“‘So you don‘t think I‘m crazy... or dangerous?‘
‘No more than anyone else,‘ he answers kindly, ‘under the right circumstances.‘
I don‘t know why, but that placates my fear better than anything else he could have said. Humans are capable of horrific acts, but the aftermath of Matins IV left me feeling like I deserve a special spot among monsters.”
-Sirantha Jax

Nope, not the Necronomicon, just our unfinished wedding album in its teenage goth years. #bookbinding

I decided on a Springback binding for our album, since its heavy covers and durable binding will hold up the years, and I like that it will lie flat enough for people to write on both pages. Still have covers and headbands to go, but I like where it‘s at ☺️

EDIT: more pics later, once it‘s finished. @BookishFeminist made a REALLY cool cover.

Long time no see, Littens - it‘s been a long and stressful year. When I did have time to read, not much made it on here!

Anyway. With the worst stress on hold, it gives me a chance to introspect and examine how my mind works.

Uh wut.

If I ever make something like these, I'm definitely not calling them "Manly Muffin Meat Loaves" ?

@MrBook just posted a list of #science books recommended by Bill Gates. I wanted to add this book to his list for 4 reasons:

1) I come from a family of scientists who taught me to consider ALL the data
2) Alt-Science institutions make me sick (look up the Creation Museum for instance)
3) the nominee to head NASA (Rep. Bridenstine) staunchly denies climate change (a large area of NASA research), and
4) I want life on earth to not collapse

🌎🌍🌏

I try not to post pics under a "funny title" book I'm not actually going to read, but I couldn't resist for this rice pudding. ??

Recipe: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/grandma-s-rice-pudding (but I used appx 2c each of rice and milk and added vanilla & orange extract, clove, cinnamon, & ginger.)

#diningcar #becausetrains

This chicken stew c/o Giada was waiting for us when I got home from work 😊 meanwhile, Stranger Things Happen is as dark and lively as the 19 Crimes Banished in my glass. Good meal and good book for today's preview of autumn.

Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/chicken-stew-recipe-19147... (modifications: added 15oz can of peas, garlic, pepper flakes, and 1/4c wine, cooked 8h on low in crock pot.)

#fallintobooks

I'm no disciple of Ayn Rand, but have to admit the 19th/20th century railroad magnates fundamentally changed the USA. New York City's Pennsylvania Station was the keystone of the American rail network; its tunnels are still vital, but the station itself is gone. Jonnes explains why.

Pardon the silly photo 😁🚃🚃🚃

#becausetrains

Interesting historical fantasy steampunky fiction involving Home Office clerk Thaniel Steepleton, Japanese émigré Keita Mori, physicist student Grace Carrow, and the exquisite clockwork watches, toys, and timebombs that bring them together.

This story is curious, cluttered, and sometimes clunky, but the characters deserve attention. So do Pulley's beautifully rendered windows to Victorian England & Imperial Japan.

Bakers of Litsy! This book (via my father) has supplied my family with years of excellent loaves and rolls. Hensperger has good recipes for simple loaves like semolina, peasant bread, and Pullman loaves (crustless bread) but her whole-wheat and mixed dough recipes shine. In particular, check out her graham loaf, her focaccia, and her challah.

(If this copy weren't in such rough shape, I might've bought it from my library's sale. Might still.)

Maybe trains aren't the best 😳🚝

In The Waste Lands, Roland's ka-tet completes itself and begins to travel the Beam toward the Tower, but danger awaits in false houses and dying cities.

I enjoyed the first two Dark Tower books, but could have left the rest of the series on my TBR indefinitely. The Waste Lands hooked me 😎

Whether high fantasy or postapocalypic sci-fi, read this.

(TW: some sexual violence and child abuse)

#darktower

Stephen King himself flagged The Last Gunslinger (Dark Tower I) as arrogant and disjointed. If the series had been by a lesser author it might have permanently lived on my backlist, but in The Drawing of the Three King starts to braid the convoluted narrative strands into the beginnings of his cowboy Odyssey. The senseless violence starts to take on a pattern and the plot reveals a greater arc, and hero Roland becomes more human. Worth the read!

Thanks, everyone 😎

Beautiful Washington #sunset 😎🌅 #nofilter

TW: self-harm, suicide
Borderline Personality Disorder: unstable emotions, not predictable like Bipolar. Tools like Dialectical Behavioral Therapy help, but you'll still unexpectedly drop into:
-Reason Mind: no emotion. Can be great for busy work, can be crushing emptiness. Some self-harm to feel something again.
-Emotion Mind: no reason. Creativity, mania, rage, manipulation or tantrums; maybe unprotected sex, drugs, & suicide attempts. (Contd)

Allan 😂😴 #thebookishferrets

Oh @Kalalalatja - the color scheme 😵😉

1. Cafe
2. It's hard to pick a favorite character, so - author. I'll write my own. 😎
3. Always cry a bit. I grew up suppressing emotions, and it's lame!
4. Regardless of whether I'm on @Litsy I'd read 1,000+ pages of American history, and another 1,000+ pages of world history. There's too much at stake not to learn everything I can. 📜
5. I always do.

#BookishWouldYouRather

"Die Fahrt" actually means "the drive"

...but you can't drive without gas ???

Ice sharks?!

This and "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" were two unexpectedly metaphysical recent reads about life, reality, fiction, and the soul. (More on that later.) "Redshirts" skewers all the bad sci-fi tropes, especially the laziest ones from Star Trek, but uses them as a springboard to lampoon the writers too. It's a funny book with an understated thoughtful side.

Neil Gaiman: "I'm gonna write a book about an outsider who gets swept up into factional conflict in magical London!"

China Miéville: "Hold my beer."

The story is good on its own merits, but moreso the 500-some pages hold some of the best world-building and characterization I've ever read. Miéville has a gift, and you should read slowly and savor it.

"But it was always a sleight of politics to stress only that aspect of the far right. There was another, somewhat repressed but no less faithful and faithfully fascist tradition: the decadent baroque."

China keeping it real through fiction. ?

Quotes out of context ftw 😂 #LitsyAfterDark

(PS: go read this book, especially fans of Neverwhere)

Been a while since I've dropped a review!

I'm still in a detective mood after finishing an Otto Penzler locked-room compendium and IQ by Joe Ide, so I finally read The Thin Man.

It's a good read. Though Hammett throws around 1930s-style casual racism/sexism and doesn't distinguish speakers well, the snappy dialogue is hard to beat. I wonder if the movie is actually better for this one though?

(Costarring Makers Mark on the rocks)

@BookishFeminist warned me she'd be busy with #24in48 this weekend. Duolingo is just making sure I don't interrupt her 😂🇩🇪

Things that don't surprise me: this 😂🍰🍪🥖🍗🥓🧀🍻👩🏻‍🎓👩🏼‍🎓👩🏽‍🎓👩🏾‍🎓👩🏿‍🎓👨🏻‍🎓👨🏼‍🎓👨🏽‍🎓👨🏾‍🎓👨🏿‍🎓 #harrypotter20 #hufflepuff

My new view at work. 😎 #museumlife #smithsonian

Thank you, Director Jarvis ❤️🏕 #overthis #altfacts #resist #nationalparks

i rarely read poetry.
waheed may
change
that.

#page24ofcurrentread #weneeddiversebooks #nonwhiteprotagonist

Excellent academic (but readable!) look at the makings of the Jim Crow North in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with special emphasis on sociology, prison, and housing. Too much is applicable today. #weneeddiversebooks #blm I'm rebinding my copy, since the spine broke and I have a feeling it'll be getting more use. #bookbinding

As for #bookandyourfavesnack... lo mein is more of a meal than a snack, but who's counting? 🍲

Thanks, everyone! @Litsy is a fun home. 😏

@BookishFeminist and I noticed that yesterday after the #womensmarchonwashington (#womensmarch) we #introverts felt exhausted physically, but emotionally pretty great - nowhere near as drained as at other public gatherings. Our theory is that since marchers are supportive and didn't impose any gender or societal norms, we felt empowered and safe to just be ourselves. We even chased off a reactionary w/a bullhorn! Anyone have thoughts on this?

This was... amazing. All you women coming to DC (and marches around the country and world) to tell the patriarchy to shove it - proud to be part of it with you. #WomensMarch

This is my first Atwood (!!) and it was fantastic. Literally. The play within a play (within at least one other play, if not more) was hugely satisfying, unreal and hyper-real at the same time. I also value the sympathetic look into the mind of a person suffering from extreme depression and delusion. Highly recommended. #hogarthshakespeare #tempest

(not my photo)

Sherlock would rather I pay attention to him, not to Dorothy Vaughan 😅 #thebookishferrets #notawhiteprotagonist (apologies for the poor photo - my Fire tablet has a terrible camera!)

Fantastic 60-ish degree day outside, so I spent my lunch break reading about northern Canada and revenge 😈

Finally starting this book, with a fine Caramella latte from Spyhouse Coffee. ❤️☕️

My nephews don't get much civil rights education, but they do love comics... 😏 #weneeddiversebooks #xmaspresent

Loved this. It's a great steampunk book, a great social commentary from an Afro-Centric point of view, a good set of love stories, and realistic despite its fanciful technology.

I think Shawl left open a dieselpunk sequel in the Everfair world if she wants to write it, and I am definitely down for that 😎 #weneeddiversebooks #blacklivesmatter #steampunk

So far, a great audiobook. Joe Morton has a range of expression that does Ralph Ellison justice. I feel like a foreigner in Ellison's world still, and to some extent, I think that's his point - he wants readers to see (hear) how invisible his world is to whites.

The cranberry curd tart is from a New York Times recipe that @BookishFeminist found for us 😊 always #thankfulfor her. #HappyThanksgiving #weneeddiversebooks #blacklivesmatter #litsycooks

This portrait of Noodle was taken from 2" away as she lays on my chest ?????????

#thebookishferrets #readinginbed

Usually when I make dinner it's for two, but since my partner's still up in NYC after #brlive... Here's my homemade chili with a plate of chips and one of the very last of my homebrews from a year and a half ago - more or less a dunkelweiss.

I'm still in a big reading slump #overthis so I'm not up for #nonfictionnovember yet - but that won't keep me from reading diversely. #weneeddiversebooks
#orangecovers

That swimsuit looks great on you, Sherlock 👙❤️😂 #thebookishferrets #petsoflitsy #bitsy

#funfridayphoto #makesmehappy These two goobers. 😊 Sherlock is watching Noodle express how she feels about air mattresses 😂😂

#thebookishferrets

It's been a rough 24 hours for a great many of us Littens, so I want to offer an empathetic ear & safe space for you folks. I'll be checking here periodically tonight & tomorrow, but feel free to email, Twitter DM, or FB message me - see comments for my info.

(Disclosure: I'm a straight cisgender white male, so I understand if you aren't comfortable talking with me - my partner @BookishFeminist has offered her ear too.)

#ImWithYou

Preaching to the choir, but to honor the Americans who've fought for the right to vote - women, non-white men (Black, Native, Latino, Asian), felons who've served their time, and those who've been challenged or intimidated at the polls for gender, lack of ID, education, or poll tax - vote! Your voice matters.

Frederick Douglass was a suffragist for both Black and women voters. Honoring him today!

Shitty treatment of women, shitty treatment of minorities, shitty sex scenes, shitty character development, and shitty writing in this book about literal rivers of shit. It's a literal engineer's (probably) literal wet dream. #threwitacrosstheroom #LitsyAfterDark

Hey #NaNoWriMo participants, I'm not planning to write a novel, but I am practicing my #bookbinding skills. Once you're done writing your novels, would any of you like a printed, bound copy of your book? I'll work for free since I'm still learning, if you pay for materials (and shipping.)

Noodle is dressed as a Werthers toffee candy this year 😍🍬 #thebookishferrets

Holy Tehlu, does Pat Rothfuss write a tale. This is almost a more realistic Lord of the Rings, except instead of following the adventures directly, we sit at the Prancing Pony in Bree and listen to Strider's beautiful and often-painful accounts.

Go read this book, and if any of you know Rothfuss, make him write the damn third book.

(It took days for me - the picture is usually true, but I hung on every phrase in The Name of the Wind.)

Before One Direction fanfic, before Twilight fanfic, even before Slimer fanfic... this happened 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

(Rev. Wing claims this is a fully true autobiographical sketch, but I have a feeling he embellished a bit 🎩💋)