brief bookblog & linkblog.

Over the last couple of years I've gone through several very frustrating times—which I like to attribute to schoolwork but which actually have much more to do with ill health—during which I've been more or less unable to read prose at length. I can always read short fiction and listen to audiobooks, and I can generally cope by playing text-adventure games, inasmuch as that counts as reading (watch this space for the long-delayed posts on 80 Days and Open Sorcery), but the inability to sit down with a novel is a painful thing. I seem to be finally coming out of one of those periods now, having this past week finished in the space of two days two awesome new books.

One of them was My Favorite Thing is Monsters, by Emil Ferris, which just came out this February. It's a big, weird comic about growing up in Chicago in the late sixties, presented as the spiral-bound notebook/sketchbook/diary of narrator Karen Reyes. Karen wants to be a monster and draws herself as a wolfgirl; I loved the ins and outs of that obsession, and the horror comic covers that signaled the chapter breaks. I loved even more the scenes set in the Art Institute, especially the sequence when Karen's older brother Diego is teaching her how to look. Like a lot of the books I like best, it makes me want to write academic analysis; unfortunately the second volume is yet to be released, and until then there's a lot left unresolved.

The other book isn't only new, it's not even out yet: it comes out this coming week. A few weeks back I won an ARC of Weave a Circle Round, by debut author Kari Maaren, from a Tor.com giveaway, and this weekend I finally managed to read it. It's very, very good. It isn't from Tor's YA line, but it's about teenagers, and (partly because the protagonist, Freddy Duchamp, is only fourteen) it reads less like an adult novel or modern YA than like really good children's fiction. Early reviews have been comparing it to Diana Wynne Jones, which is more or less right (the way Maaren plays with memory reminded me a lot of Fire and Hemlock in particular). It's fun and absorbing, all about stories and time travel and growing up. The thing it's most like is Pamela Dean's novel Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary. That's a frustrating comparison to have to make, because almost nobody's read Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, but I can't think of a better pairing. They're both YA-ish fantasy about time travel and strange neighbors and difficult siblings; they're both deeply interested in poetry and folklore, and they both pay a close and careful attention to the mundane worlds of the characters. I think of JGR as a darker and more frightening book, and the central thematic concerns are different, but even so I want to read them side-by-side. I'm glad people are still writing books like this.

At the moment I'm reading A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar, a gorgeous and worldbuilding-dense fantasy novel that reminds me of what I love about Calvino, and I'm also reading Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys. Winter Tide is one of those revisionist takes on Lovecraft that we get so many of now, and although Lovecraft-qua-Lovecraft isn't all that interesting to me it's a genre I tend to enjoy. This one is a continuation of the short story "A Litany of Earth," which I've loved for years, and I think anybody who likes that story will like the novel too. I'd also point the curious to this interview with Emrys, from the podcast Cooking the Books, which interviews sf/f authors about food. The page at the link includes a recipe for honeyed saltcakes, which the characters in Winter Tide eat. I mention it here so as to note that I've already made the recipe twice. They're very good crumbled into oatmeal.

A handful of other links. I hardly ever play games that aren't text-adventures, but after reading this review I immediately bought and played Yorkshire Gubbins, a really good game that I'll probably write about eventually. This video is unaccountably hysterical to me. This article on sandwiches is unaccountably fascinating. This profile of a Japanese roboticist is accountably fascinating, as is a charming short story in Uncanny about a robot writing fanfiction. I'm sure everyone's already read about Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey, but I haven't stopped being excited about it. And this is a very good essay about one of my favorite comics, which I link as much for my benefit (so I don't lose the link) as for yours.

july linkblog.

Never say I don't provide you with relatable content, kids. I love Wikipedia a lot, and I’m fully prepared to issue a prize to the first person who guesses what article I got that screengrab from.

Links!

At Crooked Timber: Summer Reading for a Rainy Day.

“The English major barista is a myth in the sense of being untrue. It is also a myth in the deeper sense of that word: a story that a culture tells itself to explain wishes or fears. In this case, fears.”

So I didn’t actually tear up reading this NPR essay about the Great British Bake Off, but it was a very near thing. Gotta say though, it’s taking me a while to get used to hearing Americans call it the Great British Baking Show. I think it’s a copyright thing? It’s weird.

And another Bake Off essay, over on Mockingbird. The phrase “revolutionary compassion” is used, to my great delight. (Also, okay, you guys. I still haven’t watched all of that season but I know who won. I thought everybody knew who won. Do the Americans somehow not know who won? That’s adorable. Americans! Qu’est-ce que vous faites!)

Glory be, it’s a nuanced discussion of trigger warnings. I’m not certain I agree with all the conclusions, but it’s a very good read. I definitely agree with the point about the misunderstanding of what triggers are—this is why I only ever use the term “content warning.”

You Are The Cannibal Lobster-Man Of New England. Can You Become The Governor Of Maine? Okay, I know this is on ClickHole, but as it happens I unironically love ClickHole, and this is some genuinely terrific IF. Can you become the Governor of Maine? And should you?

Also at ClickHole: If Black Lives Matter Isn't A Racist Hate Group, Then Can Someone Please Explain To Me Why I Keep Insisting They Are?

IF-adjacent: a Twine-powered interactive self-care guide. I love Twine and I love seeing Twine be used for good. An "interactive self-care guide" is a thing that has the potential to be really saccharin and silly, but in fact it's relentlessly practical and concrete. A good thing.

IF-adjacent-adjacent: this month in literary games! And another new book I want to read.

“BILL BILL BILL BILL” — all of Dr. Who fandom, at increasing volume

“moss-based embroidery” = new favorite phrase?

...though it's rivaled by "tilt-shift van Gogh."

Fantasy maven Jo Walton on her surprising cure for writer’s block. I hate the word maven, and I don’t think the surprising cure for writer’s block is all that surprising. (She does something boring to make writing look like the interesting option—I thought we all did some version of that?) Otherwise this is a really solid Q&A. She also gave Uncanny an interview in rhymed iambic pentameter.

The new Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, is a black woman! And an actual professional librarian rather than another scholar!

No links about the garbage fire that is US electoral politics, because I’m exhausted. Here’s Andrew Rilstone’s latest thing on Jeremy Corbyn instead. I dunno anymore. (This is not to say that UK politics is not a garbage fire. But it’s not my garbage fire, and I’m not responsible for it, which means that reading about it can still function as a weird kind of escapism. I'm not endorsing this behavior, just engaging in it.)

This is a good post about Cursed Child; I think the strongest point it makes is that there are only two good parental figures in the series—Molly Weasley and Narcissa Malfoy. I might expand this to include Arthur Weasley, but then Rowling is much less interested in him than she is in Molly. (The second strongest point is that Dumbledore is a bad teacher and a terrible father. I have been saying as much for years.)

Octavia Butler’s notes on writing Kindred!

“I suppose what's happening here is I'm coming to the shocking conclusion that Wittgenstein was a cleverer man than I am.”

“A Think Piece Response to the Open Letter to My Unborn Child About the Things Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew to Pray For: a Manifesto.” This is peak Evangelical satire, we can all go home now.

Old but good: The West Wing as SF; The West Wing as fantasy.

Why we write, but never underestimate an author’s ability to write an entire novel out of spite.

Why Calvin and Hobbes Is Great Literature.

At Tor, a new series on African SFF.

Continuing the AI-poetry theme from last month: Literary Magazine CuratedAI Publishes Only Poetry by Artificial Intelligences.

Guy Leaves Fake Animal Facts All Over Los Angeles Zoo.

I haven’t yet read this, but if I save it till next month I’ll forget about it: Mary Beard on the public voice of women. “I want to start very near the beginning of the tradition of Western literature, and its first recorded example of a man telling a woman to ‘shut up’; telling her that her voice was not to be heard in public.”

The Very Quiet Foreign Girls poetry group. A long and beautiful essay about a poetry group for refugee children.

Little House and the Art of Hiding Your Feelings.

The Mysterious Metamorphosis of Chuck Close.

Okay, we all know the Dark Ages are a myth, yeah? Okay, so enjoy this superb essay on why the Dark Ages continue to be a myth.

A fabulous blog post on my homegirl Penthesilea. "At the moment of her death, Achilles sees her face and either a) falls madly deeply in love with her (ugh) or b) feels really really guilty at what he has done. Either way, he weeps over her corpse, and the warrior Thersites makes fun of him for having feelings. Obviously Thersites has not been paying attention, because Achilles is basically a big squishy stress ball of feelings, that is the point of Achilles." It is the point of Achilles!

This month in webcomics: this is the best xkcd in literal years. I cannot remember the last xkcd that made me laugh this hard.

this day in history.

Today is a good day I think for being sad!

Last night Ken Burns came up in conversation at dinner, as is so often the case. In the course of the following conversation I learned that Mother and Brother didn't recognize the name Sullivan Ballou. He was a soldier in the American Civil War, a 32-year-old Union volunteer from Rhode Island who died at Bull Run the first and is famous for his final goodbye letter to his wife Sarah, which was discovered in his trunk after his death. (It was notably read in Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, if you're still looking for the transition.) Looking the letter up to read it aloud, I found that it was dated the fourteenth of July, which I hadn't remembered. So it's as good a time as any to link it.

It's a really beautiful letter and I think about it a lot. It's all very I-could-not-love-thee-dear-so-much, except that I hate that poem and I don't hate the Ballou letter. Sullivan isn't only being honorable, he's also being conflicted and kind. It's a love letter. Here it is as it appeared in the documentary—a different, shortened version of the text, with music.

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night—amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

People in the past were people. It matters to me to remember that, and it's imperative that we remember it also about people who unlike Ballou didn't have the time and ability to write their thoughts down.

&

Unrelated: I would have saved this link for the end-of-month roundup, but it turns out the offer only stretches till this weekend, so here it is now. The good people of Tor.com want to give you a free ebook of the Hugo-winning The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (as translated by Ken Liu). I don't know much about it, but I'm not ready to stop respecting the Hugos yet, so. Besides that I'm always trying to read more novels in translation, and I never turn down free books.

june linkblog.

The unmistakeable sounde of the TARDIS yn my backe yarde. The Doctor and Dante are heere. Tyme to go.

— Chaucer Doth Tweet (@LeVostreGC) June 5, 2016

Does anybody know what's happened to Chaucer? He doesn't usually go this long without tweeting, and that sounds worryingly like a final farewell. I don't want to have to live in a post-@LeVostreGC world.

...anyway, links!

My girls Margery and Julian!

"Frivolous" Humanities Helped Prisoners Survive in Communist Romania.

I haven't seen or read Game of Thrones, but this piece on its deficiencies seems to have a wider application, especially (?) for fantasy writers like myself. "There are lots of things that many humans actually do that never show up on Game of Thrones. Menstruation is a much more common way for people to bleed than getting stabbed a bunch of times, for example. I feel comfortable saying you’re more likely to murder someone on television than care for a child, which would leave the proverbial alien very confused about our persistence on this planet. Smiling is seriously underrepresented on GoT, as are jokes, games, songs, and horseplay that doesn’t end in bloodshed."

Department of golden girls and chimney-sweepers: Dave Swarbrick, of Fairport Convention, died on the third of June. If you don't know without being told what a loss that is, I'm not sure it's possible to make it clear to you. There were giants in the earth in those days.

Department of old news that’s new to me: In 1989, John Cleese read an audiobook of The Screwtape Letters. Having listened to some of it, I can say that it’s exactly what you’re expecting from that description, i.e. an unmitigated delight and possibly the role he was born to play. (I'm joking, obviously: he was born to play James McNeill Whistler.) The first letter is here, after which I trust your ingenuity to lead you to the rest.

On Tor.com, Harry Potter & the Cursed Child photos: this time, we have gorgeous gorgeous Granger-Weasleys. Also, anyone want to buy me a sixty-dollar action figure?

Also also, a rather enticing list of book recommendations.

C.S. Lewis on Arthur C. Clarke: "I’m sure you’re very wicked people–but wouldn’t the world be dull if everyone was good?" I've read very little Clarke (well, we all have gaps in our educations) but I always enjoy unexpected literary friendships. This isn't quite on the level of Samuel Beckett and André the Giant, but it's very good indeed.

Sarah Urist Green being commendably lucid about selfies.

July 12th cannot come soon enough.

"You’re A Social Climber. What Horrible Faux Pas Have You Committed At This Dinner Party, Alienating Your Only Allies In High Society And Ruining, Perhaps Forever, Your Chance Of Winning Lord Grangemere’s Affections?" And, while we're doing choose-your-own-adventure, this profile of Ryan North is incredible and I love it.

Ever look at art and an entire fantasy novel unfolds in your head?

Ursula Vernon prints on Topatoco! And there was much rejoicing.

Element names? Element names!

We all know that butt jokes in trailers for animated movies are annoying, but is it a gender thing? Selfishly I almost hope so, if only so I can have a real reason to object. (My first instinct on reading the article was to do a joke about Absolon, but I think that would prove unhelpful.)

A beautiful piece surveying the way the concept of beauty's developed in Doctor Who, from 1963 to the present day. "What’s beautiful, in other words, is the messiness of life, the nitty gritty, the small details, the clinging of life. Not the picturesque view." Also monsters, natch.

“Uncleftish Beholding,” by Poul Anderson. This is what it would've taken to interest me in physics in high school. "Nor are stuff and work unakin. Rather, they are groundwise the same, and one can be shifted into the other. The kinship between them is that work is like unto weight manifolded by the fourside of the haste of light." ♥!

"If Lea Salonga were your best friend, the two of you would share a joint Kindle library, but on your birthday Lea would give you beautiful new titles in hardcover—the books you were most eager to read, the books whose release dates you marked on your calendar—because she’d know that getting real books is one of your love languages."

1,000 Vintage Postcards Show Famous Actors Performing Shakespeare’s Plays from 1880 to 1914. My entire jam.

Richard E. Grant interviews John Finnemore.

Amanda Palmer reads E. E. Cummings.

Tolkien watch: What Tolkien was doing when you weren't paying attention. Map of North America drawn in Tolkien's style. Which is it: Prescription drug or Tolkien elf? (Astonishingly difficult—I got 23/30, and my only regret is that the honorable members failed to make use of my very favorite Tolkien elf name, the gobsmackingly unfortunate Teleporno.) And of course how to tell if you are in a J.R.R. Tolkien book. ("God’s grace descended upon you once, in the form of an gigantic, murderous war eagle"; "You find the sun disappointing and the moon insipid. When you were young, the world was lit only by the stars.")

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Food52: I can't stop thinking about this sandwich. And this tart baked up gorgeously, even in our temperamental oven.

Would it be immoral to send out a generation starship? Followup question, would it be awesome enough that we wouldn't care if it was immoral or not? (Pretty sure that's maybe and yes.)

Can you tell the difference between sonnets written by a human and sonnets written by a machine? Is this what Alan Turing had in mind? Well, no, but it's quite good fun. I can tell the difference as it turns out; I only misidentified one of six, and apparently in the original trial "None of the judges was fooled by the poetic computers." (Worth noting: I wasn't tricked into thinking that any of the computers were human; my mistake was to label a human a computer.) I'm also linking because some of the human sonnets are genuinely really good.

And speaking of sonnets. I'm more of a Terrible Sonnets girl, but this blog post, "Felix Randal as a Pattern for Remembering Hopkins," is lovely and spot-on. "Just as Hopkins was endeared by seeing sick Felix Spence, we are endeared by seeing sick Fr. Gerard."

At NPR, a farewell for the Toast. Don't read the comments.

There's a lot of good in this essay, but the bit that hit me hardest was "Indeed, one can do worse than to define “amicus/philos” in humanist as one with whom I share reading." Well. Exactly.

Dinosaur Comics killing it as always.

may linkblog.

Jo Walton's poetry is always worth reading, but her recent Saint Malo sonnets are especially—achingly—lovely.

Where the Icons Aren't Yet Dry.

Bicycles Built Based on People’s Attempts to Draw Them From Memory.

Before leaving for home, I picked up Robert Lowell's prose translation of Prometheus Bound from the free book shelf in the English department, because I love Aeschylus and because I always like to travel with slender paperbacks. About a week ago I finally sat down and read it. I haven't read any other translations of the Aeschylus so I can't speak to it on that score, but it's a genuinely stunning play. The volume I read is out of print, but the full text is available online, free and legal. It's only short, and anyone interested in Greek mythology at all really ought to read it.

"John Keats never read a word of Chapman's Homer. Here I stake my claim." This entire piece is golden, and I cackled continuously as I read it out loud to my father, but I lost it at "Since time immemorial, people have wanted to know, is there a book that can make you feel like Cortez," and then again at "Chapman: A land of contrasts."

An apropos Wondermark: ah jeez are you creating content again.

This Black Books fanvid, set to Tim Minchin's "The Good Book," is very old indeed, but it's an excellent one and I've only just got into the show, so.

Over on Tor.com, Mari Ness discusses the Frog Prince folklore tradition—which, as usual, is much weirder than anyone remembers. Also, a list of sci-fi related non-fiction, none of which I've read and a lot of which looks delightful and important. Criticism!

Planning to make these lime bars with saffron sometime soon if not actually today. With turmeric instead of saffron, though, a substitution I always make; who on earth keeps saffron in the house, and why?