beth's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 18 Apr 2025 16:19:00 -0700 60 beth's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Bloody Chamber 29336720 147 Angela Carter beth 4 3.78 1979 The Bloody Chamber
author: Angela Carter
name: beth
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/19
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Cat’s Eye 51019 Cat's Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal. Elaine must come to terms with her own identity as a daughter, a lover, and artist, and woman—but above all she must seek release from her haunting memories. Disturbing, hilarious, and compassionate, Cat's Eye is a breathtaking novel of a woman grappling with the tangled knots of her life.]]> 462 Margaret Atwood 0385491026 beth 3 3.95 1988 Cat’s Eye
author: Margaret Atwood
name: beth
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: 3-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, read-2025
review:

]]> <![CDATA[There Will Come Soft Rains (Tale Blazers)]]> 2260460
The story concerns a household in Allendale, California, in the aftermath of a nuclear war.]]> 30 Ray Bradbury 089598962X beth 4 4.23 1950 There Will Come Soft Rains (Tale Blazers)
author: Ray Bradbury
name: beth
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1950
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: 4-star, exit-wounds, fiction, read-2025, short-stories
review:

]]> My Broken Mariko 53487791 194 Waka Hirako 1975318609 beth 3 4.03 2020 My Broken Mariko
author: Waka Hirako
name: beth
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: 3-star, exit-wounds, manga, read-2025
review:
Lovely art style, very raw. It didn’t affect me how I thought it might, though. But I wonder if I’ll reread it in the future and reach a different point with it.
]]> 櫻の園 [Sakura no sono] 19008273 224 Akimi Yoshida beth 4 RTC 4.00 1994 櫻の園 [Sakura no sono]
author: Akimi Yoshida
name: beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: 4-star, lesbian, manga, read-2025, shōjo
review:
RTC
]]> ブルージュ―アプローズ (プリンセスコミックス) 61852310 190 Kyoko Ariyoshi 4253076696 beth 4
SPOILERS. Just so you know.

A very interesting approach to the conundrum of ‘Class S’ tropes in retro shōjo manga of this time, in which lesbian and/or bisexual female characters need to have a fittingly tragic ending so their homosexuality can have plausible deniability/be written off as a phase to be grown out of.

Not only does it outright challenge this quite boldly in its last few pages, but it features a past tragic lesbian relationship and uses this as a device to directly comment upon our lesbian protagonist, Shara, and the differences in how she will handle her homosexuality going forwards (in that she wonders how those women felt, if they ever wavered, what it was like to love someone of the same-sex). It reads to me as directly confrontational to the Class S restrictions on the part of the author.

However, in its second-to-last page, after this affirmation that she will continue to love and explore her feelings for the co-protagonist, and their kiss, she leaves the summer school(?) event with the (masc!) friend she arrived with at the beginning, and she thinks that this experience was alike to ‘a dream’. So, capitulation? Yes, slightly. But barely, and I think readers will understand the ‘secret message’ the author was attempting to give us (a little play on words, as a secret message from another lesbian character is revealed on the final page!).]]> 3.00 1981 ブルージュ―アプローズ (プリンセスコミックス)
author: Kyoko Ariyoshi
name: beth
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: 4-star, lesbian, manga, read-2025, shōjo
review:
[This manga is called Applause and was published in 1981-1982. I believe there is another segment I still need to read, so this is my thoughts on the first part].

SPOILERS. Just so you know.

A very interesting approach to the conundrum of ‘Class S’ tropes in retro shōjo manga of this time, in which lesbian and/or bisexual female characters need to have a fittingly tragic ending so their homosexuality can have plausible deniability/be written off as a phase to be grown out of.

Not only does it outright challenge this quite boldly in its last few pages, but it features a past tragic lesbian relationship and uses this as a device to directly comment upon our lesbian protagonist, Shara, and the differences in how she will handle her homosexuality going forwards (in that she wonders how those women felt, if they ever wavered, what it was like to love someone of the same-sex). It reads to me as directly confrontational to the Class S restrictions on the part of the author.

However, in its second-to-last page, after this affirmation that she will continue to love and explore her feelings for the co-protagonist, and their kiss, she leaves the summer school(?) event with the (masc!) friend she arrived with at the beginning, and she thinks that this experience was alike to ‘a dream’. So, capitulation? Yes, slightly. But barely, and I think readers will understand the ‘secret message’ the author was attempting to give us (a little play on words, as a secret message from another lesbian character is revealed on the final page!).
]]> <![CDATA[The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine]]> 57540 But why is it denied, and by whom? The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine offers an investigation of this mystery.]]> 320 Ilan Pappé 1851684670 beth 4
A very important and harrowing work.]]> 4.54 2006 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
author: Ilan Pappé
name: beth
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: 4-star, exit-wounds, history, imperialism-studies, indigenous, middle-east, non-fiction, race, read-2025
review:
There’s definitely a tension during the epilogue in regards to anti-colonial resistance (though he does recognise it as resistance), though I understand the emphasis on peace and reconciliation.

A very important and harrowing work.
]]> <![CDATA[Sea of Poppies (Ibis Trilogy, #1)]]> 37832624 530 Amitav Ghosh beth 4 3.95 2008 Sea of Poppies (Ibis Trilogy, #1)
author: Amitav Ghosh
name: beth
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: 4-star, fiction, race, read-2023, read-2025
review:

]]> The Aleph and Other Stories 862821
Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges’s most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight he takes us inside the minds of an unrepentant Nazi, an imprisoned Mayan priest, fanatical Christian theologians, a woman plotting vengeance on her father’s “killer,” and a man awaiting his assassin in a Buenos Aires guest house. This volume also contains the hauntingly brief vignettes about literary imagination and personal identity collected in The Maker, which Borges wrote as failing eyesight and public fame began to undermine his sense of self.]]> 224 Jorge Luis Borges beth 4 4.13 1945 The Aleph and Other Stories
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: beth
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1945
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: 4-star, argentina, classics, fiction, introspection-philosophy, latin-america, literary-fiction, read-2024, short-stories, to-reread-in-spanish, translated
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia]]> 61272305 From Hadley Freeman, bestselling author of House of Glass, comes a “riveting” (The New York Times) memoir about her experience as an anorexic and her journey to recovery.

In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her “I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????”

From the ages of fourteen to seventeen, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like. For the next twenty years, Freeman lived as a “functioning anorexic,” grappling with new forms of self-destructive behavior as the anorexia mutated and persisted. Anorexia is one of the most widely discussed but least understood mental illnesses. Through “sharp storytelling, solid research and gentle humor” (The Wall Street Journal), Freeman delivers an incisive and bracing work that details her experiences with anorexia—the shame, fear, loneliness, and rage—and how she overcame it. She interviews doctors to learn how treatment for the illness has changed since she was hospitalized and what new discoveries have been made about the illness, including its connection to autism, OCD, and metabolic rate. She learns why the illness always begins during adolescence and how this reveals the difficulties for girls to come of age. Freeman tracks down the women with whom she was hospitalized and reports on how their recovery has progressed over decades.

Good Girls is an honest and hopeful story of resilience that offers a message to the nearly 30 million Americans who suffer from eating Life can be enjoyed, rather than merely endured.]]> 276 Hadley Freeman 1982189851 beth 4
I was surprised, even morbidly amused, when she'd occasionally describe behaviour taken straight from the scrapbook of my own life: turning taps off with your elbow so you don't need to wash your hands again, did you say? I'm a professional in this sport. When I was a child and twirling around, having to spin back the other way an equal amount of times to 'unravel' myself? Of course, after all, one has to be sure you haven't accidentally trapped yourself in an alternate time continuum! That is to say, though the behaviour was not always familiar to me, the distorted thought processes, the ugly emotions, and the inability to give yourself a break offered me some insight into Freeman's anorexic worldview. It doesn't sound like a pleasant place to be.

Structured roughly in chronological order, we follow young Hadley from the moment her mind breaks in two (I still remember my own mind altering practically overnight), through memories of her time in various hospitals over her teenage years, through to her university and later adult life, and finally her reflections on recovery and her current experience. Peppered throughout are the stories of other women she knew in hospital, some of which made me sob; interviews with professionals on current research into anorexia in terms of treatment and causes, and how this understanding developed from when Freeman was ill; alongside this, we also see the author's own insights on being a girl and now a woman, and how this uniquely relates to anorexia's expression and existence (it's perhaps the most gendered mental illness there is). Obsessive-compulsive disorder and drug addiction are also discussed.

Like most everyone else, I came into this book with certain confusion about anorexia and its causes. Was it simply an embodied reflection of our society's obsession with female thinness? Are models, and more importantly, those that hire and sell their images to us, entirely to blame? What do anorexic girls mean when they say they 'feel/look fat', when this so clearly isn't the case? Is their actual visual perception distorted, as well as their psychological interpretations? How does one recover, and if some do, why don't they all?

Though research into this area is still ongoing, and ultimately, it's not entirely understood why some recover and some do not, or even what causes eating disorders more broadly, there was still a lot of knowledge to be gained. Girls and young women with anorexia know they are incredibly underweight, Freeman tells us, but they want to look ill. Once this clicks, it becomes easier to understand the general rationale of the illness; if it's about the state of being ill itself, then it does become about difficult emotions and fears of growing up, rather than the food itself. The hyper-fixation on food, she continues, is not the most important or significant factor, but a self-destructive expression of deep-rooted unhappiness and self-loathing. Within this context, 90s skinniness, the fashion industry, and presentational aspects of gender division more generally are unhelpful, to be sure, but also can't be neatly labelled the sole instigators of female discontent (they certainly do nothing to discourage disordered eating and negative body image, however). Girls learn about their expected gendered behaviours in less visible ways, too, and an emphasis on being well-behaved and excessively deferential quickly morphs into perfectionism and self-denial. The anger, ugliness, and fears of teenage girls do not have an appropriate outlet here, and when they don't the brain may simply create a space for those feelings to go, no matter how destructive this ends up being. I learned a lot through my experience of reading this, and became more than a little angry at the trivialisation and in some cases demonisation of some of the most vulnerable girls.

Speaking of vulnerable children, I thought I would briefly address the negative—and, in my opinion, mostly unfair—reviews and criticisms that this book has received on account of a few things. Firstly, and no doubt this was anticipated by Freeman herself, there are a few who have similarly suffered with an eating disorder and are unhappy with her portrayal of anorexia nervosa. Though this is understandable—when people have suffered they want to see their experiences represented—if it is one's sole metric for measuring the merit of this book, many will be left disappointed. She is one woman, and has never claimed to speak for everyone.

She no doubt also anticipated the hoards of one-to-two-star reviews by people calling her a ‘TERF’ for a few chapters that make reference to, and compare, the experiences of girls with anorexia and girls adopting transgender identities and seeking medical treatment to become transmen (I saw one reviewer express their disbelief that Freeman would talk about dysphoria as though it’s an illness—wait until they discover that transitioning requires one to fulfil certain diagnostic criteria. Gosh, it’s almost as though you’re considered to be in psychological distress). For those who don't know, in 2009 most referrals to the UK's adolescent gender clinic on account of distress towards one's biological sex (gender dysphoria) were boys, but by 2019 the number of overall referrals had not only notably increased (77 in 2009 to 2,590 in 2019), but also had a demographic shift, with 74% of those referred being young girls. The proportion diverges from more equal numbers between boys and girls pre-puberty to skewing more heavily female during. If this sounds at all alarming to you, or at least something curious that ought to be looked into, then welcome to the ranks of women and men who are called fascists and extremists for expressing this utterly benign and reasonable view—I know, I'm similarly scratching my head and asking what the heck's going on.

For my part, I believe it’s not only reasonable, but good old-fashioned sensible to investigate why there has been an increase in the number of natal girls identifying as trans. It would be unbelievably irresponsible not to with such a striking demographic shift in those seeking to transition. The more people decry journalists, healthcare professionals, and parents for wanting to look into this issue as evil bigots, the more convinced I become of just how ideological many peoples beliefs about this topic are, and the more aware I am that they are not led by compassion and caution, despite how often they may claim to be. No diagnosis nor treatment is exempt from criticism and above careful investigation, and to argue otherwise is to argue that some young people do not deserve the same thorough and evidence-based medical care. That's all I've to say about that right now, but I felt the need to tell any who may be confused by such reviews, or wrongly convinced of the author's supposed bigotry, that this is a sensitive and loving book that is well worth your time.

Ultimately, this is a hopeful and compassionate book, and the author's journey to recovery (which took decades) is personally inspiring to me, and no doubt will be to many others who have spent time locked in tense arguments inside their mind. Nobody gets out the other side without staring down their fears, and some will never be able to fully shake them, but we are able to make the decision to live and flourish regardless. As someone who is still struggling, and potentially not quite ready to give up all of my illness just yet, it has offered me renewed confidence in my capability to chip away at my fears day after day and know I am resilient not for my ability to hold onto them, but to allow myself to let them go. Highly recommended.]]> 3.88 2023 Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia
author: Hadley Freeman
name: beth
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: 4-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, non-fiction, narrative-nonfiction, read-2023
review:
I cried a few times whilst reading this, because it's an upsetting story at times that reflects a cruel and stark reality. Many who have experienced mental illness across their lives can relate to Hadley Freeman describing her adolescent desperation, anger, and self-destruction. I, who has never experienced anorexia nervosa, but does experience obsessive-compulsive disorder—just as Freeman herself has across her life—related strongly to her reflections on guilt, obsessiveness, shame, and the unending quest to feel some semblance of control in a world restricted by a set of self-imposed rules.

I was surprised, even morbidly amused, when she'd occasionally describe behaviour taken straight from the scrapbook of my own life: turning taps off with your elbow so you don't need to wash your hands again, did you say? I'm a professional in this sport. When I was a child and twirling around, having to spin back the other way an equal amount of times to 'unravel' myself? Of course, after all, one has to be sure you haven't accidentally trapped yourself in an alternate time continuum! That is to say, though the behaviour was not always familiar to me, the distorted thought processes, the ugly emotions, and the inability to give yourself a break offered me some insight into Freeman's anorexic worldview. It doesn't sound like a pleasant place to be.

Structured roughly in chronological order, we follow young Hadley from the moment her mind breaks in two (I still remember my own mind altering practically overnight), through memories of her time in various hospitals over her teenage years, through to her university and later adult life, and finally her reflections on recovery and her current experience. Peppered throughout are the stories of other women she knew in hospital, some of which made me sob; interviews with professionals on current research into anorexia in terms of treatment and causes, and how this understanding developed from when Freeman was ill; alongside this, we also see the author's own insights on being a girl and now a woman, and how this uniquely relates to anorexia's expression and existence (it's perhaps the most gendered mental illness there is). Obsessive-compulsive disorder and drug addiction are also discussed.

Like most everyone else, I came into this book with certain confusion about anorexia and its causes. Was it simply an embodied reflection of our society's obsession with female thinness? Are models, and more importantly, those that hire and sell their images to us, entirely to blame? What do anorexic girls mean when they say they 'feel/look fat', when this so clearly isn't the case? Is their actual visual perception distorted, as well as their psychological interpretations? How does one recover, and if some do, why don't they all?

Though research into this area is still ongoing, and ultimately, it's not entirely understood why some recover and some do not, or even what causes eating disorders more broadly, there was still a lot of knowledge to be gained. Girls and young women with anorexia know they are incredibly underweight, Freeman tells us, but they want to look ill. Once this clicks, it becomes easier to understand the general rationale of the illness; if it's about the state of being ill itself, then it does become about difficult emotions and fears of growing up, rather than the food itself. The hyper-fixation on food, she continues, is not the most important or significant factor, but a self-destructive expression of deep-rooted unhappiness and self-loathing. Within this context, 90s skinniness, the fashion industry, and presentational aspects of gender division more generally are unhelpful, to be sure, but also can't be neatly labelled the sole instigators of female discontent (they certainly do nothing to discourage disordered eating and negative body image, however). Girls learn about their expected gendered behaviours in less visible ways, too, and an emphasis on being well-behaved and excessively deferential quickly morphs into perfectionism and self-denial. The anger, ugliness, and fears of teenage girls do not have an appropriate outlet here, and when they don't the brain may simply create a space for those feelings to go, no matter how destructive this ends up being. I learned a lot through my experience of reading this, and became more than a little angry at the trivialisation and in some cases demonisation of some of the most vulnerable girls.

Speaking of vulnerable children, I thought I would briefly address the negative—and, in my opinion, mostly unfair—reviews and criticisms that this book has received on account of a few things. Firstly, and no doubt this was anticipated by Freeman herself, there are a few who have similarly suffered with an eating disorder and are unhappy with her portrayal of anorexia nervosa. Though this is understandable—when people have suffered they want to see their experiences represented—if it is one's sole metric for measuring the merit of this book, many will be left disappointed. She is one woman, and has never claimed to speak for everyone.

She no doubt also anticipated the hoards of one-to-two-star reviews by people calling her a ‘TERF’ for a few chapters that make reference to, and compare, the experiences of girls with anorexia and girls adopting transgender identities and seeking medical treatment to become transmen (I saw one reviewer express their disbelief that Freeman would talk about dysphoria as though it’s an illness—wait until they discover that transitioning requires one to fulfil certain diagnostic criteria. Gosh, it’s almost as though you’re considered to be in psychological distress). For those who don't know, in 2009 most referrals to the UK's adolescent gender clinic on account of distress towards one's biological sex (gender dysphoria) were boys, but by 2019 the number of overall referrals had not only notably increased (77 in 2009 to 2,590 in 2019), but also had a demographic shift, with 74% of those referred being young girls. The proportion diverges from more equal numbers between boys and girls pre-puberty to skewing more heavily female during. If this sounds at all alarming to you, or at least something curious that ought to be looked into, then welcome to the ranks of women and men who are called fascists and extremists for expressing this utterly benign and reasonable view—I know, I'm similarly scratching my head and asking what the heck's going on.

For my part, I believe it’s not only reasonable, but good old-fashioned sensible to investigate why there has been an increase in the number of natal girls identifying as trans. It would be unbelievably irresponsible not to with such a striking demographic shift in those seeking to transition. The more people decry journalists, healthcare professionals, and parents for wanting to look into this issue as evil bigots, the more convinced I become of just how ideological many peoples beliefs about this topic are, and the more aware I am that they are not led by compassion and caution, despite how often they may claim to be. No diagnosis nor treatment is exempt from criticism and above careful investigation, and to argue otherwise is to argue that some young people do not deserve the same thorough and evidence-based medical care. That's all I've to say about that right now, but I felt the need to tell any who may be confused by such reviews, or wrongly convinced of the author's supposed bigotry, that this is a sensitive and loving book that is well worth your time.

Ultimately, this is a hopeful and compassionate book, and the author's journey to recovery (which took decades) is personally inspiring to me, and no doubt will be to many others who have spent time locked in tense arguments inside their mind. Nobody gets out the other side without staring down their fears, and some will never be able to fully shake them, but we are able to make the decision to live and flourish regardless. As someone who is still struggling, and potentially not quite ready to give up all of my illness just yet, it has offered me renewed confidence in my capability to chip away at my fears day after day and know I am resilient not for my ability to hold onto them, but to allow myself to let them go. Highly recommended.
]]> The Living Mountain 25773742 This is an alternate Cover Edition for ISBN10: 0857861832/ ISBN13: 9780857861832.

The Living Mountain is a lyrical testament in praise of the Cairngorms. It is a work deeply rooted in Nan Shepherd's knowledge of the natural world, and a poetic and philosophical meditation on our longing for high and holy places. Drawing on different perspectives of the mountain environment, Shepherd makes the familiar strange and the strange awe-inspiring. Her sensitivity and powers of observation put her into the front rank of nature writing.]]> 157 Nan Shepherd beth 4 4.29 1977 The Living Mountain
author: Nan Shepherd
name: beth
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: 4-star, female-authors, introspection-philosophy, non-fiction, read-2024, the-quiet-shelf, scotland
review:

]]> Deaf Republic 40121980

Deaf Republic opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear--they all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence: a newly married couple, Alfonso and Sonya, expecting a child; the brash Momma Galya, instigating the insurgency from her puppet theater; and Galya's girls, heroically teaching signing by day and by night luring soldiers one by one to their deaths behind the curtain. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea, Ilya Kaminsky's long-awaited Deaf Republic confronts our time's vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.

Finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize
Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection]]> 80 Ilya Kaminsky 1555978312 beth 2 4.41 2019 Deaf Republic
author: Ilya Kaminsky
name: beth
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: 2-stars, big-idea-smaller-execution, read-2022, poetry
review:
I must have missed something, I suppose.
]]> <![CDATA[Assassin of Reality (Vita Nostra, #2)]]> 61331501 The eagerly anticipated sequel to the highly acclaimed Vita Nostra takes readers to the next stage in Sasha Samokhina’s journey in a richly imagined world of dark academia in which grammar is magic—and not all magic is good.

In Vita Nostra, Sasha Samokhina, a third-year student at the Institute of Special Technologies, was in the middle of taking the final exam that would transform her into a part of the Great Speech. After defying her teachers’ expectations, Sasha emerges from the exam as Password, a unique and powerful part of speech. Accomplished and ready to embrace her new role, she soon learns her powers threaten the old world, and despite her hard work, Sasha is set to fail.

However, Farit Kozhennikov, Sasha’s dark mentor, finds a way to bring her out of the oblivion and back to the Institute for his own selfish purposes. Subsequently, Sasha must correct her mistakes before she is allowed to graduate and is forced to do what few are asked and even less achieve: to succeed and reverberate—becoming a part of the Great Speech and being one of the special few who dictate reality. If she fails, she faces a fate far worse than death: the choice is hers.

Years have passed around the Institute—and the numerous realities that have spread from Sasha’s first failure—but it is only her fourth year of learning what role she will play in shaping the world. Her teachers despise and fear her, her classmates distrust her, and a growing love—for a young pilot with no affiliation to the school—is fraught because a relationship means leverage, and Farit won’t hesitate to use it against her.

Planes crash all the time. Which means Sasha needs to rewrite the world so that can’t happen...or fail for good.]]> 256 Marina Dyachenko 0063225441 beth 0 3.71 2021 Assassin of Reality (Vita Nostra, #2)
author: Marina Dyachenko
name: beth
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read, tbr-fiction, to-be-read
review:

]]> Vita Nostra 41451467 Our life is brief . . .

The definitive English language translation of the internationally best-selling Russian novel – a brilliant dark fantasy combining psychological suspense, enchantment, and terror that makes us consider human existence in a fresh and provocative way.

‘A book that has the potential to become a modern classic.’
Lev Grossman, best-selling author of The Magicians

Our life is brief . . .

While on holiday at the beach with her mother, Sasha Samokhina meets the mysterious Farit Kozhennikov under the most peculiar circumstances. The teenage girl is powerless to refuse when this strange and unusual man with a sinister air directs her to perform strange and uncomfortable tasks. He rewards her efforts with a strange golden coin.

As the days progress, Sasha carries out other acts for which she receives more coins from Kozhennikov. As summer ends, her new domineering mentor directs her to move to a remote village and use her gold to enter the Institute of Special Technologies. Though she does not want to go to this unknown town or university, she also feels that somehow it’s the only place she should be. Against her mother’s wishes, Sasha leaves behind all that is familiar and begins her education.

As she quickly discovers, the institute’s ‘special technologies’ are unlike anything she has ever encountered. The books are impossible to read, the lessons maddeningly obscure, and the work refuses memorization. Using terror and coercion to keep the students in line, the school does not punish them for their transgressions and failures; instead, their families pay a terrible price.

Yet despite her fear, Sasha undergoes changes that defy the dictates of matter and time; experiences which are nothing she has ever dreamed of… and suddenly all she could ever want.

A complex blend of adventure, magic, science, and philosophy, filtered through a distinct Russian sensibility, this astonishing work – brilliantly translated by Julia Meitov Hersey – is reminiscent of modern classics such as Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, Max Barry’s Lexicon, and Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale, but will transport them to a place fantastical and new.

]]> 417 Marina Dyachenko 0008272875 beth 5 06.08.21 - ranked up to 5 stars because of lasting power. I think about this book a lot.

Super weird! Probably a lot deeper than I was able to go with it, so seeing others talk about it is fascinating to me. I won't write a proper review simply because others have done that much better than I'd be able to. Definitely recommend, but also an acquired taste for sure.]]> 3.96 2007 Vita Nostra
author: Marina Dyachenko
name: beth
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: female-authors, fiction, read-2020, translated, 5-star, personal-hauntings, fantasy, magical-realism
review:
06.08.21 - ranked up to 5 stars because of lasting power. I think about this book a lot.

Super weird! Probably a lot deeper than I was able to go with it, so seeing others talk about it is fascinating to me. I won't write a proper review simply because others have done that much better than I'd be able to. Definitely recommend, but also an acquired taste for sure.
]]> <![CDATA[The Metamorphosis and Other Stories]]> 7723 The Metamorphosis,” a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature.

Bringing together some of Kafka’s finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author’s artistry. “The Judgment,” which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and “The Stoker,” which became the first chapter of his novel Amerika, are here included. These two, along with “The Metamorphosis,” form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as “The Sons,” and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family.

Also included are “In the Penal Colony,” a story of a torture machine and its operators and victims, and “A Hunger Artist,” about the absurdity of an artist trying to communicate with a misunderstanding public. Kafka’s lucid, succinct writing chronicles the labyrinthine complexities, the futility-laden horror, and the stifling oppressiveness that permeate his vision of modern life.]]> 224 Franz Kafka 1593080298 beth 0 to-read 4.08 1915 The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
author: Franz Kafka
name: beth
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ammonite 180270
Ammonite is an unforgettable novel that questions the very meanings of gender and humanity. As readers share in Marghe’s journey through an alien world, they too embark on a parallel journey of fascinating self-exploration.]]> 416 Nicola Griffith 0345452380 beth 3 3.90 1992 Ammonite
author: Nicola Griffith
name: beth
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/14
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: 3-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, feminism, fiction, lesbian, read-2024, scifi
review:
Very strong first half, and I loved the ending. The characters felt less realised than something like When Women Were Warriors, which is, despite being a different genre, the most similar book I’ve read. It dragged slightly in the second half, and I kept wishing for the world to feel more concrete—I wanted more anthropological details! Overall, still well worth the read though, and I hope to read more feminist science-fiction.
]]> <![CDATA[Childhood (The Copenhagen Trilogy #1)]]> 43685219 The first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, the searing portrait of a woman's journey through love, friendship, ambition and addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writers

Tove knows she is a misfit, whose childhood is made for a completely different girl. In her working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, she is enthralled by her wild, red-headed friend Ruth, who initiates her into adult secrets. But Tove cannot reveal her true self to her or to anyone else. For 'long, mysterious words begin to crawl across my soul', and she comes to realize that she has a vocation, something unknowable within her - and that she must one day, painfully but inevitably, leave the narrow street of her childhood behind.

Childhood, the first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, is a visceral portrait of girlhood and female friendship, told with lyricism and vivid intensity.]]> 99 Tove Ditlevsen 0241391938 beth 0 4.15 1967 Childhood (The Copenhagen Trilogy #1)
author: Tove Ditlevsen
name: beth
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: to-read, tbr-nonfic, to-be-read, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume 1]]> 325785 Capital, one of Marx's major and most influential works, was the product of thirty years close study of the capitalist mode of production in England, the most advanced industrial society of his day. This new translation of Volume One, the only volume to be completed and edited by Marx himself, avoids some of the mistakes that have marred earlier versions and seeks to do justice to the literary qualities of the work. The introduction is by Ernest Mandel, author of Late Capitalism, one of the only comprehensive attempts to develop the theoretical legacy of Capital.]]> 1152 Karl Marx 0140445684 beth 0 currently-reading 4.28 1867 Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume 1
author: Karl Marx
name: beth
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1867
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The State and Revolution 179612 116 Vladimir Lenin 1419183478 beth 4 4.27 2021 The State and Revolution
author: Vladimir Lenin
name: beth
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/28
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves:
review:
absolutely love the ending where he wrote that he’d have to put off writing the next part of the pamphlet because he was interrupted by the october revolution
]]> <![CDATA[Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)]]> 10103389 The first volume of the greatest novels of the twentieth century in Lydia Davis's masterful translation.

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Proust’s masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Davis’s internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swann’s Way.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500?titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the?series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date?translations by award-winning translators.]]> 497 Marcel Proust 110150126X beth 0 currently-reading 4.34 1913 Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)
author: Marcel Proust
name: beth
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1913
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?]]> 18070641
First published in Epoch, Fall 1966. Included in Prize Stories: O Henry Award Winners (1968), and The Best American Short Stories (1967).

Her name was Connie. She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right. Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything...]]> 20 Joyce Carol Oates beth 4 3.96 1966 Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: beth
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/01
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: 4-star, female-authors, fiction, read-2023, short-stories
review:

]]> Value, Price and Profit 7361019 64 Karl Marx 1434463117 beth 4 4.30 1898 Value, Price and Profit
author: Karl Marx
name: beth
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1898
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves: 4-star, analysis, econ-moment, marxism, non-fiction, read-2024, to-revisit-again
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The industrial revolution and British overseas trade]]> 3838899 135 Ralph Davis 0391009257 beth 0 0.0 The industrial revolution and British overseas trade
author: Ralph Davis
name: beth
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: to-read, tbr-nonfic, to-be-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions]]> 32603498 For decades we have been told a story about the divide between rich countries and poor countries.

We have been told that development is working: that the global South is catching up to the North, that poverty has been cut in half over the past thirty years, and will be eradicated by 2030. It’s a comforting tale, and one that is endorsed by the world’s most powerful governments and corporations. But is it true?

Since 1960, the income gap between the North and South has roughly tripled in size. Today 4.3 billion people, 60 per cent of the world's population, live on less than $5 per day. Some 1 billion live on less than $1 a day. The richest eight people now control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world combined.

What is causing this growing divide? We are told that poverty is a natural phenomenon that can be fixed with aid. But in reality it is a political problem: poverty doesn’t just exist, it has been created.

Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms. Aid only works to hide the deep patterns of wealth extraction that cause poverty and inequality in the first place: rigged trade deals, tax evasion, land grabs and the costs associated with climate change. The Divide tracks the evolution of this system, from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s to the international debt regime, which has allowed a handful of rich countries to effectively control economic policies in the rest of the world.

Because poverty is a political problem, it requires political solutions. The Divide offers a range of revelatory answers, but also explains that something much more radical is needed – a revolution in our way of thinking. Drawing on pioneering research, detailed analysis and years of first-hand experience, The Divide is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change.]]> 368 Jason Hickel 1785151126 beth 4 4.64 2017 The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
author: Jason Hickel
name: beth
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/02
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: 4-star, analysis, history, non-fiction, read-2023, imperialism-studies, econ-moment, to-revisit-again
review:
On top of everything, it's just a fantastic resource. Highly recommend it. Will be returning to it and acquainting myself with the reference list.
]]> Wage Labour and Capital 35589608 50 Karl Marx 1548395269 beth 4 4.26 1891 Wage Labour and Capital
author: Karl Marx
name: beth
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1891
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: 4-star, analysis, econ-moment, marxism, non-fiction, read-2024, to-revisit-again, translated
review:

]]> <![CDATA[There Was and There Was Not: A Journey through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond]]> 23198617 A young Armenian-American goes to Turkey in a "love thine enemy" experiment that becomes a transformative reflection on how we use—and abuse—our personal historiesMeline Toumani grew up in a close-knit Armenian community in New Jersey where Turkish restaurants were shunned and products made in Turkey were boycotted. The source of this enmity was the Armenian genocide of 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish government, and Turkey's refusal to acknowledge it. A century onward, Armenian and Turkish lobbies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to convince governments, courts and scholars of their clashing versions of history.Frustrated by her community's all-consuming campaigns for genocide recognition, Toumani leaves a promising job at The New York Times and moves to Istanbul. Instead of demonizing Turks, she sets out to understand them, and in a series of extraordinary encounters over the course of four years, she tries to talk about the Armenian issue, finding her way into conversations that are taboo and sometimes illegal. Along the way, we get a snapshot of Turkish society in the throes of change, and an intimate portrait of a writer coming to terms with the issues that drove her halfway across the world.In this far-reaching quest, told with eloquence and power, Toumani probes universal how to belong to a community without conforming to it, how to acknowledge a tragedy without exploiting it, and most importantly how to remember a genocide without perpetuating the kind of hatred that gave rise to it in the first place.]]> 304 Meline Toumani 0805097635 beth 5 4.05 2014 There Was and There Was Not: A Journey through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond
author: Meline Toumani
name: beth
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/30
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: 5-star, female-authors, non-fiction, read-2021, fav-nonfic, race, narrative-nonfiction
review:

]]> Miracle Creek 41189557 The “gripping… page-turner” (Time) hitting all the best of summer reading lists, Miracle Creek is perfect for book clubs and fans of Liane Moriarty and Celeste Ng

How far will you go to protect your family? Will you keep their secrets? Ignore their lies?

In a small town in Virginia, a group of people know each other because they’re part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and it’s clear the explosion wasn’t an accident.

A powerful showdown unfolds as the story moves across characters who are all maybe keeping secrets, hiding betrayals. Chapter by chapter, we shift alliances and gather Was it the careless mother of a patient? Was it the owners, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? Could it have been a protester, trying to prove the treatment isn’t safe?

“A stunning debut about parents, children and the unwavering hope of a better life, even when all hope seems lost" (Washington Post), Miracle Creek uncovers the worst prejudice and best intentions, tense rivalries and the challenges of parenting a child with special needs. It’s “a quick-paced murder mystery that plumbs the power and perils of community” (O Magazine) as it carefully pieces together the tense atmosphere of a courtroom drama and the complexities of life as an immigrant family. Drawing on the author’s own experiences as a Korean-American, former trial lawyer, and mother of a “miracle submarine” patient, this is a novel steeped in suspense and igniting discussion. Recommended by Erin Morgenstern, Jean Kwok, Jennifer Weiner, Scott Turow, Laura Lippman, and more-- Miracle Creek is a brave, moving debut from an unforgettable new voice.]]> 432 Angie Kim 0374717982 beth 3 3.5 stars. Review to come.]]> 3.89 2019 Miracle Creek
author: Angie Kim
name: beth
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/12
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: female-authors, fiction, read-2020, 3-star
review:
3.5 stars. Review to come.
]]> <![CDATA[An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (New Directions Paperbook)]]> 19213738 An astounding novel from Argentina that is a meditation on the beautiful and the grotesque in nature, the art of landscape painting, and one experience in a man's life that became a lightning rod for inspiration.

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is the story of a moment in the life of the German artist Johan Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858). Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to travel West from Europe to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best of the nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However this is not a biography of Rugendas. This work of fiction weaves an almost surreal history around the secret objective behind Rugendas' trips to America: to visit Argentina in order to achieve in art the "physiognomic totality" of von Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. Rugendas is convinced that only in the mysterious vastness of the immense plains will he find true inspiration. A brief and dramatic visit to Mendosa gives him the chance to fulfill his dream. From there he travels straight out onto the pampas, praying for that impossible moment, which would come only at an immense pricean almost monstrously exorbitant price that would ultimately challenge his drawing and force him to create a new way of making art. A strange episode that he could not avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly and explosively marks him for life.]]> 97 César Aira 0811219801 beth 0 to-read, to-be-read 3.91 2000 An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (New Directions Paperbook)
author: César Aira
name: beth
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: to-read, to-be-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement]]> 53892864 Tiny You tells the story of one of the most successful political movements of the twentieth the grassroots campaign against legalized abortion. While Americans have rapidly changed their minds about sex education, pornography, arts funding, gay teachers, and ultimately gay marriage, opposition to legalized abortion has only grown. As other socially conservative movements have lost young activists, the pro-life movement has successfully recruited more young people to its cause. Jennifer L. Holland explores why abortion dominates conservative politics like no other cultural issue. Looking at anti-abortion movements in four western states since the 1960s--turning to the fetal pins passed around church services, the graphic images exchanged between friends, and the fetus dolls given to children in school--she argues that activists made fetal life feel personal to many Americans. Pro-life activists persuaded people to see themselves in the pins, images, and dolls they held in their hands and made the fight against abortion the primary bread-and-butter issue for social conservatives. Holland ultimately demonstrates that the success of the pro-life movement lies in the borrowed logic and emotional power of leftist activism.]]> 324 Jennifer L. Holland 0520968476 beth 5 4.25 2020 Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement
author: Jennifer L. Holland
name: beth
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/30
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: 5-star, feminism, non-fiction, read-2022, analysis, female-authors, race
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The German Ideology / Theses on Feuerbach / Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy]]> 188226 Communist Manifesto, Marx (1818—1883) co-wrote The German Ideology in 1845 with friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels expounding a new political worldview, including positions on materialism, labor, production, alienation, the expansion of capitalism, class conflict, revolution, and eventually communism. They chart the course of "true" socialism based on G. W.F. Hegel's dialectic, while criticizing the ideas of Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach. Marx expanded his criticism of the latter in his now famous Theses on Feuerbach, found after Marx's death and published by Engels in 1888. Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, also found among the posthumous papers of Marx, is a fragment of an introduction to his main works. Combining these three works, this volume is essential for an understanding of Marxism.]]> 584 Karl Marx 1573922587 beth 0 4.13 1846 The German Ideology / Theses on Feuerbach / Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy
author: Karl Marx
name: beth
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1846
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: analysis, econ-moment, history, marxism, non-fiction, read-2024, to-revisit-again, translated, unrated, unrated-for-now
review:
Read the Introduction and the first part of The German Ideology (the part that most Marxists read). I will revisit this at some point.
]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.?Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 beth 3 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: beth
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/14
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: 3-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, read-2024
review:

]]> Right-Wing Women 377163 — From the reverse cover.]]> 255 Andrea Dworkin 0399506713 beth 5 4.39 1983 Right-Wing Women
author: Andrea Dworkin
name: beth
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/03
date added: 2024/09/03
shelves: 5-star, analysis, female-authors, feminism, non-fiction, read-2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants]]> 17465709 Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.]]> 408 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1571313354 beth 0 currently-reading 4.52 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: beth
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays]]> 58722884
Introduction by New York Times bestselling author Henry Louis Gates Jr.?

Spanning more than 35 years of work, the first comprehensive collection of essays, criticism, and articles by the legendary author of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, showcasing the evolution of her distinctive style as an archivist and author.

“One of the greatest writers of our time.”—Toni Morrison

You Don’t Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world’s most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston’s writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could. Collectively, these essays showcase the roles enslavement and Jim Crow have played in intensifying Black people’s inner lives and culture rather than destroying it. She argues that in the process of surviving, Black people re-interpreted every aspect of American culture—"modif[ying] the language, mode of food preparation, practice of medicine, and most certainly religion.” White supremacy prevents the world from seeing or completely recognizing Black people in their full humanity and Hurston made it her job to lift the veil and reveal the heart and soul of the race. These pages reflect Hurston as the controversial figure she was—someone who stated that feminism is a mirage and that the integration of schools did not necessarily improve the education of Black students. Also covered is the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing her lover, a white doctor.

Demonstrating the breadth of this revered and influential writer’s work, You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays is an invaluable chronicle of a writer’s development and a window into her world and mind.]]> 412 Zora Neale Hurston 0063043874 beth 0 4.19 2022 You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: beth
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: to-read, tbr-nonfic, to-be-read
review:

]]> The Slynx 32884585 The Times Literary Supplement

Two hundred years after civilization ended in an event known as the Blast, Benedikt isn’t one to complain. He’s got a job—transcribing old books and presenting them as the words of the great new leader, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe—and though he doesn’t enjoy the privileged status of a Murza, at least he’s not a serf or a half-human four-legged Degenerator harnessed to a troika. He has a house, too, with enough mice to cook up a tasty meal, and he’s happily free of mutations: no extra fingers, no gills, no cockscombs sprouting from his eyelids. And he’s managed—at least so far—to steer clear of the ever-vigilant Saniturions, who track down anyone who manifests the slightest sign of Freethinking, and the legendary screeching Slynx that waits in the wilderness beyond.

Tatyana Tolstaya’s The Slynx reimagines dystopian fantasy as a wild, horripilating amusement park ride. Poised between Nabokov’s Pale Fire and Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, The Slynx is a brilliantly inventive and shimmeringly ambiguous work of art: an account of a degraded world that is full of echoes of the sublime literature of Russia’s past; a grinning portrait of human inhumanity; a tribute to art in both its sovereignty and its helplessness; a vision of the past as the future in which the future is now.]]> 320 Tatyana Tolstaya 1681371731 beth 4 3.48 1999 The Slynx
author: Tatyana Tolstaya
name: beth
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/18
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: 4-star, female-authors, fiction, literary-fiction, read-2022, translated, personal-hauntings, scifi
review:
What to call this book... a hilarious, unexpected satire? A depressing vision of a future without memory? An ode to human ingenuity and invention, foregrounding one of our most precious creations - writing, language, art, Culture? Or perhaps it's simply a book about mice. That too.
]]> <![CDATA[A Hero's Tale (When Women Were Warriors, #3)]]> 5312124 --from a review by Charles Ferguson on the 欧宝娱乐 website "Being the third and last volume in a series I enjoyed immensely, I knew that I could expect this last book to deliver a happy and satisfying ending. What I didn’t expect was the intricate and daring storyline of this last volume. It is bigger and broader than what has come before, and it is spectacular. … this time the story unfolds on to a whole new level. More characters, more intrigue, greater losses, wonderful reunions. … There’s no taking the easy road here—the story opened up into unimagined dimensions to tell a tale that really is that of a hero.
"… When Women Were Warriors manages to blend mythic storytelling with characters who feel so real you could imagine stepping into the pages and having a conversation with them. A Hero’s Tale skilfully weaves the questions of love, faith and fairness into a dramatic story; not only of a relationship between the main characters, but of a quest so much bigger it takes the breath away. There is everything you could wish for here – power struggles, forces for good and evil, dramatic tests of faith, daring rescues, fatal rivalry, but it is managed with such a deft hand that in the end it is all one beautiful story. What else is there to say? This is not just lesbian fiction, but a story about being human. It’s not to be missed.
--from a review by Kate Genet on the website, Kissed By Venus In Book III of the trilogy, Tamras must make her own hero’s journey. She ventures into the unknown and encounters a more formidable enemy than any she has ever faced. Character is destiny, and the destiny of Tamras and all her people will depend upon choices that come less from the skills she has been taught than from the person she has become, from her own heart.]]> 310 Catherine M. Wilson 0981563635 beth 0 currently-reading 4.55 2008 A Hero's Tale (When Women Were Warriors, #3)
author: Catherine M. Wilson
name: beth
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Women and Gender in Islam 108700
In order to distinguish what was distinctive about the earliest Islamic doctrine on women, Ahmed first describes the gender systems in place in the Middle East before the rise of Islam. She then focuses on those Arab societies that played a key role in elaborating the dominant Islamic discourses about women and gender: Arabia during the period in which Islam was founded; Iraq during the classical age, when the prescriptive core of legal and religious discourse on women was formulated; and Egypt during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when exposure to Western societies led to dramatic social change and to the emergence of new discourses on women. Throughout, Ahmed not only considers the Islamic texts in which central ideologies about women and gender developed or were debated but also places this discourse in its social and historical context. Her book is thus a fascinating survey of Islamic debates and ideologies about women and the historical circumstances of their position in society, the first such discussion using the analytic tools of contemporary gender studies.]]> 296 Leila Ahmed 0300055838 beth 5
Moreover, the different histories of feminism in the Western world and in the Middle East suggest that the significant factors in Western societies that permitted the emergence of feminist voices and political action in those societies somewhat before their emergence in the Middle East were not that Western cultures were necessarily less androcentric or less misogynist than other societies but that women in Western societies were able to draw on the political vocabularies and systems generated by ideas of democracy and the rights of the individual, vocabularies and political systems developed by white male middle classes to safeguard their interests and not intended to be applicable to women.


It may be, moreover, that in the context of Western global domination, the posture of some kinds of feminism—poised to identify, deplore, and denounce oppression—must unavoidably lend support to Western domination when it looks steadfastly past the injustice to which women are subject in Western societies and the exploitation of women perpetrated abroad by Western capitalism only to fix upon the oppressions of women perpetrated by Other men in Other societies.
]]> 4.12 1992 Women and Gender in Islam
author: Leila Ahmed
name: beth
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/26
shelves: 5-star, analysis, ancient-world, fav-nonfic, female-authors, feminism, history, imperialism-studies, middle-east, non-fiction, race, read-2024, womens-history, islamic
review:
I'm changed. Anyway, some notable quotes at the end that I couldn't upload as notes here:

Moreover, the different histories of feminism in the Western world and in the Middle East suggest that the significant factors in Western societies that permitted the emergence of feminist voices and political action in those societies somewhat before their emergence in the Middle East were not that Western cultures were necessarily less androcentric or less misogynist than other societies but that women in Western societies were able to draw on the political vocabularies and systems generated by ideas of democracy and the rights of the individual, vocabularies and political systems developed by white male middle classes to safeguard their interests and not intended to be applicable to women.


It may be, moreover, that in the context of Western global domination, the posture of some kinds of feminism—poised to identify, deplore, and denounce oppression—must unavoidably lend support to Western domination when it looks steadfastly past the injustice to which women are subject in Western societies and the exploitation of women perpetrated abroad by Western capitalism only to fix upon the oppressions of women perpetrated by Other men in Other societies.

]]> Woman at Point Zero 159604 108 Nawal El Saadawi beth 0 4.21 1975 Woman at Point Zero
author: Nawal El Saadawi
name: beth
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/25
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-sooner, tbr-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Daughter of Isis: The Autobiography of Nawal El Saadawi]]> 118091 320 Nawal El Saadawi 1856496805 beth 0 3.94 1986 A Daughter of Isis: The Autobiography of Nawal El Saadawi
author: Nawal El Saadawi
name: beth
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/25
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-sooner, tbr-nonfic
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories]]> 206228
Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies, the collection admits the reader into a hidden private world, regulated by the call of the mosque, but often full of profound anguish and personal isolation. Badriyya's despariting anger at her deceitful husband, for example, or the hauntingly melancholy of "At the Time of the Jasmine," are treated with a sensitivity to the discipline and order of Islam.]]> 116 Alifa Rifaat 0435909126 beth 0 3.95 1983 Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories
author: Alifa Rifaat
name: beth
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/25
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-fiction, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)]]> 24845064 401 Victoria E. Schwab 1783295414 beth 2 06.08.21 - ranked down to 2 stars. I just didn’t like it.

It's frustrating, because I didn't enjoy this one as much as I'd hoped to, and clearly not as much as many others. I think there was a lot of interesting ideas going on here, but for me it simply didn't feel fully realised.

The actual idea of there being 4 parallel Londons is strong, even more that they are supposed to function as distinct places with their own lore and culture. But this is a case where the execution let that idea down – I just felt all the Londons, more or less, felt very similar. The most distinct was probably Red London, but even what we saw of that didn't feel foreign or different enough for me to believe these places had developed organically in completely different worlds (yes, they were connected at one point, but still). Other than languages or degrees of magical aptitude, it sometimes became difficult for me to remember which London we were currently in and I had to rely heavily on the names and what I'd been told about how they were different, rather than what I was shown.

That was also a big issue for me with this book. I don't think it told rather than showed to an aggravating degree, but the author did keep reminding me of things over and over that I'd already been told a few pages before, or could easily be inferred. I feel like I was told over five times that the stone could summon things, I don't need different characters to keep reminding me of seemingly the only thing the stone does.

The writing was passable, though read more as Young Adult than Adult. Occasionally characters would dive in to angsty monologuing that felt like it was ripped from a teen drama, and I will admit my patience for that kind of thing is thin. I don't understand people praising the prose at all, honestly. Reading this, the whole time I felt I was missing something.

The pacing is kind of slow at the start, though it does pick up near the end. So many random fights in the first few chapters, but it takes our characters quite a long time to work anything out. Speaking of: the characters. So. I like Lila. I get why other people do, and admittedly I am a sucker for her character archetype, the thrill-seeker who wants to see the world. It's not the most original, but it's a good character base and I'm sure she'll get some more development later down the line. The Dane twins were also great and added to my enjoyment immensely.

Holland and Rhy we didn't see much of. With Holland especially, I felt there was a compelling story to be told there, but we didn't get to see much of it. Kell is a so-so protagonist, quite serious and generally moral, but also very typical. He didn't really have many traits that made him feel real to me, he generally behaved in exactly the way you'd expect him to in order to make the story progress as smoothly as possible. Going back to my point about showing vs telling, we kept getting told things about Kell that were never demonstrated by his character at all. At least twice it's brought up that Kell is arrogant, but he may be one of the least arrogant characters I've ever read, and it makes even less sense when basically every other character surrounding him seems more arrogant!

I realise I'm being quite negative, but I really don't understand the hype. I have hope for this series because of its good ideas and there's no shortage of narrative avenues (and future development) the author could take. I'll be reading the second, but if I have a similar experience I'm not sure I'll bother with the third.]]> 3.98 2015 A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: beth
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2020/09/02
date added: 2024/07/23
shelves: big-idea-smaller-execution, female-authors, fiction, read-2020, 2-stars, fantasy
review:
06.08.21 - ranked down to 2 stars. I just didn’t like it.

It's frustrating, because I didn't enjoy this one as much as I'd hoped to, and clearly not as much as many others. I think there was a lot of interesting ideas going on here, but for me it simply didn't feel fully realised.

The actual idea of there being 4 parallel Londons is strong, even more that they are supposed to function as distinct places with their own lore and culture. But this is a case where the execution let that idea down – I just felt all the Londons, more or less, felt very similar. The most distinct was probably Red London, but even what we saw of that didn't feel foreign or different enough for me to believe these places had developed organically in completely different worlds (yes, they were connected at one point, but still). Other than languages or degrees of magical aptitude, it sometimes became difficult for me to remember which London we were currently in and I had to rely heavily on the names and what I'd been told about how they were different, rather than what I was shown.

That was also a big issue for me with this book. I don't think it told rather than showed to an aggravating degree, but the author did keep reminding me of things over and over that I'd already been told a few pages before, or could easily be inferred. I feel like I was told over five times that the stone could summon things, I don't need different characters to keep reminding me of seemingly the only thing the stone does.

The writing was passable, though read more as Young Adult than Adult. Occasionally characters would dive in to angsty monologuing that felt like it was ripped from a teen drama, and I will admit my patience for that kind of thing is thin. I don't understand people praising the prose at all, honestly. Reading this, the whole time I felt I was missing something.

The pacing is kind of slow at the start, though it does pick up near the end. So many random fights in the first few chapters, but it takes our characters quite a long time to work anything out. Speaking of: the characters. So. I like Lila. I get why other people do, and admittedly I am a sucker for her character archetype, the thrill-seeker who wants to see the world. It's not the most original, but it's a good character base and I'm sure she'll get some more development later down the line. The Dane twins were also great and added to my enjoyment immensely.

Holland and Rhy we didn't see much of. With Holland especially, I felt there was a compelling story to be told there, but we didn't get to see much of it. Kell is a so-so protagonist, quite serious and generally moral, but also very typical. He didn't really have many traits that made him feel real to me, he generally behaved in exactly the way you'd expect him to in order to make the story progress as smoothly as possible. Going back to my point about showing vs telling, we kept getting told things about Kell that were never demonstrated by his character at all. At least twice it's brought up that Kell is arrogant, but he may be one of the least arrogant characters I've ever read, and it makes even less sense when basically every other character surrounding him seems more arrogant!

I realise I'm being quite negative, but I really don't understand the hype. I have hope for this series because of its good ideas and there's no shortage of narrative avenues (and future development) the author could take. I'll be reading the second, but if I have a similar experience I'm not sure I'll bother with the third.
]]> <![CDATA[A Journey of the Heart (When Women Were Warriors, #2)]]> 5312125 --from a review by Kate Genet on the website, Kissed By Venus "Catherine Wilson creates a magical sense of place, and of belonging to that place. Within that, she also tells how it feels to not belong. … Ms. Wilson’s is a tale of bone wisdom. It whispers of what we remember when we sleep at night and dream. It calls us to remember that women had, and still have, a wise and powerful place in the world."
--from a review on the blog, The Rainbow Reader, by Baxter Clare Trautman, author of The River Within "In this book we see Tamras’ world open from the House of Merin and its immediate environs into the lands beyond its borders. She meets other peoples, whose ways are different from those she knows. Similarly Tamras’ inner life expands as the feelings within her blossom into the romantic love that will be the linchpin her life will hinge on…"
--from a review by Charles Ferguson on the 欧宝娱乐 website In Book II of the trilogy, Tamras’s apprenticeship as a warrior isn’t turning out quite the way she expected. Her unconventional choices lead to her crossing swords, almost literally, with Vintel, the war leader of Merin’s house. She finds herself embroiled in a power struggle she is doomed to lose, but the loss sends her on a journey that will change her destiny and decide the fate of her people.]]> 324 Catherine M. Wilson 0981563627 beth 4 4.50 2008 A Journey of the Heart (When Women Were Warriors, #2)
author: Catherine M. Wilson
name: beth
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/18
shelves: 4-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, lesbian, read-2024
review:
Really liking this, especially the emphasis on folktales and storytelling.
]]> <![CDATA[Socialism: Utopian and Scientific]]> 188897 86 Friedrich Engels 0873485793 beth 5 4.24 1880 Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
author: Friedrich Engels
name: beth
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1880
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/02
date added: 2024/07/02
shelves: 5-star, analysis, econ-moment, history, marxism, non-fiction, read-2024
review:
It's pretty awesome, must be said... 5 stars because it clarified very simply a lot of points I'd heard socialists throw back and forth but never quite understood why. Probably a good pre-read to Marx's Capital series.
]]> The Principles of Communism 11347493
At the June 1847 Congress of the League of the Just, which was also the founding conference of the Communist League, it was decided to issue a draft “confession of faith” to be submitted for discussion to the sections of the League. The document which has now come to light is almost certainly this draft. Comparison of the two documents shows that Principles of Communism is a revised edition of this earlier draft. In Principles of Communism, Engels left three questions unanswered, in two cases with the notation “unchanged” (bleibt); this clearly refers to the answers provided in the earlier draft.

The new draft for the programme was worked out by Engels on the instructions of the leading body of the Paris circle of the Communist League. The instructions were decided on after Engles’ sharp criticism at the committee meeting, on October 22, 1847, of the draft programme drawn up by the “true socialist” Moses Hess, which was then rejected.

Still considering Principles of Communism as a preliminary draft, Engels expressed the view, in a letter to Marx dated November 23-24 1847, that it would be best to drop the old catechistic form and draw up a programme in the form of a manifesto.

“Think over the Confession of Faith a bit. I believe we had better drop the catechism form and call the thing: Communist Manifesto. As more or less history has got to be related in it, the form it has been in hitherto is quite unsuitable. I am bringing what I have done here with me; it is in simple narrative form, but miserably worded, in fearful haste. ...”

At the second congress of the Communist League (November 29-December 8, 1847) Marx and Engels defended the fundamental scientific principles of communism and were trusted with drafting a programme in the form of a manifesto of the Communist Party. In writing the manifesto the founders of Marxism made use of the propositions enunciated in Principles of Communism.

Engels uses the term Manufaktur, and its derivatives, which have been translated “manufacture”, “manufacturing”, etc., Engels used this word literally, to indicate production by hand, not factory production for which Engels uses “big industry”. Manufaktur differs from handicraft (guild production in mediaeval towns), in that the latter was carried out by independent artisans. Manufacktur is carried out by homeworkers working for merchant capitalists, or by groups of craftspeople working together in large workshops owned by capitalists. It is therefore a transitional mode of production, between guild (handicraft) and modern (capitalist) forms of production.]]> 25 Friedrich Engels beth 5 4.17 1847 The Principles of Communism
author: Friedrich Engels
name: beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1847
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: 5-star, analysis, econ-moment, marxism, non-fiction, read-2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World]]> 56354
Starting with women in pre-history the author looks beyond the myth of ‘Man the Hunter’ to reveal women’s central role in the survival and evolution of the human race. She follows their progress from the days when God was a woman through to the triumphs of the Amazons and Assyrian war queens: she looks at the rise of organised religion and the growing oppression of women: she charts the long slow struggle for women’s rights culminating in the twentieth century women’s movements: and finally she presents a vision of women breaking free.

This brilliant and absorbing book turns the spotlight on the hidden side of history to present a fascinating new view of the world, overturning our preconceptions to restore women to their rightful place at the centre of the worldwide story of revolution, empire, war and peace.

Spiced with tales of individual women who have shaped history, celebrating the work and lives of the unsung female millions, distinguished by a wealth of research, The Women’s History of the World redefines the concept of historical reality.]]> 352 Rosalind Miles 0609806955 beth 3
Definitely a good read and overview of the evolution of patriarchal thought (and women's counter-organising against it). Unlike Gerda Lerner's work on feminist history—The Creation of Patriarchy & The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, which are both fantastic—there is less of a focus on material conditions + social organisation and the changes therein that consequently led to different develops in patriarchal thought. Which is fine, I'm happy that this book had a different focus, and it's arguably a foundational text, but I would argue there's more comprehensive histories of women's thought + patriarchy, and Lerner's work is just one example.]]> 3.82 1989 Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World
author: Rosalind Miles
name: beth
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1989
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: 3-star, analysis, female-authors, feminism, history, non-fiction, read-2024, womens-history
review:
3.5 stars.

Definitely a good read and overview of the evolution of patriarchal thought (and women's counter-organising against it). Unlike Gerda Lerner's work on feminist history—The Creation of Patriarchy & The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, which are both fantastic—there is less of a focus on material conditions + social organisation and the changes therein that consequently led to different develops in patriarchal thought. Which is fine, I'm happy that this book had a different focus, and it's arguably a foundational text, but I would argue there's more comprehensive histories of women's thought + patriarchy, and Lerner's work is just one example.
]]> Incarnadine: Poems 15792899 knew how to burn themselves through,
how to make themselves shrines to their own longing.
The spectacular was never behind them.
??????????????????????? -from “The Troubadours etc.”
?
In Incarnadine, Mary Szybist restlessly seeks out places where meaning might take on new color. One poem is presented as a diagrammed sentence. Another is an abecedarium made of lines of dialogue spoken by girls overheard while assembling a puzzle. Several poems arrive as a series of Annunciations, while others purport to give an update on Mary, who must finish the dishes before she will open herself to God. One poem appears on the page as spokes radiating from a wheel, or as a sunburst, or as the cycle around which all times and all tenses are alive in this moment. Szybist’s formal innovations are matched by her musical lines, by her poetry’s insistence on singing as a lure toward the unknowable. Inside these poems is a deep yearning—for love, motherhood, the will to see things as they are and to speak. Beautiful and inventive, Incarnadine is the new collection by one of America’s most ambitious poets.]]> 72 Mary Szybist 1555976352 beth 4 4-star, read-2023, poetry Annunciation in Byrd and Bush
(from Senator Robert Byrd and George W. Bush)

The president goes on. The president goes
on and on, though the senator complains
the language of diplomacy is imbued with courtesy …

Who can bear it? I’d rather fasten the words
to a girl, for instance, lounging at the far end of a meadow,
reading her thick book.

I’d rather the president’s words were merely spoken by
a stranger who leans in beside her:
you have a decision to make. Either you rise to this moment or …

She yawns, silver bracelets clicking
as she stretches her arms—

her cerulean sky studded with green, almost golden pears
hanging from honey-colored branches.

In her blue dress, she’s just a bit of that sky,
just a blank bit
fallen into the meadow.

The stranger speaks from the leafy shade.
Show uncertainty and the world will drift
toward tragedy—
Bluster and swagger, she says,
pulling her scarf to her throat as she turns,
impatient to return, to the half-read page—

He steps toward her.
She pulls her bright scarf tight.
For this, he says, everybody prayed.
A lot of people. He leans on a branch,
his ear bluish in shadow.

If I say everybody, I don’t know if everybody prayed.
I can tell you, a lot prayed.

How still she is.
(Her small lips pursed, her finger still in the pages,
her eyes almost slits as they narrow—)

Nothing matters in this meadow.
There is a girl under pear trees with her book,
and it doesn’t matter what she does or does not promise.
There’s no next scene to hurt her.
Not even the pears fall down.

I want the words to happen here.
God loves you, and I love you, he says.

Not far beyond his touch,
a wind shakes a dusting of sunlight
onto the edges of pears.

I’d rather think some things are like this.
The water’s green edge dissolves
into cerulean, cerulean pearls
into clouds; the girl’s unsandaled feet
into uncut fringes of grass—

I don’t need to explain, he says
(his sleeves swelling in a nudge of air)

—but the highest call of history,
it changes your heart.

She looks down: her finger in her book.
]]> 4.17 2013 Incarnadine: Poems
author: Mary Szybist
name: beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/05
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 4-star, read-2023, poetry
review:
Annunciation in Byrd and Bush
(from Senator Robert Byrd and George W. Bush)

The president goes on. The president goes
on and on, though the senator complains
the language of diplomacy is imbued with courtesy …

Who can bear it? I’d rather fasten the words
to a girl, for instance, lounging at the far end of a meadow,
reading her thick book.

I’d rather the president’s words were merely spoken by
a stranger who leans in beside her:
you have a decision to make. Either you rise to this moment or …

She yawns, silver bracelets clicking
as she stretches her arms—

her cerulean sky studded with green, almost golden pears
hanging from honey-colored branches.

In her blue dress, she’s just a bit of that sky,
just a blank bit
fallen into the meadow.

The stranger speaks from the leafy shade.
Show uncertainty and the world will drift
toward tragedy—
Bluster and swagger, she says,
pulling her scarf to her throat as she turns,
impatient to return, to the half-read page—

He steps toward her.
She pulls her bright scarf tight.
For this, he says, everybody prayed.
A lot of people. He leans on a branch,
his ear bluish in shadow.

If I say everybody, I don’t know if everybody prayed.
I can tell you, a lot prayed.

How still she is.
(Her small lips pursed, her finger still in the pages,
her eyes almost slits as they narrow—)

Nothing matters in this meadow.
There is a girl under pear trees with her book,
and it doesn’t matter what she does or does not promise.
There’s no next scene to hurt her.
Not even the pears fall down.

I want the words to happen here.
God loves you, and I love you, he says.

Not far beyond his touch,
a wind shakes a dusting of sunlight
onto the edges of pears.

I’d rather think some things are like this.
The water’s green edge dissolves
into cerulean, cerulean pearls
into clouds; the girl’s unsandaled feet
into uncut fringes of grass—

I don’t need to explain, he says
(his sleeves swelling in a nudge of air)

—but the highest call of history,
it changes your heart.

She looks down: her finger in her book.

]]> Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 beth 1 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: beth
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 1
read at: 2024/04/22
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves: dnf, 1-star, classics, fiction, read-2024
review:
Dnf around 80-90%, with so much prejudice.
]]> The Paying Guests 20821087
With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.]]> 564 Sarah Waters 1594633118 beth 4 Affinity, however.]]> 3.42 2014 The Paying Guests
author: Sarah Waters
name: beth
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/19
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves: 4-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, lesbian, read-2024
review:
Slightly overlong at times, but overall very good. I didn't like it as much as Affinity, however.
]]> Affinity 25337939 352 Sarah Waters beth 4
[spoilers removed]]]> 3.81 1999 Affinity
author: Sarah Waters
name: beth
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/11
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: 4-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, lesbian, read-2024
review:
Perfect. And still some questions even at the end over who really had agency, if any of them did at all.

[spoilers removed]
]]> <![CDATA[The Warrior's Path (When Women Were Warriors, #1)]]> 5312123
In Book I of the trilogy, Tamras arrives in Merin's house to begin her apprenticeship as a warrior, but her small stature causes many, including Tamras herself, to doubt that she will ever become a competent swordswoman. To make matters worse, the Lady Merin assigns her the position of companion, little more than a personal servant, to a woman who came to Merin's house, seemingly out of nowhere, the previous winter, and this stranger wants nothing to do with Tamras.]]> 272 Catherine M. Wilson 0981563619 beth 4 4.12 2008 The Warrior's Path (When Women Were Warriors, #1)
author: Catherine M. Wilson
name: beth
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/08
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: 4-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, lesbian, read-2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Film Directing Fundamentals: See Your Film Before Shooting]]> 101460 Film Directing Fundamentals gives the novice director an organic methodology for realizing on the screen the full dramatic possibility of a screenplay. Unique among directing books, this book provides clear-cut ways to translate a script to the screen. Using the script as a blueprint, the reader is led through specific techniques to analyze and translate its components into a visual story. A sample screenplay is included that explicates the techniques. The book assumes no knowledge and thus introduces basic concepts and terminology.

Appropriate for screenwriters, aspiring directors and filmmakers, Film Directing Fundamentals helps filmmakers bring their story to life on screen.

* Unique, focused approach to film directing that shows how to use the screenplay as a blueprint for rendering the script to the screen
* Features new sections on “Organizing Action in an Action Scene”, and “Organizing Action in a Narrative Scene”, to complement the first two edition’s emphasis on Dramatic Scenes
* Written by an author with 25+ years experience teaching directing and who has worked extensively in the film industry as a director, cameraman, editor, and producer in both documentary and dramatic/narrative films

]]> 296 Nicholas T. Proferes 0240805623 beth 0 4.05 2001 Film Directing Fundamentals: See Your Film Before Shooting
author: Nicholas T. Proferes
name: beth
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: to-be-read, tbr-nonfic, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen (Michael Wiese Productions)]]> 84110 The book contains over 800 photos and illustrations, and is by far the most comprehensive look at shot design in print, containing storyboards from movies such as Citizen Kane, Blade Runner, Dead-pool, and Moonrise Kingdom. Also introduced is the concept of A, I, and L patterns as a way to sim-plify the hundreds of staging choices facing a director in every scene.
Shot by Shot uniquely blends story analysis with compositional strategies, citing examples then il-lustrated with the storyboards used for the actual films. Throughout the book, various visual ap-proaches to short scenes are shown, exposing the directing processes of our most celebrated au-teurs — including a meticulous, lavishly illustrated analysis of Steven Spielberg’s scene design for Empire of the Sun.]]> 366 Steven D. Katz 0941188108 beth 0 3.98 1991 Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen (Michael Wiese Productions)
author: Steven D. Katz
name: beth
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-nonfic
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia]]> 40536236 Guns, Germs, and Steel and Simon Winchester’s Pacific, a thrilling intellectual detective story that looks deep into the past to uncover who first settled the islands of the remote Pacific, where they came from, how they got there, and how we know.

For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Until the arrival of European explorers they were the only people to have ever lived there. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history.

How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonize these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? This conundrum, which came to be known as the Problem of Polynesian Origins, emerged in the eighteenth century as one of the great geographical mysteries of mankind.

For Christina Thompson, this mystery is personal: her Maori husband and their sons descend directly from these ancient navigators. In Sea People, Thompson explores the fascinating story of these ancestors, as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists, and geographers who have puzzled over this history for three hundred years. A masterful mix of history, geography, anthropology, and the science of navigation, Sea People combines the thrill of exploration with the drama of discovery in a vivid tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world.

Sea People includes an 8-page photo insert, illustrations throughout, and 2 endpaper maps.]]> 365 Christina Thompson 0062060872 beth 0 4.21 2019 Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia
author: Christina Thompson
name: beth
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-nonfic
review:

]]> Kalyana 27970042
While the island nation celebrates its recently granted independence, new stories of the feminist revolution in America are carried over the waves of the Pacific to Kalyana’s ears: stories of women who live with men who are not their husbands, who burn their bras, who are free to do as they please. Strange as all this sounds, Kalyana hopes that she will be blessed with a husband who allows her a similar sense of liberty.

But nothing prepares her for the trauma of womanhood and the cultural ramifications of silence and shame, as her mother tells her there are some family stories that should never be told.]]> 328 Rajni Mala Khelawan 1927583985 beth 0 3.81 Kalyana
author: Rajni Mala Khelawan
name: beth
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sarah Grimke: Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and Other Essays]]> 393403
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.]]> 176 Elizabeth Ann Bartlett 0300041136 beth 0 4.50 1970 Sarah Grimke: Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and Other Essays
author: Elizabeth Ann Bartlett
name: beth
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/02
shelves: to-read, tbr-sooner, to-be-read, tbr-summer, tbr-nonfic
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Graduate (The Scholomance, #2)]]> 55559887 A budding dark sorceress determined not to use her formidable powers uncovers yet more secrets about the workings of her world in the stunning sequel to A Deadly Education, the start of Naomi Novik’s groundbreaking crossover series.

At the Scholomance, El, Orion, and the other students are faced with their final year—and the looming specter of graduation, a deadly ritual that leaves few students alive in its wake. El is determined that her chosen group will survive, but it is a prospect that is looking harder by the day as the savagery of the school ramps up. Until El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules . . .]]> 388 Naomi Novik 0593128869 beth 2 4.21 2021 The Last Graduate (The Scholomance, #2)
author: Naomi Novik
name: beth
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/05/21
date added: 2024/05/21
shelves: 2-stars, fantasy, female-authors, fiction, gay-bi-rep, read-2024
review:
2 stars, regrettably. Good ending, but the majority of the book was low stakes and boring. Little character drama—relationships basically stayed as they had been at the end of the first book—and the narrative tension was limited to the last few chapters. I'll finish the series, but structurally this one was much weaker than the first, and betrayed a high reliance on last minute plot-twists to sustain the reader's attention.
]]> <![CDATA[Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men's Violence, and Women's Lives (Feminist Crosscurrents, 3)]]> 3179812
Dee Graham's announcement, in 1991, of her research on male-female bonding was immediately followed by a national firestorm of media interest. Her startling and provocative conclusion was covered in dozens of national newspapers and heatedly debated. In "Loving to Survive," Graham provides us with a complete account of her remarkable insights into relationships between men and women.

In 1973, three women and one man were held hostage in one of the largest banks in Stockholm by two ex-convicts. These two men threatened their lives, but also showed them kindness. Over the course of the long ordeal, the hostages came to identify with their captors, developing an emotional bond with them. They began to perceive the police, their prospective liberators, as their enemies, and their captors as their friends, as a source of security. This seemingly bizarre reaction to captivity, in which the hostages and captors mutually bond to one another, has been documented in other cases as well, and has become widely known as Stockholm Syndrome.

The authors of this book take this syndrome as their starting point to develop a new way of looking at male-female relationships. "Loving to Survive" considers men's violence against women as crucial to understanding women's current psychology. Men's violence creates ever-present, and therefore often unrecognized, terror in women. This terror is often experienced as a fear for any woman of rape by any man or as a fear of making any man angry. They propose that women's current psychology is actually a psychology of women under conditions of captivitythat is, under conditions of terror caused by male violence against women. Therefore, women's responses to men, and to male violence, resemble hostages' responses to captors.

"Loving to Survive" explores women's bonding to men as it relates to men's violence against women. It proposes that, like hostages who work to placate their captors lest they kill them, women work to please men, and from this springs women's femininity. Femininity describes a set of behaviors that please men because they communicate a woman's acceptance of her subordinate status. Thus, feminine behaviors are, in essence, survival strategies. Like hostages who bond to their captors, women bond to men in an effort to survive.

This is a book that will forever change the way we look at male-female relationships and women's lives.]]> 346 Dee L.R. Graham 0814730582 beth 5 4.53 1994 Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men's Violence, and Women's Lives (Feminist Crosscurrents, 3)
author: Dee L.R. Graham
name: beth
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/20
date added: 2024/05/20
shelves: 5-star, analysis, exit-wounds, fav-nonfic, female-authors, feminism, non-fiction, read-2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, #1)]]> 50548197
A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) — until one girl, El, begins to unlock its many secrets.

There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate… or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere.

El is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out millions. It would be easy enough for El to defeat the monsters that prowl the school. The problem? Her powerful dark magic might also kill all the other students.]]> 320 Naomi Novik 0593128486 beth 3 3.93 2020 A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, #1)
author: Naomi Novik
name: beth
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves: 3-star, female-authors, fiction, read-2022, fantasy
review:
Re-read so I can continue. 3 stars.
]]> Girl Made of Stars 35900742 309 Ashley Herring Blake beth 0 4.20 2018 Girl Made of Stars
author: Ashley Herring Blake
name: beth
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/14
shelves: unrated, fiction, female-authors, gay-bi-rep, gay-relationships
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Revolt Against the Sun: The Selected Poetry of Nazik al-Mala'ika: A Bilingual Reader]]> 55971117 209 Nazik al-Mala'ika beth 0 4.00 2020 Revolt Against the Sun: The Selected Poetry of Nazik al-Mala'ika: A Bilingual Reader
author: Nazik al-Mala'ika
name: beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/08
shelves: to-read, tbr-poetry, to-be-read, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> Language and Power 1233338
Language and Power was first published in 1989 and quickly established itself as a ground-breaking book. Its popularity continues as an accessible introductory text to the field of Discourse Analysis, focusing on:

how language functions in maintaining and changing power relations in modern society the ways of analysing language which can reveal these processes how people can become more conscious of them, and more able to resist and change them
The question of language and power is still important and urgent in the twenty-first century, but there have been substantial changes in social life during the past decade which have somewhat changed the nature of unequal power relations, and therefore the agenda for the critical study of language. In this new edition, Norman Fairclough brings the discussion fully up-to-date and covers the issue of 'globalisation' of power relations and the development of the internet in relation to Language and Power. The bibliography has also been fully updated to include important new reference material.]]> 226 Norman Fairclough 0582414830 beth 0 to-read, for-masters 4.08 1989 Language and Power
author: Norman Fairclough
name: beth
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: to-read, for-masters
review:

]]> Pleasures and Days 124095 Pleasures and Days provides an early glimpse into Proust’s genius as a collector of exquisitely poignant sensations and recollections. Set amid the salon society of fin-du-siècle Paris, these sketches and short stories depict the lives, loves, manners, and motivations of a host of characters, all viewed with a famously knowing eye. By turns cuttingly satirical and bitterly moving, Proust’s portrayals are layered with imagery and feeling—whether they be of the aspiring Bouvard and Pécuchet, the deluded Madame de Breyves, or of Baldassare Silvande, steeped in memories, regret, and final understanding at the end of his life. Novelist Marcel Proust was a prominent figure in the French salons of the late 19th century; he is best remembered for his seven-volume masterpiece In Search of Lost Time.]]> 194 Marcel Proust 184391090X beth 0 3.92 1896 Pleasures and Days
author: Marcel Proust
name: beth
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1896
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/09
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Days of Reading (Penguin Great Ideas)]]> 4788269
Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922) is now generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century. He lived much of his later life as a reclusive semi-invalid in a sound-proofed flat in Paris giving himself over entirely to writing In Search of Lost Time.]]> 119 Marcel Proust 0141036737 beth 0 3.69 1905 Days of Reading (Penguin Great Ideas)
author: Marcel Proust
name: beth
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1905
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/09
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]]> <![CDATA[And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future]]> 24886497 Στο ν?ο του βιβλ?ο, ο Γι?νη? Βαρουφ?κη? αφηγε?ται τη δημιουργ?α τη? ευρωζ?νη? π?νω στα ερε?πια του εντυπωσιακο? μεταπολεμικο? οικονομικο? συστ?ματο? που ?στησαν, ω? επ?κταση του Νιου Ντηλ, οι επ?γονοι του προ?δρου Ρο?σβελτ. Αντ?θετα με εκε?νη τη νομισματικ? και οικονομικ? ?νωση (το Μπρ?τον Γουντ?), η ευρωζ?νη οικοδομ?θηκε σαθρ?, με τρ?πο που τη μετ?τρεψε γρ?γορα σε πυραμιδικ? σχ?μα (ιδιωτικο? και δημ?σιου) χρ?ου?, με χ?ρε? ?πω? η Ελλ?δα, η Ιρλανδ?α, η Πορτογαλ?α και η Ισπαν?α στον ρ?λο του μον?μω? αφερ?γγυου δανειολ?πτη.
Το βιβλ?ο του Γι?νη Βαρουφ?κη "Η αρπαγ? τη? Ευρ?πη?" σκ?βει προσεκτικ? και μεθοδικ? π?νω στην πρ?σφατη ευρωπα?κ? μα? ιστορ?α, παραθ?τοντα? εφικτ?? λ?σει? και αναδεικν?οντα? τη μεταμορντ?ρνα ?κδοση τη? δεκαετ?α? του 1930 που καραδοκε? ε?ν κ?νουμε το λ?θο? να πιστ?ψουμε πω? οι μ?νε? μα? επιλογ?? ε?ναι ε?τε η υποταγ? στι? δι?φορε? τρ?ικε? ε?τε η δι?λυση τη? Ευρωπα?κ?? ?νωση?. (Απ? την παρουσ?αση στο οπισθ?φυλλο του βιβλ?ου)]]> 368 Yanis Varoufakis 1568585047 beth 0 currently-reading 4.10 2016 And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
author: Yanis Varoufakis
name: beth
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Manufacturing the Enemy: The Media War Against Cuba]]> 46168361 224 Keith Bolender 0745340288 beth 0 to-read, for-masters 4.25 Manufacturing the Enemy: The Media War Against Cuba
author: Keith Bolender
name: beth
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/07
shelves: to-read, for-masters
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails]]> 36490332 In Talking to My Daughter About the Economy, activist Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister and the author of the international bestseller Adults in the Room, pens a series of letters to his young daughter, educating her about the business, politics, and corruption of world economics.

Yanis Varoufakis has appeared before heads of nations, assemblies of experts, and countless students around the world. Now, he faces his most important—and difficult—audience yet. Using clear language and vivid examples, Varoufakis offers a series of letters to his young daughter about the economy: how it operates, where it came from, how it benefits some while impoverishing others. Taking bankers and politicians to task, he explains the historical origins of inequality among and within nations, questions the pervasive notion that everything has its price, and shows why economic instability is a chronic risk. Finally, he discusses the inability of market-driven policies to address the rapidly declining health of the planet his daughter’s generation stands to inherit.

Throughout, Varoufakis wears his expertise lightly. He writes as a parent whose aim is to instruct his daughter on the fundamental questions of our age—and through that knowledge, to equip her against the failures and obfuscations of our current system and point the way toward a more democratic alternative.]]> 224 Yanis Varoufakis 0374718431 beth 5 4.19 2013 Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
author: Yanis Varoufakis
name: beth
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/05
date added: 2024/03/05
shelves: 5-star, analysis, econ-moment, fav-nonfic, non-fiction, read-2024, to-revisit-again
review:
Very accessible, but also quite a joy to read at times too. Some of his chosen stories are really illustrative, and I wish there were more introductions like this.
]]> <![CDATA[Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies]]> 880501 432 Noam Chomsky 0887845746 beth 0 to-read, for-masters 4.00 1989 Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies
author: Noam Chomsky
name: beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Marx's Capital: An Introductory Reader]]> 36468776 Seven leading Marxist scholars lay out the conceptual framework of Capital as well as investigate its various themes in essays written specially for this Reader. Moreover, each of the authors has taken care to not limit him/herself to only preliminary explication of concepts, and has also gone into matters of advanced theory.

The volume as a whole also has a broadly similar trajectory — the first couple of essays lay the foundation, the middle four essays graduate from basic concepts to theoretical discussion and debates, and the last essay does not go into basic concepts at all, but applies the method of Capital to theorise about contemporary capitalism.

This introductory Reader, then, does two things: it equips new readers with the basic conceptual keys that could unlock the vast treasure trove of Marx’s analysis and insights, as well as offering fresh insights into Marx's magnificent work to the initiated.]]> 196 Venkatesh Athreya beth 0 4.00 2010 Marx's Capital: An Introductory Reader
author: Venkatesh Athreya
name: beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/01
shelves: to-read, tbr-nonfic, tbr-sooner, to-be-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1)]]> 23168277
The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.]]> 371 Viet Thanh Nguyen 0802123457 beth 0 4.00 2015 The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1)
author: Viet Thanh Nguyen
name: beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-fiction, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Story of the Lost Child (The Neapolitan Novels, #4)]]> 38466672 New York Times?bestselling Neapolitan quartet about two friends in post-war Italy is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted epic by one of today’s most beloved and acclaimed writers, Elena Ferrante, “one of the great novelists of our time.” (Roxana Robinson,?The New York Times.)

Here is the dazzling saga of two women, the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery uncontainable Lila. In this book, life’s great discoveries have been made, its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women’s friendship, examined in its every detail over the course of four books, remains the gravitational center of their lives. Both women once fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. But now, she has returned to Naples to be with the man she has always loved. Lila, on the other hand, never succeeded in freeing herself from Naples. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect her neighborhood. Yet somehow this proximity to a world she has always rejected only brings her role as unacknowledged leader of that world into relief.

Ferrante is one of the world’s great storytellers. With the Neapolitan quartet,?she has given her readers an abundant, generous, and masterfully plotted page-turner that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight readers for many generations to come.]]> 480 Elena Ferrante beth 5
But, personally, I prefer the interpretation that she's saying: I take responsibility (for the dolls, for Tina?), and even though I'm going to remove myself from everything my life has touched I would like you, because I love you, to have this.]]> 4.53 2014 The Story of the Lost Child (The Neapolitan Novels, #4)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: beth
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/28
date added: 2024/02/28
shelves: 5-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, literary-fiction, read-2024, translated
review:
We could interpret that ending somewhat spitefully, and knowing Lila, it is probably her asserting the intelligence and hidden knowledge she has always had. Someone even wrote it was Lila taking responsibility, even ownership, for Elena's life and her success, which she is finally giving back to her.

But, personally, I prefer the interpretation that she's saying: I take responsibility (for the dolls, for Tina?), and even though I'm going to remove myself from everything my life has touched I would like you, because I love you, to have this.
]]> <![CDATA[The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness]]> 42615262
Despite the wealth of scholarly research Herman and Chomsky’s work has set into motion over the past decades, the PM has been subjected to marginalisation, poorly informed critiques and misrepresentations. Interestingly, while the PM enables researchers to form discerning predictions as regards corporate media performance, Herman and Chomsky had further predicted that the PM itself would meet with such marginalisation and contempt.

In current theoretical and empirical studies of mass media performance, uses of the PM continue, nonetheless, to yield important insights into the workings of political and economic power in society, due in large measure to the model’s considerable explanatory power.]]> 314 Joan Pedro-Caranana 1912656167 beth 0 to-read, for-masters 4.40 2018 The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness
author: Joan Pedro-Caranana
name: beth
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/28
shelves: to-read, for-masters
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Psywar on Cuba : The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda]]> 479996 Newly declassified CIA and U.S. Government documents are reproduced here for the first time, exposing a 40-year campaign by Washington to use psychological warfare and propaganda to destabilize Cuba and undermine its revolution.

The Cuban people have been the target for one of the largest psychological warfare campaigns ever waged by one country against another. This book details the U.S. psywar efforts, overt and covert, which have included rumor campaigns, posters, newspapers, books, comics, newsreels, leaflet drops, and radio and TV broadcasts from airplanes, blimps, boats, submarines, secluded islands and the U.S. mainland.

As a comprehensive record of the political, legal and strategic aspects of this four-decade long, multi-million dollar propaganda barrage, the book will serve as a valuable case study and reference for teachers and students of political science, Cold War history, media studies and international communication.

Hundreds of pages of previously secret documents are included in this unique and stunning contribution to the literature on U.S. foreign policy and anti-Castro covert operations.

“An excellent overview of the whole sad story of U.S. efforts to use radio broadcasting and now TV against the Castro government — efforts which are simply part of a deceitful and utterly counterproductive policy,” Wayne S. Smith, former US diplomat in Havana.
]]> 300 Jon Elliston 1876175095 beth 0 to-read, for-masters 4.67 1999 Psywar on Cuba : The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda
author: Jon Elliston
name: beth
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/28
shelves: to-read, for-masters
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality]]> 21929316 160 Salim Lamrani 1583674713 beth 0 to-read, for-masters 4.25 2014 Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality
author: Salim Lamrani
name: beth
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: to-read, for-masters
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Air War with Cuba: The United States Radio Campaign Against Castro]]> 13252239 311 Daniel C. Walsh 0786465069 beth 0 to-read, for-masters 4.75 2011 An Air War with Cuba: The United States Radio Campaign Against Castro
author: Daniel C. Walsh
name: beth
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/27
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe]]> 9375 Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who is telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women, the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again.]]> 416 Fannie Flagg 0375508414 beth 0 4.28 1987 Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
author: Fannie Flagg
name: beth
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read, tbr-fiction, to-be-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ancient Syria: A Three Thousand Year History]]> 21065160 393 Trevor Bryce 0191002933 beth 0 5.00 2014 Ancient Syria: A Three Thousand Year History
author: Trevor Bryce
name: beth
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: tbr-nonfic, to-be-read, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hugo Chavez: The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela]]> 67594 The only up-to-date book on the democratically elected president of Venezuela, and the US-assisted attempt...and failure...to depose him.

The only first-hand report on contemporary Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, by veteran correspondent Richard Gott, places the country's controversial and charismatic president in historical perspective, and examines his plans and programs. This new edition has a chapter on the attempted and failed military coup, Venezuela's recent recall election, and discusses US covert intervention against this democratically elected public official.

The spectre of Simon Bolivar hovers once again over Latin America as the aims and ambitions of the Liberator are taken up by Comandante Hugo Chavez. Welcomed by the inhabitants of the teeming shantytowns of Caracas as their potential savior, and greeted by Washington with considerable alarm, this former golpista-turned-democrat has already begun the most wide-ranging transformation of oil-rich Venezuela for half a century, and dramatically affected the political debate throughout Latin America.

]]> 315 Richard Gott 1844675335 beth 0 3.68 2005 Hugo Chavez: The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela
author: Richard Gott
name: beth
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read, tbr-sooner, tbr-nonfic, to-be-read
review:

]]> The Mountain and the Wall 26594447 Kommersant Weekend (Russia)

"The Mountain and the Wall is a major event in contemporary Russian literature."—Ulrich M. Schmid, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Germany)

This remarkable debut novel by a unique young Russian voice portrays the influence of political intolerance and religious violence in the lives of people forced to choose between evils.

The Mountain and the Wall focuses on Shamil, a young local reporter in Makhachkala, and his reactions, or lack thereof, to rumors that the Russian government is building a wall to cut off the Muslim provinces of the Caucasus from the rest of Russia. As unrest spreads and the tension builds, Shamil's life is turned upside down, and he can no longer afford to ignore the violence surrounding him.

With a fine sense for mounting catastrophe, Alisa Ganieva tells the story of the decline of a society torn apart by its inherent extremes.

Alisa Ganieva, born in 1985, grew up in Makhachkala, Dagestan. Her literary debut, the novella Salaam, Dalgat!, won the prestigious Debut Prize in 2009. Shortlisted for all of Russia's major literary awards, The Mountain and the Wall is her first novel, and has already been translated into several languages. Ganieva lives in Moscow, where she works as a journalist and literary critic.

Carol Apollonio, PhD, is a professor of Slavic and Eurasian studies at Duke University. Her most recent translations include German Sadulaev's The Maya Pill (Dalkey Archive, 2014) and new versions of Anton Chekhov stories.]]> 264 Alisa Ganieva 1941920144 beth 4 4.20 2012 The Mountain and the Wall
author: Alisa Ganieva
name: beth
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/22
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: 4-star, female-authors, fiction, literary-fiction, magical-realism, read-2024, translated, russia, caucasus
review:

]]> Ararat 76542 The Wild Iris in 1993. The author of eight books of poetry and one collection of essays, Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry, she has received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the William Carlos Williams Award, and the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. She was named the next U.S. poet laureate in August 2003. Her most recent book is The Seven Ages. Louise Glück teaches at Williams College and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.]]> 68 Louise Glück 088001248X beth 4
MOUNT ARARAT

Nothing’s sadder than my sister’s grave
unless it’s the grave of my cousin, next to her.
To this day, I can’t bring myself to watch
my aunt and my mother,
though the more I try to escape
seeing their suffering, the more it seems
the fate of our family:
each branch donates one girl child to the earth.

In my generation, we put off marrying, put off having children.
When we did have them, we each had one;
for the most part, we had sons, not daughters.

We don’t discuss this ever.
But it’s always a relief to bury an adult,
someone remote, like my father.
It’s a sign that maybe the debt’s finally been paid.

In fact, no one believes this.
Like the earth itself, every stone here
is dedicated to the Jewish god
who doesn’t hesitate to take
a son from a mother.

A FABLE

Two women with
the same claim
came to the feet of
the wise king. Two women,
but only one baby.
The king knew
someone was lying.
What he said was
Let the child be
cut in half; that way
no one will go
empty-handed. He
drew his sword.
Then, of the two
women, one
renounced her share:
this was
the sign, the lesson.
Suppose
you saw your mother
torn between two daughters:
what could you do
to save her but be
willing to destroy
yourself—she would know
who was the rightful child,
the one who couldn’t bear
to divide the mother.]]> 4.12 1992 Ararat
author: Louise Glück
name: beth
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/20
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves: 4-star, poetry, read-2024, the-quiet-shelf, exit-wounds, female-authors
review:
Very personal, family-related poetry in this Glück collection, which I'm not used to from her.

MOUNT ARARAT

Nothing’s sadder than my sister’s grave
unless it’s the grave of my cousin, next to her.
To this day, I can’t bring myself to watch
my aunt and my mother,
though the more I try to escape
seeing their suffering, the more it seems
the fate of our family:
each branch donates one girl child to the earth.

In my generation, we put off marrying, put off having children.
When we did have them, we each had one;
for the most part, we had sons, not daughters.

We don’t discuss this ever.
But it’s always a relief to bury an adult,
someone remote, like my father.
It’s a sign that maybe the debt’s finally been paid.

In fact, no one believes this.
Like the earth itself, every stone here
is dedicated to the Jewish god
who doesn’t hesitate to take
a son from a mother.

A FABLE

Two women with
the same claim
came to the feet of
the wise king. Two women,
but only one baby.
The king knew
someone was lying.
What he said was
Let the child be
cut in half; that way
no one will go
empty-handed. He
drew his sword.
Then, of the two
women, one
renounced her share:
this was
the sign, the lesson.
Suppose
you saw your mother
torn between two daughters:
what could you do
to save her but be
willing to destroy
yourself—she would know
who was the rightful child,
the one who couldn’t bear
to divide the mother.
]]> <![CDATA[Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (Paris Press)]]> 108114 Open Me Carefully invites a dramatic new understanding of Emily Dickinson's life and work, overcoming a century of censorship and misinterpretation.

For the millions of readers who love Emily Dickinson's poetry, Open Me Carefully brings new light to the meaning of the poet's life and work. Gone is Emily as lonely spinster; here is Dickinson in her own words, passionate and fully alive.]]> 315 Emily Dickinson 0963818368 beth 0 4.61 1998 Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (Paris Press)
author: Emily Dickinson
name: beth
average rating: 4.61
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/15
shelves: to-read, tbr-sooner, tbr-nonfic, to-be-read
review:

]]> Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 46041199 A fierce international bestseller that launched Korea’s new feminist movement, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rigid misogyny.

Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person.

In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A thirtysomething-year-old “millennial everywoman,” she has recently left her white-collar desk job—in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time—as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women—alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her discomfited husband sends her to a male psychiatrist.

In a chilling, eerily truncated third-person voice, Jiyoung’s entire life is recounted to the psychiatrist—a narrative infused with disparate elements of frustration, perseverance, and submission. Born in 1982 and given the most common name for Korean baby girls, Jiyoung quickly becomes the unfavored sister to her princeling little brother. Always, her behavior is policed by the male figures around her—from the elementary school teachers who enforce strict uniforms for girls, to the coworkers who install a hidden camera in the women’s restroom and post their photos online. In her father’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s fault that men harass her late at night; in her husband’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s duty to forsake her career to take care of him and their child—to put them first.

Jiyoung’s painfully common life is juxtaposed against a backdrop of an advancing Korea, as it abandons “family planning” birth control policies and passes new legislation against gender discrimination. But can her doctor flawlessly, completely cure her, or even discover what truly ails her?

Rendered in minimalist yet lacerating prose, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 sits at the center of our global #MeToo movement and announces the arrival of writer of international significance]]> 163 Cho Nam-Joo 1631496700 beth 4 4.17 2016 Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
author: Cho Nam-Joo
name: beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/14
date added: 2024/02/14
shelves: 4-star, analysis, exit-wounds, female-authors, feminism, fiction, literary-fiction, read-2024, translated, korea
review:
A wicked ending. I liked the sparse writing style, I thought it highlighted both the case study nature of the book but also the dispassionate, clinical understanding of Jiyoung's life and circumstances that the therapist had. I appreciated that we never got closure on her case, and that the cyclical nature of the ending really foregrounded that it's not (un)sympathetic individual attitudes that make systemic sexism, but systemic sexism that shapes and constrains individual attitudes and behaviours.
]]> The Birds 41081328
This Norwegian masterpiece sensitively captures the mystic command of the natural world, the prison of unfulfilled time and the fragility of the human mind. The narrative is sparse, poetic and contemplative with an ending that crescendos into heartbreak.]]> 224 Tarjei Vesaas 0241384877 beth 0 4.22 1957 The Birds
author: Tarjei Vesaas
name: beth
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/07
shelves: to-read, tbr-fiction, to-be-read
review:

]]> Poor Things 72355 Poor Things is a postmodern revision of Frankenstein that replaces the traditional monster with Bella Baxter - a beautiful young erotomaniac brought back to life with the brain of an infant. Godwin Baxter's scientific ambition to create the perfect companion is realized when he finds the drowned body of Bella, but his dream is thwarted by Dr. Archibald McCandless's jealous love for Baxter's creation.

The hilarious tale of love and scandal that ensues would be "the whole story" in the hands of a lesser author (which in fact it is, for this account is actually written by Dr. McCandless). For Gray, though, this is only half the story, after which Bella (a.k.a. Victoria McCandless) has her own say in the matter. Satirizing the classic Victorian novel, Poor Things is a hilarious political allegory and a thought-provoking duel between the desires of men and the independence of women, from one of Scotland's most accomplished authors.]]> 318 Alasdair Gray 0747562288 beth 0 3.92 1992 Poor Things
author: Alasdair Gray
name: beth
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: to-read, tbr-fiction, to-be-read, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> Body Friend 123203481 Late in the summer five years ago, when I was recovering from a surgical procedure, I met two women within a few weeks of each other and I saw both of them regularly, always separately, for some months afterwards. Summer did not give way easily that year, and even so we must force our bodies down to sleep in the heat, and even if experience does not give itself up easily to representation, I will lay it down anyway; frame the raw and exigent weeks, the untrustworthy months after the hospital, render it and them, Frida and Sylvia, as closely as possible to reality—or whatever is the feeling of a life and mind lived inside a body.

A woman leaves the hospital after an operation and starts swimming in a pool in Melbourne’s inner suburbs. There she meets Frida, who is uncannily like her in her experience of illness. Soon after, she meets another woman in a local park, Sylvia, who sees her pain and encourages her to rest.

The two new friends seem to be polar opposites: Frida adores the pool and the natural world, Sylvia clings to the protection of interior worlds. What begins as two seemingly simple friendships is challenged by what each woman asks of her, of themselves, and their bodies.

From the acclaimed author of The Memory Artist and The Shut Ins comes a new novel about the relationship between body and self, and how we must dive beneath the surface to really know ourselves.]]> 256 Katherine Brabon 1761151789 beth 0 3.80 2023 Body Friend
author: Katherine Brabon
name: beth
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: to-read, tbr-fiction, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> Winter Love 5326225 134 Han Suyin 1853817449 beth 0 3.87 1962 Winter Love
author: Han Suyin
name: beth
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-fiction, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (The Future of World Capitalism)]]> 15795517 Geopolitical Economy radically reinterprets the historical evolution of the world order, as a multi-polar world emerges from the dust of the financial and economic crisis.

Radhika Desai offers a radical critique of the theories of US hegemony, globalisation and empire which dominate academic international political economy and international relations, revealing their ideological origins in successive failed US attempts at world dominance through the dollar.

Desai revitalizes revolutionary intellectual traditions which combine class and national perspectives on ‘the relations of producing nations’. At a time of global upheavals and profound shifts in the distribution of world power, Geopolitical Economy forges a vivid and compelling account of the historical processes which are shaping the contemporary international order.]]> 328 Radhika Desai 0745329926 beth 0 4.04 2013 Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (The Future of World Capitalism)
author: Radhika Desai
name: beth
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/21
shelves: to-be-read, tbr-nonfic, tbr-sooner, tbr-summer, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]> 89724 Shirley Jackson’s beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family’s dark secret

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem.]]> 152 Shirley Jackson 0143039970 beth 5 The Haunting of Hill House , but this is probably the more consistent and clever overall.

I'm still mulling over what I think it all means, because there's a lot going on in this short novel. Obviously superstition play a role here, and there's something to be said of appeasing others when acting from a place of fear (especially if you want to take the implications of the identity of the poisoner, not too hard to figure out as you read, to their most frightening conclusion). Or, put another way, of being able to control people from a place of fear. This comes out very obviously in the character of [spoilers removed], who is so easily swayed by the perspective of whoever she happens to be spending the most time with that you're really not quite sure she's got a sense of personal identity to speak of. There's also a lot of paranoia directed towards strangers, but considering the hatred of the Blackwoods towards the villagers is pretty mutual, that doesn't seem so strange. This probably has as many different personal interpretations as it has readers.]]> 3.93 1962 We Have Always Lived in the Castle
author: Shirley Jackson
name: beth
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/20
date added: 2024/01/20
shelves: 5-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, literary-fiction, read-2024
review:
Read (basically) in a day, because apparently I need to do something like that to overcome reader's block. Seems polarising from people's reviews; you either really love this or appreciate its oddness but don't find it that amusing. Personally, it was full of my favourite things: unnerving protagonist, odd specificities, a sparse but flowing writing style, characters who don't behave naturally, a house full of malice, mental illness allusions, dark humour. I really do love Eleanor from The Haunting of Hill House , but this is probably the more consistent and clever overall.

I'm still mulling over what I think it all means, because there's a lot going on in this short novel. Obviously superstition play a role here, and there's something to be said of appeasing others when acting from a place of fear (especially if you want to take the implications of the identity of the poisoner, not too hard to figure out as you read, to their most frightening conclusion). Or, put another way, of being able to control people from a place of fear. This comes out very obviously in the character of [spoilers removed], who is so easily swayed by the perspective of whoever she happens to be spending the most time with that you're really not quite sure she's got a sense of personal identity to speak of. There's also a lot of paranoia directed towards strangers, but considering the hatred of the Blackwoods towards the villagers is pretty mutual, that doesn't seem so strange. This probably has as many different personal interpretations as it has readers.
]]> <![CDATA[The Fall of the House of Usher]]> 175516
"The Fall .. " recounts the terrible events that befall the last remaining members of the once-illustrious Usher clan before it is -- quite literally -- rent asunder. With amazing economy, Poe plunges the reader into a state of deliciously agonizing suspense. It's a must-read for fans of the golden era of horror writing. "The Fall .." is one of Poe's best known short stories - if not the best.

Librarian's note: this entry is for the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher." Collections of short stories by the author, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales," can be found elsewhere on 欧宝娱乐.]]> 36 Edgar Allan Poe 1594561796 beth 4 Ghost Quartet, which can be watched .]]> 3.90 1839 The Fall of the House of Usher
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: beth
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1839
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves: 4-star, classics, fiction, read-2024, short-stories
review:
Before anyone suspects, I didn't read this to understand whatever Mike Flanagan is doing. I read this to deeper understand the hilarious performance of Gelsey Bell as 'Lady Usher' in Dave Malloy's song cycle musical Ghost Quartet, which can be watched .
]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 beth 2
I read Kuang's Poppy War series a few years ago and found it to be a mixed bag, with huge structural issues and poorly thought out character choices plaguing the third and final instalment that had the unfortunate effect of making its peaks (namely The Dragon Republic , the second book) almost unmemorable to me. After a few years to consider it and grow in my interests and tastes as a reader, I have come to the opinion that Kuang has the ability to write in several modes, but they only occasionally blend together seamlessly, and more often than not feel clunky and ill-judged. This sounds scathing, but personally I think it's very typical of young writers who are starting out in their careers and finding their niches, and this is fine. She's proven in the past she can do it, but I felt issues she had in the Poppy War series were only amplified in Babel because of the breadth and seriousness of the subject matter; British colonialism, among other things.

Put simply, the three modes the writing flips through are YA drama, textbook, and really imaginative fantastical elements (silver being the primary example) whose metaphorical ingenuity is upset by the fact they aren't part of a better book.

The four main characters are soulless and boring. They could all well be the same person, and Letty is perhaps the only one with any individuality and this is because she is more of an arsehole than the rest of them. They didn't feel more real than the imperialists, they were just more sympathetic because they had views that readers will (hopefully) be more likely to share and agree with. Creating characters that feel truly and authentically of a time and place is obviously difficult and requires extensive research; all four of these characters you could write into a novel set in the 21st century and you'd have to change very little about them. After reading the fantastic Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh a few months ago, that was able to craft believable characters from many different places all converging in British colonial India, this was a marked step down. The imperialists are no better, really; they frequently say ridiculous things that sound cartoonishly evil. And Ghosh's colonial administrators spoke in an incomprehensible and pompous (and hilarious!) pidgin English, so it's not that I'm against deliberately satirical elements in service of a larger point; I think Kuang meant us to take these statements seriously, but I couldn't because they were simplistic enough to feel inauthentic and silly.

To her credit, the magical silver that utilises translations from ancient into more modern languages in order to carry out fantastical functions is a treasure trove of fascinating metaphors for empire, technology, stolen wealth, exploitation, and violence. At one point an inscription on a metal bar is used to kill someone and the character who used it considers how it made killing so easy and impersonal; you don't even need to put real effort or violence into it. This was a chilling statement not only on technologies that make violence easier (like a gun as opposed to a knife) but also on technology's ability to make killing seem mundane and emotionally remote, kind of like how the exploitation of the colonies felt so distant from the average citizen in the imperial core whose lifestyles necessitated the human misery overseas (you can see where I'm going with this).

Our protagonist Robin also reflects on how he can never see Oxford in the same way again, now that he knows the function it plays in the empire and recognises his place within it. It's a very relatable feeling for anyone who has taken an interest in the economy, or capitalism, or even just 19th-20th century history; once you see it you can't unsee it, and almost everything about your outlook on your daily life changes. It sounds dramatic, but it's not far off the mark.

This is to say, long rambles aside, that I think Kuang has a lot of good ideas and interesting things to talk about, but is somewhat let down by technique; it's too forced; it says all the right things without being able to make you really feel them; it tells you rather than shows, etc. More nuance doesn't have to mean diluting your message. It means putting things in place so your reader can discover the inner workings for themselves without having to be lectured to. I know this is a book set primarily at Oxford university, but nevertheless.]]> 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: beth
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/11
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: dnf, 2-stars, big-idea-smaller-execution, fantasy, female-authors, fiction, race, read-2024
review:
DNF around 80%. I know, I just couldn't be bothered with it anymore.

I read Kuang's Poppy War series a few years ago and found it to be a mixed bag, with huge structural issues and poorly thought out character choices plaguing the third and final instalment that had the unfortunate effect of making its peaks (namely The Dragon Republic , the second book) almost unmemorable to me. After a few years to consider it and grow in my interests and tastes as a reader, I have come to the opinion that Kuang has the ability to write in several modes, but they only occasionally blend together seamlessly, and more often than not feel clunky and ill-judged. This sounds scathing, but personally I think it's very typical of young writers who are starting out in their careers and finding their niches, and this is fine. She's proven in the past she can do it, but I felt issues she had in the Poppy War series were only amplified in Babel because of the breadth and seriousness of the subject matter; British colonialism, among other things.

Put simply, the three modes the writing flips through are YA drama, textbook, and really imaginative fantastical elements (silver being the primary example) whose metaphorical ingenuity is upset by the fact they aren't part of a better book.

The four main characters are soulless and boring. They could all well be the same person, and Letty is perhaps the only one with any individuality and this is because she is more of an arsehole than the rest of them. They didn't feel more real than the imperialists, they were just more sympathetic because they had views that readers will (hopefully) be more likely to share and agree with. Creating characters that feel truly and authentically of a time and place is obviously difficult and requires extensive research; all four of these characters you could write into a novel set in the 21st century and you'd have to change very little about them. After reading the fantastic Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh a few months ago, that was able to craft believable characters from many different places all converging in British colonial India, this was a marked step down. The imperialists are no better, really; they frequently say ridiculous things that sound cartoonishly evil. And Ghosh's colonial administrators spoke in an incomprehensible and pompous (and hilarious!) pidgin English, so it's not that I'm against deliberately satirical elements in service of a larger point; I think Kuang meant us to take these statements seriously, but I couldn't because they were simplistic enough to feel inauthentic and silly.

To her credit, the magical silver that utilises translations from ancient into more modern languages in order to carry out fantastical functions is a treasure trove of fascinating metaphors for empire, technology, stolen wealth, exploitation, and violence. At one point an inscription on a metal bar is used to kill someone and the character who used it considers how it made killing so easy and impersonal; you don't even need to put real effort or violence into it. This was a chilling statement not only on technologies that make violence easier (like a gun as opposed to a knife) but also on technology's ability to make killing seem mundane and emotionally remote, kind of like how the exploitation of the colonies felt so distant from the average citizen in the imperial core whose lifestyles necessitated the human misery overseas (you can see where I'm going with this).

Our protagonist Robin also reflects on how he can never see Oxford in the same way again, now that he knows the function it plays in the empire and recognises his place within it. It's a very relatable feeling for anyone who has taken an interest in the economy, or capitalism, or even just 19th-20th century history; once you see it you can't unsee it, and almost everything about your outlook on your daily life changes. It sounds dramatic, but it's not far off the mark.

This is to say, long rambles aside, that I think Kuang has a lot of good ideas and interesting things to talk about, but is somewhat let down by technique; it's too forced; it says all the right things without being able to make you really feel them; it tells you rather than shows, etc. More nuance doesn't have to mean diluting your message. It means putting things in place so your reader can discover the inner workings for themselves without having to be lectured to. I know this is a book set primarily at Oxford university, but nevertheless.
]]> <![CDATA[Butterfly Politics: Changing the World for Women, With a New Preface]]> 42585035 ―Cass Sunstein, coauthor of Nudge

Under certain conditions, small simple actions can produce large and complex “butterfly effects.” Butterfly Politics shows how Catharine A. MacKinnon turned discrimination law into an effective tool against sexual abuse―grounding and predicting the worldwide #MeToo movement―and proposes concrete steps that could have further butterfly effects on women’s rights. Thirty years after she won the U.S. Supreme Court case establishing sexual harassment as illegal, this timely collection of her previously unpublished interventions on consent, rape, and the politics of gender equality captures in action the creative and transformative activism of an icon.

“MacKinnon adapts a concept from chaos theory in which the tiny motion of a butterfly’s wings can trigger a tornado half a world away. Under the right conditions, she posits, small actions can produce major social transformations.”
― New York Times

“MacKinnon [is] radical, passionate, incorruptible and a beautiful literary stylist… Butterfly Politics is a devastating salvo fired in the gender wars… This book has a single overriding to effect global change in the pursuit of equality.”
― The Australian

“ Sexual Harassment of Working Women was a revelation. It showed how this anti-discrimination law―Title VII―could be used as a tool… It was the beginning of a field that didn’t exist until then.”
―U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg]]> 528 Catharine A. MacKinnon 0674237668 beth 0 to-read 4.30 Butterfly Politics: Changing the World for Women, With a New Preface
author: Catharine A. MacKinnon
name: beth
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Free: Coming of Age at the End of History]]> 60099892
Lea Ypi grew up in one of the most isolated countries on earth, a place where communist ideals had officially replaced religion. Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was almost impossible to visit, almost impossible to leave. It was a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police. To Lea, it was home. People were equal, neighbours helped each other, and children were expected to build a better world. There was community and hope.

Then, in December 1990, everything changed. The statues of Stalin and Hoxha were toppled. Almost overnight, people could vote freely, wear what they liked and worship as they wished. There was no longer anything to fear from prying ears. But factories shut, jobs disappeared and thousands fled to Italy on crowded ships, only to be sent back. Predatory pyramid schemes eventually bankrupted the country, leading to violent conflict. As one generation's aspirations became another's disillusionment, and as her own family's secrets were revealed, Lea found herself questioning what freedom really meant.

Free is an engrossing memoir of coming of age amid political upheaval. With acute insight and wit, Lea Ypi traces the limits of progress and the burden of the past, illuminating the spaces between ideals and reality, and the hopes and fears of people pulled up by the sweep of history.]]> 313 Lea Ypi 0141995106 beth 0 4.31 2021 Free: Coming of Age at the End of History
author: Lea Ypi
name: beth
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/26
shelves: to-read, tbr-sooner, to-be-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection]]> 783310 Powers of Horror is an excellent introduction to an aspect of contemporary French literature which has been allowed to become somewhat neglected in the current emphasis on paraphilosophical modes of discourse. The sections on Céline, for example, are indispensable reading for those interested in this writer and place him within a context that is both illuminating and of general interest." -Paul de Man]]> 219 Julia Kristeva 0231053479 beth 0 4.07 1980 Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
author: Julia Kristeva
name: beth
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/23
shelves: to-read, tbr-nonfic, to-be-read, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> Beloved 1411614 324 Toni Morrison 0099511657 beth 5 3.95 1987 Beloved
author: Toni Morrison
name: beth
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/08
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: 5-star, exit-wounds, female-authors, fiction, literary-fiction, race, read-2023
review:
Ooh. What an ending. Something about it makes you angry. Bittersweet.
]]> <![CDATA[Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution]]> 57186849 A previously unpublished collection of Rodney's essays on Marxism, spanning his engagement with of Black Power, Ujamaa Villages, and the everyday people who put an end to a colonial era Early in life, Walter Rodney became a major revolutionary figure in a dizzying range of locales that traversed the breadth of the Black diaspora: in North America and Europe, in the Caribbean, and on the African continent. He was not only a witness of a Pan-African and socialist internationalism; in his efforts to build mass organizations, catalyze rebellious ferment, and theorize an anti-colonial path to self-emancipation, he can be counted among its prime authors. In drawing together pages where he elaborates on the nexus of race and class, offers his reflections on radical pedagogy, outlines programs for newly independent nation-states, considers the challenges of anti-colonial historiography, and produces balance sheets for a dozen wars for national liberation, this volume captures something of the range and power of Rodney's output. But it also demonstrates the unbending consistency that unites his life and work: the ongoing reinvention of living conception of Marxism, and a respect for the still untapped potential of mass self-rule.]]> 304 Walter Rodney beth 0 4.53 Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution
author: Walter Rodney
name: beth
average rating: 4.53
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves: to-read, tbr-nonfic, to-be-read, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> Gay Pride and Prejudice 13569304 360 Kate Christie 0985367709 beth 3
Overall, fine, got me to actually read a book I probably wouldn't have been too bothered to otherwise. It becomes tedious near the end, and I doubt it'll go down as my favourite Austen (I've bought a lovely copy of Emma that I'm going to read soon). Quite frankly, I don't think I'd care too much for the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy; there wasn't anything particularly exciting and electric about it. Elizabeth was also too conventionally 'good' for my taste; Lydia, for all the family detested her, was a much more exuberant character. But then I've heard of Austen's penchant for moralising, so.]]> 3.77 2012 Gay Pride and Prejudice
author: Kate Christie
name: beth
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/06
date added: 2023/12/06
shelves: 3-star, classics, female-authors, fiction, lesbian, read-2023
review:
Shamelessly read this version of Pride and Prejudice, which is basically just the original, but what if many characters were gay (the inclusion of Mr. Bennet in this is hilarious). The writing was mostly the original text, but tweaked, with a small amount of original writing that blended well. It was alright, you could pretty much tell what the original plot was too, so I basically feel that I've read P&P. The character swaps, for example Mr. Darcy for Miss Bingley, didn't always seem to work, but the relationship between Elizabeth and Charlotte, and how each had concealed this, felt like a fairly believable depiction of 19th century lesbians. It sort of reminded me of Gentleman Jack. I wished several times that I was reading a book about 19th century lesbians that was actually supposed to be gay, though.

Overall, fine, got me to actually read a book I probably wouldn't have been too bothered to otherwise. It becomes tedious near the end, and I doubt it'll go down as my favourite Austen (I've bought a lovely copy of Emma that I'm going to read soon). Quite frankly, I don't think I'd care too much for the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy; there wasn't anything particularly exciting and electric about it. Elizabeth was also too conventionally 'good' for my taste; Lydia, for all the family detested her, was a much more exuberant character. But then I've heard of Austen's penchant for moralising, so.
]]> <![CDATA[Call of the White: Taking the World to the South Pole]]> 11274754 320 Felicity Aston 184953134X beth 0 4.24 2011 Call of the White: Taking the World to the South Pole
author: Felicity Aston
name: beth
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/05
shelves: to-read, to-be-read, tbr-nonfic, tbr-sooner
review:

]]> Massacres In The Jungle 128504133 248 Ricardo Falla 0367161001 beth 4
Significant analysis is saved for discussions on changes in the social organisation of these communities during and after these massacres, with some crossing the border and creating a refugee population in Mexico (including ~200,000 "nonofficial" refugees who were not registered as such), some staying to form resistance communities hiding in the forest, some joining the guerrillas who the army was ostensibly supposed to be fighting. The discussions of survival collective farming and security measures to elude the army were very inspiring. The role of religious thought in leading to both passivity (some stayed in the villages for reasons of faith and subsequently were murdered) and action (those who took chances to escape and trusted in God to either see them to safety or put them out of their misery) were also interesting, and handled with compassion and sensitivity. Truly a testament to human survival, resistance, and capacity to overcome some of the most appalling circumstances.]]> 4.00 1994 Massacres In The Jungle
author: Ricardo Falla
name: beth
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/05
date added: 2023/12/05
shelves: indigenous, latin-america, non-fiction, race, read-2023, analysis, for-masters, 4-star, exit-wounds, anthropology
review:
About the years of army repression and subsequent massacres carried out in the municipality of Ixcán in Guatemala (department El Quiché), 1975-1982. The majority who lived in this area were various indigenous communities, many organised into cooperatives where they could farm for both subsistence and wider export. This probably qualifies as being one of the most horrific events I have ever read about, and I appreciate Falla's dedication to capturing this history through the eyes of ordinary people, as the large majority of the book relies on the testimonies of witnesses who survived these events.

Significant analysis is saved for discussions on changes in the social organisation of these communities during and after these massacres, with some crossing the border and creating a refugee population in Mexico (including ~200,000 "nonofficial" refugees who were not registered as such), some staying to form resistance communities hiding in the forest, some joining the guerrillas who the army was ostensibly supposed to be fighting. The discussions of survival collective farming and security measures to elude the army were very inspiring. The role of religious thought in leading to both passivity (some stayed in the villages for reasons of faith and subsequently were murdered) and action (those who took chances to escape and trusted in God to either see them to safety or put them out of their misery) were also interesting, and handled with compassion and sensitivity. Truly a testament to human survival, resistance, and capacity to overcome some of the most appalling circumstances.
]]> <![CDATA[Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism]]> 75560036
Capitalism is dead. Welcome to technofeudalism. The perfect Christmas gift for the political visionaries in your life.

In his boldest and most far-reaching book, the visionary economist and number-one bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis shows how the owners of big tech became the world's feudal overlords – replacing capitalism with a fundamentally new system that enslaves our minds, defies democracy and rewrite the rules of global power.

But as Varoufakis also reveals, technofeudalism contains new opportunities to thwart and overturn it, bringing into focus more clearly than ever the revolution we need to escape our digital prison.

‘An epochal, once-in-a-millennium shift . . . this isn't just new technology. This is the world grappling with an entirely new economic system and therefore political power’ Observer

‘An urgent demand to seize the means of computation’ CORY DOCTOROW

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR]]> 224 Yanis Varoufakis beth 0 4.03 2023 Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism
author: Yanis Varoufakis
name: beth
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/04
shelves: to-read, tbr-sooner, to-be-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Textiles: The Whole Story: Uses, Meanings, Significance]]> 11488671
The author bridges past and present from the Stone Age, when humans first learned to make cordage or thread, to twenty-first-century “smart fabrics,” which can regulate body temperature or measure the wearer’s pulse. Her discussion integrates art, science, history, and anthropology, and she draws on examples from around the globe.

A dazzling array of illustrations includes paintings and photographs of both historic and contemporary textiles and a broad collection of textiles being created, worn, and lived with. 250 full-color and 100 black-and-white illustrations]]> 304 Beverly Gordon 0500515662 beth 0 to-read, to-be-read 4.25 2011 Textiles: The Whole Story: Uses, Meanings, Significance
author: Beverly Gordon
name: beth
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/04
shelves: to-read, to-be-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)]]> 35068705
When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.]]> 545 R.F. Kuang 0062662597 beth 3
The Poppy War is a fantasy novel, following events based loosely around those that occurred in the Sino-Japanese War. I don't know much about this time in history admittedly, but judging this as a book amongst other fantasy novels seems unfair - simply put, this is a book about war that includes some fantastical elements. Many of these elements seem less shocking than the very realistic depictions of atrocities typically associated with military conflicts. Some of these hit me incredibly hard, most notably [spoilers removed] It's depressing, helplessly disturbing stuff, & I wouldn't recommend this book for anyone who can't handle graphic depictions of violence & rape. Nothing is gratuitous, but even though it's tonally sound it isn't any easier to deal with.

The novel starts with our teenage protagonist Rin deciding to study for a test that she hopes will grant her access to the military school of Sinegard in order to avoid an arranged (child) marriage. From the very beginning, Rin is our underdog - she must constantly prove her worthiness to her peers, her master, & eventually to her commanding officer, Altan. Nothing comes easily to our war orphan, & through her struggles we begin to see seeds of questionable moral & ethical conduct planted throughout her subconscious. Much of this novel consists of fierce battles, combat strategising, mythology & fantasy shamanistic elements, but we are never held back from the ongoing moral conflict in Rin's mind. Truly, much of my reading experience was punctuated by moments of disbelief that our heroine made the choices she did - it's like watching someone willingly walk over the edge of a cliff, convinced that at the last moment she'll work out how to fly. Her moral ambiguity is arguably the biggest sell for me - too few protagonists are ever allowed to fully give in to their dark side.

This book asks hard questions, & usually neither option is fully right or fully wrong. What if their is no 'good' option? Would you sacrifice yourself & your own for a greater good? What if you became everything you hate about your enemy? What stories, both cultural & personal, will nations & people tell themselves in order to justify their actions & their dire consequences? How far would you go to absolve yourself of responsibility, if only to ensure your own sanity? It's fascinating, hair-pulling stuff, but the fact Rin is allowed to commit the most disturbing of acts in her quest for vengeance shows that Kuang is not afraid to embrace the darkness that lies beneath her characters' humanity.

There is hopefulness scattered throughout here, but there is no great heroic victory. By the end of the book, things arguably may be worse & the outlook even more bleak than it was before - but there's no turning back once the fire has been set. Excited to read & learn more in the second.]]> 4.16 2018 The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: beth
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/06
date added: 2023/11/30
shelves: female-authors, fiction, read-2020, fantasy, 3-star
review:
The moral ambiguity of this book fuels me. I feel questionable shelving this under favourite female leads, but what can I say? She earnt it!

The Poppy War is a fantasy novel, following events based loosely around those that occurred in the Sino-Japanese War. I don't know much about this time in history admittedly, but judging this as a book amongst other fantasy novels seems unfair - simply put, this is a book about war that includes some fantastical elements. Many of these elements seem less shocking than the very realistic depictions of atrocities typically associated with military conflicts. Some of these hit me incredibly hard, most notably [spoilers removed] It's depressing, helplessly disturbing stuff, & I wouldn't recommend this book for anyone who can't handle graphic depictions of violence & rape. Nothing is gratuitous, but even though it's tonally sound it isn't any easier to deal with.

The novel starts with our teenage protagonist Rin deciding to study for a test that she hopes will grant her access to the military school of Sinegard in order to avoid an arranged (child) marriage. From the very beginning, Rin is our underdog - she must constantly prove her worthiness to her peers, her master, & eventually to her commanding officer, Altan. Nothing comes easily to our war orphan, & through her struggles we begin to see seeds of questionable moral & ethical conduct planted throughout her subconscious. Much of this novel consists of fierce battles, combat strategising, mythology & fantasy shamanistic elements, but we are never held back from the ongoing moral conflict in Rin's mind. Truly, much of my reading experience was punctuated by moments of disbelief that our heroine made the choices she did - it's like watching someone willingly walk over the edge of a cliff, convinced that at the last moment she'll work out how to fly. Her moral ambiguity is arguably the biggest sell for me - too few protagonists are ever allowed to fully give in to their dark side.

This book asks hard questions, & usually neither option is fully right or fully wrong. What if their is no 'good' option? Would you sacrifice yourself & your own for a greater good? What if you became everything you hate about your enemy? What stories, both cultural & personal, will nations & people tell themselves in order to justify their actions & their dire consequences? How far would you go to absolve yourself of responsibility, if only to ensure your own sanity? It's fascinating, hair-pulling stuff, but the fact Rin is allowed to commit the most disturbing of acts in her quest for vengeance shows that Kuang is not afraid to embrace the darkness that lies beneath her characters' humanity.

There is hopefulness scattered throughout here, but there is no great heroic victory. By the end of the book, things arguably may be worse & the outlook even more bleak than it was before - but there's no turning back once the fire has been set. Excited to read & learn more in the second.
]]>