Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
mspixieears

mspixieears

Joined April 2016

Writer, reader, drinker, eater; cat lover extraordinaire on Wurundjeri land. Always happy to follow fellow bookworms!
quote
mspixieears
Venus as a Bear | Vahni Capildeo

‘If I seemed quiet, it was because of what I was seeing.‘

- Bullshit

blurb
mspixieears
Rain Month | Rajiv Mohabir

title on my copy is ‘Thunder in the Courtyard - Kajari Poems‘

feel like i missed out on the depth of some of the work due to not knowing the meaning of the Indian language used but understood a bit more once i found out more about Kajari. These feel like words meant to go with music.

quote
mspixieears

Often those without power suffer from what Fricker calls a ‘credibility deficit‘.

quote
mspixieears

The philosopher Miranda Fricker has written on this economy of credibility, which she calls ‘epistemic justice‘. Epistemic justice raises questions about who knows what and who speaks for whom and it is an issue to grapple with for the referendum. (28-9)

quote
mspixieears

You cannot lead if you do not read. Yet the National Party rejected the Voice in 2022 and committed to a ‘No‘ vote before even knowing the substance. (27)

quote
mspixieears

On constitutional recognition, at each meeting, for each prime minister, each new Indigenous Affairs minister, we had to explain the process from scratch. Tom Calma, a former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, used to say to us as younger Aboriginal leaders, “leaders are readers.” (p27)

quote
mspixieears

…the American sociologist Robert Merton, who identified five different ways people adapt to a prevailing order: conformity, innovation, ritualistic, retreatism and rebellion. Ritualistic means ‘the acceptance of institutionalised means for securing regulatory goals while losing all focus on achieving the goals or outcomes themselves‘. (p12)

blurb
mspixieears
Mexican Gothic | Silvia Moreno-Garcia
post image

“Noemí‘s father said she cared too much about her looks and parties to take school seriously, as if a woman could not do two things at once.” (ch 4)

I couldn‘t get a good image of my right hand‘s entire mani (also matching the book) and thought this quote quite apt, hehe.

Twenty years too late: finally seeing the allure of crackle-effect nail polish.

dabbe Love your nails! 🧡🎃🧡 6mo
5 likes1 comment
quote
mspixieears
Mexican Gothic | Silvia Moreno-Garcia
post image

But it isn‘t like you should have to make up your mind about everything at twenty-two, she thought. There was no point in telling her father that. He‘d taken over the family business at nineteen. By his standards, she was on a slow course to nowhere. (ch 1)

Some spooky weekend reading chunks planned for this weekend (with matching distracting mani).

Charityann Love your nails!!😃 6mo
dabbe 🤩🤩🤩 6mo
SamAnne Love the nails withh the book! 6mo
mspixieears thanks all, it‘s been so much fun forcing myself to be creative in another bookish way ☺️ 6mo
10 likes4 comments
blurb
mspixieears
The Haunting of Hill House | Shirley Jackson
post image

“Please, sir,” Luke was saying meekly, “who is planchette?” (ch 7, pt 2; p187 in my copy)

On the home stretch of this deliciously spooky tale and really enjoying the way the characters are written and how their interior worlds are related to the reader. Bonus: the other hand/matching mani for the cover 🙂

blurb
mspixieears
The Haunting of Hill House | Shirley Jackson
post image

“Hill House, she thought, you‘re as hard to get into as heaven.” (29)

The above line made me chuckle!

More trying to match manis to book covers; other hand has grey (and light green accent).

dabbe 🤩🤩🤩 6mo
12 likes1 comment
blurb
mspixieears
post image

Been loving this collection of short stories from various authors from First Nations authors (from what is known as Australia though the traditional lands are made up of hundreds of nations). Was late finishing it for a book club and sadly only a few stories left.

blurb
mspixieears
post image

Current bedtime reading, been on my TBR list for ages. The illustrations are beautiful.

dabbe Perfect nail pairing, too! 🤩🤩🤩 7mo
mspixieears @dabbe thank you! 🥰 7mo
4 likes2 comments
blurb
mspixieears
post image

Less than a month ago, had to get my cat bestie put to sleep, and given that she was excellent company and motivation to read (in order to provide her with a warm lap to sit on!), it‘s been hard to jump back on the bookworm bandwagon.

Not sure if starting a 1000-page novel was the best thing, but thought it might be motivating to do manicures based on the cover art of what I‘m reading. Most editions for this are dark-cool; love this cover.

Deblovestoread Sorry for your loss! It is never easy. 💜 9mo
mspixieears @Deblovestoread thank you 🐈💜 8mo
13 likes2 comments
blurb
mspixieears

Such instructions and prohibitions, the magicians knew from the fairy-tales, are usually a little queer, but not very difficult to conform to - or so it seems at first sight. They generally follow the style of: (…) “Do not beat your wife with a stick made from wormwood.” (p37)

Please folks, do not be beating anyone with any sticks?!?! Unless it‘s a matter of survival?!?! (seriously)

blurb
mspixieears
post image

My favourite book-reading companion had to be put to sleep over the weekend. This is the first book I‘ll be tackling without her snuggling on my lap, sniffing my hot drinks, and giving me affectionate wet-nose kisses as I wrestle with turning pages of books.

review
mspixieears
The Night Circus | Erin Morgenstern
Pickpick

The main feeling I couldn‘t shake whilst reading this was how much it felt like an extended love letter to the indie fragrance house Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, and its ‘Carnaval Diabolique‘ series (which had different theatrical circus-themed acts)! It‘s weird but amazing to think of this novel as perfumes rendered in words?

quote
mspixieears

The Masons, the greenhouse and now tennis. Why marry (Joan) in the first place if (Dad) wanted to do so many things that excluded her?
(p207)

quote
mspixieears

Dad kneels by his bed and says his prayers as he always does. It amazes me that a man who can be so strict, fierce and cold actually thinks he has a right to speak to God.
(p161)

blurb
mspixieears
The Night Circus | Erin Morgenstern
post image

My current bedtime reading; started last night and pretty excited to keep reading!

Have finished Toast by Nigel Slater which was wonderful but also heartbreaking so it was an emotionally rough read. There‘s so much warmth in his food writing; his cookbooks feel like they‘re written by a supportive elder relative cheering you on in the kitchen.

It does also feel good to be reducing my piles (yes, piles, sigh!) of unread books.

MrsMalaprop I‘ve had this on my #tbr shelves for so long… 10mo
mspixieears @MrsMalaprop me too, so far it reads like it‘s going to be such a fun adventure! 10mo
11 likes2 comments
blurb
mspixieears
The Rachel Papers | Martin Amis
post image

Martin Amis passed away recently, and someone had given me a bunch of books a while back so this is my new public commute read.

blurb
mspixieears
post image

Such a warm-hearted yet heartbreaking book, maybe not the best choice for bedtime reading; if anyone ever reviewed food writing of mine and called me the Proust of the Nesquik era, I would be chuffed! It‘s quoted as a review snippet for this memoir.

2 likes1 stack add
blurb
mspixieears
post image

Work-adjacent reading; a really approachable academic text on videogames, and why and how we play them.

review
mspixieears
post image
Pickpick

One more section (18: Politics and Polemics) and I‘ve finished this behemoth of Irish poetry!

Highly recommend for people interested in Irish emancipation and mythology, classical mythology, and European modernism. The scholarship in the notes is unbelievably detailed.

While some of Yeats‘ cult and mysticism practices are undeniably questionable, it‘s been rewarding to read his work so deeply.

blurb
mspixieears

“Fish came from the fish shop rather than in breadcrumbed sticks (I didn‘t taste a fish finger till I was nineteen)” (55).

It‘s starting to dawn on me how sad it is that so few of us will think of why mass-produced food exists in the forms it does; in 1960s England, you would‘ve had to be well-off to afford healthy, fresh produce.

Have things changed for the better? It takes time and skill to cook. We talk ourselves out of devoting this time.

mspixieears when I say “we”, I mean folks with the time, financial means, and with the needed coordination. A self-reminder to flip through my cookbooks and learn or try one recipe I find hard, if I‘ve got the groceries! 10mo
4 likes1 comment
blurb
mspixieears
post image

Started new book for bedtime reading. So far it‘s funny, warm-hearted, tender, far too relatable in terms of childhood fears, how what we taste and smell evokes either our base comforts or worries, how much this shapes us as adults.

Loving the references to some of my fave British sweets of old too.

review
mspixieears
post image
Mehso-so

A good mate gave this to me as a present, and this year I‘m trying to prioritise reading books received as gifts. 🥰

It isn‘t something I would‘ve picked for myself but was one of those reads that I started to absorb more of as I recovered while in hospital a few months ago. It grew on me!

(I hate giving lukewarm book reviews/summaries, but being able to articulate why is important! and the Litsy community is very welcoming that way 💜)

review
mspixieears
The Phantom of the Opera | Gaston Leroux
post image
Panpan

Finished it, and did enjoy the second and third quarter, but the story was really let down by this edition‘s translator.

A lot of questionable themes (disability, child labour, orientalism, suicide and related ideation), but also fascinating insight into stage craft, French arts and history of the time period.

It still feels good to finish a book I didn‘t always enjoy, as it‘s a good reminder to be able to articulate WHY. (self-reminder!)

blurb
mspixieears
The Phantom of the Opera | Gaston Leroux

“…I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays.”

(ch. 22)

uh yeah bro, wives aren‘t Pokemon and they usually choose you back 😭

quote
mspixieears

…Empty eye-balls knew
That knowledge increases unreality, that
Mirror on mirror mirrored is all the show.

from ‘The Statues‘ (p259)

(struck me as a reflection on how desensitising watching media on something like a screen can be; particularly as Yeats mentions Hamlet and is most likely referring to the skull we associate with that play)

quote
mspixieears

Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment and a day.
Love‘s pleasure drives his love away.

p 251, second song from his play ‘The Resurrection‘.

quote
mspixieears

The rhetorician would deceive his neighbours;
The sentimentalist himself; while art
Is but a vision of reality.
What portion of the world can the artist have
Who has awakened from the common dream
But dissipation and despair?

And yet
No one denies to Keats love of the world;
Remember his deliberate happiness.

p238, from ‘Ego Dominus Tuus‘

blurb
mspixieears
The Phantom of the Opera | Gaston Leroux
post image

I know life is short and too short for books we don‘t enjoy, but really enjoying reading mindfully and actually being able to articulate why certain themes or narratives aren‘t compelling.

Started trying to read on the train as part of anytime I commute, and noticing that being able to focus on the text, and block out others‘ conversations is also a skill!

Not super-enjoying this but glad to be experiencing. Cats are excellent motivators too!

Smrloomis 😻 Super cute! 11mo
mspixieears @Smrloomis sure is! and the best reading motivation 🥰 11mo
7 likes2 comments
blurb
mspixieears

re. ‘The Wild Old Wicked Man‘ - warts, Yeats said in a letter, were considered by the Irish peasantry to be a sign of sexual power.

Interesting…

blurb
mspixieears
The Phantom of the Opera | Gaston Leroux
post image

Reading before bed is something I‘ve not done in forever so am trying to cultivate it as a habit to spend less time watching stuff on laptop.

It‘s been going pretty well! Finding it hard to get into as there seems to be odd spots where it doesn‘t seem well translated from French into English (US English? it‘s been inconsistent)…also not sure I‘d recommend this to children (maybe pre-teen and up?).

quote
mspixieears
Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh

Why do people always think that one is quibbling when one is trying to be precise?

- Charles to Bridey, p427

quote
mspixieears

from ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven‘

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

(remembering how much I loved this poem as an undergrad lit newbie, particularly its rhythms and the sound of the words read out 😻)

quote
mspixieears

I think the common condition of our life is hatred — I know that this is so with me — irritation with public or private events or persons.

Yeats, quoted on p340 (annotations)

quote
mspixieears
Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh

“I guessed something of the kind had happened. Are you sure this is the best way of dealing with it?”

“It‘s my mother‘s way. Will you have a cocktail, now that (Sebastian‘s) gone upstairs?”
(199)

The English dealing with problems…by not dealing with them.

quote
mspixieears
Frog Music: A Novel | Emma Donoghue

“Once you‘ve passed on a song, it‘s out of your hands,” Jenny tells McNamara. (286)

(has me wondering what rhymes etc. have changed through the centuries, and how we can memorise nursery rhymes and be so disconnected from what they meant, or mean)

quote
mspixieears
Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh

“Now I realize that it is possible for the rich to sin by coveting the privileges of the poor. The poor have always been the favourites of God and his saints, but I believe that it is one of the special achievements of Grace to sanctify the whole of life, riches included. Wealth in pagan Rome was necessarily something cruel; it‘s not any more”. (Lady Marchmain)

blurb
mspixieears
post image

Read this on-off since some of his poems were set for one of my undergrad lit classes; highly recommended for Irish mythology and history enthusiasts.

Currently reading section 8, devoted to Irish narrative poems, and the notes and scholarship of this edition are brilliant! The long narrative poems are hard to follow, but once you start remembering the mythology it references, it becomes more enjoyable.
(posting to keep self accountable!)

blurb
mspixieears
Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh
post image

Took far too long to start this; pretty excited after reading the first third.

blurb
mspixieears
Frog Music: A Novel | Emma Donoghue
post image

Lost my reading mojo last year, but after three months in hospital, and a month after discharge, thankfully it‘s coming back!

Note to self (and anyone who needs the gentle nudge!): reading is a skill, and a muscle which develops if exercised 📚

quote
mspixieears
The Art of Fiction | David Lodge

In normal conversation, when the interlocutors are physically present to each other, they can add all kinds of meanings and nuances to their words by facial expression and body-language, or indeed communicate by…non-verbal means[…]. Until the recent invention of the videophone (which is still in a very early stage of development) these channels of communication have not been available.

(!!!)
(p170; ch 37: The Telephone)

quote
mspixieears
The Gastronomical Me | M. F. K. Fisher

No matter how many times you have said goodbye to yourself in the presence of others you will assume something of the same resolute gaiety. It is a form of armour. (313)

quote
mspixieears
The Gastronomical Me | M. F. K. Fisher

More often than not people who see me on trains and in ships, or in restaurants, feel a kind of resentment of me since I taught myself to enjoy being alone. …if I must be alone, I refuse to be alone as if it were something weak and distasteful, like convalescence. (238)

Suet624 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 12mo
1 like1 comment
quote
mspixieears
The Gastronomical Me | M. F. K. Fisher
post image

longish quote from p226, beginning of ‘Sea Change 1937-1939‘

quote
mspixieears
The Gastronomical Me | M. F. K. Fisher

We sat whispering and laughing and piling the pungent little black seeds on dry toasted bread, and every swallow of the (smooth potent gin) was as hot and soft as the candle flames around us.
(210)

blurb
mspixieears
The Gastronomical Me | M. F. K. Fisher
post image

Had too many good books to choose from so asked my (not-bookish) sibling to pick a book to read! He picked this based on its cover. After 3 months of hospital food, it‘s reminding me how much fun it is to cook and prepare meals — for oneself and loved ones; if you eat food you enjoy the taste and texture of, you don‘t tend to crave ‘junk‘.

What is ‘junk‘ to one is not necessarily to another; slow food/eating & prep is a privilege 😘