It was gloriously sunny Friday and Saturday, enough so that I could read and drink coffee outside.

The book? Long as hell, but very interesting. I'm about halfway through.

Coffee shop was out of my usual and I had to have a hazelnut latte, which wasn't terrible. But they had pain au chocolate so it was ok.
I'm really enjoying how this book is dismantling traditional narratives of pre-history so far, and it's only improving.

Bought because I wanted to read more of Mori and Thaniel from Watchmaker (they appear in The Eel Singers) and also I like creepy short stories. Unfortunately meh. The only one that sticks with me a day later was Thwaite's Tenant. I think the problem is I've read Kelly Link, and no one else's creepy short stories measure up. These ones felt too on-the-nose, and the almost entirely Victorian setting felt tired.

Babel time. I only read it on the weekends

"By the time professor Richard Lovell found his way through Canton's narrow alleys to the faded address in his diary, the boy was the only one in the house left alive."

STRONG opening there, Babel.

Neat little factual overview of a very interesting project. Lovely photos. I would have liked to see some sort of text looking back at the impact of the project but 🤷.

Ok, wow. First of all, I refuse to rate philosophy classics. It's not my job to determine if they're good or not.
Weil is certainly not a conventional existentialist, she seems to definitely have an idea of a kind of Kantian noumenon, in "truth", as well as "beauty". She also really hates socialism, mainly she doesn't seem to understand that social equality (which she likes. Kind of?) requires material equality. Anyway, a piece of work.

Mme Weil you're not alright
(she's really annoying me now)

Never having read Weil before and reading her eighty(mumble) years after the fact makes me want to get a time travel machine and force her to sit down for a session of concept analysis. Radical pacifism irritates me, but we'll see how this goes.
Also featured: pain au chocolate.
Also also featured: umbrella because holy hell.

It's been a while since I read something by Winterson I truly love, so this was a nice change, twelve essays on technology and the future, but tying in art and philosophy, Mary Shelley and the Gilgamesh. I liked arguing with some of her finer points (I'm a reductive materialist, Winterson isn't) but the reading experience was an absolute delight. One of her points is that more artists should be creating about technology, and that I agree with.

#sundayfunday @ozma.of.oz
I think like many swedes, childhood and Astrid Lindgren are near synonymous. In the US, Pippi Longstocking is probably her most famous creation, but the fantasy works (Ronia the Robber's Daughter, The Brothers Lionheart, Mio My Son) were my favourites, because well, I'm me. But The Children of Noisy Village and Emil the prankster are based in small agricultural villages from the author's own childhood...

"Hatred of the body has increased over time. Probably now in the West, in the 21st century, we hate the body more than at any other time in history." Imma have to disagree, ma'am. Somatophobia is hardly new, and I believe both medieval ascetics and the puritans hated bodies more than we do today.
Doing a lot of arguing with this book, it hits many of the reasons I studied philosophy, although I'm more of a reductive materialist than Winterson.

Aaand that's why I read Winterson even when she isn't writing fiction

Croissant 🥐

"... a kind or steampunk Victoriana, where everything was massive, solid, dimensional (think railways, iron ships, factories, piping, tracks, cylinders, furnaces, metal, coal) but at the same time a thought-experiment fantasy."
Reading Winterson is nearly always a delight, and while I didn't like my last two reads by her this is as deft and elegant as ever.

Forgot my book so reading a work books on my phone.

Finished with 19 minutes to go of the year. I still wish Goodman used footnotes instead of forcing me to guess which source go with which fact, and that she was less likely to always take the side of the historical period, but a half hearted pick
But there is a conflict with another book on the topic of eating geese; on that matter I'm more likely to believe the food historian.

I've read Kate Beaton since the events she narratives in this autobiographical novel, and while it's very good, I prefer her historical and literary humor. Which doesn't mean a realistic story of the misogyny and sexual violence in a mining camp isn't good writing. I think current days author Kate understands this better, but it's still frustrating to read story Kate excuse the men around her, who are pretty universally her enemies.

Bought this one for research and would have preferred a slightly different layout, but overall interesting and nuanced.

Not a bad book, but the methodology (listing perfectly normal words, previously considered erroneous, to illustrate the stupidity of arbitrary rules among language prescriptivists) unfortunately gets boring about ten pages in. Still, as a FIRST book about linguistics it wouldn't be terrible.

Not a fan of reading books on my phone but had no choice with this one

I'm getting places but am not done. Photo from earlier because I spilled water all over everything today.

Coffee Works have cups again??!?
(I got into the hundreds at least)

Friday lunch at Umbria. Another book I'm reading at snail's pace, not because it's boring but because I'm taking notes every other paragraph.

Fall came! And instead of a book picture, you get a photo of the coffee shop (mainly because their lighting is hellish for photos.)

Approving very much of this so far. Reading research for a story.

F I N A L L Y finished
The content of this book is important and theoretically interesting
The writing style is deeply boring. Took me forever to finish despite being pretty short

I know this claimed to require no previous knowledge, but dude, did you just explain to me what a fucking mammal is?

Overall only my third favourite Natasha Pulley book, but Watchmaker owns my soul and The Kingdoms has time travel so. I loved Valery, but Anna Shenkovna was delightful as well. As for the plot, I felt like it only really took off in the second half. & I'm glad Pulley finally is letting her queer male characters actually be queer, not just incidentally fall in love with men. Still not 100% on the depth of her female characters, but getting better.

And just like that, Anna Shenkovna is my favourite character. (thank goodness Pulley finally got the ability to write female characters. I love watchmaker but her three first were just sorely lacking in that department)

In which Dima is Alfred the Great, the Vory men are Anglo Saxon nobles, and Valery is Alcuin of York. Just saying.

Ms Pulley has a way with words

Stole #alphabetgame from @batsy, originally from @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
A short story collection that a) is fantastic and b) contains Two Houses, objectively the creepiest short story to ever have been written. I love this one so much that I once accidentally had two copies.

When reading Natasha Pulley, it's always a question of what kind of alternate universe will it be this time. The kind with clairvoyants and living clockwork octopodes, the kind with time travel and a Napolean Europe? with magical beings in the Andes? This is apparently the kind where nuclear bombs were dropped on Russia.

It's not that this was bad, it's just that it was sold as "if you like Kelly Link, you'll like this" and Melissa Albert is no Kelly Link. The stories are with a very small exception too straightforward, not weird enough, or they have a moral lesson, which is not what I'm here for. But also not bad, and if slightly dark fairytales is your thing, by all means read it
My verdict is "meh".

I must have been reading Bone books since I was in high school, and they don't stop being cute, nor do the Rat Creatures stop being funny in their stupidity. Not super fond of lady bones having hair and some backstory feels a little forced but overall, cute and entertaining.
Bonus cat!

HOLD ON

thought I had while falling asleep last night:

His Dark Materials was always about the Trouble With Susan from the child's perspective about how growing up is good and necessary, of course, but the second (and presumably third if it ever comes out) books in the book of dust is also about it, but from an adult's perspective. Not just any adult, but a young, college age, adult at right that age Lewis hated, that can't get into Narnia.

Did it take me a whole week to read a middle readers book? Yes, because I was not super interested. Not a fault of the book, I'm 25 years out of it's intended age range. It seems a very satisfying if not all absorbing book for twelve year olds.

That said, NOT wild about the lesson "we need to let go of our anger when loved ones hurt us in order to move on and heal." Let's teach our girls rage instead.

Took a break and read a middle readers book yesterday. It was lovely and the right amount of suspenseful for the intended age group. End review.

I'm more interested in:
What this genre looks like in a post Harry Potter society; I don't mean in the early 2000 HP "inspired" plots and elements. And it's actually delightful? Of course the main character, a book nerd 11 year old, has read HP, and there are several offhand references throughout. ?

Is there any good international book source other than book depository? A book I want is out in the UK but not in the US and I don't want to give Amazon money if it can be avoided.

If I had to assign stars, I'd give this 4/5, and very little of the lost point has to do with the content, which was engaging and poignant about how whiteness was constructed in mid century America in general and mcm in particular. But the layout issues made my eyes twitch; 10% was introduction, figures were rarely on the same page as their referring text, and often too small to be easily readable.

Hell yeah (driving home from Montanaland)

This is very good and has offered some clarification and confirmation of things I knew, but nothing revolutionary or surprising so far. Also not a fan of whoever did the layout. Hoping for the third and last chapter.

And we're back in this one.

I just found out there's a new edition of The Pornography of Meat out. May need to own.

Thank you, but no thank you.

The subject matter was interesting and the first and final chapters engrossing, but the middle was so littered with numeric information (provided in-line, not like figures as it would be in a sociological text) that there were at least two per page. 7 million dollars there, 250 tonnes of beans there, I lost both track and interest. Also so many life stories of 19th century capitalists, I'm sorry but I don't CARE .

A break for a funny quote in between all the neverending numbers and international negotiations.

Roof terrace reading. Too many names, but at least they were somewhat relevant in this chapter.

I'm in photo editing hell. I lost access to a6 in vsco but even if I try to pay them to get it back, it won't let me. Trying out lightroom rn but it's not the exact same.

Coffee, with coffee, gotta hurry because the book is due back.