Oh goodness, one of my favorite genres! I love "The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson. The story looks at a world where Europe is destroyed by the Black Death. What makes it so fascinating is that Robinson shows how world history would have unfolded in roughly the same fashion with some new locations or focuses. For example, a Renaissance takes place in Samarkand and many cities in our North America are in the same place.
I've been on a quest to read books from as many countries as possible and would love recommendations books in English from South East Asian countries other than Singapore (already have a stack from there). Originally in English or translated are both fine, as is almost any fiction or non-fiction genre, although I don't love crime fiction and try to avoid western expat memoirs where work by local authors is available in English.
A short thread about books, me, and a micro-book review. To start with, in a world of “a-holics.” I am, among other addictions, a page-a-holic. Therefore, I read (predominantly) short books. Once I start, it’s difficult (as in, makes me incredibly agitated and impossible to live with) for me to put a book down until it is done. This is not a nerdy sort of bragging, it’s more a confession, of sorts, as to why today, instead of doing the things, I read a book. 1/ #bookstodon
What a fucking BOOK holy heck.
I’ll need to find a hard copy of it so I can devour it again and again, and inevitably lend it out and lose it forever. But it’ll be WORTH IT.
Up there with Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs for beautiful stories that split and twist like braided rivers before spilling back into the ocean.
Might have a new top five book ay
I read Iron Curtain by #VesnaGoldsworthy. A page-turner set in the 1980s. A young privileged 'red princess' from a poor unnamed central European country elopes to London in the name of love. The sense of displacement has echoes of the Patricia Engel book I read just before this. There's also enjoyable farce here even if the clichés about the UK are laid on a little thick at times. #bookToot#bookstodon#keefsreads
Given I enjoyed Okwiri Oduor's short story in that collection so much I read her novel Things They Lost. A story of dysfunctional families and love between two girls (Mbiu Dash from the short story is one of them.) Set in a strange shifting world inhabited by wraiths. Feels like visiting a strange dream. #keefsreads#bookstodon@bookstodon
#Warhol after Warhol by Richard Dorment. The story of the charlatans and grifters who ended up deciding what is and is not a Warhol. But given the artist's rather hands-off approach to his work perhaps it is fitting it ended up like this. A real page-turner. Can't remember the last time I read a book in a day. #bookstodon#KeefsReads@bookstodon
Part of the SF Masterworks Collection. Despite being nearly 60 years old the narrative around the manipulation of the truth feels incredibly prescient. Wondering whether David Whitaker had read it before he came up with #DoctorWho story The Enemy of the World. #Books#Bookstodon#SciFi#PhilipKDick
The McCartney Legacy Volume 1: 1969-73 by Allan Kozinn & Adrian Sinclair
Absolutely loved this. I’m a huge McCartney fan and not only did I enjoy reading about his early post-Beatles career in minute detail, but it was also great to revisit those early solo and Wings records with the added context the book offers. Heartily recommend to any other fans and I look forward to future volumes.
A novel combining war, cricket and a battle for love. Enjoyed this. It’s jolly in places and then hits you with a bleaker reality. Helps to love cricket as much as I do I would imagine given its importance in the story.
#Book | Le libre arbitre existe-t-il? La beauté est-elle dans l’œil du spectateur? Faut-il limiter la liberté? Abordez les grandes questions philosophiques –avec des cartes mentales, des questions-réponses et des illustrations pour mieux s’orienter.
Plus d'infos: https://bit.ly/49B5poa #EDPSciences #bookstodon#bookmastodon @bookstodon @books @books
I'm to stressed to read fiction, but last Friday, just before the war began I finished: Venomous Lumpsucker
Three words: Extinction Credit Economics
How would capitalism react to fines placed on causing extinction?
I was impressed by Beauman's understanding that you don't need to be evil to participate in the ecology's destruction. The extinction industry arseholes aren't competent or smart, just indifferent and greedy.