2023 Update: Although I may still finish up quoting and reviewing a few books through this account if they are already partly documented here, new book‐readin–posting is now going on through wrul@book.snailhuddle.org. See you there! 😊
they (en), yel (fr), etc. Nairm & Birrarung-ga, Kulin biik gopher://breydon.id.au | gemini://breydon.id.au | https://breydon.id.au/reading
Testing out a stenography system by remarking on the odd good sit-down. Sometimes nicking vocab from non-ficcy bits.
Let me know if we know each other from elsewhere, and please feel free to say hi (or not) either way!
My user avatar is a rainbow lorikeet feeding on orange gum blossoms.
Ratings, roughly: “Half” stars (to approximate zero) seemed almost pure harm and were poorly written. 1s were slogs and wastes. 2s I would have refused publication pending thorough rounds of redrafts, reframing, and/or reresearch. 3s read neither fantastically nor awfully, or they did both just enough that it cancelled out — unless they delighted but I barely began, so couldn’t reliably say. 4s held something, substantial, of distinct interest or especial enjoyment, which might richly reward a deliberate revisiting. 5s may not ring perfect to me, but I would gift or receive with unhesitating gladness.
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I told you this was a thirst so great it could carve rivers.
This fierce debut from award-winning writer Evelyn …
Dipped around about a month ago, then launched in a week or two later, but in so‐often murky writing, the going is slowing.
Eccentric genius Adam Bosch has cracked the multiverse and discovered a way to travel to …
I had wanted something to read where I did not feel obligated or compelled to take notes, but then there were so many phrases buttressing the plot worth noting down, that I quickly ran out of bookmarks — even despite abandoning a majority of Johnson’s sharpest constructions to the depths of pages read. So, by a third in, I guessed that regardless of how I was to find this novel in any other respects, The space between worlds was at least a four star piece for revisitability. The word-to-word texture remained more prosaic than I fully take to in fiction, but there is much to appreciate in what Johnson has built, and how.
Peacebuilding and Reconciliation brings together a number of critical essays from members of the renowned …
Paternalistic perspective still. As a result, fairly low on insight.
Home is many people and places and languages, some separated by oceans.
Where is the …
Powles commits to the reading — deft and soft — as though performing poetry, expertly.
As Melbourne’s urban sprawl continues so the pressure on the remaining patches of bushland increases and the very regional survival …
Books have been hugely important in human civilisation, as instruments for communicating information and ideas. The digital age is challenging …
An absorbing historical fantasy, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan reimagines the rise …
The writing is sharp; honed and clear. The setting is profoundly inhabited, in a way quite unusual among fictional composition. An awesome meeting of characteristics.
A farmer cultivates genetically modified potatoes so that a customer at McDonald's half a world away can enjoy a long, …
Home is many people and places and languages, some separated by oceans.
Where is the …
Listening to the spoken recording now, and have been offered a read of a print copy soon too. Not sure how the BookWyrm software will react to attempts to distribute notations across multiple editions of the one title. Hope it works!
This powerful YA memoir-manifesto follows journalist and LGBTQ+ activist George M. Johnson as they explore …
Really great from the get-go, but sagging several chapters in. The blithe affluence becomes grating, especially as Johnson repeatedly presents the showering of children with trendy consumer goods, televisions, video game consoles, amusement-park– and hotel–filled vacations, resented summer camps, ongoing sports team expenses, college costs, and other eye-popping luxuries as the epitome of Black familial love. Lauding a sibling for not being awful, and raiding private moments from the life of a deceased transfeminine cousin — after somewhat shunning her in life, forcing her to be refigured as inspiration porn for publication — complete the spoiling of a memoir that is otherwise imbued with transformative potential well beyond the bland story it relates.
Books have been hugely important in human civilisation, as instruments for communicating information and ideas. …
Four months after first starting to seek out a copy of this to borrow, I have forgotten who it was who piqued my interest in it. There was a bookish conversation on BookWyrm crossing my feed some intriguing titles came up in, but when is there not? Anyway, thanks, people!
Listeners are encouraged to discover sacred Australia by reconsidering the accepted history and hearing diverse …
Ran out of leeway regarding return date around the same time as I ran out of patience with a mediocre production.
