reading Wednesday

Jan. 21st, 2026 11:21 pm
boxofdelights: (Default)
[personal profile] boxofdelights
The Three Ws are:
1. What are you currently reading?

I'm in the middle of The Great Transition, Nick Fuller Googins, for solarpunk book club. The transition is to a sustainable way of living. There's a lot of horror in the immediate past, and a lot of life that is just gone forever. The two viewpoint characters are a teenage girl and her father. Her father, who did heroic work during the crisis, when he was a teenager, wants to focus on how much better things are now, and how we are all working together to make them even better. Her mother, who did different kinds of heroic work, says no, we can't relax: the people who caused and profited from the crisis still have too much money and power, and they are working to turn us back to the exploitive and destructive path. We have to stop them.

I'm enjoying it, except that the teenage girl has an (occasionally too-vividly described) eating disorder.

2. What did you recently finish reading?

The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, for Tawanda book group. Much better than I was expecting.
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, for classics book group. Last read when I was a teenager, when all that sexism and racism was just normal.
Algorithms of Oppression, by Saffiya Noble, for Slow Book Club. This was a hard read, in both subject matter and writing style, so it was good to have the book club to talk it over with, a few chapters at a time.
A Sorceress Comes to Call, by T. Kingfisher, for SF book group. A delight.

3. What do you think you’ll read next?

The Last Hour Between Worlds, by Melissa Caruso, for SF book group. If I can find it.

Missing missing reasons!

Jan. 22nd, 2026 01:07 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Annie: I'm just heartbroken. My son moved out last year, and he never talked to me about anything before he moved. We were so close, and we always talked. But all of a sudden, he packed up and moved out with no explanation. He had met someone a year prior to that. I met her for a second, and that was it. I do know where he is living but he doesn't know that I know. He has a new baby boy; I don't even know his name, yet he is my grandson. I know that he has two stepdaughters, but I don't know their names either.

I kept trying to call him but get no response. Now his phone is disconnected. I'm so lost and confused as well as upset. I miss him dearly.

He is my only child. He did a great job in school and had his own business after he graduated from high school. I am trying so hard to go on with my life, but it's so hard not knowing how he is, or whether he is safe, healthy and happy. He was a very good kid, and now he's a man. I just hope and pray that he will come around some day. -- Mom Is Lost


Read more... )

No, I'll build a cute flower border

Jan. 21st, 2026 11:39 pm
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[personal profile] sovay
In the midst of everything, we still have birthdays, and for [personal profile] spatch's fifty-first I took him to Porter Square Books and on the roundabout way home we collected dinner from Il Casale. It started to snow on the way back, the light salting flakes of an all-day deep-freeze. I have my fingers crossed for an Arctic explosion this weekend.



I have written another fill (AO3) for [community profile] threesentenceficathon. WERS played Dave Herlihy's "Good Trouble" (2025) and I had to get home to trace his voice to Boston's own post-punk O Positive. I wish I could call the hundred-year tides against the people who have no right to the streets of my grandparents' city.

(no subject)

Jan. 22nd, 2026 12:11 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
DEAR ABBY: Our 24-year-old daughter is getting married in 10 months. My wife is invited to the wedding, but I am not, and I am furious. The groom's family is paying for the trip, but they say I am not invited "for financial reasons."

I don't have a great relationship with my daughter. But that isn't the point. I told my wife that if the roles were reversed and she was excluded, I would not go. This may be a deal-breaker for me. It's apparent that our marriage doesn't mean as much to my wife as it does to me. What are your thoughts? -- ELIMINATED IN TEXAS


Read more... )
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[personal profile] landofnowhere
The Rivals, Richard Sheridan. Readaloud (actually last week, but I forgot to write it up then). Sheridan's plays are good fun and hold up quite well. I enjoyed reading the part of the impractically romantic and melodramatic novel-reading Lydia Languish, as well as the view that the book gives on young ladies' novel-reading habits of the time.

Chroniques du pays des mères, Élisabeth Vonarburg. New French-language reading project! (Haven't had one of those for a while.) This is part of a reading group where we're doing a few chapters a week, so you'll see more posts about this. So far we have interesting post-apocalyptic future worldbuilding, introduced from the point of view of an appealing child character (along with some adult POV to provide more context).

How is this even a question?

Jan. 21st, 2026 09:55 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Eric: My fiancé and I are facing an impasse regarding the guest list for our upcoming wedding. I want to exclude his brother's (the best man) wife from the invitation list.

She consistently refuses to engage with me socially, going no further than a brief "hi." There has been no conflict; she simply does not converse with me. Although, if I ask her about herself or what's going on in her life she will answer, but there's no back and forth. I doubt she even knows my name.

For context, my fiancé is Hungarian, and his family is small. Although she speaks English fluently, she is the only family member who never attempts to talk to me or ask me any questions. While they invited me to their wedding a few months ago, I believe it was purely out of obligation.

My fiancé says that excluding her will create drama. He has acknowledged her behavior is "mean-spirited" in the past, yet he excuses it as shyness. Saying she took years to warm up to him. I find this a poor excuse for a complete lack of basic manners, and I am unwilling to have a guest at my wedding who will not speak to me.

I have told my fiancé that he needs to discuss this with his brother, but he has not done so, and invitations are about to be sent out. I am intent on sending a clear message by not including her. And from now and until our wedding there won't be any more chances to interact as we don't live in the same country.

Am I overreacting or is it reasonable to save my money while also slighting her.

– Guest List


Read more... )
ursula: bear eating salmon (Default)
[personal profile] ursula
[personal profile] glowingfish asked:

The Golden Age of published science-fiction was more or less from 1955 to 1975 (lets say). Why did it end when it did? Do you think that science-fiction (or fantasy) published after 1975 was different, or do you just think it had less ability to become part of the "canon"?


This is really non-standard periodization! Wikipedia has the Golden Age of science fiction starting in the late 1930s, in connection with sci-fi magazine publishing history; the end of your period is solidly New Wave.

The counter-argument is the aphorism that the Golden Age of science fiction is twelve; by that rule, it's interesting to think about who was twelve in 1955-1975, or whatever guidelines you want to pick, and what influence they might have had on defining a canon, once they reached their twenties or thirties. The people who were twelve between 1955 and 1975 were mostly baby boomers, in the standard US generational framework; that was my parents' generation (and [personal profile] glowingfish's, I'm guessing), and it makes sense that the stories they considered formative would seem quasi-canonized to our generation.
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[personal profile] erinptah

All right, I’ve asked questions about the original Japanese in PSOH before and people have popped up with the answers. Hoping to have the same good fortune again.

In Volume 10, the chapter “Duplication”, there’s a panel where Leon’s long-time co-worker Jill introduces herself on the phone. In the Tokyopop translation, she gives her name as “Detective Jill Freshney”:

Photo of the end of a manga page, text: Hello? Agent Howell? This is Detective Jill Freshney from the LAPD.

Jill Freshney is also the name of the managing editor on the book:

Credits page for Volume 10, with Jill Freshney listed as Managing Editor

I assume this is her bio on Aces Editors. She’s a real person, that’s just her real name.

So — does our detective Jill also have this name in the original Japanese text?

If the TP translation had started before the original series ended, I could see it being written in by Matsuri Akino, as a little “aww, there ended up being a real Jill working on my books, I’ll give her a shoutout” homage. But the Japanese volume 10 came out in August 1998, and the NA release of Volume 1 wasn’t until June 2003, so she wouldn’t have known.

Was it added by the TP writers, as their own little gag/homage? Or was it there in the original, and this is an absolutely wild coincidence? (…Or a secret third thing?)


good news: health

Jan. 21st, 2026 08:01 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
There's more evidence that the shingles vaccine reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease: two more natural experiments (in which people were offered the vaccine based on date of birth or where they lived). One of them comparED the older Zostavax vaccine with the newer Shingrix: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/spotlight-on-the-shingles-vaccineagain

As the blogger, Eric Topol says, "If this vaccine was a drug and reduced Alzheimer’s by 20%, it would be considered a major breakthrough for helping to prevent the disease! But as a vaccine, it hasn't reached any sense of being a blockbuster"

[food] parsnip risotto, redux

Jan. 21st, 2026 11:11 pm
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[personal profile] kaberett

Back in November I made a ridiculously overengineered parsnip risotto, as a way of dipping a toe into my next cookbook project. I said at the time that it was very tasty, and also I was unlikely to ever make it again.

Temporary dietary restrictions. )

In this essay I will

Jan. 21st, 2026 05:25 pm
jadelennox: Girlyman: Does Nate ever think of anything he doesn't say? (girlyman: nate doesn't think)
[personal profile] jadelennox

Gandalf was a chickenshit with no self-control who could have prevented the massive death toll at Pelennor Fields. Take the ring, kill the baddie, jump into Mount Doom before it has a chance to corrupt you. But nooooo, it's way more fun to have a grey-Maia/fire-Maia punch-up in a bottomless pit in order to emerge in a gleam of backlighting and inspirational music riding a glowing horsey like a tween girl's puberty dreams, than it is to take the ring, zap in, punch the eyeball Maia in his dumb eyeball, and then jump into the lava.

lb_lee: A colored pencil drawing of Raige's freckled hand holding a hot pink paperback entitled the Princess and Her Monster (book)
[personal profile] lb_lee
This is a very brief selection from a much larger 1988 book I found in a free box, Brazilian Women Speak: Contemporary Life Stories. It is a life story from a woman involved with Brazilian spiritualism (more specifically, umbanda). The book is still miraculously in print, and there is a screen-readable version for the print-disabled on archive.org.

Citation: Patai, Daphne. “ÂNGELA: ‘In Spiritualism There’s Real Equality.’” In Brazilian Women Speak: Contemporary Life Stories, 109-110, 120-125, 364-365. New Brunswick: Rutgers,1988.


Bundle of Holding: Dead Air: Seasons

Jan. 21st, 2026 03:00 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


This all-new Dead Air Bundle presents English-language ebooks for Dead Air: Seasons, the post-apocalyptic tabletop roleplaying game from Italian publisher The World Anvil Publishing about a Blighted world forever changed.

Bundle of Holding: Dead Air: Seasons

Read-in-Progress Wednesday

Jan. 22nd, 2026 01:20 am
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[personal profile] geraineon posting in [community profile] cnovels
This is your weekly read-in-progress post~

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)
[personal profile] silveradept
[community profile] snowflake_challenge dropped their eleventh challenge, and it's a call-back.

Challenge #11

Grant someone's wish from Challenge #5.


Merrily a wassailing... )
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula posting in [community profile] thisfinecrew
House Concurrent Resolution 70 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 26 were introduced on January 15th by Representative Khanna (D - CA) and Senator Gallego (D - AZ).

I think it might be a good idea to ask congresspeople to support them.

https://congress.gov/bill/119-congress/house-concurrent-resolution/70

https://congress.gov/bill/119-congress/senate-concurrent-resolution/26

the main text of both under the cut )
oursin: Photograph of small impressionistic metal figurine seated reading a book (Reader)
[personal profile] oursin

What I read

Finished I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz, though will cop to only skimming the final section 'Fiorucci: the Book' (1980) about which I was a bit WTF? and 'what was she on?'

Over the weekend saw a review somewhere of the latest work by Madeleine Gray speaking well of her first novel Green Dot (2024) so thought I might see what it was like, especially as it was at a very reasonable price on Kobo - gave up about a third or so in. Did not care about the narrator or her situation.

A bit of sortes e-reader (inadvertently opening a book) started a supernatural thriller but I couldn't work out whether it was part of a series and I was supposed to know who these characters and their predicament were, or whether I was supposed to work it out over chapters jumping back and forward over time and didn't feel grabbed. May return because that might be me?

Dick Francis, Risk (1977), where I realised I have recently identified a Francis pattern such that I could finger a certain character very early on as likely to be implicated in bad stuff going down.

On the go

Have been dipping into Timothy d'Arch Smith, The Stammering Librarian (2025), some further collected essays, including one on a person of research interest, and a rather fun Anthony Powell parody.

Dick Francis, The Edge (1988), which is the one involving a lush train journey, with additional Staged Murder Mystery, across Canada (reverse direction to the way I did it).

Up next

Well, the local history society publications in which I was interested have been ordered and have arrived.

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anef

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