what i'm reading wednesday 9/7/2025
Jul. 9th, 2025 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
+ A Lonely Death by Charles Todd, another Ian Rutledge mystery. I don't really have anything to say about this! It's an entry in a mystery series--you know what you're getting!
+ The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This is only the second Tchaikovsky I've read--I've started a few but up till now, the only one I liked enough to finish is Elder Races. I don't read nearly as much scifi as I do fantasy, mostly because most scifi (emphasis on most) seems like it's more focused on the ideas than on any of the other stuff that makes a book for me--characters, emotional resonance, even worldbuilding from a cultural perspective rather than a technological one.
However, I do like to read them now and then, and this was an example of one where the idea was indeed very intriguing--extradimensional cracks between worlds as an excuse to think about what sentient life might have looked like if it had developed at other points on the evolutionary tree. Very cool, actually! I liked the idea, I liked Tchaikovsky's prose well enough, I liked the unconventional way of giving information (via excerpts from a diegetic text--btw, can you use diegetic to talk about things other than sound? I am simply going to do so because I think it's a very useful word).
There's a wide-ranging cast of characters, too, which I enjoyed, varying in race, gender, and sexual orientation though not nationality (all the human characters are British). I could have done with some truly old characters--I am one of those people who thinks that every story can be improved by the inclusion of an old lady--but I won't complain about that since if I complained about that I'd have to complain about 90% of books. The characters were pretty well-developed but for reasons I can't articulate, I didn't emotionally connect very deeply with any of them. It was more like me going, "That's a good character design," than me truly caring about the characters. But I find this is true in a lot of scifi, and it's not a dealbreaker for me when there's other interesting stuff going on.
This is one of those books that ended up being so long that if I'd gotten the physical copy and seen that it was 600 pages, I might not have started it at all, but it was an ebook so I didn't know when I started! And I did read the whole thing over the course of a long weekend, so clearly it was readable enough even at that length. I thought the pacing was good, and the toggling between character perspectives was enough to keep it moving briskly, so it didn't feel as long as it is.
All in all, a book I enjoyed but did not love.
What I started but abandoned:
+ A Fate Inked in Blood, a Norse-inspired fantasy that was a massive bestseller, which I'd heard good things about from someone whose taste usually completely aligns with mine, but...nah, this isn't for me. I was initially intrigued by the fact that our heroine is married to a terrible guy, which is just not something you see a lot. But then in the opening chapter, along comes this super hot guy who is so clearly coded as Our Male Romantic Lead that I found it annoying, and then they started flirting, and I was like, "I am too ace for this," and I peaced out. I also wasn't impressed by the first person perspective/prose style, so I don't think this is any real loss for me.
What I'm reading/what's on pause:
+ On recommendation from
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+ I also started Godkiller by Hannah Kaner but I am literally a chapter and a half in so I can't possibly speak to whether I'll like it or not.
Fic
Jul. 6th, 2025 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Summary: The story of how Edwin Payne, Dead Boy Detective, met and befriended Aziraphale, Angel and Bookseller. And how that friendship flourished despite initial set-backs.
22k, 6/6
Also, if you wonder why AO3 was down the other day the explanation is better than you could ever hope for.
Independence Day?
Jul. 4th, 2025 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
His basic argument is that kings aren't a bad thing. Go on. Kick out Trump and re-join the Commonwealth! ;)
(no subject)
Jul. 4th, 2025 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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A post about spreading the word about the June 14 protests
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Link to a Republican congressman's op-ed against Trump's big bill
Contacting the Department of Energy about section 504"
a guide to writing to ICE detainees
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Organizing a Congressional district office visit
Some ideas to block the horrible reconciliation bill
Thanks to everyone who posted.
Here's a poll to tell us what you've been doing:
This month, I
called one of my senators
8 (57.1%)
called my other senator
8 (57.1%)
called my congressmember
6 (42.9%)
called my governor
2 (14.3%)
called my mayor, state rep, or other local official
1 (7.1%)
diddid get-out-the-vote work, such as postcarding or phone banking
1 (7.1%)
voted
0 (0.0%)
sent sent a postcard/email/letter/fax to a government official or agency
5 (35.7%)
went to a protest
5 (35.7%)
attended an in-person activist group
2 (14.3%)
went to a town hall
0 (0.0%)
participated in phone or online training
1 (7.1%)
donated money to a cause
8 (57.1%)
worked for a campaign
0 (0.0%)
did textbanking/phonebanking
1 (7.1%)
took care of myself
7 (50.0%)
not a US citizen, but worked in solidarity in my community
1 (7.1%)
did something else (tell us about it in comments)
2 (14.3%)
committed to action in the coming month
5 (35.7%)
As always, everyone is free to make posts about any issues and actions they think the comm should know about. You can also drop some information into a comment to our sticky post if you'd like the mods to do it.
If you're looking for information on anything else, you can use our tags to check for any ongoing actions or resources relevant to the issues you care about. I try to keep the tag list up-to-date. If you need a tag added, you can DM me.
what i'm reading wednesday 2/7/2025
Jul. 2nd, 2025 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
What I finished:
+ The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. My Narnia reread is complete!
I'd been dreading this one and kind of putting it off, but on reread it's not actually all that bad? To me anyway--I totally get why other people hate it. I am not saying that it's good, but it's also not unreadable.
The problem is that Lewis has created this story entirely to serve the needs of his theological assertions, which makes for bad storytelling and worse worldbuilding. Preaching through fiction is always a bad idea because a story that exists to moralize is not going to be a good story. When, in previous books, Lewis sprinkled his theology throughout the stories, it was more or less fine--the story of a king who dies for the good of his people is a universal story, etc. You could always read the books literally as well as as analogy. Here, though, the theology takes over the narrative completely--there is no way to read this book on a literal level because just about every choice is made from the perspective not of a storyteller but of a preacher.
Plus, if you disagree with his theology, you're just going to be pissed off. I disagree with some of his theology myself, but I am much less pissed off than most because of my background. His particular brand of Christianity is very different than the white American evangelical kind I was raised in, for all those people have co-opted him. You have to understand how much gentler this view of soteriology is than the one I was surrounded with--Lewis embraces the idea of the virtuous pagan, for one thing, which is NOT a given in evangelical world. And perhaps more important, those who don't make it to heaven just cease to exist instead of being tortured for eternity. I realize this is probably hard for people who didn't grow up like I did to understand, but these ideas are significantly gentler than the evangelical view of hell. So when I encountered them as a kid, they felt freeing in a way I can't articulate. Between Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle, I had two Anglican fiction and nonfiction writers who had a more expansive view of God and life than I had been presented with, and they were lifelines to me.
So yeah, I don't hate this book, I just find it annoying and Not Good. I do like that we get more Eustace and Jill since they are my favorite of the characters from our world. I think it's kind of cool that we get to see Narnia from its first day to its last. Shift is a really good villain--not as good as Uncle Andrew, maybe, but Lewis knows how to write someone who is inherently selfish, and the early chapters with Shift and Puzzle are actually a fantastic depiction of an abusive friend dynamic. Lewis is really good at human foibles, the narratives we use to justify ourselves, etc.
I do not feel the need to ever read this one again but I'm glad I reacquainted myself with it as an adult so that I could decide how I feel about it.
+ Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water by Peter H. Gleick. This book is quite dated in statistics and things--I think it came out in 2010--but the central problem is, of course, still with us. This is a book that confirmed my belief that bottled water is problem: it is, of course, a lifeline for people in areas that don't have potable public water, and I am glad it exists. But it's ubiquity is indefensible in places that do, particularly in the US (places like Flint aside).
You can probably imagine the contents of this book: bottled water in the US is much less regulated than public water, therefore we don't know whether it's safe or not; it is not necessary in places that have clean public water; bottled water companies steal water from communities, destroying ecosystems; they prey on our fears; there's an industry (which I am 1000% confident has grown substantially since the time the book was published) of woo-y health grifters who sell special super waters, and these people are almost never stopped by authorities; and then there's the plastic. It's nice to see it all laid out clearly, though. And I also appreciate a book that is, really, a reminder that regulations are Good Actually.
So yeah, a worthwhile read.
+ Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert.
YIKES!!!!!! Gilbert deep-dives in pop culture depictions of and messages to and about women from, roughly, the late 90s to the mid-2010s, visiting topics like the way the powerful female musical artists of the 1990s were replaced by girls who couldn't stand up for themselves; the way the same thing happened in fashion with the powerful supermodels of the 1980s and early 1990s being replaced by, again, girls who couldn't stand up for themselves; depictions of women and femininity in reality TV; the way movies shifted from romcoms that centered female stories to bro comedies that hated and/or erased women; the era of Us Weekly, TMZ, and Perez Hilton and the way it ate female celebrities alive; and the #girlboss and Lean In eras. She keeps a Susan Faludi "backlash comes in waves" perspective on the whole thing.
There's also a lot about the pornification of culture--I really appreciated the nuance with which Gilbert handled this topic because I agree with her. Pornography, in the sense of art that exists to titillate and turn-on, is not a bad thing in itself and there are plenty of people who are out there creating and enjoying it in completely unobjectionable ways. But they're a minority: porn culture is hugely misogynistic, and the vast majority of porn that exists (often free of charge and disturbingly easy for children to stumble on) is hateful, violent, cruel, and racist. Gilbert worries, as do I, about how boys (and some girls) are getting their entire sexual education from these sources; porn provides a narrative of how to relate to sex and to women that is frankly terrifying. I think this is a huge problem that is very difficult to talk about, because most people who are talking about porn in negative ways are doing it from an anti-sex pov, often religious, and I think their criticisms are wrong. Again, I really appreciated how Gilbert talked all of this.
Overall, Gilbert is insightful, compassionate, clear-eyed, and accessible. This is a very well-written book by a very good writer, and I recommend it, whether as a book or, as I read it, an audiobook read by the author. It depressed the hell out of me, but it also reminded me of how resilient and strong and creative women are.
What I'm reading now:
A Lonely Death, the next Ian Rutledge mystery by Charles Todd.
Ideas to block the current bill
Jul. 2nd, 2025 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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I live in Georgia. Rich McCormick is Georgia District 6, and I live in District 1. But he's more likely to respond to someone from the same state, especially if he has Senate or Gubernatorial ambitions in the future.
The list I found is through The Patients Action Network. If you are in a District with one of these Republican representatives, particularly if they specialize in Emergency or Family medicine, start calling and/or emailing. If you are in the same state, email them and let them know you have a long memory if they're thinking of statewide offices.
In the meantime, send support to the few Republicans in the House who have already voted against it and continue to oppose it. At the very least, let's make them miss their deadline for vacation.