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nicknicknicknick

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Joined 3 years, 4 months ago

books.

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Owen Pomery: The Hard Switch (Hardcover, 2023, Avery Hill Publishing Limited) 5 stars

The time approaches when the mineral that makes inter-system jump navigation possible will run out. …

The Hard Switch

5 stars

1) "The Hard Switch is coming. This is the name people have given to the point when alcanite runs out. The once commonplace mineral that enables inter-system jump navigation. When the last piece has gone, the vast, diverse and scattered inhabitants of the galaxy will be stuck wherever they are. Some will have the means to choose this. Others will take what they've got. Or at least the best they can get."

2) "'Welcome! Oh, what's this? A pet?' 'Don't... touch... the glass.' Hhhrrrkkk...! 'I'm an engineer.'"

3) "'Hallsman.' 'Fuck! You scared me. This is a very alarmist way to deliver my payment.'"

4) "'They increased the size of the landing disc to take mega-freight, in a bid to get as much mineral off-planet before The Switch. People here are working overtime to make as much out of it as possible before it all shuts down. Makes no sense though, …

George Saunders: Tenth of December (EBook, 2013, Random House) 4 stars

One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is …

Tenth of December

4 stars

1) "From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew among them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forevermore, I had not killed, and never would."

2) "We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming also within us."

3) "Oh, God, what a beautiful world! The autumn colors, that glinting river, that lead-colored cloud pointing down like a rounded arrow at that half-remodeled McDonald's standing above I-90 like a castle."

4) "Yeah, right. Like any of that was happening. Like he was racing back. They'd see through him. They'd fry his ass. People were always seeing through him and frying his ass. When he'd stolen Kirk Desner's flip-downs, the kids on the team had …

Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hardcover, 2021, Amistad) 4 stars

I loved Jonah's Gourd Vine -- thought some of her short stories very fine -- …

Their Eyes Were Watching God

4 stars

1) "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men."

2) "There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought. Nanny entered this infinity of conscious pain again on her old knees. Towards morning she muttered, 'Lawd, you know mah heart. Ah done de best Ah could do. De rest is left to you.' She scuffled up from her knees and fell heavily across the bed. A month later she was dead. So Janie …

Charlotte Mullins: A Little History of Art (Hardcover, 2022, Yale University Press) 3 stars

Charlotte Mullins brings art to life through the stories of those who created it and, …

A Little History of Art

3 stars

1) "It is 1305 in Padua, Italy, and Giotto is showing his assistant where to spread today's fresh plaster on the chapel wall. He is going to paint on it while it is still damp using a technique called buon fresco, so his colours sink into the plaster to form a luminous wall painting. It is quite a challenge, knowing just how much plaster to apply. He has to paint the whole lot in one day or it will dry out and his colours will no longer be locked in but will sit on top. He knows what he is doing though - he has been painting frescoes in Enrico Scrovegni's private chapel for over two years now. The chapel will soon be complete, the walls covered in frescoes and the ceiling twinkling with gold stars against a dark blue heavenly sky."

2) "It is midnight on 14 May …

Michel Rabagliati: Rose à l'île (Paperback, Français language, 2023, La Pastèque) 5 stars

À l’été 2017, Rose et son père louent un chalet à l’île Verte, dans le …

Rose à l'île

5 stars

1) "J'ai loué un petit chalet avec ma fille pour quelques jours, loin de la ville. En fait, c'est elle qui l'a trouvé sur Internet. Une annulation de dernière minute."

2) "— J'ai pris une douche pis toute, ça fait du bien! C'est capoté, cette bécosse-là, mais ça marche bien pareil! C'est quoi, la toune que tu jouais? — Mazurka des planètes. — C'est beau, ça fitte avec ici, je trouve. — Oui, c'est très marin. — J'ai faim, je fais ma spécialité: grilled-cheese-cretons, t'en veux? — Pour sûr!"

3) "Quelques semaines après les obsèques, je suis allé chercher des trucs qu'il désirait nous laisser, à ma sœur et à moi. Ça tenait dans deux sacs IGA. Il ne nous a pas laissé d'argent, il n'en avait pas, ce qui n'était pas vraiment une surprise. Dans le premier sac, il y avait des enveloppes avec des photos de ma …

Carol Strickland: The annotated Mona Lisa (1992, Andrews and McMeel) 3 stars

Annotated

3 stars

1) "Art was born around 25,000 years ago, when the subhuman Neanderthal evolved into our human ancestor, Cro-Magnon man. With greater intelligence came imagination and the ability to create images in both painting and sculpture." [yeesh.]

2) "For Western civilization the nineteenth century was an age of upheaval. The church lost its grip, monarchies toppled, and new democracies suffered growing pains. In short, tradition lost its luster and the future was up for grabs. Unfamiliar forces like industrialization and urbanization made cities bulge with masses of dissatisfied poor. The fast pace of scientific progress and the ills of unrestrained capitalism caused more confusion."

3) "American midwestern architect Louis Sullivan's credo of 'form follows function' became the rallying cry of the day. The new designs were to express a building's commercial purpose, without any overlay of historical ornament. It was somehow fitting that the first new school of architecture to emerge …

Ken Williams: Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings (2020, Lulu.com) 4 stars

Winning as Poison

4 stars

1) "I have three great loves in life: Roberta, computers and boats. That said, this is not a book about any of those things, although the first two of those are important to the story."

2) "If you want to win in life, find something to sell, and sell it. Learn to accept and even cherish rejection. [...] The newspaper had never seen anyone like me. I was a selling machine. I loved selling, and I especially loved making money. I claimed every sales award and couldn't stop selling."

3) "Did I mention that I know how to sell? Being a starving seventeen-year-old, our first date was not particularly amazing. We went to a local Mexican restaurant and talked for hours. A couple weeks and a handful of dates later, I informed Roberta that we were to be married. She thought I was insane or joking, but that's only because …

A selection of science fiction stories about trips to the moon fill this engaging compilation, …

Somnium

3 stars

1) ["Somnium," Johannes Kepler] "In the year 1608, when quarrels were raging between the brothers, Emperor Rudolph and Archduke Matthias, people were comparing precedents from Bohemian history. Caught up by the general curiosity, I applied my mind to Bohemian legends and chanced upon the story of the heroine Libussa, famous for her magic art. It happened then on a certain night that after watching the stars and moon, I stretched out on my bed and fell sound asleep."

2) [Ibid.] "Brahe, greatly delighted with the letter I gave him, began to ask me many questions which I, unfamiliar with the language, did not understand except for a few words. He therefore imposed upon his students, whom he supported in great numbers, the task of talking with me frequently: so it came about, through this generosity of Brahe and a few weeks' practice, that I spoke Danish fairly well. I was …

Carmen Maria Machado, J. Robert Lennon: Critical Hits (Paperback, 2023, Graywolf Press) 4 stars

Critical Hits

4 stars

1) [Introduction] "...an anthology that holds space for writers who are compulsive gamers, former gamers, parents of gamers, and game writers. Reluctant gamers and avid gamers and people who wouldn't call themselves gamers at all. This book—the first of its kind, as far as I and my coeditor can tell—has more room inside it than you'd expect. What a pleasure and a gift to be at its helm." [A bold claim!!]

2) ["This Kind of Animal," Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah] "You look at your sisters weeping, your mother dry-eyed. Empathy: 'You couldn't have been different. You are all you knew.' Suggestion: 'You could have been anything. There's so many ways to be.' Logic: 'What you are is what you are.' Inland Empire: 'Everything is nothing and nothing is everything.' To his body, as a way to speak to him, you say, 'I love you and I wish you were here.' Inland …

Samuel R. Delany: Dhalgren (2001, Vintage Books) 4 stars

Dhalgren is a 1975 science fiction novel by American writer Samuel R. Delany. It features …

Dhalgren

3 stars

1) "to wound the autumnal city. So howled out for the world to give him a name. The in-dark answered with wind. All you know I know: careening astronauts and bank clerks glancing at the clock before lunch; actresses cowling at light-ringed mirrors and freight elevator operators grinding a thumbful of grease on a steel handle; student riots; know that dark women in bodegas shook their heads last week because in six months prices have risen outlandishly; how coffee tastes after you've held it in your mouth, cold, a whole minute. A whole minute he squatted, pebbles clutched with his left foot (the bare one), listening to his breath sound tumble down the ledges. Beyond a leafy arras, reflected moonlight flittered. He rubbed his palms against denim. Where he was, was still. Somewhere else, wind whined. The leaves winked. What had been wind was a motion in brush below. His …

Albert Habib Hourani: A history of the Arab peoples (1992, Warner Books) 4 stars

A History of the Arab Peoples

3 stars

1) "A more important question is that of the originality of the Qur'an. Scholars have tried to place it in the context of ideas current in its time and place. Undoubtedly there are echoes in it of the teaching of earlier religions: Jewish ideas in its doctrines; some reflections of eastern Christian monastic piety in the brooding on the terrors of judgement and the descriptions of Heaven and Hell (but few references to Christian doctrine or liturgy); Biblical stories in forms different from those of the Old and New Testaments; an echo of the Manichaean idea of a succession of revelations given to different peoples. There are also traces of an indigenous tradition: the moral ideas in some ways continue those prevalent in Arabia, although in others they break with them; in the early revelations the tone is that of the Arabian soothsayer, stammering out his sense of an encounter …

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume One : Summary (2015, James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers) No rating

TRC

No rating

Content warning abuse

Dissolution (Paperback, 2012, Vintage Canada) 4 stars

Henry VIII has ordered the dissolution of the monasteries and England is full of informers. …

Dissolution

3 stars

1) "'Oh, a few orders live straitly. But don't forget the Carthusians died because they refused to recognize the king as head of the Church. They all want the pope back. And now it seems one of them has turned to murder.' I sighed. 'I am sorry you must be involved in this.' 'Men of honour should not be afraid of danger.' 'One should always be afraid of danger.'"

2) "'On what evidence? And how question them, the torture? I thought you disapproved of such methods.' 'Of course not. But — stiff questioning?' 'And what if I am wrong, and it is not one of them at all? And how would we keep such a mass arrest secret?' 'But — time and danger press.' 'Do you think I don't know that?' I burst out in sudden anger. 'But bullying won't fetch out the truth. Singleton tried that and look where …