"The book didn’t want anyone to know it was there. If it were destroyed, everyone who’d survived in the story would be gone too. There would be no one left to remember the ones who had died. The balance of the world goes horribly askew when a story is confiscated; it becomes a darker, more ominous place." -- from 'The Book Censor's Library' by Bothayna Al-Essa; trans. Ranya Abdeirahman, Sawad Hussain
I finally started reading the origin tale of Mitth’raw’nuruodo! He’s one of my favorite Star Wars characters since the Thrawn Trilogy. It’s good to be back.
At the store and came across a pretty discounted hardcover copy of "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver. It is worth purchasing a physical copy? I usually try to stick to library books and purchase books I really like, but the library wait list is long and the price is tempting.
About to travel and was looking for something good to read.
I've been indulging myself by re-reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's 'Braiding Sweetgrass' this weekend. It's such a gift to look at the world through her eyes.
"When we braid sweetgrass, we are braiding the hair of Mother Earth, showing her our loving attention, our care for her beauty and well-being, in gratitude for all she has given us." #CurrentlyReading#BookQuote#reading#books@bookstodon
Thank you for your comment. A varied reading list keeps boredom away and helps to improve mood. After all, it is said that “variety is the spice of life”.
“Since the Egyptian scribe Ahmes put pen to papyrus some time around 1550BC to explain how to calculate the slope of a pyramid, we’ve had over three millennia of maths literature. So within some level of statistical confidence: here are a subset of the best ever maths books.”
@eaterofsnacks@bookstodon My pleasure. Currently, I'm reading the Time Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter.
I'm near the end of the first book (Time's eye), I love it too.
#JustFinished jPod
I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever worked in IT. Especially, executives and managers.
Also, to anyone who has parents that are incompetent mosters (Incompemonsters TM) and need YOU to fix THEIR problems 😂
"Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described." -- from 'The Vulnerables' by Sigrid Nunez
Very true and also quite a relief! I'm often embarrassed how much I forget of what I read. Now I can use this wonderful quote (if I can remember it...)
Book 23 of 2024: Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble
2.75 stars
I expected this to be a cute romance in a charming setting, but this was...not that. The protagonist's anxiety was extreme to the point that I found the book stressful to read. It felt like the central romance was fundamentally incompatible; they spent most of the book upsetting and talking past each other. The bake-off theme was also pretty underutilized, in my opinion. I like to imagine that behind the scenes, those cozy baking shows are friendly and collegial, but the producers in the book were portrayed as mean and predatory.
I was really expecting some low-intensity fluff, so I'm pretty disappointed. It was fairly well-written, it just didn't feel like a romance novel to me.
Book 24 of 2024: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
4.5 stars
I picked this one up because I enjoyed Station Eleven, which means I went in knowing basically nothing about the plot or premise. Honestly I think this is the best way to experience a book like this.
The mystery unfolded like a puzzle, no less enjoyable when it became a little predictable by the end. I loved many of the characters and settings, particularly the lunar colonies and the parts clearly inspired by Mandel's experience writing a book about a pandemic shortly before an actual pandemic.
I admire her lyrical prose and very effective use of spec fic to explore some thought-provoking themes. It actually felt quite similar to Cloud Atlas in scope and structure. And similarly to David Mitchell's books, there's apparently quite a bit of crossover between this book and Glass Hotel. I'll have to read that soon!
There's going to be a joint Sea of Tranquility/Glass Hotel adaptation with the same creative team who adapted Station Eleven. That's one of my favorite TV shows of all time, so I am incredibly excited.
On March 11, 2024, I announced the shutdown of our Mastodonbooks.net server and the migration of our project to Mastodon.social. That process is now complete.
If you are looking for Mastodonbooks members or would like to share your book-related posts, please join our group at: https://a.gup.pe/u/mastodonbooks
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Hi Roger -- I seem to have missed the migration notification. Does that mean my account on the old server is now inaccessible? Which means I have to start all over again? This is an old account I forgot I had. If there's some way I can transfer the old posts, followers etc, please let me know. One of my followers there claims she can still browse through my posts.
Thanks! R.
Feel free to point out how many of those are answered in the piece (shoddy signal atm)
I hope at least the first
If not the second then it's not worth opening anyway
I don't necessarily agree 100 percent with the premise
I posted it so that others might read it and use it as a jumping-off point for their own exploration of the ideas presented, not as an endorsement of the ideas presented
@hoare_spitall@bibliolater@bookstodon i find them greatly dissimilar, unless he was molesting teenagers he brought along for the ride? No?
Didn't think so, or YOU would've spoken up, or at least refused to go along with it silently, and certainly not defending him when the truth came to light
@whatzaname@bibliolater@bookstodon
I'm not defending anybody, not even me. But I am aware that sometimes prima facie situations appear to be other than they are, and I have also learned to wait until all the pieces of the jigsaw are on the board before deciding what the picture shows.
This is the 1000th free ebook released by Standard Ebooks:
'This edition of Ulysses is special, too, because it was specially transcribed to ensure that it contains only pre-1929 text. (As you may know, only books published before 1929 are in the U.S. public domain.) To our knowledge, there’s no other modern online edition of Ulysses that carefully adheres to this requirement — the rest are mishmashes of various editions and corrections from earlier or later editions, with little, if any, oversight into what corrections are included or not.'
I feel a bit stuck in my reading. The cosy mysteries and fantasies are becoming a bit boring. (Just read a few to many one after another) But my brain is unwilling to process harder SFF or litfic. Nothing on my tbr really appeals. Anyone have ideas for genres I could try? @bookstodonmy@boeken#bookstodon#books#reading