I'm currently the coordinator of the #SFFBookClub so a lot of what I'm reading is suggestions from there.
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This book is doing a fantastic job of capturing a very relatable tension between the protagonist's genuine, hard-won defiance and a certain amount of lying to herself in trying to deny how much it hurts.
We were desperate to be the girl who dies, always.
— I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea (Page 3)
The context immediately cuts down the melodrama, but this is an opening line I'm going to remember.
Award-winning historical fantasy and literary folktale. Winner of the presigious Etisalat award.
In a tent …
This is a set of stories-within-a-story, which are their best are very entertaining and vivid. But as another #SFFBookClub mentioned, I think it would have worked a lot better as a series of separate stories. In trying to pull it all together as one person's adventures, Nimr ended up making a lot of the dramas resolve too quickly and neatly to maintain interest, and the ending manages to be simultaneously too neat and unresolved.
Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work …
#SFFBookClub Jan 2024
Award-winning historical fantasy and literary folktale. Winner of the presigious Etisalat award.
In a tent …
this book is a fun read, but I can’t help feeling that every dramatic tension since the narrator left her village has been resolved too quickly.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. …
Incidentally, Standard Ebooks has this: standardebooks.org/ebooks/mary-shelley/frankenstein
I find their editions reliably the nicest ebook version of any public domain work, even compared to ones sold as ebook editions by for-profit publishers.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. …
This one's gonna be a slow read through, reading aloud with a group of friends an hour a week.
el dang
boosted
Award-winning historical fantasy and literary folktale. Winner of the presigious Etisalat award.
In a tent …
And so it was that my mother went into labor while sitting astride the donkey that was carrying her from the city to our village.
— Wondrous Journeys In Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr, Marcia Lynx Qualey
Award-winning historical fantasy and literary folktale. Winner of the presigious Etisalat award.
In a tent …
#SFFBookClub December. And yay, the order came in earlier than the bookstore had promised.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first …
DNF. Until I hit the super antisemitic bit, I was wavering between "I don't really care about the story" and "but each page is fun to read", and... it's not fun any more. I didn't even decide not to continue, I just haven't felt like it.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first …
Oh, so that's where the antisemitism I saw another review mention is waiting. And it's not just the sort of casual BS I sadly expect from 19th Century goy authors, it's a character with no name other than "the [disgusting | ugly | insert other insult here] Jew", whose ugliness is mentioned every page for a while, and appears to "own" a young actress. Also, a Shakespeare impresario who the character can't imagine could possibly actually appreciate Shakespeare rather than just seeing money to be made, because that would be too human.
There's a lot to unpack here about whether it's Wilde telling us how he really feels or not, given that he puts a lot of obvious nonsense in the mouths of his characters. But I'm not sure I have the energy and I might just bounce. Partly because I think I need to not keep running into [epithet …
Oh, so that's where the antisemitism I saw another review mention is waiting. And it's not just the sort of casual BS I sadly expect from 19th Century goy authors, it's a character with no name other than "the [disgusting | ugly | insert other insult here] Jew", whose ugliness is mentioned every page for a while, and appears to "own" a young actress. Also, a Shakespeare impresario who the character can't imagine could possibly actually appreciate Shakespeare rather than just seeing money to be made, because that would be too human.
There's a lot to unpack here about whether it's Wilde telling us how he really feels or not, given that he puts a lot of obvious nonsense in the mouths of his characters. But I'm not sure I have the energy and I might just bounce. Partly because I think I need to not keep running into [epithet Jew] right now, and partly because I'm a bit frustrated with the book anyway.
I'm finding I don't care what happens to any of the characters. Not even enough to wish ill on them, I just don't care. Until this bit, the pleasure of reading each page was keeping me going, and a lot of it really does sparkle, but put a big caveat on that pleasure and why am I still reading?
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first …
With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilised.
— The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Page 6)
I'd forgotten quite how quotable Wilde's writing is. I think my challenge with this book is going to be not stopping every 6 pages to type out another quote, until everyone unfollows me sick of it.
@jcalpickard@bookwyrm.social I see what you mean about Verne or Wells, though I feel like they'd have made it more one human's heroic story. And it will be very interesting to come back to this in a decade or two.
