#Len Pennie

[wefoundwandaland]

Taylor when she wrote The Tortured Poets Department, probably

[twunny20fission]

Books of 2024

Here are the books I read in 2024, with some thoughts on each

“The World We Make” by N.K. Jemison. A sequel to a book I was looking forward to, but found a bit disappointing. This one was fine. It really made the first book shine by comparison. The series was supposed to be a trilogy, but the author didn’t want to do it anymore. So this one felt rushed.

“Sweet Tooth, Book One” by Jeff Lemire. Visually great and well-written. Didn’t blow me away, but felt worthwhile. I’d like to read the next in the series, but it’s harder to find.

“Pageboy” by Elliot Page. This is one of those memoirs where you think, “well, they definitely didn’t hire a ghost writer.” Page is not a skilled writer. The stories he lived through were enough to be good nonetheless.

“Moon Knight, Vol. 1: The Midnight Mission” by Jed McKay, et al. Pretty tame for such an interesting character.

“Moon Knight, Vol. 2: Too Tough to Die” by Jed McKay, et al. Meandering, with a rushed ending. Meh.

“Safe & Sound” by Mercury Stardust. How to take care of a lot of stuff around your house. It was inspiring and affirming. Not a lot of it was necessarily useful to me presently. But it was still good.

“Usagi Yojimbo, Vol 6: Circles” by Stan Sakai. I love everything about Usagi. This is a strong volume.

“Evvie Drake Starts Over” by Linda Holmes. A great time. I took a swing on a type of book I don’t normally pick up, and I’m extremely happy I did. It’s a romance novel, but not AT ALL a bodice-ripper. A modern, thoughtful, realistic novel about an adult woman falling in love. Super good.

“The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” by Mark Manson. Nowhere near as good as I wanted it to be. Very bro-ey, and not particularly resonant.

“Ms. Marvel Vol 5: Super Famous” by G. Willow Wilson, et al. A very middle-of-the-road entry in Wilson’s Marvel volumes.

“Making It So: A Memoir” by Patrick Stewart. Outstanding. Exceeded every expectation, and my expectations were high. Even the less-than-flattering elements of his life were handled well.

“Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant” by Iman Vellani, et al. This book really hung its hat on “Iman Vellani got to write this one.” Which is great, but it wasn’t a spectacular book.

“An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us” by Ed Yong. Very disappointing. It could have been very cool, but it was not.

“poyums” by Len Pennie. I dislike 95% of all poetry I've ever experienced. This book is in the other 5%. Even when I didn’t understand it (either because it was in Scots, because it was poetry, or both) it was great.

“Ms. Marvel Vol 6: Civil War II” by G. Willow Wilson, et al. Good art, mediocre plots, pretty decent dialogue.

“Camp Damascus” by Chuck Tingle. I listened to the audiobook, but I’m counting it. This was engaging start to finish. The creepy parts were good, and the sense of fun that the author brings to things was apparent throughout.

“Mighty Nein Origins: Beauregard Lionett” by Mae Catt, et al. None of these Origins books were great standalone stories. This one was *pretty* good.

“Sourcery” by Terry Pratchett. Another great entry in what might at this point be my favorite book series. Like ever. After I reckoned with the fact that I’d never read another Douglas Adams book, I figured that part of my brain would go fallow. Thank goodness for Sir Terry, and thank goodness he was so prolific. This one was exciting and emotional.

“Three Novels,” by Samuel Beckett. I don’t get what he was trying to do here. Beckett’s plays work for me. Whatever this was did NOT. I tortured myself into finishing it, after a months-long break.

“Star Trek: Lower Decks #1” by Ryan North, et al. Really enjoyable. You have to come into the book with a knowledge of how Lower Decks works. Which I have, and it was great. Ryan North has never missed.

“Survival Street” by James Asmus, et al. As with any good satire, this was hard to “enjoy.” It was too sharp an implement, but it was very well-executed. The idea is that the S*same St*eet m*ppets are real, living, immigrant people. And when the tyrannical government takes over and de-funds PBS and basically all non-propaganda children’s TV, they go HAM.

“Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros. Very glad I picked this one up. I get caught in the “do I really have bandwidth for a long book, or to start another series right now” of it all. But this one was worth it. But I wish it had been a little less infatuation-obsessed. The romance makes sense, and is even relevant to the plot. But the “oh, how could I ever have denied myself the exquisite pleasure of having this person’s skin under my fingertips” is just…blegh.

“The Adventure Zone, Vol. 6: The Suffering Game” by the McElroys, et al. The comics are not as good as the podcast. Part of that opinion might be nostalgia for the golden age of “about 10 years ago.” But it’s how I feel. This one fits in nicely with the others, which is to say it’s competently written and arted. There are one or two great bits per book, but overall it’s fine.

“Wyrd Sisters” by Terry Pratchett. I look back on every Discworld novel with a sense of it being the best one and not as good as at least one other one. My favorite is constantly in flux. This one stands out for its treatment of the magic of theater (and greater magick of headology) and its deeper insights into the witches.

“A Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula Le Guin. I should have read this sooner. It pretty much holds up, though the style is clearly of a type that no one really uses anymore.

“Priestdaddy” by Patricia Lockwood. Bit of a disappointment. It was like reading a clever blog of an autobiography. I didn’t really hold together well. A lot of it was entertaining, but it wasn’t Great.

“Legends and Lattes” by Travis Baldree. Right up my alley. A very cozy, thoughtful story in a kind of hand-wavy fantasy world. Really enjoyed it.

“The Theory of Everything Else” by Dan Schreiber. Wasn’t exactly a narrative, wasn’t exactly just a list of facts & curiosities. It was okay. I feel like Schreiber is at his best in the audio format, in the company of other weirdos.

“Pyramids” by Terry Pratchett. Very cool expansion of Discworld. I’m hoping it is a foundation to something ahead, as I liked the characters and the new elements of the plane.

"Iron Flame" by Rebecca Yarros. A stellar second entry in the series. It was infuriating how engrossed I was for the last 150 or so pages especially. The spicy scenes still seem to be...too much. They stick out as an insanely different experience than the rest of the narrative. Look, I liked the book a lot. I had a hard time telling certain characters apart sometimes, and some of the narrative bits were too confusing until they weren't. This series is A Lot.

Metrics!

Total books: 31 Total (non-graphic novels and other picture-heavy books) pages: 6450 Total pages: 8403 Highest-rated: Making It So Lowest-rated: Three Novels Very Glad I Read It Award: poyums Honorable Mention: Evvie Drake Starts Over Glad It's Over Award: The World We Make Most disappointing: Three Novels

[outstanding-quotes]

When compared with too little, enough’s always too much.

Len Pennie, from “Too Much” in Poyums

[footballcrumpets]

Promo flyers for my upcoming audio comedy have arrived! Look at that gorgeous cast too- Lewis Hancox, Charlie Craggs, Ugla Setanía, Ziggi Battles, Len Pennie and Freddie Main 🩷🩵🤍🩵🩷

[leahthebookworm]

Book 17 0f 70

Poyums by Len Pennie ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

128 pages, published 2024

Such a powerful piece of work absolutely broke my heart and mended it again, written in a mix of English and Scots . It covers very painful subjects like domestic abuse, depression and the issues women face in society. I cried sad tears, angry tears and the occasional happy one's.

[darklingichor]

Poyums, by Len Pennie

I found the author of this book while scrolling through Tik Tok where she primarily teaches a word a day in the Scots language (Miss PunnyPennie) I love language and find these videos a lot of fun. Then she started promoting her book.

I've said before, I'm picky about poetry. So much of it sounds pretentious and overly flowery to me. I love Robert Frost, developed a fondness for Wilfred Owen after a college project, but other than that, I can't think of another poet that has made an impact.

I *love* this book. The author 's writing is frank and raw, while still being lyrical and painting word pictures that you not only see, but feel down in your bones. The poems are often painful in the feelings they express, but some are also darkly funny. Many others explore the elements of our culture and how woman must navigate it, still others celebrate love and healing.

A lot of the poems mix the Scots language with English and it is so interesting to read because, personally, I had no trouble understanding what was being said despite the fact that I don't speak Scots.

If you like poetry, go read it. If you don't like poetry, still go read it because it is truly a great read.

[bookjotter6865]

Winding Up the Week #406

Winding Up the Week #406

An end of week recap “You can read merely to pass the time, or you can read with an overt urgency, but eventually you will read against the clock.” – Harold Bloom Here we are at the start of another fresh year, surely no more than a couple of months since the last one. I’m not known for making New Year’s resolutions as to do so is generally the kiss of death as far as achieving personal goals is…

[threbe]

❤️ Rwby

[ratzboi]

i got a new macro lens for christmas and the first thing i took a photo of was my pet beagle

[acasternaut]

my awesome satchel i keep my pressed penny collection in. yes its a lemon. u wish u were me rn

[outstanding-quotes]

My devil’s an angel who’s forgotten how to pray.

Len Pennie, from “Momento Mori” in Poyums

[hickeygender]

absolutely fell off the wagon of my 1 a day rule and smoked like 4 or 5 cigarettes today 😐

[leahthebookworm]

March wrap up and April tbr

Four books completed three of them from my 2024 reading goal which is a good result.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Death in Heels by Kitty Murphy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

And not from my goals list The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I enjoyed all books The Night Circus was my favourite this month.

This month's tbr is

Boulder by Eva Baltasar (translated by Julia Sanches)

Poyums by Len Pennie

The Last Tang Standing by Lauren Ho

Simul by Andrew Caldicot

The Treatment by Sarah Moorhead

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

I might not finish all of these but I'll give it a go

Happy reading

[glorybean]

So my total cultural exposure to Scotland is this man, John ‘Soap’ MacTavish (Neil Ellice), and @ayeforscotland. I feel like this is an adequate sampling of the population and am forced to conclude that the country is entirely inhabited by unfairly gorgeous people whom I would pay ungodly amounts of money to sing me to sleep at night. Also facial hair.

[ravencromwell]

Rereading Dickens Christmas Carol for the first time in a long time. And the more I reread, the more it strikes me how seamlessly a queer reading could slip within these pages. Not an especially twee reading, wherein all Scrooge's troubles start and end with grief over Jacob Marley's death. For we know that Scrooge was a "Tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!" And we know that he and Marley were "two kindred spirits"

And perhaps that very fact makes the similarities to queer life, unintended as they most likely were by Mr. Dickens, achingly poignant to me. Scrooge is, we're told, "secret and self-contained and solitary as an oyster." How much that resonates, for so many of us who shield our innermost selves but from a select group of friends. And we know that Scrooge and Marley were, at the very least, certainly that for one another. Scrooge is Marley's sole mourner; his sole executor and beneficiary; and even Dickens notes, "friend." How reminiscent is that of queer couples across history, estranged from their families?

Scrooge lives in a set of chambers that once belonged to Marley—clearly Dickens wanted us to believe Scrooge gave up his own dwellings after Marley's death to economize. But with only a flicker of change, those chambers become _their chambers, rented by Marley as the senior member of the couple. The place is so desolate Dickens notes "one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again." The perfect abode for two queer misers who wanted no one prying into their business.

Marley's name is still above the door of Scrooge's counting-house: a mark by which, no doubt, Dickens meant to convey Scrooge such a penny-pincher he couldn't bother to have it changed. But a thing can be both! mark of frugality to ludicrous excess and! mark of mourning. "sometimes," Dickens opines, "People new to the

business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him."

This is why "death of the author" matters so much, in expanding our interpretations of texts. It is vastly far from the lens Dickens would have intended. But, the idea of a ghost of queerness, so taboo in the society it could barely be glanced at sidewise in this tale that is all about the inexplicable and yet that lingers over everything becomes an astonishing lens through which to read this book. Thinking of Scrooge as a queer man, his "melancholy dinner at his usual melancholy tavern" becomes a eerie prefiguring of the hollowness of days spent by Isherwood's A Single Man. In this universe, little wonder Scrooge doubly hates mention of time with family, marriage, etc. when the precise nature of his grief is both unacknowledged and unacknowledgable.

And readings like this are vital, because the uncomfortable truth is, discrimination doesn't "discriminate between sinners and saints", to borrow a Miranda phrase. It is easy, in my liberal circles, to fight for queer people who hold "the good sorts of politics". But what about men like Michael Hess, culpable for supporting Reagan even as his contemptuous homophobia let the aids epidemic run rampant? How much harder is it to remember Michael had a partner? That he deserves empathy and compassion for being practically tarred and feathered out of the party upon his own aids diagnosis?

Expanding our imaginative universes to include queerness, not as redemptive panacea, but merely as one aspect of identity, personality, often in vicious conflict with others. Even! as we consider those stories equally worthy of being told feels vital if we're ever to truly express the complexity of what queer humanity looks like.

[shytimelady]

maybe the wrong place but I am requesting AID if anyone has tips on how to google search for very specific clothing items you encountered approximately 7 years ago I would love to hear from you