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
@bookstodon Another really good graphic nonfiction book I've read recently, and recommend, is WE HEREBY REFUSE, regarding the Japanese-Americans forced into concentration camps in WWII.
The story addresses a common victim-blaming response to the plight of others: "Why didn't they fight back?" It's almost always the wrong question, even though indeed, they did fight back. Victim-blaming is a pernicious permission structure, allowing us not to care about terrible events that happen to other people.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon Most Japanese Americans & Asians (in US & outside of it) called them concentration camps - not internment camps. Colonial, racist governments called them internment camps in US & Canada but that's a dishonest word for them. Internment camps are for military personnel. Japanese & Asians(anyone who looked Japanese) were rounded up & imprisoned in colonial concentration camps. Many died in them.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon There are likely many who did try to oppose, and others who believed it was wrong but didn't know what to do, were afraid, or hopeless. All these stories would be good to study and learn from.
Question: Has the use of quotation marks for dialogue in fiction fallen out of favour, or has this always been a thing and haven't I picked up on it before?
I'm now reading the third book in a row (currently The Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, before that The Promise by Damon Galgut and No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy) and all three don't have dialogue marks.
Is this a stylistic choice on the author's part? Is this to make the pages seem calmer? Is this to save ink on pages? And is this really a new thing or haven't I just woken up to it before?
@nevele@bookstodon What counntry were the books published in? It's not a tend I've noticed, but I've been reading a lot of mid-century mysteries lately.
My heart aches for the children who will no longer have access to their local library because some arrogant assholes decided to be offended by books with new ideas and different perspectives.
I've got some audiobook credits before I cancel my account (just not worth it when the #library is there 🥰). Could someone recommend some good audiobooks?
What I am looking for:
✔️Cozy mysteries or cozy horror
✔️If romance, nothing 🌶️ because I can't listen to sex scenes being narrated to me without giggling like a middle schooler.
✔️Female main character = bonus
✔️POC protagonist = bonus
✔️YA or New Adult recs okay
A year or so later, I got it as an Audiobook and am amazed at the level of depth and understanding of the characters, the setting of 1900 New York City, and the writer's ability to get inside the minds of a Jinni, a creature of Fire born in the desert, and the Golem, a creature of clay built to serve her master, able to read minds and desires of those around her with the strength of 10 men.
I'm excited to learn there's a sequel. Thanks for that.
@mvilain@SallyStrange@himantra@bookstodon@horror Yes! Both The Golem and the Jinni, and its sequel are wonderful "Must Own The Print Copy" books for me. The stories deal with some tough subjects at times, but with so much compassion that they are a pleasure to read.
@NerdsofaFeather@ergative@bookstodon really enjoyed this one (and this review), and “Things get very lively. There is a certain degree of dismemberment.” is a perfect summation.
Just finished Biology the Whole Story by Lindsay Turnbull https://www.amazon.com/Biology-The-Whole-Story/dp/1788451937/ref=sr_1_1 Wow - what a great read! This was the perfect biology refresher for someone who took biology ... thirty-ish years ago? Steps through all the major topics - DNA, evolution, energy systems, animals, plants, and so on. Was great to dig back into some concepts I hadn't thought about in a long time
@danielcornell@bookstodon I'm in the same boat, only it was 50 years ago. I recently listened to Paul Sen's EINSTEIN'S FRIDGE as a great brush up on Thermodynamics which I studied for my Chemistry degree. It was a great overview of how it became the science of heat transfer, who were the major players (I remembered a lot of the names), and it's implications in modern information theory (that was new).
@mvilain@bookstodon Ooh! Picked up a copy. Because I definitely need another to-read book on my shelf. Thanks for the tip and hope you get as much out of Whole Story as I did
Am I the only person who thought the #Bridgerton books were almost unreadably bad? Love the show because it added some depth that just wasn’t part of the novels. #bookstodon@bookstodon#books
A fellow social worker I knew from grad school shared this book on her Instagram story and recommended it. I was on a hold list for the ebook at my local library for weeks, but now, I have it. I’m also listening to the #audiobook read by the author.
Natasha Brown’s Assembly is quite the Novella. “I've watched with dispassionate curiosity as this continent hacks away at itself: confused, lost, sick with nostalgia for those imperialist glory days - when the them had been so clearly defined! It's evident now, obvious in retrospect as the proof of root-two's irrationality, that these world superpowers are neither infallible, nor superior. They're nothing, not without a brutally enforced relativity. An organized, systematic brutality that their soft and sagging children can scarcely stomach - won't even acknowledge. Yet cling to as truth. There was never any absolute, no decree from God. Just viscous, random chance. And then, compounding.” @bookstodon#bookstodonhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58600914