Books
Want to read: The Light Room by Kate Zambreno π
π Purchased 2 different books from museums to be shipped directly to my house rather than carrying them home myself:
- Sarah Bernhardt - Et la femme crea l’etoile exhibition catalog (Petit Palais, Paris)
- Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination exhibition book (Science Museum, London)
π Revisiting Time’s The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time.
N. K. Jemisin:
Donβt think of fantasy as mere entertainment, then, but as a way to train for reality. It always has been, after all.
Finished reading: Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale π
A sweet historical romance involving a Quaker and a rakish Duke.
Want to read: The Witch of Woodland by Laurel Snyder π
ππ Read BookTok encourages reading as an aesthetic and no one is safe from its gaze by Elena Cavender (Mashable).
Insightful piece about how limiting our reading to a particular aesthetic connects with our attention being commodified.
Finished reading: Mr. & Mrs. Witch by Gwenda Bond π
Loved it. Scorchingly hot, fun secret agent hijinks. Highly recommend.
I am reading Gwenda Bond’s Mr. & Mrs. Witch right now and one of the π₯ scenes actually made me cry because it was so beautiful and made me so happy. π
Want to read: How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information by Jillian M. Hess π
Want to read: It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action to Transform Our World by Mikaela Loach π
Want to read: Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc π
I’m trying to see myself as others see me. Would you please tell me:
- When have you seen me happiest?
- What do you come to me for?
- Where do I stand out against my peers?
Qs from Christina Wallace’s The Portfolio Life π
ππ Read Roman Polanski, David Bowie, and a New Solution to the Problem of Art Made by Monstrous Men by Laura Miller (Slate).
The magnitude of an artistβs personal transgressions sometimes matters less than the nature of the attachment it disrupts.
Response to Charlie Jane Anders's "What the Universal Translator Tells Us About Exploring Other Cultures"
ππππΊπΏ Read What the Universal Translator Tells Us About Exploring Other Cultures by Charlie Jane Anders (Happy Dancing newsletter).
Anders talks about the way a universal translator gives us shortcuts to understanding other cultures that don’t really show how hard it is to actually understand another culture.
She offers a lot of examples of this and asks,
How is it that Han Solo understands Chewbacca, but doesn’t speak Wookiee himself? And vice versa?
It’s been a long time since I was getting my Master of Arts in teaching and had to take a course on how Language Acquisition happens (almost 20 years), but I recall that we tend to understand much more of a language than we can speak, and I’ve certainly found that to be true recently.
For W’s Fulbright, we spent two months in the Netherlands, and had learned some very basic Dutch using Duolingo before heading over there. I often didn’t understand what people were saying, but I always understood more of what they were saying than I could ever speak myself.
Our first week there, some young people overheard my son saying his favorite Dutch word, “kat,” on the bus. They asked us about our being Americans and then one of them wanted to know if we were full of “kattenkwaad.” We didn’t know this word, and the person who asked didn’t know English well enough to explain it, but his friend tried.
I asked if it meant behaving like a cat, and he indicated not exactly. He tried to explain by example: pushing the stop button on the bus, then not getting off when the bus stopped.
“Oh, like, pranks!” I said.
“Yes, like pranks.”
“Mischievous,” my sister suggested. He wasn’t sure about that one.
Weeks later, I found this book in the shop a short walk from our house:
Google translates this title as “First Aid for Mischief: The Survival Guide for Cat Parents.”
I don’t think it captures the sense entirely, based on our bus conversation, but it’s hard to be sure.
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No dissertation is worth a lifetime of revision.
William Germano, From Dissertation to Book
Finished reading: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett π
My first finished Discworld. Reading Piers Anthony feels like coming home (miss me with your takes on him, please, I know his flaws). Reading Terry Pratchett feels like visiting a treasured friend. A lot of fun here.
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Learn how to revise and you will produce a better first book. Remember it and you will enjoy writing the books to follow.
William Germano, From Dissertation to Book
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Revision is unromantic, time-consuming, tiring. It is also the only way to make one’s writing better.
William Germano, From Dissertation to Book
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Writing isn’t a record of your thinking. It is your thinking.
William Germano, From Dissertation to Book
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…the operating instructions of scholarly publishing rarely form a part of graduate training…
William Germano, From Dissertation to Book
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Write everything you want published as if there are people who make decisions and work within limited budgetsβtheir checkbooks, or their libraries' acquisition budgets.
William Germano, From Dissertation to Book
Want to read: Malice House by Megan Shepherd π
Want to read: Pre-Raphaelite Painting Techniques by Joyce H. Townsend π
Want to read: Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature by Allen Staley π