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mcgnagallsarmy · 5 months ago

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Top 10 Nick x Charlie fics I’ve read (June 2024)

Don't Believe Him by 7ate9

When Charlie tells his study group he's dating Leed's rugby star Nick Nelson, they don't quite believe him. It's embarrassing to go with them to the rugby game, with their voices in his ears telling him he's mad, but Nick is always there to prove those voices wrong, even when he doesn't even know they exist.

first fluttering (of its silken wings) by thetomkatwholived [G]

What if the leaves were real? Charlie lives in a world full of Flutters, where his leaves follow him almost everywhere. Enter Nick Nelson, who hasn’t seen his Flutters in years.

Let it Out and Let it In by 7ate9 [M]

Nick was the last person to see Charlie Spring before he went missing. They spent the afternoon together, and Nick kissed him goodbye and watched him walk away. Charlie never made it home. In the wake of his disappearance, their friends and family have to deal with the fallout. Nick is holding out hope for Charlie to come back, because he doesn't know what he'd do if he doesn't.

look now, the sky is gold by kissmeinnewyork [T]

“Your mum’s been texting me.” Charlie can just about make out Nick’s bemused expression over his shitty student halls wifi connection. “She’s been doing what?” In the days after Nick goes to university, Sarah Nelson looks after Charlie like he's her own. (A collection of stories about found family, empty nests, house keys and Nick, Charlie and Sarah).

Narlie Waves by waveofyou [E]

A Heartstopper California AU where Nick (31) and the HS crew we know and love live in SoCal. Charlie (29) leaves his London office to work in San Diego for a year. Nellie makes a new puppy bestie. Nick is adorable teaching little first graders. Charlie looks hot playing the drums. Nick looks hot surfing. They…ahem…enjoy Nick’s pool…and shower…and balcony. The boys weirdly get snowed in at one point. In Southern California, go figure. Nick helps Charlie see that he's deserving of big, loud love from a certain golden retriever person. Charlie helps Nick to trust that his love is not conditional, that he's safe to fully express himself. A leaves falling, flower petals swirling story of queer love with a spectacular ocean view 🍂🌊🍂 ⚠️ This is NOT a slow burn. They feel the spark, follow it and make fire Any explicit sections are denoted with “🍂��🍂” Any triggering flashback, panic attack or detailed eating disorder moments with “🍂⚠️🍂” …so they can be skipped and the story still enjoyed- I’ve written it so no major plot is lost by skipping these sections Alternates between Charlie and Nick POV ♥️

now i've read all of the books beside your bed by thetomkatwholived [T]

Tara smirked. “Yes, Charlie Spring. Isaac is one of his best friends. He posts booktube videos.” “Booktube?” Darcy rolled her eyes. “Get on the internet, Nicholas! Youtube videos specifically about books. Isaac has a really great channel. Awesome queer recs.” She handed an earbud to Tara, and they both huddled around her phone. Or, Nick sees Charlie for the first time in years in Isaac's video and maybe that crush he thought was dulled comes back in full force. At least he can get all the recommended books at the new bookshop in town…

The Quarantine Chronicles by CJShips [T]

Inspired by the Heartstopper Mini-Comic: The Haircut, aged-up Nick and Charlie navigate pandemic life. I hope to make this a series of vignettes, but I wrote this first chapter as a stand-alone. Come on Charlie, just get here Nick begged internally, raising a hand to scrub his face. … Irrational thoughts that he’d been walling off for hours began to break through. What if Charlie’s flight had been re-routed? Or not taken off at all? Or what if the flight had arrived at SFO but for some reason, Charlie wasn’t on it? What if the United States sealed its borders and Nick became trapped in a different country from the most important person in the world? … For the first time since he and Charlie moved to San Francisco eight months ago, Nick wondered if it was a terrible mistake.

We Just Keep Going by agreatwave [M]

“Nothing’s wrong, nothing happened,” He reassures. “I just want to come home.” “Charlie - ” “I just really want to be with you tonight,” Charlie interrupts. Nick’s heart skips a beat. “Is- is that ok?” Charlie asks when Nick doesn’t respond immediately. This, more than anything, sets off an alarm in Nick’s head. It’s rare, these days, for Charlie to question things like he used to. OR When another long term couple breaks up, Charlie needs reassurance. Nick is more than happy to give it.

the wedding dance by steelknuckles [G]

Nick has two left feet, so he's lucky to have Charlie to guide him during their wedding dance. If love was a piano, it would be every note from top to bottom.

you only stay by peaceoutofthepieces [G]

“Ben talked to you at the cinema?” Nick interrupts, his voice shaking. His eyes are wide, and he grips Charlie’s hand tighter. “When did you talk to Ben?” “Oh.” Charlie looks down. “Uhm, outside, just before I left. After you’d gone back in.” He glances up in time to see Nick’s expression go pained, and he reaches his free hand over so he can grip Nick’s and squeeze back. “What did he say?” Nick asks quietly. “It doesn’t matter,” Charlie tries, but Nick’s kicked-puppy look only strengthens. “He just—it was the same thing about denying his feelings and being a dick about it. Telling me he never liked me, but I was pathetic enough for him to feel sorry for me. Usual Ben things.”

#heartstopper #nick and charlie #heartstopper ficrec #winterromanov #peaceoutofthepieces

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hollygl125 · 3 months ago

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Hi! I just saw your new post, that I'm absolutely obsessed with, and I was wondering are Grissom's and Sara's middle name canon?

Hi, @inutilidadesbytamara!

I’m so glad you enjoyed my “favourite character” GIF-sets for Sara and Grissom—thank you so much for your kind words! ☺️☺️☺️

As for your question, Sara’s and Grissom’s middle names are not strictly speaking canon, but they (along with some of the other details included in my GIF-sets) are, I would say, the next closest thing to canon—what @addictedtostorytelling has called “deuterocanonical”: “(of sacred books or literary works) forming a secondary canon.” (That was a new word for my vocab list, I’ll admit! 😬)

(I would liken it maybe to obiter dicta in the (common law) legal context: something a judge says that isn’t essential to their decision and hence isn’t binding on another judge but could be persuasive.)

Basically there was information that was provided on official CBS website biographies for the characters and in official CSI books but that never made it onto the show. Some of these sources were themselves conflicting. More importantly, since it never made it onto the show it wasn’t (isn’t) canon and could still be changed by TPTB and the writers. Such was (I think!) the case with Sara’s childhood, for example, as I believe her original biographies did not reference the tragic backstory that would be revealed in “Nesting Dolls” (05x13).

I never saw those original CBS website biographies, so my knowledge of them comes via the (wonderful! amazing! indispensable! encyclopedic!) meta @addictedtostorytelling has shared with us here on Tumblr. She has a post here that discusses Grissom’s background (and references his middle name) and one here that discusses Sara’s (and references her middle name).

(If you are at all interested in the characters’ backstories, I would highly recommend reading the two posts linked above, as they compile a lot of canon and secondary source information and put that information into the context of reality—e.g., which universities actually offer which degrees, specializations, etc.)

I have three official CSI books (not counting the novels but rather books about CSI), but they are at my house, and I am not, so I will provide an update after the weekend as to which bits of information they contain. (The information is now all kind of mushed up together in my head, so I can’t really remember the specific sources for everything.)

Other pieces of information that came from these secondary sources but were not, to the best of my recollection, ever made canon on the show include Sara’s alma maters (Harvard and UC Berkeley), her area of study (physics), and her stated birthplace/hometown (the small fishing village of Tomales Bay, California).

As for that last bit of information, to be honest, a brief google search has disclosed to me no such village, although north of San Francisco there is an actual bay called Tomales Bay; a Tomales Bay State Park; a number of businesses named for Tomales Bay; and a “census-designated place” named Tomales, with a couple hundred residents, located 3 miles northeast of the bay. So either Sara’s hometown is fictional, I think, or . . . I don’t know . . . maybe her hippy mother opted for a water birth in the bay?

Sara’s birthday of September 16, 1971 was well-established amongst loyal fans for over a decade, based on these secondary sources, before apparently being overruled when the episode we shall not name (13x15) ran amok with it, only for it to be established by the CSI props department as canon in a later episode (and we’ll just ignore the completely nonsensical 13x15, or come up with completely ridiculous explanations for it like I did!).

Grissom’s birthday and hometown were both given on the show and are thus canon. His August 17, 1956 birthday came out in the Paul Millander storyline. His hometown was given to us by Hodges in “The Theory of Everything” (08x15): “In an interview in the San Francisco Chronicle—October 31, 1996, if I recall correctly—one Professor Gilbert Grissom revealed that, as a boy, he collected dead animals he found in his Marina del Rey neighborhood and performed necropsies on them.”

Now, @addictedtostorytelling’s meta will tell you that Grissom’s birthplace was always given in the secondary sources as Santa Monica. Santa Monica and Marina del Rey are located very close together in Los Angeles County, on the coast, separated only by Venice, California (where Grissom’s mom apparently had an art gallery). So it could be that the Grissoms moved when Gil was a young boy, or maybe he was born in a hospital in Santa Monica but the family was already living in Marina del Rey. (Wikipedia tells me that the current Marina del Rey hospital wasn’t constructed until 1969, after Grissom was born, but the Santa Monica hospital was founded in 1926.) I think I kind of absorbed the second option into my own headcanon, so to be more precise in my GIF-set I should have referred to Marina del Rey as his hometown, but to be perfectly honest I’ve been a little distracted and really wasn’t thinking about that distinction at the time!

Returning again to the main point . . . the information from these secondary sources isn’t strictly speaking canon, but it is the next best thing. It’s information that was provided by TPTB/the writers (the early writers! the ones who knew/developed our characters!). I would also assume it’s information that was provided to the actors as part of their characters’ backstories. So I take it as pretty persuasive, but you can decide for yourself how much (if any) of it you want to accept—just like canon itself, for that matter! 😉

While we’re here, though, can we just think for a minute about the fact that Sara was born exactly 15 years and 30 (i.e., 15x2) days after Grissom, they both have matching first and last initials (SS and GG), and they both have the middle initial “A.” I mean, these kids really were made for each other (literally)! 😜

Thank you for your question—I hope my answer was of some help! If you have any more questions, please let me know! 💛💛💛

#asked and answered #inutilidadesbytamara #my thoughts and feelings on the two lovely science nerds

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books-of-ochre · 7 months ago

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"The Vampire Chronicles is a series of gothic vampire novels and a media franchise, created by American writer Anne Rice, that revolves around the fictional character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman turned into a vampire in the 18th century." - Wikipedia

Note: Would highly recommend reading in order. First 3 books are great, but do not think you need to read all 13. I explain more at the end.

Interview with a Vampire (1976) Based on a short story Rice wrote around 1968, the novel centers on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, who tells the story of his life to a reporter.

Good Reads || My Rating: 5/5

The Vampire Lestat (1985) Lestat. The vampire hero of Anne Rice's enthralling new novel is a creature of the darkest and richest imagination. Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now a rock star in the demonic, shimmering 1980s, he rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his eternal, terrifying existence. His is a mesmerizing story --- passionate, complex, and thrilling.

Good Reads || My Rating: 5/5 (personal favorite)

The Queen of the Damned (1988) The rock star Vampire Lestat prepares for a concert in San Francisco, unaware that hundreds of vampires will be among the fans that night and that they are committed to destroying him for risking exposing them all. The sleep of a group of men and women, vampires and mortals, around the world is disturbed by a mysterious dream of red-haired twins who suffer an unspeakable tragedy. The dreamers, as if pulled, move toward each other, the nightmare becoming clearer the closer they get. Some die on the way, some live to face they terrifying fate their pilgrimage is building to. Lestat's journey to a cavern deep beneath a Greek Island on his quest for the origins of the vampire race awakened Akasha, Queen of the Damned and mother of all vampires, from her 6,000 year sleep. Awake and angry, Akasha plans to save mankind from itself by elevating herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of the gods. As these three threads wind seamlessly together, the origins and culture of vampires are revealed, as is the length and breadth of their effect on the mortal world. The threads are brought together in the twentieth century when the fate of the living and the living dead is rewritten.

Good Reads || My Rating: 5/5

The Tale of the Body Thief (1992) For centuries, Lestat—vampire-hero, enchanter, seducer of mortals—has been a courted prince in the dark and flourishing universe of the living dead. Now he is alone. And in his overwhelming need to destroy his doubts and his loneliness, Lestat embarks on the most dangerous enterprise he has undertaken in all the years of his haunted existence.

Good Reads || My Rating: 4/5

Memnoch the Devil (1995) In the fifth Vampire Chronicle, Lestat is searching for Dora, the beautiful and charismatic mortal daughter of a drug lord. Dora has moved Lestat like no other mortal ever has, and he cannot get her out of his visions. At the same time, he is increasingly aware that the Devil knows who he is and wants something from him. While torn betwen his vampire world and his passion for Dora, Lestat is sucked in by Memnoch, who claims to be the Devil himself. Memnoch presents Lestat with unimagined opportunities: to witness creation, to visit purgatory, to be treated like a prophet. Lestat faces a choice between the Devil or God. Whom does he believe in? Who does he serve? What are the element of religious belief? Lestat finds himself caught in a whirlpool of the ultimate choice.

Good Reads || My Rating: 3.5/5

The Vampire Armond (1998) Now, we go with Armand across the centuries to the Kiev Rus of his boyhood - a ruined city under Mongol dominion - and to ancient Constantinople, where Tartar raiders sell him into slavery. And in a magnificent palazzo in the Venice of the Renaissance we see him emotionally and intellectually in thrall to the great vampire Marius, who masquerades among humankind as a mysterious, reclusive painter and who will bestow upon Armand the gift of vampiric blood. As the novel races to its climax, moving through scenes of luxury and elegance, of ambush, fire, and devil worship to nineteenth-century Paris and today's New Orleans, we see its eternally vulnerable and romantic hero forced to choose between his twilight immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.

Good Reads || My Rating: 4/5

Merrick (2000) We again meet Louis, Lestat, and David. They are followed by the beautiful witch Merrick Mayfair, an offshoot of the Mayfair clan, with Julien Mayfair as one of her ancestors. She knew David when he was a mortal man working as a member of the Talamasca and it is through David that Louis seeks Merrick's help in resurrecting the spirit of Claudia.

Good Reads || My Rating: 2/5

Blood and Gold (2001) Here is the gorgeous and sinister story of Marius, patrician by birth, scholar by choice, one of the oldest vampires of them all, which sweeps from his genesis in ancient Rome, in the time of the Emperor Augustus, to his meeting in the present day with a creature of snow and ice. Thorne is a Northern vampire in search of Maharet, his 'maker', the ancient Egyptian vampire queen who holds him and others in thrall with chains made of her red hair, 'bound with steel and with her blood and gold'. When the Visigoths sack his city, Marius is there; with the resurgence of the glory that was Rome, he is there, still searching for his lost love Pandora, but bewitched in turn by Botticelli, the Renaissance beauty Bianca, with her sordid secrets, and the boy he calls Amadeo (otherwise known as the Vampire Armand). Criss-crossing through the stories of other vampires from Rice's glorious Pantheon of the undead, haunted by Pandora and by his alter ego Mael, tracked by the Talamasca, the tale of Marius, the self-styled guardian of 'those who must be kept' is the most wondrous and mind-blowing of them all.

Good Reads || My Rating: 3/5

Blackwood Farm (2002) Lestat is back, saviour and demon, presiding over a gothic story of family greed and hatred through generations, a terrifying drama of blood lust and betrayal, possession and matricide. Blackwood Farm with its grand Southern mansion, set among dark cypress swamps in Louisiana, harbours terrible blood-stained secrets and family ghosts. Heir to them all is Quinn Blackwood, young, rash and beautiful, himself a 'bloodhunter' whom Lestat takes under his wing. But Quinn is in thrall not only to the past and his own appetites but, even more dangerously, to a companion spirit, a 'goblin' succubus who could destroy him and others. Only the unearthly power of Lestat combined with the earthly powers of the Mayfair clan could hope to save Quinn from himself and his ghosts, or to rescue the doomed girl Quinn loves from her own mortality.

Good Reads || My Rating: 2/5

Blood Canticle (2003) Lestat is back with a vengeance and in thrall to Rowan Mayfair. Both demon and angel, he is drawn to kill but tempted by goodness as he moves among the pantheon of Anne Rice's unforgettable characters. Julien Mayfair, his tormentor; Rowan, witch and neurosurgeon, who attracts spirits to herself, casts spells on others and finds herself dangerously drawn to Lestat; Patsy, country and western singer, who was killed by Quinn Blackwood and dumped in a swamp; Ash Templeton, a 5,000 year old Taltos whose genes live on in the Mayfairs. Now, Lestat fights to save Patsy's ghost from the dark realms of the Earthbound, to uncover the mystery of the Taltos and to decide the fate of Rowan Mayfair.

Good Reads || My Rating: 1/5 (least favorite)

Prince Lestat (2014) The vampire world is in crisis – their kind have been proliferating out of control and, thanks to technologies undreamed of in previous centuries, they can communicate as never before. Roused from their earth-bound slumber, ancient ones are in thrall to the Voice: which commands that they burn fledgling vampires in cities from Paris to Mumbai, Hong Kong to Kyoto and San Francisco. Immolation, huge massacres, have commenced all over the world. Who – or what – is the Voice? What does it desire, and why? There is only one vampire, only one blood drinker, truly known to the entire world of the Undead. Will the dazzling hero-wanderer, the dangerous rebel-outlaw Lestat heed the call to unite the Children of Darkness as they face this new twilight?

Good Reads || My Rating: 2.5/5

Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016) The vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, hero, leader, inspirer, irresistible force, irrepressible spirit, battling (and ultimately reconciling with) a strange otherworldly form that has somehow taken possession of Lestat's undead body and soul. This ancient and mysterious power and unearthly spirit of vampire lore has all the force, history, and insidious reach of the unknowable Universe.

Good Reads || My Rating: 1/5 (this one is also pretty bad)

Blood Communion (2018) Lestat takes us from his ancestral castle in the snow-covered mountains of France to the verdant wilds of lush Louisiana, with its lingering fragrances of magnolias and night jasmine; from the far reaches of the Pacific’s untouched islands to the 18th-century city of St. Petersburg and the court of the Empress Catherine. He speaks of his fierce battle of wits and words with the mysterious Rhoshamandes, proud Child of the Millennia, reviled outcast for his senseless slaughter of the legendary ancient vampire Maharet, avowed enemy of Queen Akasha, who refuses to live in harmony at court and who threatens all Lestat has dreamt of....

Good Reads || My Rating: 2/5

Overall, my opinion of the series is that it went on for far too long. After Queen of the Damned, it should have ended, but instead we got 10 other books with varying levels of rereadablity. After Merrick, the quality that I usually see within Rice's work seemed to suddenly fade with each new book. Then we got to Blood Canticle and I wanted to give up. I ended up finishing the series to see if things go better. Unfortunately, they did not.

Anne Rice is an amazing writer, but like Stephen King, has misses within her discography. The Vampire Chronicles has always been hit or miss, with many loving and adoring the books, hating them, or somewhere in between. Personally, I am of the opinion that this series has very high highs and the lowest of lows, and its many faults are due to the author not knowing when enough is enough.

Series Rating: 3.8/5

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ghosts-and-blue-sweaters · 10 months ago

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tell me about finch I’m so curious (spoilers encouraged)

YOOOOOOOO

Okay, so Finch is a fairly recent movie set in a post-apocalyptic world that feels so real that it’s crazy. The main character is a man named Finch, who lives in a big laboratory-type building with his robot named Dewy and his dog named Goodyear (however, he just calls him Dog).

Early on, we see that Finch is busy building a new robot, who goes on to be named Jeff later :)

Also early on, Finch and his weirdo family are forced to leave their home because of Apocalypse Weather, and they all set off in an RV to San Francisco (which will hopefully be safer than where they are now). The movie chronicles their cross-country journey, which is just… aaaah :’D

It’s a very emotional movie. If I watched it on my own, I think I’d probably cry. The story, the characters, the moments, even the setting… it’s incredible. It’s sad and incredible and real and just good. Good good storytelling. If it was a book then I’d read the heck out of it.

JEFF’S EVOLUTION OHHHHHH I AM UNWELL!!! He starts off not knowing how to do anything, and as the movie goes on, Finch teaches him how to do things and gives him life lessons and tells him wise stories and even freaking teaches him to drive and… teaches Jeff to be human, really—even though Jeff isn’t human. Jeff’s journey is wrought with struggles and setbacks and loss and failure but still :’D :’D The human-ness!! The humanity!!

Overall, Finch is a very good movie and I’d highly recommend it!! There’s some swearing throughout, but nothing above an s-word or a b-word. There’s also some blood, and some suspenseful/violent scenes, but nothing too graphic! It’s PG-13 and I don’t think it needs anything higher :) As long as you’re alright with swearing and blood then it’ll be a breeze.

#ask #!!!

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peacockcanyon · 3 months ago

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Press Release

HEAD: INTRODUCING DR. LAUREL FISHBEAR

BODY COPY: A lifelong, registered independent voter, Laurel Fishbear is the CEO of Civil Society, a philanthropic organization that concentrates its efforts on climate action, income equality, reproductive rights, Native American rights, LGBTQIA rights, and libraries in the educational and municipal spheres.

Before she was a CEO, Dr. Fishbear was a musician. A classically trained flutist and singer, Dr. Fishbear's first paid gig was as a musician. She freelanced, as her school schedule allowed, throughout her teens and twenties, playing Broadway musicals, pop, country rock, Latin jazz, and music from the Great American Songbook.

She supplemented her earnings in various client service jobs for a decade before she landed her dream job as a copywriter for a major book publisher in 1987. For the next thirty-seven years, Dr. Fishbear worked as a copywriter and a marketing and branding specialist, authoring award-winning web content, print ads, press kits, fundraising materials, political action alerts, news articles, white papers, trade magazine pieces, and direct response packages.

Through it all, Dr. Fishbear found the time to get married, and study for the college degrees she eventually earned: a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology from Harvard University, in conjunction with Baylor University's Child Trauma Academy, and a Masters of Divinity in Biblical Ethics from Fordham University.

She had grown up in a working class family, and had joined the middle class as a woman with a career. But, in 2017, Dr. Fishbear's life changed dramatically when a benefactor she had never met willed her their considerable fortune.

Immediately, she set out to make ethical investments, and to make meaningful improvements on the issues that concerned her most. And so, Civil Society was born.

Today, Civil Society's holdings include C and H Sugar, Bethlehem Steel, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Martin's Press, Chronicle Books, Hillshire Farms, Waiohai Hotel, Baboy Club, and Villa del Sol.

The organization is working on ocean cleanup; eliminating slime pits like the one in Bhopal, India, left by the Union Carbide disaster; building the shade bank from coast to coast, restoring American farmland to American farmers; ensuring income equality by paying its workers a wage above and beyond a living wage, commensurate with their experience and expertise; upgrading security at Planned Parenthood facilities across the nation; standing with municipal and school libraries in censorship fights, and with the families disenfranchised by those campaigns to restore their parental and First Amendment rights.

Dr. Fishbear is especially involved in one division of Civil Society. She is the Program Director and occasional announcer for Wash Day Radio Network, which produces and broadcasts The Vote, Febrile Ohms, and The Free South.

In her personal life, Dr. Fishbear co-parents a sizable family of kids with seven other co-parents -- a group she affectionately calls, "an asexual polycule". She goes on to describe the family this way: "We eat together. We vacation together. Our kids study and attend school together. We read together, pray together, watch movies together, sing together, do chores together. Most of my co-parents work with me at Civil Society.

"Would you believe I'm an introvert?" she laughs.

Her alone time doesn't last, she adds. "I'm a voracious reader, and always have been. But, these days, all my book recommendations come from my family and friends. They'll ask, 'How was it', and suddenly, I'm standing up in class giving book reports again."

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lisamasonthewriter · 4 years ago

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New Review as of March, 2020! Summer of Love, A Philip K Dick Award Finalist, A San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book, Nominated for the Tiptree Award! In Print in Seven Countries, also an Ebook in Eighteen Markets Worldwide Lisa Mason #SFWApro #SFWAauthor #timetravel #1967 #thefarfuture #historicalfiction #teenagers #PKDAwardFinalist #sciencefiction #feministsciencefiction #feminist #mainstream #literature I’m so thrilled this book is back in print! And as timely as ever! Bast Books has reported that the print book and the ebook sold in the U.S., the U.K., France, and Germany last month.

#Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author #Philip K Dick Award Finalist #San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book #time travel to San Francisco

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unhinged-summer-fun · 3 years ago

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For a prompt may I request any Pedro character that strikes you and food as a love language? Cooking a nice dinner for a date or maybe cooking together? I’ll leave it in your capable hands. Which of them (if any) can cook?

This one.... got away from me. (3480 words) (yikes) Modern AU Chef!Din/Food Critic!Reader that had me yearning over my own words. thank you to @ezrasbirdie for talking me off the ledge on this one <3

8/30 prompts filled! 14 spots open. Keep sending me prompts!

“She did it again.”

“What?” Din asked, wrist-deep in green beans.

“She fucking tore Cloud City to shreds.”

“Who?”

Boba closed the Chronicle with a loud crumple of paper and leveled him with a glare that went ignored, like all other glares. “The most ruthless food critic in the city. She’s got a huge following, cult-like. Her standards are impeccably high in some places and nearly invisible in others. No one knows where her allegiances or tastes lie. And she just tore apart one of the most untouchable restaurants in San Francisco.”

Din shrugged and picked out an errant stem. “Maybe they had it coming.”

His aloof attitude about the culinary elite was always met with a frustrated sigh from Boba. Din had been Boba’s friend before he’d been Boba’s head chef, and he liked to keep their relationship in that order. Din had been cooking for about six years, working for Boba for two. He never went to culinary school, he was never trained overseas or by “the masters”. He couldn’t even boil water right at the beginning. Now, he was head chef of Firespray, a reinvented restaurant that serves homemade meals repackaged to look gourmet.

Din set aside the bowl of beans to look at Boba, keeping his hands in the air so he wouldn’t have to wash them again. “What was she complaining about?”

The paper rattled as Boba hunted for the column again. “While I have to give high marks for service and atmosphere (with great reluctance) there was nothing that set Cloud City apart from any other white-cloth eatery found fifty floors below it. Chicken was chicken, salads were the same San Francisco brand of overcomplicated, and the upsetting amount of garnish left actual food to be desired. If you’re looking for somewhere to recommend to your enemies, this is the place.”

Din barked a laugh, surprised at how affected he was by the words. “She’s funny,” he admitted. “People like funny.”

“Businesses don’t like funny. A few months ago she said a fusion joint was better off as a soup kitchen, and it folded and became just that in weeks!”

“But is it a successful soup kitchen?”

Boba groaned and crumpled the paper in his hands, leaving the kitchen. Din had a smile on his face as he finished prep for the evening.

Din answered the phone at two in the morning, groggy and unfocused. “Yeah?”

“She’s coming. She’s booked a table every night for a week.” Boba sounded harried, and stressed. It worried Din.

“Who?”

“The critic. We’re doomed.”

Din frowned. “I think we’ll be okay. We make good food.”

“What if she hates it?”

“I don’t tend to dwell on those things.”

But Din was dwelling on those things. The waitstaff, the kitchen crew, even the dishwashers were tense on the first day of her reservations. It was a Sunday, and Din had made a few berry cobblers earlier in the day for dessert on the pre-fix. He had the feeling she wasn’t going to go for the pre-fix. The restaurant staff held their breath as one as the critic walked across the dining room to her table, a choice seat overlooking the bay from the wide windows.

She carried no notebook or tablet to write on. Her hair was back in a simple style, and her clothes weren’t flashy; they carried no ego. She had a calm expression on her face, and she even smiled at the waiter whose hands were shaking as they handed her the menu.

Din had no breath left to hold, not after she had taken it from him.

It was like the other people, the furniture, the distance was gone between him and her. His shoulders relaxed for the first time all night, and he took a deep breath, sighing dreamily. His sous chef, Fennec, snapped her fingers in front of his face. “There are other tickets too, Djarin.”

“Great.”

He tried to concentrate as best he could but found he couldn’t stop looking over at her from the pass, standing on tip-toes to catch a glance. At one point, Boba went over to introduce himself, and she was very polite and kind. It left the owner with a slightly baffled expression. How could one with such vitriol in their column be so… nice? Din shook his head and got back to work.

When her ticket came in, he took a moment to study it before sharing it with the rest of the stations. Potato puree with gravy, green bean medley, cranberry glazed turkey, pasta dish of the day.

The cobbler isn’t going to cut it.

“I have to make a pie.”

Din dropped the ticket, oblivious to the tense silence that pervaded the air. Fennec took the helm, shouting out the order and not even needing to say who it was for. Service resumed, but Din needed the prep room. He was doing math calculations in his head as he portioned out flour and vodka and butter and salt, making a whirlwind on the workbench as he threw together a rough pie dough in no time flat.

Boba poked his head in. “What the fuck are you doing?!” he hissed.

“I have to make a pie, she ordered an a la carte thanksgiving meal.”

“It still sounds so weird to hear you speak French. What do you need?”

“Canned pumpkin.”

“We have fresh—”

“No. Canned.”

You could feel eyes on you everywhere. The other diners surely knew what was happening, who you were. The waiters were falling over themselves and practically refilling your glass every time you took a sip. You thought it unfair, to receive preferential treatment like this. Should have just ordered to-go and saved everyone the grief.

When the first dish came out, the potatoes, you couldn’t help but smile at the artistic swirl in the center. You just hoped they tasted alright, and not like the “potatoes” from last week that were clearly parsnips. When you took a bite, you expected your senses to tell you everything about it, the infusions, the secret ingredients, but…

Your mind was blank, except for one word.

More.

You took another bite, and another, and before you knew it, everything was gone on the small plate besides the last bit of gravy. Still, your mind wanted more. You looked at your plate with confusion, why wasn’t there more?

“May I take this, ma’am?” the waiter asked.

“I…” you blinked, looking around. Oh right. You’re in public. You’re… you’re… “Yes, thank you.”

“The next plate will be right out.”

“Of course.”

The green beans were covered in an oniony, mushroomy sauce that should have been an unappetizing shade of gray, but once again, on first bite, you felt your mind go blank, checking out of the usual checklist you had when reviewing a restaurant for the first time. You even ignored the eyes on you, something hard to forget in your line of work.

The turkey and the pasta (a very glorified and overly-fancy but mind-numbingly delicious macaroni casserole) came and went and you had no thoughts besides more again.

When the owner returned, he had his sleeves rolled, hands freshly washed. “If you’d allow us, our head chef has made a dessert especially for you tonight.”

You were incapable of being embarrassed of how fast you nodded to the unspoken question.

A single, perfect slice of pumpkin pie, orange as the sunset and topped with a very fussy decoration of whipped cream, appeared before you, and you stared at it thoughtfully, wondering how it worked with the rest of the food before—oh, fuck it. You started eating it without a single concern in your head.

When it was gone, and you had nothing left but your wine glass, you sat back, pleasantly full and satisfied for the first time in your life. You felt yourself choking up, and you had to blink a couple times just to keep control over yourself. But this food had a hold on you. It was magical, it was otherworldly and yet so familiar. It felt… it made you feel. So much more than the other snooty places you’ve eaten. You downed the rest of the wine and asked politely for the check, keeping your composure until you reached the elevator, where you promptly burst into tears.

“One night down,” Boba said, smoking on the roof. Din didn’t partake, but he did doodle a little on a notebook. Things were dying down across the board: his nerves, the anxious energy in the restaurant, the service, the buzz. All that was left was the memory of seeing her smile through her entire meal.

“Did she say anything about the food?”

“She didn’t say a thing,” Boba said gravely.

“I think that’s a good sign, in her line of work.”

Boba prattled on about how he was ruined and his father’s restaurant was going to close because of his son’s incompetence, but Din tuned his dramatics out. He was thinking of pot roast.

You returned with your head on straight. So you thought. The battlefield of the dining room still looked the same, and you were seated at the same table by the same waiter. You appreciated the familiarity, because you were handed an updated menu with a completely different spread.

“Is this new today?”

“This morning, ma’am.”

“Hm,�� you said, reading it over. It read like a romance novel, thrilling and exciting at every corner. Nothing too daring to shake you off. “I’m… you’ve tried this menu right?” you asked.

“I-I yes, of course. Just before service.” The waiter sweated a lot.

“Did you like it?”

“I… yes?”

You gave them a look. “Did you like it?”

They blanched. “I could have done without the risotto. It was alright on its own, but… yeah, unnecessary.”

“I was thinking the same. Well. Will you put it to the chef’s discretion? Except the risotto.”

“What’s wrong with my risotto?” Cobb whined from the walk-in. The huddle was going terribly, everyone throwing out suggestions from culinary masterpieces to straight-up poisoning her. Din pinched his nose.

“There’s nothing wrong with your risotto, she just doesn’t want it tonight.”

Cobb still pouted and put his hands on his hips, chaos ensuing once more to fill the silence.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Fennec asked, a curious look on her face. She spoke a little quieter, more to him than at him like everyone else. Din looked over and sighed.

“I’ll let you know when I finish it. HEY.” Attention was on him instantly. “I’m going to cook her meals. You all need to step up and work your stations, work the other tickets, as if I’m not even there. That’s what I need you to do, got it?”

“Oui, chef!”

“No, me chef,” he answered, as usual.

There was commotion in the kitchen, you could tell. You didn’t usually let yourself rubberneck at things (bad for already-bad city traffic) but there seemed to be some kind of insane fervor happening beyond the pass. You watched with interest and amusement as other plates flew off the line.

The door to the kitchen opened, revealing a man in chef whites and black pants striding toward you with a plate in hand. He was handsome, eyes dark and intense and his silver-speckled brown hair sitting in floppy curls around his forehead. He strode to you with purpose, and the racing in your heart only worsened when he stopped at your side.

“Hi,” he said, blinking down at you.

“Hi,” you returned. After a long silence where he didn’t move or speak, you asked, “Is that for me?”

“Oh. Yes.”

He set down a plate of carrots and sweet potatoes, delightfully orange and glistening with whatever he’d cooked them in. They smelled divine, and almost locked you into a foodie tunnel-vision before you realized he was still there.

“You said at my discretion, so I… hope you like my discretion.”

You were charmed by his awkwardness, manifested not by shuffling feet or fidgeting, but by a light blush over his face. You smiled softly at him, forgetting that for all intents, you should not have liked one another. He should not be this nice for you. And you should not be enjoying this.

“Thank you, I’m sure I will.”

With that, he turned heel and left, though you could see his floppy curls peeking out over the pass, watching your reaction. You felt nervous butterflies in your gut as you took that first forkful to your lips.

Buttery. Soft. Fresh. More.

The veggies were gone in a matter of minutes, replaced by a quirky trio of fan rolls and compound butter. Once again, this was brought to you from the hand of the chef himself, and you blushed as he took the plate from you in one of his unfairly huge hands. “What’s your name?” you asked, before he set down the rolls.

“Din. Din Djarin.”

“Din Djarin. Thank you Din Djarin.”

He left. You ate. He returned, with pot roast in a demiglace on a bed of tightly-formed, fried scalloped potatoes. They were soaking in the demiglace for only a minute, but each bite had you nearly physically holding back moans. You’d never felt so at home in public.

He left, you watched him go. You ate, glancing at the floppy curls at the pass. Your mind was distracted, pulled to him and pulled toward your plate. As a rule, you almost never elected to meet the chef who cooked for you when you were on the job. But here you were, breaking every rule you ever had.

He returned with two plates for dessert.

“This is the berry cobbler we had yesterday, I still would like you to try it. I think it tastes better as leftovers.”

“If that’s your discretion, Din Djarin.”

“It is. Mind if I join you?”

You ate mostly in silence. Despite his very obvious peeking from before, he kept his eyes on his plate while he ate, probably out of respect and manners. When you were finished, you looked around, that choked-up feeling in your chest again. Oh no, you had to leave, now. You couldn’t cry in front of him, not over how amazing his food was. You looked out over the bay.

“You’re quiet,” he observed after he’d finished his own plate.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“Quiet diners are a sign of excellent food. Loud diners are a sign of excellent company.”

“I could be louder.”

“I don’t need you to be.”

He blushed at your conviction, and his expression turned to concern when he saw your eyes welled up with tears. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” you whispered, looking down. “Please don’t worry about me.”

“I’m not fishing for praise here, but if my food made you cry, I want to know if it’s good or bad.”

“I told you not to worry about me,” you said, laughing and making a tear fall off your lashes. It dropped onto the porcelain with a small pling!

“Do you not like to cry?” he asked. It wasn’t the question you were expecting.

“I… I don’t know how to answer that, really.”

“Maybe tell me tomorrow.”

He stood, collected the plates, thanked you, and left.

Days three and four passed in another romantic, delicious blur. You could hardly remember the mouthfeel, the plating, anything about what you ate besides the feeling you had when you finished, like there had been a hole in your chest now filled by chocolate ganache, seared buttered scallops, steak with chimichurri, soft boiled eggs, pancakes of all things, char siu bao, kimchi, lobster rangoons, and the most sublime wine pairings you’d ever sipped in your life. You never wanted to eat anywhere else, which made your gut drop with despair as you rode the elevator to your fifth and last reservation of the week: the chef’s table.

Your readership wouldn’t understand if you tried to put it into words for them. They’d see you change from scathing and angry to fawning and praising and think it was a fluke, a ploy, some kind of paid deal with Firespray. How could you put it into a column that your entire life had changed over the course of four dinners? What the fuck was the fifth one going to hold?

As the waiter led you to the kitchen, you felt like you were a lamb walking to slaughter. Did the end of your career as a food critic begin where your affection for Din had manifested?

You were given water and a cocktail from the bar, and you took the moment to watch over the calm in the kitchen. They were used to you by now. You suspected they also had nothing to do with your meals, so that took some of the anxiety away. Where was your chef?

A woman in a black chef’s jacket came up to your table, her hair in a severely complicated braid over her shoulder. “Good evening. My name is Fennec and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.” She offered you a pause, allowing you to ask—

“Is Din not here tonight?”

“I’m here, sorry I’m late.”

You looked up to see Din dressed in slacks of all things, unbuttoning a black sportcoat as he took a seat in the booth alongside you. You looked at him in bewilderment for a moment, wondering what he was doing here, and not on the line. He picked up the menu before putting it down.

“Wow us, would you?” he asked Fennec.

“Such tall orders,” she smirked back at him, before taking your menus and disappearing around the corner.

“What are you doing?” you asked, curious and maybe a little bit scandalized.

“I never really liked surprises. I want to hear your thoughts on the food. And I also want to take you on a date. Two birds, and all that.” He casually slung his arm over the back of the booth, and your eyes widened. “I designed that cocktail. Hope you like lime.”

“I… do…” you looked at him curiously. “You want to take me on a date? Wait, what do you mean surprises? I’m not surprising you, you’re surprising me.”

Din pushed a hand through his hair, an unhelpful motion, seeing as his hair flopped back into place almost instantly. “To be honest with you, I never really gave critics much attention before you. No offense. They kinda pissed me off. They would drop the name of their publication and expect comped-this and comped-that and they’d treat the staff like shit. You took me off guard. You made me laugh, the first time I read your article about Cloud City. It actually made me laugh every time I read that article.”

You were blushing furiously. You never discussed work with those in the industry. You were mostly left alone as an editorial food critic, dropping reviews when you had content.

“And you came into the dining room Sunday and you were… kind. You were nice. I think you scared everyone a bit. That’s okay, though. I do that too sometimes. People like to say I’m—”

“Intense,” you said breathlessly.

He looked up at you. “Yeah.” You felt like the happiest butterfly to be pinned in place. “So when I saw you eating what we’d made for you, I had to know what it was like to be the only one who cooked for you. I had to know. And I saw you stare at the plate under that pumpkin pie like it had personally wronged you by being empty. I’ve never felt like this for anyone I’ve cooked for, except maybe my son.”

“You have a son.”

“I do. He’s almost four, but he’s grouchy enough to be fifty-four some days. The point is… I wasn’t going to let you slip away without uncovering the surprise, the mystery. I want to know you better, I want to share meals with you. I want to know your thoughts and laugh at your jokes. I want to cook and make you cry from what I make. If that’s all too much, please let me know now, and don’t let it be a surprise when you publish.”

You held your breath, looking at him as you willed your thoughts to return. But they’d all gone out the window, like they had when you’d had that first bite of potato puree on Sunday. He was looking at you expectantly, but patiently. He would wait for your answer.

SF Chronicle - Food - Best East Bay Food & Drink

Diamond of San Francisco Firespray flourishes in the rough - Review

I’ve rewritten this intro a hundred times and I can’t put it into words that fully encompass how the experience at Firespray makes me feel. And it’s my job to fully encompass restaurants with words. So I’ll leave you with the following:

Unforgettable.

#unhingery #din djarin x reader #f!reader #din djarin/reader #30 for 300

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seven-saffodils · 2 years ago

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photo credit: Peter Breinig, The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965

I'm so pumped, my friend Stella Levy (top row, left) is going to be in a book! She'd managed to hold her own in the male-dominated Bay Area beat scene, becoming an editorial assistant at City Lights Bookstore and paving the way for other women involved in the counterculture. (You may recognize City Lights or its owner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, because they were instrumental in publishing and distributing "Howl", Allen Ginsberg's transgressive, anti-capitalist poem whose graphic depictions of queer and straight sex led to an obscenity trial. Ginsberg and his partner are also pictured here.)

And yet, despite the countercultural mindset that drove City Lights, this famous photo of its big personalities only has one woman. Stella isn't sure if other women had been invited and had scheduling conflicts, but it would take a pretty big coincidence to account for the total lack of gender parity in the photo.

Documentary filmmaker Immy Humes recently began to wonder what it was like to be the only woman included in iconic photos like this. What would go through your head? How did these women get to where they were? So she's compiled iconic photos with only one woman into a book, and tracked down these women to hear more of their side of the story. If this sounds like something you'd want to read, The Only Woman is available for pre-order and will come out in August! And you might be able to recommend it to your local library once it's out.

#feminism #beat poetry #allen ginsberg #city lights bookstore #beat generation #lawrence ferlinghetti #beatnik #counterculture #60s

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tomorrowusa · 3 years ago

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Racists don’t want people to think there’s ever been racism in the US. They may be thinking that if there was never any racism then nobody can call them racists.

There are some people who would like to take American education back to the mid-1950s when a bizarrely sugarcoated version of slavery was being taught in US schools. That started to change in 1956 when the book "The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South" by historian Kenneth Stampp was published.

In a 2009 obituary, the San Francisco Chronicle described the impact of Prof. Stampp’s work.

The groundbreaking work he did a half-century ago is still regarded as the definitive explanation of why the Civil War was necessary to right the most rancid wrong in America's history.

"If I were to pick any book today on slavery, I would still recommend 'The Peculiar Institution' before any others," said Leon Litwack, a Pulitzer Prize-winning UC Berkeley history professor emeritus. "It's the best one-volume study of slavery in existence.

"After Kenneth Stampp's book came out, the voices of slaves could no longer be denied. He made a huge difference."

[ ... ]

When his book "The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South" came out, the common version of the history of slavery was embodied in tomes such as 1930's "Growth of the American Public" - which contended that African Americans were inferior creatures happy to be cared for by white masters. Keeping slaves, the thinking went, maintained a genteel racial harmony, rendering the practice as much a public good as it was a business.

Through meticulous research, Mr. Stampp showed that slaves were in fact so miserable they waged covert rebellion by deliberately slowing their work paces and destroying tools. He also showed that slavery itself - dubbed "the peculiar institution" by plantation owners - was mostly motivated by the whopping profits it produced.

"It's amazing," said Litwack. "Look at any textbook prior to 1960, and you'll find the common 'plantation myth.' With Kenneth Stampp's book, for the first time we were able to look through the eyes of slaves, rather than the owners.

So maybe the far-right historical revisionists will try to ban Stampp’s 65-year-old book or claim it was written by socialist RINOs or Hillary.

This attempt to whitewash history by the racist far-right is nothing short of censorship and should be treated as such.

There should be public readings of The Peculiar Institution in states or school districts trying to repress the truth in order to symbolize that we’re not returning to a pre-1956 narrative where Southern slave owners were given mulligans by writers of history textbooks.

#censorship #historical revisionism #republicans #the far right #slavery #the antebellum south #racism #us history #kenneth stampp #the peculiar institution #mike luckovich

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a-sleepy-reader · 4 years ago

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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: an Analysis and Review

Foreword

Trigger warning for themes of paedophilia, sexual assault, stillbirth, manipulation, violence, and tragedy as well as gruesome descriptions of death. If you want a review free of spoilers, please scroll to the section labelled ‘Conclusion/Review without spoilers.’

Introduction

Calling Lolita a controversial novel is a safe bet. Some readers revolt at its topic, others still protest it as the inspirational romance of the century. Both give Lolita a bad name. I will say it once very clearly; plot-wise, Lolita is a book about a paedophile who grooms, manipulates, isolates, and rapes a twelve year old girl. It is disturbing subject material to say the least, subject material that has to be given more thought than its protagonist’s ramblings of adoration for the book’s namesake.

For instance, despite its fluctuating reputation, Lolita has found itself to be a playful and humorous novel to many, a “...comedy of horrors” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. So what is Lolita, exactly? A comedy? A thriller? Both? It is time to examine this twisted novel and see just how tangled its thorns are.

Plot synopsis

Humbert Humbert is a typical man by most standards: a handsome, French writer and professor with a soft spot for road trips… and little girls.

Humbert categorises the sexes into the male, the female, and the nymphet, the latter of which describes peculiar young girls Humbert feels an intangible attraction to. It is with such a nymphet that Humbert self-describingly falls in love with; rambunctious twelve-year-old Dolores(whom he dons ‘Lolita). He cannot keep his mind off of her; ‘light of my life, fire of my loins.’ In however poetic a prose he may choose to describe it, Humbert feels a physical bond to young Dolores like to no one else since his dead childhood sweetheart. Humbert goes so far to pursue the girl that he marries her mother, whom he plots to drown in the blue depths of a lake to have Dolores all to himself. However, what Humbert describes as a work of fate led to the day Dolores’ mother’s brain lay strewn about the road, smeared by an incoming car. She didn’t need to be subject to Humbert’s schemes to die.

From there on, Humbert has legal custody over the twelve-year-old fire of his loins. Raping Dolores becomes a routine. Though she does initially say yes, she is a minor incapable of consent in the imbalance of a grown man with everything to lose if she is to either escape or stop the affair; she will lose her only family if she reports him, and risks breaking his heart if she cuts off the affair altogether-unfortunates only know what people do when they have nothing to lose. Orphaned and trapped, Lolita agrees to Humbert’s ‘love.’ As he described it, ‘she had nowhere else to go.’

Two years pass before Dolores falls ill during their second road trip and is taken out of the hospital by an uncle aware of Humbert’s affairs. By way of escaping with this newfound relative, Dolores is finally free from Humbert’s possessive grasp. Depressed by his separation from the girl, Humbert lives a miserable life for several years before receiving a letter from Dolores herself saying she is married and pregnant. Though Humbert suspects the man behind both titles is her own uncle, Dolores refutes this by saying that, though she was in love with him, they did not settle because she refused to be in his pornographic film.

Enraged with the uncle, Humbert arrives at Dolores’ uncle’s house and murders him before being arrested. It is here that we learn Lolita is Humbert’s autobiography of the events surrounding his ‘love’ for the book’s namesake. Though he wishes for the girl-turned-woman to live for a great many years, the victim, escapee, and survivor dies in 1952 during childbirth. Her offspring is a stillborn.

Analysis

It’s a curious thing, really. That so many interpret Lolita as a romance, I mean. Of course, it often presents itself in its writing as a summery romance to read on the beach. A handsome man meets a female. An attraction is felt. Male and female confess an attraction for one another which leads them on a series of road trips following the female’s mother’s incidental death. The language is no exception to this tone-just read the first paragraph:

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”

It’s made up of beautiful, flowery sentences, language suggestive of the pure romance of a man ‘in love.’ With a twelve year old girl he rapes. Yes, Lolita is one of those novels that wears many outfits, its outermost lining being that of a tragic love story of one traumatised man and his ungrateful lover. This perspective is especially interesting when taking into account Lolita’s exquisite writing; could the flowery language have prompted so many to interpret this book as a romance? Could Lolita be representative of how so many wield words to distract or deceive those trying their best to disapprove of them? Either way, few deny that Humbert is lying, to himself or to the reader, of exactly how the events of his fascination with Dolores occurred. Digging further into the book, Lolita becomes an unreliable narrator’s documentation of the rape and manipulation directed toward a naive minor trying to cope with her mother’s death. Further still, it is a comedic satire of a paedophile’s attempts to justify his crimes... and failing miserably. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I wasn’t even her first lover.” Deeper still and it’s one man’s search for his childhood sweetheart(dearest and deadest) he never finished loving, so he seeks, endlessly, to shower her lookalikes with unwanted ‘love.’ Without end. Without fulfilment.

Lolita is a story of infinite stories.

Review

What first struck me about Lolita was its beautiful writing; its eloquent prose, imagery, and metaphors hopelessly hooked me from the first paragraph. Nabokov never ceases to use amazing similes, description, and personification to amplify the reader’s experience of the goings-on of Humbert and the girl. This is especially striking in contrast to its tragic subject material; Humbert will rape, and he will manipulate, and he will scheme a murder, and he will hurt so many innocent lives, but he will do so with seemingly effortless grace in the scribbles on a paper.

Despite this, I did not find Lolita to be a difficult read regarding comprehension of the text. True, many a word I did not understand, but, despite this, I could always tell what was being communicated; the language is certainly not as dated as Hemingway nor Shakespeare. It may even be a calming read for those with a strong stomach, and will certainly teach a thing or two to those wishing to learn more about poetic writing styles done well.

Some may find the book to be lacking in terms of plot and overall excitement, but I feel this is a subjective view rather than a relatively factual one; Lolita is not an action book. Nor is it a drama. Humbert sometimes spends pages describing the exact locations of a road trip, or exactly how he earned money in the 50’s, and so forth. Some may find this mundane; I will admit that I was, at times, bored by it myself. However, what Nabokov sacrifices in brevity he makes up for with a profound understanding of Humbert’s emotions, environment, and thoughts.

One slight criticism I do, however, have, is that I found all of the characters in Lolita were fairly bland for me. True, Humbert is unique in his attempt to beautify the macabre, but beyond the initial shock factor of his morale and the revelation that he is seeking the love of a girlfriend from his childhood, Humbert can be mostly summarised as ‘quiet, manipulative, scheming, and possessive of Dolores.’ I was not invested in him as a character, probably due to a lack of good qualities within him; it is true that by one perspective, his story can be interpreted as tragic for him, though through the more common lens of Lolita being a 336-page manipulation of the severity of the atrocities of an evil man, Humbert loses all good qualities beyond his capabilities as a writer.

The same goes for Dolores herself, as I found her to be fairly two-dimensional; she is very sensory and seeks goods of food and adventure and she has a rambunctious heart unconcerned with how others’ feel nor how others perceive her. She is what many would call a ‘wild child,’ and though she becomes more withdrawn later in the book due to the numerous abuses she endured, I did not see much depth to her beyond face value.

That being said, I certainly do not think the characters are bad, just that they are underwhelming in comparison to the rest of the story.

I recommend Lolita to those enthralled by character-driven stories of nuanced emotions and traumas, a sort of story of the broken attempting to break the whole. If you are not put off by very thorough descriptions nor by a purposefully thin plot, I have the impression Lolita will revolt, horrify, hypnotise, and seduce its readers into its soft, macabre pages.

I give Lolita a rating of 90%.

Conclusion/Review without spoilers

Lolita is a vile, endlessly layered story of trauma and the endless search for lost love, horrific abuses, of humorous wit and smirking irony, and of one man’s endless destiny of deceit. I suppose Humbert’s own initials best summarise the smile and wink this book will deliver as you holler at Humbert, weep for Dolores, or perhaps even vice versa. They do say Russians are witty, and Nabokov does not fail this reputation even when we analyse how Humbert Humbert’s initials sound in the author’s native language:

Ha-ha.

#literature #books #classics #book review

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citylightsbooks · 4 years ago

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5 Questions with Joshua Mohr, Author of Model Citizen

Joshua Mohr is the author of the memoir (2017), as well as five novels including Damascus, which the New York Times called "Beat-poet cool." He's also written Fight Song and Some Things That Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine's Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, as well as Termite Parade, an Editors' Choice in the New York Times. His novel All This Life won the Northern California Book Award. He is the founder of Decant Editorial.

Joshua Mohr is in conversation with Lidia Yuknavitch celebrating the launch of his brand new book Model Citizen: A Memoir (published by MCD/FSG) in our City Lights LIVE! discussion series on Tuesday, March 9th

****

Where are you writing to us from?

I'm in Seattle, which is farther away from City Lights than I'm used to being. I miss the days when I could walk to the store from my apartment in the Mission District. I love you guys but walking from Seattle is just too much. No offense.

What’s kept you sane during the pandemic?

I've found the pandemic a fertile time creatively. I've been making art like my ass is on fire! I know artists feeling paralyzed with all the existential unease, but in my sick brain, all this chaos gets my imagination and work ethic firing on all cylinders. The old axiom is "Write what you know," and I'd add this: write what you know, but not what you understand. Write into your confusion. Write into the moral mud of being alive. That was my mantra while scribbling Model Citizen.

What are 3 books you always recommend to people?

Well, I'm doing this City Lights event with Aunty Lidia, and I put The Chronology of Water: A Memoir into people's hands all the time. I've probably bought fifty copies of that book to pass around! Others I recommend frequently: We the Animals by Justin Torres and Another Country by James Baldwin.

Which writers, artists, and others influence your work in general, and this book, specifically?

For this one, I did my best to channel Sam Shepard. He's a huge influence on me and, in this context, I'm specifically thinking of his elegiac last little book, Spy of the First Person. Sam was dying and there's this thrilling and awful and beautiful alchemy of him knowing about his imminent death and imbuing the book with, for lack of a better phrase, a parade of pre-ghosts. It's haunting, in the best way. It feels like he's whispering the work right in your ear, and the best memoirs read that intimately.

If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?

Do you know I have the City Lights logo tattooed on my arm? You guys are my bookstore, and you're located in the perfect spot. The best-seller, then, should be HOWL and Other Poems. I believe in the knowledge transfer and City Lights has done so much for San Francisco. So let's keep writing stories about our fair city, shall we?

#5questions #JoshuaMohr #ModelCitizen #Nonfiction #Memoir #City Lights #LidiaYuknavitch #MCD/FSG

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tabloidtoc · 4 years ago

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Globe, January 4

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Ghislaine Maxwell buying her way out of prison

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Gavin Rossdale playing tennis with his pup Chewy, Brooke Burke holding holiday balls topless, James Franco takes his cellphone into the sea

Page 3: Leighton Meester surfing in Malibu, Robbie Williams, Lisa Rinna wearing two masks

Page 4: Angelina Jolie is bracing for major humiliation after being dragged into Johnny Depp’s latest legal showdown with ex-wife Amber Heard -- Angie’s run-ins with Johnny who she starred with in 2010′s The Tourist are coming under intense scrutiny as Depp gears for a second court battle with Amber -- Angie and Johnny were so coy about their white-hot connection at the time even though their romance was an open secret but they got lucky because nobody had the smoking gun to prove it but now it’ll all come out in the open -- at the time Johnny was still dating Vanessa Paradis while Angie was five years into her doomed love-in with Brad Pitt -- there’s talk bisexual Amber was kind of obsessed with Angie so Angie is central to the plotline whether she likes it or not

Page 5: The Bachelor host Chris Harrison is worried he’ll follow Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron out the door -- both these shows have been on TV forever and the world has changed around them and to keep up with Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement changes are being discussed and that’s left Chris fearing he’ll be the next Tom Bergeron and replaced by a woman of color

Page 6: Aging divas Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton are caught in a bitter country catfight and long-dead Patsy Cline is the excuse -- although there’s been little love lost between the Nashville icons for nearly 50 years their simmering feud exploded weeks ago when Dolly apparently took some veiled public shots at Loretta’s BFF Patsy who was horribly disfigured in a car wreck two years before dying in a 1963 plane crash -- in an interview Dolly recalled standing in the wings of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry at age 13 and watching Patsy perform and she remembered thinking about how awful it was that she got her pretty face scarred up like that -- Loretta was fit to be tied over the comments Dolly made about her old pal and thinks Dolly should stop running her mouth about Nashville legends like Patsy and Johnny Cash -- Dolly’s heard about Loretta’s complaints through the grapevine and brushes them off as quarantine boredom mixed with old age

Page 8: Blake Shelton’s going bonkers after fiancee Gwen Stefani told him she wants to skip the mega-million star-studded wedding shindig he’s been planning and elope -- Blake is all bent out of shape over Gwen’s latest switcheroo which calls for them to get hitched on the sly at a Mexican resort and she’s got him so mixed up he can’t think straight because for the longest time she wanted the Hollywood-style wedding with all the bells and whistles and was very particular about details but now she’s telling him to ditch those plans which have already cost them a small fortune and book a trip somewhere exotic so they can just just get it over with -- Gwen wants to elope so they can hitched at the Riviera Maya resort in Cancun where they could swap vows on the beach witnessed by her three sons and Blake has no choice but to give in to Gwen and he’s saying he’s fine with it as long as she’s sure this time

Page 9: Hollywood horndog John Mayer is back sniffing around old flame Jennifer Aniston after his mom gave him a shove -- John and Jen had a steamy fling for about a year before he dropped her in 2009 and now John’s mom Margaret Meyer is scolding him for letting Jen go and John’s mom is always on him about settling down and she feels that at 43 he should be married and she recently had a heart-to-heart talk with him and told him she thought Jennifer was the most down-to-earth of all his exes and because John considers his mom one of the smartest people he knows he decided to reach out to Jen and he’s always admired Jen and thought of her as a classy lady and now he’s reaching out to her again in hopes of getting her to agree to see him again once things leave lockdown

* FKA Twigs has socked actor Shia LaBeouf with a bombshell lawsuit claiming he subjected her to relentless physical, emotional and mental abuse and gave her an STD and she also accuses him of sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress -- although Shia says she’s lying Twigs insists Shia once choked her in the middle of the night and kept a loaded firearm by the bed leaving her terrified to get up at night for fear he’d think she was an intruder and shoot her -- she claims during an incident around Valentine’s Day 2019 Shia threatened to crash his speeding car unless she professed her love for him so when he pulled into a gas station she got out of the car but he threw her against the car while screaming in her face then forced her back into the car -- Shia also had rules about how often Twigs had to kiss and touch him -- Shia has been arrested several times on now-dismissed charges including assault and disorderly conduct

Page 10: John Lennon didn’t have to die -- that’s law enforcement experts’ explosive analysis after reviewing newly discovered evidence about the Beatles legend’s December 8, 1980 murder in NYC -- an odd series of coincidences and simple decisions put Lennon and his killer Mark David Chapman in the same place at the same time -- a review of the details concludes Lennon’s death was a strange result of flukes including his penchant for running around without protection and a missed appointment with his photographer and without these quirks of fate John would still be alive and recording hit songs

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Pink flashes her bandaged thumb after getting stitches in Santa Monica (picture), Amanda Seyfried confesses she made a terrible decision for turning down the role of a lifetime as Chris Pratt’s love interest in Guardians of the Galaxy and now she’s watching from the sidelines as the director’s second choice Zoe Saldana skyrockets in the money-making Marvel franchise, Katherine Heigl will star in the upcoming limited biopic series Woodhull about Victoria Woodhull the first woman to run for president in 1872, Big Brother alum Zach Rance has come out as bisexual after admitting a sizzling same-sex romance with his former reality show housemate Frankie Grande who is the real-life older brother of pop star Ariana Grande

Page 13: Jaime King slurps down a meal on the streets on L.A. (picture), Jax Taylor mowing the lawn (picture), Guns N’ Roses axman Slash loads up on supplies at an L.A. grocery (picture), former teen heartthrob Chad Michael Murray admits his inflated young ego got the best of him and now he looks at photos of himself and thinks what a dweeb

Page 14: Julia Roberts is headed for the small screen headlining the limited TV series The Last Thing He Told Me where she’ll form an unexpected relationship with her teenage stepdaughter while searching for the truth about her husband’s mysterious disappearance, Emma Stone is also heading for the flat-screen in the comedy series The Curse alongside Nathan Fielder about a couple starring on an HGTV-style show who are trying to conceive a child amid an alleged curse, Nicolas Cage is hosting a new series called The History of Swear Words in which he’ll delve into the origins and pop culture usage and science and cultural impact of profanely shocking expletives

* Fashion Police -- Peyton List 8/10, Sofia Carson 9/10, Vanessa Hudgens 2/10, Neve Campbell 1/10, Chelsea Handler 4/10

Page 16: Cover Story -- Jeffrey Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell’s $30M jail break -- terrified and tortured Ghislaine risks family fortune to buy her freedom -- the accused sex predator and her fat cat inner circle are set to plunk down an obscene $30 million to buy her way out of federal prison in what outraged investigators fear is a brazen plot to cheat justice

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Mayim Bialik

* Lizzo is admitting she’s having negative thoughts and is hating her 300-pound body but adds she knows she beautiful

* The Spice Girls were likely liquored up on cut-rate champagne when they made their first album according to Emma Bunton a.k.a. Baby Spice who says she and her bandmates swilled the cheapest sparkling wine in the studio

Page 20: True Crime -- a chilling message left by the elusive Zodiac Killer has finally been cracked by a team of code breakers after 51 years -- a hodgepodge of numbers, symbols and letters called the 340 cipher was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 and lawmen believed it contained key clues to the serial killer’s identity but the truth is even more chilling -- according to the experts the message says I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me, I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me

Page 21: Caitlyn Jenner is terrified after learning her skin cancer has returned a second time -- she was diagnosed with basal cell skin cancer a few years ago and had an entire layer of skin removed from her nose -- since then she’s been slathering on sunscreen but a new red spot on the right side of her nose popped up along with some crusty areas on her scalp but the nose patch was not cancer but hypertrophic keratosis or scaly damage from sun exposure -- however the dozen spots on the top of her head was squamous cell carcinoma which is a skin cancer that’s known to be aggressive so her doctor burned off the offending spots -- her doctor recommended she replace her 1960 Austin-Healey convertible but the chances of Caitlyn selling her prized ride are slim

Page 23: Your 2021 Horoscope -- love, luck, health, wealth, happiness -- plus surprising celebrity predictions -- Elton John, Valerie Bertinelli, Johnny Depp, Jessica Simpson, Matthew Perry, Cameron Diaz, Will Smith, Katy Perry, Howie Mandel, Savannah Guthrie, Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood

Page 30: Larry King has reached a deal with estranged wife Shawn but she’s royally peeved about the payoff -- Larry has agreed to pay her a lump sum of $20,000 plus $33,000 a month in spousal support which lasts until at least their next scheduled hearing in April but Shawn claims the 33Gs only covers a third of her monthly nut which includes $25,000 for rent on her home, $12,000 on clothes, $3500 on groceries and $4500 for hair and nails and pet care and gym

Page 31: Kim Kardashian is reading husband Kanye West the riot act over his junk food benders that are sabotaging her healthy eating program and it’s led to more than a few arguments with no peace in sight -- he’s telling her to chill and let him live by his own terms but she can’t do that because it’s driving her crazy -- what really ticks Kim off is his junk food has totally taken over her section of fresh cut veggies, fruits and water and she wants him to get his own storage in a different part of the house where she won’t have to see it or hold her nose

* Kardashian momager Kris Jenner’s faux reality TV home is on the market for nearly $8 million even though she never lived there -- the L.A. estate was used for exterior shots of the image-conscious family’s compound on Keeping Up with the Kardashians but it was all for show -- dubbed the Iredell Estate the house also appears in True Blood and Chelsea Lately

Page 33: Health Report

Page 34: Wrestling Ring Kings: Where Are They Now? Sable, Bret Hart

Page 35: Lex Luger, Steve Austin, Ric Flair

Page 36: The Undertaker, Tito Santana, Diamond Dallas Page

Page 37: Kane, Kurt Angle, Sunny, Mick Foley

Page 39: Despite an astounding 30 No. 1 country music hits legendary singer Charley Pride took a haunting regret to his grave that he never made it as major league baseball star -- Charley had so much success but he died tormented his baseball career short-circuited -- Charley was singing and playing guitar by the time he was 14 but his real goal was to pitch for the New York Yankees -- Charley signed with a Yankees farm team as a flame-throwing phenom at 17 but in his rookie season he threw out his arm and was just never the same -- after he struck out in baseball he put his full energy into singing but faced an uphill battle -- Charley was the Jackie Robinson of country music and he endured a lot of racism

Page 40: Kelsey Grammer admits he often breaks down and blubbers like a baby and it makes him feel better and he cries when he’s upset or sad or scared and it provides him a lot of relief and he believes years of tragedy in his life taught him to cry as a healing mechanism and now he sheds tears whenever he has sad feeling bottled up inside him

* A moneybags James Bond fan coughed up a whopping $256,000 for the handgun 007 Sean Connery toted in the first spy epic Dr. No -- the disabled Walther PP semi-automatic was supposed to bring in no more than $200,000 but the unidentified American buyer who claims to have seen every Bond epic went even higher

Page 44: Straight Talk -- Miley Cyrus is now blabbing about why she broke up with husband Liam Hemsworth after years of togetherness and just nine months of marriage and it sounds like a case of the pot calling the kettle black

Page 45: Furious Queen Elizabeth has booted Princess Eugenie and her husband out of Prince Harry’s Frogmore Cottage home in a bit to foil Meghan Markle’s plan to completely cut him off from England and the royal family -- pregnant Eugenie and her booze-seller husband Jack Brooksbank were ordered to quit the cottage and move back to Kensington Palace just six weeks after Harry and Meghan secretly leased them the home meaning Harry and Meghan are still on the financial hook for Frogmore which was a gift from the queen and they will have to underwrite the cost of keeping up the property and it also ensures Harry has a home in Britain if he ever wants to come back -- by moving Eugenie and Jack out the queen has made sure Harry still has a place to hang his hat if he decides to come back to leave his American wife

Page 47: Bizarre But True

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siriusist · 5 years ago

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Current Historical Reading Recommendations from a Former Cambridge History Student:

The War of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors: By Dan Jones:

The crown of England changed hands five times over the course of the fifteenth century, as two branches of the Plantagenet dynasty fought to the death for the right to rule. In this riveting follow-up to The Plantagenets, celebrated historian Dan Jones describes how the longest-reigning British royal family tore itself apart until it was finally replaced by the Tudors.Some of the greatest heroes and villains of history were thrown together in these turbulent times, from Joan of Arc to Henry V, whose victory at Agincourt marked the high point of the medieval monarchy, and Richard III, who murdered his own nephews in a desperate bid to secure his stolen crown. This was a period when headstrong queens and consorts seized power and bent men to their will. With vivid descriptions of the battles of Towton and Bosworth, where the last Plantagenet king was slain, this dramatic narrative history revels in bedlam and intrigue. It also offers a long-overdue corrective to Tudor propaganda, dismantling their self-serving account of what they called the Wars of the Roses.

Richard III: A Ruler and His Reputation by David Horspool:

For many, Richard III is an obsession--the Richard III Society has a huge membership, and Shakespeare's Histories have contributed to, if not his popularity, certainly his notoriety. Now, with the discovery of Richard III's bones under a parking lot in Leicester, England, interest in this divisive and enigmatic figure in British history is at an all-time high. It is a compelling story to scholars as well as general readers, who continue to seek out the kind of strong narrative history that David Horspool delivers in this groundbreaking biography of the king.

Richard III dispassionately examines the legend as well as the man to uncover both what we know of the life of Richard, and the way that his reputation has been formed and re-formed over centuries. But beyond simply his reputation, there is no dispute that the last Plantagenet is a pivotal figure in English history--his death signaled the end of the War of the Roses, and, arguably, the end of the medieval period in England--and Horspool's biography chronicles this tumultuous time with flair.

This narrative-driven and insightful biography lays out a view of Richard that is fair to his historical character and to his background in the medieval world. Above all, it is authoritative in its assessment of a king who came to the throne under extraordinary circumstances.

Blood Sisters: The Hidden Lives of the Women Behind the Wars of the Roses by Sarah Gristwood:

The true story of the White Queen and more, this is a thrilling history of the extraordinary noblewomen who lived through the Wars of the Roses.

The events of the Wars of the Roses are usually described in terms of the men involved: Richard Duke of York, Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII. But these years were also packed with women’s drama and – in the tales of conflicted maternity and monstrous births – alive with female energy.

In this completely original book, Sarah Gristwood sheds light on a neglected dimension of English history: the impact of Tudor women on the Wars of the Roses. She examines, among others, Cecily Neville, who was deprived of being queen when her husband died at the Battle of Wakefield; Elizabeth Woodville, the commoner who married Edward IV in secret; Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, whose love and ambition for her son knew no bounds.

Until now, the lives of these women have remained little known to the general public. Sarah Gristwood tells their stories in detail for the first time. Captivating and original, this is historical writing of the most important kind.

Tesla: Inventor of the Modern by Richard Munson

Tesla’s inventions transformed our world, and his visions have continued to inspire great minds for generations. Nikola Tesla invented the radio, robots, and remote control. His electric induction motors run our appliances and factories, yet he has been largely overlooked by history. In Tesla, Richard Munson presents a comprehensive portrait of this farsighted and underappreciated mastermind.

When his first breakthrough—alternating current, the basis of the electric grid—pitted him against Thomas Edison’s direct-current empire, Tesla’s superior technology prevailed. Unfortunately, he had little business sense and could not capitalize on this success. His most advanced ideas went unrecognized for decades: forty years in the case of the radio patent, longer still for his ideas on laser beam technology. Although penniless during his later years, he never stopped imagining. In the early 1900s, he designed plans for cell phones, the Internet, death-ray weapons, and interstellar communications. His ideas have lived on to shape the modern economy.

Who was this genius? Drawing on letters, technical notebooks, and other primary sources, Munson pieces together the magnificently bizarre personal life and mental habits of the enigmatic inventor. Born during a lightning storm at midnight, Tesla died alone in a New York City hotel. He was an acute germaphobe who never shook hands and required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. Strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed, he spoke eight languages and could recite entire books from memory. Yet Tesla’s most famous inventions were not the product of fastidiousness or linear thought but of a mind fueled by both the humanities and sciences: he conceived the induction motor while walking through a park and reciting Goethe’s Faust.

Tesla worked tirelessly to offer electric power to the world, to introduce automatons that would reduce life’s drudgery, and to develop machines that might one day abolish war. His story is a reminder that technology can transcend the marketplace and that profit is not the only motivation for invention. This clear, authoritative, and highly readable biography takes account of all phases of Tesla’s remarkable life.

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marble (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

Hailed as "a masterpiece" (San Francisco Chronicle), the late Manning Marable's acclaimed biography of Malcolm X finally does justice to one of the most influential and controversial figures of twentieth-century American history. Filled with startling new information and shocking revelations, Malcolm X unfolds a sweeping story of race and class in America. Reaching into Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his parents' activism as followers of Marcus Garvey through his own work with the Nation of Islam and rise in the world of black nationalism, and culminates in the never-before-told true story of his assassination. Malcolm X is a stunning achievement, the definitive work on one of our greatest advocates for social change.

#history #Malcolm x #the Plantagenets #The Wars of the Roses #Nikola Tesla #richard iii #the tudors #literature #reading #future reference #my recommendations

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joshuahyslop · 4 years ago

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BOOKS

The last 10 books I’ve read:

1. Underland - Robert Macfarlane I did it! I joined a book club. There are only three of us and this was our first book. In it, the author takes a long look (maybe a bit too long) at humanities relationship with the underground. Why do we bury things/people/artifacts, etc? It felt a bit like two separate books being pushed together. On one hand he’s relating historic events and geological formations. On the other he’s basically journaling about how he feels while he interacts with fellow cavers/explorers, or the underground itself. I really enjoyed the historic and geological parts but I found the journaling sections a bit too dramatic. It’s a good book, it just comes down to whether or not you like his style(s) of writing.

2. White Noise - Don Delillo My friend Chris leant me this book before the coronavirus pandemic. This was the first time I’d read anything by Delillo and I loved his writing. Without giving too much away, in the middle of the book there’s an “airborne toxic event”. A good chunk of the plot ran parallel to where our society currently finds itself. Highly recommended, but maybe save it for a post-pandemic day.

3. The Philosophy of Witchcraft - Ian Ferguson Not as creepy as it sounds. This is basically a look at the history of how witches (including the term) came to be and of “early” Christianity’s relationship/attitude toward “the witch”.

4. Holy the Firm - Annie Dillard Poetic musings on life, death, nature, art, god, and moths.

5. The White Album - Joan Didion This was the second book of Joan Didion’s that I’ve read. I enjoy her writing but I think I would enjoy it even more if I’d been alive in the 60′s and knew more of the people/places/events she was referring to throughout these essays. I still thoroughly enjoyed it though. The first entry, “The White Album” was my favourite. 6. The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus This was an intense read. The book is only 138 pages but it took me a long time to get through. I had to re-read lines many times to try and get what he was saying. It’s basically a philosophical look at the absurdity of human existence, but the legitimacy of it as well. His argument understands but is ultimately against suicide. It’s worth a read but you may have to go slow.

7. Generation of Swine - Hunter S. Thompson I love Hunter S. Thompson, but my desire to read him comes in waves. I’ve owned this book for a while and picked it up to read it several times but not followed through for more than a few pages. This time that desire clicked and I read the whole thing quite quickly. Most of his articles in this collection are about the political landscape in America in the 80′s, but it’s amazing how much of his criticism towards Reagan and Nixon could similarly be applied to Trump today.

8. What Are People For - Wendell Berry Another great collection of essays by one of my favourite authors. These are wide ranging in their topics, but each one is enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed the one about Edward Abbey as I’ve come to enjoy his writing lately. It inspired me enough to go out and buy another Abbey book. If you’re unfamiliar with Wendell Berry, go check out a few of his essays and his poetry. There’s some real wisdom there.

9. Secret Path - Gord Downie & Jeff Lemire On July 1st we Canadians celebrate something called, “Canada Day”. We pat ourselves on the back for being a free nation that loves and accepts everybody. Though, by comparison, it may be true that we as a nation are more accepting than others, comparison should not be how we measure our tolerance/acceptance/love. We need to do better. This book/project shone a light on a chapter of Canadian history that most of us would rather remain ignorant about. We have not been good to the indigenous communities that are here and have been here long before any of us. More than that, we have abused, taken advantage of, quieted, and ignored them, continually. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. Little has been done to address the past treatment of those communities and little is being done to address how they’re treated now. This is not an easy read - even though there are almost no words. It’s a hard look in the mirror and a reminder that the work still needs to be done.

10. Zodiac - Robert Graysmith My fascination with true crime ebbs and flows. The author of this book was the actual cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle in the ‘60′s when the Zodiac first began sending letters into the press. He investigated the case independently for the next 13 years and came up with an impressive list of suspects. This book was the basis for the movie “Zodiac”, directed by David Fincher. It’s got a similar feeling to Capote’s, “In Cold Blood”. It’s definitely on the darker side, but if you like true crime you’ll probably like this book.

more soon, -joshua

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