THE OPPRESSION OF THE UYGHUR PEOPLE explored in heartbreaking detail through an exiled poet and filmmaker’s memoir. Beautiful writing about a horrifying topic brings stories of the imprisoned and murdered into the light. A MINUS
A debut author has lost her book deal after she admitted to "review bombing" competitors on Goodreads, largely targeting women of color. In a letter posted to X, Cait Corrain blamed her behavior on mental-health struggles and addiction. Here's more from the Mary Sue.
@tutwilly
The review star rating banner is done on arithmetic mean, rather than median, and as such, a bunch of 1-star ratings with have an outsized effect on the mean, and pull the rating down far more than you might think. When purchasing decisions and the algorithm suggestions hinge on fractions of a point, those 1-star reviews could break the deal and have large effects on purchasing.
While you're reading your Kindle, it's reading you back. And:
"For those who prefer to purchase books from brick-and-mortar stores, tracking reading on book social site Goodreads, which is owned by Amazon, will put you back into the tech giant’s purview."
The article is from 2020, so I imagine the enshittification will be even worse by now, as AI use increases.
This is just one of the reasons I only read print books and don't use sites like Goodreads.
@riggbeck@bookstodon I'm sure B&N is. The Boox is not linked to any particular vendor, it's just a tool that you can install any reader software you want, including library apps, Book funnel , etc so it will be a lot easier to read books you buy direct from authors.
@forpeterssake@bookstodon I kept in mind that it's a novel Austen didn't finish so S1 was not going to be as Austen-esque as I wanted. BUT, taking Austen out of the picture, and thinking of it as just a period piece, I really enjoyed it!
Currently in the middle of this dystopian science fiction novel, written by Mary Shelley and set at the end of 21st century. It's 2090's but the flavour is quite 19th-century-ish: people are still using carriages and there's conflict Greece-Turkey, as if we were still in 1919.
Have you read it? #bookstodon@bookstodon
#BookReview Setting the perfect tone for this collection of twenty-three tales of Baba Yaga is the spell-poem by Stephanie M. Wytovich that opens it. The stories that follow are traditional and modern, set in Slavic forests or a swamp in the American Deep South. Two of the stories are interesting variations on our Hansel and Gretel tale, another is told by the Baba Yaga's hut on chicken legs, and in one Baba Yaga falls in love.
The Baba Yagas vary too, they are ancient and young, beautiful and ugly, cruel and compassionate, but she is always a powerful figure who is closely connected to the natural world.
Into the Forest was edited by Lindy Ryan with an introduction by Christina Henry, and the stories are by women fantasy and horror writers who bring a welcome feminist sensibility to many of them. There are some very strong selections, but the collection does have a few weaker choices.
A couple of the stories are bursting the seams of a short story and could be developed into novels. The perfect kind of eerie anthology to cozy up with through the dark, cold months. #reading#books@bookstodon
@bookstodon
I really can't recommend Gordon Doherty's Empires of Bronze series enough - it's written really well and he clearly has done his research. What's really fascinating is that the story is ultimately a sad one - the Sea Peoples essentially end up wiping out most Bronze Age civs (other than the Egyptians), but the story has a hopeful ending. The author also does a great job of separating fact from fiction.
@chiraag@bookstodon Harry Turtledove (aka Harry Turteltaub) has a series (one title is Over the Wine-Dark Sea) called Hellenic Traders. The 4 books center around cousins Menedemos and Sostratos who work as seaborne traders in the years following the death of Alexander the Great (after classical Greece). The series is notable for a high degree of historical accuracy. I found them engrossing and full of nitty-gritty details about their life.
@MonarchLady@chiraag@bookstodon Harry's latest novel is WAGES OF SIN. It's about what life would be like if AIDS struck the world in the early 1500 instead of the 1980s. Can't wait to read it.
I've finished: The Stranger Times by C.K. McDonnell
It was recommended to me here on Mastodon' though I don't remember by who.
I hadn't heard of C.K. McDonnell before and am glad to have found such a talented comedy writer.
The Stranger Times is over the top sitcom urban fantasy.
There aren't many good funny fantasy writers. Many try to hard and it shows. McDonnell's characters go all the way across the line into caricature, thus avoiding the uncanny valley between the real and the absurd.
The astonishing story of immigrants lured to the United States from India and trapped in forced labor—told by the visionary labor leader who engineered their escape and set them on a path to citizenship.
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
"What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against?"
No one knows more about it or speaks more engagingly on the topic than Lisa Fagin Davis. Here is her most recent (very rigorous) discussion of the topic.