#what I read

[xxxyzart]

ー Holly Black - The Cruel Prince

#book #books #books and reading #book aesthetic #book quote #book club #currently reading #reading #book reading #books to read #current read #reading recommendations #what i read #reading list #the cruel prince #holly black #jude duarte

[wecandoit]

bimonthly roundup | dec-jan

notes: trying out a new layout and name for these bimonthly updates. i'll tag them now under #roundups (including the past posts). i'm using summer break to get back into watching films and tv!

lifestyle

101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna Wiest (book)

How to end a toxic relationship

At what point does the Santa myth become a harmful deception?

What does switching from paper to screens mean for how we read?

youtube: third places, stanley cup mania, and the epidemic of loneliness

youtube: Make Body Language Your Superpower

youtube: How every child can thrive by five

culture, history, race

The day the Taliban banned women like me from working

youtube: the LOSS of architectural BEAUTY: america's ugly housing developments

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (book)

misc interests

Mirrorless or DSLR Cameras—which is right for you?

How do Credit Cards work?

How Suppliers Design Traditional Ornamental Ceilings

youtube: NEVER TOO SMALL: Iconic Tokyo Architect’s Tiny House - 19sqm/194sqft

youtube: The importance of documenting my (boring) life

entertainment

youtube: i rated places with 0 reviews

movie: Minari (2020)

movie: Luca (2021)

movie: The Handmaiden (2016)

movie: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2001)

#roundups #what i read #dec-jan 2024 #academicsunite #Original

[sunscreenstudies]

2023 Wrap-Up!

#bookblr #end of year #2023 wrapped #what i read #monthly summary

[nicnavarrocage]

I have read Problem Sleuth. I have read Jailbreak. I have read Bardquest. I've read And It Don't Stop, Whistles, all the scribblettes, every Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff, every 6 Cool Dude and Stoner Lous, Neon Ice Cream Headache, and anything else the big lipped dick at Massachusetts has made, written, and drew.

But what did I not read, and somehow have an interest in? Homestuck. Everybody wants to latch onto Homestuck first, but screw that. I got the good shit instead. I'm one of the more fortunate followers of Andrew Hussie's works, the kind who is lucky to not sit through shit like the Epilogues or Beyond Canon.

Y'know why I keep mentioning Homestuck and it's stuff a few times? Because it's actually sucking me into the convoluted, digital shitpost storyline of 4 kids and a reality bending video game, and I can't pick wether I wanna read it or not.

I know it's flaws, I've been heard about the flaws, I've remembered hearing about the flaws as early as the start of this year, when I was browsing old HSG posts from 2012-2013 (although not entirely because I was a pussy), yet the webcomic...

It beckons...

And thank fuck I didn't dive into Psycholonials. The art in that game ranges from "poor imitation of Homestuck's beanhero mode" and "lineless, pixelated mess," and all of that is a no for me.

#andrew hussie #homestuck #ms paint adventures #problem sleuth #team special olympics #comics #webcomics #what i read #i hate homestuck

[z3ldareads00]

my cruel prince binge: november reading

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson 4.5/5. Chilling, but not scary. the ending snuck up on me then stuck with me.

The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros 3.5/5. I loved the vignettes, but it went a little slow (while trying to acknowledge that not speeding through a book does not necessarily constitute a lower rating)

The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King, The Queen of Nothing, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories, Holly Black. 4/5 ummmmmmmmmmmmm... this series had me in a chokehold for about seven days. now, about a month later, i realize it was because of Jude - driven by a need of power, not necessarily love. as a twin myself, the dynamic between Taryn and Jude was perfect. and the SLOW BURN ROMANCE. Cardan was perfectly tortured. I read them like one big saga, which was helpful to deal with its surface level world building.

If We Were Villains, M.L. Rio 4.5/5. YES YES. almost perfect. it just would've been everything to me if I saw a BIT more with Oliver and James. even if it wasn't them together together, we needed more to convince me of oliver's action in the end. like why was he sleeping with meredith so much??? it threw me off

#books and reading #books #what i read #the cruel prince #holly black #haunting of hill house #shirley jackson #wicked king #queen of nothing #how the king of elfhame learned to hate stories #if we were villains #oliver marks #james farrow #jude duarte #jude x cardan #cardan greenbriar #the house on mango street #sandra cisneros #ml rio

[gloomshroomstudio]

Late night hobonichi trials in my old book because I’m too scared to start my new one…

#hobonichi weeks #hobonichi #bookblr #books #book tracker #what i read #journal #journal spreads #planner #plan with me #commonplace

[onewhale]

Marca is so annoying

#what I read #luka modric #real madrid #be a man ok #Do you know who you are dealing with? #what a idiot could write this bullshit

[vainlungs]

Precisely because homophobia often operates through the attribution of a damaged, failed, or otherwise abject gender to homosexuals, that is, calling gay men "feminine" or calling lesbians "masculine," and because the homophobic terror over performing homosexual acts, where it exists, is often also a terror over losing proper gender ("no longer being a real or proper man" or "no longer being a real and proper woman"), it seems crucial to retain a theoretical apparatus that will account for how sexuality is regulated through the policing and the shaming of gender.

— Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter

#something about how some transphobes think they can be fine with same sex attraction but draw a line at being trans #not being straight is inherently non gender conforming in the western sex/gender system since #the western binary sex/gender categories are constructed as heterosexual #this book is older than me ✨ #gender studies #what i read #queue

[writing-for-life]

Hey girl. What author most inspires you? Popular press or obscure, dead or alive - no matter. Bonus Q: What author's work is like your comfort food, that you find yourself coming back to at different times in your life?

Whoa, how much time do you have? 😂

Let’s start with the obvious and kill two birds with one stone:

I love Neil Gaiman, and The Sandman absolutely is my comfort.

I don’t even know how often I’ve read it cover to cover, so to speak—my guess is roundabout 15-20 times (and that doesn’t even include dipping into individual arcs or stories just because)?

It’s just a work that has matured with me, and I’m honestly not tiring of it. I still feel I discover new stuff on every reread. It’s honestly the work that’s been most influential on my life in so many ways.

But it’s not just The Sandman. I love The Graveyard Book (I don’t care if people say it’s a children’s book). I really like Neverwhere, literally everything in Smoke and Mirrors, Norse Mythology, The Sleeper and the Spindle, and Snow, Glass, Apples. I also like his other stuff, but the “big ones” aren’t always highest up my list (like Anansi Boys, American Gods, Good Omens and Stardust)—make of that what you will 😂

Also: I really love Art Matters and The View from the Cheap Seats (for some of his non-fiction stuff).

And of course his children’s books.

I just love his worldbuilding, it honestly awes me.

But it’s not just Neil Gaiman. Matt Haig. The Midnight Library and How to Stop Time in particular. His children’s books are wonderful too, especially To Be a Cat, The Truth Pixie and A Mouse Called Mika. And Notes on a Nervous Planet is always worth a read (I think it’s also a comfort one).

Other books I frequently revisit:

Joan Aiken’s Midnight is a Place.

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (she writes great dialogue)

I also like Tolkien, but I feel I need to be in a very particular mood. His overly descriptive prose irks me on occasion (nothing to do with him, but all with me), but the overall story and worldbuilding makes up for it.

Sinclair Lewis (surprising, I know 😂), John Steinbeck, David Foster Wallace 😢

And many more, so that’s all just from the top of my head and very unfiltered.

#asks open #send asks #about anything really: sandman | writing | life #writers #what i read #writing inspiration #great worldbuilding #great dialogue #inspiring writers #asks answered #asks

[masonhawth0rne]

What I read in October

Hoo boy, I sure did forget to post this earlier, didn't I!

Honestly I've been so busy so far this month that I just didn't even think of it. Also, this month is sort of evaporating. Before you ask, no I have written nothing at all for the not-NaNo that I was planning to attempt. But I did come up with another great idea for something that I'll probably start and not finish, so you can't say I've done nothing!

Anyway, on to the list:

Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, Hailey Piper ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ghost Bird, Lisa Fuller ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Forest of Stolen Girls, June Hur ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Liar's Dice, Jeannie Lin ⭐️

Straya, Anthony O'Connor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Toxic, Dan Kaszeta (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Illuminae, Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Penhallow, Georgette Heyer ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Myth of the Self Made Man, Ruben Reyes Jr (ss) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Call, Christian White & Summer De Roche ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Death of the Necromancer, Martha Wells ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cretins, Thomas Ha (ss) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Kill Your Brother, Jack Heath ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Valley of Terror, Zhou Haohui, tr. Bonnie Huie ⭐️⭐️

The Curse of the Burdens, John Wyndham ⭐️⭐️

Amazons, Adrienne Mayor (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Kraken Wakes, John Wyndham ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dead Mountain, Donnie Eichar (nf) ⭐️⭐️

Family Business, Jonathan Sims ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In the House of Aryaman A Lonely Signal Burns, Elizabeth Bear ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Blessing of Unicorns, Elizabeth Bear ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

METAtropolis Anthology ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Plan for Chaos, John Wyndham ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Fatal Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Outward Urge, John Wyndham ⭐️⭐️

King Solomon's Mines, H. Rider Haggard DNF

The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle tr. David Ross (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a bit of a mixed bunch!

At the end of September I went to a writer's conference, where Lisa Fuller and Amie Kaufman were guests of honour. I was a bit annoyed at myself because I had bought Ghost Bird the week before, not realising that she was on the program, so I had the book the whole time but hadn't yet read it! Oh well, better late than never.

Ghost Bird was a solid spooky read, dealing with family history and tensions, small town disturbances, and the violent inheritances of colonialism and racism in Australia. I originally bought it because it was on a list of books to read if you enjoyed Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, which I did.

Illuminae was one that I had heard @slushrottweiler mention several times, but I'd never gotten around to it (YA, not my most favourite! Epistolary, not my most favourite!). But after the conference I figured I'd check it out, and I'm glad I did. While I wouldn't say that it's my favourite thing ever, it was a solid scifi story, with an interesting form and style, and I'll probably check out the sequels eventually.

Straya by Anthony O'Connor was the other book on this list that I picked up after the conference. Kind of a goofy action romp through post-apocalyptic Sydney, I was expecting to be a kind of brain-off funtime read (and it is! Don't get me wrong!) but it also had a lot of very clever little twists and turns that kept it really engaging. Also a refreshing take on the 'love interest' character, being that she's asexual, and when the protagonist confesses his feelings for her she says well... that's sweet and all, but I don't do that. Can we still be friends? And then they are still friends! A lot of the goofyness of this book is held up by a backbone of sincerity which is really nice, too. In all, a fun read.

Also revisited some faves this month, re-read Penhallow for my book club, and I have to say, it is one of those books which just gets more complex with each rereading. It's up there with Rebecca as some of my most books of all time.

There's one big fat DNF on the list this month, King Solomon's Mine, which through a combination of Victorian era racism, and very poor audio quality was pretty much unlistenable, and I don't think I'll be bothered trying to find a better recording.

And that's that!

nf= non fiction

ss= short story

stars awarded at my whim

#what i read

[xxxyzart]

“When words are real enough, when they’re the exact right words, when what you’re saying matters, when it’s beautiful and perfect and true—it hurts.”

― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Brothers Hawthorne

#book club #books #books and reading #book list #book rec list #book blog #book recommendations #book recs #books to read #book quotes #the brothers hawthorne #jennifer lynn barnes #avery kylie grambs #jameson hawthorne #grayson hawthorne #what i read #reading #book reading #current read #currently reading #reading challenge #reading list #reading recommendations #to be read #book #readers #bookblr #reading books #book aesthetic #booklr

[wecandoit]

what i read | aug-sep

notes: (1) '*' indicates a content warning for references to death, abuse, violence, obvious triggers for mental illnesses (2) bolded links show sources that i found super interesting or introduced me to a new/profound concept

Books

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

Articles/Essays

Revisiting the Languages of Love: An Empirical Test of the Validity Assumptions Underlying Chapman’s (2015) Five Love Languages Typology

Topical treatments for acne

The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond—and Why the British Won’t Give It Back

Repatriation of the Kohinoor Diamond: Expanding the Legal Paradigm for Cultural Heritage

Challenging the colonisation of birth: Koori women's birthing knowledge and practice

A cognitive developmental approach to understanding how children cope with disasters

Nature-Based Early Childhood Education and Children's Social, Emotional and Cognitive Development: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review.

Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model: a theoretical framework to explore the forest school approach?

How AI Generates Images from Text

Discrimination Has Trapped People of Color in Unhealthy Urban 'Heat Islands'

A Newly Discovered Brain Signal Marks Recovery from Depression

Poems

Message to My Beloved Sibling

Movies/Videos

The Kingmaker by Lauren Greenfield

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem by Jeff Rowe

#what i read #aug-sep 2023 #resources #reading #research #articles #journal articles #news #current affairs #history #general knowledge #studyblr #productivity #motivation #studyspo #roundups

[aquiyaceunpajaro]

Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested in but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.

Ada Limón, The Hurting Kind

#poetry #quotes #the hurting kind #ada limón #calling things what they are #what i read

[kwc-reads]

What I Read This Week (Aug 27 -Sep 2)

Making lots of progress towards my reading goal for the year!

#bookblr #booklr #autumn books #autumn reads #bookish #books #books & libraries #books and literature #books and reading #booksbooksbooks #bookworm #fall reading #fall books #reading #reading wrap up #weekly recap #weekly wrap up #what i read #august reads #september reads

[so-scarlett-maroon]

Fics I Loved In January

#dracomalfoy #reading #hermionegranger #smut #booktok #ficrecs #ao3fanfiction #fluffandsmutt #books #dramione #January recs #what I read

[deadpoetsmusings]

what I read

Here are some interesting things I’ve read lately:

This long, meandering interview with Anthony Bourdain that feels like more of a conversation between friends than an interview. 

The Limits of the Viral Book Review

On Mr. Beast And Being Alone In A Circle For 100 Days

A Devotional Temperament: A Conversation with Garth Greenwell

‘I don’t know exactly where it came from, but it seems like for years now there has been a cultural trend of, oh, what to call it? Let’s say “therapy-flavored everything.” Not considering another person’s needs becomes “self-care.” Avoiding conflict becomes “radical softness,” or something. The colors and figures of the ads on the subway are all but kneeling down and cooing over me while rubbing my back, saying, “there, there,”’ from   A Sweet Guy Broke My Heart—containing this nugget and more truths we all need to hear.

How Bones and All Pulled Off Its Bizarro Love Story (wonderful insight into storytelling here by David Kajganich)

Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Ted Chiang

On Charlotte Lucas’s choice (this made me cry, don’t even ask)

Digital platforms are struggling, meanwhile a 136-year-old book retailer is growing again. But why?

#i love interviews with writers so much its just fascinating to see inside their minds #there's always something new i glean from reading interviews #and not necessarily with writers. just artists of all sorts #garth greenwell and ted chiang should actually interview one another #what i read