We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

2025 Reading

2026-01-01T22:46:12Z

So I saw a few people talking about their favourite books of 2025, and I decided to see if I could actually come up with a (short) list since I generally don’t even try to name favourites.

This excludes rereads and fanfiction, which would about double the list. * indicates books published within the last two years, ~ indicates the last of a trilogy where I also recommend the rest. Listed in order of reading.

~Blood and Ember by Isabel Cooper
The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor by Shaenon K. Garrity and Christopher Baldwin (comic)
Dionysos by Richard Seaford (nonfiction)
~*Viscounts & Villainy by Allie Therin
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Adventures of Harlequin by Francis Bickley
*Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy (comments here)

comments

March Reading

2025-04-01T19:23:19Z

Next year I may deliberately plan to only reread from December to February. Things are starting to feel much less like I'm fighting my way through molasses.

Recent: As well as fanfiction, The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor was very well done and exactly what it wanted to be.

Read Statistics Without Tears: An Introduction for Non-Mathematicians by Derek Rowntree, very much recommended if that's what you want, I actually wanted combinatorics. And a little more math rather than mindset.

I also read a couple chapters of Georgette Heyer's The Corinthian to check voice for the Hell of the Ball, but didn't really feel the need to keep going. I don't have any nostalgia associated with Heyer so I tend to notice her flaws more than, say, Christie's.

Current: Almost done D&D's Worlds & Realms. I suspect I would find Mordenkainen a lot more irritating if I had not first been exposed to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Also Jeannie Lin's novella Capturing the Silken Thief.

Started listening to Re: Carmilla, which is a really good performance. Every time I forget just how soon and how hard Le Fanu goes on the lesbianism.

Future: After Re: Carmilla finishes I will reread this lovely (dark dark dark) fic that breathedout wrote for me for Yuletide 8 years ago.

A bunch of holds on books I started in January and didn't finish are going to come in sometime in April, so we'll see if those do better without the SAD. Hopefully they'll come in before the advance polls, which I will be working.

comments

February Reading

2025-02-28T23:01:44Z

I am having a lot of trouble both picking up books to start and concentrating on them while reading. Even reading D&D sourcebooks, which is all my brain really wants to do right now, I sometimes have to read a sentence three times for it to penetrate. This is probably seasonal depression.

Anyway, I have still read some.

Recent: I finished Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft earlier this month, straight through, with no particular reason or plans to work on a horror campaign. Enjoyed it very much.

Finished Packaged Toronto: A Collection of the City's Historic Design, which I got from the spacing store last year and have been reading slowly ever since. Vaguely related to Four Apples but also just my city, yay. I would have liked more detail on most things but that's a constant state.

And in my quest for ever-smaller M/M pairings, I have started reading D&D: Honour Among Thieves fic, and I recommend Counterpoint by Geese_In_Flight if you like plot and ethical conflicts and people not talking about their emotions.

I also read or reread a bunch of short stories: more than half of The Bone Key (great as always, would have finished it if not for library holds), "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (definitely an early 19thC New England gothic story), and Mistakes Were Made by coveredinfeels (awesome. I don't know Dragon Age beyond watching consultingpiskies play a few times, so I can't speak to canonicity, but lots of fun and set in my favourite kind of modern AU).

Current: This is the part where I feel like nothing's happening. I am flipping through various D&D sourcebooks and reading the sequel to Counterpoint, above. Other than that, I have not made much progress with Middlemarch, and I read the first 15% of The Teller of Small Fortunes and I like it, there's no reason for me not to read it, but I haven't got back to it. Maybe because I haven't spent much time on public transit (I wrote that yesterday, but today I was on public transit and the focus still wasn't really there).

Future: I have got The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor out of the library again.

I have a Jeannie Lin novella out from the library, I have various fics lined up, and I am wondering if audiobooks would be more manageable right now. Alternatively I am considering taking March off from expectations.

comments

January Reading

2025-02-02T23:32:04Z

Okay, I am going to write a January books post even if I feel like I haven't finished anything.

Recent: Because I have in fact finished The Ironmaster's Tale, Swordheart, and Blood and Ember. Swordheart was on hold for most of December because the climax had a lot of emotions and I did not feel up to that. But I did in fact get myself to finish things, one of which was not a reread. Also some fic.

Current: I borrowed Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft from a friend and I have been reading so many game sourcebooks. Also Grizelda's Guide to Ghost Hunting, which I bought last October from Bundle of Holding and then completely forgot about, whoops. It's very good.

I am halfway through a bunch of things, some of which are getting regularly picked up and some not so much. Nature Tales for Winter Nights edited by Nancy Campbell has some nice sections.

I did in fact start Middlemarch, through the Serial Reader app, which has segments a little shorter than full chapters. However it's been a while since I caught up so we'll see. I do really like it, although in a "/o\ oh my godddddd Dorothea" sort of way.

Future: I have a book on Chinese knotwork, although currently my nonfiction reading brain is taken up with TTRPGs. And on the theme of ghosts I might reread The Bone Key by Sarah Monette.

Sometime this month my holds on Shoestring Theory by Mariana Costa and The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong should come in.

Oh, also I finished a Discworld ficlet yesterday.

comments

December Reading

2025-01-04T21:00:03Z

So the problem with using New Year’s as a time to take stock and make plans or to set a pattern for the year to come is that generally I spend New Year’s celebrating Christmas with whichever part of my family I didn’t see earlier in the month. So I’m not in a familiar space and often I don’t even have my laptop with me, which has, for example, the .txt file where I keep track of my reading.

Luckily this month that wasn’t complicated.

Recent: I listened to the audiobooks of Allie Therin’s Roaring Twenties Magic series again, while sewing. This was exactly what I needed and I enjoyed it very much.

That’s it, that’s all I finished this month.

I did reread “Christabel” on the subway one day, and I bought waayyy too many books and read some scholarly introductions to 18th century literature.

Current: I’m almost done rereading The Ironmaster’s Tale.

I am about halfway through Isabel Cooper’s Blood and Ember, which is the conclusion to a fantasy trilogy. I’m enjoying it, but I won’t finish it before I need to renew it.

But at least I can renew it, while The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper and Freya Marske’s Swordcrossed (both of which I’ve just started) have holds on them and I also probably won’t finish them before they have to go back. Oh well, I can put more holds on.

Future: I might just reread Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots. That sounds like it’d be great right now. Also there was an excellent Yuletide fic for it.

Beyond that I might try to space things out a bit more. I may be hitting a point where I can only focus on one or two books at once, which would be weird.

Posted later here because like hell was I dealing with html tags on a touchscreen keyboard. But also I have now given my sister her Christmas present so I have posted quilt pictures on tumblr!

comments

November Reading

2024-12-05T00:55:52Z

Post delayed by a vacation and then PMS. More thoughts than usual, though, and anyway it's definitely in time for Reading Wednesday.

Recent: Finally finished My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, but fast enough that things did not really sink in, or not all at once. It was good, interesting cultural differences and similarities, probably won't read the sequels.

Reread Steadfast, by Mercedes Lackey. This is not a good book, people. I knew that when I started it. In terms of pacing and plotting and unnecessary digressions and historical accuracy and giving agency to characters it is very very badly done. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Which is maybe what I need, given how much I get tied into knots about the free fanfic I write for fun needing its theme to be supported by a coherent narrative arc.

I read some of T. Kingfisher's commentary on fairy tales in The Halcyon Fairy Book and most of Lace Making by Eunice Close (published by a tiny Canadian press in 1975, don't go looking for it). I tried to reread The Bacchae for catharsis purposes, but it was a not-great Victorian translation and I didn't get very far. I did find out that Alan Cumming played Dionysus twenty or so years ago and the trailer for that is on Youtube.

Read A Phantom Lover by Vernon Lee, which was good for what it was but I did have to force myself to it. On the drive with consultingpiskies I finally managed to articulate that I am just not up to unfamiliar fiction right now, and maybe that's okay.

I read all of May Morris: Arts & Crafts Designer at the library, which is the book of an exhibition of her work and was absolutely gorgeous and also gave me feelings about her relationship with her father, so that was great. And on the theme of the English Arts and Crafts movement, English Embroidered Bookbindings by Cyril Davenport, which might have been improved with more practical knowledge of embroidery but was generally good.

Also read Meet Me on the Other Side by Sparklepocalypse, RWRB 1890s cowboy AU. I could be nitpicky about a couple historical attitudes but basically this is just a really good romance novel and I liked it.

Current: Rereading Swordheart by T. Kingfisher. I really want to know more about the Temple of the White Rat's embroiderer(s). Like, maybe Zale does their own embroidery, but in that case I would have expected them to take a project along for the wagon ride. For a while I was carrying this around with me everywhere, but now that I am getting to the climax things are going more slowly.

Just gave 3/5 of my library books back unstarted due to the fiction realization above. I have two digital craft books to flip through, and also some from the Antique Pattern Library, and Chats on Old Lace and Needlework by Mrs. Lowes. Look, basically what I want to do right now is get overwhelmingly caught up in craft projects and never talk to anyone ever again. I won't, because there is Christmas shopping to do and people I am trying to make friends with and so forth, but that's probably where my head's going to be all month.

Various RWRB fanfics going on still. Oh, and there's been more Madame C—. Thank god for Madame C—.

Future: I still have The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor by Shaenon K. Garrity and Christopher Baldwin out from the library, which really does seem fun but I don't know if I have the brain for it. I would also like to get through more of my AO3 Marked for Later list before Yuletide adds a bunch to it, but, well. (I didn't sign up for Yuletide this year, not because I didn't think I could manage it but because I suspected I would hate the process, and that was a good decision.)

If all else fails I will relisten to the Roaring Twenties Magic audiobooks while sewing.

comments

October Reading

2024-11-04T02:08:34Z

I've been having trouble sitting down to actually write this. It's almost as if I'm under a lot of stress right now. I wonder what uncontrollable near-future political event that could be about.

Recent: I reread a horror novel at the start of the month which will become evident after Trick or Treat author reveals.

Finished How To by Randall Munroe and Unmarriages by Ruth Mazo Karras. Also Biggles Buries a Hatchet, all basically good, discussed in last post.

Got a lot of knitting done while reading M. R. James on The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts, which was perhaps not the M. R. James I would expect to read in October, but nonfiction is easier right now. It's very affected by being written immediately post-WWI.

On which note, just now finished The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by K. J. Charles, right under the wire before it has to go back to the library. Enjoyed it and also very much appreciate the list of referenced Victorian ghost stories in the Acknowledgements.

Also lots of Kinktober.

Current: Still skimming through Painting Nature in Watercolour with Cathy Johnson, whose style I like. Writing style, I mean, but also the watercolors.

I read a third of The Silvered by Tanya Huff and liked it enough to put it on hold again even though my ability to focus on new long fiction isn't really there.

Rereading Steadfast by Mercedes Lackey. Mrs. Pollifax is still continuing slowly.

Have I made any progress on the paper books I have out from the library? No.

Oh, I skimmed the beginning of The Blue Castle recently because I had a fic idea, and I will need to read some Victorian medievalism to get a voice for that.

Future: The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher will probably come in soon. I also want to find another nonfiction book to read at North York Central library to distract from jobsearching. I have a giant list of options, which doesn't necessarily help.

Otherwise not sure whether I will be fine reading normally or want lots of comfort reading. I am looking forward to starting a long RWRB historical AU.

comments

September Reading

2024-09-30T19:12:38Z

Recent: Mostly fanfic, but I did finish Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and had a bunch of thoughts. I don't think there was much attention paid to the order of the poems when I studied some of them in university, and that felt very relevant when actually reading the whole thing. (Although he did change the order occasionally, so.)

Tried and didn't get anywhere with a bunch of things, which is frustrating but I suppose to be expected right now.

Current: Randall Munroe's How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, which is sitting in the kitchen and gets picked up whenever I'm waiting for my tea to steep. More comfort rereading.

Started Biggles Buries a Hatchet, but it's set in, or at least near, a gulag so it's not going very fast.

Did a lot of reading in Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages at the library, which has been great. Oh, and I read two academic articles, on Rapa Nui history as indicated by genetics and palaeolithic textiles. I miss my pensive citadels.

I'm flipping through a lot of craft books, usually ones I've read before or at least by familiar authors, and those probably won't go in the books file but they're very relaxing.

Also, mom went through the some of the old newspapers in the kitchen, which means I dug out (and then immediately spilled tea on) two magazines I'd been reading and maybe I will get back into those.

Future: I gave My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness back to the library early August when it became clear I wasn't going to finish it then, but I just picked up the hold again today.

I need to reread a certain Victorian horror novella for exchange reasons, so probably Thursday I will sit down and do that and make notes.

And then I've got a fantasy novel with a trope that is Exactly my thing on Libby, but we'll see how that goes. And if it doesn't, I got Swordheart by T. Kingfisher for my birthday yesterday so I can reread that.

comments

July and August Reading

2024-09-03T00:19:40Z

So for reasons that may be evident from my last post this summer was not a great time for reading or for anything else. Except crafts. Last week I did so much crochet I bruised my fingertip. (Tumblr quilt posts here and here)

Recent:
A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard started good but got more irritating over time, and I ended up skimming the last few chapters.

Very much liked Patchwork: A World Tour; I still really want a general history (specifically one starting before 1700), but this was very diverse and very pretty.

I read the first of Jewelle Gomez's Gilda Stories, which was very well done, but the author's note was more evidence that debates over moral storytelling are not limited to modern tumblr.

In August I finished another Biggles book, and now the next time I feel like Boy's Own Adventures I can get on to the resolution of Von Stalhein's arc and widen my fanfiction options.

And then I deliberately picked up Circle of Magic: Sandry's Book for comfort reading, which it provided. Also more craft books and more RWRB fanfic.

Current:
Just finished Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger in audiobook for more comfort reading. I remember liking but also being annoyed by a paranormal romance about how great small towns are, and it probably says something very clear about me that Horrible Things Happening in Nice Small Towns are, conversely, very comfortable.

Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times, because I wanted to reread a Discworld book and I knew I'd only read this one once ... but unfortunately there was a reason for that. Which of course is going to be true of anyone who wrote that many books over that much time.

Sarah Caudwell's The Shortest Way to Hades, which is great. One of the nice things about this series is that I can think things like, "Ah, what an interesting choice to refer to Euripides' Helen in this particular narrative. What might that imply for the main mystery plot?" (I'm less than halfway in and don't know if I'm guessing right yet.)

My current purse book is The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, which will probably go slowly but which I am enjoying very much when I remember it's there.

And a facsimile copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

Future:
The library for some reason hasn't got any of K. J. Charles' recent releases.

I have another Christie audiobook lined up. In print the Caudwell will probably take me a while yet. But it's occurred to me that autumn is coming up, and this year I want to actually read The Haunting of Hill House.

comments

June Reading, Life

2024-07-05T15:41:20Z

This is what I posted on tumblr on the 2nd:

So I'd just got back into writing after nearly four months and then Family Stuff happened. Which of course hasn't been great for reading either, but it's nice having a habit of doing book posts.

Recent: So I finished most of what was Current on the last post and tried but didn't continue a bunch of others. Apart from that it was mostly a month of skimming through craft books and other things that won't count for my tracking purposes.

I did want to mention that Isabel Cooper's Nightborn gave me a bunch of feelings about vocations.

That said, I went to like five used book sales this month, and am again out of shelf space.

Current: Two rereads: Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon, because if there's any time I deserve to reread a cute children's fantasy novel about being a wicked witch it's in the bus on the way to the hospital*, and Spectred Isle by K. J. Charles in audiobook in the evenings.

Also the latest the_comfortable_courtesan tie-in novella, and Patchwork: A World Tour by Catherine LeGrand. And today I read another section of Unmarriages while I was at the library. It's much less crowded there now that exam season's over.

Future: I'd like to pick up One Night in Hartswood again. Oh, and K. J. Charles has a book coming out on the 18th.

*Not the worst possible reason to be spending a lot of time in the hospital, but obviously that leaves a lot of space for things being Not Great.

--

...and then on the 3rd things got worse. Now they're slightly better again, but still:

I never know if or how to talk about personal things online, but I've known many of you guys for about a decade now so I'm not going to not talk about it.

My dad's in the hospital, and he's stable right now but matters are very uncertain. Also whatever happens, he's still 83. So it's difficult.

The Quaker request, rather than sending prayers, is to hold one in the Light. My dad and I are both nontheists, but I appreciate messages of support.

comments

May Reading

2024-05-30T20:08:56Z

Recent: RWRB fanfic continuing as usual. Otherwise, lots of trouble settling on or keeping focused on things, until You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian came out. Finished it well before it needed to be returned, highly recommended, very sweet, everyone deserves hugs.

At work, The Three Musketeers, chosen specifically because it was long enough to last until yesterday when my contract was up and would hopefully be engrossing (so I wouldn't have to try and figure out something new to read). Worked on both counts. Not sure I liked it exactly, but I am very glad to have another addition to the list of Awesome Female Villains Who Should Get to Murder Whoever They Want.

Current: Just gave up on The Perks of Loving a Wallflower, which has a kind of narrative voice I dislike and the historical issues which I associate with it. Isn't it lovely to live in a world with enough historical lesbian romances that we can cast aside the ones we don't like?

Nightborn by Isabel Cooper, who seems to share a lot of my taste in tropes. I've liked all the other books I've read by her, including the previous one in this series, and this looks likely to continue.

In audio, The Grand Tour, or The Purloined Coronation Regalia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. I don't feel like I'm paying as much attention to the plot as I should be, but it's working for when I can't have Dimension 20 as crafting background noise.

A couple different crafting books, the authors of which I have varied opinions on.

Stolen Sharpie Revolution by Alex Wrekk has been hanging out in my purse for a while, but after TCAF I picked it up properly again.

And today I am at the library doing life admin things and I read the first chapter of Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages by Ruth Mazo Karras in between.

Future: This weekend I am going to Chicago with my siblings and my niece, which may result in either a lot of reading or very little reading. As well as the above I have a collection of Virginia Woolf's short stories and Gentleman Wolf by Joanna Chambers, and we'll see which if any gets picked up.

comments

April Reading

2024-04-28T22:20:29Z

This month I finished a queer historical romance debut novel by an author named Emma and then started a queer historical romance debut novel by an author named Emma.

Recent: Don't Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban, very cute, recommended if you want cute Victorian lesbian romance. Also some very nice RWRB fanfic, with ideas I wish we saw more of in fiction/writing in general.

And finished Quiet Pine Trees which was a great time all round.

At work, Biggles Goes to War by W. E. Johns - if you want to read good mid-20thC boy's adventure fiction, pick a Biggles book set somewhere European and enjoy yourself.

Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc, translated and possibly also adapted by Edgar Jepson (sources are unclear). This was fun, and I read a few of the short stories, but I did guess the twist on all of them, and in the novel I guessed it by chapter 5. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and probably says more about the development of mystery fiction over time than about my abilities, but it loses its charm when you read a bunch in a row. LOVED Sonia, though, I want something with her as the focus. Also, the last scene of this was so slapstick I wonder if it was an inspiration for Bugs Bunny.

Grim Tales by Edith Nesbit - much more romantic than the other ghost stories I've been reading lately, which were mostly by men and frequently by bachelors. Which of course may say more about the markets she was writing for than about her own tastes.

Current: One Night in Hartswood by Emma Denny, enjoying it so far but not very far in yet.

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones by Hettie Judah, because I have been wondering if my brain would like nonfiction better right now, and this is exactly the kind of nonfiction I wanted.

Closed some AO3 tabs, opened some more AO3 tabs.

At work, Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome, which manages to avoid the frequent difficulties of Victorian Brits writing about Europe by making fun of Britain just as much. Also, I've never been to Germany, but much of his description of it reminds me startlingly of the American Midwest. Yay bicycles.

Future: Either A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court or The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective depending on what I feel like. Also most likely more RWRB fanfic.

And now to go make French toast for dinner.

comments

March Reading

2024-03-31T18:30:52Z

Recent: Finished various of the books in the last post.

At work this month I read Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (Thomas de Quincey was an ass), The Book of Tea (loved it, wish the 20th century had gone more like Okakura Kakuzo wanted it to), and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (which I'd never read all the way through before). I'm now onto Through the Looking-Glass, which I think I have read all of before. (My introduction to Carroll was the Collected Works, so it's all kind of mixed up together with math riddles and poetry.)

I also read eunnieboo's comic If You'll Have Me from the library, and then ordered it for consultingpiskies' birthday. (It arrived early, so I can post this.) Adorable fluffy lesbian college romance, just what I needed, also great visual storytelling.

Very little non-fanfic reading generally, mental health not doing great. However, I do now actually have a RWRB fic rec. It's not that I haven't enjoyed a lot of the fics I've read, it's that I have enjoyed them with caveats that I would want to discuss if I talk about them at all, and I'm not going to inflict that on someone who posted their work for free in fandom (even on my own public blog). But Let Loose Your Glow by athousandrooms is another adorable fluffy slowburn college romance, and I have no notes, also just what I needed, well done.

(That said, I have uncomplicatedly enjoyed a lot of RWRB fic that is not novel length, and usually also utterly filthy (laudatory), such as this and most of clottedcreamfudge's works.)

Current: I really really want to like this gay scifi Regency romance, but ... I don't. Oh well. Maybe I'll try a later one in the series.

I am enjoying T. R. Darling's Quiet Pine Trees (quietpinetrees), a collection of SFF microfiction that you may have seen on Twitter.

I'm several entries behind in my-pal-bertie (The Inimitable Jeeves by subscription, à la Dracula Daily), and I have a bunch more things I am halfway through which I'm not really picking up again.

Future: Everything is currently going very slowly so we'll see. Maybe I'll reread something.

comments

February Reading

2024-03-01T03:09:34Z

I liked doing the reading post in January and thinking about books is better than thinking about family things! so here's another one.

Recent: Not all that recent now, but I finished Imre at the beginning of the month and I did actually enjoy it very much. It's very Edwardian, both in style and attitude, but along with the Weird Ideas about ethnicity there's also a sincere attempt to refute misogyny in gay male culture. And idk, the romance is just sweet.

Also read Wired Love by Ella Cheever Thayer and loved that too! And this one actually has surprisingly little in the way of Period Typical Attitudes. People respect each other's boundaries (or, at least, the good ones do) and there's a very nice portrait of life in urban boarding houses in the late 19th century.

Read Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher, which I loved all the way through, but I finished it at a point when I had kind of a lot of pain and PMS, which means I have ended up with no ability to comment on it. I liked the ground wights. Oh, also halfway through I decided Wren should ditch her party and marry me. Possibly I have a Type.

Reread an early Cat Sebastian, which, well, it's nice to see how much she's improved.

Still reading and listening to a lot of RWRB fic. I don't think there's anything I want to specifically call out as good, but it's nice and non-demanding. At least as long as I stick to AUs or shove it into the wish-fulfillment area of my brain rather than the class-conscious part. Oh, and I relistened to the first chapter of Life of Crime the other evening, that was great.

Current: In the middle of the climax of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love - thank god for skip-the-line copies, I have been reading this very slowly over the last six weeks. Recommended if it sounds at all like your kind of thing. Hopefully I will finish it on my commute tomorrow.

Have started The AI Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole, because sometimes reading about living in a dystopia is, what's the word, sympathetic.

Last year I read The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith by Patricia Wentworth and wondered why she doesn't have the same reputation as, at least, Ngaio Marsh or Josephine Tey. Now I'm reading The Coldstone and finding it somewhat less impressive. Possibly because of SAD and possibly because it doesn't have any characters I straight up like as much as I liked Jane Smith. But the bit I read today had some very fun sneaking around at night pretending to be a ghost. Also a bicycle. I should read more books with bicycles.

Also I got Poetic Designs by Stephen Adams (one of my university professors) from my brother (we should have two copies between us, but mine has disappeared in a box somewhere) and am rereading that for nice practical unemotional nonfiction and nostalgia.

Future: I am going to pick up a gay sci-fi regency romance that I found in the local library and hope it is as awesome as it could be. And either Sixpenny Octavo by Annick Trent or One Night in Hartswood by Emma Denny, depending on whether I feel more like even more regency or even more medieval by then. And I have If You'll Have Me by eunnieboo on hold at the library.

At some point I'm going to go through my reading file and run the stats to see if I'm actually reading more queer fiction this year than usual. Probably not, honestly.

comments

Reading Wednesday

2024-01-18T00:46:44Z

I posted this on tumblr yesterday and then realized that today is Wednesday, so here it is here too.

I was tagged by breathedout to post recent, current, and future reading. Unfortunately it is the middle of January, when winter seems eternal and focus nonexistent. However, it occurred to me as I said that that the middle of January is certainly better than the beginning of January, so there’s that!

Recent: The last thing I finished at work was a collection of E. F. Benson’s ghost stories. (I am efficient enough at work that I have the spare time to work my way through public domain literature.) I’ve been reading a lot of Edwardian ghost stories recently and it’s just so nice watching terrible things happen to near respectable academics while I wait for the printer to go off. Benson has some interesting interactions with modern technology (his modern) but an annoying tendency to try to explain the metaphysics. I prefer M. R. James.

I also read the most recent installment of the further adventures of Madame C—, which was excellent as usual. In audio there was Dead Man’s Ransom by Ellis Peters—I find her work very one-note, but it’s a note I really want to hear sometimes.

I have also been reading a bunch of RWRB fanfic. (I skimmed the novel this summer because the gifsets were hot but it really isn’t my preferred tropes.) From the outside, it appears to be good in direct proportion to its smuttiness.

Current: At work I am now going through Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, which I am enjoying as much as one can enjoy anything in January. It is kind of amusing how many of the “rules” of modern fiction writing it flat out has never heard of and doesn’t care about. I do find it somewhat stunning that Warner wrote this particular novel when she was only just over 30.

I have just started Time Was by Ian McDonald, which I hoped would be a gay version of This Is How You Lose the Time War, and it looks like it may even live up to that.

I am halfway through the audiobook of The Intrigue by Marion Chesney (aka M. C. Beaton), which is nice enough, but I don’t think I’ll feel the need to continue the series. Especially as the narrator is just okay.

Future: My hold on Paladin’s Faith by T. Kingfisher will hopefully come in by the end of the month. Other than that, I should probably see if I can focus better on nonfiction right now.

But I also have a skip-the-line copy of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher for a week. I don’t know if I’m in the best place to appreciate it but maybe it’ll be a nice counterweight.

And finally, on the way home today I read Cat Sebastian's "Bells Are Ringing," which is her free holiday epilogue to We Could Be So Good, and loved it, like I loved the novel. Also, today was already better than the last couple weeks mood-wise. Apparently next summer I'll be reading a baseball romance. Well, these things happen.

comments

Comments halfway through Rupert of Hentzau

2023-07-29T21:14:41Z

I’ve been reading this off and on for about two months now, with speed depending on how comparatively gripping whatever I’ve got out from the library at the same time is. I haven’t read it before, but I do know some of the major spoilers.

For a while there it was going very slowly because it felt like an adventure novel crossed with a French farce, which actually would be a great idea if you did it on purpose. But now the title character is back on page and it’s going faster again.

It’s interesting, because of course The Prisoner of Zenda is a majorly influential work in Western literature (or at least Western pop culture) … which most people today haven’t actually heard of. And Rupert of Hentzau is unfortunately not a very satisfactory sequel. (Whereas the Scarlet Pimpernel series went on for over a dozen books.)

I want to blame it on Fritz being a weaker narrator than Rudolf, but that’s a cop-out, because of course Anthony Hope is writing both of them. And I can see how even just reordering the narrative in the middle would make everything way more suspenseful and remove the (perceived) need for Fritz’s defences of other characters acting on limited information.

Doesn’t pass the Bechdel test - lots of women, sometimes they even talk to each other, but there isn’t anything for them to talk about except men. But I am still disappointed that no one on AO3 has written Helga/Flavia fanfic, because Flavia deserves someone like that.

comments

violsva @ 2020-05-23T19:25:00

2020-05-23T23:42:45Z

I have absolutely no executive function whatsoever today. No, wait, maybe I do? I did the laundry. Working memory is what I don't have. I think.

Instead, have a conversation:

My brain: We should take up quilting.
Me: What?
My brain: Patchwork! We should do it!
Me: Why?
My brain: Patterns! Colours! Look!
Me: ...You hate sewing.
My brain: But patchwork!
Me: ...We will sew a mask, by hand, because we don't have the energy to figure out Oma's sewing machine, and you will remember that you hate sewing and we can go on with life and maybe finish some of these knitting projects.

...I'm actually kind of enjoying it, goddammit.

It seems weird to say that what I look for in a podcast is that the hosts are married, but that is in fact the main common factor in the ones I have gotten seriously obsessive about. The hosts are either happily married or happily divorced, and I like to hear people liking each other.

I have also read May Morris's Decorative Needlework, which is great, though that may just be me being fascinated by the Arts and Crafts movement in general.

There are other things happening but the next semester of online classes just started, so.

comments

Canadian Gender History

2020-05-05T22:22:59Z

I actually read this last December and wrote it up then, and then stuff happened, but I suspect many of you may enjoy a distraction.

Gendered Pasts: Historical Essays in Femininity and Masculinity in Canada, edited by Kathryn McPherson, Cecilia Morgan, and Nancy M. Forestell.

( 'When Bad Men Conspire, Good Men Must Unite!' )

( The Homeless, the Whore, the Drunkard, and the Disorderly )

( No Double Standard? )

( 'It Was Only a Matter of Passion' )

( Gender and Work in Lekwammen Families, 1843-1970 )

( 'To Take an Orphan' )

( 'A Fit and Proper Person' )

( The Miner's Wife )

( Sex Fiends or Swish Kids? )

( 'The Case of the Kissing Nurse' )

( Defending Honour, Demanding Respect )

comments

Abbreviated Wednesday Reading

2020-01-29T16:56:30Z

Books in Progress:

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch - nearly done, which is good because the library wants it back soon
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle C. Shane - in hard copy, because I seem to do well with a fun science book ongoing at home
The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite - read half of it, library took it back, and now my hold's come back in again and I have to get back into the world again...
Eleventh Hour by elin gregory - ...when all I want to do is keep reading this, but this oddly doesn't have a waiting list so I can keep it out for longer
Wizard Spawn by Nancy Asire and C. J. Cherryh - in hard copy, and Libby means that I'm not limited to just whatever I have in my purse, so this is going pretty slowly
And they were roommates... by harriet_vane - I know nothing about Cdramas, but there were cute lesbians, so
House of M by Brian Michael Bendis et al. - but really I should just admit I'm not going to finish this and give it back to the library
Foundations of Programming Using C by Evan Weaver

The Toronto Public Library does not seem to have a circulating copy of the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, which is frustrating. And surprising. I mean, I'm sure there's a Victorian translation available online, but ... Victorian translation.

Last year only 7% of the books/longfic I read were rereads, which is possibly the lowest ever, and that seems surprisingly likely to continue.

comments

violsva @ 2020-01-06T20:40:00

2020-01-07T02:05:22Z

Okay, Christmas was good in the "too busy to actually post about it" kind of way. Mostly because I had Pixies for two weeks and <3<3<3. I technically had time for a yearly wrap-up post on the first, but I would have had to do it on my phone, so no. I got in Saturday night and spent most of yesterday knitting and catching up on Dreamwidth, because the next while is going to be busy.

I start class tomorrow. I was not actually intending to start college in January. I was intending to start in May, and then they were like "you can still sign up for January!" and I was like "...okay." (Not doing Yuletide this year was a very good idea. Oof.) So that's happening. In a month or so I will have a better idea of how this is going to work and whether I will have any writing time.

(Also, I am keeping an eye on my spelling but I am rather drunk at the moment, because warehouse shift today. So.)

The problem with thinking about writing at work is that if I figure out how to finish a chapter I don't want to have to count another box of brand name hoodies, I want to go home and finish the chapter. Oh well.

In the last couple weeks I finished This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which is spectacular and amazing and omg, the language, omg. And also Proper English by K. J. Charles (normally I can't get into her books, but this one worked, so maybe they just start slow for me. Or maybe I like lesbians better.) (also breathedout if you ever feel the need for a light romance/murder mystery, this one is set at a hilariously terrible house party and I feel you will appreciate that) and Hither Page by Cat Sebastian, who I usually mostly like and did here as well. I am all for this thing where queer romance authors are doing Agatha Christie, that is great and can keep going forever.

Who knows if I will have reading time in the near future, but I do have You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane, which looks good.

What else? I have a new piercing (because the one Pixies got me several years ago grew into the one next to it, so I needed to get it redone), yay new piercing!

Onwards!

comments

Technically I read this back in October

2019-11-14T02:14:42Z

Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered, by Peter S. Wells

There wasn't much from this that I wanted to quote, until I got to about chapter 9, and then there was loads.

Measurements taken on skeletal remains in cemeteries in southern Germany indicate that the average height for men was about five feet eight inches, for women about five feet four inches, statures well above those of late medieval and early modern times. Measurements taken on skeletons in other regions are comparable. In Denmark, for example, the average height for men was about five feet nine inches--just above those for southwestern Germany--and for women about five feet four inches. These average heights were not achieved again until the twentieth century. Compared with earlier and later populations in the same regions, these average measurements show that most people had adequate nutrition during most of their lives and their living conditions were generally good. (p. 139-140)

A similar conclusion emerges from a grave in a small cemetery at Kunszentmárton, in Hungary, but here we see something more. This man was buried, around 610, with weapons and horse harness gear as well as tools and models for making metal ornaments. In this case, the ornaments were not fibulae but sheet metal relief objects that could be made of gold, silver, or bronze. These ornaments were for decorating horse harness equipment, belt attachments, or sword scabbards. The striking thing about them is that they represent styles that are associated with different regional traditions. If any one of these was found alone in the grave, the man would be linked to the stylistic tradition of the region in which that style was common. These models representing different regional traditions show that this craftsman could make ornaments suiting the fashions of several different groups of people. Apparently, he crafted objects according to the tastes of his customers rather than his own home tradition. (p. 147)

On an important carved stone found at Niederdollendorf, on the Rhine, one side bears a representation believed to be the earliest picture of Christ in the Rhineland (dating to the sixth century). On the other side is an image of a warrior, with sword and canteen, shown combing his hair. (p. 151)

Hair had various magic symbolism, but basically, gender norms are socially constructed.

Before the Industrial Revolution, moving goods by water was vastly cheaper than moving them overland. Estimates suggest that a given quantity of goods costs twenty-five times as much to send by land as by sea. (p. 157)

Unique manufactured objects demonstrate connections over great distances. The bronze Buddha figurine found at the manufacturing and commericial centre at Helgö, in central Sweden, was made during the sixth century in the Swat Valley, in north-western India, some six thousand miles from the spot where archaeologists found it in 1956. (p. 162)

European elites also used Indian garnet, ivory, and seashells.

The animal style [of ornamentation] that emerged in northern Europe has been understood as reflecting "different modes of representation" from those of early Christianity. The proliferation of the animal style at this time may have been in deliberate reaction to the representations that were being created in the late Roman world in the imperial provinces. Whereas Roman representation tended to be narrative--to tell stories--the animal style of ornament was instead symbolic and, it is important to add, difficult for outsiders to read. ... This line of argument would be consistent with the idea that many communities in Europe, especially those north of the old Roman frontier line at the Rhine and Danube, did not begin to seriously adopt the new religion until much later than some of the areas within the Roman lands, and many actively resisted to symbols of the new religion as well as the substance and practices. In resisting, they reached back into earlier times, even to the prehistoric Iron Age, to adapt and recreate iconography that would serve their purposes. (p. 175-176)

Humans: always basically the same.

Also: the practice of tossing coins into fountains (make a wish!) dates back to pre-Roman times in Europe.

comments

Five Random Things Make a Post

2019-06-24T01:23:20Z

1. I have one more paragraph to write on this thing. It'll probably happen tomorrow.

I'm looking at the denouement here, and my brain is going "no, you can't stop here, there's all this work to do digging up the conspiracy and figuring out who was working for them!" Which A) would be a lot of writing, B) is not the kind of plot many people find interesting, and C) is contrary to my stated policy on this project. So I'm not writing it.

Unless the sequel shows up, which is isn't going to because I don't actually have the canon knowledge to write it anyway.

2. Putting the (NSFW) link here: This Is What It's Like to Have Sex With Hearing Loss

3. World map shirts! I have no idea what the quality or business is like, I just saw them and I really want one and I can't buy one right now so I am telling you about them instead.

4. Have two quotes from Central Asia in World History by Peter B. Golden, since I'm not sure if I will end up finishing it before it needs to go back.

Archaeological excavations of cities such as Taraz (in Kazakhstan) and Samarkand show that the designs on the products often catered to the stylistic preferences of the neighbouring nomads as well as the local urban population. For example, seals on gemstones from ancient Samarkand (the archaeological site Afrasiyab) have two different styles: one depicting a bull with wings, reflecting the mythological subject matter preferred by the townsmen, the other a goat in flight with an arrow in his neck, an example of the scenes of the hunt so dear to the nomads. (p 19)

The Uighurs, hitherto predominantly nomad pastoralists, began to settle, taking up urban and agricultural pursuits. Like their mentors, the Sogdians, they developed a rich commercial sulture as Silk Road traders and a complex spiritual life in which Manichaeism, Buddhism, and Christianity were all represented. In the eastern steppe zone, they replaced the Sogdians as culture-bearers. ... The post-imperial Uighurs produced a rich literature, largely religious in content, for a population of which perhaps one-third was literate. The shift in the role of the Uighurs is reflected in a phrase from an early tenth-century Arab historian, Ibn al-Falqîh, who called them "the Arabs of the Turks." (p 47)

This book is made more difficult by the fact that the maps are all the precise opposite of the one in "The Hunting of the Snark."

5. Pride was two weeks ago and I am still finding random glitter.

comments

Reading Wednesday

2019-05-15T21:52:25Z

So I don't usually do Reading Wednesday but this week I want to geek out about Runaways.

Also finished in the last week:

Road Through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move by Mary Soderstrom.
As a history of roads this was an interesting summary; however I hoped when I took it out of the library that it would be more of a history of immigration, which is really not what it was trying to do. And I still want that book, although it would be really really long.

Runaways: The Complete Collection, Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan et al.

OMG this is amazing.

I have been reading Runaways since December--actually I picked up the first volume of Rainbow Rowell's new series first, which was great but also I am now spoiled for everything. So if that matters to you don't start there.

But the first series--it is actually making me really sad for my younger self that I didn't read it when it first came out because, um, that kid could have used it. But it is so great now. And it has Nico and I love Nico SO MUCH.

Nico Minoru is a sad bisexual Japanese* goth witch and she is trying so hard. And not exactly succeeding. And all I want is for her to be happy and she is really really bad at being happy. Like, even if her life was not exploding she would ... not be good at it. And I love her so much.

Here she is when her best friend comes back from space:

And then:

Always great when your space girlfriend comes back from space and you missed her so much and you're so happy and ... then it turns out she also brought her actual girlfriend. Who is ... not you. Because you fucked it up. Right. Awkward. (Also, this panel contains three queer women, two of whom are women of colour (though technically Xavin in the centre is genderfluid). Just casually. Talking about plot.)

Vaughan paces things brilliantly--in among the supervillain fights are little quiet moments of characters talking about religion, or mourning ... everything, or going shopping, or having nightmares about turning into their parents. And I love the story structures and the antagonists, and in this volume he does something that authors very rarely do when talking about the internet (especially in 2006) and remembers that people use the internet to make friends.

I watched the first episode of the Hulu series over Christmas and it was pretty cool, but I'm bad at getting motivation to watch TV shows even when I actually have easy access to them, so I haven't seen the rest of it.

Currently Reading:

Central Asia in World History by Peter B. Golden.
This is pretty textbooky but I wanted a general introduction so that's a good start. Also when I showed it to Pixies the first time she read the title as "Central USA" and now I'm thinking about the Mongol conquest of the central United States.

*I noticed reading Silk** last year that I had been really feeling the lack of Asian characters without even noticing it. This isn't about representation for me--I'm not Asian--but maybe representation of my environment: I grew up in north Toronto and therefore contexts full of white people feel fundamentally wrong to me. In my head there should be lots of Asian people around, because that's just what the world is supposed to look like--my high school was probably about 75% Asian--and the contrast between that and most Western media, or the actual small midwestern city I am living in right now, is very weird.

**Incidentally, I'm still annoyed that after 4+ years on Tumblr I found out about Silk--and Runaways, for that matter--by randomly browsing at the library. If Tumblr isn't going to tell me about awesome Asian spider-girls then why was I even on Tumblr?

comments

Have some information on ways of carrying messages quickly over long distances with limited tech

2019-04-25T20:06:47Z

According to Herodotus, the distance [from Sardis to Susa on Darius the Great's Royal Road] could be covered in less than fifteen days, when the system of post horses was used. The road was divided into sections that could be covered in a day by a man on horseback. At each station, a rider would hand off his dispatch to a fresh rider and horse: "No mortal thing travels faster than these Persian couriers," Herodotus writes. ...

The Persian relay system appears to have been faster than any other until the thirteenth century, when Genghis Khan's couriers carried messages from his headquarters near the Yellow River in China to the western side of the Black Sea, a distance of more than 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles.) Khan's system was somewhat different from the Persian one: each of the great Mongol leader's riders was responsible for the message he carried, and so one courier travelled the whole distance, strapping himself to his mounts so he would not fall off. (At the same time on the other side of the world, it should be noted, the Incas who did not have fast, load-bearing animals, were using fleet human runners to carry messages, as well as perishable items like fish, hundreds of kilometres in the Andes and its foothills.)

-- Mary Soderstrom, Road Through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move

comments

Redressing the American West by Peter Boag

2019-04-19T21:11:44Z

Lots and lots of interesting case studies, not the best prose style.

From a letter to the editor of the Portland News, 1912: "This old story about more wages because she wears men's clothes is not the main part of the drama at all. There is many a good man who would marry such a woman as Nell Pickerell [aka Harry Allen], but she will not have it that way." (p 30) Would there actually be that many men happy to marry a woman who had served multiple prison sentences and given birth to an illegitimate child? I mean, maybe, there was a heavy gender imbalance in the American west.

"A quick search through this newspaper [the Idaho Statesman] reveals no fewer than forty stories related to cross-dressing appearing between 1890 and [1908]." (p 205 n33)

"Often western women sex-workers wore men's clothing as by custom it provided an indication to others of the wearer's occupation. Among such women were the nine prostitutes of the Williams Creek district of western Canada's Cariboo gold rush who, according to an 1862 news item, put on "great airs" when they would "dress in male attire and swagger through the saloons and mining camps with cigars or huge quids of tobacco in their mouths, cursing and swearing, and look like anything but the angels in petticoats heaven intended them to be."" (p 35) [emphasis mine] Note how class and gender are conflated here--the suggestion is not just that they should dress like women but that all women are naturally the innocent middle-class angel in the house.

M, an MTF case study in "Transvestism: A Contribution to the Study of the Psychology of Sex" by Bernard S. Talmey: "When "so dressed [as a woman], I can always think more logically, feel less encumbered, solve difficult problems in a manner next to impossible under any other conditions."" (p 61)

"By the turn of the twentieth century Americans had gained an international reputation for, as the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld put it, blaming "one or the other ethnic group for homosexuality."" (p 147) This is in the course of a discussion of how the Chinese Exclusion Act and various laws prohibiting interracial marriage prevented Chinese-American men from forming heterosexual families. (Canada was doing the exact same thing, incidentally.)

Chapter 5 spends a lot of time talking about "the apparent spread of prostitution, public indecency, and other transgressive sexual activities as the nineteenth century advanced" (p 168). Which, I assume, had a lot to do with the spread of literacy, urbanization, and the popular press, and makes an interesting comparison to how mass media, social media, and population growth now is making it look like the world is getting worse and worse, whatever your definition of "worse" is.

Also, wow, you don't realize how quickly Lamarckism was wrapped up into evolutionary theory to help out eugenics.
... In other words, we have reached the "fucking assholes" part of any history of sexuality. I may not have much to say about the rest of this book except swearing.

That said, "Viraginity and Effemination" should be the name of a queer bookstore. Or a zine.

comments