#books with good values

[jjspina]

Children’s books instead of candy for Halloween!

[holdoncallfailed]

SPILLED.

[ffcrazy15]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[deoidesign]

Thinking about vampires, death, life, and the space they occupy in between

[quotesonquotes]

Every time we create something new, we go from zero to one.

Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

[sailforvalinor]

The thing is I want an accurate but GOOD Mansfield Park adaptation so so bad but I don’t trust anyone except for 5 or 6 people on this webbed site in the depths of the undercity of the internet to make it because NO ONE understands Edmund Bertram except for me, the author, and a handful of my beloved mutuals and friends

[communistkenobi]

I don’t like when people ask how many books you plan to read/have read this year one because I think that’s a weird relationship to have to books and two because I think even reading a chapter or a portion of something is valuable. this is especially true with non-fiction but even with fiction I think any amount you read, even if you don’t read the entire thing, is not a failure or ‘incomplete’

[oddberryshortcake]

Everyday I think about the fact that Kalim clearly lied to his and Jamil’s families about the reason why Jamil overblotted to protect him 

Everyday I think about the fact that Kalim defended Jamil against people who wanted to throw him out and took responsibility for being a contributing factor in Jamil’s overblot.

Everyday I think about the fact that Kalim had an inkling of a thought that Jamil was using his signature spell on him, and even under Jade’s spell, he didn’t reveal it was Jamil. 

Everyday I think about the fact that Kalim was very willing to just believe that he was blacking out and Jamil wasn’t manipulating him if Jamil just said so. He’d rather believe a lie he knew wasn’t true then acknowledge that the one person he thought he could trust was doing this to him. 

Kalim does not play when it comes to Jamil. 

[sm1l3b0t]

getting queerbaited by an action webnovel is so embarrassing. but goddamn this dog is just too fucking good at chess

[lightbulb-warning]

so has anyone figured out WHY there is the Need To Share our Artworks™ or is it just the vibes and our Soul apparently

[cogentranting]

The Hunger Games succeeds (and more so achieves sort of mythic effect) because it approaches dystopia through the timeless-- it (and Ballad) brings these universal ideas to a very personal lens and asks questions like "how do we begin to excuse evil in our lives" or "how do you hold on to goodness in the midst of oppression". And because it is so invested in the transcendent it lends itself to very powerful symbols, which give it that mythic feel.

Orwell's books (Animal Farm and 1984) both succeed through a very different approach to dystopia (Animal Farm isn't really a dystopia in the traditional sense but it has a lot of the elements). Orwell succeeds through real perceptive insight into the inner mechanisms of the subjects of his critiques. Orwell has vision that can cut deep into the way that things like propaganda or 'controlling the narrative' work and then, having dissected them, hold those tactics up for all to see.

And I think a lot of dystopias fall short because they get tangled up in the Idea of their story. The "what if" they've created. Either focused too much on the Issue-- too narrowly to be universal, too broadly to be revealing-- or too disconnected from anything genuine. And because they get stuck at that particular point they don't have much more to offer than "wouldn't this be bad?" And if you get a pretty good writer they can make that feel insightful but really it doesn't have much more to offer than whatever absurd YA book comes to mind first when you hear "bad dystopian novel".

[jjspina]

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[essektheylyss]

I was personally assaulted (honorific) by this essay on ambition. It's very good.

[mirainotes]

you don't want to know the end of this dream, because it's not the world you wish for; yet still, i wish you'd love even this conclusion.

(redraw of the dreamless dreams PV!)

[firefletch]

Oh hmmmm. Gen/Eugenides is like. if Howl was a thief (and a prisoner) instead of a wizard, isn't he?

[hyacinthusmemorial]

The Power of Children's Stories: Why "Kid's Book" Should Not Be Considered an Insult

I do this thing when I'm walking, I listen to Kids from the Stranger Things Soundtrack and I imagine Apollo fighting Python, but then I imagine all the heroes that came after him because in a way--Apollo is the archetype of the hero. He's a child, a baby god, four days old in some stories and he's not stealing cows, he's killing a serpent. Then I imagine all the demigods that came after him, and I'm stunned because there's a reason we give children the ability to slay monsters in media when they normally are not expected to do so in real life.

I read a post by @apollosgiftofprophecy, which is a valuable critique of derogatorily labeling something "kid's book". This post I'm writing in no way disregards that, but rather highlights something similar, but different. Rick Riordan's books are powerful (recent discussion about his characterization and stories aside), and just because they are targeted at a younger audience doesn't mean they aren't powerful for everyone. I'm guilty, I called them Kid's books in this post, but to me, Kid's Books are a powerful medium and not a lower one or even a derogatory one. To me, Percy Jackson is a one million times better character than Jon Snow in Game of Thrones because GOT takes its source material so, oh so seriously that it never explores the themes of his childhood in any meaningful way. Percy Jackson on the other hand as well as Apollo because I adore those books too--they use a narration style that is clear, entertaining, and bright and humorous to express very harsh realities of life. I identified with Apollo more as an adult because he uses humor to mask his darkness, which is very much something I do (and honestly anyone in healthcare or who deals with death daily does that), but I adored Apollo because he was hiding.

Clearly, I don't write for middle grade level when I write, I write adult content, but I wanted to validate "kid's books" --not "Just kid's books." Kid's books are powerful.

Examples:

Responsible for combatting Racist views! Absolutely one of the most powerful books ever written, and it teaches CHILDREN and ADULTS to turn around and save someone even when its not the "right" thing to do, but it absolutely is. It challenges conscience. It does this while telling joke after joke after joke.

Another Example:

Another "Kid's books" but not "just kid's books"-- gosh, I could go on and on about LOTR and its themes about power. This book is important for all ages. I still analyze the hell out of it, and so do my friends. Its hopeful, not because its less of a book than its counterpart "its all quiet on the western front," but because its illustrating powerful lessons without despair. Everyone makes it home, everything is beautiful, they rebuild, the Shire endures through the darkness. The Ring is destroyed even though it still very much exists in our world.

What about the Giving Tree, or Dr. Seuss books like Yertle the Turtle or the Sneetches, Artemis Fowl, and all those "kid's books." Star Wars is for "kids," but talking about Cycles of Abuse! Luke means Hope, and he breaks his families cycle of abuse. That's powerful, and its for kids!

I would argue that Kid's books are powerful BECAUSE they are targeted for kids, not in spite of it. Stories are how we TEACH. Grimm's Fairytale's existed because storytelling was a medium through which kid's learned vital truths--they have to be dark, kid's understand darkness, they understand monsters, and while our society sanitizes death away, kid's very much should learn how to understand death too.

I read an article about how a tribe, I think perhaps one of the Inuit, uses stories instead of physical discipline and how they find that this is the superior way of teaching children and adults. Everyone listens to the stories, not just the kids. When someone makes a mistake, they develop a story to show what happens if that mistake is oft repeated. I think about our ancestors gathered around fires and they told stories, and the kids were front and center, but the adults were there too, listening, learning, remembering.

On a completely different note: when a book is "targeted" towards an audience, that's marketing. It has nothing to do with content or value. We need to separate the concept of marketed, and marketing, from the whole value of a book as a means through which to tell a story that discusses important themes.

I very much use my story as a means through which to express truths about personal issues, and I think it resonates. But, those themes and truths are universal in their basic nature, a child can understand what it means to be hurt as much as an adult. A child can understand what it means to be free as much as an adult.