I've also just started the audiobook of The Bee Sting. I gave up on trying to read all of the books shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but I've heard great things about this one #BookerPrize#currentlyreading#books#reading#bookstodon
I quite liked Western Lane and If I Survive You, but gave up on This Other Eden after one chapter (which is very unlike me, but I just did not get on with it at all) #BookerPrize#currentlyreading#bookstodon
Just finished reading this book last night, but am now turning back to re-read a few sections. Clare Hunter writes wonderfully well and is passionate and very knowledgeable about her subject. I finished the book inspired by the stories she tells, with a list of things to find out more about, and with more than a few project ideas floating around in my head.
“You don’t even care about her!” he shouted. “All that matters is you and your precious fucking fantasy that you and Alaska had this goddamned secret love affair and she was going to leave Jake for you and you'd live happily ever after. But she kissed a lot of guys, Pudge. And if she were here, we both know that she would still be Jake's girlfriend and that there'd be nothing but drama between the two of you—not love, not sex, just you pining after her and her like, ‘You're cute, Pudge, but I love Jake.' If she loved you so much, why did she leave you that night? And if you loved her so much, why'd you help her go? I was drunk. What's your excuse?"
The Colonel let go of my sweater, and I reached down and picked up the cigarettes. Not screaming, not through clenched teeth, not with the veins pulsing in my forehead, but calmly. Calmly. I looked down at the Colonel and said, "Fuck you."
Just finished Etaf Rum's A Woman Is No Man. An unexpected, sad, generational story of resilience. Not that i didn't know women or Palestinians were resilient, but it begins in a certain patriarchal way but spreads out hopefully as we get to know our characters.
And i love an author's essay at the end talking about their life, what inspired them, what is autobiographical about their fiction, which this one has.
I had planned to move onto more scary books and #DarkRomance at this stage in #SpookySeason, but the world right now is a nightmare and I don't need more horror in my life at this time... #CurrentlyReading "Watt and Bothered" by Fiona Davenport - a "shocking" tale of electric attraction between the MCs.
Affective Worldmaking: Narrative Counterpublics of Gender and Sexuality edited by S. Schultermandl, J. Aresin, S. Pages Whybrew, and D. Simic (nonfiction)
“There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction- every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour.”
@bookstodon I’ve been listening to the audio book and reading along simultaneously to see if it will help with my concentration. It’s been alright aside from the fact that my eyes read faster than the narrator reads. I tried to bump the play back speed on Libby to 1.25x but then it was too fast. There’s nothing between 1.0x and 1.25x 😑 #bookstodon#currentlyreading
I’m only a few chapters (but dozens of post its!) into Jacob Mikanowski’s Goodbye, Eastern Europe, but I can already tell this is an unprecedented book.
With ambitious breadth, it captures a history of Eastern Europe which national and imperial historical accounts have failed to do, mostly because of the transient nature of states and borders in the region.
Jacob’s own family history informs his storytelling but doesn’t stop there. He weaves together deeply researched insights I haven’t seen elsewhere. This book would have been transformative to my studies as an undergraduate writing about the unrecorded history of my own people and country.
I borrowed it from the library but will be buying my own copy so I can scribble in the margins.
I worry that the reason it’s not getting more widespread recognition is because so few in the West can appreciate its importance.
I borrow a lot of books from the library after placing a hold, so even though I pick them up at my home library, they’re originally from other branch libraries in the @sfpl system.
so going forward, I’m going to start returning them to their branch libraries of origin until I’ve visited all the different locations.
today: returning Hernán Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Trust to the Excelsior branch. It’s the best thing I’ve read this year.
I was really excited to return this particular book because its "home" is the #VisitacionValley#SFPL branch. and I had never been to that neighborhood!
The Visitacion Valley library is stunning! it's a big building at the corner of the neighborhood's (admittedly tiny) commercial strip, with a generous courtyard out front, and a small private garden on the side for all your outdoor reading needs. inside there are high ceilings in the central hall, with lots of comfy seating, and cozy alcoves for specific collections.
(yes, I read the Lorax. as an immigrant who grew up elsewhere, I had never read it as a kid. so I read the Lorax).