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HMM ☺! yes, I do read... around 10 - 15 books a year. so I have one favorite novel every year. and my 2017 favorite has been THE MARBLE COLLECTOR by Cecilia Ahern. #myFavoriteNovel #MacroMondays
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I could have sworn this ranunculus ruffles were glowing when I shot it. This is one of those shots I loved when I uploaded it and then quickly did not. I found it the other day and was loving it again. Here it is after some sliding and textures. I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday.
HSS
better in the light box
What I love about Brooklyn that it lets you be yourself. Not who the world tells you to be. Not what is expected of you. It lets you dream. It lets you believe anything is possible. It lets you create & turn your fears into art. It turns weaknesses into strengths. It makes you believe (even when it’s unbelievable) that anything is possible because you are from Brooklyn ♥️ ... Why train station & Coney Island ? Because this is the first actual memory I have of Brooklyn 25 years ago
this morning in our guest restroom :-)
ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE BOOKS is the topic for Saturday, June 8, 2019, Group Our Daily Challenge
My Book:
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred-Year-Old_Man_Who_Climbe...
My eyes fill with tears & skin is covered with goosebumps as I think of the moment there first time in four months. What used to be an ordinary routine turned into a small big step for a humankind ♥️ ... The best gift for my #julybirthdaymonth
A story that covers so many genres. Historical, fantasy,Romance,adventure,mystery. She writes with a deadly ,wicked ,clever pen, that aims straight for your heart. The author Diana Gaboldon. The first book of the series is Outlander. The story is about a brave young Highlander named Jamie Fraser and a fugitive of time WWII British nurse Claire Randall.
#5 in an ongoing homage to my favorite books. I guess I have a thing for individuals who have to deal with difficult situations, because today, I chose I, Claudius by Robert Graves.
100mm f/6.7
#3 in an homage to my favorite books (this one refers to Tim O'Brien's masterpiece, featured earlier here). Thank you, weather, for cooperating :)
21mm f/5.6
by: Robert Munsch
Smile on Saturday - Mad for Mats
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Did you know that cats have favorite authors and genres? Jarvis Cocker prefers non fiction and so his favorite authors are Claudia Rankine, Sasha Geffen, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Broadcast prefers experimental Asian fiction and so her favorite authors are Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami, Bae Suah, Can Xue, Banana Yoshimoto, Kazuo Umezz, Shin Kyung-Sook, Karen Tei Yamashita,Keiichirō Hirano, Yasutaka Tsutsui, Krys Lee and Banana Yoshimoto. PJ Harvey prefers poetry so her favorite authors are Rumi, Hanif Abdurraqib, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ocean Vuong, Nikki Giovanni and Eve L. Ewing. When I asked her what she thought of Nick Cave’s lyrics, you should have seen her reaction! What all my cats can agree on is that Karen Tei Yamashita’s Through the Arc of the Rainforest is a masterpiece and so, I always have to read that one out loud to them during cat story hour. Though I didn’t read Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor this year either, it’s still a solid second choice for our story hour together.
I have to always preface these lists by making the disclaimer that while no human being can read all of the books in existence put out in one year, I read even less this year having only finished a little under 150 books (I read 365 last year). Not all of these books were released this year and some of these books may be released in the future depending on which alternative timeline of reality you exist in. The pandemic really put a dent into my reading because I typically read while on the elliptical at the gym for a couple of hours every day but, with the gyms closed, I had to turn to memorizing K pop dance moves off of Youtube for my exercise for several months (I am not good at this), which caused me to almost get murdered by my downstairs neighbor until I straight up invested in an elliptical a couple of months ago and saved myself from the sudden doom that would have rivaled any gruesome ending of a Chan-wook Park film.
These books represent a few different genres-nonfiction, fiction, graphic novels, poetry-and are in a general order but I decided not to number them as I kept changing the order depending on my mood and that didn’t seem very efficient (I am not a journalist) Feel free to share your favorite books that you read this year. You may be stuck in a black hole reading books that we don’t even have in our reality. I want to hear about those too!
And, without further ado, my feline fanatic friends and literature lovers, gather around for this is my Favorite Books of 2020:
The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin
Sometimes it’s actually hard to take science fiction seriously….why? Maybe because it’s so fun and engaging….either way, it’s actually quite hard to write something that is very inventive and also relevant in our modern times. In a way, it speaks to the high ability of the author to also be able to make it grounded in reality enough to be just believable but imaginative enough to get truly lost in a unique story. Such is the case for The City We Became, which has all of the NYC buroughs represented by different humans with vivid personalities fitting their areas who have to work together to stop an evil takeover and, of course, have a really tough time with that pesky and racist ignorant Ms. Staten Island. N.K. Jemisin creates a world of actual monsters and proud boy like art dealer/real estate mogul monsters (the kind we don’t actually have to work hard to imagine because they exist in real life). This looks like what will be the first in hopefully a long series of riveting books!
Tropic of Orange: Karen Tei Yamashita
I read Through the Arc of the Rainforest last year and this year Tropic of Orange was my exceptional read by this Japanese American author who is so imaginative in the way she writes both memorable characters and interwoven plots. I can’t predict any endings for any of their lives and that is quite something indeed. If you don’t like magical realism or complex storylines, you may miss out on the brilliance that is Yamashita and the bulk of her work. But, if you find yourself wanting to explore what creative literature is capable of, please look no further!
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi-
Just released this year and highly recommended by me! This book was philosophically engaging from start to finish. Set in the fictional town of Lucille, the residents have conquered all of the “monsters” (who are basically Trump voters and the like) until an angel (who looks like a monster) emerges from a painting to find a “family monster” who is abusing a child. The protagonist is a trans adolescent whose mom reads the great Nnedi Okorafor to her and speaks through sign language. I loved the layers of moral complexity here. Pet gets into what truly makes a monster and how insidious monsters (again, basically republicans) can hide in plain sight and if a monster is redeemable too. I liked Freshwater (Emezi’s 1st novel) but this was 100x better imo
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
This novel is both imaginative and also heart breaking…its main plot involves a country overtaken by American forces who also can’t trust their own government and a corpse that reanimates from other corpses to seek revenge. Though it delves into a little bit of black comedy and takes on a creature who may seem more familiar to those who enjoy the horror genre, it’s the horror of reality with the violence of the American invasion of Iraq that the novel is actually about. What Saadawi does is to create a vivid metaphor that evolves throughout the book and forces us to think deeply about morality. We must remember that Saadawi may also be coming to terms with his own grief, mortality, and the modern reality of living in Iraq. He has had friends lost through suicide bombs that he narrowly missed being killed in himself, for instance.
Catherine Lacey: Pew
I am always a little hesitant to promote the work of someone who is white when there are many women of color who are under-recognized and struggling to earn both critical acclaim and also just a living. So, I will just say that I found Catherine Lacey’s very recent novel Pew incredibly moving and relevant for our times. She writes about race and gender identity in a way that feels fully realized. This book is about identity that words cannot define and the frustrations that result in a white community (who considers themselves super religious) because they cannot take ownership over human identity. There’s a real sense of the frustration of language and lack of it and of not being in control and the way these humans handle that feeling. It is a postmodern masterpiece and I would highly recommend it. On a side note, it doesn’t really matter or seem worth mentioning the personal romantic life of a female author but, in this case, I must mention that she is currently the partner of one of my favorite authors who also resides in Chicago, Jesse Ball, and has a funny statement about him at the end in the thank-you section that is worth taking a look at.
Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
This novel is fiercely feminist following so many female friends from all walks of life in Turkey and the way the body lives on after death. This book starts with death but is really filled with life! As our heroine protagonist, murdered yet still filled with extreme senses, dies a little more on each page, we find out a little more about her and what in her life brought her to this point. And therein lies the largest devastation of this novel because we fall in love with dear Leila but it’s too late to save her. Her life was doomed from the beginning because she happened to be born female and poor and did not have any rights to make her own happiness despite having all the ambitions to do so.
Imani Perry: Breathe, A Letter to My Sons:
This book was a little reminiscent of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me” but I actually was even more moved by this mothers take on raising her two boys in America with it’s racist past and present. Really wise and incredible. This was such a gift to be added to the canon of American literature and as a resource to help nurture the modern African American family and was both honest and insightful.
Yaa Gyasi: Transendent Kingdom
Yaa Gyasi’s second novel is quite a bit different than her first, Homegoing. This one is about a family from Ghana but one that lives in Alabama and struggles to make their way in the American South. It is a portrait of a family in turmoil as the family unit as a whole is severed in a couple of major ways…and, I am hesitant to say more on that end as I don’t want to spoil the novel. Gyasi writes us a very strong female protagonist in Gifty who is a neuroscientist studying mice and both reward seeking and inhibition in her quest to understand and make sense of addiction. It is one of those soul searching types of books that is well worth reading and without artifice or cliché, which is sometimes quite a challenge to find in literature.
The Liar by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
In some ways, this was not as profound as an earlier fiction work by this Israeli author, Waking Lions, but is still however very meaningful and relevant about lies that take on a life and storyline of their own between Israel and Poland and between both a young and a much older female protagonist. To me, this book was incredibly relevant especially in these times about how a little bit of dishonesty ends up leading to incredibly different results in the lives of humans. It’s a short read but very worthwhile in the way it makes you think of the role of truth in one’s life.
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Dr. Monique W. Morris
This was a really difficult read by the Founder and President of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute (NBWJI). Yet, it was also an important read for me not just as an educator but as someone who also wants to do right by all students I support. Morris gets into some of the facts behind racial profiling in schools and does well to expose how it is often overlooked what impact early racism in schools has on young women (although, it is often acknowledged and still very damaging for young Black men). The treatment of young women in a place of learning is very important and could be instrumental in nurturing and encouraging these girls to succeed and to set ambitious yet achievable goals but they have to not only be taught skills but believe in their own worth. We also need to recognize signs of trauma and ensure that we are addressing the whole child. We cannot ignore these facts and we cannot assume that every educator before us was kind and acted within the best interest of every student. So, when we consider what a child’s perception of education may be, for a student of color especially a young human who may be Black, there may be a lot of work to do in changing a negative sense of school. What we see in our schools is not “safe spaces” but punishment that sets the stage for a cruel future. Do we really want this as a society? We must accept that we have failed and that we must change.
We must actively change schools across America! It is a gift to be able to teach and nurture and abuses of power are the most heinous kind. On a personal note, I spent much of my time this summer protesting against police brutality and cops in schools. Our mayor and Board of Ed. in Chicago has kept a few incidents of racially motivated violence against students in schools from the public and, instead of hiring nurses and ending our contract with the cops, tax payers are still footing the bill. They’ll make us take a mandatory online training about stopping the school to prison pipeline but, in terms of policy and where our tax dollars are going, Chicago is far from walking the same walk they are preaching.
Brit Bennett-The Vanishing Half
This reminded me of a modern day Passing by Nella Larsen and a great follow up novel to The Mothers. Bennett shows a portrait of two sisters, one who decides to pass and leads a much different life than the other who ends up having a child with a man who has a much darker skin tone than herself and returns to their small town in Louisiana where there is an obsession about shades of skin. This novel is as much an examination about race as it is about the human desperation driven by racism and what humans are capable of denying about themselves and others they love to continue to live safely within a certain space and level of comfort. There is also a second layer that is about transitioning genders that adds to the storyline and characters overall.
The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi S. Laskar
The story of racism that a Bengali immigrant family experiences in the American south (in a suburb of Atlanta) is important but what elevates this work is the unique writing style. I literally felt like I was slipping to and fro through time and seeing these glimpses of a vivid life in all its joys and sorrows. Laskar is incredibly poetic in her exploration of police violence and trauma and was also herself a victim of racial profiling. She’s another author who I hope continues to gain readers and write more books. For a debut, this is exceptional and really reads like it come from an author who has written her whole life.
Disability / Visibility edited and FW by Alice Wong
This is nonfiction at its finest because it has the power to open your mind to the struggles of a group of humans you may not have had a clue about before you opened the first page. Wong did an excellent job of finding an incredibly diverse group of perspectives not just in terms of race, class and religion but also in terms of ability level and opinions on ableism and world perspectives. Keah Brown and Haben Girma are probably the most well known authors in this collection but each of these essays is enlightening in a different way-some focus more on technological aspects, others on fashion, others on abortion, and still others on deficits in terms of public transport. All of these perspectives are valid and insightful and should give able bodied humans a clue as to what obstacles need to be examined and removed in our society to make a better world exist.
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho.
In an alternative reality where white American born humans also need to pass a citizenship test, this would be required reading. Acho comes from Nigerian parents and grew up in Texas. I didn’t realize he wasn’t just a political science philosopher type of author (He’s also an NFL player) when I started reading as I don’t really follow the actual sports game but he does a fantastic job with these questions, which are actual questions submitted by white people in America. Some of these questions show a huge lack of understanding of history and privilege. Other questions are more related to wanting to help and be anti-racist but not knowing where to start. Acho calmly rewinds and takes us through some background and gives suggestions on how to live differently and be better as well as some valuable resources. And, in order to keep in mind white privilege, I will say that it is definitely not the responsibility of Black or African American humans to educate us but when they do make an effort (and hopefully like Acho are compensated for it), it’s definitely our duty to listen. As ignorant as some of these questions seem, we must all be humble and willing to ask questions and all the more willing to listen to the answers. It’s also worth noting that this nonfiction was written after the murder of George Floyd so it is incredibly current and Acho also writes very calmly and in a way that most people probably won’t find having a huge adverse reaction to when confronting white privilege and entitlement.
A Man by Keiichirō Hirano
What an engaging read! I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel that so effectively skirted the line of experimental fiction in its exploration of identity and story lines before. First, there is the identity based on an exchanged one and a lie for a human being who lives a quiet life as someone else. But, then there is the exploration of identify of what it means to be S. Korean and living in Japan and the xenophobia experienced by humans in this predicament. In some ways, A Man reads like a thriller and mystery novel but in many other ways, it is a deeply philosophical work that cannot be contained by genre but makes you wonder about and question the human stories were are assigned, we tell ourselves, and that we make up altogether. I can’t wait for At the End of the Matinee to be released April 15th, 2021!
Hidden Colors by Nillu Nasser
The book explores the struggles of Syrian refugees in Berlin putting on a magical circus but after a couple of years. the anti-immigrant sentiment rises and politicians and journalists have to choose which side to take. This book feels fantastical in the sense of the circus production but realistic in its depiction of the hardship of existence as a mere pawn in politics and left vulnerable to political whims and opinions of the public. There’s a great deal here about the ethics of journalism as well and the responsibilities in terms of telling of the human story. Though this book is technically a work of fiction, it is highly relevant to our current world.
A Fortune For Your Disaster by Hanif Andurraqib
I didn’t do as much poetry reading this year as I did last year but this one definitely stood out. I read it for book club. Full disclosure-I love everything by Hanif and would recommend Go Ahead in the Rain, his nonfiction regarding A Tribe Called Quest if you are fan of the band. I follow Hanif on Twitter and am a fan of him both in terms of his politically conscious side and his human side where he bakes and talks about his love of music and Columbus, Ohio. He’s also great to see speak. He’s an incredibly lovable human. Anyway, this poetry is so rich with imagery and soul and, though it definitely explores topics of racism, I would also say that it explores the full range of what it means to be human and does so artfully. So many of the lines should be read more than once and contemplated. Read a poem and put it down for a while and think about the full complexity of what Hanif was exploring and picture the photograph he created with his masterful words that appears in your head.
Just Us by Claudia Rankine:
Rankine is an extraordinary poet who is also insightful when it comes to race in America and her observations based on both casual encounters and a whole lot of systemic racism. At the end of the day, Rankine is aware of the damning impact of white supremacy and she wants humans to heal and for the world to become a better and safer place for all human to exist in. And, that isn’t going to happen without some conversations taking place that are sometimes challenging to initiate and to explore. We find ourselves sometimes in situations that might at first seem perplexing but have a history based in reality. If you haven’t read Citizen, the collection of poetry by Rankine, you might be blown away but this work of nonfiction. If, like me, you have read Citizen, you might at this point be more impressed by the fact that with all of the facts and insights Rankine has, she still is willing to have conversations about race and that speaks to the kind of beautiful human being she is.
The Drifting Classroom Volume 1-3 by Kazuo Umezz
This is a riveting 700+ page graphic novel about a school that disappears from the present and travels to a desolate future with a lot of human psychological issues of those trapped in this new reality. I will say one key thing in this epic journey through the minds and choices of these young children is that both the surreal storyline and the art work are captivating and I was soon hooked and couldn’t wait for the third volume to be released a couple of months ago. I devoured it like a piece of decadent chocolate cake while soaking in my bathtub for night after night. I became very invested in these creatures who first had to fight for their lives when there was a struggle for power and then when their dreams came alive and then when there was a plague and then when there was still extreme scarcity of food and water….and somehow our hero and protagonist is able to community at some points with his mom living in the time and reality they came from even though they are far from it. Just a fantastic imaginative series for Japanese graphic novel fans especially.
Myla Goldberg’s Feast Your Eyes-
Tis is a very well done and complex portrait of a photographer living in NYC in the 60s-70s who didn’t actually exist but you’ll be convinced did exist by the way this book is laid out describing her photographs with fictional journal entries and fictional accounts of friends and family. This is a lot about artistic rights and the line between art and child protection. Interesting philosophically and based on several other female photographers who actually did exist like Vivian Maier and Diane Arbus. It really reads like a very engaging nonfiction work instead of fiction, which is an interesting experience for the reader.
Sharks in the Time of Saviors: by Kawai Strong Washburn
I had two books by native authors, this one and Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun become available around the same time from my Chicago Public Library holds list and they couldn’t be more different. But while I did love the imagination of Black Sun overall, I didn’t feel as connected to the characters and just saw it as a starting point for hopefully a long series whereas Sharks in the Time of Saviors feels like a truly stand alone work. This book is, in many ways, a portrait of a native Hawaiian family struggling to get by and having a son with healing powers. There is a bit of a leap in terms of what you can believe here but it is written with enough reality that the surreality is very effective. Our hero Noa is trying to find himself and come to terms with a crucial error he makes. In the meantime, his brother and sister are also floundering between not being the most brilliant basketball star (former) and with same sex preferences (latter) and no one has any money to fly home to Hawaii from college because, of course, it’s just far too expensive even for the natives to get home. What is the most interesting to me is how the relationships between family members is explored and the idea that you shouldn’t ever encourage someone to define their identity with just one main thing or being good at one thing because it destines them to an unhappy sort of life and failure. I found the writing here very engaging and it dealt with some of the real issues Natives face in our country, especially in areas where cost of living has become insurmountable.
A Burning: by Megha Majumbar
This was a very difficult book to read, primarily because Majumbar writes us a story where you easily feel connected to and devastated by the chain of events that bring our heroine, Jivan, a poor Muslim girl in the Indian slums to a prison cell wrongfully accused of being a terrorist. In some ways, it made me think of a modern day Kafka-esque tale where it just seems all odds are stacked against our protagonist and it just keeps getting worse. Majumbar explores the corruption in modern day India but also interestingly enough explores the life and rise of a transgender fried of the protagonist at the very same time. This book is filled with politicians and political opportunists and liars who don’t seem to mind making Jivan a fall girl for their own political agenda and it made me wonder how possible all of this might actually be, especially as Majumdar was born and raised in Kolkata herself though is now living in NYC. This is Majumdar’s first novel and shows a promising career.
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
One of the reasons why this nonfiction is so powerful is because these voices are so often not heard or misheard. Johnson takes us through his life and what it was like to grow up with two identities, sometimes at odds with himself and what it meant to be both an African American and one who questioned his gender and preferred humans of the same sex to his biologically given gender. Johnson takes us through his very harrowing struggle to fit in and the relief of finding members in his family who at least partially understood what he was going through. He takes through what it’s like to be sexually abused and have assumptions made about him. It is harrowing and honest and makes you grateful that he has created something that shows us the whole range of humanity and helps some of us find comfort in who we are and others of us understand how to be better and more compassionate humans.
Glitter up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary by Sasha Geffen
Sasha Geffen is a human who has devoted countless hours to exploring how we came to this exact moment in music history and all of the steps that led us here in an all inclusive non fiction epic journey examining how, in just about every genre of music I can think of, gender identity and transforming gender norms was a part of both image and sound of musicians. I am a huge fan of music and many of these musicians and bands I was already familiar with and own albums by. However, Geffen caused me to view many songs, concerts, and even album covers a different way and I also learned about many artists I was not familiar with. This is a must read for those who love music and for those who seek to accept and appreciate all genders (male, female, and non-binary) and their artistic contributions within this very flawed yet sometimes quite beautiful world.
A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer duBois
This book fascinated me….Irina knows she is going to die and it is going to possibly be horrible and painful when she does the genetic testing and finds out she inherited Huntington’s Disease. She knows what the future holds because she saw her father progressively lose abilities and she starts to lose control in ways that signal to her what her future could hold. And so, she decides she’s going to go on adventure to Russia in order to find a chess master who is an active political opponent of Putin because, after all, what exactly does she have to lose? This book is about the idea of taking your life into your own hands and controlling your destiny instead of letting genetics define you. It is also about trying to make the most out of a life that many others would consider doomed. It also has a really great joke about Adam and Eve actually being soviets and it takes a lot to make me laugh in the middle of a pandemic.
Vivian by Christina Hesselholdt
This work explores all ll different points of view including Vivian Maier’s own on life and photography with interesting narrator interjections and musings based on what is known of this photographer. I have to admit that I have a personal bias of loving many of Maier’s photographic works so this was a very engaging read for me based on my familiarity with and admiration of the photographer that was the focus of this technically “biographical fiction” work. I think it might be a key point to get acquainted with some of Maier’s photographs and read this book if you are enamored. But, you might also enjoy this book if you in general love photography and think often about what might a photographer be like as a human and what makes for a good photographer as well.
Empire of Wild: Cherie Dimaline
This is the first novel I have read by a Métis (Native French Canadian) author and I really loved it. It was definitely wild and centered around the traditional Native myth of the Rogarou as it kills and steals souls. This was as much about human deception and religion and racism as it was about this creature and it was impossible for me to not visualize the horror while, at the same time, see Rogarou as a metaphor for white opportunists who will do whatever it takes to steal Native land. I had my heart in my throat for a lot of this journey and I think the power of the writing really showed its effectiveness.
Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves edited by Glory Edim.
Fantastic autobiographical accounts of prominent African American female authors of today and how they were inspired by literature that uniquely spoke to them. This book does well to emphasize the importance of representation and I would advocate that those who define curricula across the country on every level should start considering whether we are really celebrating our current list of authors because they were talented and had something relevant to say then and now or whether it goes within our nation’s history of white supremacy to promote primarily white male authors as the definitive standard even though they had every advantage over their women of color possible colleagues. What is hopeful is that now more than ever talented women of color are being published and truly heard but, in my opinion, there is still a lot of history around celebrating only or primarily only white male authors that should be challenged in this country. In any case, this collection features a great deal of talented contemporary female authors such as Jesmyn Ward, Jacqueline Woodson, Zinzi Clemmons, N. K. Jemisin, Tayari Jones and more and speaks to the power of literature and it’s transformative qualities!
The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience, and the Secret World of Sleep by Guy Leschziner.
I thought this was nonfiction about dreams but it was mainly about different sleep disorders…still very interesting and informative though! Did you know you can have something called Restless Chest Syndrome? Yikes! I tend to love neuroscience and yet besides this book and The Telomere Effect by Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, I didn’t read nearly as many science oriented books in 2020. I read far more nonfiction books about race, gender, and immigrant memoirs. Still, I love to learn about all facets of the human brain and I believe in life long learning. The case studies in this book were especially fascinating and made me feel like my reoccurring insomnia is really not so bad at all compared to what it could be!
Wow, No Thank You: Samantha Irby
This nonfiction collection of essays made me laugh so hard (especially the chapter on cat vs. dog ownership) that I instantly fell in love with Irby as both an author and as a human being and, though she no longer lives in Chicago, it was cool to see what living in Chicago twenty or so years ago was like through her eyes. Irby is happily married and has encountered both homophobia and racism in her life and these essays showed both an intellectual and a quick witted approach to dealing with it. Irby is so candid and does not hold anything back when it comes to her own biology, either, which is almost shocking (and also appreciated) at times in its brutal honesty and well worth reading. Irby is also my age so I could relate to some of these chapters quite a bit because of that. Hello 911, filled with imagined 911 calls as well as Love and Marriage where she answers ridiculous questions are also not to be missed chapters if you want to laugh hysterically.
The Monk of Mokha (Story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali) told by Dave Eggers
I actually led a two hour remote book club on this book last month and, though I love discussing books, what is odd is that I liked the book better before the discussion. This is an incredible story of a Yemeni American man who risks literally his life more than once to bring back viable coffee beans and establish a coffee trade between his homeland of Yemen and the United States. Dave Eggers insists emphatically that this is 100% nonfiction and it is unfathomable the lengths that Mokhtar goes to. There’s an undying sense of the human spirit that can be both courageous and also lucky in this book. There’s also a component of the struggle itself against both the violent conflict situation in Yemen and the racism encountered in America. In any case, if you are interested, here’s an article about the book.
www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/dave-eggers-te...
I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me: Juan Pablo Villalobos
Good, because they probably won’t! This is an adventure in surrealist experimental fiction walking the line between humor and existential dread. In the end, you honestly don’t know exactly what really happened and if the protagonist is even still alive. There are doubling of characters, journal entries, a talking dog, and lots of unsavory types I wouldn’t trust with my favorite pencil (or even my least favorite pencil). Our extremely flawed hero is a Mexican intellectual who wants to study humor in literature in Catalonia, Spain but is side tracked before he can even get there by a group of mafia like henchmen in an impossible scheme his cousin roped him into involving seducing a woman identifying as a lesbian amongst other crazy shenanigans. This is a wild ride! If you’re an intellectual who dislikes thrillers, try this one out to see if maybe it was just the writing style in those other books wasn’t enough for you in the first place.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
I expected a lot from Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens because of the human (a coworker and friend) who recommended it to me and I did think it was worth reading. I like the sense of looking into isolationism and classism as well as the justice system in the American South plus there’s a courtroom cat! (Sunday Justice) but probably best of all was the fierce individualism of the female protagonist, Kya, the “Marsh Girl” who learns to make her own way in life. Kya’s unusual personality and talents drew me into the story line as a whole but it was the ending that made it truly worthwhile and landed it on my best of 2020 list.
Junji Ito’s Yon & Mu:
This is a super adorable autobiographical #catlife graphic nonfiction about his wife’s 2 cats that he learns to 💕 and who turn him into a cat person. I loved the drawings in this book and the little stories about getting his cat neutered, going on a business trip and missing his cats, cats around his chair where the heater was, cats on his lap, cats in his bed….you know the drill. A lot of these are relatable and silly but sweet and the book also includes photos! I’ve read Ito’s harrowing fiction, graphic horror novels and this was quite a departure but it gave me a glimpse into his lovable human side. Though this was maybe not the best book I read critically, it was still definitely one of my favorites as someone who is a fan of Ito’s graphic novels and cats!
Cats of the Louvre: Taiyo Matsumoto
Full disclosure here that I didn’t really think anyone would take me seriously if I started with these last two books/graphic novels because, honestly, I love cats and so I cannot be objective about extreme cat topics and/or cat protagonists. This one is perfection-a wildly imaginative storyline centered around the cats that live in Le Louvre. What more do you need to know? Ok, there’s a human trapped in a painting and also all the cats take on human traits at night when no on is looking. Is this not a good enough reason to read this book right now?!?! Oh wait, you’re a dog lover??? Well, forget you anyway! 😹
Honorable mentions:
Ok, so again this list only represents about 30% of the books I read this year. I can’t write about 100+ more books but here are the books I would still recommend:
Little Gods by Meng Jin
I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya
Eatheater by Dolores Reyes
Dear Girls by Ali Wong (so funny!)
Telephone by Percival Everett
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire by David Mura
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Telomere Effect by Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn
1919 by Eve L. Ewing
**All photos are copyrighted**
cute cute cute cute and extensive engagement session I've been working on while gone.
showing my kit lens some love, trying out some different stuff.
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a nice evening last night on New Year's Eve and day today no matter what you decided to do! I wanted to take a moment to share all of the favorite books I read last year and, as always, I'd love to hear about your favorites too!
As I always preface these end of year book lists, many of these books came out in previous years and I didn’t read them when they came out. These just happen to be the best books I read this year. I consider myself an avid reader and one year I actually read a book every day. I haven’t been able to top that since 2019 but I read somewhere between 160-200 books each year. It’s actually hard for me to keep track of the combined total between books I read on my Kindle while traveling and working out on my elliptical and books I read in the bathtub that are the old fashioned type involving paper (remember those?). I successfully did not drop any books in the bathtub this year, which is a real feat seeing as how I am fond of creating bubble monsters that float around from the tub to the ceiling and eat words. You have to watch out for the bubble monsters!
All this being said, here are some of my favorites from this year:
1. Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan
Harlan could just be my favorite living short story author. Her ideas are not just creative but incredible. This is finely crafted weirdo stuff but exactly what I am looking for in a short story with just the right amount of length and balance between character development and plot. My favorite of the stories, “Fiddler, Fool Pair” was one I resisted at first because I am not as into a certain type of fiction that gets into magical creatures and such but it ended up being not only my favorite but one that I literally weeped at. I’m still getting a little teary now. These are not sad stories, however, but point to the ability of the human spirit to be creative. A couple more things I’ll tell you about this book so that you read it:
-I read it twice this year because I loved it so much.
-My mom read it and loved it so much that she bought a copy for her local library so others could also read it (They didn’t have a copy already).
-This was a Pen/Faulkner 2023 Longlisted book and I’m pretty sure it’s better than anything Faulkner ever wrote.
-If aliens were to come and ask me for one reason why they shouldn’t destroy Earth, I’d shrug and hand them Fruiting Bodies.
2. The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard
About a decade ago, I read Knausgaard’s My Struggle series and I hadn’t read anything by him since then. Sometimes, I actually veer away from male authors just because throughout history they have been over-represented. That’s not to say there aren’t some fantastic works out there, though and this is one of them. Knausgaard is a very purposeful sort of author and will take his time. This novel is over 600 pages and Wolves of Eternity, which I also read this year and enjoyed, is a whopping 800 pages!
I should also be clear that if I had read Wolves of Eternity first, I may as well have liked it better than The Morning Star. I think my issue with the two novels and reading them so close together was that there was a lot of philosophical overlap about death concepts especially. I enjoyed the characters in both books quite a lot, though, as well as the meandering sense of pondering. I wouldn’t necessarily say Knausgaard is too intellectual, either. He’ll definitely appeal to deep thinkers and the more introspective type of reader but, at the same time, you don’t have to have a philosophy degree to really comprehend the thought processes the characters go through. So, if you’re looking to start this year with a really long novel you can just delve right into, choose one of these. I should also say a main difference between The Morning Star and The Wolves of Eternity is that the Wolves of Eternity gives you some idea of what Russia might look like through a Norwegian perspective *and* gets a little more into human responsibility for choices in this modern world.
Again, I would highly recommend both books. Make time for reading and your life will change.
sprintsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/letter-to-self
3. The Wolf Hunt by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
I would recommend all three novels I’ve read by this author (Waking Lions and the Liar are her other two) that I’ve read. She is an incredible weaver of stories and cognizant of the complex layers of humans and the inter-weaving of human lives and conflicts..the multiple weights we carry and work through. The Wolf Hunt is no exception and explores everything from racism to homophobia with a few plot twists I never saw coming. This is incredibly riveting book also gives insights into violence and the torn feelings American Jews may have when comparing their lives and choices to their relatives in Israel. Finally, this book is important to read in the sense that it explores how violence begets violence and how quickly paranoia gets out of control. In light of the horror of what is happening between Israel and Palestine in the past and present, I did look up Goshen’s views. I could only find something from a few years ago but she has protested against Israeli violence in Gaza and worked at one time for the Israeli Human Rights Association. She’s also a trained psychologist so perhaps that is also helpful in creating realistic and meaningful characters. Here’s a couple of links featuring a review and an interview.
www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/22/the-wolf-hunt-by-ay...
www.thejc.com/life-and-culture/books/interview-ayelet-gun...
4. Greek Lessons by Han Kang
In the past few years, I have noticed more experimental fiction coming out of South Korea and have been very impressed with what I have read. Greek Lessons was one of my favorites this year and I had started the book with a great deal of trepidation as I really hadn’t enjoyed The Vegetarian nearly as much. Greek Lessons is very much so about language and features a very striking sense of experiential inner monologue and sense of philosophizing. It is a real poetic wonder and, though I suppose it would meet some tenants of experimental fiction, it is also possibly to just read it in a certain way where the words intermix with you thoughts and provide a meaningful dialogue and interesting viewpoints.
www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/11/greek-lessons-by-ha...
5. The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda
I tend to crave Japanese novels more than any other type and I read A LOT of novels coming out of Japan. Some of them are cute like the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Yes, I read the newest fourth book Before We Say Goodbye of the series and liked it) and some of them are much much darker like The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura which I also read this year. Of course, I have read everything by the famous authors Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto but I increasingly have gone back and re-read Mishima’s novels as well as Kenzaburō Ōe. All this is just to say that I have some admitted preferences for Japanese fiction in particular and so I may even be considered a little biased.
Some people get massages when they need to slip into a different head space. I usually just read Japanese fiction. That typically does the trick from the first page forward. In fact, I have gone through phases where I can literally only rad Japanese literature and reading anything else makes my stomach feel sick. The words just don’t work right on the page and travel differently into my mind. It’s an odd fit and I detest it. In contrast, from the first page on, every time I open up a Japanese novel, I hear the lyrics “I put a spell on you and now you’re mine!” in my head quite prominently.
The Aosawa Murders is no exception and it put me in quite a trance so that I devoured it like a chocolate cake with mousse filling. I could not stop reading this book I was so transfixed. What’s crazy is I can’t even really put into words or describe my addiction fully and what it is about the writing that had me hooked but the story line was incredible and the way that Onda ventures forth into the event of a mass poisoning by her examination of the characters present was really spectacular. I don’t tend to read a ton of thrillers or mystery novels but Onda’s novel here has some similar characteristics to other books in this genre and surely elevates it in a big way.
www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/riku-onda/the-aosawa-m...
6. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
I read both this book and Deacon King Kong in the same timespan (possibly even in the same week) and I liked them both but this one left an even greater impression, perhaps because of the way McBride gets into the treatment of a boy with a disability in the book. McBride has a way of writing characters with humor even when they are dealing with multiple conflicts and I enjoy that quite a bit. This book also shows a community and ties between African Americans and Jews in small town Pennsylvania in the 1930s, which I think many people might not know about. McBride is a fantastic author and I’ve read many of his novels and enjoyed them! You can tell there’s a side of him that is empathetic and kind to his characters and real people.
www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/09/23/heaven-earth-groc...
7. Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
I get the feeling that this book is rather popular in Japan and I just saw that it was made into an animated film. I really liked it for it’s vivid imagination and sense of problem solving for a group of isolated teenagers who don’t fit into their high schools at all and so have stopped going because of deep school anxieties. They manage to escape into this castle space and find each other and become friends and there’s an interesting sense of their personalities and how Tsujimura explores what has brought them to this point in their lives. I thought this book was really important for all educators to read to try to understand school anxieties as well as remember what it was like to be a teenager and have these strong feelings. I related quite a bit myself to not feeling like I fit in and wanting to just avoid school altogether. I didn’t end up staying home for any length of time but middle school and high school filled me with a deep dread socially. I didn’t want to enter my school building on most days because I just felt like a true misfit. I battled my first depressions in these years and struggled so much with understanding what I would even have to do to make friends or be popular. Of course, my parents had also moved out to a rural place from the city of Rochester after I finished 6th grade and so I found myself surrounded by farmer kids vs. city kids and I had literally nothing in common with them (On Friday and Saturday nights, they would tip cows for fun and I was a staunch vegetarian even at this age). These kids had all known each other for so many years and I was the new one and relentlessly picked on. The way children can be cruel to each other is something that is troubling to me and I still observe it today. In any case, if you felt like this too a little or if you work with children or have children, you might want to read this one!
www.tor.com/2022/10/20/book-reviews-mizuki-tsujimura-lone...
8. A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung
I’ve read a few memoirs this year but this one was especially impressive to me. Chung was adopted by white parents in Oregon but, unlike many children who have been adopted, her parents were poor and became even more impoverished when they experienced health issues and a failing US healthcare system or, I should probably call it a no care system because that’s basically what it is. Chung explores her life and the processes of handling illness and grief with a disarming honesty and adeptness. She is a fantastic author and her previous memoir, All You Can Ever Know is also recommended. These are heavy topics but I highly believe books like these are so necessary, especially if you happen to be going through these things yourself.
www.npr.org/2023/04/10/1168941141/living-remedy-review-ni...
9. The Aquarium by Yaara Shehori
I think it’s perhaps because I am an only child that I tend to love reading about books that explore the relationships between siblings, especially sisters. It’s fascinating to me, especially when it is done this well. This book is another really poetic marvel and it features a family who is deaf living in an isolated space in poverty and I loved how their thoughts were explored as well as their communications. It also gets into hearing aids and the psychological impact as well as the sensory experience of using them. I was really quite impressed by the way Shehori explored the lives of these sisters!
www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/aquarium-novel
10. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
I tend to love speculative fiction and this collection of short stories is super imaginative and fun. I loved the unpredictability of each of them and the collection as a whole and felt like Chung’s voice was very creative and stood out strongly from many other short stories I’ve read. This is just another example of how South Korean authors, especially female authors, are creating great and sometimes preposterous stories and, thankfully, are also being translated into English. Many of these stories had me reeling and laughing in the same span of pages.
www.npr.org/2022/12/11/1142119424/bora-chung-on-her-colle...
More books that I loved reading this year (Honorable Mention)
Monstrilio: A Novel by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
Lydia Davis short story collection Our Strangers
The Memory of Animals a novel by Claire Fuller
The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer collection edited by Janelle Monáe
Seeking Fortune Elsewhere stories by Sindya Bhanoo
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
Groundskeeping by Lee Cole
The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa by Stephen Buoro
The Overstory a novel by Richard Powers
Entangled Life nonfiction by Merlin Sheldrake
Leslie F*cking Jones a memoir
The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto
Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout
The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
Evil Eye by Etaf Rum (Palestinian Author)
The New Naturals a novel by Gabriel Bump
The Future a novel by Naomi Alderman
Land of Milk and Honey novel by C. Pam Zhang
Chlorine by Jade Song
Zone One by Colson Whitehead (re-read of my favorite zombie book of all time)
Yellow Face a novel by R.F. Kuang
Disorientation a novel by Elaine Hsieh Chou
Minor Detail a novel by Adania Shibli (Palestinian Author)
The Centre a novel by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
A note about the above photo: This was taken in late summer when it was over 90 degrees Farenheit, which is too hot for me to be biking in tights and looking good as you can tell. My face looks extraordinarily large with this camera angle but that's how it goes and I am squinting into the sun so to me it looks very strange. Then again, bodies are always a little weird and very silly. My partner, Cinchel, took this photo of me covered in mushrooms lying down near a forest preserve 10 miles NW of where we live. He recently asked me what I would want for an anniversary present (It will be 25 years coming up!) and I replied, "Don't divorce me or die."
**All photos are copyrighted**
For the Collective 52 Photo Group prompt "Favorite Book or Magazine". The all time classic guide to exposure - "The Negative" by Ansel Adams. Part 2 of a 3 book series - Book 1 "The Camera", Book 3 "The Print".
Pictured with the book, Yashica D TLR, Pentax Spot Meter complete with Zone scale as described by Ansel in this book, and a roll of Fomapan 200 film.
14,000 That Make You Happy
A dear friend gave me this book in 1994 when my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. When I first read the book, I highlighted all the things that made me happy. I've reread this book at least once a year since that time. It's amazing how well I knew myself 21 years ago when I first made my highlights and how the things that made me happy then are still the things that make me happy now. Even more interesting, the things I aspired to (like living near the ocean) became reality.
The pages I took pictures of are some of the more funny/quirky things that always make me smile::
"repositioning the Christmas tree lights so no two of the same color are together" I still do that!!
"informing TV characters of impending danger, thinking that they can hear you" You know you do it too!
"the detector in aspirin that tells it exactly what part of the body it goes to" How does it know???
Others not pictured that resonate even more with me now
"keeping a child's heart happy" I was single and young?
"getting artsy fartsy" I wasn't back then. How did I know?
"watching the ocean change it's mood" I lived in Ohio...
Starting to get more energy! Hoping to get the big girl camera out for next week's prompt.
Hope all is well in your world!!
One of my very favorite books when I was little was "The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" and my second favorite that I checked out of the library so much they made me wait a month before I could check it out again was "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen
And I’m super excited about my trip to South Carolina next month!!! Third time is a charm. Fingers crossed ... Call me silly but in the sequel (which I never read) of “Gone with the Wind” (which I read) Scarlett goes to Charleston ... was my dream place to visit ever since. She’s the woman I admire from my favorite book & film “Gone with the Wind”. And nobody could have said better: “tomorrow is another day”. But my question forever will be ... did they actually stay together or the pride took over !?? Through the second part of the movie I was screaming inside “stupid, she’s soooo in love with you ! How can you not see it!!?” m.youtube.com/watch?v=8mM8iNarcRc
My personal interpretation according to the book they didn’t stay together because she goes back to Tara, and even when people leave you (for whatever reason) land is the only thing that stays. “Gone with the Wind” is the story about the importance of land. The importance of southern land.
On the other hand she’s Scarlett O’Hara; stubborn & determined. If she’s really in love with him she will definitely find a way to get Rhett back & fight his & her stubbornness. This time with love !!!
90/365
I just love that golden light in the morning. that light, a cup of tea or coffee and a good book and the start in the new day is perfect. Today I just took the photo and drank the coffee, I am way to unconcentrated to read a book or do something meaningful..
“Difficult questions, simple answers. What is a community? It is the sum total of our choices.” (Beartown by Fredrik Backman 2017) -- Favorite Book
Ice hockey...coming-of-age...small town drama and secrets...characters so real and believable. Beartown is any small town, across the globe. Its inhabitants place hopes and dreams on a false security - its teens winning at ice hockey and saving its town from extinction, until tragedy strikes. When trouble encompasses the town, right verses wrong turns the town divided. Can its inhabitants understand that right verses wrong is not the same as good verses evil? Will the small town in the forest fall apart or bounce back? It will leave you thinking, long after you finish the book.
This photo represents a favorite book of mine - Seabiscuit. I saw the movie, read the book and listened to the recorded book.
#IStayHome to take care of myself, my family, my neighbors,.... For the last 5 weeks of isolation, I have used some of my time to read new books, reread old favorite books, relax with Adult Coloring Books ( a long way from my lifetime love and hobby of oil and watercolor painting), Crossword Puzzles to keep the mind alert, walking around the yard to continue the photography hobby, feeding and photographing wildlife in my yard (especially through a glass door), washing my hands and then washing them again,...…
STAY HEALTHY EVERYONE, AND PLEASE KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!
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These are books that are all time favorites, I've read more than once, I'm a fan of the author, or there's an absolutely fascinating personal story associated with the book.
I'll be posting more.
World Famous Frazier Studio
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March 13, 2021
COPYRIGHT 2021 by JimFrazier All Rights Reserved. This may NOT be used for ANY reason without written consent from Jim Frazier.
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Marking my page in a great book, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
This is a beautiful historical literary piece! Well worth the read and reread! And here is my review for GoodReads:
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek will takes readers hiking the trails of the Appalachian Mountains. But in 1935, you might have been brave to do so as this was a much oppressed area during the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1935 created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) bringing literacy to an impoverished area and providing work for women. Thus, the Pack-Horse Librarians Project was born!
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a “footprint in literary history” says its author, Kim Michele Richardson. This 30’s-40’s piece of historical fiction is a vivid sketch of the fierce but faithful librarians ‘fully packed’ with specially chosen books, magazines, newspapers, and hand-crafted scrapbooks ready for delivery to isolated Kentuckians. This story is also a tribute to the horses, mules, and canoes that faithfully carried the book-women through all kinds of weather conditions and over rough terrains. She also weaves into this story a loving look at the blue-skinned residents (a medical condition called methemoglobinemia) of Kentucky and the hardships they experiences in their struggles for human rights and dignity.
Historical pictures, notes, and author’s interview at the end of the book state that the pack-horse librarians delivered 3,548 books monthly! Wow!!!
Kim Michele Richardson gives readers a parallel look at the beauty of the mountains and the brutality of poverty on the people of Kentucky, living in extreme poverty. She writes from the heart as she grew up in an orphanage and in foster care in Kentucky. Hers is a sincere storytelling that is masterful.
Such an excellent read! I would give this book a triple 5 stars!
Week 23/52: Your favourite book
The name of the wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
I'm not really a person of favourites: i think any book, film, etc has its own different things that make them unique, so I find it difficult to choose favourites. However, this book is one I bought unexpectedly, when nobody knew it and it turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read: intriguing, well written, a good story... I strongly recommend it if you like fantasy!
El nombre del viento, por Patrick Rothfuss
La verdad, no soy alguien que pueda asignar favoritos fácilmente. Para mí, cada libro, película, etc. tiene algo especial que lo hace único, por lo que es muy difícil elegir favoritos. Dicho esto, este libro lo compré casi al azar, cuando nadie lo conocía, y resultó ser uno de los mejores libros que he leído: intrigante, buena trama, buena redacción y excelente traducción (sí, lo he leído en castellano y en inglés). Si os gusta la fantasía, ¡os lo recomiendo!
I took so many photos--some of my partner, our cat, the two dogs, the mantel, the fireplace. Because all of these are home to me. But upon reflection, the one thing that has been consistent my entire life is the home I find in the pages of books. These are some of my favorites.
#7 in my series to honor my favorite books. This one (hopefully) reflects The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
Read about the making of this photo here
21mm f/8
As you can see from the condition of the cover, this was a much loved book by many generations.
The illustrations are from Walt Disney’s Movie, “Bambi” and the story is based on the original story by Felix Salten.
For my Flickr groups…
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Hmm....probably a copyright infringement to squircle a book cover (?)....
This is a childhood favorite! I love this book. I also have Happiness Is a Sad Song .
Two timeless classics that I enjoy reading and sharing with my students.
They've been out of print for years....
It looks like they may be reprinted later this year! Hurray!
"It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass, and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam.
That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition, and all night long the common from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze."
HG Wells
War of the Worlds
who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head
Howl, Allen Ginsberg
Life is a puzzle. Who would agree or disagree, but life is a puzzle… Even early on, maybe, even before high school or even from birth, every choice in the present is connected to our future.
I’m happy that Russian (or Soviet) roots gave us people like Allen Ginsberg, and it’s a shame that for the past 100 years Russian government was made up monsters who are embarrassment to Russian (Russian speaking) history.