A bunch of books I've read lately

Jul. 9th, 2025 10:27 pm
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft:

Read more... )

A Treachery of Swans by A.B. Poranek:

Read more... )


I'd heard of Melissa Scott's Astreiant novels, but hadn't gotten to them until recently. I like the combination of plotty mysteries and slowburn romance. It reminded me of Swordspoint at times, although with more magic and a matriarchal-ish society (it was interesting to notice 'she' being used as default pronoun for an unknown person the way 'he' sometimes used to be, iirc). I'm very fond of the main characters, but I would really like to read something like this with a f/f main couple. More on specific books (I have two more left in the series to read) below.


Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett:

Read more... )

Point of Knives by Melissa Scott:

Read more... )

Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett:

Read more... )

Fairs' Point by Melissa Scott:

Read more... )

What Am I Reading Wednesday - July 9

Jul. 9th, 2025 09:33 pm
lebateleur: Ukiyo-e image of Japanese woman reading (TWIB)
[personal profile] lebateleur
The first six months of this year really tanked my standard reading pace, but as it seems to be picking back up in recent weeks, let's get back into the swing of:

What I Finished Reading This Week

The Twelfth of Never – Ciaran Carson
Although I'm much more of a lyrics person, I will read Ciaran Carson's poetry any day of the week. The 77 linked sonnets in The Twelfth of Never are as trippy and beautifully written as anything he's ever penned, and I'll definitely need to read this once more to get a handle on everything that's going. As a bonus, the volume also contains some vintage 80s "Japan is just so weird" goggling, apparently occasioned by a junket Carson took to Tokyo.

The Party and the People – Bruce Dickson
The first half of this book is excellent: Dickson's writing is crisp and informative. Unfortunately, the quality—in terms of proofreading, thoroughness, and argumentation—drops precipitously in the later chapters, as if Dickson was forced to rush through them, or possibly even author them.

Scotland's Forgotten Past – Alistair Moffat
I was worried this book would be superficial listicle-style content. My concerns were misplaced. Scotland's Forgotten Past is engaging and informative. Moffat touches on geography, politics, culture, and more, focusing on both the good (e.g., the Scottish Enlightenment) and the bad (e.g., antisemitism) with a deft and objective touch. I'll definitely read this one again and look for more by this author.


What I Am Currently Reading

How To Dodge a Cannonball – Dennard Dayle
It took about 100 pages for this book to find its footing, but it's pretty enjoyable now that it has.

The Third Revolution – Elizabeth Economy
Economy also has a wonderfully crisp and informative style; I'll probably finish this book by the end of next week.

Under the Nuclear Shadow – Fiona Cunningham
Cunningham, by contrast, does not. There's some thought-provoking stuff in here, but dear god are her sentences convoluted.

The Woman's Day Book of House Plants – Jean Hersey
It's interesting (and occasionally perplexing) to compare Hersey's notes on plant care with the guidance circulating in the 21st century.

Mother, Creature, Kin – Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder
In a month of extreme weather (both locally and in the news), this book is hitting hard.


What I'm Reading Next

This week I picked up Zen at Daitoku-ji by Jon Covell and Yamada Sōbin, and Recorder Technique by Anthony Rowland-Jones.


これで以上です。

It's not my job, man

Jul. 9th, 2025 08:08 pm
mxcatmoon: Chico (Chico)
[personal profile] mxcatmoon
Yes, I'm a lot less stressed these days. A co-worker even mentioned how I sounded happier the other day.

But I'm gonna ramble a bit anyway... )

Gabriel, Good Omens

Sunshine and books

Jul. 9th, 2025 09:03 pm
cornerofmadness: (books)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-2.png

What are your favorite summer-associated foods?
Creative prompt: Draw art of or make graphics of summer foods, or post your favorite summer recipes.


In the summer I barely want to eat. The heat makes me too nauseous to care. I suppose the answer here would be watermelon and all the berries. I'm diabetic so I'm not supposed to eat any of it but that would be my summer associated foods.

I'm on a time crunch for stories so I can't write something for this prompt but I can find some recipes!


watermelon and berries this way...okay so mostly my summer recipes are for me to get drunk and forget how much I don't like heat )


I finished my third Overlord Husk story for Overlord Husk week (and now I see someone else wants to do another next month. Ah well)

and this made me sad. I have always liked this hotel and they were remodeling it and the paranormal group was meeting there and I planned to go this fall. Hotel McArthur burns. It was built in 1839 and now it's a total loss.



And of course I have the book meme for you.


What I Just Finished Reading:

Kill You Twice - a pretty graphic the ending was hollywood over the top nonsense and I hate the detective (or at least I should say I couldn't respect him)

I Need You To Read This - this was a decent mystery but also with a dumb hollywood ending



What I am Currently Reading:

Pantomine - an LGBT (intersexed main character) fantasy, I like it but on the other hand not a lot is happening and I fear it'll end on a cliffhanger

Cinders of Yesterday - Buffy/Supernatural vibes, urban fantasy, lesbian partners (by a queer author) so far I like it a lot.

Zero at the Bone - an old true crime I found at the library sale and got because of the Z in the title (for my alphabet challenge)



What I Plan to Read Next: War Child - a Deep Space Nine Novel

Greek Myth: Fanfic: In the Family

Jul. 9th, 2025 08:38 pm
drabblewriter: (Epic - Troy Saga)
[personal profile] drabblewriter posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks

Title: In the Family
Fandom: Greek Myth
Characters: Apollo, Asclepius
Rating: G
Length: 265
Summary: Asclepius's hands part carefully, and Apollo sees what he's holding: a brown songbird, feathers ruffled and spotted with blood, an arrow protruding from one wing.

Read more... )

wednesday update

Jul. 9th, 2025 07:00 pm
isis: (coffee label)
[personal profile] isis
I don't have much to say about books or TV, because I am still in the middle of my current read and current show. But! For those of you who casually enjoyed the podcast The Strange Case of Starship Iris, the third (and final) season is coming out now. There are a couple of "mini-sodes" which will help you catch up to what's going on, and two regular episodes, and the third will be out soon (it's out to high-dollar Patreons but I am a low-dollar contributor). I listened to the mini-sodes when they came out, and today on my run I listened to the first two regular episodes. Again, I kind of feel like I'm using dystopian fiction about authoritarian regimes as escapism from actual authoritarian regimes...

But the real reason I wanted to post was to say that I'm a bit more than 55% through Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and there's a 30% discount for it in the Steam sale which ends tomorrow, so - if my post last week intrigued you, I encourage you to buy it, it's inexpensive, it's captivating, it's sophisticated and spooky and atmospheric with occasional touches of humor, fourth-wall smashing, and weird supernatural stuff, and the puzzles are clever and thinky and (mostly) fun. As I mentioned, I told my brother about it and he bought it - and he finished it last night! He admits he got so into it that he put in way too many hours too quickly, but he really loved it.

If you do buy it, the hints page at https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3249636035 is really great as it is nudge-y rather than sledge-y; it points you in the right direction (or tells you what a wrong direction is) which for me is mostly all I have needed.

Also, there are in-game espresso machines.

(no subject)

Jul. 9th, 2025 07:20 pm
skygiants: Enjolras from Les Mis shouting revolution-tastically (la resistance lives on)
[personal profile] skygiants
When [personal profile] kate_nepveu started doing a real-time readalong for Steven Brust & Emma Bull's epistolary novel Freedom and Necessity in 2023, I read just enough of Kate's posts to realize that this was a book that I probably wanted to read for myself and then stopped clicking on the cut-text links. Now, several years later, I have finally done so!

Freedom and Necessity kicks off in 1849, with British gentleman James Cobham politely writing to his favorite cousin Richard to explain he has just learned that everybody thinks he is dead, he does not remember the last two months or indeed anything since the last party the two of them attended together, he is pretending to be a groom at the stables that found him, and would Richard mind telling him whether he thinks he ought to go on pretending to be dead and doing a little light investigation on his behalf into wtf is going on?

We soon learn that a.) James has been involved in something mysterious and political; b.) Richard thinks that James ought to be more worried about something differently mysterious and supernatural; c.) both Richard and James have a lot of extremely verbose opinions about the exciting new topic of Hegelian logic; and d.) James and Richard are both in respective Its Complicateds with two more cousins, Susan and Kitty, and at this point Susan and Kitty kick in with a correspondence of their own as Susan decides to exorcise her grief about the [fake] death of the cousin she Definitely Was Not In Love With by investigating why James kept disappearing for months at a time before he died.

By a few chapters in, I was describing it to [personal profile] genarti as 'Sorcery and Cecelia if you really muscled it up with nineteenth century radical philosophy' and having a wonderful time.

Then I got a few more chapters in and learned more about WTF indeed was up with James and texted Kate like 'WAIT IS THIS A LYMONDALIKE?' to which she responded 'I thought it was obvious!' And I was still having a wonderful time, and continued doing so all through, but could not stop myself from bursting into laughter every time the narrative lovingly described James' pale and delicate-looking yet surprisingly athletic figure or his venomous light voice etc. etc. mid-book spoilers )

Anyway, if you've read a Lymond, you know that there's often One Worthy Man in a Lymond book who is genuinely wise and can penetrate Lymond's self-loathing to gently explain to him that he should use his many poisoned gifts for the better. Freedom and Necessity dares to ask the question: what if that man? were Dreamy Friedrich Engels. Which is, frankly, an amazing choice.

Now even as I write this, I know that [personal profile] genarti is glaring at me for the fact that I am allowing Francis Crawford of Lymond to take over this booklog just as the spectre of Francis Crawford of Lymond takes over any book in which he appears -- and I do think that James takes over the book a bit more from Richard and Kitty than I would strictly like (I love Kitty and her cheerful opium visions and her endless run-on sentences as she staunchly holds down the home front). But to give Brust and Bull their credit, Susan staunchly holds her own as co-protagonist in agency, page space and character development despite the fact that James is pulling all the book's actual plot (revolutionary politics chaotically colliding with Gothic occult family drama) around after him like a dramatic black cloak.

And what about the radical politics, anyway? Brust and Bull have absolutely done their reading and research, and I very much enjoy and appreciate the point of view that they're writing from. I do think it's quite funny when Engels is like "James, your first duty is to your class," and James is like "well, I am a British aristocrat, so that's depressing," and Engels is like "you don't have to be! you can just decide to be of the proletariat! any day you can decide that! and then your first duty will be to the proletariat!" which like .... not that you can't decide to be in solidarity with the working class ..... but this is sort of a telling stance in an epistolary novel that does not actually center a single working-class POV. How pleasant to keep writing exclusively about verbose and erudite members of the British gentry who have conveniently chosen to be of the proletariat! James does of course have working-class comrades, and he respects them very much, and is tremendously angsty about their off-page deaths. So it goes.

On the other hand, at this present moment, I honestly found it quite comforting to be reading a political adventure novel set in 1849, in the crashing reactionary aftermath to the various revolutions of 1848. One of the major political themes of the book is concerned with how to keep on going through the low point -- how to keep on working and believing for the better future in the long term, even while knowing that unfortunately it hasn't come yet and given the givens probably won't for some time. Acknowledging the low point and the long game is a challenging thing for fiction to do, and I appreciate it a lot when I see it. I'd like to see more of it.

Falling through the sky.

Jul. 9th, 2025 08:43 pm
hannah: (Stargate Atlantis - zaneetas)
[personal profile] hannah
I made a mistake regarding patient charts at work - nothing life-threatening or genuinely harmful, simply highly improper procedure that created twice the work for myself and the practice instead of half the work that would've come from doing it right the first time. When asked about it, I said I could provide reasons and excuses and it didn't matter, I'd done the thing and would fix it.

Besides the lessons of "write everything down at least twice" and "most mistakes can be fixed", the main takeaway is the person who spoke to me about it assumed I was Gen Z and was a little surprised when I said I was a Millennial. Partly that's the nature of the mistake, and I think another part's simply how I look. Granted, he's nearly twice my age so anyone more than 20 years his junior is "young" by that standard. Even so, I'm going to take the skin care compliment.
lil_1337: (Default)
[personal profile] lil_1337
Review )

Daily Check-in

Jul. 9th, 2025 06:04 pm
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
 
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Wednesday, July 9, to midnight on Thursday, July 10. (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33344 Daily Check-in
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 18

How are you doing?

I am OK.
12 (66.7%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
6 (33.3%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single.
7 (38.9%)

One other person.
7 (38.9%)

More than one other person.
4 (22.2%)




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
 

(no subject)

Jul. 10th, 2025 12:30 am
tellshannon815: (jeanette)
[personal profile] tellshannon815
Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-2.png

Challenge #3

Journaling prompt: What are your favorite summer-associated foods?
Creative prompt: Draw art of or make graphics of summer foods, or post your favorite summer recipes.




And yes, those who know me, that's Freddie-bulldog going after the halloumi.

Guardian: fanfic: Winging It

Jul. 10th, 2025 10:29 am
china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Default)
[personal profile] china_shop posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: Winging It
Fandom: Guardian (TV)
Rating: G-rated
Length: 600 words
Notes: Much thanks to [personal profile] trobadora for beta, including making me add the final section. <3
Tags: Gen, Post-Canon, Everyone Lives, Yashou Renewal, Education, A New Era for the SID, Original Crow Character, Drabble Sequence
Summary: The Crows need a science tutor.

Winging It )

Wednesday What I'm...

Jul. 9th, 2025 05:54 pm
reeby10: the lower half of a person laying on grass and reading with the words 'time to escape' and a ripped looking border (reading)
[personal profile] reeby10
Reading
  • I've read nothing but fic this week lol Still on Gradence. Currently I'm rereading The Standard Book of Spells by [archiveofourown.org profile] canis_m , which I don't really remember, but I'm enjoying it.
Watching
  • I continued watching movies my roommate wouldn't want to watch. This week was:
    • Bitten. I thought the premise of this movie was interesting, but the soul deep romance fell a bit flat. I also could not figure out who they thought the audience was, with the divorced middle aged man "fucking women amirite" jokes and the twelve year old boy poop jokes.
    • Ghost Shark. Even more ridiculous than it sounds tbh, but overall pretty fun.
    • Planet of the Sharks. Very interesting worldbuilding that I wish wold have gotten explored some more. They went hard on the climate change stuff, which was not bad.
    • Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. Pretty ridiculous, but about on par for what I expected from this franchise lol
    • Hoax. I'm always down for a Bigfoot hunt, so pretty fun. I feel like the twist discovery at the end kind of ruined it a bit for me though, I don't love a cannibal redneck story.
    • Ozark Sharks. A pretty fun movie cribbed very much from Jaws. But I liked the characters and relationships.
    • Mississippi River Sharks. This was so funny to watch right after Ozark Sharks bc it's the same director and even uses some of the same b roll footage. It also has a character that ties the movies together, plus has a in canon shark movie series that shares names with the director's shark movies, so that was interesting.
  • I was craving a BL romance, so I started a Thai series called Your Sky. I stayed up until after midnight two nights this week because I didn't want to stop watching lol I also got the bff to start watching and she's obsessed as well. It's just so fun and so cute! And great side romances!
  • Watched one more PBS Nova episode, Lost Tombs of Notre Dame. Very interesting!
  • AEW as usual. Kyle Fletcher remains my favorite guy regularly on at the moment.
Listening
  • Been wanting some seasonal music, so I found a summer alt rock playlist. It was ok. I should probably just make myself one.
Writing
  • I wrote a poem for a NaPoWriMo prompt.
schneefink: Hotguy and Cuteguy thumbsup (Hermitcraft Hotguy and Cuteguy)
[personal profile] schneefink
The promised part 2 of MCYT AUFest Battleship recs! I still have a few dozen works bookmarked to read later, but this felt like it was hanging over my head so I wanted to get it done, especially since I easily had enough for a list. There might even be a part three, but no promises.

9xfic, 2xwebweave, 2xart; Hermitcraft, Life Series, QSMP, DSMP, MCYT RPF )
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