#book club with titles

[titles-for-tangents]

WAKE UP BABES NEW PETER S. BEAGLE BOOK JUST DROPPED

IT’S HERE IT’S HERE IT’S FINALLY HERE

Holy crap just look at this cover! Stylistically it feels inherited from How to Train Your Dragon and warmer for it. My camera doesn’t do it justice.

How very ominous. Hey did it get smokey in h-

This illustration in and of itself is quality cheek (*chef’s kiss*).

I am trying very hard not to post my kitchen Kudos to these artists Jackie Seow, Esther Paradelo (who did the interior design), and Justin and Annie Gerard, and everyone else at Saga Press/Simon & Schuster wow wow wow

I literally just found this in one of my local independent bookstores right near closing time this very evening; it was the only one on the shelf and you bet I bought it. Might I remind you this book has lore.

If I’m off the tumblr grid for an inordinate number of hours posting but only sparsely, you all know why.

[communistkenobi]

a very common mistake people make in political/social discourse is applying individualist thinking to some social phenomenon or theory. one of the most common examples is someone responding to the theory of white privilege with “but there are poor white people” or male privilege with “I’m a man but I have no power” etc. and in order to refute that properly you have to essentially get into a philosophy of science debate, to explain that the benefit of a given social theory is its ability to be generalised above the level of the individual, that what is being described is a social process, that human beings occupy various positions within a social space (a family, a neighbourhood, a workplace, a state) that are not individual. To be able to give an account of some social force you necessarily cannot be just talking about the particularities of a single person - if you were, all you would be expressing is an individual opinion about a single person. If you want to rise above the level of ‘mere opinion’ you need to actually provide an account that is general enough to apply to multiple people of varying social situations but systematic enough to be able to differentiate between who you are and are not speaking about. Of course data are lost in this endeavour - probably best summed up by the aphorism “all models are wrong but some are useful” - but the success of a given social theory is its ability to sustain its explanatory power despite these data losses. Like the whole game of generalisation is building a theory to figure out what data points to discard and which to retain. It is no more contradictory to say white privilege is real even though there are poor white people than to say the police are a white supremacist institution even though there are non-white police officers. In fact these seeming contradictions are accounted for in these same social theories - white supremacy has had centuries of policy development at this point, it is a fairly well-tested set of logics that have adapted to a variety of conflicts, problems, and political/economic/social developments (Sylvia Wynter talks about this in the context of the post-slavery US for example). White supremacy is thus resilient to these apparent contradictions (and these contradictions generate further social developments, such as the shifting meanings and locations of whiteness), which is why zooming into the level of the individual is often not helpful in explaining its effects on a social level.

Weber says that I need not know Caesar to understand Caesar - that to talk about Caesar as a historical figure and as a particular location in ancient Roman society is fundamentally different than a description of him as an individual. And nobody actually talks about Caesar as an individual anyway! Even psychological or biographical profiles of him are premised on the fact that Caesar is worthy of this profile as opposed to any other person living in the Roman Republic. The reason we all know his name is that his place in history is extended beyond the individual. A Roman general and leader is fundamentally not an individual, not a private person. The very fact that I can say “Roman General” but not say any person’s name and have people understand what I’m saying is evidence of this. By definition ‘Caesar’ the historical figure is not an individual in any meaningful sense, he has power that is only available through social institutions and formations, and that is why he is known even today. Even the most liberal Great Man Theories of history locate an engine of history within the general position of Great Man (this is a fundamental contradiction within this type of thinking, the generalised Individual). If there can be more than one Great Man in history then he is not an individual, he is occupying a generalisable position in human history that can be calculated, bounded, and studied.

So it’s very frustrating to deal with! It’s an attempt to refute an explanation of a social phenomenon with individual anecdotes, much of which is already accounted for in said explanation. It makes many, many, many discussions about the social and political world endlessly repetitive and uninteresting, because you are always stuck at litigating the most basic, atomic point of reference. And of course that is the point for many people, they aren’t interested in any of this because they are racist and they are misogynistic and so on. It is an extremely effective derailing tactic, but part of the reason why it’s so effective is because individualism is such a pervasive mode of thinking. All of the groundwork is already laid out for people who say white privilege isn’t real because the social and epistemic infrastructure necessary to get other people to buy that argument has already been built for them to make that type of claim. Which is why the people who smirk at the camera when they say shit like this are so pathetic because they behave like they thought of that all by themselves, unaware or (more probably) deliberately ignoring the fact that they live in a society specifically built to facilitate, automate, and celebrate the garbage coming out of their mouth

[colourme-feral]

EPISODE 1 + 2: MI AE

EPISODE 3 + 4: A PIECE OF ROCKFISH, A TASTE OUT OF THIS WORLD

EPISODE 5+6: LOVE IN THE BIG CITY EPISODE 7+8: A VACATION IN THE LATE RAINY SEASON

OPENING CREDITS AND CORRESPONDING SCENES IN LOVE IN THE BIG CITY (2024)

[wreckitremy]

He kissed her, hilariously

.....

Hey

Hey author from 1918

What the fuck does this mean???

[starrynightsxo]

"'I have not made myself easy to love,' he says, and I hear the echo of his mother's words in his."

- Cardan Greenbriar, The Queen of Nothing

[blekitnyzamek]

When I was preparing my own reading summary of 2024 I was reminded of some awfull book - The Ladies of Missalonghi. Which is also known (and that's how I found out about it) as a plagiarised version of Blue Castle. I began reading that thinking, that it can't be that bad. Oh my lord, it was worse.

I don't usually write reviews on Goodreads, let alone analyzes, but that time I needed to let off some steam. So, I think now, it will be funny to translate and reshare it here for the blue castle book club.

Be prepared for a looot of piffle. Please, don't read it book yourself if you value your dear brain cells.

In a nutshell: The Blue Castle but in Australia, except that the main character is calculating goose, the clan is cartoon villains and the entire plot consists of a series of predictable plot twists and one that comes completely out of nowhere.

Our main heroine is Missalonghi Wright, a nearly 34-year-old spinster nicknamed "Missy" by her entire family (similar to Valancy "Doss" Stirling, a 29-year-old spinster, hmm…), who lives with her mother and her sister (much like Valancy with her mother and her sister-in-law!) in some completely out-of-town (hmmm) in an ugly, poorly heated house (HMM). She only wears brown and unfashionable dresses (HMMM). Missy is part of the Hurlingford clan, occupying the position of the weird and ugly spinster (HMMMM) due to the fact that she is one of only two people in the family (we'll get to that in a moment) with brown hair. No, I'm not mistaken, this whole mutual admiration circle is blonde, thanks to two great things: choosing blonde partners outside the family + inbreeding. Because it's so cool and okay, yaay!

The apple of the eye of the whole family is Alice, a beautiful, charming young lady, whose brown hair is probably not such a big deal, who mourned for a long time after her first fiancé died in tragic circumstances, but has already recovered from this ""tragedy"" and is about to marry her new admirer (does it sound like Olivia Stirling? It does, but unfortunately for us, the similarities will end soon, because it will only get worse). Alice's chosen one is her 22-year-old cousin Billy, the son of the main patriarch of the family. Oh, did I mention that Alice is also 34? And did she set her sights on Billy as her future husband when he was still a teenager? No? So I'm saying it now.

At the beginning of the book, John Smith comes to the town of Byron, whom everyone says is a troublemaker, a rable-rouser, and a killer (Barney Snaith, are you with us, HMMMM??). It turns out that he has purchased a valley on the border of Byron, which, conveniently for the plot, happens to be close to Missy's house. Why did he buy this plot of land? Because he liked it and he always wanted to own the valley (Is Barney I-Always-Wanted-to-Own-Island Snaith with us???). Whatsoever, by doing this, he ruins his relations with all the residents of Byron, because it turns out that only members of that cursed clan live there.

The Cursed Clan is rich because of the bottle factory where they later sell water, supposedly the tastiest in the entire universe. There's just one problem with this factory, or rather its management - someone is buying up the shares, some mysterious investor arranging share after share and increasing the percentage of the shares he owns more and more. I WONDER WHO IT COULD BE? The plot of this factory is probably the only original thing in the whole story, except that because of it we have a scene of a meeting of villains like from a bad cartoon:

"We have to get the share papers from our aunts, they don't know what they are anyway, they'll sell them us for next to nothing and we'll be able to continue cheating them out of money."

"Ask them nicely, they'll give them to you for free, after all, women are stupid."

"Oh yes, women are stupid."

"Women are stupid."

"Hahaha."

"Hahaha."

...good Lord. And in the meantime, the main character is standing behind a fern and eavesdropping on the whole vile plan. Divinely.

So we have a screwed main character, we have a screwed love interest, the rest of the family is a caricature of a caricature (in The Blue Castle the clan, maybe hermetic, but sticks together, and here everyone is scratching their own turnip and that's ok, you can rub your hands at the thought of a few pennies gained by buying eggs below market price from an aunt who is starving, but the Hurlingfords don't trade with strangers; I would wring all their heads). We also have the character of Una, who allows us to move on to the next character trait of the main character borrowed from Montgomery - a love of books.

Valancy read nature books because her mother forbade her from reaching for anything else. Here, too, the mother imposes such a ban on Missy, but already at the beginning of the book she states that, after all, it doesn't matter to her, that her daughter is an adult and she sees that she's messing around with these romance novels, so let the girl have something for life. These romances (during the novel two descriptions of such books are quoted and boy oh boy, it was something between harlequins and trendy now new adult books) are taken care of by Una, who, attention: is a ghost. She is a freaking ghost. Which the reader learns about in the last three pages AND OH MY GOD HOW MUCH THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. SHE SELLS BOOKS. WORKS IN A LENDING STORE. GIVES MISSY A DRESS. NOTARIALLY CERTIFIES THE TRANSFER OF THE SHARES. HOW. All these events take place, they are not Missy's hallucinations, because everyone else saw the gifted dress, the documents were passed, it's such a shitty plot twist. So senseless. Ughh.

Just to make sure there are enough similarities, the main character ""has"" a heart condition. And if the plot twist with Una was absolutely stupid, this plot, damn it, this plot - I have no words for it. So the whole thing looks like this: Missy at some point gets chest pains. John Smith sees one such attack, picks her up in his arms, brings her to her house - because she fainted beetween entries to her own and his property - he brings a doctor. In the meantime, Missy, who sees the man for the second time - falls in love with him. Madly. To be held by those arms, to die in those arms, to kiss those arms, she would very much like all of it at once.

The doctor comes, says he can't see anything, asks her to come back for a consultation in a week. The other one comes, he still doesn't see anything, says: You'll go to Sydney, my specialist friend is there, he'll do something. Okay, she's going in two weeks. The other other doctor examines her, writes something down, then, by surprise, nurse catches her and twists her spine. Without warning, just for funsies. It turns out that she had a pinched nerve, now everything should be ok. He says that he'll send the letter he wrote to the doctor from Byron and that Missy should show up in a week for another check-up. Suddenly the phone rings, everyone leaves, Missy is left alone in the office and is super sad. Because how can that be? She already thought she was dying, but she wasn't, she won't be like the heroine of the romance she read recently, who died young, but had loved before (in general, at the beginning of the book she would do anything just to not be sick, but never mind). Instead of keeping her hands to herself, she starts reading what the Sydney doctor wrote about her. She finds a letter from her family doctor and, wait, I won't let this quote go, the doctor to the doctor in his review of the patient writes: She leads a stagnant, deprived existence (vide her breast development).

YIKES, EXECUSE ME? In general, throughout the entire length of the book, descriptions of physicality, erotic scenes, mentioning caresses or molestation as "hehe, what he touched was his" - I was thinking that I will throw up every d-- time. Coming back: she reads the next documents and finds an opinion about another patient, a heart patient who has 6 months, well, a year left to live. And this stupid goose takes this paper and puts it in her purse! Why does she need it, you may ask? So Missy has a plan, a brilliantly clever one. She goes to John. Something between 4 and 9 miles, so quite a long way from the threshold of her house to the threshold of his house, he has quite a lot of land around there. But she goes. With a suitcase. She left her mother a note earlier: Mommy, don't worry, everything will be great, I'll be back in two days, kisses xoxo. And here the mother doesn't abuse her daughter like Mrs. Friderick abused Valancy, I can even say that she was kind of a pleasant character.

But that's not important! Missy goes. She comes. She sits down. She waits for John to come back from the field. John comes back and she says to him as a greeting: Will you marry me? Let me remind you: they've seen each other twice before. TWO. Once Missy didn't say anything and the second time she was unconscious. John says that he was already married, he's 50, now he wants to be alone for a while, in the middle of nowhere, have some peace. What does Missy do? SHE TELLS HIM THAT IN A YEAR SHE'LL DIE, SHE LOVES HIM, SHE WANTS TO LIVE WITH HIM IN THE VALLEY, HER VALLEY, SHE WILL TEACH HIM HOW TO LOVE AGAIN. He says that she looks quite healthy, he doesn't want anything from her, he takes her home. What does Missy say to that? She goes to him the next morning and repeats the play. And he agrees. And they have sex. A lot of sex. Because Missy turns out to be some kind of goddess, despite obviously also being a virgin. Holy ravioli.

SO THEY GET MARRIED. And John says a few times how he's starting to trust our Missy, because women are liars, but she, she is in a different league. Meanwhile, after each of such a remark, she thinks that if she waits a year to reveal the truth, nothing will happen. That maybe they'll have children by then. Because she wants children. And John would actually make a good father.

The carousel of stupidity is turning, but it's not slowing down, it's only speeding up, we're getting closer to the end, stay with me. So the mysterious buyer of the shares turns out to be (!!!) John. And he, as it turns out, was also married to a Hurlingford woman in his first marriage. Only she was a bad woman, but he didn't kill her, she drowned herself, but the whole clan accused him of murdering her, so he decided that he would destroy them all later. Of course, now excluding the people Missy likes. Because he had such a trick with this factory that he now wants to have a 100% female board. So he's enlisting his mother-in-law and her three sisters, and they have to get four other people to make a full board. A board composed entirely of widows who sold at most a heifer to their cousins ​​at discounted prices. I love this business plan.

But wait, if John's first wife was also from this family… who was she? UNA. UNA FROM THE ROMANCE RENTAL. Una, who really wanted Missy and John to get together. Who gave her a dress for the wedding. And now, because the book ends with Missy and Una talking, when Una finally realizes that she's been talking to a ghost all this time, Una now just wants to fly to heaven and chill out. BUT! She has one last warning for Missy.

“Don’t ever tell him, Missy. Let him believe his love and care cured you.” Una chuckled gleefully. “He’s a darling man, darling, but he has a terrible temper! It’s not in your nature to provoke it, but whatever you do, don’t tempt fate by telling him about your heart trouble. No man likes to be the dupe of a woman, and he’s already had a fair taste of that. So mark what I say – don’t ever, ever tell him.”

“You’re leaving,” said Missy desolately.

“With knobs on I’m leaving, darling! I’ve done what I was sent to do, and now I’m going to take a well-deserved rest on the softest, fattest, pinkest, champagniest cloud I can find.”

“I can’t do it without you, Una!”

“Nonsense, darling, of course you can. Just be good, and especially be good in bed, and you can’t go wrong. That is, as long as you heed my warning – don’t ever tell him the truth!”

I am-- I am speechless. THIS DAMN PARODY OF A BOOK--

[t00thpasteface]

magazine collage using scrap bits we already cut out for other projects + a george carlin line

[sharkneto]

W*nd and Tr*th really cementing my opinion that very rarely does a book need to be more than 600 pages, and doubly so for over a 1000

[explorers-central]

GUESS WHO'S FIRST ADDITION SIGNED COPY OF THE POLAR BEAR EXPLORERS' CLUB CAME IN TODAY!!! (On the right)

IT'S REALLY SIGNED!!2!3! EEK!!!

From my first skim of the book there are a few differences in the formatting on the inside, including the rules being at the front of the book rather than the back and also having EXTRA DRAWINGS IN IT THAT I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!?!?!!! (I'll make another post with those and other details tomorrow :3)

[titles-for-tangents]

Reflecting on The Mirror Visitor series’ quotes of praise like

Book 1, on the back: “The Mirror Visitor now stands on the same shelf as Harry Potter.” -Elle

Me, knowing it’s post-Harry Potter: Oh no

Book 1’s jacket, left side: “A fantastical story of intrigue and suspense, A Winter’s Promise will find fans among readers of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, Victoria Aveyard’s Red Omen, and N. K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth series.”

Me, knowing just enough about His Dark Materials without having read it: Oh Goddammit

Book 2, praises and quotes page 2 just before the title page: “I loved A Winter’s Promise, which felt simultaneous fresh and also like a classic along the lines of Narnia.” -Geekly Inc.

Me: THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME THING AND IN FACT ARE ON OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM (this better not be because Ophelia keeps coming out of Thorn’s closet wardrobe)

Me discovering Christelle Dabos describing Aunt Rosaline like she’s a redeemed yet still horse-faced Aunt Petunia, Thorn like a much taller Draco, and Ophelia like a nerdier, muffin-sized, aroace Harry: Don’t fuck this up, Dabos, DON’T FUCK THIS UP-

[vinelark]

I love how I get both fanfiction recs AND published fiction recs from following your blog and that is so very special. On average in a week how much time do you spend reading? Just curious!

i’m glad you think so! i’m not very good at reading as a solitary activity, so being excited about things here or in dms/groupchats is part of the process 😅

i spend at least a few hours a day reading, if not more! i have no idea where to begin doing the math for an average weekly amount. 30 hours? 35? some days my job is very reading-heavy, and almost any downtime i have in between activities i’m reading either fic or books. (i’m often bad at finishing things i read for various reasons, which is where talking about them helps.) but other days i don’t get to read until i get home, and sometimes not even then, so it’s kind of inconsistent.

that said, while reading fic piecemeal between activities is doable for my brain, it’s really hard for me to read books (for fun) that way. i’ve been trying to prioritize reading-for-fun time on evenings/weekends this year.

[eatyoursparkout]

i finally finished my bang fic 🎉🎉🎉 gonna try and get the last of the editing done during downtime at TFCon this weekend (robot fans say hi if you see me!) and then I can hopefully turn my attention back to my ongoings 👀

[iphigeniacomplex]

fourteen years old ... ned you piece of shit buy him an xbox or i swear to god i'll kill you

[jmlascar]

The Alcove

[sillimancer]

depressing goals for the night:

apply for transohio emergency funds

reach out to lgbt cleveland about possible relocation/job assistance

apply to at least 5 but ideally 10 more jobs

[holmesoldfellow]

"Sherlock Holmes Solo Mysteries" gamebook series by Iron Crown Enterprises (1987-1988, published by Berkley and I.C.E.)