This is mostly to keep track of books for my own interest. I hope to get back into reading novels and non-fiction which is of interest to other people at some point, but I've largely fallen out of the habit and mostly read to support other hobbies I have.
You can also find me at sanae@carfree.city.
I use the following rubric:
5 stars: one of my favourite books of all time
4 stars: loved this book, would recommend
3 stars: enjoyed this book, you might like it too
2 stars: did not like this book
1 star: did not like this book and would recommend that you not read it
I got this as an ebook from the library not knowing a lot about it, including that it's a novella, which I didn't realize until the last page.
Otherwise it's more or less what I expected: a pretty solid fantasy story. There's a strong sense of an imaginary place and time which is not over-explained but just lets you live in it. It's about the lives of ordinary people and the decisions they make with glimpses of a much larger world.
I'm surprised this author hasn't yet published a full length novel - apparently it's in progress - and I'm looking forward to reading it.
I had a thought about this book which is that I'm not sure if Delilah Bard is meant to be vaguely transmasc leaning. There are queer characters in the book so it seems possible. But also the book got me thinking about how a lot of adventure-fantasy, when it has female characters, has characters who are remarkably uncomfortable with their femininity. There's a particular trope of fantasy heroine who specifically hates embroidery and dresses thus demonstrating she is one of the cool ones (has only male-coded interests). When I was younger it seemed only natural to me to feel weirdly uncomfortable by the notion of wearing a dress, but now that I better understand that this isn't the common female experience, the masculinity of all the characters in this book (regardless of gender) does stick out. It is still a trope I enjoy though.
So on the one hand I would actually recommend reading this book if you don't know much about making things by hand. I definitely enjoyed the book most when it talked about stuff I didn't know much about.
On the other hand, there was a lot that annoyed me about this book.
First of all, the central conceit that there is something called craeft that is different from craft annoyed me, and yes this is the whole premise of the book so maybe it's unfair to complain about, but it still annoyed me every time it came up. I generally agree that traditional crafts are worth preserving and have value in and of themselves, and that they are particularly worth keeping around since climate change might mean we have to move away from certain types of mass mechanization and waste. (It's …
3 stars - enjoyed this book, you might too
So on the one hand I would actually recommend reading this book if you don't know much about making things by hand. I definitely enjoyed the book most when it talked about stuff I didn't know much about.
On the other hand, there was a lot that annoyed me about this book.
First of all, the central conceit that there is something called craeft that is different from craft annoyed me, and yes this is the whole premise of the book so maybe it's unfair to complain about, but it still annoyed me every time it came up. I generally agree that traditional crafts are worth preserving and have value in and of themselves, and that they are particularly worth keeping around since climate change might mean we have to move away from certain types of mass mechanization and waste. (It's also very Britain-centric.)
However, this book is prone to the kinds of romanticization of pre-industrial life which I usually expect from people who have not actually made anything from scratch. Except he has! He should know better! I think the argument that it is somehow more satisfying to be more in touch with nature is somewhat undercut by the fact that needing to spend all day, every day, doing hard physical labour as a matter of survival kind of sucks.
If you ignore this kind of running theme though, the descriptions of various traditional crafts - many of which most people don't have the opportunity to do any more - is quite interesting and worth knowing about. Bonus points for standing up for basket-weaving. My hope is that people reading this book are inspired to learn a craft of their own, rather than just developing some kind of cottagecore theory of how life was better back then.
(This isn't the edition I read but it's what came up in the search)
I never read this in school or anything. I finally read it for the first time because, of all things, a Tumblr post. And I'm glad I'm reading it at this age cause I don't think I would have gotten it in my teens or whatever. Especially the part where you wake up as a bug and the first thing you think is, what happens with my job. Like maybe today it would be, is there some kind of medical leave that applies, and how will I possibly fill out the paperwork? And you know that shouldn't be the first thing, but that's the world you live in. And at first it seems kind of humorous, a parody of careerist attitudes, but he was kind of right in the end
