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Right. I have a book of fifteen facsimiles of different versions (including a Russian version) of "The Story of the Three Bears;" secondary literature that ranges from the helpful, through the misleading, to the distasteful (anal interpretations of the folktale, anyone?); two Norwegian folktales the secondary literature cites as Robert Southey's sources (tangental, at best – one more so than the other); one naturalised Norwegian version of "The Three Bears" that the national library has inexplicably attributed to the famous collector, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen...

And I don't know what to do with any of it, except take notes. Which I am doing, of course – as a way of procrastinating something someone actually wants to read about.

@norwegianfolktales @folklore

Three rather urbane bears, ready to go out for a walk. illustrator unknown. Xylography by H Krüger.

Chapter 5 - "Brown Bread"

Carter Vincent comes to in what appears to be a small apartment and is attended to by Cain. Doctor Akari Takuma arrives to inform Carter of his status, and the reality of his situation proves devastating. Two thousand years have elapsed in what he perceived to be moments, and his family are as long dead as the pharaohs. Like so many of the resurrected, his sanity hangs by a thread.

https://youtu.be/NV6LURsiLJ0

I have been sitting on this one for a while.

Small beauty is a gorgeous story of Mei, a trans woman, who moves to her cousins house in a small town in Canada following his death.

It opens in winter, cold and claustrophobic, and as the seasons pass she comes to terms with her child hood and the hidden truths of her grandmother, aunt, cousin and mother. Parts of her life remembered in flashbacks, some in dialogue.

Don’t get me wrong. This is lovely, well written, rewarding, but I probably shouldn’t have read it when I did.

Entirely because of my own mental health. The book deals with racism, transphobia, homophobia and SA.

Which it absolutely should. Books should talk about those things. And this one does it very, very well.

I just wish I’d have read it when I was in a better place.

A hand holds a book titled "Small Beauty" by Jia Qing Wilson-Yang. The cover features a minimalist design with two flying geese in grey against a light blue background, complemented by red text.