#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

[seacret-tarot]

🌙✨Moon-Day - General energy reading for the week (March 17 - 23) ✨🌙

Pick a Pile - Tarot and Oracle Reading

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Hello everyone~ Here's a general energy check-in regarding the coming week! I'll be using the Waite-Tarot and the Talisman Oracle. Please choose whatever picture you feel most drawn to.

Hope you enjoy your reading and thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful week!

[Disclaimer: Please use your own judgement when making any decisions based on a tarot reading. Magick and readings are meant to supplement, not replace professional advice. Since this is a general reading, only take what resonates with you – and at the end of the day, we all have free will and the power to shape our lives.]

Pile 1

cards: 4 of wands, growth of energy

It looks like it's time for a little celebration this week! The 4 of Wands speaks of stability in the creative and actionable realm, but also of weddings or family parties as is visible on the illustration. The Growth of Energy card also depicts a few eggs in a nest, which adds to the meaning of a celebration in the family, particularly a birth or maybe a pregnancy announcement (that could pertain to you or someone else you know). At the same time, I absolutely think these cards could also speak about a "spiritual" birth, such as of an idea or a creative project someone's been working on.

Pile 2

cards: the chariot, safe travel

The Chariot and Safe Travel being drawn together is a strong indicator to me that 1. either you might be going on a (bigger) journey this week, 2. you could finally start realistically planning a big trip you've been wanting to go on or 3. see an opportunity to bring those travel wishes to fruition. Very curiously to me, both cards depict large bodies of water and wings which also points to travel by plane, possibly intercontinental. The Chariot is also a good indicator that things might be moving a lot faster from now on!

Pile 3

cards: 5 of pentacles, divine guidance

With the 5 of Pentacles, we're usually confronted with a challenging financial or material situation (which in the current economical climate ... unfortunately isn't too uncommon). This week there might be more of a personal focus for you on that issue or something might come up that makes you notice it more than normally. The Divine Guidance card here speaks about listening in on your intuition first, before taking another step. It is advised to be patient and wait for another sign.

Pile 4

cards: knight of cups, mindfulness

The Knight of Cups energy points to a romantic, idealistic and sensitive, but sometimes impulsive person, often a water sign. You might take on those attributes or meet someone with them. The card also often is a sign for general good news or that something in your dating life is moving ahead (you could ask someone out/be asked out or deepen a relationship). The Mindfulness card then advises to be present in the moment, even to be still; in conjunction I think this speaks about enjoying the present and just having fun with what happens to come along this week.

[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

[radfemreader]

Book Review: Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women's History of the World by Rosalind Miles

I read this with my feminist book club in spring last year. (Although the book club fell apart a few chapters in - might this have been the book's fault? (it wasn't))

This book is "The Women's History of the World" as the subtitle puts it. The author endeavors to reframe commonly held beliefs about history to center women and remove the bias of (male) historians. She starts with prehistoric times and continues through to almost modern day.

Unfortunately, I absolutely hated this book and I'm shocked that it is recommended as often as it is. Within the first chapter, there was an anecdote that interested me, so I did some additional research and could find nothing that supported the author's assertions. As I continued reading, I kept researching little bits that struck my curiosity and multiple times discovered inaccuracies such as the author presenting myth or opinion as fact, misrepresenting sources, etc. to support her narrative.

For example, she describes an archeological rock carving as depicting a woman being attacked - I looked it up wanting to see pictures, and both personally would never have interpreted it that way and could find no where on the internet where anyone else had ever interpreted it that way. Perhaps Miles just had a different opinion, but she stated it like fact and didn't present any justification.

Another example, she cites Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin for the fact that the native people of Tierra del Fuego would resort to cannibalism of their women before they would eat their dogs. That immediately seems like racist falsehood, so I looked it up. It was supposed to have been said by two native boys who had previously been taken by the Europeans. Within the same chapter Darwin wrote that it was impossible to get reliable information from these hostages and elsewhere calls one of the boys a known liar, so any reader using this source should see the cannibalism is unlikely to be true, and any further research would find multiple more trustworthy sources saying that it is not. I have to consider Miles' choice to repeat this this "fact" either willful misrepresentation and racism, or incompetency.

There are more, but I also couldn't keep researching every factoid. I just lost my trust in what the author was reporting to me and took the whole book to be questionable.

Beyond that issue, I also found the structure of the book to be disjointed and confusing. It's roughly chronological, but also by theme, and I couldn't keep track of what was happening at the same time in different places. It's an insanely huge undertaking to look over the entirety of history, and yet somehow the book felt very repetitive. She writes with a casual ("witty" as reviews put it) voice that I found grating. The first half drags, it picks up in the middle, rushes through the last chapter, and then just - stops. No conclusion, no reflection, just an abrupt (but welcome) end.

I will caveat my negative experience with a few things. I've never been especially interested in history, in part because I don't like the ambiguity that comes from interpretation of artifacts and limited records. Since I don't read much history, I'm not sure if some of the things I didn't like are really more about the genre than this book specifically. Also, the book was written in 1988, so perhaps there are things that were fine at the time and are just out of date now - although it was reissued in 2001 and the opportunity to make updates was not taken.

In summary, I recommend this book to no one. I found it inaccurate, racist, and poorly structured. I acknowledge that maybe there is some merit here that I didn't fully appreciate. If you're someone who did like it, I'd love to hear why. As it is, the only way I can understand the success and praise of this book is that the concept is so strong - people really want to read the women's history of the world, and I'm not aware of any other book that attempts to deliver it. Perhaps though, it's not a concept that is possible to do well in the length of a single book.

[mygrayzone]

Reading in nature.

[leehallfae]

“a lamb is a lamb / is innocence turning into meat.”

— traci brimhall, “you said the lambs were ready,” come the slumberless to the land of nod

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Virgin film trilogy orcs: knows about menus

Chad book trilogy orcs: tiktok slang

[bambibooks]

“How nice—to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”

—Vonnegut, Kurt. (1969). Slaughterhouse-Five.

[seacret-tarot]

☘️🌸 What does spring have in store for you? (Spring Equinox) 🌼🌱

Pick a Pile - Tarot and Oracle Reading

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In honor of the Spring Equinox on March 20th 2025, here's a reading about what the next three months could have in store for you! I'll be using the Woodland Wardens deck, the Prism Oracle deck and the classic Waite-Tarot, and I'll roll some dice for lucky or significant numbers. Please choose whatever picture you feel most drawn to.

Hope you enjoy your reading and thanks for stopping by!

[Disclaimer: Please use your own judgement when making any decisions based on a tarot reading. Magick and readings are meant to supplement, not replace professional advice. Since this is a general reading, only take what resonates with you – and at the end of the day, we all have free will and the power to shape our lives.]

Pile 1 – the sleepy duck

cards and numbers: the sheep and blackberry (devotion); growth; death; the hermit; 8 of swords; 4 - 7 - 6

I find it very interesting that you chose the sleepy duck and these cards come up for you! Because, like the duck retreating into the pocket and resting, it looks like for you the next few months of spring are going to be a time of looking inwards and nurturing yourself, so you can come out of that period newly transformed.

You might just come out of or still be in the energy of the 8 of Swords, which is about feeling (or believing yourself to be) trapped and helpless. In the illustration, a person is literally bound and blinfolded and surrounded by the swords. But the crux of sword cards is that they speak first and foremost of the mind, not so much of practical circumstances. The number 8 is often associated with abundance; and in terms of the swords, we're looking at an abundance of thoughts, leading to a feeling of being overwhelmed, not knowing left from right, and eventually being immobilized.

That is why I believe, the next three months should allow you space to find your inner footing again, which can be helped by some downtime in the energy of the Hermit. The hermit in the illustration is shining a light, looking downwards, as someone who can observe the world with some distance and make up their mind without outside influence. Here, you can listen in on yourself and make sense of your own thoughts in peace.

In this advantageous position, you should find the clarity and energy again, to understand where to place your devotion – the theme of the sheep and the blackberry. The sheep here is something soft and precious to be protected by the blackberry thorns – that could be about your loved ones or your chosen purpose in life, but I think especially in conjunction with the Hermit, here it speaks to devoting your time and energy and love to yourself.

Eventually, this would culminate in the death and growth cards. The death in Tarot often speaks about transformation, a new beginning, the end of a cycle coming to its natural conclusion, and as the sun rises in the illustration on the death card, it encompasses the beautiful flower in the growth card. I really believe, that by the end of these few months you could emerge as a new person, having blossomed into a new, lighter version of yourself, ready to take on the summer.

Pile 2 – the busy bee

cards and numbers: the quail and the gooseberry (anticipation); caution; 7 of swords; 4 of cups; 8 of pentacles; 12 - 8 - 1

It seems like there's something you're currently looking forward to for the timeframe of the next three months, as the quail and the gooseberry speak to anticipation. At the same time, an element of caution is coming into play – after all the quail is hiding in between the thorny bushes of the gooseberry, keeping an eye out for predators. Is there something you have to pay more attention to? Are you fully aware of your circumstances? What could possibly blindside you, if it turned out different than expected?

The 7 of Swords is also warning of betrayal, trickery and thievery, in the most basic of senses. Someone might not be as truthful as they present themselves to be. The number 7 can also point to the search for a deeper meaning, though, and in terms of the swords – the mindspace – some also see this card to mean that one should take their valuable abilities and skills to a new, more fitting environment. In any case, there seems to be a need to find out the truth of a situation or come to see the truth of it in the next three months.

Curiously, we also have the 4 of Cups here – maybe in the laser focus of what you would be looking for and anticipating, there could be a tendency to not see what you already have in front of you. Possibly this perspective comes up as a consequence of the 7 of Swords, which after a veil of illusionment having been lifted, distracts you of what you still have, especially in the terms of closer relationships and emotional fulfillment.

To come out of that apathetic energy, it could be useful to turn to the 8 of Pentacles. Turning your attention to the mastery of some practical achievement, might it be in your work or your more hands-on hobbies, could ground you back into the present and give you a better sense of what you do have control over, as the development of your skills translates directly into tangible successes.

Pile 3 – the playful baby goats

cards and numbers: the marten and foxglove (mischief); intuition; ace of swords; 3 of pentacles; queen of cups; 3 - 2 - 12

The mischief card coming out when looking a picture of baby goats made me chuckle a little ... After all, baby goats (or baby animals in general) exude the same kind of playfulness that is associated here with the marten, who is said to play tricks on other animals, and the foxglove, as home of fairies. As such this card could serve as confirmation for you, if you already see yourself as this kind of person, or it could point to you embracing this energy in the next few months more.

Intuition as a theme fits here as well, since it is also a spontaneous, innate energy that is possibly stronger in child- than adulthood. Maybe in the coming months you will be able to rely or to learn to rely on your gut feelings more and explore the sparks of insights you get. The Ace of Swords, as a well of newfound mental energy, reasoning and confidence to speak your truth, fits very nicely here; and, as a traditionally more yang card, generally perceived somewhat colder, clear-cut, active and direct, it gets promptly balanced out by the Queen of Cups, which is very yin, soft and – you guessed it – incredibly intutive.

This could mean that both of these energies accompany you in these coming months, and that you might flip-flop between them or try to find the balance in between. The Queen of Cups could also be another person coming into or already being in your life, though, who embodies this very nurturing and emotionally mature energy and could serve as a counterpoint to your brazen, mischievous type of intuition.

A collaboration does look to be on the horizon with the emergence of the 3 of Pentacles, by the way. Possibly there's a team or group project coming up for you at work or in another practical endeavor, making you find yourself and others in these somewhat contradicting positions. Generally, the energies regarding this project are favorable, though, with the number 3 allowing for a grey area between two opposing forces. All in all, it's looking like an exciting time of figuring out your intuitive and mental capacities for you!

[bookaddict24-7]

💜What was one of your favourite reads from January?💜

📚✨Here is my slightly delayed January wrap up! ✨📚

Stats ⬇️⬇️

1. I read 23 books in January

2. Although most were audiobooks, 17 of those 23 were books I owned.

3. My favourite read of the month was Confessions by Kanae Minato (House of My Mother by Shari Franke was a close second.)

4. Least favourite read was The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir

5. I DNFed 16 books (I’m convinced I was very close to a reading slump.)

6. I unhauled 18 books.

7. And though I wanted to go on a book buying ban, between preorders, impulse purchases, and books coming in that I ordered in December, I added 22 new books to my library—does it help cancel out the unhauls of the month? 😅

.

I hope everyone had a great reading month! Have you read any of the books in my stack? Check out my Goodreads for more info on the other books I read! 📚

Happy reading!

[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.

[gracehosborn]

Hogeland, William. The Hamilton Scheme: An Epic Tale of Money And Power In the American Founding Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024, pg. 121.

The imagery used in this paragraph makes me laugh out loud. Wonderful way to expand upon an old saying. 😂