’s book about Big Soda, Soda Politics. The research on how the industry operates is fascinating and incredibly well done! The parts that are about efforts to reduce soda consumption are patronizing, classist, and, therefore relatedly, racist! Needless to say, a lot of it makes me want to drink more soda just to spite her.
I hope everyone has a much better next week!
I love Marion Nestle’s stuff!
If anyone is interested in how Roosh V has become a parody of himself, I still cannot decide whether this Daily Mail article is real or satire.
Also, if looking for books, I cannot recommend getting your hands on The Stone Collection by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm enough. I am actually hving trouble convincing myself to read it because I don’t want it to be over.
I think you may have posted the wrong link to the Daily Mail article- this man repulses me and I really need to hate read something.
This is it, I think http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3432531/P…
Whoops! I… am not sure how that happened, because i totally checked the code before posting (am slowly learning html, am sorry), and I cannot fix it because no edit button? But yes, 30Litres of got it totally right. Ty!
ARG, and the link for the Stone Collection also did not work! sadfish! It is here: http://www.portageandmainpress.com/product/the-st…
You can’t edit after something has been commented on.
So it would seem ^_^
There was a thing going around on Tumblr asking people to infiltrate and “shut down his “meetups”, but nonviolently. (They didn’t explain what they meant by that. Glare disapprovingly? Try to get the group to go to an actual pet store in hopes that the kitties and puppies would change their minds about everything?) And the list of cities was kind of hilarious. I mean, I know that there are jerks everywhere, but I think Phnom Penh was on there.
I am with you – what non-violent protest will work? And since their entire plan of action was to harass non-cis-het-dudes if they showed to protest, I am not sure how infiltration would be possible? I mean, my drag is not entirely convincing, I have way too many curves.
I much prefer this response: http://globalnews.ca/news/2496193/female-boxer-ch… You GO girl.
document the shit out of it. There were a lot of dudes who were afraid that if they showed up they would get doxxed, so just showing up with a bunch of cameras probably would have done the trick.
The cognitive dissonance of them deciding to take their whole stupid pro-rape rally thing underground because they “didn’t feel safe” after the backlash started just blows my damn mind.
I have been rereading the Girl With a Dragon Tattoo books and I’m on the last one and I forgot how boring it is for people who don’t find the Swedish judicial system fascinating. But I do have a pile of new books to tackle the minute I finish and they are:
-Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s books, which I finally just bought (I’m sorry but I wasn’t going to pay hardcover prices even for my dream sisters)
-An Iggy Pop biography
-Dead Soon Enough by Steph Cha (the third in a very good series about a young lady-detective in LA)
I’m reading:
1) Laurie King, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. I’m having so many feelings about this one, and it’s really making me realize how deeply invested I am in my personal vision of Sherlock Holmes. Also that I am a contrarian who refuses to enjoy things that are apparently specifically designed for my pleasure. (Holmes + bees + feminism + history + mysteries = why am I grumbling?)
2) Kevin O’Sullivan’s book on Irish involvement in sub-saharan Africa, 1955-70. I’ve just finished the chapter in which he argues that Biafra changed the nature of Irish foreign policy toward this region because it became such a popular cause. As I read, images from Half of a Yellow Sun kept filtering through my mind. I’m so grateful for literature that gives me a visceral connection to places and times that are distant from my own.
I enjoyed Beekeeper’s Apprentice and A Monstrous Regiment of Women…and a few others less so. The last Laurie R. King I read had so much weird Orientalist (I DON’T CARE IF IT’S HISTORICALLY ACCURATE, IT SUCKS) claptrap I had to stop. Most of her books end up being more “novel of suspense” than “mystery,” and that’s annoying to me personally, because I like to try and figure out who did it, and in later books she doesn’t present enough credible suspects or makes it real obvious or doesn’t give you enough hints about the actual murderer for you to have ever guessed so it amounts to her just telling you at the end.
(Wow, from this you wouldn’t know I bought like 5 of her books in hardcover. I like her prose! Plus the feminism and murder and theology and English setting. It’s Sayers-ish and that gets me every time.)
So the Beekeeper’s Apprentice has this subplot wherein the protagonist dresses up as an Indian nobleman at Oxford, and it’s obviously a riff on the Woolf/de Vere Cole stuff, but I’ve been bothered by how much King normalizes it and in fact extends it way beyond credibility. The main character is supposed to be at Somerville during World War I. In real life, one of the students at Somerville during this time was a married Indian woman who got special dispensation from the chaperone rules to have her husband over to tea. #readingwithanhistorian
Anyway, I’ve very much a puzzle-mystery person, so it’s good to know that I shouldn’t spend my time trying to figure out these mysteries. Even as I enjoy reading them and grumbling!
There’s a Lord Peter cameo (unnamed) in one of her books! Do you want to know which one so you can skip to it?
p.s. I kind of want you to read ALL the books now and send me historical notes but obviously you have a real job to do, so
Yes!
It’s A Letter of Mary!
Also, expect a pitch for “Grumbling Through Daily Life with An Historian” any time now.
I enjoy the Mary Russell books, but I agree about the most recent one being full of weird Orientalist claptrap. I find the early books in the series enjoyable in the same way that I find fanfiction enjoyable, but the books themselves can be really hit or miss as far as the mystery goes (more often they miss anymore). Any time the mystery is someplace other than the UK I feel like she really toes the line on over-stereotyping the country (and then yeah, masks it as being historically accurate)!
I don’t know, I have such a love-hate relationship with the series. The feminism and murder and theology in an English setting just won’t let me go!
I also liked the first two a lot and then the others not so much. Like I get what she was going for with the Robin Goodfellow/Green Man thing in one of the later ones, except that it was just….boring? And imo, the age difference and the way that Holmes basically raises Russell from her teen years makes their relationship creep city.
Yeah, I also dislike whenever the relationship between them is brought up. In the early ones especially it was very more of a foot note which was alright because I could forget and just pretend they were still teacher/apprentice/partners, but the newer ones bring it up a lot more. I just feel like it’s an unnecessary aspect to have been added into the story.
Wait, they become something *other* than teacher/student? Oh no….
Sorry! I should probably have put a spoiler warning on that or something (though it’s not really a spoiler, but it kind of is? I don’t know!). Anyway, nothing happens until the very end of the second one, so you don’t need to worry about anything but the teacher/student relationship in Beekeeper’s Apprentice!
Oh, no, my distress is completely at the fact that the books go there at all, not at your mentioning it.
Interestingly, the author and her husband have a similar age gap and her husband appears to be a professor so I always thought that was where that came from
I actually actively disliked the most explicitly Sayers-ish one (_Monstrous Regiment_) because it was so not even close to _Gaudy Night_ despite wanting to be.
But yes, lots of Orientalist terribleness, and there’s something awful in the last one I read, possibly about disability or mental illness? (_The God in the Hive_.) I seem to have blocked it out of my mind. That said, I do think _Justice Hall_ is extremely good and worth reading.
UGH JUSTICE HALL IS THE *BEST*. Probably my favorite. Though I did enjoy Locked Rooms a lot. I agree with the comments here- her writing is pretty hit or miss culturally and often insensitive, but god, do I love her prose.
Am i the only person not bothered by their working-sort-of-romantic-relationship ? Usually for me it strikes a good balance of like, sweet, somewhat romantic, and also businesslike. I dunno, I think romance takes many forms, and I don’t find it creepy. SHRUG.
For me it’s the way they got together, not how it plays out day-to-day.
It doesn’t bother me either – but I started reading them when I was like 16 so I still have that ‘sure this is totally fine’ response that I might not have if I’d read them later. That passage about loving Holmes but not being in love with him from Monstrous Regiment, it makes me so happy.
I like Justice Hall too. It was the closest thing to like a cozy BBC murder mystery LRK has written, albeit with the same problems she has re: setting up an actual whodunit you could solve.
Heh, I’m terrible at that so when I’m reading I generally don’t even try. (About the only ones I can solve ahead of time are SteelyKid’s terrible A to Z Mysteries.) But I respect people who can see those problems where I cannot!
I mostly find myself doing math when reading those Laurie King books. “How many years older than her must be be in this book?”
I know I read and liked the early King books in that series, but quit on them a long time ago. Does anyone else remember the Irene Adler series by Carole Nelson Douglas? I don’t even know if I would like them now, but as a teen I was OBSESSED with the original 4 and just loved the idea of Irene basically owning and perpetually defeating Holmes. Basically, I still want an Irene Adler focused TV show where SHE gets to be the hero/badass/not an iota in love with SH, etc. (This is why I always look sideways at people who love the Scandal in Bohemia ep of Sherlock.)
I read those and totally loved them! I liked her sidekick character (Nell?)
I love Laurie King’s Holmes, I’m so sorry you’re not enjoying it. Mary is so rad.
The most recent book read was Susan Orlean’s “Rin Tin Tin”. Very, very interesting. I need to get back into reading. I haven’t been doing enough of it the last couple of years.
Hopefully whatever ailment has taken hold of your innards has started making its way out of you, Nicole.
Last night I picked up a trio of Toast-recommended books: The Penelopiad, Barbara the Slut and Other People, and Neverwhere. But I don’t get to read them for a few days because my sisiter is in town. So I took off work today and the plan is haircuts, thai food, and using Xmas gift cards to buy curtains, etc to finally make my bedroom pretty.
If Neverwhere is your first foray into the fantastical world of Gaiman, I am *SO* jealous! I wish I could read him for the first time again. BBC did a really lovely radio play of Neverwhere with James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, Benedict Cumberbatch and David Harewood. I wish radio plays were more common these days.
Did you also hear the BBC adaption of Good Omens from last year? (Two years ago?) With a cameo by Terry Pratchett in his very last speaking role. It was lovely and a bit sad.
I somehow did not know that existed (I also somehow only just read Good Omens for the first time this past month) so you have MADE MY WEEK, friend.
Goddamn, Good Omens is amazing. And thirding the love for Neverwhere and the radio play. Highly recommend Gaiman’s short story collections as well!
I got that radio play from Audible and it is just perfect. Ideal for walking the dog or anything else you might be doing. Such a great cast.
I love Neverwhere. I’ve been relentlessly foisting copies of it on people for years. I hope you enjoy it and I wish Neil Gaiman would write more about London Below.
He did actually write another short story about the Marquis! It is called “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back,” and it appears in the short story anthology Rogues, edited by GRRM and Gardner Dozois.
Me, too! With both the foisting and the wishing.
I liked Barbara the Slut!
Reading Kings Rising by C. S. Pacat. This is my second read, it’s the third in a trilogy and finally came out on Tuesday. I have been waiting years for this book and I can’t get enough.
THE BEST.
I planned my re-read of the first two poorly and am just finishing up the second so I can start reading Kings Rising and I am so excited.
I picked up the first one this morning on the basis of the Toast love and just finished the third. Holy Crap that was a good read. About to start at the beginning again.
YASSSSS I’m so glad you like them! Every time I try to describe the books to people it doesn’t go well, but I really wish they had more recognition!
I’m re-reading “We Two”, which is a biography of Victoria and Albert’s marriage and I love it so much and find it very soothing to read before bed. Also, I have “All The Birds In The Sky” ready to go on my Kindle as soon as I finish grading these papers. FIVE MORE TO GO
Oh, I read We Two and loved it! Have you read Becoming Queen Victoria, which is half a biography of Princess Charlotte and half the early years of Victoria?
Ooo, that reminds me that “Young Victoria” will be great sick day viewing today.
If you’re looking for marriage-adjacent stuff, re: Victoria, I also recommend “Censoring Queen Victoria” (http://www.amazon.com/Censoring-Queen-Victoria-Gentlemen-Created/dp/1780743637), because that lady’s life wasn’t weird enough.
(Also, I really liked Stanley Weintraub’s biography of Victoria over the newer one by A.N. Wilson, for whatever that is worth from one stranger to another.)
I am finishing my reread of the Whyborne & Griffin series which is Lovecraftian horror mixed with m/m porn by Jordan L. Hawk. I’m not even sorry, it’s amazing. If anyone has recommendations for more kindle m/m erotica I would love you forever, I’ve read literally everything by KJ Charles but I don’t know what other authors are good.
Jordan Castillo Price is pretty excellent. While I recommend anything written by her, the PsyCop series is a personal favorite.
i haven’t heard of her, i’ll put her on my list. thank you for the recommendation!
Seconding the JCP rec and if you like Jordan Hawke you might want to try KJ Charles’ Magpie Lord series – super good.
And not in the fantasy or horror realm, Josh Lanyon is an excellent (and male) writer of m/m. I reread his Adrian English series (LA, mystery) every couple of years. I also really enjoy Nicole Kimberling’s Bellingham Mysteries series which has some of the most delightful snarking on PNW by a native dialogue I’ve read.
Aw dammit missed that you’d read KJ Charles. Leaving it here for the JCP and other authors.
(Hangs head, i just got excited that this was something I could help with)
if you like kj charles, r cooper is also very good.
i was also a fan of lisa henry’s shakespeare trilogy, starting with ‘the two gentlemen of altona’. also her prescott college books. not so much the thriller-y ones though
I haven’t read the Captive Prince series yet but all my friends have been screaming delightedly about it for the last two days.
I will definitely check that out!
Binge read all three over 8 hours today. So yes. Very good.
You’ve already read my only two victorian, magic m/m romance recs.
If you don’t mind dropping the victorian magic aspects, I love Leta Blake. She has a serial called ‘Woke Up Married’ that is super fun. I also love Training Season which is figure skater/cowboy.
For Real by Alexis Hall was amazing (age difference, BDSM).
Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy is a great college hockey m/m. Sarina Bowen also has an amazing series, The Ivy Years, of college hockey romances. Most are het but there’s one m/m in the series.
In more mainstream things, I’d rec the Robin/Jules trilogy in Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series: Hot Target, Force of Nature, and All Through the Night. The series is romances focussed on Navy Seals stopping terrorist attacks and falling in love. They’re like reading James Bond romance novels; car chases and explosions and ridiculousness. Jules is FBI (and the BEST) and Robin is a closeted, alcoholic actor and they stop the terrorists and have a sappy Christmas wedding. It’s super great.
It’s not really the season for Christmas romances, but if you want to add them to your list for next holiday season, I devoured the Minnesota Christmas trilogy by Heidi Cullinan.
I got For Real and you’re right, it IS amazing. Thanks for the recs! I’ll check more of them out.
I am reading the latest Atwood, finally. I read three books on my week off work recently and it was amazing, so I am trying to continue with this habit of reading rather than spending hours on Twitter making myself stupider.
I am reading “Lafayette in the Somewhat United States” by Sarah Vowell, and since I listen to Hamilton in the car every day, I am just waiting for the part where Lafayette and Hamilton meet in a pub. It hasn’t happened yet.
Nicole, I hope you feel better! I just scheduled a medical procedure where the elbow that I broke a few months ago– which has healed but is frozen in an almost-right angle position (hence the “barbie arms” name)– will finally be fixed and I should regain full motion. Unfortunately, what they have to do to fix it sounds way worse than breaking it in the first place, and I shall spare you all the details. I am told I will be out of work for a week and on some lovely pain meds, so maybe there’s an upside? I could use a week off.
I hope all the Toasties having a bad week get to make up for it by having extra great weekends. Hang in there, all.
I’ve been working on the Lafayette book, too! Very confused, keep waiting for the rap.
Is the Lafayette book good? (Lack of raps notwithstanding?)
I found it an enjoyable, breezy read. Her asides and the tangents connected to her own life and her perspective were my favorite parts. She sits down with Quakers who have very strong feelings about books about war–so good.
On the Hamilton side: A.Ham’s in it a few times. Laurens (father and son), much more than I was expecting, delightfully. Mostly, though, it left me feeling really sorry for Washington, having to be dad to TWO freedom-loving, glory-seeking immigrant teenagers who were non. stop.
It was enjoyable, but I thought it was maybe not quite as good as some of Vowell’s other books. The ending was pretty much my favorite though (does this need a spoiler for describing something that happened almost 100 years ago?)–with the suffragists during WWI era appealing directly to Lafayette’s statue because they felt like he at least would listen where no other man was.
You know about Toast Book Club, right? We’re discussing the Lafayette book tomorrow on Slack … I’ll just copy/paste stirringsofconsciousness’ helpful email:
Sign up for the Toastie book club google group here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/toasties-…
And we’re meeting this Saturday at 8:00 PM EST to discuss Sarah
Vowell’s “Lafayette in the Somewhat United States”. We’ll be meeting
in the Toast book club Slack channel, which you can reach by going to https://toastbookclub.slack.com/
I’m re-reading this book called “A Strange & Sublime Address” by Amit Chaudhari for the bazillionth time. It’s so, so lovely. PLEASE check it out if you get the chance.
I’m at the last short story in the book and it’s really funny and great. the protagonist is trying to call someone using the Indian public telephone system which used to be around up till just a few years ago.
“He went aimlessly to the verandah and looked at some buffaloes. Then he came back and picked up the phone again. This time he found three people – one woman and two men – talking to each other in a cross-connection, silly flies trapped in this fatal web woven by a creature called Calcutta Telephones.
‘Please disconnect,’ said the woman.
‘I will disconnect,’ said the man, ‘as soon as you disconnect.’
‘Will you both disconnect?’ said the man.
‘Who are you?’ said the first man.
He listened for some time and debated with himself whether to join in or not. He longed to tell them something perfect and memorable, like the Sermon on the Mount. But he shook his head and replaced the receiver. He gazed at the phone thoughtfully. It’s quite useless, he thought. A telephone in Calcutta is quite useless. “
I read the entirety of Tampa yesterday in two public places (at work and at a bar) so I feel like I deserve a medal for no one peeking over my shoulder and immediately firing me.
Feel better! Food poisoning is literally the worst thing
Was it good? I started and stopped – I love her other stuff but I don’t know whether to kick on past the beginning of Tampa which has put me off a bit.
I mean, it’s very graphic and sometimes hard to deal with, the explicit depictions of underage sex don’t stop if that’s what turned you off in the beginning. But I really enjoyed her writing and I think the end is the thing that illuminated the rest of the book for me and the reasons why she was so explicit and lurid, and the more I mediate on it after finishing the more I like the book. So I would definitely recommend going through it if you are able to deal with those aforementioned scenes (which like some people definitely won’t want to and that’s also fine)
I think I just didn’t like her and wasn’t massively interested in what happens to her. I can go with an unlikeable protagonist if they catch my attention but as far as I remember (it was a while ago) she just didn’t grab my interest so I don’t know whether she will as it goes on.
Tampa! I read it last summer and thought it was fantastically written, but yeah.
I’ve been reading three things at once because that’s what I do:
– Carol/The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, which is much swoonier than I would have expected from her;
– No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July, which is a strange and fascinating story collection, though I suspect I’ll be a little Miranda July’d out once I get to the end of it;
– and since I kinda lost the thread of Saga, I’ve been re-reading it from the beginning, and that’s just reminded me how good it is. One thing though: it keeps referencing later events which mostly still haven’t happened yet. I guess the title means this one’ll go on for a while, which is just fine by me.
I lov Miranda July so much! I have her latest (novel, as opposed to short stories) – The First Bad Man – waiting for me to be experiencing the correct mix of melancholy and misanthropy to start it.
That book is bonkers, but in a good way, I think ???
I think so! I liked it, anyway. It kept going in directions I never would have expected. But I think it might be a good idea to wait for the right mood, since I could imagine it being annoying, too.
Yeah, Miranda July is not for everyone, I understand? She is for me, tho, and has been since Me &You & Everyone You Know. She is literally the only artist to whom I have ever sent fan mail. I love her so, about once every 5 years or so 🙂
oh The Price of Salt
oh
I just picked up the 5th volume of Saga, but I opened it and was lost. So I’m planning to go back and read it from the beginning, too. The trouble with these ongoing comics is how long I wait between installments, especially since I always wait for the trades.
I also keep losing track of where I am in Saga. I’ve definitely read the first trade at least three or four times at this point, but it’s so good I don’t mind.
Saaame. I can’t buy single issues or I lose them in stupid places, but waiting for the trade means I don’t remember at all what happened. I’m definitely way behind in Saga.
Eh, I think it’s okay to be behind. At least you’ve got something to look forward to. I marathoned all the trades last week and now everything hurts. What happens next? What happens next????? (Great comic, though. On the subject, anyone here read The Wicked and The Divine?)
I love, love, love WicDiv. I’d never followed any comic issue by issue before this one, but I read the first trade and liked it so much, I couldn’t wait until the next trade.
Oh, you just reminded me to go pick up my latest order (INCLUDING SAGA HOW AMAZING IS THIS THING) from my local comic shop, thanks! (ALSO DO YOU READ PRETTY DEADLY if not, why. You need to.)
I tried one issue and it wasn’t my thing? Too mystical, I think. But maybe I should give it another try.
I mean, I love Bitch Planet (to the extent I briefly considered getting an NC tattoo, which is so out of character it’s ridiculous), but I am *whispers* a bit meh on Captain Marvel *whispers*. Basically: love Kelly Sue DeConnick as an internet presence, but am a little mixed on her actual work. Still. Should give it more than 1 issue to convince me, and I do remember the art was gorgeous.
Ooh, how is The Price of Salt? I’ve been wondering whether I should read it because I liked the movie so much.
I really love it so far! It’s different from the movie because you’re in Therese’s head all the time but it has the same mood as the movie, if that makes sense?
[For people who set up a recurring donation to The Toast, I have a question, that I’m hiding in this whispery bracket:
So, let’s say I want to give $10 a month. Through the PayPal backend thing, I actually want to give $11.22 a month, right? Because I think $1.22 is whatever fee, so then The Toast would get the full $10? Is that how money works? I tried search for TEDTalks on this topic but, no.]
I think the fee is 2.9% plus $0.30, so if that’s the case, then I believe you’re good at $10.61.
Mine is going out as a donation to Manderlay LLC so there is no fee. That doesn’t feel correct though, I’m pretty sure I am breaking paypal rules
Well, we are donating! I know it feels like we’re paying for a most valuable service and product, but it’s not even a formal subscription plan where we get additional content.
I just signed up for a $5 recurring donation, and that’s the amount that shows up debited from my bank account.
ETA: I just realized that doesn’t actually help your question, sorry.
In US Primary news, I got a great deal of joy out of this piece detailing how much each campaign spends on pizza:
http://gawker.com/which-candidates-campaign-spend…
News catered to my interests.
I read that and found it very depressing that Ted Cruz and I both apparently love the same pizza place (We the Pizza)
Now i want to know how much my University spends on pizza. (a LOT)
OR NOT ENOUGH?
Because ours is just kinda eh.
My condolences. Next time I have pizza forced on me I will mail you some.
(It depends on the program and your individual involvement/volunteerism here. ON a good week though, I can get it 3 or 4 nights. It’s RIDICULOUS)
I remember that about college! I actually got pretty sick of it after a while. Now in post-college life, I like pizza as a rare treat from only the best pie shops.
This is the only political thing I can easily understand lately.
Timely! I just told my husband two days ago that if we ever move out of Chicago, I will be unable to deal without Lou Malnati’s. Eff this Domino’s crap. . . which reminds me of my all-time favorite Colbert sketch: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/h3mxst/the-colbert-…
I’m reading “Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl” and I really like it. Carrie’s writing is so good, and I love how she pauses often to reflect on how her experiences as a kid/adolescent influenced her adulthood in specific ways. It’s a very thoughtful memoir.
Another other Boston toasties at work and salty about it? My office isn’t closed but NOBODY IS HERE and I’m mad that I dragged my ass out of bed in a snowstorm for this (I may or may not have PMS which is maybe/definitely influencing my rage at this situation).
I got to work late, and EVERYONE else in my office is also here! But we’re probably going to be stuck here all weekend, it’s fine.
My people showed up eventually but I’m still staring crankily out the window and wishing I had never gotten out of bed. If this is our only big storm this year I’m going to be forever mad about my missing snow day.
The college I work at is open but many of my coworkers are working from home. Why didn’t I do the same? I AM A FOOL.
I love this string of “girl in a band” memoirs we’ve been getting lately. Let’s have a few dozen more, then maybe we’ll have a tenth as many as the guys have their tedious rock-n-roll egofests.
I’m reading “The Four Loves,” by C.S. Lewis, and the experience is an odd mixture of, “Wow, that’s beautiful and so insightful! I had never thought of that. I’m so glad I have that perspective now,” and “Thaaaaaaaaat’s a really ignorant view of women or homosexuality casually tossed in there.” But the insightful revelations so far are vastly outnumbering the record-scratch “What. No.” moments.
succinct summary of my entire C.S. Lewis reading experience over the past 30+ years.
I think there is a point in one of his other books (Mere Christianity, maybe?) where Lewis says something along the lines of “maybe what I say works for you, maybe you just pick the parts that speak to you, and that’s okay,” and that has been my approach to his work. I am with you – there is some really moving and great stuff in there, and occasionally something really problematic. I’m not saying the problematic should be totally ignored, but I’m all about keeping close the useful bits.
Yes, that’s pretty much what I usually do! I’ve read Mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, and the Screwtape Letters in the past. Those problematic moments seem to be much more widely dispersed in “The Four Loves,” or maybe it’s just more noticeable, since it’s all about love. But I love so much of what Lewis says. I keep wanting to quote passages of it.
Sorry about the evil chicken, Nicole!
I’m reading The Rook, by Daniel O’Malley. Excellent fun, I’m halfway through and resentful that I need to, like, work and stuff.
ahhh i love it so much, the sequel can’t come out soon enough
Same! I feel a reread coming on.
It’s sooooooo good. I think I’ll reread tonight.
I’m reading Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier. It’s the first in a fantasy trilogy and I’m really liking it so far.
I’m reading the amazing Cathrynne Valente’s amazing new novel Radiance. It’s amazing. Hollywood space opera decopunk is my new aesthetic.
I got this book for Christmas but haven’t started it yet! (I’ve been reading too much fanficition instead)
Every time I’m reminded that book exists I think “I MUST HAVE IT IN MY LIFE” but then somehow manage to forget about it until I am reminded once more. This time I at least managed to put in a hold at the library, so when it comes in it will probably be a delightful surprise all over again.
i am so happy i discovered her. radiance is one of her best, i think.
I own everything she’s done, and it is one of the best, despite my nostalgic love of some of the earlier novels.
i only recently discovered her, so i haven’t had the chance to develop any nostalgia yet, but i am looking forward to it. i have been a little dissatisfied with the endings of some of her books, like radiance, palimpsest, and six-gun snow white. six-gun snow white was especially egregious, because i really wanted it to be a whole lot longer, and the very end felt a lot like she didn’t actually know how to end it and just kind of petered out.
See, Palimpsest is my favorite favorite thing. You might like some of the shorts and novellas on her website better, especially SILENTLY & VERY FAST, which is my favorite treatment of AI in existence.
/fangirl
oh yes i loved that. i think the collection ‘the melancholy of mechagirl’ is brilliant, also (i think `silently and very fast` might be in that collection?). i think part of it is i don’t want her books to end, so i’m always going to be disappointed when they do.
It is in that collection. MECHAGIRL is one of my favorite of her poems.
I want all her short stories to grow up to be novels, especially WHITE LINES ON A GREEN FIELD.
All Catherynne Valente is good: RADIANCE is resplendent. (The short story it started as and many other good things may be read from her website for free.)
Still plugging through Seveneves. The President of the US is a barely-veiled Sarah Palin, and the descriptions of space-station mechanics is dry and hard to follow. But the parts with actual plot and characterizations are great. I have a snow day today and plan on getting to 5000 years in the future (not a spoiler; it’s on the book flap.)
Next up is Toast-recommended Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Since the last scifi book I read was probably Animorphs, this is a new and fun change!
Any more science fiction recs are welcome.
I like John Scalzi a lot. My favorites are probably The Android’s Dream and Lock In.
I liked Lock In more than I expected I would. It felt too short, though.
I just finished “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” which I believe a Toastie recommended, and quite enjoyed it! It’s sci-fi that’s focused on the social sciences and culture clashes, instead of technology. The narrator’s voice is great, and I loved the love story.
10000% relevant to my interests, thank you.
Kindred is amazing. I couldn’t put it down.
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie is great.
What if a spaceship was a person? And what if it wanted revenge?
HI YES PLEASE tell me more
I don’t want to ruin anything, but this particular spaceship is in a body for reasons you will find out later. There’s a lot of thought and plot about the consequences of colonialism and even though they spend a decent amount of time talking about how gender is perceived on different planets you have no idea what gender anyone us. And it doesn’t matter. But the default pronouns for just about everyone are she/her.
Also it won like, all the awards when it came out and it’s the first book in a trilogy.
ooo, want to read. also a great thing for those interested in challenging colonialism is a collection of SF short stories called So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future.
yes yes yes read these now
If you like Kindred, I also highly recommend Butler’s Earthseed books. There are two of them and I just read and loved them. They feel especially relevant in our current political climate.
Also, if you like space opera stuff, pick up Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga. You can either start with Shards of Honor, a regency romance that introduces the inimitable Cordelia Naismith, or The Warrior’s Apprentice, an adventure that introduces her son, Miles, who is the central character of the series
Am I the only one who had nightmares from the Seed to Harvest series???? Gaaaaah! It was really good but terrifying!
I recently finished Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, which I liked a lot better than his last couple of books.
I’ve read the synopsis of Aurora and it seems right up my alley. Putting it on my library holds list!
I’m reading Aurora now! It’s great, but I need to vent about one thing: I wish Robinson hadn’t identified the exact time it’s supposed to take place. Now every time he reveals something new about the culture or tech-level on the ship that seems a little too close to our own world, instead of suspending disbelief I think “that’s had most of a millennium to change, and hasn’t?”
It’s particularly irksome because one of the things I loved about the Mars Trilogy (the only other books of his I’ve read) was that the story starts from a very familiar near-future and builds changes upon changes until by the end everything feels thrillingly strange.
Seveneves: that one was such a drag. The first 3/4 are nothing but ISS fan fiction, to the point where I stopped caring about the characters. They’re not the protagonists, goddamn Izzy is, and that really took away a lot from the drama actually happening. The part 5000 years later is where the fun actually starts, and I feel like the book would have benefitted greatly if he just had scrapped the first part, and jumped in right with the second. There is WILD stuff in it, and I love it, and just when it gets amazingly interesting, it…. ends. I do hope he’ll write a second part.
More recs: which direction would you like to go, what do you already know? Far-flung epic literary sci-fi: Dan Simmon’s Hyperion Cantos. Short, hilarious and profound: GRRM’s Tuf Voyaging. Philosophical classic: Lem’s Solaris.
I might give that a shot. I stopped reading Stephenson during the Baroque Cycle, but I’ve been a fan since The Big U, and Snow Crash is one of those books that I literally read nearly to pieces. In terms of recommendations, Iain M. Banks’ Culture series. (I just got The State of the Art, and thoroughly enjoyed the novella of the same title, in which the Culture’s Contact section evaluates Earth in 1977.)
Oh yeah! Anything with the Culture is good and thoughtful.
I just finished The Fifth Season and it was fantastic. What if the world were VERY seismically active? And what if certain people could sense and control the movement of the earth?
Aaaaaah, I just finished that this week, and now I’m having all the feels about different kinds of rock and writers doing interesting things with POV characters.
the POV stuff was so well done, in my opinion. I remember guessing how one section was linked to the other RIGHT before she made it clear, like she knew exactly when to reveal the connection. Usually I get really hung up on trying to find clues.
I had the very same experience! Just blew my mind. I may need to reread it, knowing what I know now.
I recently read the audio book version of Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which I would recommend over the printed version because: accents. (Can you still call it reading a book, if someone else reads it to you?) It’s a really interesting look at “What if we colonized the moon and then they decided they wanted independence?” Highly recommend.
My absolute favorite sci-fi is The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, by Carol deChellis Hill. It’s about… well, a lady astronaut preparing for the first-ever mission to Mars, and her oft-comatose cat (named Schrodinger), and politics and love and quantum mechanics and feminism and a bunch of other stuff that’s all intertwined in a really interesting and entertaining way.
It was published in the 80s, I believe, and I’ve never seen it in a bookstore… but I always seem able to find a copy on amazon for about a dollar, and maybe it would be at the library? If you find it, read it, it’s the best.
I’m reading V.S. Naipaul, which is probably a bad idea.
I’m reading The Shards of Heaven, and I did a hell of a double take when Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus showed up. I realize they were actual historical persons, but I can’t help picturing them as the actors from Rome.
!!!!
(Titus Pullo, as portrayed in Rome, is probably one of my favorite characters ever.)
Rome was so good!
I’m reading The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara – good stuff! though it’s been a while since I’ve read such an unlikable protagonist/narrator. I’m only about 100 pages in but I’m really curious to see where it goes (nowhere GOOD, I’m sure).
Ahh this is a phenomenal(ly horrifying) book
“it’s been a while since I’ve read such an unlikable protagonist/narrator”
So, you haven’t met Jude in “A Little Life” yet.
lol NOPE. I hear he’s a reaaaal keeper, though…
I think I went on about 15 different Facebook rants about that book/that character/my dumb choices.
Have you read A Little Life? I just read it last week and I still feel angry about how emotionally manipulative and unbelievable it all was, and yet, I consumed the whole thing in three days and then I was considering getting The People in the Trees too…
no, not yet! first time reading Yanagihara here. Depending on how this one goes I might add A Little Life to my to-read pile… eventually.
By pure coincidence I read The Family that Couldn’t Sleep right before reading the People in the Trees, and having read about the real, terrible guy (Carleton Gajdusek) that the fictional terrible guy (Perina) was based on really added to the horrifying experience. Side note: The Family that Couldn’t Sleep is awesome and only partially about Gajdusek/kuru and prions are BONKERS.
! ! !
I had not heard of “The Family That Couldn’t Sleep” and IMMEDIATELY ordered it. Thank you for mentioning it!
i just started it! it’s not going to be enjoyable, but it will be good, i think? right?
Can we start a support group for people who have read The People in the Trees and/or A Little Life? They start out so great, and then they just destroy you.
I’m so sorry you’re sick Nicole (and I hope your week improves, Mallory!)
I’m reading Linda Ronstadt’s “Simple Dreams” which is full of delightful musical gossip about the Eagles and others. Before that I read Carly Simon’s “Boys in the Trees”, which was SO educational for me, since I was a bookish girl when I grew up in So Cal, (based on the gossip in the book, it seems like my sister and I were probably two of the few who did NOT sleep with Warren Beatty, if only because we were too young for him.)
I’m about ready to get my MA in 70’s music gossip.(Which would be super fun, I wonder if anyone has done this.)
When the Station nightclub fire happened, I lived in Warwick. The fire happened in West Warwick. Not the western half of Warwick, but an entirely different town, with an entirely different government. Rhode Island is small enough that you generally know most of the cities and towns.
People kept wanting to know if I was okay. Hard Rock on a school night was NOT my scene, I don’t think it was an all-ages show, and I wasn’t 18 yet. And it was an entire town over. I am still mystified why people were, like, checking in on me.
The knowing everywhere thing, yeah. I grew up in RI and knew all of the cities/towns and counties just off the top of my head (including stuff not written on maps). Everywhere I’ve lived since I’ve been on this sliding scale of knowing less and less. I’ve been in my most recent place now for a year and every time I’m asked “where is _____?” I just shrug like “I have no idea and probably never will.”
We lived in Cranston, near Warwick, in 2003. RI is a small state, so most people had a neighbor or friend or relative who got hurt in the fire, and it traumatized a lot of people. My friends who were in nursing clinicals at the hospitals there got drafted into helping out when all the ambulances rode up to the hospitals in Providence. Staff were running up to the ambulances and pouring bottles of saline over the burn victims as they were bringing them in to the ER, and there were so many people hurt that they had to send victims as far as Boston.
lulz, Rhode Island is SUCH a small state that I live in California and I know one of the three people commenting on this subject. (hi coset, it’s estranged_rose!)
I grew up pretty close to the Station, and it was heart-breaking, and burned into the collective consciousness of the state. Like someone else mentioned, in Rhode Island the degrees of separation are such that it was pretty hard not to be affected, somehow. Hard rock was my scene, but I was also underage, and previous attempts to get into the Station had been thwarted. But I was acquainted with dozens of people who were directly impacted. And of course, RIP Dr. Metal from WHJY.
At the time I worked at Strawberries (record store) and people would have visceral reactions to seeing Great White CDs (deeply, deeply discounted) on our shelves. To this day I am SHOCKED every time someone plays “Once Bitten Twice Shy” like it’s NBD. Those People Are Not From Rhode Island.
I just finished “The Nightingale”, which was good but sad and bleak. It’s about two sisters living through the Nazi occupation of France. It made me really appreciate the fact that I happen to (so far) have lived in a time without world war or Nazi occupation. We’ll see how long that remains true if we end up with President Trump.
I’m now re-reading Goblet of Fire as a palette cleanser because it has zero Nazis. After that, *gulp*, I’m going to tackle Ulysses. Wish me luck.
The Nightingale was great! But so sad.
I just finished The Nightingale too! I devoured it in a night and it actually made me cry in several spots. Seconding the fact that it made me extremely grateful that I haven’t experienced anything like that. I’ve recently been devouring novels about WWII in general (Code Name Verity is another amazing but ridiculously sad one), but also had to read a book by my favorite YA author after finishing Nightingale.
They’re apparently making a movie soon, and I will accept nothing but Natalie Dormer for Isabelle.
Yeah, I read Code Name Verity a couple years ago and it wrecked me. Sad, but so good. Normally I do not go in for WWII, because most WWII books and movies are about men and about war. But I have enjoyed the ones I’ve found that are about the other side of the coin.
Have you read Rose Under Fire, the sort of sequel to Code Name Verity? Also amazing, but will also wreck you.
I didn’t even know there was a (sort of) sequel! I’m way behind on reading newish stuff since I am broke. The Nightingale was my last Christmas gift book, so I’m just going to be reading what I have for a while. But I’ll put the sequel on my Amazon wishlist! And then read it on a long holiday weekend when I can be wrecked and still recover.
Definitely read it! There’s also a Kindle version. And let me know when you read it and what you think. A huge portion of it actually takes place in Ravensbruck, so it’s intense to say the least, but is beautifully haunting and stays with you for months.
I finally got around to reading Rose Under Fire a couple of weeks ago! I felt bad because I didn’t get as emotional over it as I did over Code Name Verity, even though objectively, the horror of Ravensbruck far outweighs Code Name Verity. Also, did you see Wein has written a third book–this one also about pilots in the first half of the 20th century?
Code Name Verity is definitely a more intimate story in ways, and the development of Julie and Maddie’s friendship is what just makes it So. Damn. Sad. I think what got me the most in Rose Under Fire was Roza’s story. I still can’t fathom all of that.
I didn’t! That’s so exciting! I adore her, so I will definitely have to check that out.
Code Name Verity is one of very few well-written books that I don’t think I can ever reread. Sometimes it hurts even looking at it.
(Have you read A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell? Still some men, but a pretty amazing teenage girl, some excellent nuns, and some badass older ladies. It’s mostly about Italy from the time of the Italian surrender in 1943 to the end of the war.)
Goblet of Fire does have wizarding Nazis, though.
I am TRYING to finish the Nightingale, but I don’t really like it?? I mean, it’s fine, I can’t really put my finger on why I’m not a huge fan of it, other than it reads a little predictable? Maybe I’m just not far enough in, although I’m about halfway. Did you feel the second half of the book was really good? I hate not finishing books but I’m just not connecting with this one.
Goblet of Fire — zero Nazis, just Deatheaters in Disguise!! 🙂 🙂
I preferred the second half to the first half. But I was pretty invested in it after about 100 pages, so if you’re past that and just not into it, …maybe it’s not for you? I did not really enjoy the flash forward parts (I hate present tense), although they pay off in the end. But those are mostly in the beginning and the end, and there’s a whole swathe in WWII in the middle without interruption.
I think it’s not a book you read for plot, since…you sort of know that the Nazis are going to come in and take over, and you can look up exactly how long they will be there. I mean, there are some surprises thrown in for individual people, BUT it’s more about how these women endure, rather than about what happens next. If that makes sense. I found myself wanting to tell them ‘it’s almost over’ when things got to 1944, because they didn’t know that but I did.
I’m currently reading Symphony for the City of the Dead by M. T. Anderson, which is proving to be a wonderful biography about Dmitri Shostakovich and, in particular, his Seventh Symphony written during the Siege of Leningrad. Since this author comes from a background of fiction writing, this biography isn’t as ‘academic’ (& I think this has caused the publisher to market it as a YA History which I think is kind of weird?) but this book is proving to be a wonderful testament to the power of music & a light into the life of one of my favourite Russian composers!
Is this the same M.T. Anderson who wrote Feed? What a change in direction! I’m intrigued.
Also, Feed. So scary and wonderful.
I LOVE FEED SO MUCH. HERE FOR IT.
Seconded (third’d really) on Feed. I read it a while ago but I remember not being that impressed while reading and having the distinct impression that I wanted to know more about the clone of Abraham Lincoln (who is hardly mentioned) but I finished it in one sitting and then I had this nightmare right after. It was like subconsciously powerful? I don’t know. Good book though. I still get chills.
I first read it when it was very, very new and the Meat Farm scene has never, ever left my very vivid imagination. I don’t know if it’s terror or not, but it is the #1 thing I think about re: Feed
He does a huge range of things, all of them very singular. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing (and sequel) is this beautiful violin concerto inspired work about racism and slavery during the American revolution. The Game of Sunken Places is an existential children’s game nightmare. I’m excited to read this – he’s amazing.
Yes! I just finished that last month! I love that book.
I loved how easy it was to read, like it was written for new-to-history-reading people – he points out explicitly where sources can’t be trusted and how to read between the lines at parts. It was very helpful to see that!
ALSO helpful: the way he went all the way back to like 1906 to explain the context of Shostokovich’s compositions, and even explained a little bit of Malevich and the formalists or whatever they were called (I’m already forgetting the official name) which did SO MUCH for my understanding of the art on display in the museum where I work.
I’m going to be attending a performance of his 10th symphony next Saturday and it’s especially exciting because of this book. it’s the first proper symphony I’ll have heard live and in person!
I’m finally reading Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, and it is FANTASTIC. I have a hard time working in the evening because all I want to do is find out what happens next and goggle at the fact that it all REALLY HAPPENED.
Also, I am pleased to see that the mocking of that CDC release on pre-pregnant women and drinking made it to the BBC. Even the BBC is talking about how dumb that was.
I love this place because it helps me validate my feelings. Guys! I too am having a bad week!
I have a sinus infection, which sucks, and the meds are terrible and messing me up.
My dog’s birthday was yesterday, he died a few months ago, I’m still not over it.
THEN, to top it off, I knew Dave Mirra when I was younger. For those that don’t follow the news, he was (ugh) a professional BMX biker who killed himself yesterday.
Just. Someone call it a week for me. Thanks.
Aw, darling, it sounds like you have had the awfullest week. Virtual hugs are here if you want them.
Take time to mourn your pup. We tend to treat pet deaths as minor, but they aren’t. It is heart wrenching, and I cried for a week and took 3 years to get over my last cat.
Thank you so much!
I am attempting to read Shirley, which is the only one of Charlotte Brontë’s books that I haven’t read. I tried to when I was a teenager, and didn’t like it, and now I am still slightly lukewarm about it? I get what people mean when they say it’s so different from her other books. Even so, going to give it another few chapters and see if it picks up.
Also have Slammerkin by Emma O’Donoghue, which is proving to be a really fun read.
And echoing what everyone has been saying about it being a crappy week. My winter blues have been especially awful–sleeping problems and feeling like things are pointless save for silly cat games on my phone–and already feeling behind in classes even though the semester just started. Hoping that the weekend and next week picks up for everyone.
There’s so much about “Shirley” that’s bonkers. Like how the novel is almost half over before we even meet Shirley.
But!
This is why you read “Shirley”: “Men of England! look at your poor girls, many of them fading around you, dropping off in consumption or decline; or, what is worse, degenerating to sour old maids–envious, back-biting, wretched, because life is a desert to them; or, what is worst of all, reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry and debasing artifice, to gain that position and consideration by marriage which to celibacy is denied. Fathers! cannot you alter these things? Perhaps not all at once; but consider the matter well when it is brought before you, receive it as a theme worthy of thought; do not dismiss it with an idle jest or an unmanly insult. You would wish to be proud of your daughters, and not to blush for them; then seek for them an interest and an occupation which shall raise them above the flirt, the manoeuvrer, the mischief-making tale-bearer. Keep your girls’ minds narrow and fettered; they will still be a plague and a care, sometimes a disgrace to you. Cultivate them–give them scope and work; they will be your gayest companions in health, your tenderest nurses in sickness, your most faithful prop in age.”
Ahhh yes. If anyone knows how to give a stinging critique of the patriarchy, it’s the Brontes. This is why I’m holding on to reading it–I’ve heard there’s loads of great quotes like this throughout the book–and Shirley’s characterization is supposed to be a memorial to Emily in ways, which I’m also curious about.
I don’t want to spoil you, but “fun” was not my experience of Slammerkin.
I am HERE for Shirley discussions! I wrote my MA thesis on it! It does take a long time to get into it (kind of until Shirley herself shows up halfway through). But it’s such a weird novel and Bronte is trying to do so many different things that it’s definitely a worthwhile read.
The quote that Mike Bevel up there posted is good, but this is my favourite:
“Take the matter as you find it ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don’t shriek because the nerves are martyrised; do not doubt that your mental stomach – if you have such a thing – is strong as an ostrich’s; the stone will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a scorpion. Show no consternation; close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob.”
That is peak Charlotte.
…That is the MOST Charlotte. <3 I feel like I am obligated to finish it anyways, just because I love her so much and not read Shirley would be doing her disservice.
It’s also just interesting to me because so much was going on in her life when she was writing Shirley. It’s the first novel she wrote without her sisters to lean on, and Juliet Barker theorized in the Bronte biography that Shirley is a representation of Emily if Emily hadn’t been so…Emily.
I also get a lot more English Novel vibes from it than any of her other books? The first few chapters feel more like a George Eliot novel in that she’s setting up so many characters and different interactions. It’s also the only real novel where she gets into politics, which is probably because this is around when she became friends with Elizabeth Gaskell.
Yes! She was in the midst of writing Shirley when all of her siblings died in quick succession, and then she somehow kept going. Can you imagine? The novel obviously must have been affected by that in some way.
The beginning does feel a little George Eliot—probably all those curates. The plot finally gets going once Shirley enters the picture, but I do really like all of the first bits with Caroline and Robert (where the scorpion/egg quote is from). No one does intense longing and unrequited love quite like a Bronte.
One of my favourite things about Shirley is just how much there is in it. Politics, love, religion, Luddites and factories, Belgians, spinsters, class conflict, debates about marriage and proto-feminism, even rabies! It’s like a distillation of everything Victorian novels are about. Even if Bronte isn’t completely successful at weaving everything together, it’s all fascinating.
The Brontes are actually the ~most tragic. If I could, I’d invent a time machine, go back to around 1847, and give them all modern medicine to deal with their horrible immune systems. I get irrationally upset about Emily and Anne dying so young, especially when I think about what they could have written. And I can’t imagine what Charlotte went through, losing three of her siblings in less than six months.
(Sorry, the Brontes bring out my excessive rambling side, but they are fascinating. I’m actually hoping to go to England in April for Charlotte’s 200th birthday and am holding my breath it works out).
You’ve definitely inspired me to keep reading! I agree about the distillation–I can even see that from the five or so chapters I’ve read–and I’m actually enjoy the random history bits about Napoleon and etc.
If you don’t me asking, what did you focus on in your master’s thesis with Shirley?
I’m going to the UK this spring and planning to visit the Bronte Parsonage! Are we secret twins?
I originally intended to write about rabies in Victorian print culture, with Shirley as one of my primary examples of how Victorian rabies panic manifested in fiction. I did end up using a lot of that research as historical background, but during my research I became more interested in why Shirley is seen as a problem novel and how the rabies episode (which you won’t have read yet, so no spoilers) works to unify a lot of the disparate elements of the plot. So that’s what I ended up writing about.
Ahhh! Okay, we really do need to chat more. It has been a dream of mine to visit the Parsonage since I was a teenager, and I’m probably going to cry when I go. I’m also so excited about seeing Northern England in general. I’ve been to London, but not to the North, and I can’t wait to walk on the moors. When are you going?
That sounds amazing, and I will definitely keep you posted as I keep reading. I was also creeping your book blog, and you have excellent tastes in general.
Ah, thank you! That’s so nice. You can contact me through the blog if you want to chat more!
My trip is in May and I am pretty pumped. I hope you get to go as well!
Just starting This Changes Everything and Biology Under The Influence. I hope you both are tip top again soon.
I’ve been reading about pelvic educators and it’s fascinating!
THIS IS A THING: http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/it-happen…
Thank you, that is amazing! And something I had never thought about or heard of before.
I have been reading Chernow’s Hamilton for the past month and half and I’m only at 60%, though my ereader does seem to count all the footnotes and citations as pages so I’m hoping the story will be done at around 85%. This book is so long! It’s good but it’s sooo long.
I’ve been adding all these recs to goodreads – thanks, Toasties!
Your percentage estimates match my experience. “Oh, no, I still have 15 percent to go–oh, footnotes, yay, time to skim and call it done!”
Thank you!
That sounds horrifying, Nicole! I hope you feel better soon.
Argh, the Station fire. So scary. (Why have pyrotechnics inside?)
I am currently reading the third Cormoran Strike book, Career of Evil, and am about three-quarters of the way through. Not sure how I feel about Robin/Cormoran romance hints; I am a big fan of very close platonic relationships full of mutual respect.
Yeah, I love a good platonic relationship. But her fiance Matthew is AN EGREGIOUS ASS, so I would support a Cormoran/Robin relationship on the basis of that alone. Get her out of there.
He is a total arse, no argument there. I just want to feel like Robin can have a man in her life who admires and respects and likes her hugely without also mentally noting how attractive she is. Not that I don’t like romance, but their friendship is great.
He is such an ass! And she is actually very tough inside so it enrages me that she thinks she doesn’t deserve better. But then, that is unfortunately a true-to-life issue for some people, so I guess it should feel more believable to me.
Get well soon.
Things are weird here. Next week I start upon my quest to become a better stronger Evil Overlord with personal training in addition to the half marathon training and rapier fencing and dieting I’m already doing. I will be a fucking superhero by the end of the semester, so help me god.
Also, mental health/anxiety ickiness galore because work suuuuuucks.
I’m reading Ten Years in the Tub, which is a collection of columns Nick Hornby wrote about reading. It is hilarious and also adding a ton to my to be read list. (I will say this isn’t helping my attempts to read fewer white dudes.)
I’m still reading Fates and Furies. It’s still terrible. Everyone else in my bookclub really likes it and I feel very alone in my hatred.
In more exciting book-related news: I’m going to see 2666 the play in 2 weeks! I am so excited and scared because I love, love, loved that book and I’m nervous that the play is going to be terrible. I don’t think Goodman is the best Chicago theatre to do it (I would have looooved to see the Court take it on), but I am trying to keep an open mind. Also: I really want to bring a pillow with me to the show. It’s FIVE HOURS long.
I really liked Fates and Furies, but I know some people didn’t. What were your qualms?
I think the writing is really trite and purple, like the author is more concerned with seeming intelligent than telling the story in an interesting way. I haven’t gotten to the Furies part, but I hate all of the characters and I’m not at all interested in what happens to them. The story itself isn’t particularly interesting to me, I don’t think it adds anything new to the artist/marriage/strife genre of books. I also think the author handles white privilege in the book the way a White Woman with little experience with POC would: well-meaning, but really tone deaf and unaware of the privileges she experiences herself.
I will say the writing and the perspective changes drastically in the Furies portion, in way I found really compelling.
That’s what i’ve heard! I could come back next week and love it, so I’m going to stick through it and try to finish.
I HAAAAAATED Lotto so much but enjoyed reading the Fates part anyway (he was just so dumb! So naive! Such a wuss!) and then when I got to the Furies part I was so much happier with everything.
I haaaated Fates and Furies, so don’t feel too alone!
I’m reading Cold Mountain, which I missed in high school because I didn’t take AP English. But I vaguely remember my friends liking it, and that was the year the movie came out which I went to see in theaters and don’t really remember beyond “sad”.
Anyway, the book is giving me tons of thoughts and feelings, and I kind of wish that it would just cut out Inman and all of his chapters entirely and instead be a romance between Ada and Ruby because I love them and their story dearly.
I remember thinking the same thing when I saw the movie. (“Saw.” Then-high-school-boyfriend was insistent on making out most of the time.)
That…was not really a great makeout movie. (Says the woman whose high school boyfriend thought Schindler’s List would be a great date movie.)
NO IT WASN’T.
I wish high school me had had the chutzpah to say, “Fuck off I’m trying to watch this movie we paid eight bucks a ticket for.”
I just read the latest Young Wizards book–any fans of that series here?–and I’m afraid I’m no longer the audience for them, which makes me sad because while they were not books of my childhood, I was quite fond of them.
I loved those books, but have not kept up recently. That is sad.
Yeah, I don’t know if it genuinely _was_ didactic about various social stuff of critical interest to teenagers, or just felt that way from where I’m coming up on middle age, but it mostly just made me feel old. Also it felt a little weird structurally. I’m glad they exist and will happily hand them to SteelyKid (currently age 7) in a few years, but my days with them may have passed.
I am afraid to read the latest because I have sensed that I am aging out of them, too. They were one of my fundamental series, and I love them (and DD) wholeheartedly. I will read the newest eventually, and I will recommend them to many kids/young adults in the future, but… yeah. I’m a little sad!
I thought my reaction to the Mars one might just be my not having any particular feelings about Mars, but . . . yeah. (There are good things about it! If you like the wizarding neep, it has tons of that. Also stuff happens in one of the ongoing threads.)
Oh hey is there a new one? I was keeping up through book…8? I read the one about cancer and the one about Mars. I love that series, though they have sort of been going downhill a little. Nevertheless, I will look for the new one and read it anyway out of attachment to the series.
Yup! They go to a science fair. (There were some in-between the one about cancer and the one about Mars, but Mars was the most recent one.)
I read the first three as a teenager. We had them bound into one edition and I read them over and over and over…imagine my surprise as an actual adult to find out there were more! I read the one that takes place in Ireland and just didn’t get around to the rest.
I follow her on tumblr now. She doesn’t post about it that often, but she reads some of the same BBC Sherlock fanfiction I do and occasionally post recs.
She also follows me, or did at one point, and when I got the notification I might have shrieked. A little.
The first three really do seem like they could be complete in and of themselves, definitely. (The Ireland one is slight; the next one is . . . hard for me to evaluate because of personal reasons, and the ones after that have been not quite my thing for minor reasons.)
Aw, sorry Nicole! I did that last week, except I’m pretty sure it was the toddler’s respiratory virus running amok in my bowels (it’s happened before; I am weak in the stomach these days apparently). I hope you have recovered by now!
I just re-read Outlander (largely at work the last couple days, even though I am suddenly very busy actually). It was pleasant and engaging! Perhpas I will seek out the next books now. I read too many upsetting books last fall, and then didn’t want to read anything for a while.
. . . I was going to suggest that maybe you not read the rest of the Outlander books if you’re looking to avoid upsetting, but on reflection, I’m not sure that the rest of them are different in kind than the first, so.
Yeah I couldn’t even finish Outlander because I found it so upsetting! But ymmv of course.
I finished Outlander but only because I’m stubborn, because wow is there a lot of upsetting violence in that book, sexual and otherwise.
Same. Finished it but then chose not to read further because there was so much I did not enjoy.
This is what I did with the Outlander books and I regret nothing: skimmed book 2, devoured book 3, read book 4, stopped there.
I will admit that after reading and mostly disliking book 1, I read the wiki summary for all the other books. Man that story gets convoluted, even for a time travel story.
The author interview at the end of my copy promises a happy ending at the last book – that’s good enough for me! 🙂
I too find the Outlander books upsetting so I only read the Lord John books. He’s the best part anyway.
ugh Nicole I hope you are feeling better! Or well on your way there at least!
I just finished reading Undermajordomo Minor and did not like it very much, alas. It started out so good and clever and weird! It was clever and weird throughout but not, in my opinion, good.
Then I picked up The Star Side of Bird Hill and I’m only a chapter in so my opinion thus far: the cover is very pretty.
I just ordered the dancing goddesses by elizabeth wayland barber & am so stoked about it. Also, it is snowing & I am giving myself the gift of a studio day & will work my freelance job on sunday, & I am mightily pleased about this 7am decision.
Annddddd last night I made gheimeh bademjan for the first time & it got A iranian spouse approval so that was good. *cheerfully flexes culinary muscles*
Nicole, food poisoning is the worst & I am so sorry!
That was the first Iranian dish I ever made! Now I want it.
It’s so good! The first Iranian dish I ever made was khoresh-e beh, followed by fesenjan, gormeh sabzi, and a bunch of others over the last 5 years. I love alllll of them. 🙂
I mostly just make kababs because my mother makes it all so much better than I do. Which is reasonable given she lived there for a fairly long time and they moved over here while I was a bump (due to impending revolution and mum being a white English woman).
I loved that book, as well as the Women’s Work, the first 20000 years. She made a lot of connections between contemporary folklore and archeology.
I don’t know what gheimeh bademjan is, but it sounds great. An Iranian lady who I met in a Farsi class taught me how to make the walnut chicken once, and it was fantastic.
Oh yes, I have recommended women’s work to so many people! Have you read the mummies of urumchi? (I think most people now spell it urumqi but whatevs)
I will read anything she touches. & I will talk Iranian cooking all day!
….annndd fwiw, any pseudo-anonymity I might have had will be immediately outed to friends reading. 😉
OK, you have an awesome babysitter and I would like to borrow him or her. But wow, that sounds awful, and it’s SO HARD being sick when you have littlies to take care of. I really hope you feel better soon.
I’m reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and so far it’s excellent and I love it.
In order to keep up with my Spanish I am reading the ASOIAF books in Spanish. I am on Choque de Reyes right now and I’m learning so many new vocabulary words! Mostly they have to do with swords and armor, but you never know when those might come in handy.
I’m on my second attempt at reading Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, which I’m enjoying more now that I’ve moved past the first section of the book. I’m still not at a point that I’d recommend it to anyone, but maybe I’ll feel differently when I finish.
I read this last year and had a similar experience, but really liked it when I finished.
I liked this book so much and I’ve read it a few times but it still bugs me that Chick has legit supernatural powers. It just disrupts the whole aesthetic of the book somehow, for me.
I’m reading the third Divergent book by Veronica Roth. I really like it, even though the portrayal of the factionless is a bit….not great. I generally find the series really fun and trashy, and it makes me want to try harder to be less scared of everything. My friend wants to watch the first 2 films this weekend, so I’m going to do that.
Hope everyone feels better soon!
I’m curious about what you think about it once you finish it – I had a LOT of opinions about the last book when I finished it
Here, too. SO MANY OPINIONS.
I love dissecting books after reading them. We could talk about it in the open thread next week? I’ll probably have finished it by then.
Heh, I’ve never been able to get over my irritation that the faction names don’t have parallel structure. I’m such a dork.
I like referring to Dauntless and Erudite as “really messed-up Gryffindor/Ravenclaw”.
That bothered me so much! I never got over it either.
Since we’re talking books and reading, does anyone have anything that’s worked for them to get back into frequent reading, build stamina, branch out in terms of genre/subject etc.? I feel like I need a…training plan.
Over the last few years, largely due to depression/anxiety issues and a slew big life changes, my reading habits have declined significantly, both in the amount I read, the variety, and how long I can even focus on reading. Now I’m pretty much at re-reading Agatha Christie 3 pages at a time before bed, just long enough to crash out, and (rarely) reading a new book for 30 minutes before I feel unfocused or antsy, even if it’s good, and never getting into it. I watch a lot of TV (which is fine, I love TV!), but I have just scads of free time, I’ve made great strides in my mental health, and I just really want to be the reader I was for so much of my life. I miss it and how it made me feel and think. Tips, Toasties? Anyone been there?
two suggestions: short stories, and romance/erotica. or both. romance especially, because i know what i’m getting into, i can very easily avoid reading anything triggering, and i know i’ll end up happy at the end. also, the formulaic nature of the genre basically means i can skim and still know what’s happening, which seems like it might work better for you if you’re trying to re-train your concentration.
i have lots and lots of specific recommendations but i don’t want to overwhelm you 🙂 but smart bitches, trashy books generally will not lead you astray, especially with regards to books that are emotionally triggering at all.
Books on tape are my go-to for when I want to get wrapped up in a story but I’m having focus issues. A good narrator can even get me hooked enough to sink my claws into a print copy. Also, I am a commute reader almost entirely. If I try to read before bed time I either fall asleep immediately or find myself so engrossed that I stay up all night, and then have to take several days to repair my sleep patterns: 15 minutes of reading on the bus though or before an appointment is perfect.
I relate to this! I don’t think I have any specific advice, but can tell you you’re not alone in this. For me, reading is a vulnerable experience that I often crave (kinda feels like investing in a new friendship in some ways) and when I’m depressed I don’t want to take on any more vulnerability because my brain can’t handle it. So, I’ve gone through long reading droughts before, too, which I’ve had to learn is okay and I just watch The Office for the 423rd time. I’ll be interested to hear if anyone else has advice on this front!
I feel this. I went through a really bad reading drought from 2012-2014, also because of depression and anxiety issues. I would actually recommend YA–there’s some amazing stuff out there, that’s really comforting and relatable imo. Some favorites of mine: Anything by Rainbow Rowell, Tides by Betsy Cornwall, the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, and Uprooted by Naomi Novik. There’s also Elizabeth Wein’s books, which are a bit heavier in content, but some of the best I’ve ever read.
Also, it really does help to go back to familiarity! One of the things that pulled me out of my slump was picking up a book of letters by Charlotte Bronte, who I was obsessed with in high school. Reading those inspired me to go back and re-read her books, and then other books like that, and so sometimes going back to books you remember loving and branching off from there is really inspiring.
I hope this helps! It’s the absolute worst feeling to be stuck in a reading rut. Also seconding another commenter in saying that sometimes it’s totally fine to just watch TV.
I second the suggestions for romance and YA. I tend to read a lot of literature, but every so often I just need something lighter (though not all romance and YA is light), something that’ll keep me turning the pages without needing too much reflection. It makes my Goodreads page a little weird: for instance, while reading Middlemarch (which I loved! But took some effort) I took a break to read a Sarah MacLean book. After inhaling that in two evenings, I was ready to dive back into the more demanding stuff.
This may be a suggestion to hang onto until you’ve gotten your reading stride back, but in terms of branching out, maybe try a reading challenge of one flavor or another? There are lots of “pre-made” yearlong challenges floating around the internet (Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge is the first one that springs to mind), but you could also create your own smaller challenge (maybe reading only books in [genre you’ve wanted to try] for a month or something) if committing to something big/yearlong doesn’t fit well right now.
I am finally reading The Haunting of Hill House. Other than that I’ve been on a romance novel streak for a while now, thank you Toast goodreads group for the recs. And I just finished the Last Policeman series, which is excellent.
Oh, glad to hear it! I came across it (probably wiki surfing summaries of apocalyptic fiction or something) and I thought it sounded cool until I saw he wrote Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, which I literally couldn’t get more than about 15 pages into (I don’t even remember why. I had lots of nitpicks about the execution of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but I did get through it). It may have been Colonel Brandon’s tentacle face I just couldn’t deal with. But now maybe I’ll give it a try, especially because someone who reads Shirley Jackson probably has good taste. 😉
It’s interesting for being pre-apocalyptic – what would you do if you knew the end was coming? Nice change from “the world is already over now what?” And you get lots of different perspectives on what people do. He does have this one tic that bothers me, “You, I like”, but aside from that I enjoyed it.
I just finished Sam Irby’s “Meaty” which caused me many happy faces and also many sad faces. I think I want to read the sad bits again because I wasn’t expecting them and not sure I got it all.
Also reading “The girl with all the gifts” which is not about what I expected but still a fun read.
i really liked ‘the girl with all the gifts’, although it also felt a little bit like an mfa writing assignment? not sure exactly why, though
I love Sam Irby so much, all her writing makes me crylaugh.
I’m reading Girl Sleuth by Melanie Rehak, about the creation and history of Nancy Drew and the actual women who were Carolyn Keane, the pseudonymous author.
There’s a fun “autobiography” of Nancy Drew called “Confessions of a Teenage Sleuth” by Chelsea Caine if you’re looking to continue the subject.
Rx for everybody having a crappy week. 1 x unimpressed dogs photographed in the moment between showering and shaking themselves dry: http://www.sophiegamand.com/wet-dog
Hope you all get to shake off the crappy and be warm and dry soon.
I am currently reading nothing. However, I am closing in on the end of season 4 of Star Trek: TNG. It sure does get a lot better this season, huh? I don’t think I’m ever going to warm up to Q, though; I watch Netflix to relax, not to get stressed out.
I’ve seen hardly any TNG, but gahhh YES! Q is *incredibly* stressful! My husband is big into Star Trek, or was as a kid (why yes that is a Data ornament on our Christmas tree! And a Spock and an Enterprise!), and we’ve been putting it on every once in awhile. I wanted to start from the beginning to have the whole history, and he said without hesitation, “The first two years are really not any good, except for a couple episodes that set up major plot points/background.” (eg Datalore). I insisted, but he was right. You, of course, are past this point and kudos to you!
Then I read this! http://thestake.org/2013/09/19/when-does-star-tre… Seems to be consensus. Pretty funny! I am looking forward to seeing some of the better episodes soon.
Ah, that is a good list! All my faves are on there, and I like what he has to say about them. Regarding the one whose wiki page was hyperlinked from the word “misogynist,” I had such high hopes for that episode – it was delightfully misandrist in parts, but taken as a whole it really was not very good. That’s what I get for expecting values from the 2010s in a show from the 1980s.
All of the spin-off series took two or three years to really find their groove. That includes Enterprise, which was starting to get good in the fourth season, when it was cancelled. (The remaining seasons would have concerned the Earth-Romulan War and the foundation of the Federation.) Season 4 of TNG has “The Wounded”, my favorite TNG episode and one that could be called the unofficial first episode of Deep Space Nine, my favorite Trek series, since it introduces the Cardassians and even has Marc Alaimo as the Cardassian captain (he would go on to play Gul Dukat on DS9) and gives O’Brien more character development than he’d had in the previous three seasons.
My plan is actually to watch all the Treks (before TNG I watched TOS and TAS), and DS9 is the one I’m most looking forward to after this! I liked The Wounded a lot, too. That whole stretch of episodes that focused on individual crew members was such a treat, and it was neat to see O’Brien included.
I need some nice music rec’s to help me feel better; I’d love a good album to listen too, Toasties what are you into?
I’m thinking something like 70s/80s power ballads or some good hip hop; I’m very into Fleetwood Mac, Bowie, Queen and so on, but I feel like I’ve listened to all of their albums multiple times recently
Have you tried the new Grimes album, “Art Angels”? There’s a lot of glammy power pop going on there that you might like.
Ooh that sounds like my kind of thing! At the moment I just have the Queen spotify radio station up
i haven’t stopped listening to this since it came out.
Listening to it now and so far I’m digging it! Thanks for the rec!
Oh yay, I’m very glad to hear it! Np!
I have suggestions!
Ok so ever since I went to the Wet concert I’ve been listening to their new album like three times a day. It’s so beautiful and pared down and the vocals are gorgeous; it really grows on you with every listen. I developed an instant crush on the singer when I saw her.
As for hip hop, I’m deep into my obsession with Chance the Rapper, whose music you can find entirely on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper
Listen to him evolve from the “#10Day” mixtape, to “Acid Rap,” to his collaboration with Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment on “Surf”. It’s really something and his style really grows on you too.
And his younger brother, who’s got a very similar sound and just released a killer mixtape: https://soundcloud.com/taylorbennetttunes/sets/br…
Oo, I love Chance!!
another glam pop recommendation: diamond rings. he’s got some music videos on youtube (“show me your stuff” is my favorite) and both of his albums are really good.
Yay, Diamond Rings are so good, and also Kids On TV, and of course they did a song together – http://music.cbc.ca/#!/artists/Kids-on-Tv
Other recommendations – maybe Cazwell, the gay rapper with hilariously dirty catchy lyrics? if you’re liking Grimes (who doesn’t like Grimes?) you’d probably also like Purity Ring. Oh, and Austra for driving yet dreamy alt-pop.
new diamond rings music ahhhhhhh
ok, well, new to me, since he seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth after he released ‘free dimensional’. thank you! i love him and i love his videos and he has so much stage presence it makes me swoon
the Kids on TV song with Diamond Rings is from 2013 and yeah, he’s totally dropped off the planet since then, that was the last year that he played anywhere, or tweeted. Hm.
Finished Cotillion by Georgette Heyers. It has rocketed to the top of my Heyer favorites. FREDDY <3
Oh if you have a list of favorites may I ask you to recommend one? I only read The Grand Sophy which I enjoyed until the really disgusting parts and it really put me off Heyer at the time – are her later books better?
Frederica is wonderful, and not a single anti-semitic thing happens in it! The heroine is businesslike and capable, and her troupe of siblings are hilarious. Cotillion is also one of my faves, and there’s a soft spot in my heart for Friday’s Child because of the side characters Gil and Ferdy, whom I SWEAR are Regency-era gay-married–or as they say, “not in the petticoat line.”
All excellent picks! These are my go-to Heyers. I also have a soft spot for The Unknown Ajax – snobby family has to deal w an unexpected heir! From YORKSHIRE! Hilarious and beautiful puncturing of egos ensues.
Friday’s Child was next on my to-read list after Cotillion because, in a fit of overpreparedness, I borrowed several ebooks at the same time and they all have to be finished before next Wednesday. I just got to Gil and Ferdy’s introduction and awww. Ferdy following his friend home and sleeping on the couch! Gil draping Ferdy with a rug and putting a nightcap on his head! They are so adorable and I love them already.
I’m making my way through her oeuvre somewhat haphazardly at the moment, so my list is hardly comprehensive, and I can’t comment on when they were published. However! At the moment my top three are:
-Cotillion. Sheltered Kitty persuades feckless Freddy to agree to a fake engagement so that she has an excuse to go to London. I like any book where the main love interests are partners in crime instead of adversaries, and Freddy is just so, so…think Bertie Wooster, but with better taste and less ego. The main antagonist is basically a Red Pill-er, and I found it very satisfying that he succeeds at exactly zero of his goals.
-The Talisman Ring. Many of the main characters are trope savvy and desperately wish for more adventure in their lives. It’s absolutely hilarious.
-The Quiet Gentleman. This is a weird one because I find the main characters extremely appealing, but I’m not sure how much of it is a personal quirk. Drusilla falls in love with Gervase, but she thinks he’ll never look twice at her, so she counters by being extra practical and unromantic whenever they interact. I feel you, Dru.
Thank you both!
Seconding The Talisman Ring which is so damn funny. Also adding The Toll Gate which is a bit weirder than her usual but I don’t care I love the hero and never won’t. Nell, the heroine is terrific too. AND she’s six feet tall!
OOOH adding to my list!
I second everyone else’s recommendations, and also add Regency Buck, which features Beau Brummel as a secondary character. It is delightful. Also, Lady of Quality and Black Sheep. They are essentially the same book, but I love them both.
I just want to say THANK YOU because, thanks to this post and the ones below, I got Cotillion and devoured it in a day. It was so charming and fun and <3 <3 <3 Freddy. Perfect for relaxing and recovering from a cold. thanks!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Freddy is truly the best. Good luck on your recovery!
——– Original message ——–
I finished The Last Unicorn and I love it so much.
I also finished book 3 of Aubrey/Maturin.
I am starting in on book 4 of A/M and The Princess Bride.
Aubrey/Maturin for liiiiiiife.
I made the mistake of reading book 2 so now I have to read all two dozen or what ever. This is like when I started watching Murder She Wrote.
I’ll be interested to hear what you think about _The Princess Bride_, especially compared to the movie! (Also <3 Aubrey-Maturin.)
good choices all around! I love all those books v v much. I need to start The Ionian Mission soon (book 8 I think?).
The Last Unicorn is a long time favourite of mine. Even when I’m not reading it, knowing that it is in the world makes me so happy.
The Princess Bride is a really enjoyable read! I found it witty and giggled and laughed a lot while reading it. I hope you enjoy it!
Oh no, please get better, Nicole! What ever shall we do without you?
I’m feeling very out of place admitting I’m reading Queen of the Tearling. So far, I’m pleasantly surprised by it, because it’s not the usual high fantasy YA drivel the cover and flap text suggested.
Also, dear Toast friends: any thoughts on this Marie Kondo book? Is that trend already over, did anybody try it? I read it out of curiosity, but now I think it might actually help in some way. Please advise.
I liked Queen of the Tearling! I was also pleasantly surprised because it was not really a typical YA fantasy or dystopian book (which I also tend to enjoy). I had mixed feelings about the sequel, but I’m still looking forward to the third one.
ha, i didn’t even read your comment before i posted mine, but yes. what you said.
Yes, the colleague who recommended me the first part is reading the second part right now and reported that things are getting.. weird. I’m cautiously looking forward to it. Finished the first part this morning! It was good. But if anything happens to The Fetch at some point, I will be very, very unhappy.
I read Kondo’s book and then passed it to my husband. We already tend toward neatness/not accumulating too much/frequently sorting (esp. me), but we tried it and it definitely worked. ESPECIALLY for him. When he finished the book, he was alight with enthusiasm, and we had a really fun (zero sarcasm!) Saturday where I laid in bed with tea and he dumped out all his clothes and we talked about them and looked and thanked and sorted.
We’d both donated so many things over the past 2 years that I was stunned when he still found almost 2 full trash bags of clothes to get rid of (I said goodbye to less but still more than I anticipated). That thought, that “does this spark joy/make me feel good/make me happy/is it useful/being used,” has really worked for both of us. It’s a choice to keep, not an obligation to purge, you know? And we literally have not missed one single item, and still wear the same things as before. This past weekend he did our papers, maybe not strictly by her guidelines, but he did remark that since reading Kondo he has a much different view of what we really need to keep around and has less patience for things that aren’t serving a purpose.
We were just joking last night about who is the better, more dedicated Kondo-er. I do 100% of the laundry, including almost all of the (vertical!) folding of both our clothes, but he is more thorough in the amount of things he Kondos (everything). Sorry not sorry my socks and undies are still in a drawer divider all jumbled up. TL;DR It has really stuck with us and worked!
That’s really interesting to hear! I was wondering about how the method would work for couples/families, because some passages she wrote made it sound impossibly unhealthy (the passages were she went: AND THEN I THREW ALL MY FAMILY’S THINGS AWAY ugh).
So it does have a lasting effect… actually, after reading the book, I looked at my things with a slightly different perspective as well.
Also, after reading everybody’s comments here, I’m a bit more optimistic about trying this out! I guess I’ll have to reserve a whole weekend for it though. So much stuff.
i loved queen of the tearling! i wasn’t quite as impressed with the second one, but i’m still looking forward to the next one.
I KonMari’d my clothes, and I store them her way now and love it. I haven’t gotten up the initiative to do the process on anything else, even though what I really need to do is go through my books and papers (and stop leaving junk mail all over my apartment). She’s got a new book out so I don’t think the trend is dead yet!
Oh, I didn’t even know about the next book. I’ll go check that out. Also, the book is really adamant about doing It to all you things at once, which sounds extremely daunting… especially when it comes to books.
I Kondo-ized my apartment before I moved, and it was an ENORMOUS stress relief. I had to get rid of a lot of things, and her philosophy really helped, both emotionally and on a basic, pragmatic level (the order in which to sort through things, etc.) I recently read her second book and I’m thinking of doing it again, in my new apartment, because I did it really haphazardly the first time.
I’m thinking about moving, too, in the foreseeable future, that’s why I was curious if the book was helpful at all. But did it change your live “magically” as she claims? That’s the part I’m extremely sceptic about. Also, don’t you just start to accumulate more… stuff afterwards?
I’m reading Welcome to Braggsville (link: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062302137) which has some creative approaches to punctuation, which is really not my thing, but I’m going to stick with it until at least page 100. I find that with books that have a very distinctive prose style (of any kind), it helps to read in big chunks, rather than 10-15 pages before bed. It’s like my brain gets acclimated to it and then it’s okay. Anyways, gonna put in some weekend hours on this one.
BRAGGSVILLE! it’s incredibly hard to read, as far as books go. highly recommend reading it in conjunction with a friend or a book group– i Needed to Talk at the end of it. so glad to have read it though!
Beth! Nooooo!
I’m almost through The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat. Highly recommended.
Does anyone want to talk about the Democratic debate last night?
ugh. Please can it be over please.
I am sitting out this election. Actually, I am letting my 17 year old tell me how to vote, since he will live with the consequences longer than I will, and this time around I just. Cannot. Care.
I just finished reading Red Mars. I thought it was… so-so. Like, there were parts I really liked, and other parts I found quite boring, and other parts that really troubled me? But I’m moving on to Green Mars now, anyway.
ETA: Prior to that, I read The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin which was EXTREMELY GOOD, very engaging, very queer, and I highly recommend that. If it had existed while I was in school, geology might have seemed way more interesting to me. Also, it’s part of a series that I thought was complete, but it isn’t, only the first one is written, and now I have to wait for the sequels!!! Which I’m actually kind of delighted by.
The Fifth Season: THAT ENDING THO (all my feelz)
Omg yes. Ahhhh!!!
I am actually a geologist and felt the same about Red Mars. It made me sad because so many people I know LOVE it.
Fifth Season is next up for me! I loved all the Inheritance books/novellas.
My housemate and I had a similar illness last week, so I have great sympathy for you. I find Popsicles to be good for the inevitable dehydration.
I’m trying to work myself into reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (as always, shout out to a man who has the most VIETNAMESE name ever, good job, anh Viet’s parents) because sometimes when I want to read serious books I need to get myself ready for them.
I also spent this week re/reading The Brothers Sinister box set by Courtney Milan because I mostly like light, entertaining reads in my downtime. (h/t to Mindy Hung for the suggestion!) I also read Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2’s Deadliest Day by Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan, which was fantastic and was my first in-depth introduction to the ins and outs of Sherpa and Bhote communities. Really fascinating stuff if you’re into reading about climbing disasters, which is definitely a reading topic I’ve gotten into because of the Toast.
Ooh putting Buried in the Sky on request at the library.
I am in the middle of The Sympathizer right now, and I am glad you are preparing yourself for it! It IS serious and intense (and really good so far, but…serious and intense!) and probably benefits from being balanced with some Courtney Milan.
I picked up my latest library read just because of the title: Piu Marie Eastwell’s “The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue.”
IT’S PRETTY INTERESTING.
I AM SO INTRIGUED
The title is pretty explanatory as to the central question! It’s non-fiction and a very easy read.
Toasties, has anyone here read Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White? I just started it (like, only twenty pages in started), and already the whole 2nd person present tense that’s happening is making me a little twitchy. I mean to give it a solid shot before just dismissing it, but is it good? Is it worth just dealing with my dislike of that point of view?
It’s been a really long time since I read it, but I remember not liking it very much. The characters were unlikeable and the ending was weird and unsatisfying. But lots of other people did like it.
I really enjoyed it, but it did take a while to get going.
I read it about 2 years ago. I…hmm. Did not end up liking it.. It’s very detailed about the 19th century, which is a huge plus in my book. But the part that creeped me out in general is that it’s quite…scatalogical? I dunno if that’s exactly the right word. But there is a lot of description that revolves around bodily fluids and it made me feel a bit icky. I mean…if a character is bathing a child does she need to think about the child’s bright red vulva? Do we need to know about every time the woman pees in a bucket or whatever? I don’t. Maybe that won’t bother you, but it made me feel like an unintentional voyeur in the worst way. I’m all for realism if it serves the plot, but it felt more like it was thrown in because the author found it titillating.
And I ended up really hating the main guy (sorry, I can’t remember character names at the moment). The girl (Sugar?) started out ok but fell into a really cliched idea of what it means to be a woman. Which, could be okay if it felt like the book acknowledged that, but it didn’t really.
I remember the narration jumping around a bit at first, and then it settles into a more normal role. If you’re really struggling after 50-75 pages, I wouldn’t persevere.
Hmmm, much thanks for this. I am . . . wary, because I feel like all those things are stuff I don’t really need to be a voyeur to, either. I’ll go for about 50 pages and see what happens, but I am not committed if I am not feeling it by then.
I read this several years back, and while I can’t remember specifics since it’s so long and huge — I think I enjoyed that for the most part — a good novel to dive into. But if I recall correctly, the ending seemed kind of short and not a deserving payoff for how long the rest of it was. But I did enjoy reading most of it! Sometimes you want a book that you can really invest yourself in for a while, and this was one of those.
Darn it, I think I replied to the wrong comment about this. Maybe the mods will delete that other one and keep this one? *crosses fingers* Anyway, I read this a few years back — like others said, it was kind of slow to get started, but I found that I really liked it once I got in the middle. It’s loooong and I liked having a huge novel to die into. But yes — I agree the ending was weird and unsatisfying, and left me feeling like I wanted more. But I was invested and enjoy the in-depth read up until that point.
I just discovered Helen Oyeyemi, and am currently reading “The Opposite House” and “Boy, Snow, Bird.” It’s soft, surreal, character-driven work that walks on the edge of fantasy and how have I never heard of her before?
Oh man, Mr. Fox is like she turned my life into a book. She’s fantastic.
I discovered her through Mr. Fox on a Bluebeard kick/obsession and she is truly magnificent.
Boy, Snow, Bird is so good. I need to read her other stuff.
“White is for Witching” is the only book of hers I’ve read but I liked it so very much.
Yay for Helen Oyeyemi! I’m really looking forward to her new book/short story collection in March, literally have it marked it on my calendar! (The title alone is enough to make me so, so happy: What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours)
Mr. Fox. was kind of life-changing for me, putting into words (and putting into a fabulous story) how narratives about women and violence matter. And I loved Boy, Snow, Bird until the ending.
Boy, Snow, Bird was the first of hers I’ve read and the ending turned me off of picking up any of her others, so it’s good to know the others hold up for someone else who disliked it! After all those pages of really nuanced, aware writing about race & gender…uh…that happened?!
SPOILERS FOR BOY SNOW BIRD!
SPOILERS!
Yeah, that was how I felt about the ending. After so much thoughtfulness about race and about racial mythology, to have it all undermined in its final pages by transphobia…that was awful and hurtful. I was really surprised that, at some point in the writing, editing, or producing stage, someone didn’t point out that racial passing and gender passing cannot be paralleled so simplistically–racial and gender identity cannot be paralleled so simplistically–and that the assumptions the characters/narrative makes in the final pages were transphobic.
EXACTLY, it was like…is this the same book? Is she going to fix this in the two remaining pages? No? Well. Wow, okay.
mmmm yes! my book club is reading mr. fox next month, and i am so excited.
I’ve been alternating between Vorkosigan books (in chrono order mostly) and Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant series. I love me a supernatural police procedural with good snark and (since it’s been audiobooks) really good voice acting.
Yes Vorkosigan books! They are my comfort food and I reread them regularly.
The Peter Grants are my new favourite thing.
Have you read the Alex Verius books by Benedict Jacka? They’re also about magicians (diviner, in Verius’ case) in London. Not quite as stellar as the Peter Grants, but still entertaining.
I shall go and find them forthwith, thankyou! I need something to do until the next one comes out.
TOASTIES NEED TO KNOW: there is a new Vorkosigan book that just came out and it’s about CORDELIA! No one writes ass-kicking pacifist middle-age women like Bujold. http://www.amazon.com/Gentleman-Jole-Queen-Vorkos…
#TeamCordelia4lyfe
I love both of these series so much.
I’m reading Between The World And Me at last, and it’s such an amazing book. I took it with me to a hospital appointment and when the doctor apologized for getting caught up with something (but still running on schedule, I’m just chronically early to things) I said, “No, thank you” with such earnestness that I confused her. But really I kind of would have liked to have stayed in that lobby to keep reading.
I just read The Carp Castle by MacDonald Harris. It was a delightfully kooky mix if mysticism, technology, and quirksome characters all in an Art Deco context. I am certain that every Toastie will love it.
Feel better, Nicole!
I am reading “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America,” and so should everyone. It really pulls no punches about racism and power in the 1920s.
Wonderful book.
Does anyone have any good tinyletter recommendations? They all seem to be sparsely updated, some that I’ve signed up for, I’ve never gotten a tinyletter from at all!
Weird Personal Emails! I most definitely got this suggestion from a LR or OT a few weeks ago, and it’s ALWAYS a delight when it shows up in my inbox! http://www.tinyletter.com/lizgalvao
continuing to self-promote! mine is tinyletter.com/sfbillimoria and i send as-weekly-as-i-can
Feel better, Nicole! That sucks and I hope you’re on the mend really soon.
Ah, I’ve been wanting to talk books! I started the year off with the audiobook of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, because reasons,* and really enjoyed it.
Then read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende for my two-person book club (can I just highly recommend a two-person book club? My friend and I both missed book clubs but didn’t know who else would want to do it, and then we just decided to do it ourselves. It’s so great. We take turns picking and actually talk about the book and I love it.). It’s uncanny how relevant the politics of Chile from decades ago felt (and scary).
And finally, just finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Bless whoever made this site, because it was so helpful. http://www.annotated-oscar-wao.com/ Now I know a heck of a lot more about the history of the DR, not to mention yet another horrifying dictator (Trujillo). I can’t get over the Galindez story though. The guy disappeared in the MIDDLE OF MANHATTAN! WTF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes%C3%BAs_Gal%C3%A…
Next up in two-person book club, A Canticle for Leibowitz, thanks mostly to Mallory and Jamelle Bouie raving about it. And I got my pre-order of The Queen of the Night!
*Because the audiobook is read by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and it is every bit as delightful as I had hoped. Including a wonderful laugh-out-loud line where Ari says he doesn’t want to study Alexander Hamilton. I rewound that several times because I could not stop laughing.
Happy Friday, Toasties!
I just got the audiobook for Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe! I keep hearing great things about the book and about the recording, so I’m hoping that I enjoy it!
Sorry you are ill, Nicole!
I am weirdly fascinated by this 1793 book on Old Maids by a dude who can’t make up his mind whether he admires us or wants to condescend to us: https://books.google.com/books?id=YwEqAAAAYAAJ&am…
(The med student who pranked his aunt in such a way that it resulted in her death felt rotten for the rest of his life, I hope. Also, “fossilist” is a very hard-to-decipher word when it’s written “foffilift.”)
I am reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett for a book club and I’m only a little less than a hundred pages in but I am strongly suspecting that Pratchett just . . . isn’t my thing. In that frustrating way where I can legit see the appeal so far and get why people like him, but I am apparently not one of them. (I don’t even strongly dislike this book so far or anything; I just feel sort of overwhelmingly lukewarm in a way that I’m not sure how to tactfully convey in a book club discussion.)
Ah, well. I also think I choose the next book for this book club and I have no idea what to pick. Small Gods is our maiden voyage and the only stipulation on book choice is that it be something easy to find copies of for cheap/free from the library.
I love _Small Gods_ but Pratchett is certainly not for everyone! Also it is a weirdly dude-only book, and Pratchett can and does write many and varied female characters elsewhere.
What about _Ancillary Justice_, unless your book club is likely to have already read it? The narrator used to be a multiply-bodied AI running, among other things, a spaceship, and now is in just one body. Lots of chewy stuff about identity and class (and a bit about gender, though less than discussions about the book would have you believe).
I have sort of had that on my to-read list for awhile, but admittedly mostly because of the gender stuff that keeps getting mentioned. I kind of doubt my book club has read it, though, so shall bear that in mind!
(I should’ve said that it’s the first book in a trilogy, and I’ve yet to get around to reading the last book; in other words, it is complete but I can’t swear it sticks the landing.)
Hey @katenepveu! I noticed that you denoted your book titles using underscores, and I wanted to let you know that if you want to put things in italic, you can use the basic HTML tag < i > < /i > (those are lowercase ‘I’ for “italic”, and you would write those tags without spaces).
So, if you want to italicize something, you write:
[i]Small Gods[/i]
but instead of square brackets, use triangle brackets.
Please ignore if you’re already aware of this, but I wanted to let you know since you seemed like a lady after my own heart (I hate writing a book title without having some way to distinguish it from the rest of the sentence).
Yes, thank you, I’m aware of that, I’m just (a) old (my formative Internet days were all entirely plain-text) and (b) too lazy to use the extra keystrokes.
Ha, you’re probably waaaaay better at plain-text than I am, in that case.
No offense intended, on my part. ^_^
I got on a Pratchett kick about 3 years ago, and my feeling was that he was fun but not something I’d personally obsess over. BUT Small Gods was actually one of my least favorites – I’d recommend something with the witches or the Night’s Watch if you want to give Pratchett another shot.
A couple people have said that Small Gods wasn’t their favorite, so I may end up reading one of those at some point to see what I think 🙂
If you want to try again (if not, fair call!), Monstrous Regiment is my rec. Lesbians, cross-dressing, critique of war, and a vampire addicted to coffee all feature, so it’s much more Toastie friendly (and I think much of his later stuff is just better written).
Fair warning, though: it’s got quite a bleak opening section, possibly the bleakest of any Discworld book.
FWIW, I love Pratchett but was kinda meh on Small Gods. I’m more into the Death/Susan books (you can pry my copy of Hogfather out of my cold, dead hands).
Random recommendation, but your book club might enjoy “Dear Committee Members” by Julie Schumacher. It’s easy to find, recently won a humor award, funny (with a totally different flavor of humor from Pratchett) and also thoughtful enough that you could have a good discussion about it.
That’s fair. Small Gods isn’t my favorite Pratchett, by far. Mort made me laugh pretty hard, but Equal Rites was much more relatable.
I only read Moving Pictures, which people said I’d like because it was a Hollywood parody, but I was kinda meh about it. It seemed like a lot of cheap, easy jokes to me – not that they weren’t funny, they were, but you could see them coming and forget them right after. So I’m with you, I think he’s just not my thing.
I’m a pretty big Pratchett fan, but I don’t think Moving Pictures is one of his best. I have a copy, but it collects dust on the shelf way more than any of the others.
Seconding the recommendations on the Witches books (Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad et. al) or the Death/Susan books (Reaper Man, Soul Music, Hogfather…) if you ever feel like giving him another try.
Since others mention how dude-centric Small Gods is, you might like the very lady-centric The Bees, by Laline Paull. It is lady-centric because it is set in a beehive, and worker bees are all ladies!
The story is told from the point of view of a worker bee named Flora 717. As Flora explores her world and gets caught up in a web of hive-related intrigue, the reader is introduced to a host of fascinating facts about bee behavior and biology. I loved the book, and it sparked an interest in bee-keeping and bee-friendly gardening. There are also plenty of weightier themes to talk about, so I think it would make a great book club candidate. Lastly, though it is a fairly recent book, I did not have any difficulty checking it out of the library.
I’m in the middle of A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit, which I’m reading for a book club.
It’s giving me flashbacks to college because it’s exactly the kind of book that I read there – I went to an “environmental liberal arts” college, so pretty much all my reading was ecofeminist essays and nature writing and stuff like that. Hell if they didn’t have Solnit’s name on the cover I’d swear up and down that it was written by Terry Tempest Williams, who is another ecofeminist writer who lives in the Great Salt Lake area.
ANYWAY it’s a pretty good book. It has parts that are wonderfully engaging and some parts that are meh. It feels a bit too disjointed for me at times, but it’s still pleasant to read.
Feel better, Nicole! I have had food poisoning twice (once the night before a final) and it was a miserable experience I do not recommend.
I finished reading Welcome to Braggsville last night, and am now in the weird position of wanting to recommend it to everybody I know while also wanting to tell everyone I know that it’s written very strangely/may have needed a better editor than it received. The parts that were great were really great, and the parts that were weird were really weird.
On the bus to work this morning, I started The Incarnations, and I’m very intrigued so far. Only 40 pages in, though, so we’ll see how it goes.
I am reading through Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, which I feel like I just read a few comments about on here a few days ago? Or did I imagine that?
They recently cast Idris Elba as the lead in the… tv show? movie?
I got me thinking I should maybe pick up that series, but I’m still undecided. I’ve never read any Stephen King before, nor have I had a strong desire to, but he seems like one of those authors I should read just for cultural relevance. How are you liking the series?
I would be 100% lying if I said I didn’t pick up the series because of the Idris Elba news.
I haven’t actually read any of his books before either, and this is my first time reading this series as well.
I’m enjoying parts of it. There is a lot of genre-bending, which is fun, and it doesn’t ever seem to do what I expect it to. It’s very atmospheric. But there are some uncomfortable racial and gender dynamics going on at the point where I am (near the end of the second book), and I can’t tell if it’s done in an intentional way that will be treated as a serious issue and resolved later in the story, or if it’s white male author obliviousness. (Does somebody else who has read it want to weigh in here?)
I read a good part of the series about six years ago (I think I got bogged down in the…sixth book?). I can’t remember what gender/race dynamics were going on in the second book, but I don’t think the gender stuff is any better later on. There’s an…umm…Mystical Pregnancy. I wasn’t really trope-savvy at the time, but I can remember even then being uncomfortable with it.
Oh nooooooo that is my least favorite trope, now I’m worried
Yeah, I really really dislike that one. I liked the Dark Tower series in some respects–it’s genre-bending, and I can remember being fascinated with the worldbuilding. In other respects… If you want more details about the mystical pregnancy, I can tell you what I remember.
Nah, that’s okay, I’ll just treat it as a warning instead of being totally surprised and angry when I encounter it. I am definitely enjoying the worldbuilding so far so I’m glad to hear that continues to be good, at least.
ALSO disability stuff with her. I think King thinks he’s being really progressive in addressing this stuff but as a straight white cis male idealist he just gets so much of it wrong.
I love the first 3 books so much, but I read them as a teenager and probably not so aware of stuff either. Then I read 4 in my 20s and 5 in my late 20s and I was feeling like King’s work (in this series and outside of it) was suffering from a) lack of editing because who needs to edit a book that will inevitable sell millions and b) his post-accident, AA-laden excess of sentimentality.
I have 6 on my shelf and I keep avoiding it.
I think I’d sum up my overall opinion of Ms. Walker’s treatment by the book as “trying hard, not really succeeding.”
That is exactly what I was afraid of, yeeesh. I was hoping it got better.
YES
I gave up on the series right at that point. It grated on me.
I raced through reading the first four books in that series and then just kind of stopped? I own the entire series and fully intend to finish it, but I took a break after book 4 in like 2010 because I needed a breather from that particular series and I’ve just never gone back. And from what I’ve heard from other people the ending is disappointing, which does not motivate me to get reading!
I thought the ending was terrific. I didn’t see it coming, but looking back it feels inevitable.
Parts of the series are a slog, though, and other parts are just heartbreaking.
I intended to read the whole thing back to back but after reading your comment I’m thinking I should maybe alternate with a different book in between each of the books in the series. I am totally the kind of person who will just drop a series after reading too much of it.
I think it’s possible to read the whole thing back to back, but the fourth one is paced a lot slower than the first three, which was a bit jarring, and I just wanted something to pep me back up again before the fifth one! I may also have been waiting for the fifth one to actually get to me after I bought it online, which caused me to pause. I can’t quite remember.
Oh really? I thought the first one was INCREDIBLY slow (although it seemed like it was intentional since the characters are in a sort of doldrums-y slog) so now I’m worried about how slow the fourth might be, haha.
The first couple of books kind of blur together for me, so I don’t remember it being overly slow, but it’s entirely possible. I do remember the first one having a completely different feel from the others anyway, so it’s possible! It’s been a few years!
Some people really like the ending, some people loathe it, and there’s kind of no way to tell which you’re going to be without just spoilers, which is hard, alas.
I LOVED THE ENDING
I CRIED
Oh no, Nicole! Stomach things are the WORST. Hope Sansa and your friends help you feel better soon!
I’m currently reading China Rich Girlfriend after breezing through Crazy Rich Asians last week. It’s a fun, silly, fast read, and I genuinely want to spend a week shopping with Astrid. Apparently it’s being made into a movie, which I am super excited for. I haven’t seen much more info about it, but I DID stumble across a dream cast by The Hollywood Reporter that lobbies for Constance Wu as Rachel, which I would LOVE.
Related- After a year of living in my current apartment, I finally got a library card! Turns out I had to renew it because the librarian reminded me I had a card from the same county as a kid. And then she proceeded to tell me that 18 years ago, I lost a book I’d checked out and my mom found it when we moved 2 years later. The book was called No Friends. I found this amusing; the 8 people behind me throughout this whole process did not.
Once I was given a print receipt for all the accumulated 5¢ fines I’d accrued on my childhood card: not only the librarian, but also everyone in line, laughed when the scroll of receipt paper spilled over the desk and made a little paper puddle on the floor. Altogether it was taller than me several times over (to be fair, each transaction included several lines for the book title, author etc.). Kinda wish I’d kept it as a trophy.
Just finished both China Rich Girlfriend and Crazy Rich Asians. I read them both in about two weeks, and haven’t been that hooked on just a fun couple books in a long time. (I also now really want to see Constance Wu as Rachel!)
Ooo! I’m glad that you liked Crazy Rich Asians, and thank you for reminding me of it. I read the first few pages in an airport bookstore and found them really interesting, but airport bookstore pricing being what it is, I did not buy the book and up until this very moment, I’d forgotten about it. I’ll add it to my ‘To Read’ list!
I’m currently reading the 2nd book in the Diviners series, and when I finish that I have ‘The Witch of Lime Street’ which is non-fiction about Houdini and the Spiritualist and I am SO EXCITE to actually read it.
If anyone’s esoteric interest is New England nightclub fires, I recommend reading up on Cocoanut Grove (I don’t have any particular books to recommend on it though because all my reading has been from newspapers): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire
I’ve read The Witch of Lime Street. It’s interesting but it goes on a lot of weird tangents so be warned. It could have been a lot shorter and told the same story.
I’m about 1/2 way through Steve Silberman’s book on the history and “legacy” (his word) of autism, NeuroTribes. It is EXCELLENT. I haven’t gotten to the “now” part of the book quite yet; at least the first half is about the history of autism’s identification and the history of the behavioral sciences writ large, but I enjoyed that immensely (it’s directly related to the field in which I did my Ph.D.). I’m looking forward to finishing it.
I’m so sorry to hear about the food poisoning. I once got food poisoning from something called Steakums (the name should have told me something).
I am slowly reading my way through Alexander Hamilton and OMG such a long book but interesting. I also just read biographies kind of slowly. I might take a break from that and read Weaveworld.
I’m right there with you in the Hamilton! So, so long.
I have been reading Hamilton for three weeks, which is about quadruple the length of time I would spend on a fiction read, and I am just about 50% in per the Kindle. It’s ok if I pause and read a romance novel to cleanse the palate, right?
If you take a break maybe you’ll come back to Hamilton all refreshed and ready to read more of it. I’m all for breaks.
…Take a break, take a break…
I hope all the Toasties having rotten weeks feel better posthaste. In the meantime maybe a subway-riding raccoon will help:
http://www.citynews.ca/2016/02/02/subway-raccoon-…
I’m taking another crack at Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy, currently just starting the third book for the first time. Still convinced that That Thing That Happened in the second book was absolutely not necessary from a narrative perspective, but managed to get through it and keep reading.
I’ve been stuck in the third book since…April, I think. Despite people actually coming up to me and telling me how good it is.
Hah, my mom just today sent me her copy of Magician’s Land, which I refused to buy because of That Thing That Happened.
Has anyone (anyone here at the Toast, or maybe I mean anyone IN THE WORLD) successfully read The Book of Dave, by Will Self? I’ve been trying for months now, off and on, and I’m finding the invented dialect it’s written in to be almost impenetrable. And then once I manage to decipher a few pages, the plot seems… fine, not bad, but not really worth the trouble.
I liked it, but I’ve always found it pretty easy to acclimatize to dialect in written form (I’m much better at that then acclimatizing to understanding spoken unfamiliar accents. I’m trying to watch Wentworth right now and I feel like I’m missing half the dialogue!)
internet hugs for a terrible week of sickness & just it being rough. Out in the great near-anonymous internet, it has also been rough. I slipped and fell down a flight of wet, muddy subways stairs and now have the deepest, blackest bruise the size of a grapefruit on my butt. Sitting hurts, walking hurts. And I want to be in bed laying on my non-bruised side watching junky TV.
i haven’t been reading anything closely lately, but really dipping in and out of a lot. I revisited Emily Dickinson (and by revisit, I kind of mean I’m always reading ED). I revisited Thomas Merton’s Christian contemplation (an actual revisit) and WOW did it immediately put my life into perspective. I read some out of the Dhammapada, which was lovely as always, but didn’t do it for me in the same way. I also reread a bit of Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle, my favorite of her works, and then Thought Deeply.
I read Lolly Willowes last month & it was the first time I loved a novel in a while. Since my life is full of unfinished manuscripts, it can make reading outside of work feel unpleasant if I don’t love it.
not what i’m reading, but book related: i had a dream i was in a theater production of little women, and when i woke up i was SO MAD about laurie and amy. i haven’t re-read little women in at least ten years, i don’t know where all that anger is coming from.
also i say i was mad, but actually i still am really mad.
I need to get some serious writing done, but I have a pretty gnarly case of the seasonal blarg (my nose is now a faucet of snot) so I can’t really focus enough to work on anything. When I do surface into consciousness, I’m either online or trying not to fall asleep while reading “Like a Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia.” It’s a good book, if repetitive at times, but I’m too sick to really plow through it the way I want to.
I also fell asleep watching Lucy Worsley go on about the Romanovs, so I guess this blarg has put me in a Russian history mood.
I have really liked that series. Lucy Worsley makes me smile.
I’m enjoying it so far, even though her pronunciation of “Romanovs” is driving me UP THE WALL. I like the focus on the artwork, although so far it is not replacing “Russia: Land of the Tsars” in my heart. (Note to self: borrow that DVD set from my brother again)
I saw something else on TV about them the other day which also pronounced it like that! I wonder if that is now the official way to say it.
Oh, I can’t imagine. At least, it doesn’t sound like that in Russian. I think it’s just one of those odd British accent quirks where vowels get dragged out unnecessarily.
I’ve been reading lots of Wodehouse lately because there’s a good amount free on Amazon and it’s quiet soothing.
Nicole, I don’t know if you’re the sort of person who feels better the more you can dig into horror stories about the thing you have, but judging from your reading choice, I’m thinking you might be.
IF SO, and you want to get super outraged about the dismal state of our country’s food inspection system, I cannot recommend attorney Bill Marler’s blog enough. He’s spent the majority of his career on food-borne illness cases, and he has seen some truly bonkers stuff. It’s here: http://www.marlerblog.com/
And here’s a recent interview he did with the Washington Post in which he lists the 6 things he will never, ever eat.
You can pry oysters out of my clammy dead hands.
Oysters? Clam-my hands?
There is an ocean joke in there somewhere.
I can’t sea it.
I am reading “Come as You Are” by Emily Nagosaki, which I am having surprisingly mixed feelings about. Generally, it has great reviews, and I see why – it’s well written and the science stuff is laid out intelligently, and her overall message – that everything is normal, and that women are not damaged versions of men justb ecause their sexuality functions differently – is obviously great and important. And yet, some of the things she says about how women are THIS way and men are THIS way really bother me. Yes, she acknowledges that this varies from person-to-person and we are all made of the same parts and mechanisms, just put together in different ways, but so much of what she says about how women REALLY are just doesn’t resonate with my life and my sexuality at ALL. I feel she really underestimates the degree to which the fact that scientists and the subjects of sex studies alike are IMMERSED in Western patriarchy might possibly affect the results of said studies. But I’d be curious to hear what other people think!
(However, I have not yet finished the book – I think I’m about halfway or two thirds through – so I might change my mind later on!)
Aw, I’m sorry to hear you’re having a hard time with it. I totally feel you, I super get my back up whenever anyone talks about sex-based differences in a really essentialist way. How far into it are you though? And did you read the introduction? I personally felt that her bringing up those differences was pretty tempered with interesting examples that represented a relatively wider range of women’s sexual experiences than you usually see in books like this (and ugh, have I read a couple terrible ones). I also felt like she frequently reminded the reader that it was kind of shorthand, and that any observable differences aren’t necessarily biological in nature and could owe plenty to how we’re socialized. I also seem to recall that she brought up a few times that the differences in sexual function within a group (like men vs. women) are always going to be more varied than comparing those two groups to each other??
Idk, I definitely think this is a YMMV thing, but I also think because I have some complicated sexual history and issues, I found this book way less sexist and way more informative than others I’ve read, which like, don’t even ACKNOWLEDGE the existence of very important aspects of (my) sexuality, such as queerness. It’s definitely not a perfect book, of course, but it helped me a lot.
Oh, I definitely agree it is way better than any other book I’ve read, so it might just be unfair of me to nitpick something that’s already miles ahead of many books, and doing important work. And I understand it’s written for a large, broad audience, so some things are going to be simplified and so forth – and she does a great job of pointing out there’s huge variation within genders, definitely! I was actually expecting to find the book more annoying than I have so far, to be honest, and I don’t want to discourage anyone from reading it – I really wouldn’t say that she’s engaging in gender essentialism, because she does make it clear it’s not an ALL women and ALL men type of thing.
So with those many disclaimers in place, it has still bothered me a bit throughout the book! but I think it’s mostly her authoritative voice that puts my back up – I think many other people would find it comforting, though, so its very much a YMMV type of thing.
Right now, I’m reading her chapter about genital nonconcordance – basically the idea that what our genitals do and what our minds actually think about having sex, are two very different things. I think it’s a really important idea and it’s 100% a real thing that more people need to know about, but the study that she cites found a really big difference between nonconcordance in men and women, and she really downplays to what extent culture and the patriarchy might be involved in that difference, in a way that I found strange and unconvincing. But that’s just one example, and, to be fair, I am enjoying the book for the most part, and even finding it useful in thinking about my own life.
I haven’t read the book but I interviewed her on my radio show before it came out and she was delightful, one of my favourite interviews ever – I felt like I could do a whole show with her. And I always challenge guests on trans inclusion/gender essentialism/queer inclusion etc because that’s my bag, and I found her to be very thoughtful and aware that she has to make generalizations that might not be true for all people of a demographic, in order to talk about things that need to be talked about because of the patriarchal history of shaming/repressions/etc.
So it makes me sad that maybe her book isn’t as inclusive as she is in real-time, when directly challenged, but that certainly does happen.
I am reading N.K. Jemison’s The Inheritance Trilogy; I am on book three and almost done. Then it will be time for Ruby Lang’s Hard Knocks, and the probably Parable of the Sower. I also borrowed a couple of books about meditation from the library, so I should read those too…
What is Jemison’s series comparable to? I keep being told to read it but I’ve no idea why or what it’s about. (I know I could just google this but I’m interested in hearing about it from someone who has read it.)
Hmmm. I don’t really know what to compare it to (I feel like probably there are classics of SF/F that I could compare it to if I had read them, but I haven’t).
The books are about a world in which the gods are very much real and very much present and active in the world, and about their relationship with mortals and the consequences of those relationships and decisions. Each book in the series has a different viewpoint character/narrator and takes place at a different point in the history of their world.
I’m reading a bunch of things. “Excuses Begone” by Wayne Dyer. “The Art Of Extreme Self-Care” by someone whose name I forget. And then, before I go to bed at night, my umpteenth re-reading of “A Little Princess.”
I got laid off 2 weeks ago, so I need these things.
Condolences, being laid off is just the worst feeling. I’ve wanted to read that self-care book, but am afraid it won’t be what I imagine: Adult coloring books are fine, but try coloring in them while climbing a rock wall! Shortbread is delicious comfort food, but have a friend shoot it in your mouth with a T-shirt cannon! Knit on a trapeze while doing a burlesque routine! Whatever it turns out to be, I hope it helps.
I also picked up “The Art of Extreme Self-Care” this week! Though I found it rather lacking, personally. I hope you get more out of it and find it useful!
I was plowing through Kings Rising, the third and final installment of the Captive Prince series. IT WAS AMAZING, THE QUEER FANTASY PLOT-TWISTY ROMANCE THRILLER WE ALL DESERVE. I LOVE IT and anyone who wants a book rec/more info to decide to read it should HMU.
I have the first book in this series on hold right now! I decided to go for it after half of Christina Lauren raved about it AND it was suggested for fans of Kushiel’s Dart.
Bless you. I’m getting freaking tired of hetero-normative fantasy.
You are making me take the plunge into the first one. See you on the other side
Ok so I binged on all three over 8 hours today. THANK YOU I would not have spotted this series without the toastie recs.
I love Toast reading lists! I always get so many good ideas.
I am trying to read Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier and finding the protagonist insufferable. I just want Rebecca to step out from behind a tree and slap her across the face, then stalk across the lawn with a cheroot. Did anyone else have this problem?
To refresh my palate, I also started “The Last Grain Race” by Eric Newby, in which 18-year-old Mr. Newby signed up as an apprentice on a four-masted barque sailing from Europe to Australia and back in 1938. I think I understand less than half of the words since there is so much technical language, and yet it is absolutely fascinating. Did you know that the largest sails weighed 1.5 tons and were sown entirely by hand? There were something like 28 sails on the ship, and there were different sets of sails for storms, for tropics, and for northern seas. Contrary to all the pirate movies I have seen, the sailors did not spend all day lolling on the deck singing ditties and carving scrimshaw; instead they worked 16 hours a day managing all those sails.
I also just finished Far From the Tree and it was outstanding.
Speediest recovery prayers and wishes for you, Nicole; food poisoning is one of THE WORST experiences (says the woman who once ate a dodgy tasting pepperoni pizza and subsequently had my own mother anally insert some kind of pill* to help sort out my fast and furious vomiting and diarrhea. And yes, you read right. *Mom was a nurse and whatever she, uh, put in there did work eventually, thank Christ).
And Mallory, here’s hoping you are a wee cat finding a perfect spot of sunshine, curling up and napping so, so contendently. Everyone needs a safe, quiet, warming ray once in awhile.
Also, I hope I’m not the only one who goes through these posts with mt Goodreads open in another tab, slowly growing my “to-read” list
I have an ever-growing list in Notes on my iPad 🙂
I’m guessing “mt Goodreads” is a typo for “my goodreads” but “Mt. Goodreads” feels very appropriate.
I should have goodreads! Instead I’m just trying frantically to stuff them all in my mind palace.
Oh God, Nicole, feel better. On New Year’s Eve 2007 I put some dodgy ham in my hoppin’ john, and I will still share the story with anyone who will listen because it was so genuinely awful. Never forget!
Just read In A Sunburned Country and Texts From Jane Eyre, I guess because I was homesick for The Toast and can access a library now? Funny thing is, I moved on January 19th in the middle of a very heavy period…and it’s now February 5th and it shows no signs of slowing (it’s either a perimenopause thing or I sat on a knitting needle when I went to buy yarn). So I’m feeling very literally drained, and became mildly hysterical while revisiting the texts from Little Women, dreaming up a tabata workout with a sewing needle replacing the kettlebell. See you at the gym? Oh, maybe not, the windows there are so full of glass.
UGH the idea of sitting on a knitting needle is somehow worse than food poisoning. I am so, so sorry about your menstrual health!
Aw, it will get better, thanks. The faucet gets kind of wonky right before everything is finally turned off, that’s for sure.
I am dreading how much worse this is gonna be. My cycle used to be 30 days like clockwork and now it varies by a week, and the length of my period is from 6 to 10 days (most of which is spotting), and my PMS ranges from “oh, that’s why I was tired yesterday” to “oh my god, my boobs hurt so bad, I’m so bloated I look pregnant, and I cried because my boyfriend asked me to talk more quietly.”
It helps and will help more in time that you’re attuned to those changes! A few years back I was prone to fits of absolute RAGE and couldn’t understand why and it was really scary, and now I take my whole self with a grain of salt (usually in the form of Chex Mix) when I start getting especially humorless and paranoid, and I know it will pass eventually. This sounds gross, but trying to make friends with the process instead of resisting it, with all its gory surprises, has made me nicer overall. Except on Rage Days, but I try to stay close to home then.
Hey lady. You might want to get that checked out! That sounds like a lot of blood loss, and I wouldn’t want you sliding into anemic territory.
At the very least, popping some iron supplements couldn’t hurt.
Hope you feel better soon!
Definitely keeping an eye on it, and trying to boost my heavy metal intake to be safe, thanks! (Last year I discovered that after never having a problem with supplemental iron, I can only take it now about two seconds before falling asleep or else *very* terrible and surprising things happen). So for now, prunes and beans, because surely nothing bad will happen if I live on them, right?
I need to brag and I am hoping this is the right place. I finally figured out how to request ARCs from Edelweiss (librarian privilege!) and just requested and got the sequel to The Rook by Daniel O’Malley, which was THE MOST FUN BOOK EVER. And Stiletto (the sequel) is just as much fun! But it doesn’t come out until June, so HOW am I supposed to share my joy when nobody else (except for the Mr since his kindle is attached to my amazon account) has read the darn thing yet?
oh! I am SO. JEALOUS. I loved that book and pushed it on all my friends and have been waiting SO LONG for the sequel!!
same same same soooo jealous. they pushed the publication date back!
Aaaahhhh I wanted to love The Rook SO MUCH because the concept alone is just fantastic & Myfanwy is an amazing MC but the solid walls of expository text nearly killed it for me!!! The book could’ve been a third of its published length & I would’ve enjoyed it 300% more, but I’m still anxiously waiting to get my grubby hands on Stiletto.
Oh man I am SO glad to hear the sequel is good!! I need to reread The Rook in preparation.
I’m reading P.G. Woodhouse short stories on my kindle and Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling in paperback. Next up is Beverly Cleary’s sequel to A Girl from Yamhill.
this gave me great joy this morning (and also some teary eyes).
Cats make all places better. 🙂
I just finished ‘The Glass Castle’ by Jeannette Walls this morning on the way to work, and I am still furious at her parents. Mad mad mad.
That book is a good cure for anyone who worries about whether or not they are a good parent.
OMG, those parents were EPICALLY terrible.
I haven’t been reading much adult stuff (except for The Toast and the articles found here, obviously!) but I spend a LOT of time reading and re-reading our few board books to my 8 month old daughter. I think I have read ‘The Paper Bag Princess’ at least twice a day for the past 7 days.
I’m always looking for new books for my wee bean though so I would love any recommendations other Toast parents have, especially books featuring girl main characters, diverse people or stories about different cultures and from different parts of the world.
I am going to eavesdrop on these replies because I want to start diversifying the “bundle of books” I give to new babies.
Global Baby Girls! Babies love looking at other babies’ faces.
Everything else that comes to mind is pretty animal-oriented. Sandra Boyton’s books, the “That’s Not My … Puppy/Dragon/Whatever” series. This one is totally random, but mine have loved it (the illustrations are really bold).
The Global Baby Girls book looks amazing! Thank you so much for the recommendation!
I gave The Little Prince to my Nephew for his birthday, I know its not about a girl, but its still very sweet.
My favourite book as a kid was The Sun Egg (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/404399.The_Sun_Egg), its about some fairies who find an orange in the woods and don’t know what it is and its dead good.
We have an extensive library of baby books because I could not stand reading the same books over and over. I think it has been good for my son because he now (at 2.5) clearly likes reading a variety of books.
Here are a few we like with human characters that are not all white:
Bugs Galore by Peter Stein
Grandma’s Feather Bed by John Denver and Christopher Canyon
He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands by Kadir Nelson
We also like a lot of books with animal characters like:
Maisy Goes Swimming (and others in the series) by Lucy Cousins
Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton
Over In the Ocean by Marianne Berkes
Busy Birdies (and others in the series) by John Schindel
And some books with white characters that we dearly love:
Yummy Yucky (and others) by Leslie Patricelli
Picture This by Allison Jay
These are amazing! Thank you! Especially the John Denver book. I grew up singing along to him on road trips with my parents, so I am thrilled to see his songs made into such awesome and inclusive books.
Have you heard of the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place? They are a LOT of fun to read out loud, but they’re middle grade books. Very similar to the Series of Unfortunate Events in diction/style, but the tone is MUCH more pleasant and cheerful instead of somber and despairing. And there’s lots of squirrels and “awooo” noises to make, because the 3 Incorrigibles were raised by wolves. (Their 16-year-old nanny Penelope Lumley is a delight.) They’re set in the 1840s or 1850s or something equally Victorian, when ferns were in vogue.
ALSO for a little one, have you seen I Am Otter? The board book version has either just come out or is due to come out and it’s adorable.
These aren’t super diverse – they’re both British, and main characters are girls (well, Otter is a girl otter), but mainly they’re just super cute.
Those look like such fun books!! Thank you for sharing them!
I am not a parent, but maybe try other Robert Munsch books? I don’t know any of the ones that were published after I got too old for them, but the ones I remember included a fair number of books with girl main characters and/or diverse people.
Hey, I always like to recommend books with LGBT representation, because the more all kiddos are exposed to such stuff, the less they are weirded out by my kid having two female parents.
So, for wee babes, board books:
Mommy, Mama, and Me and Daddy, Papa, and Me
and for preschoolers & older who can be around paper books without eating them:
The Different Dragon and the Flamingo Rampant books.
Thank you!! This is definitely something I want to expose her to early. And the description for The Different Dragon says there is a singing cat. Sold!
I especially love Different Dragon because it’s not about having two moms, it’s about a kid and a cat meeting a misunderstood dragon, he just happens to have a family that includes two moms, one sister, two cats and three fish.
A bit too old yet, but the Barefoot Series of books (The Barefoot Book of _______: Pirates, Brother and Sister Stories, Princess, Earth Tales, on and on) are usually really good on including diverse stories and illustrations.
I am very partial to “Cozy Classics” and the Little Miss Bronte (etc) series, but I think they may be more fun for the grown ups.
I’ve never heard of the Barefoot Book, but I’m so glad I have now! They sound like such amazing collections of stories.
And we do already have Little Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. My husband asked me once why I was okay with it since we are trying our best not to push any gender stereotypes on her. ‘Isn’t this just a book about women getting married?’ He asked me. I told him to shut his mouth and never speak such sacrilege to me again. (In a nice way of course.)
I’m reading While the City Slept by Eli Sanders. It’s an account of a pretty awful murder that happened in Seattle in 2009. The author won a Pulitzer Prize for a journalism piece that he wrote about the survivor and her testimony at the trial (The Bravest Woman in Seattle) and decided to write a book about it. It’s a really heartbreaking story because the murderer was an undiagnosed/untreated schizophrenic who had fallen through the cracks giant crevasses of Washington’s terrible mental health system. The writing is beautiful and Sanders really takes care to have compassion for both the murderer and the victims.
I’m definitely on a true crime/true tragedy kick since I recently read One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway and next I am 100% reading this book about The Station Fire, I just put it on hold at the library.
Never mind the link round-up, my dear, I’m off to watch Little Women now and sob my way through it, even the happy parts.
Feel better soon!
Also – currently reading:
“Motherland” by Maria Hummel – Weimar, just before the end of WWII. Good so far.
Also, in the interest of The People Versus OJ, I’m also trying to work my way through Outrage (5 Reasons OJ Simpson Got Away With Murder) by the late Vincent Bugliosi.
I wish Vincent was still around to weigh in on the Steve Avery case after MaM??
I am reading nothing, but I have several books on chess and my friend’s MS to read after surgery on Monday.
I’m still reading A Fine Imitation which I commented about last week in a flurry of stress over not knowing where the plot might lead. I’m in the deep middle now and still finding it compelling but I am so frustrated that it’s only an ARC, which I got through LibraryThing, so I don’t have anyone to talk spoilers with! And I can’t exactly email the author (who is toastie Amber Brock) to shake her down because hello rude and it’s not the same to talk at an author vs fellow readers. (Though I appreciated the comment chat with her last week!)
I am tentatively recommending the book for Toasties even though I haven’t got to the ending yet, if only because it is a historical novel set in both 1913 and 1923 and art is a big element of the setting, and I’m p. sure a lot of the readership here will be like “yes, that is my thing”. (It is my thing, anyway.)
Boo food poisoning. Feel better soon, Nicole.
I’m currently reading Carry On, and then I will be out of Rainbow Rowell, which makes me tremendously sad.
These threads are always dangerous for me, because my wait list at the library gets so long.
Oooo, I recently finished Carry On. I liked it a lot.
I love Rainbow Rowell. ^_^
I just finished Sorcery and Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. It’s an alternate universe story set during the Regency where magic exists but the fun part is that it was written as a letter game between Wrede and Stevermer (they wrote letters to each other in character, without discussing the plot). Now I’m reading the sequel. Not the best books in the world but pretty fun!
I loved that book! So cute and fun!
if you like this, i’d strongly recommend zen cho’s ‘sorceror to the crown’. i was unsure about it based on the blurb but it’s rather exquisite. i’m waiting impatiently for her to publish anything else. her short story collection ‘spirits abroad’ was also very good, and pretty unusual for the genre. (mostly because the genre is so whitewashed).
(Well-done) non-whitewashed fantasy is my jam. Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll check it out!
(Also, I feel bad because i got so excited about books I forgot to empathize but food poisoning is the worst and I hope it passes quickly, Nicole).
I love Sorcery and Cecelia – it’s one of my cover falling off comfort read books. The 3rd book is better than the 2nd, imo, but neither is as good as the 1st.
Just bought War and Peace. Very excited for Russian Soap Drama and for characters being called any of four things because that won’t be confusing at all.
I’m sad you’re not feeling well, and I hope you get better, but how excited were you to basically be every sickly aunt/mother in every Victorian novel ever??
I’ve been working my way through Douglas Adams’ The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul for probably the fifth time. It’s going very slowly this time, though, because I’m reading it aloud to the reading group I’m part of in Second Life, so I only get through a couple of chapters at each weekly meet-up. The two Dirk Gently books are some of my favorites, and it’s fun being able to share one of them with a group that’s never read them before.
On a related note, is anybody else interested in the Dirk Gently TV series that BBC America is putting together? I’ve been meaning to somehow get my hands on the miniseries that the BBC Proper released a couple of years ago, and it sounds like this is being done by the same people I think? Are there any British Toasties out there who’ve seen it, and can tell me if it’s worth watching or getting excited about this new batch?
I watched Little Women for the first time last weekend!! Yelled and hissed at the screen SO much, I had a great time. LAURIE U FUCKIN CREEP
I have an excuse to share my favorite description of debilitating illness! It’s an old Dave Barry column: http://articles.philly.com/1986-04-02/news/260797… Hope everyone feels better soon!
I’m sharing a bunch of non-fiction recs just for the heck of it. “The Tastemakers: why we’re crazy for cupcakes but fed up with fondue” by David Sax which was an interesting look at the world of food trends. (NB: the first chapter is about cupcakes and is too long.) I’ve read two books by Zach Dundas and loved them both- The Renegade Sportsman (about lesser-known sports in the US) and The Great Detective: the amazing rise and immortal life of Sherlock Holmes. Douglas Preston’s book with Mario Spezi “The monster of Florence” is driving me crazy because it was so good and I need to know what’s happened since the end of the book! Same with “Orchid Fever: a horticultural tale of love lust and lunacy” by Eric Hansen which is hard to explain other than that there are people in this world who are bonkers about orchids and Hansen makes it easy to understand why. “Flash Boys” by Michael Lewis is a book that manages to teach a ton about the way Wall Street *really* works, like physically, but should not be read by people who read books about Enron or the housing crash and started day-dreaming about guillotines. Oh and one more plant/food book: “The Perfect Fruit: good breedind, bad seeds and the hunt for the elusive pluot” which shouldn’t be interesting but it so is.
Hee! “The elusive pluot” is a great combination of words.
On a recommendation I saw in one of the bee-related threads here on the Toast, I just finished The Bees by Laline Paull. It was incredible, and I am so grateful to whoever mentioned it.
The novel is written from the point of view of a worker bee named Flora 717. She is born into a hive that’s humming (pun!) with intrigue. In some ways, the style felt similar to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale, and the plot is very gripping. My favorite part is that most plot points are based on the actual behavior and biology of bees. I learned so much and found apiology so fascinating that I’ve begun reading bee-keeping blogs, and I am planning to fill my yard with bee-friendly flowers.
I just started the YA novel Panther in the Hive by Olivia A. Cole. Not very far in yet, but so far, the book is about a young black woman named Tasha who has survived an apocalyptic event in Chicago. Most people have turned into something very similar to zombies because of chips they willingly had implanted in their necks. Tasha did not have the chip implanted, and now she has to figure out how to survive. It’s very interesting so far!
The Bees one of of my favorite books from last year!
It’s absolutely fascinating, PLUS you actually do learn a bit about bees.
Ack, bad chicken is bad. BAD. Feel better soon!
Plugging through “City on Fire”, which has a cast of…..very unlikeable characters. A large part of me is thinking, Colum McCann did this story SO much better with “Let the Great World Spin”, and Tom Wolfe nailed the satire in “Bonfire of the Vanities.” This author seems to want to combine the lyricism of McCann with the plotline of Wolfe (with hints of Wolfe’s biting humor), but it’s not coming together for me so far. SIGH.
Before this I read Wilkie Collins’s “The Moonstone” which was most excellent.
It’s not really a book, but I’ve been reading Paper Girls by Brian K Vaughn. It takes place on Halloween during the ’80s (I can’t remember the exact date, but it seems like it’s just after the Challenger explosion?). It follows a group of paper girls on their morning route, which immediately goes off the rails when they discover a strange craft in someone’s basement.
Is anyone else reading this? I just finished the fifth issue, I’d love to talk about it with someone!
This month is the hundredth anniversary of Henry James’s death, so I am (re)reading The Golden Bowl. I think his earlier work, The Portrait of a Lady, would be right up the alley of many a Toast-reader. Young woman inherits vast fortune, doesn’t really want to marry any of her suitors: what is she to do with herself?
Aaaaaahhhh yes yes yes no no no I have just added so many books to my hold list at the library as a result of this comment thread. I am excited but also nervous because odds are they’re all going to come available at once and then I’ll have three weeks to read a crazy number of books. So much pressure!
I’m reading the new Vorkosigan book and laughing to myself about how my conservative ex-coworker (“But why does everything have to be gay all the time???”) who adores Bujold must be reacting to Admiral Oliver Jole having Aral Vorkosigan’s babies. (And loving the book for itself, but I have to admit, schadenfreude is getting me through this work day.)
Is it the book good? I’m not sure how I feel about a post-Aral world, but I love Cordelia so much.
It is DELIGHTFUL. I mean, yes, there is lots of sadness and missing Aral, but Cordelia is wonderful and Oliver Jole turns out to be fairly wonderful himself, so.
A friend has reminded me that there is precedent for this time of year being awful: https://youtu.be/WJBrAIVrK-4
I just finished The Silvered by Tanya Huff, a fantasy which I wanted to like so much more than I did. The world was pretty fascinating–there’s a country where werewolves and mages rule, and based on the clothes and etiquette it reads kind of Victorian. And then an evil empire that’s all about science that wants to conquer the magic country. But I don’t know, the lead character’s just washed out of magic university for not being good enough, and then suddenly without any real explanation, she’s pretty much the most powerful mage ever. Which is one of my least favorite tropes. And then it kind of sets it up like there’s going to be a love triangle, and then there isn’t one which is great because I hate them, but then there was literally no point whatsoever to the misdirection because the second potential love interest wasn’t in there long enough to have had literally any purpose otherwise.
Mostly I’m mad because I’ve been in a reading slump for a few months, where I’ve discarded so very very many books because I couldn’t get into them and then ones I actually have finished have mostly been meh. So I’ve just started My Wars are Laid Away, which is a biography of Emily Dickinson, and I’m crossing my fingers that it will break the cycle.
I just finished Affiliations, Aliens and other Profitable Pursuits by Lyn Gala – the third in her m/m SFR series with mild bdsm and giant, logical purple lizard-beings and it was AWESOME.
And I checked out Ancillary Mercy by Anne Leckie from the library and I’m just waiting for enough time to immerse myself in it.
ETA – and feel better! Food poisoning is horrible.
Feel better, Nicole! I hope Sansa is taking good care of you.
I have finally gotten my copy of The Lightkeepers, which sold out its print run and earned Abby Geni back her advance in about 1 week, and you all should definitely try to get it because it is excellent and also Abby is one of the best people ever.
unrelated to a group read, I’m still listening to Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, which I don’t have much to say on as many of the comments above have already said much of what I’d have to.
Re-reading The Sandman (just starting Fables and Reflections), as part of my annual re-read that I pushed ahead some because of the presence of the beautiful and new Overture. It’s helping me get through what is a monumentally shitty couple months.
Just finished rereading McKinley’s Sunshine (thumbs up), and hate-reading The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood because it was for my bookclub. All the peeps in book club lurved it and I couldn’t express how irritated and sad it made me – not because of the dystopia and the various Whacky Antics but because it reminded me of early Chuck Paluhnik and all of the things I disliked about him including the inability to construct a satisfying ending that was consistent with the world-logic.
AS A REWARD for making it through the Atwood I have started The King’s Falcon by Stella Riley. It’s the latest in her series of very densely written and well constructed books about the English Civil War. I am thoroughly enjoying it so far and will almost certainly reread the earlier ones once I have finished.
I’m sorry you’re sick with the wishing you were dead illness. I thawed and chopped some chicken and made some stir fry yesterday. I think I’ll go bleach the sink. And the cutting boards, knives, and walls.
Last month was such a bad time that I feel like committing to read a book would be Too Much. Comics read instead: Giant Days and Skip Beat (does anyone else read Skip Beat because I need to talk about Kyoko’s mom like woah). Everyone’s reads sound so intellectual in comparison!
I’m not up to date on Skip Beat but here for all your Giant Days/Bad Machinery discussion
I just love Giant Days so much? At first I thought it was because I too was once a lady in college, but my experience was definitely not as charming. Just got issue 10 from my shop, and it’s left me with some questions. Who is that masked figure? Why does everyone care so much about student government? Are McGraw and Susan breaking up noooooooooo. LOVED Den Mother Daisy!
Have you read Paper Girls? My shop sent it to me because they thought I would like it, but I have started it yet.
I’m just here for cat posts and book talk apparently. I’m a professor, and January is the time when I don’t teach and have evenings and weekends where I can do non-academic reading or grading, so I’ve been binging on books lately.
Ancillary Justice I finished about a week ago, and I thought it was so rad that my husband and I just went out and bought the full trilogy in real book form because it feels like something I’ll pick up again.
As I generally need super, super escapist stuff during down time, I’ve somehow found myself halfway through the third book of the Kushiel’s Legacy series (all in Jan), which have kind of been like candy to me. I know a bunch of you have read these (actually the toast is where I learned about the series), and I’ve seen a lot of discussion about the books related to all sorts of issues, particularly related to religion/representation. But can I complain about probably the goofiest problem I have with them? I really, really get annoyed when fantasy authors make their worlds’ geography and people “European but slightly different.” (Westeros/Essos bother me for the same reason.) Also, fantasy country borders that haphazardly cut ACROSS rivers annoy me.
I’m reading The Borgias: the Hidden History, and omg Italy what are you doing. I’m not even up to Rodrigo’s ascension to the Papal throne, and dear merciful lord, the politics of 15th-century Italy are ridiculous.
I’m re-reading Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, and it’s scary how pertinent it still is. Same issues, 20 or 30 years later, just the names have changed.
Friday's Child was next on my to-read list after Cotillion because, in a fit of overpreparedness, I borrowed several ebooks at the same time and they all have to be finished before next Wednesday. I just got to Gil and Ferdy's introduction and awww. Ferdy following his friend home and sleeping on the couch! Gil draping Ferdy with a rug and putting a nightcap on his head! They are so adorable and I love them already.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Freddy is truly the best. Good luck on your recovery!——– Original message ——–
Yes. Crappy week here too: hit and run car accident. We're lucky, I'm fine aside from a concussion…but writing dissertation revisions with a concussion? Ha! (Plus I am behind on all the toasty talk about the crappiness of this week because I get a concussion headache from looking at screens too much).