#my reading

[leehallfae]

“i am more god than god is / these days. watch me refuse / to let my father die / in this poem. he is dying, yes, / but see how i keep him flickering / with a gerund?”

— eugenia leigh, “post-traumatic stress disorder with han (한/恨),” bianca

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Silmarillion-knower Celeborn when this sounds vaguely familiar:

[booksandchainmail]

2024 reading listchallenge!

[barbwritesstuff]

The Best Books I Read in 2024

I don't think I'm going to get much reading done for the rest of the year so...

In no particular order, here's some of my top books of 2024. These books didn't necessarily come out this year, but I read them this year.

You will notice a lot of horror and sci-fi. The older I get the more I'm embracing my spooky/spacy self and I think that's beautiful.

And finally (selfishly) I need to put my own book Of Monsters and Mainframes on this list. I edited it this year and part of that process meant rereading it enough that I went from loving it, to hating it, back to loving it. It's coming out in June 2025 and I could not be more terrified.

Here's the cover:

And here's a couple of places you can preorder it: Bookshop Amazon

[dearhummingbird]

Soren Kierkegaard agreed when he confessed, “I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” And Charles Dickens was even more direct. “If I could not walk far and fast,” he wrote, “I think I should just explode and perish.”

“Whatever the Problem, It’s Probably Solved by Walking", Andrew McCarthy for The New York Times

[mygrayzone]

Reading in nature.

[theunstuffedpepper]

Anyone else make the switch from GoodReads to StoryGraph?

I never used GR for the social component - strictly used it for (lazily) tracking my reading. Now that I’m getting more into reading, I decided to make the switch to StoryGraph and already I like it so much more. More options for tracking — I like that you can categorize books as “did not finish” — and it’s a much, much cleaner app experience.

Anywho! If you’re on SG and wanna find me, I’m audiopepper.

[leehallfae]

“lieutenant commander jadzia dax is a trill, a humanoid species that attains its fullest realization in symbiotic connection with a species of large, long-lived slugs called symbionts. a trill is also a musical articulation created, with an instrument, by the rapid alternation of two tones, either a whole or a half tone apart, or, with a voice, by the rapid vibration of one speech organ against another. a trill, then, is a singular musical motif created by the contiguous motion of two distinct notes or organs. it is simultaneously mobile and arrested, present and absent, ‘a sound locked in movement.’ likewise the trill are, in their fullest realization, a plural species, two distinct organs creating a unique and fluid singularity. the constant transformation between the two voices/organisms constitutes the fragile yet durable continuity of the t/Trill.”

— kathy e. ferguson, “this species which is not one: identity practices in star trek: deep space nine”

[parmahamlarrie]

Reading Recap 2024!!

This is mostly nerdy and for my own joy, but I thought I'd share as well! I track all the fics I read in an excel sheet, which makes creating this possible.

Fun things I noticed this year: - the average length of fic I read got longer this year. I read fewer shorter fics but a lot more longer ones, which I think was one of my goals? Though I'd now like to catch up on one shots this year. - I stepped out of my comfort zone a bit more this year than last, with less Established and Canon fics and more Exes and Enemies to Lovers, tropes I typically used to avoid. - I also tried more authors this year, especially long fics by authors I hadn't read (or read much) from before! It led me to some of the best fics I read this year. - If fics were traditionally published books, I'd have read between 50-60 books! I like doing the conversation because it's easier to picture 300 pages books than 4 million words.

A huge thank you to all of the authors I loved this year, especially the ones I read the most from! Fic continues to be a comfort and I am so glad I get to share that love with you lovely folks.

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Virgin film trilogy orcs: knows about menus

Chad book trilogy orcs: tiktok slang

[booksandchainmail]

reading goals 2025:

read 120 books! higher than my previous goal, but lower than I've read in the past few years since I don't want this to be onerous

read at least 15 nonfiction books

get the books on my windowsills down to 10 and keep them roughly there

read 15+ out of the ~25 unread books on my shelves

read the assorted manga volumes I own

kencyrath reread

last dragonslayer series reread

forbidden library series reread

lilith's brood reread, plus additional butler (kindred maybe?)

left hand of darkness reread, plus additional le guin (the dispossessed maybe?)

master and commander reread

continue with the peter wimsey books, but not too fast

find some pre2010s mildly obscure sff series to become somewhat obsessed with

three musketeers reread

[bookaddict24-7]

💫What books did you read in April?💫

✨April FLEW by. I read some pretty great mangas and books this month! Here is my wrap up:

•I read 34 books

•I own 26 of those books

•My favourite read of the month was: How To Say I Do

•My least favourite read of the month was: The Idea of You (that ending ruined the whole book for me)

•I DNFed: 9 books

•I Unhauled: 18 books

[thelonelybrilliance]

too often I think we view a "Story" as a "Lecture" (often aided and abetted by authors who conflate the two). I'm not sure exactly how to put this but I observe it in so many classics--not to mention modern works. It seems there will be endless intepretations of what the author of a work is trying to "Teach" us instead of considering what story they are telling us. (And yes, perhaps some of this is coming to mind because I just completed Tolkien's translation of Beowulf and his commentaries, in which he objected to certain moralistic emendations to the original text by other authors, even those closely contemporaneous to the mysterious "author" of Beowulf).

Now, I think there is a lot to learn from a good Story, but not always (not often) because the author is setting out "Lessons." For example, there are many things to "learn" from Pride and Prejudice, and I would say that some of the areas covered are right & wrong, manners & rudeness, human whims and inconsistencies (to quote Lizzy herself). But the "Story" (despite it being the genesis of many romantic "Tropes") is really about the individual characters that Austen created for that story and that story alone. You can't, and shouldn't, necessarily relate to them exactly, or be able to trace a pattern of Proper Conduct from following or opposing their examples as if they were how-to guides for romance, wealth, decorum, life. They are also, if we separate ourselves from our familiarity with the text, not predictable. Darcy proposed to Elizabeth the second time, not becuase it was the right thing to do, or the only thing to do (indeed, Elizabeth thinks he won't because "men don't"). Darcy proposed again because he was Darcy--and he, Darcy, loved Elizabeth. Likewise, we watch Elizabeth react to her circumstances with both good and bad choices, but the point is not that each choice was prescribed to make a moral stand, or teach us how to act in our own lifes. Rather, her choices made sense for her character, the character we've been shown living and breathing on the page. Just becaues we've derived tropes, patterns, and even moral lessons from a great work like P&P doesn't mean there is such rigidity and unformity in the text. It's a great work in part because it does not follow one single formula.

As a contrast, one of my greatest frustrations with Little Women is how often it feels that Alcott is fighting her story by shoe-horning in moral lessons that she feels it is necessary for the audience to derive. She even explicitly breaks the fourth wall (if you want to call it that) to deliver the occasional lecture to her reader on how to behave. When the girls make mistakes in adolescence or adulthood, the lens is almost always pulled back so that the author can show how they erred, and spell out how they will be punished for their missteps. Personally, I find this approach to have a detrimental effect on art. While I believe that art can and should assist in the formation of our characters, if it is hamstrung from the start by its many Morals and Lessons, it will ultimately fail to inspire me.

[sunroseart]

I was on currently reading Babel. The book is fully gorgeous. My mind starting hyperfixation about them. I love Ramy 🥺💕 Robin and the gank so precious.

Maybe this become my best read this year😭💕

(I'll be back after finish it)

[105nt]

I finished Have His Carcase and I think it might be my favourite yet, I loved the twist and the ending and a lot of it was very funny (must here make a special mention of the theatrical agent trying to recruit Wimsey - had to pull over and park the car until it was over).

Busman's Honeymoon is on the way and I am topping up with the BBC drama series starring Harriet Walter and Edward Petherbridge 'til it comes.