Florence reads on in 2024

Hi All,

My name is Florence, I am 60 and I live in Paris, France. I try to keep track of my reading here on CR but I very rarely do any in-depth reviews of books. I’m also pretty bad at participating in other threads, because I’m lazy (lazy should be my middle name, if we had such a thing in France) and because I rarely have anything meaningful to contribute.

I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy romance this last year and will probably continue doing so in the foreseeable future. I seem to read mostly in English, partly because of CR’s influence. Books that are not originally in English or French I try to read in a French translation.

At the end of my 2023 thread I took stock of what’s in sight for me at the moment, and I will copy my list here.

Books I’m reading now and likely to finish soon:
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu
Shadow Unit 2
Stormsong by C. L. Polk
99 Erics by Julia Serano

Books I’m reading and may finish within next year (2024):
Essais, livre I by Montaigne
Lais by Marie de France (which I just took up again after reading a review)
les Métamorphoses by Ovid
La Fabrique du sexe by Thomas Laqueur (which I’m reading in French because I was misled by the author’s name, when in fact the original language is English)

Books that are on the back burner but that I’d like to finish some day:
Afrique subsaharienne, un continent d’histoires
Petite histoire de l’Afrique by Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch
A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold
The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks
Witch King by Martha Wells
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
Hammered by Elizabeth Bear

Books that I’m not sure I will finish
Lord Foul’s bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire
Histoire de l’Afrique noire by Joseph Ki-zerbo
The Social Construction of What? by Ian Hacking

Not included above are the dozens of short story collections I am reading on and off.

Welcome back to Club Read, Florence! One good thing about CR is that it's a come-as-you-are group. No pressure to conform to expectations, because there are none! I love your input on various topics and themes and have learned a lot from you, sporadic participation or no. So carry on! and I'll be following along.

Hi Florence, Happy New Year from one of your followers. I have. Enjoyed your posts.

A little known (USA) author here is Marie NDiaye but her La vengeance m'appartient was translated in 2023 into English and is getting a lot of buzz. She seems like an interesting writer. Have you read anything by her?

>2 labfs39: Thanks Lisa, and thank you for setting up CR, it’s a great place to discuss books and other things.

>3 kjuliff: I only read part of one of her books, which was also getting a lot of buzz at the time in France, Trois femmes puissantes. I couldn’t tell you why I didn’t like it, it could be just me, although I think my mother was unimpressed too. As the title implies, there are three stories in the book and I finished the first one, so I don’t know if it can be considered a DNF, but I never felt motivated to read the rest.

>4 FlorenceArt: Thanks Florence. The New Yorker named La vengeance m'appartient as one of the top books of 2023. I was hoping I’d found another Slimani whose early work I found interesting.

Good to see you here again, Florence. I hope you have a good reading year.

Wish you a happy new year, Florence.

Happy new year, Florence! I've read some of Julia Serano's nonfiction so am curious to hear what you thought of her novel. And seeing Montaigne mentioned always tempts me to drop everything and pick him up...

>6 rachbxl: >7 dchaikin: >8 LolaWalser: Thanks, and happy new year to all!

>8 LolaWalser: I was rather reluctant to try her novel, but since it’s free with my kobo subscription I decided to give it a go, an I’m enjoying it very much. It doesn’t really feel like a novel, but it’s very funny and easy to read.

Happy New Year. I'm looking forward to following along with your reading.

Good to see you here for another year! Your comment ...by Thomas Laqueur (which I’m reading in French because I was misled by the author’s name, when in fact the original language is English)... did make me smile -- my husband and I were trying to figure out what language to watch a Netflix series in (with subtitles) as the titular character had a German name and it was clearly set in Paris. I looked it up and it was, of course, a Spanish production.

>10 rocketjk: Happy new year to you! I’ll be following your reading too.

>11 RidgewayGirl: That’s funny! Happy new year.

Starting the year with a weird short story. I found this because several people here mentioned The Time Traveller’s Almanac, I went to look for it but didn't find a digital edition, but I found this instead. I think I missed a lot of references in this one, but I liked it.

Errata by Jeff VanderMeer

>13 FlorenceArt: I got that book from santathing!

>14 dianeham: It sounds like a great book, I hope you enjoy it!

I hope you have a great year. Don't let a lack of anything "meaningful" to say keep you from participating on threads, at least mine! I am always just happy to know that people have visited.

Good luck with your 2024 reading!

>16 ursula: I know, but this is where the “lazy” part comes in! I’ll try to do better after things calm down a little, right now I’m not even keeping up with the reading.

>17 mabith: Thank you!

Happy 2024 reading!
I relate to what you call your "laziness". I think I have been mainly lurking on your thread last year. I might try to participate this year, we'll see!

>19 raton-liseur: I guess we’re even since I have been lurking on your thread!

Snowspelled
Stephanie Burgis
Hardwood Spellbook 1

This is an involuntary re-read. It was a FaRoFeb freebie, but it became clear to me almost immediately that I had already read it. In 2021 apparently. I’m not sure why I didn’t follow up on it. Probably because I was already busy pursuing a couple of excellent series, and this one didn’t grab me enough at the time to leave a lasting impression. Also I’m not crazy about worlds based on Victorian England. I have to admit though that the world building is pretty good, and the story was enjoyable. I think I will pick up the next one this time. I like how in this world, gender roles are, not fully reversed but leaving more power to women, and yet they are just as rigid and stifling as those of Victorian England.

May I ask what version of Les essais you are reading? My uncle and my aunt who are literature professors edited a version. I think it is the one of La Pléïade. This book seems interesting but I think it would be too difficult for me.

>22 chlorine: It’s always difficult to choose with these old classics, and also to pick up good quality versions among the gazillion of cheap public domain editions (which are not necessarily bad quality, but it’s hard to know in advance and the translation will always be an old one). I hesitated between the one translated by Guy de Pernon and the one from Bouquins. The first one is self published and the typography and layout are ugly, but I have some doubts about the translation in the Bouquins version, so in the end I’m reading the Pernon. I think you can find the pdf for free on his website. The pdf is better looking than the ePub version, IIRC.

It’s not a difficult read, though I’m sure I’m missing a lot. I need to read a little about Montaigne. He seems to have lived in “interesting times”, as the saying goes.

>23 FlorenceArt: Missing a log is what I'm afraid of with this kind of book. Maybe I'll get to it one day...

>21 FlorenceArt:

Victorian porn changes the view somewhat on those stodgy Victorians. :)

>22 chlorine:

Cool aunt and uncle! Btw, I can't seem to find your thread, chlorine.

Happy new year to you! As Ursula said, there are many of us (including me) who are delighted by visitors, with no pressure to provide sophisticated commentary.

Two more FaRoFeb freebies:

Chevalier, First Class
Alison Carr Waechter
This is really a short story, and a prequel to a duology called The Aetherreals. Which I should maybe check out. In any case this was a quick and reasonably enjoyable read.

Through The Paintings, Dimly
J. M. Butler
The best I can say about this book is that I finished it, unlike several other FaRoFeb offers. So I didn’t hate it, I guess. Bad writing is what makes me stop reading, and this one was OK in that regard, but I didn’t like the story or felt any empathy toward the characters.

I just bought a new phone, and so I got several (temporarily) free subscriptions from Apple, including Apple TV. So I had a look and picked up a series called Strange Planet because it looked intriguing. I don’t know if I’ll be following up but this first episode was funny. I liked it.

>28 FlorenceArt: You might check out Pachinko while you have access to Apple TV. It's not all released yet, but the first "season" was excellent, I thought.

>29 labfs39: Thanks, I’ll have a look.

We watched Silo on Apple TV (adaptation of the book Wool by Hugh Howey). I hadn't read the book beforehand so I don't know how it compares, but the 1st season was pretty good.

>31 ursula: Yeah, I saw it on the home page and had a look, but it sounded pretty dark. I think I have enough dark and stressful with ST Discovery for now (still progressing, very slowly, through the first season).

>31 ursula: I liked the adaptation too. I think at some point there will be a second season. I've read the books too, and they're pretty good (and fast reads).

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport
Samit Basu

I think I found this book via a Kobo recommendation. Because of course, since I read Murderbot, I must be interested in anything featuring bots. Sigh.

And, well. I loved it! But it has nothing to do with Murderbot except, well, bots.

I have to say that some serious suspension of disbelief is required as regards the world building and plot, but that’s not what I’m interested in. The characters are wonderful. I love how they all grow and evolve, especially the narrator, Moku, a “storybot” who starts as a slightly befuddled but more or less objective observer but grows more and more emotionally involved with the family he met and became a part of.

One thing that I kept reflecting on throughout the book. While everyone in our world seems to be freaking out about AI taking over, I notice that a lot of fiction featuring bots, cyborgs and androids features the one issue that Silicon Valley moguls, commentators and basically everyone who is voicing an opinion in public about this subject is studiously avoiding: slavery.

Blood Legacy
Vela Roth

Another not so great FaRoFeb advent freebie. I finished it because it’s short, though I hesitated.

I am subscribed to the University of Chicago Press newsletter because of their monthly free ebooks. Today they sent me a message about their sale, and one book caught my eye: Ahab's Rolling Sea, because Moby Dick has been coming up in conversations here. I wasn't planning to buy the book although it sounds very interesting, but I headed to the Kobo bookstore to wishlist it in case I changed my mind later. And was happily surprised to find out that it's included in my Kobo Plus subscription ! So it's on my reader now. And of course, one thing led to another and I now have (one more copy of) Moby Dick. Which I abandoned and gave a 2 star rating to, back in 2010. Thinking back, I think I was more or less determined to hate it, or at least I wasn't trying very hard to enjoy it. I may be better disposed now? Especially after reading the introduction in my Signet Book edition. So, I may or may not read both books concurrently. I tend to start a lot of books and not finish them lately, so we'll see.

>36 FlorenceArt: I purchased that one some months ago on Audible, but I haven't listened to it yet. I thought it sounded interesting, and then of course there is my "Moby Dick" theme which was my first "theme" 13 years ago, and I'm still adding titles to that list!

>36 FlorenceArt: interesting about the University of Chicago Press. I hope you like MD next time you try it.

>38 dchaikin: It does sound interesting! The idea of Moby Dick as a book about nature is new to me. But then I never had many ideas about MD.

>39 FlorenceArt: I hope so too Dan! About the free ebooks, most of them I just download and forget, but I’ve read some interesting things that way. I think. TBH the only one I remember is An Orchard Invisible: A Natural History of Seeds.

>34 FlorenceArt: Interesting thoughts about book recommendations about bots and slavery.
I find that I do like a lot of bots or AI stories because they address similar questions about civil rights and/or integration in society. About (modern) slavery, have you read the short story A guide for working breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad? It is one my favorite stories.

Regarding my thread, the reason you can't find it is because I _still_ haven't started it! The beginning of the year hasn't been very satisfying for me hence the lack of motivation. Hopefully I will start it this weekend.

>32 FlorenceArt: Makes sense! I didn't feel like it was particularly dark, but I am not a good barometer, we pretty much exclusively watch dark things, haha.

>33 arubabookwoman: Yes, there's supposed to be a second season. I imagine it was probably affected by the strikes. I'm currently reading the first book, it was interesting to discover that the first season really only covered the first half of it. I feel like often, adaptations chew up written source material at a much faster pace!

>40 chlorine: No, I haven’t read that short story, thanks for the reference! I see it’s available at tor.com, and also included in the anthology Made To Order: Robots and Revolution, which sounds interesting too.

(No pressure about your thread!)

>41 ursula: I think my dark tolerance is probably much lower than yours 😊

Speaking of Star Trek Discovery, I finished season 1 last night. I enjoyed it very much and look forward to meeting captain Pike in season 2.

Lais bretons: aux origines de la poésie chantée médiévale
Gérard Domenec’h, Agnès Brosset
Accompagné d’un CD
Chants interprétés par l’ensemble COLORTALEA dirigé par Agnès Brosset

I’ve been struggling with the translations I found for the Lais de Marie de France, so I turned to my local library and found this little gem.

This small unassuming book and accompanying CD made a lot of things much clearer to me. I must admit I was rather confused as to the context of these lays.

Marie identifies herself as “de France” because, of course, she is not writing for the French but for the Plantagenêt court in England (is England an anachronism?). She is transcribing or translating songs that come from a much older tradition, one that originated in Brittany and was spread throughout Western Europe by jugglers. She is also adapting Arthurian tales and “chansons de geste” to her public. But in doing so, she (and others) transfer to the written word an oral tradition, with the result that the music was separated from the words.

This was probably the main revelation for me: the lais were not just poems, they were songs. The CD is an attempt to reconstruct what these sounded like, based on the research of musicologists, and of course some editorial decisions. I enjoyed the music very much, which was another surprise. The book has the original text (not always easy to follow along because of the unusual pronunciations and the polyphonic nature of some of the renditions) and a translation.

Finally, the book is beautifully illustrated with images and text from medieval manuscripts. Highly recommended to all my French speaking CR friends!

>44 FlorenceArt: Oh, so interesting! I have the Lais de Marie de France on my shelves since Dan (dchaikin) reviewed them a couple of years ago (more or less), by have not read them yet.
Does this book include a translation of Marie de France's Lais, or is it more a companion book to the Lais?
Unfortunately this book is out of stock and it might be difficult to find it second hand...

>36 FlorenceArt: And on a different subject, do you plan to read Moby Dick in English or in French? I have Moby Dick on my shelves but I am contemplating buying another translation, a newer one that got praise when it was released (and I think the one that was used for La Pléiade), by Philippe Jaworski. So I am just curious to know what you bought and/or downloaded...
(Fun to ask you this question after reading and participating in the discussion around translation in Lisa's thread, especially when I was saying I would not like too much difference to be made between works translated by different translators!).

>45 raton-liseur: No, nothing from Marie de France, I think those are her source or inspiration. Most of them are in the Roman tongue (langue d’oil) but two are in Breton. They are from the 13th century except the last two by Guillaume de Machault from the 14th century, when this form was already starting to go out of fashion. I doubt you will find it outside of a library unfortunately, but if mine has it, maybe one near you also has it?

I will read Moby Dick in English. I often dislike the sound of translated books, so since English is the only language I can read in the original text (well, with French of course), I avoid translations.

Thanks for the clarification. I found it on an online second hand bookshop actually, but I am reluctant to buy it as I wonder what the quality of the CD will be. The nearest big library does not seem to lend it though, so I'll see what I do.

Fair enough on the Moby Dick front. My English is not good enough to allow me to read such a book in the original language though... Curious about what you'll think about it if you finally decide to read it.

Which translation do you have for the lais? The one I bought is translated by Alexandre Micha. It sounds clumsy and it’s in prose. It’s a bilingual edition but in ebook form that’s really not practical. At the library I found a translation by Paul Tuffrau, which is at least in free verse and feels a bit more literary and lively. Both versions are so different that I’m wondering which one is closer to the original. I see that there is a bilingual edition translated by Philippe Walter, paper only I think (Folio Classique) so I’m thinking of buying that one so that I can at least keep an eye on the original while I read.

I have the Folio+collège version, which is a pity because it is not bilingual (and only very marginally less expensive). I realise that I'll have to find the lais on internet and print them.
The translation is by Philippe Walter, so probably the same as the folio classique. The translation seems to flow, but is not in verse.

>49 raton-liseur: OK, thanks. Maybe the folio is the one for me then. Though in the meantime I discovered another one, which is much more scholarly: Lais bretons (XIIe-XIIIe siècles): Marie de France et ses contemporains. What to do… maybe I’ll buy both!

>43 FlorenceArt:

hey now! Glad to see Disco won you over in the end. :)

>51 LolaWalser: It did! Season 2 looks to be very different. I just watched episode 1. Interesting.

>44 FlorenceArt: what a cool experience. I’m fascinated. Wish I knew enough French to get something out of this.

>45 raton-liseur: I loved those Lais. Such an enjoyable read.

>53 dchaikin: I did buy Lais bretons XIIe-XIIIe siècles without seeing the translation, because the scholarly articles at the beginning took up the whole excerpts I could find. It looks like something I can live with: free verses following the original structure, and the language sometimes feels a bit awkward but less than the first translation I tried. Since it’s an ebook, I still have the problem that it’s difficult to go back and forth between the original and the translation. I will have to look for a way to view them side by side on my iPad.

>53 dchaikin: and >54 FlorenceArt: You're making my "want-to-read-right-now" list increasing to unmanageable proportions!

>54 FlorenceArt: I've seen that book while looking for the book you reviewed in >44 FlorenceArt:. I'll be curious to read your feedback when you read it.

>44 FlorenceArt: I will be looking out for this one !

Deux femmes
Song Aram

I picked this up from the “librarian’s choice” table at the library.
A Korean graphic novel, or maybe two connected novellas, about two young women struggling to make a life in a very misogynistic society. It’s rather bleak, but I think I liked it. I need to let it percolate a little.

The Fire in the Glass
Jacquelyn Benson
The London Charismatics 1

I got this for free somehow, probably through FaRoFeb. I liked it but I won’t continue this series. Lily is a great character and the writing is decent for a change, but I don’t like her brand of paranormal power (although it makes for interesting plot twists), and I like the rather heavy handed references to a higher purpose even less.

As usual, I am reading too many books at the same time, and interrupting serious reads for more frivolous ones. Here is a partial update on what I've been reading and doing.

Finished: The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. I don't know why I don't read more by her. Maybe because her writing is not very inspiring. But her wonderful characters more than make up for it. I just bought the next Chalion book, Paladin of Souls, and the first Penric, Penric's Demon.

Kreuz und Quer durch Freiburg: I don't usually list tourist guidebooks here, but then I don't usually read them in German, so that's a small achievement. The last time I tried to read a book in German was some 35 or to years ago. I think it was Der Steppenwolf, and it left me utterly discouraged. Anyway, I did manage to follow a couple of the walks described, not of course without some involuntary detours, because I can't tell my Rechts from my Links any more than I can my droite from my gauche. I enjoyed my visit in Freiburg. I visited two museums and the "quartier Vauban" which is famous for its environment friendly architecture.

In progress : Essais by Montaigne. I am approximately 30% into book I, so a long way to go but progressing (slowly but) steadily.

Finished: Aigremorts, poems by André Frédérique. I left this book for ages at 95% or so, which tells you how much I enjoyed it at the end. However the beginning was better. Looking back, I bookmarked 5 poems (out of 37, so that's not a big success for me).

Finished: Shadow Unit 2. OK but felt almost identical to the previous one.

In progress: Voix de femmes au Moyen-Age.

I picked up this book at the library while looking for Marie de France or related material. She is not included in this collection but I thought it might be worth a look. I enjoyed the introduction, which gives a bit of context and a presentation of the works selected for the collection. Then the first section contains works by trobairitz (female troubadours), and this one is both intriguing and frustrating.

The introduction obviously supposes I know much more than I do about troubadours, which is next to nothing. But it was enough to make me curious and I have started looking for information online. There's a lot we don't know about the troubadours, and attribution can be uncertain, so out of the 20 or so artists identified as women (out of about 460 known troubadours), a few might well be men writing from the point of view of a woman. Their production doesn't differ much from that of their male colleagues, except that the typical situation described (a man pining for an unattainable and silent woman) is sometimes mirrored. One of the songs complains that a woman is not supposed to actively seek her lover's attentions, but she is frustrated by said lover's insufficient solicitations.

The texts are presented in translation only, and anyway I don't suppose I would understand the original. But it's frustrating because the translation doesn't attempt to emulate the rythm of the original. I suppose the translator prioritize fidelity to the meaning rather than the rythm, but it sounds really awkward at times. Especially since those were initially songs, I think the rhythm should reflect that at least.

I'm still working on the trobairitz part. After that come three mystics, then Christine de Pizan, followed by two texts on the "secret knowledge of women", and a chapter on men's voices. I never intended to actually finish the book, but I'd like to read a little from each part at least, ideally. But I already extended the loan once and I have to give it back in two weeks.

>59 FlorenceArt: Congrats on reading a book in German. I was quite proud of myself for reading one in French last year. Yours may have been a guide book and mine a juvenile novella, but we did it! I enjoyed Freiburg quite a bit when I was there 34 years ago. (Is that really possible, 34 years? Yikes)

Wow, Montaigne.

I’m fascinated by your comments on Voix de femmes au Moyen-Age.

>60 labfs39: :high-five: 😉
I’ve been looking for some not too hard novels or short stories in German but I’m not sure how to look. I downloaded several conversation guides before my trip but wasn’t very motivated to read them!

>61 dchaikin: I’m finding Montaigne a relatively smooth ride (in translation!). I recognize some of the stoic sources of his thinking, which I studied a little, in my dilettante way, a few years ago, and which I find very relatable. I like reading his rambling thoughts, it’s a bit like a conversation with a friend. A very well educated friend.

>62 FlorenceArt: I'm afraid I'm no help with the German. All I know how to say is Guten tag and Wo ist der Zug, bitte?

>62 FlorenceArt: you’re making Montaigne sound fun. I’m surprised you are reading him in translation as I thought he wrote in French. I guess it was a while ago. What language did he write your book in?

>62 FlorenceArt: For a fairly simple (or at least not overly difficult) novel in German, Glenkill by Leonie Swann is fun and straightforward.

>64 dchaikin: True, Montaigne wrote in French, but from what I understand his French was not mainstream already at the time (lots of regionalisms, plus a sentence structure heavily influenced by Latin), and the language has changed since then, especially the meaning of certain words. I want to read Montaigne, not decrypt him 😉

>65 RidgewayGirl: Thank you! It does sound like fun.

Glad I dropped by! Trobairitz are a fascinating subject. And I am planning on reading Montaigne's Essais this year (because I am reading authors from Dordogne - département 24 - in 2024). I am looking forward to your comments and/or reviews :-)

Congrats on reading a book in German and on your Montaigne progress!

I read The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls and really liked them. As you said, the characters are great. These books really gave meaning for me to the expression "character-driven".

>67 Dilara86: Yes, troubadours and trobairitz are very interesting. I was under the impression (like most people I think) that troubadour were men who made a living going from castle to castle or town to town to perform their songs. In fact it seems troubadour was not a trade, but closer to an art movement, despite the obvious anachronism. Most of them were in fact noblemen (and a few women). If I understand correctly, they were the ones who invented l’amour courtois, or fin’amor. I just bought a history book about them (Les Troubadours by Henri-Irénée Marrou), but it will have to wait in line since I still need to finish Making Sex.

>68 chlorine: My first contact with Lois McMaster Bujold was Mountains of Mourning, following a recommendation on another forum. It’s a wonderful novella, but when I tried to continue with the Vorkorsigan saga, I found that Miles was simply too hyper for me, and I didn’t read anything else from her for years. Recently I discovered the Sharing Knife series and loved it too.

>69 FlorenceArt: how many movies does that factoid undermine? 🙂🙁

>70 FlorenceArt: Making Sex sounds interesting.

>71 dchaikin: I doubt that’s the only thing the movies get wrong about the Middle Ages 😉

>72 dianeham: It is! The main points (*) are completely new to me and very intriguing. However the book is not meant for dilettantes like me, and it keeps piling on evidence far past the point I can remain interested.

(*) That sex is just as socially constructed as gender (that part is not a complete shock to me). And that the view of sex underwent a major reversal, from the idea that sexual differences were fluid and females were basically an inferior version of males (not hot enough, basically), to the conviction that the sexes are essentially different. In the first view, sex differences are on a continuum, and it’s not particularly shocking to see a girl turning into a boy. In the second view, sex is binary and the differences between sexes (and gender, which were the same thing until recently) are grounded in the male and female essence. The first view was prevalent in antiquity and the middle ages, and the second view is the one that still shapes our prejudices. I’m still in the middle ages as far as the book is concerned.

Continuing with Voix de femmes au moyen-âge, I skimmed through the section about Hildegard of Bingen. She seems to have been a fascinating woman. A mystic, she had visions all her life. She wrote a lot, about her visions, about scientific and medical subjects, hymns (music and texts), and letters. She seems to have been famous and respected throughout Christendom, and many wrote to her to ask her for advice on theological issues.

The poems were more enjoyable than the trobairitz songs (possibly because of the translation?) but her letters went miles over my head: the message seemed to me to be buried under a ton of biblical allusions and effusive protestations. I skipped the liber divinorum operum entirely.

Next up is Mechtild of Magdeburg, another mystic. That's about 20% of the book done (if you can call it that) and I'm supposed to return it on Friday. I wonder if I can extend the loan a second time? Despite skipping a lot of the content, I am enjoying this.

>74 FlorenceArt: I never heard of Mechtild of Magdeburg - sounds interesting.

>74 FlorenceArt: I used to have a CD of her music, Feather on the Breath of God, but I've never read any of her written works. Have you listened to her music?

>76 labfs39: No, I didn’t think to look for her music. Great idea, I will go search!

ETA: I just extended the loan, I have three more weeks in the company of medieval women 😁

Yeah, some thirty years ago or so, the world rocked to plainchant for a season or two. Gregorian chant, Hildegard, the Anonymous 4, Sequentia--'twas all the rage.

>78 LolaWalser: Indeed, on the first try I found 3 albums by Sequentia with music by Hildegard! These seem to be recent, but maybe they are reissues.

>76 labfs39: I have that album. I have also sung some of her music.

>80 WelshBookworm: That must have been interesting. I only sing to my nieces, and they are forgiving. :-)

Bride of the Shadow King
Vow of the Shadow King
Heart of the Shadow King

This was not quite the light recreational read I was expecting. The beginning read like a standard fantasy romance, but it turned out to be much darker, especially in the last volume, and with surprisingly complex and rich characters. Still not high literature, but something a little different.

>82 FlorenceArt: Interesting. Were they enjoyable?

>83 dchaikin: Well, since I read the three books back to back it would be a bit dishonest to deny that I enjoyed them. The last one was a bit difficult because there was a lot of suspense (I hate suspense almost as much as I hate knowing without a doubt that the story will end badly) and bloody battles. As I said, the last part was rather dark. But yes, I enjoyed them.

>84 FlorenceArt: i’m mixed on suspense, so I somewhat understand. But glad you enjoyed them

>74 FlorenceArt: got turned on to hildagard by listening to"a feather on the breath of god' on NPR in my driveway Have since read some HF about her. She definetly was well respected, and its amazing how much of her work survives

>80 WelshBookworm: I have the CD, along with lots of Anonymous 4. Isnt it funny how people suddenly latch on to something like gregorian chant, get engrossed in it and then drop it just as quickly I havent

>86 cindydavid4: I wasn’t really swept off my feet by Hildegard’s music. Maybe I should give it another try. In any case it was very interesting reading about her. More than reading or listening to her work, I have to admit.

Paladin of Souls
Lois McMaster Bujold
Chalion Series 2

Loved it. Ista is an even better main character than Cazaril. All the characters are great actually. Altogether better than the first one, I think.

>88 FlorenceArt: thats fine, shes not for everyone. There are only a few operas I can listen to without screaming and running to the exit. I think for me its the astonishing way we can look and listen at the songs written hundreds of years ago. You can feel the age, and for me thats a good thing

The Hallowed Hunt
Chalion series 3

Took me a bit to get into that one. The main character is in a difficult position that leads him to distrust everyone around him, and it took me a while to understand why. But on the whole, another satisfying read.

Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer
I had this on my reader following a mention by Clémence/Chlorine I think, and was reminded of it when Rasdhar/rv1988 posted the longlist for the Nebula awards. I was a little disappointed. It's cute and very naive.

On The Fox Roads by Nghi Vo
I don't remember why this one was on my reader. I liked it. It's weird and poetic and rather moving. And weird.

Happy spring, Florennnnnnce!

>93 LolaWalser: You too, Lola!!!

Heh, I was searching for images with "tout fleurit" and this came up:

Heh.







Those are from a couple of weeks ago in my mother's garden. I don't have a garden but here all the city trees are blooming, and all the city birds are singing their little hearts out. City birds have to sing louder because of the background noise.

How beautiful! We got a light dusting of snow last night, but my crocus, daffodil, and tulip bulbs are poking above ground. It's been an exceptionally mild winter here in Maine, but even so we are not that far along!

>96 FlorenceArt:

GASP! If I had a garden like that I wouldn't leave it ever. So much girlish pink, it's lovely.

>98 LolaWalser: Yes, there’s a lot of pink right now! And I didn’t photograph the camellia trees. Those looked a bit strange because there is a clear demarcation line at doe level. Apparently the camellia flowers taste delicious. There are no flowers below doe level.

>92 FlorenceArt: Yes! I loved On the fox roads also. Weird in a weird and good way.

(But I am very disappointed in the look and feel of Reactor - I rarely go there any longer.)

Thanks for sharing the garden photos.

>100 markon: I was very surprised when I clicked on my link to check it, and was redirected to a site I didn’t know. I didn’t spend much time, just had a quick look at the FAQ to confirm that this is indeed the old tor.com site. I hadn’t visited in a while, and come to think of it I haven’t received the newsletter in a while either, probably because of the move. If it was announced by mail I totally missed it. I’ll have to go back and explore.

A few weeks ago I visited an exhibition of Gilles Aillaud's paintings. I didn't know this painter and liked his large paintings of animals, often painted in the drab concrete settings of zoos. The link on the Pompidou Center site seems dead, but here is an article in French with some reproductions:
Exposition au Centre Pompidou : les fables du monde sauvage de Gilles Aillaud

And today I went to the MEP (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) to see Exteriors — Annie Ernaux & Photography. I learned about this exhibition through this article:
Annie Ernaux: The Lives of Others

The photographs are not by Ernaux but they were selected for their relationship with her book Journal du dehors, which is a kind of chronicle of her observations of people in her neighborhood. The photos were more interesting intellectually than esthetically pleasing. To be honest, the best things in the exhibition were the book's excerpts that were hung on the wall. I didn't read them all but I have purchased the book so that I can enjoy it in the comfort of my own home. Or on the subway.

>102 FlorenceArt: Enjoyed those links

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality
Julie Sondra Decker

I had come across the word asexual in my readings about trans identities, as asexuality is considered a queer sexual orientation. I don’t think it occurred to me that the word could apply to me. I might even have been a bit skeptical about the existence of asexuality as an orientation. And then last year, I read Every Heart a Doorway. In the book, the main character explains that she is asexual and what it is, and all of a sudden it was blindingly obvious: wait a minute, that’s me! At the time that was pretty much it, I thought about it a little and it explained a lot of things about me, but I didn’t go very far in my reflections. Then the subject came up on Meredith’s thread and I realized this was really a thing, there were books about it! So of course I had to read them 😁.

I found this book an excellent introduction to the subject. She manages to be thorough and balanced in her explanations without sounding boring or pontificating. It also forced me to rethink a lot of things about myself and others. I started a new notebook on my ipad just to write about my findings and thoughts. (I love writing in notebooks using my Apple pencil, but I don’t always know what to write, so this is a nice opportunity! 😊)

I’m not done with this subject. Next up: Ace by Angela Chen.

>104 FlorenceArt:

Utterly fascinating. As something I can't wrap my head around, I feel I must read up on this.

>105 LolaWalser: I feel the same. Turns out I had no idea what sexual attraction feels like. Still don’t of course, but now I know that I don’t know.

>106 FlorenceArt:

No matter how much or little you feel comfortable sharing, it does good to everyone to become aware of these things.

My library has Decker's book. This sounded interesting too: Asexual erotics : intimate readings of compulsory sexuality.

>104 FlorenceArt: What kind of notebook do you write in with an apple pencil?

>107 LolaWalser: Actually I feel like a bit of a fraud, because it seems I missed out on all the social pressure to be sexually active. Well, most of it anyway. I would say it's maybe an American thing, except that I just read a story on Aven's French forum that was really heartbreaking, so it does happen at home too. I personally don't feel like a minority for various reasons, one of them being my social deafness which makes me immune to a lot of things. But for others it can be really hard trying to conform to the sexual norm and not having the words, or not being believed when you find them.

>108 dianeham: The app I use is called Noteshelf. There are many others, GoodNotes is one of the most popular ones, but I love how Noteshelf handles handwriting.

Thanks. My only problem is I have atrocious hand writing ✍️

I was away from LT for a while and am slowly catching up with people's threads.
Sorry you didn't like Better living through algorithms. I can see why the naive aspect can be offputting.
Thanks for sharing about the asexuality, this is really interesting and this topic needs to be discussed more!

It's been a long while since I've been able to catch up on people's threads, so I'm way behind. I'll just say:

Congrats on reading a guide book in German!
Freiburg has been mentioned to us as a nice place but it's just slightly too far for a day trip unfortunately.

I feel like a lot of people are surprised to see themselves in some of these identities. I'm glad you didn't have any pressure to be different than you were, I think that is what everyone would hope for!

I'll have to look into Noteshelf. I've used Notability and GoodNotes, although neither for a while. But I have a class coming up soon so will definitely be needing something again. I take messy notes in class on paper and rewrite/organize them later digitally. It helps a lot for me to consolidate the information.

>113 ursula: Noteshelf is great for handwriting, not so great at everything else, so maybe not the best notebook to organize things, but I guess it will depend what you are looking for. I’m still looking for the perfect app to organize notes. What kind of course are you taking?

>114 FlorenceArt: German 🙄

>115 ursula: Ah of course!

I have a few samples of German books on my Kobo. I’m thinking of buying Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee by Thomas Brussig. It was reviewed here but I dont remember by who. I think I might be able to enjoy it even though I won’t understand it all.

>116 FlorenceArt: Yeah. The eye roll was not at your question, just to be clear! A general eye roll about the class.

I might be the person who mentioned the Brussig book, unless someone else did also. Judging from the English, I imagine it's written pretty simply so is probably a decent choice for reading in German.

>117 ursula: Don’t worry, I read it that way! Thanks for the info about the Brussig.

I had to return Voix de femmes au moyen âge to the library, as I had already extended the loan twice and apparently that’s the limit. I was about halfway through, although I skipped almost the entirety of the section on Mechtild of Magdeburg, even the introduction which was too academic for me. I had just started reading Christine de Pizan’s La vision de Christine. I was hoping to find another book by her at the library but apparently they don’t have any. I’ll have to get back to this book.

Before I left, I had a look at the librarians’ selection and came away with two:

Les défricheurs du monde, an illustrated book about the history of geography and maps.

Attachements, a graphic book by Alice Bienassis about… bondage! The art is appealing and the subject intriguing. Of course, now that I’m asexual, I need to read about sex… There’s no touchstone yet for this one, I have just added it to LT and will be back later to edit (done!).

Penric’s Demon
Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric and Desdemona 1

Loved this! Penric is a young, smart and naive provincial boy who acquires a demon more or less by accident, and must then navigate the politics of being catapulted in a world he doesn’t know with a demon he must come to terms with. As usual with Bujold, the characters are the main attraction. Here there are only two that are fully fleshed out, Penric and Desdemona the demon, although the rest are interesting too.

I understand this is the first of a long series of novellas I’m very much looking forward to reading.

Thanks to Jan (janoorani24) I came across this 1891 gem: The Strand Magazine, No. 8, with a fascinating (at least to this avid reader of Georgette Heyer) article about Newmarket. There are also many short stories, including a Sherlock Holmes one, and several translated from the French. I might go back and read a few. Strangely enough, the archive.org copy does not include a table of contents. I wonder if this is a scanning issue or if that was customary at the time?

And while on archive.org, I also downloaded this book: The Man of Pleasure’s Illustrated Pocketbook for 1850. (Link is to archive.org, I doubt very much that there would be a touchstone for this one.) I don't know if I will read it but it sounded so fascinating!

I'm adding Penric's Demon to my wishlist. I didn't read the third book in the Five Gods trilogy as it seems inferior to the first two, but this one semms good.

>122 chlorine: Yes, the third book is not as good as the first two, and they are completely independent so you can safely skip it.

Penric and the Shaman
Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric and Desdemona 2

Loved this one too, though I wish those were longer. A few years have passed and Penric is now a bit wiser but still very much learning.

I'm still reading Montaigne but having some doubts as to which version is better. I compared several versions before starting and settled on the modern French translation by Guy de Pernon, but I'm not crazy about the ePub version, and I have some doubts about his translation choices, I think in some cases he modernized words that would have been perfectly understandable, at least to me.

I let the Kobo suggestion engine lure me into buying the Dictionnaire amoureux de Montaigne. Dictionnaire amoureux in a title is popular with publishers it seems, and IMO rather gimmicky, but on the other hand I liked Comte-Sponville's La philosophie, so I decided to give it a try, and of course went first to the entry "Editions (laquelle choisir)" where he gives his opinion on the different versions. He recommends reading the text in the original Middle French, with only modernized spelling and punctuation. Of course none of the versions he recommends are available electronically, and my library doesn't have them either, so for the first time in ages I bought a paper book:



I'm not so sure it will be better than the ebook version I've been reading. The typography is weird, with sections of text appearing in a condensed font for no apparent reason, which is distracting and annoying. And I was not happy with how notes are handled in the ebook version, but on paper it's even worse, the end notes are numbered according to the page number in the main text. At least this is indeed the original text with modern spelling, and when required the meaning is clarified in footnotes. There are a lot of footnotes so the reading is not as fluid as with the translation, but maybe I will get used to it? Or maybe I will get back to de Pernon's version.

And I'm also slowly making my way through Moby Dick, and finding it a surprise on many levels. I know I tried to read it years ago and gave up, but it turns out my recollection of it was completely wrong, and why am I surprised, I can't remember the books I read last month…

The first surprise was the language, which felt really difficult at first, and for probably the first time since I've started reading in English, I wondered if I should have picked up a translation instead. One with notes, to help clarify the gazillion biblical references. I even downloaded the King James Bible, thinking it might be fun to refer to the original stories occasionally. But I soon reverted to my usual reading style, which is to just keep reading as long as I'm enjoying it, and trust that I'm getting the general sense.

And enjoying it I am, which is another surprise. I didn't expect this to be fun! And funny too! I do wish my version had a few notes, but on the other hand notes might just slow me down and take away some of the fun. I suppose this kind of book could be read twice, one for the fun and once more with notes. I'm not sure I'll go that far, but I do have Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby Dick lined up on my reader for after.

>126 FlorenceArt: Moby-Dick is difficult enough for a native English speaker. When I am reading French and find my vocabulary is not up to the task I now just keep on going. I think it is the best as there is no point in looking up a lot of obscure words that you are never going to need to know again.

>127 baswood: I agree. When I was reading Zola that’s what I did. Unfortunately with lack of practice I can no longer read French. I tried learning Spanish as there’s ample opportunity to converse in it in New York. But unfortunately what has happened to my aging brain, so that I start speaking in a Spanish-French-Italian mix, with sometimes a little Bahasa Indonesian thrown in. People will look at me in askance. So I am now stuck in English.

>128 kjuliff: That's interesting about the languages we use. When I lived in Europe, I knew a little of several languages. I once confused a Belgian policeman when I asked directions in a little bit of Italian, French, German, and Japanese. I just chose whatever word I knew that wasn't English. I was holding up traffic and didn't take the time to prepare what I needed to say.

>129 janoorani24: That made me laugh. I bet the Japanese words threw him. I’m given really blank looks with the Indonesian words I sometimes use. I actually think in those words and I realise that’s why I use them.

In Indonesian a word can be doubled instead of using the equivalent of “very”. So pagi pagi can mean “very early in the morning”. Sometimes I will use that technique in Spanish, and it’s often understood, such as mañana mañana

Mixing Spanish and English to be understood, so that for example Dame le book can sometimes work.

Now I’m finding that I’m getting ads in Spanish on my iPad though I never read in Spanish - I just do occasional Spanish lessons. So now my screen is a mix.

>129 janoorani24: Hahaha I think ive done the same; a little Spanish a little Italian a little Hebrew. What could go wrong!

Fun with foreign languages! It’s been a while since I’ve had any practice with anything other than English, but I want to read some German books soon.

I finally figured out that it was stupid to keep paying 12€ a month for a Disney+ subscription and not watching The Orville, which is the only reason I’m subscribing. So I finally watched the last two episodes and terminated the subscription.

I enjoyed this series. I was often annoyed at the high level of unbelievably, but on the other hand I liked the humor, and the fact that the ship was full of imperfect and often blundering people. The last episode was very funny.

And now I can concentrate on Star Trek Discovery and Babylon 5. Given that I watch about one episode of either one every couple of weeks, that’s going to take some time.

Attachements
Alice Bienassis

I found this graphic book on the table at the library where they showcase recommended works. I was first drawn to the artwork, which is beautiful, and then intrigued by the subject: shibari. This is a form of rope bondage that initially came from Japan.

The book is structured in four chapters, the first three containing a story told in the first person by a different practitioner (the first being the author herself). All of them deal with the questions raised by a practice that by definition entails one person being tied by another, questions of power, dominance, trust, consent, and the possibility (reality in some cases) of rape. The fourth chapter is based on an article by Midori, a shibari artist, that outlines the history of shibari in Japan, which turns out to be quite different to the foundational myth in vogue in the western world. The article is here and I haven’t finished reading it yet:
Japanese Bondage - The History & Myths

Looking for more info on the web, I found this interesting article:
Shibari, or rope bondage, can bring pleasure, pain, connection, and sometimes major surprises

Regarding foreign languages, I think that when my brain is in foreign language mode, it will default to a different foreign language when it gets stuck, rather than defaulting to English, which in some cases would work better than whatever other language I throw in.

Hi! I am enjoying the discussion on foreign languages :-) My grandchild is being brought up in English and French. She's still at the stage where she mixes both languages when she needs to. It's interesting to see which language she chooses for which thing/concept: for example, she uses English words for rice, raisins, paper, phone, boob, and French words for bread ("pain", usually pronounced with a South-Western accent because that's where she's been living for the last few months), rabbit, car, hide...

>125 FlorenceArt: Interested in your experience because I am planning on reading Montaigne's Essais later this year.

>135 Dilara86: its suprising how early kids get good at figuring out what language to use when and whom to use it with. fun to watch and listen

>136 cindydavid4: Definitely!

>135 Dilara86: I’m stumbling a little with Montaigne right now, but I will probably continue with Pernon’s translation, as imperfect as it may be. At least it’s an ebook.

Arte (the public French-German Tv channel) has a retrospective of Yasujiro Ozu's films, and I watched two of them last weekend. Late Spring (Printemps tardif) tells the story of a young woman trying to resist the pressure to marry. Tokyo Story (Le Voyage à Tokyo) is about an elderly couple visiting their children in the capital, and finding there is not much room for them in the children's lives. Both films have almost exactly the same set of actors, whom Ozu apparently kept reusing. Both are rather melancholy but beautiful. The fist one is a reminder of what it must have been like to be a woman in a world where the only possible life was to be unpaid labor for a man. The retrospective is on replay until the end of this month, so I might watch another one or two.

I read a strange short story by Balzac because it was mentioned in the catalog of the Gilles Aillaud exhibition I mentioned in >102 FlorenceArt:. Une passion dans le désert is the weird story of a passion between a soldier of Napoleon lost in the desert and... a leopard.

Finished the third Penric novella, Penric's Fox, just as delicious as the first two. I must pace myself if I don't want to get to the last published one too soon.

I really enjoyed reading Balzac last year. Is that one available in english?

>140 cindydavid4: Yes, A Passion in the Desert. It’s on Gutenberg do it must be easy to find in electronic form.

I liked Balzac’s “romantic” novels. I hated his realistic ones. This reminds me that I should try to read him again.

rhanks for that Not sure which I read, just remember laughing through most of the books!

>142 cindydavid4: Really? I didn’t read many but I don’t remember laughing. I’m intrigued!

Delurking to say hi Florence,

>144 markon: Hi Ardene, thanks for saying hi 😉

>134 labfs39: I grew up taking French (including my elementary years in a French immersion program) and so when we moved to Germany and I started learning German, I spoke with a French accent, which my husband found hilarious. Later, I found I had lost my ability to speak French without a lot of mental preparation as German would emerge when I tried.

>136 cindydavid4: When my daughter was maybe five, I took her to the pediatrician and it was fun to hear her speak to me in English and the doctor in German without even thinking about it.

>143 FlorenceArt: oh man, I didn't write them in my journal! one was a collection of short stories that I remember. Lemme see if I can find last years thread

Catching up, and enjoying the diverse experiences of dealing with foreign languages. Lots of things I can identify with! I went through all the bilingual childhood stuff myself, and I have watched friends’ children coping happily with parents who speak two different languages neither of which is the one that the kids speak at school and with their friends. Somehow it always sorts itself out. I was amused that my niece as a small child, raised in an almost entirely English speaking environment, still picked up and started using some of the German words her grandmother would absent mindedly come out with. Said niece is now living in Germany with a German partner…

>148 thorold: The only bits of foreign language I picked up were from my grandmother on one side (Italian) and a great-aunt on the other (Spanish). In Italian, I mostly just learned a silly song, how to call someone stubborn/ridiculous, and how to say "eat! eat everything!". In Spanish I learned the word for fleas (she was a crazy cat lady) and how to cuss about them, and how to tell people to open/close the windows, turn on/off the lights, etc. I took Spanish in high school and was amused to learn that I'd only ever heard the imperative of any verb before. ;)

>149 ursula: I'd only ever heard the imperative of any verb before
That's funny!

Learned Hebrew first in sunday and Hebrew school (afterschool classes) pretty basic stuff but most of it was preparing for my bat mizvah so not actually useful for daily conversaton. Surprised tho how many words I know that I will somehow substitute when I am trying to speak spanish. Wish I knew more; I was on a Kibbutz for 6 months and was getting better but it didnt stick. Did learn lots of Yiddish from my parents trying not to let us hear them.

>149 ursula: 🤣

>151 cindydavid4: Did learn lots of Yiddish from my parents trying not to let us hear us 🤣

I think I’m through with ST Discovery. I was enjoying it very much, but they had to go and introduce a god-like entity. I’m feeling extremely annoyed at Hollywood in general right now. Well at least I can concentrate on B5 now.

I just skimmed the pages of The Man of Pleasure’s Illustrated Pocketbook for 1850. This is a fascinating book listing London's pleasures of the time, with the name, address and description of shows, casinos, pubs and prostitutes. Also features a flash dictionary, and a chapter on the symptoms and "cures" (this is the 19th century, so, um) of venereal diseases. Contrary to what we would expect today from a guidebook, there are no maps, no table of contents, and no page numbers.

Ace
Angela Chen

A good complement to The Invisible Orientation. It’s much more emotional, with insight into the personal experience of the author and numerous other aces. It’s also more political. She discusses compulsory sexuality at length, a reference to Adrienne Rich’s compulsory heterosexuality. Gave me a lot to think about.

My next step on the asexuality breadcrumb trail should be Frigidity: An Intellectual History. Although it's not about asexuality, I am drawn to the subject, but a bit taken aback by the price: 85.44 euros on Kobo! At least it's available as an ebook, but I'm wondering if it's really worth that price. In any case it will stay on my wishlist at least until I finish Making Sex, which has fallen to the bottom of the pile, again.

>104 FlorenceArt: Good to see your thoughts on this one, I'll probably read it at some point myself. I'd never really thought about it until relatively recently, but I feel I must be somewhere on the spectrum of asexuality.

>126 FlorenceArt: Just recently I came across various people talking about how funny Moby-Dick was. I'd always had it in my head that it was an ultra serious book and had been put off it, but that and your post has finally convinced me to give it a go sometime.

Glad you've found some good things in The Invisible Orientation and Ace! It's one of those subjects where even if asexuality hasn't impacted us too much in our lives it's always nice to fill in a piece of the puzzle of the self.

>157 valkyrdeath: I must have had the same preconceived notions about Moby Dick, because I apparently missed the humor completely the first time round! And yet it’s there, both in some situations described and in the writing itself.

>158 mabith: Exactly!

Finally finished Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (which I read in French: La fabrique du sexe, translated by Michel Gautier - or is it Pierre-Emmmanuel Dauzat? The book is not clear but whoever he is, he did a pretty good job I think).

As explained in >73 FlorenceArt: above, the book's thesis is that the view of sex in the Western world underwent a major reversal, from the idea that sexual differences were fluid and females were an inferior version of males (not hot enough, basically), to the conviction that the sexes are essentially different. In the first view, sex differences are on a continuum, and it's not particularly shocking to see a girl turning into a boy. In the second view, sex is binary and the differences between sexes are grounded in the male and female essence. The first view was prevalent in antiquity and the middle ages, and the second view is the one that still shapes our prejudices.

The first part, about the era of the one-sex model (roughly from Greek antiquity to the Renaissance), felt interesting albeit a bit too long. On the other hand the part about the two-sex model felt too short and rather confusing. It started well by explaining how the old model became unsustainable due to the new imperative of explaining social facts scientifically. Something similar happened with race.

Aristotle and the others did not need to justify the inferior social status of women. It was self-evident and ordained by God or Nature. It didn't matter much whether the vagina really looked like an inverted penis or the uterus like an internal scrotum. The similarity was necessary to the higher order of things. The inferiority of women was a given, and the explanation was that they were too cold and humid to be proper males. But when a girl suddenly grew testicles as a result of jumping over a fire, it was notable but not that unexpected.

However, things changed when enlightenment came along and it was decided that all men were created equal. And women? If they were just like men with a vagina instead of a penis, how to explain that they did not have the same rights or the same place in society? They had to be essentially different, of course. And so, just like men before them had ignored obvious anatomical differences because they didn't fit into their model, modern men constructed another model of sex and then found "facts" to suit it.

Even feminists did, and some still do, fall into this essentialist trap and explained, for instance, that the qualities peculiar to the "fair sex" made them as well or better fitted for public life than men. And that if women ruled the world, it would be a more peaceful and nurturing place. Yeah, right.

So far, so good, but after this introduction the book lost me. I was confused and didn't really understand what Laqueur was trying to say. And the last chapter about Freud(*), all I can say is: WTF? Although I did learn something interesting: before Freud, nobody ever thought that the female orgasm was caused by anything else than the clitoris. This had been established since centuries, both in medical and erotic literature. Freud simply invented the vaginal orgasm, and as with everything else he invented, he didn't have a shred of proof. But, somehow, that's all right, because what he really meant to say was that women were socially forced to move the organ of their sexual pleasure for the higher purpose of reproduction? I haven't read enough Freud to have any idea how close this is to what he actually wrote, but I can only repeat: WTF? Sounds to me like Laqueur is desperately trying to save Freud's status as "a great mind". Pfah.

All in all, a very interesting read, and I fully agree with the author's conclusion that "the discourse on sex differences ignores the burden of facts and remains as free as a pure mind game" (probably not quite what the author wrote, as this is my own clumsy translation from the French translation).

(*) According to Freud, young clitoral girls mature into vaginal women.

>160 FlorenceArt:

I often cuss about Freud too, but I think he did do some great things, like the theory of the un(sub)conscious, or recognising that sexuality plays a role from the earliest development. Did a bad turn to women, though.

before Freud, nobody ever thought that the female orgasm was caused by anything else than the clitoris. This had been established since centuries, both in medical and erotic literature.

Yes, this is very strange especially regarding porn (old medicine is after all as much or more talk than experience). But porn, historically, from folk stories to Victorian smut, is based on people's actual activities and knowledge. And it's true that the clitoris and the importance of clitoral arousal is all over that lit. (It can get hyperbolic, with some ladies "super-endowed" to the point of almost having penises.) Of course they didn't know what we didn't know until very recently, which is just how large the area of the clitoris is, but the basic idea that stimulating the clitoris is what brings women to orgasm was apparently no news at all. Except to Freud.

young clitoral girls mature into vaginal women.

Reflecting the notion of homosexuality as "arrested development"... all the more disappointing as Freud embraced the idea of a basic "bisexuality" to human beings and could have done a lot to normalize homosexuality.

if women ruled the world, it would be a more peaceful and nurturing place. Yeah, right.

Well, first, we don't know what would happen because women have never ruled the world. However, I'd go further and argue that the world WOULD be a more peaceful and nurturing place if women ruled, because of the pre-conditions that would need to be filled before this happened. Men* would need to cease to exist, and if men ceased to exist, we would instantly see the end to current warfare all over the planet, the end to the vast majority of violence committed, a disruption (probably lasting) of class exploitation, a disruption (possibly lasting) of the destruction of ecology.

Of course, there would be many horrific outcomes for many of the remaining women immediately after--disruption to all the chains of production of necessities and maintenance of infrastructure, but nothing that couldn't be brought under control (the worst off would be women in places like Saudi Arabia, with no presence at all in industry nor the education necessary to step into positions occupied by male workers).

But this material hardship would likely only contribute to make women MORE peaceful and nurturing. For one thing, why would Russian women want to keep up a war on Ukrainian women? Who'd give a fuck about whether Crimea is Russian or Ukrainian? Who'd give a fuck about NATO? Why would Israeli women oppress women in Gaza? And if they're struggling to keep electricity and water running and to secure food production, there's all the more reason to cooperate to solve problems.

*I say men, but it's "men as we know them", men as we raise and allow to be NOW. Essentialism is bollocks, men are garbage because we currently raise them to be garbage, but as the problem is so vast and ubiquitous, there is no point in Not-All-Mening.

>161 LolaWalser: The problem with Freud's lies is that, if they have been thoroughly disavowed in the scientific world (except, unfortunately, in France), they are still very much alive in popular culture. In practically every heterosexual sex scene I have read in romance, the act is not complete, or completely satisfying, until a penis has entered a vagina. Even in F2F sex, something has to enter a vagina. This always puzzles me. As an outside observer 😉

"But this material hardship would likely only contribute to make women MORE peaceful and nurturing."
I don't see how that follows. Cooperation would of course happen, but it does not preclude conflict. And frankly, as a slightly non-conforming and not very social person, the idea of being dependent on a small community for survival is enough to give me nightmares. It would be nurturing, yes, for some or even most, but might be deadly for others.

>162 FlorenceArt:

Freud's lies

I think this is a bit strong, Freud didn't, as far as I know, consciously lie about anything, but it's true that his theories, due to the very nature of their subject --the psyche, the unconscious, memories etc.--incorporated a lot of sheer speculation. I'm by no means expert, so I did find useful in understanding why Freud persists (despite the shortcomings people have been aware of for a very long time), a few books, like Anthony Storr's Freud: A Very Short Introduction and, in a roundabout way, Janet Malcolm's In the Freud archives. The latter especially drives home the everlasting potency of Freud's imagination and literary metaphors, how they can and do energize people's understanding of themselves, why Freudian therapists still exist (even if "modified").

I say this as someone fascinated by psychoanalysis but who hasn't undergone it personally.

still very much alive in popular culture

Yeah, a similar thing drives me up the wall regarding the bollocks of evo-psych: daily I swim in science refuting it, and daily I hear echoes of nonsense spread online, unabating. However, speaking of hetero romance, as far as I can presume to, I think there is a good reason for the ubiquity of PiV sex as the "crowning" and seal of consummation--that's just what we are used to, and very many heterosexual (as well as a good many homosexual) women genuinely enjoy penetration, even if it doesn't in itself get them off. Actually, so do some men... it helps not to think of penetration as something strictly "penis does to vagina", but something all kinds of people are documented to enjoy, in various orifices of the body.

Then there's the prosaic reason that many people read a genre like romance FOR the formula and want all the ingredients. Are you reading mostly "mainstream" imprints or authors? That may be why the representations of sex seem monotonous.

Cooperation would of course happen, but it does not preclude conflict. And frankly, as a slightly non-conforming and not very social person, the idea of being dependent on a small community for survival is enough to give me nightmares.

But why "small" community? Granted that my thought experiment was barely sketched out to make a quick point... of the almost 8 billion people in the world today, almost half are women--by no means a "small" community globally, nor would it necessarily be small everywhere locally. Yes, even the thought experiment must allow for many women dying in the aftermath of such a (totally impossible) instant "deletion" of men, but by no means would a majority die off. The majority of women globally are poor rural and semi-urban dwellers, who'd barely notice a change in their routines and work. And women in the urban centres in the West would still have the advantage of media to connect and organize. Do you think there aren't enough savvy women in Paris who could take over the daily running of the city? :)

As for cooperation vs. conflict, women are human with all the human failings so yeah, there'd be conflicts and all sorts of misery as usual. But not to the usual scale, nor with the usual consequences. It's not women's aggression, greed, cruelty etc. fueling the current wars, and nothing from what we know about women says they would continue the warfare and politics currently led by men.

Saint Death’s Daughter
C. S. E. Cooney
Saint Death 1

Unfortunately this is a series of one so far. I guess it will have to be enough for now, but I do fervently hope there will be a second book. I enjoyed this one immensely. The characters are wonderful, the world building is amazing, and the story was rich but not too complex for me to follow (I’m no good at complex plots). The writing was sometimes on the brink of being too ornate for my taste, but that’s really a very small flaw, if any. Highly recommended.

>163 LolaWalser: Freud didn’t, as far as I know, consciously lie about anything, but it’s true that his theories, due to the very nature of their subject —the psyche, the unconscious, memories etc.—incorporated a lot of sheer speculation.

True, I'm sure he believed it all, although he did lie about many things. I don't know how much of his ideas remain today in scientific psychology. As I understand it, and I am no expert either, it is indeed an accepted fact that a lot of our mental processes are unconscious, but it's a far cry from his three-tier model of the psyche, which I believe does not match at all our current understanding of how our minds work. Also, I believe that psychoanalysis has helped many people, but it has also done a lot of damage, in France particularly. Unfortunately the state of mental health care in France is catastrophic (nothing to do with Freud of course, and much to do with money or the absence of it), so it doesn't help that it is still under the influence of totally debunked idea, such as the "mères frigidaire" being responsible for autism or schizophrenia, to the point where it can be almost impossible to get effective help in some cases.

>165 FlorenceArt:

Yikes! How odd, I thought French psychoanalysis was way more advanced.

>163 LolaWalser: Are you reading mostly "mainstream" imprints or authors? That may be why the representations of sex seem monotonous.

I find my romance on Kobo, so mainstream I guess, though some are self-published. A friend tried to sell me both Good Omens, the series, and the fanfic, but I’m not crazy about the idea of writing around existing works, I’d rather read original stuff. If you have suggestions, I’m interested!

I watched two more Ozu films last week: Ohayō / Bonjour / Good Morning and Sanma no aji / An Autumn Afternoon / Le goût du saké. The more of his films I see, the more they seem alike, and the more they grow on me. He manages to take the same story, more or less, with the same actors and the same settings, and yet to make it seem infinitely rich instead of repetitive. Possibly you need at least some familiarity with Japanese culture to appreciate them. I certainly don't remember liking Le goût du saké this much when I first saw it, years and years ago. But then I was years and years younger.

>167 FlorenceArt:

For romance or sexy stuff, sorry, not really, I would suggest searching on tagmashes or something, or maybe looking at "best of" lists. In general I'd pick queer authors for authenticity, when it comes to non-heterosexual situations. Speaking of, there is one recommendation I'm always happy to make, if you haven't read it already, and that's Alison Bechdel's Dykes to watch out for series. It's neither romance or smut per se, but as a candid and realistic depiction of queer (mostly lesbian) lives it has no peer in any kind of medium. It's also a fantastic piece of social, political, cultural commentary, a historical testament (Bechdel stopped writing it over a decade ago, alas) and just a fun comic too. Candid and realistic: characters are drawn nude and having sex, and by no means is everyone "perfect" nor is it showcased for male gaze. Fat menopausal women, chubby men, butches with shaved heads, lipstick lesbians, dowdy people and stylish people, shy people and feisty sex-toy loving people... just about anyone is having sex in those pages. That said, it occurs to me that I don't recall asexuality coming up... which, if true (could be just me), might just reflect the ignorance of the times.

Good Omens--if it's about Pratchett's and Gaiman's book, there isn't sex in it? I loved the book and the TV series based on it. The TV series makes the relationship between the angel and the demon very shippy but it's nothing explicitly sexual. I don't read fanfic, well not since over twenty years ago, when I came across the term. Mind was blown... for various reasons. People are sick! Some in a good way, and some are just sick! :)

>169 LolaWalser: I bought Dykes to Watch Out For recently after seeing it mentioned several times here, by you and probably others? Anyway it does sound good, I have started reading a few pages. I don’t think there is sex in Good Omens, but there is in the fanfic. I’m not looking for sex particularly though. I don’t mind it but it’s romance I’m after.

>170 FlorenceArt:

Aw, reading DTWOF for the first time, so cool! Makes me want to take out my volumes too! If you are reading from the very start, note that the art is a bit rough for the first couple installments, but then Bechdel quickly settles into a beautiful ligne claire style (she not only loved Tintin, there are references to Hergé in various things, even Mo's hairstyle (Mo is Bechdel's avatar in the strip). One of the anthologies of the strip did inner covers in Tintin's style, with notable objects from the stories... they are hilarious!

Masquerade in Lodi
Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric and Desdemona 4

A few years have passed and Penric is now in another town, after a traumatic incident that is only hinted at. This book is more melancholy than the previous ones, and just as good.

I watched one more Ozu film on Arte (probably the last one as they won't be available for much longer): Akibiyori (Fin d'automne/Late Autumn). Still more of the same, still as engaging.

I also finished one of the fanfics recommended by my friend: Big Name Feelings. I enjoyed it even if the author doesn't always seem to understand the meaning of the words he uses😊. The characters were maybe a tad too perfect, but utterly lovable. I liked how much of the story is told through online chats.

Get A Life, Chloe Brown
Talia Hibbert
Brown Sisters 1

Typical romance, very funny.

The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction
Martin Bunton

I’ve been trying to clean up my "supposed to be reading" pile, and so finally finished this one. Turns out I had read everything but the conclusion, which is depressing. The book is about 10 years out of date, but the conclusion is already pessimistic, and things have gotten worse since.

I have decided to restart Metamorphoses from the beginning, because reading it in small and far apart bits did not work. It's not a series of unrelated stories, but rather the end of each story morphs into the beginning of the next one, like a game of cadavres exquis. I will try to concentrate on it more this time. I think I'm getting more out of it the second time for some reason. Maybe because the unusual style of the translation has grown on me. Also I'm enjoying looking up the back stories in the Dictionnaire de la mythologie gréco-romaine (that hasn't changed).

I think I have decided on a way to read Montaigne. I found a decent edition of the original text, though unfortunately when I sampled the translation (it's a bilingual edition), I immediately stumbled on a mistranslation. So I am keeping the translation by Guy de Pernon and referring to it in case of doubt. Turns out the original is easier to read than I feared.

>174 FlorenceArt: I found The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict to be dense but helpful in getting the historical timeline of who did what when. I'm glad you've found ways to move forward with Metamorphose and Montaigne. Sometimes it's nice to feel like we are cleaning up.

>175 labfs39: Yes, the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict was a very clear explanation of the roots of the conflict. I probably should read it again and take notes. I have left it open at the chronology. I’d like to read one of the Verso books on Palestine that I downloaded, but I need to clear more of the "reading" books first.

>174 FlorenceArt: I feel that I did’t do justice to Get A Life, Chloe Brown. It is indeed a typical 21st century romance but very well done, and extremely funny. It’s free of the 20th century gender stereotypes, and the woke stereotypes are kept to a minimum. The protagonists are both believable and utterly likable. I look forward to reading the other two books in the trilogy.

Bears Behaving Badly
MaryJanice Davidson
Bewere My Heart 1

Years ago I read several books in Davidson’s Queen Betsy series. They were very funny but after a while I stopped reading them, I didn’t like the direction the series seemed to be taking.

This one is very different from what I remember of Queen Betsy, but it was also very funny. The dialogues are hilarious and they are the best thing in this book. Not that the story is bad, it’s just not that important to me. The cast of characters is rich and likable. An enjoyable read.

Le Dernier vœu (The Last Wish)
Andrzej Sapkowski
Sorceleur (Witcher) 1

Original title: Ostatnie Zyczenie
Translated from Polish to French by Laurence Dyèvre

I had never heard of the Witcher video game (I’m not much of a gamer), but I did watch the first season of the Netflix series and a few episodes of the second, before I grew tired of it. Then I stumbled upon the book (probably via the Kobo recommendation engine) and decided to give it a try.

I liked it. The written format is much more comfortable for me than the hectic pace and special effect orgy of the series (I had no idea what was going on 80% of the time), despite the fact that it feels weird to read fantasy in French, something I haven’t done in decades. The translation is a bit awkward but readable. My reading was of course influenced by the Netflix interpretation, but I didn’t find it a problem as they didn’t really clash.

I think i will read the next book at some point, but maybe I should try the English translation? Maybe it’s better than the French?

This week was special, as we had two consecutive holidays in France: Wednesday was the anniversary of the WWII armistice, and Thursday was Ascension day. Unlike many people, I worked on Friday. But on Wednesday I visited the Fondation Vuitton and the two exhibitions there. The single room featuring Matisse’s Atelier rouge painting was OK but overcrowded. I love Matisse but the paintings shown, which are the paintings represented in the painting of his workshop, didn’t feel interesting enough to stay more than a few minutes.

I knew nothing about Ellsworth Kelly before visiting the other exhibition, except for vaguely recognizing the name. I was expecting bright colors, and they were definitely there. In fact his paintings consist only of flat colored surfaces organize in very simple geometric patterns. I liked them but they felt a bit too intellectual to me. I much preferred his drawings and photos, and was disappointed there were so few.

The most interesting part of this visit was the auditorium, which is not usually accessible, at least I had never seen it. Kelly made several huge paintings that integrate within the architecture of the room, and the two work perfectly together.

I’ve been binge reading Penric and Desdemona during this holiday week. Love this series.

Penric’s Mission
Mira’s Last Dance
The Prisoner of Limnos

These three make up a single story arc and they are very short, so it made sense to read them back to back. I didn’t have to immediately start on the next one, The Orphans of Raspay, but I did anyway 😊

Oh, and the swifts have arrived. And there were several duck families on the canal, which I visited on Thursday.

It sounds like a lovely week, Florence.

Chiming in to say I also loved the Good Omens series. I loved the romance, especially in the second season. I think it was the same friend as you who enticed me into watching it. :)
I also read a bit of fanfic that she sent me, which was nice but I was frustrated by the very short length.

>182 labfs39: It is, and I forgot to mention that we are having wonderful weather at last!

>183 chlorine: I finally managed to watch the first episode. It was nice, I guess. I’m trying to fight the strong urge to not like it because it was so forcefully recommended ☺️

>184 FlorenceArt: The first season is IMO inferior to the second so maybe you finding it only OK comes from the fact that it's really not that terrific. :)

>185 chlorine: OK, I’ll keep that in mind!

Yesterday I tried watching episode 2 of Good Omens, and about one third in, I realized I was sitting there on my sofa on a Sunday night, watching something I didn't want to watch. So I stopped. Also I think I understood why I dislike it: I can't stand humor that relies on putting people in embarrassing situations. And I'm not that interested in Armageddon, botched or not. I have enough of our small world ending right here and now.

In the meantime I finished The Orphans of Raspay (a slight disappointment after the wonderful romance arc of the three previous Penric books), and started The Hands of the Emperor.

My reader is acting up and I'm getting nervous. It won't charge!

>179 FlorenceArt: There was a recent exhibition of Kelly's work at SLAM (St. Louis Art Museum), that I really liked. Those blocks of pure color are hard to look away from.

>188 RidgewayGirl: My reaction was more mixed, but come to think of it, I didn’t zip through the exhibit either, as I might have thought given that they are simple geometric flat color shapes.

>189 FlorenceArt: My shallow take on Kelly—his paintings made awesome postage stamps. I still have a few left and they always make me happy to use—I rarely buy two panes of any stamp releases, but I kind of wish I had more of those.

>190 lisapeet: Very nice stamps! The second one (from the top left) is my favorite, and also represents the paintings (or groups of paintings) that I liked best in the exhibition.

ETA: this is the installation I’m talking about:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw0rMNTMdVY/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=Mz...

The Hands of the Emperor
Victoria Goddard

I’m feeling a little sad to have to leave Kip and the emperor already. This is supposed to be a doorstopper (hard to judge with ebooks, and anyway I would NEVER stop a door with my Kobo!) but I didn’t really notice, I read it in a few days.

It’s not perfect but it really worked for me. The not perfect aspects are the slightly too perfect(!) characters (especially the villains), and the political reforms sound maybe a bit to easy, but then this is an unrealistic setting (talk about an enlightened despot!). I love the world building and how the larger history is hinted at with many blanks to fill (room for more books!) while giving a very lifelike picture.

I intend to read her other books, including a re-read of Greenwing and Dart which I loved too (and I just found out that I didn’t read the last book, and there are also a couple of short stories I think). I think the next one will be The Return of Fitzroy Angursell.

Isn’t it annoying when the touchstone keeps coming up with a title that is completely different from the one you typed?

Thornbound
Stephanie Burgis
The Harwood Spellbook 2

OK I guess. To tell the truth I hesitated to finish it, maybe because it was such a letdown after Victoria Goddard. And probably there is nothing really wrong with it, it’s just not the kind of light/comfort read I like. Too much drama and tension, not enough romance.

>187 FlorenceArt: the good omens is not for everyone. for me, loving fantasy brit humor and satire of human society,it was right up my alley I loved the first book. The second of the series had some difficult parts but thought the ending was a wonderful if frustrating cliff hanger; Ill be waiting another year for the next one! I do think Sheen and Tenant are brilliant. In fact im now watching "80 days around the world" with the latter as phineas fogg. Oh this is good!

>194 cindydavid4: Yes, the actors are great.

>194 cindydavid4: I stumbled upon and read the book (Good Omens) last year. At the very beginning I wasn't sure about it, almost gave up, but then decided to go along with it. I presume I was searching about the book and then found that the second season of the tv show was about to premiere. After I finished the book... I devoured the first season and loved it. To the point that I was falling asleep with the theme song stuck in my head. The second season, since it was a new story... I still enjoyed but not quite like the first one. Yes, the ending and cliff hanger were something!

I had no idea about the show "80 days around the world"! Just checked the trailer and seems like something I'd want to watch now, thank you! :)

>196 dicentra8: I liked the book Good Omens, but not as much as either Pratchett’s or Gaiman’s best.

they wrote that early in their writing careers and I agree their separate work surpasses it. but I love the fact that neil and sir terry had a plan to continue it and that Neil is now wriing the next show with sir terrys posthumous help.

>198 cindydavid4: Oh, I didn’t know that!

The Physicians of Vilnoc
Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric and Desdemona 9

Still love this series. Getting dangerously close to the last published book in it, I think there are only two remaining.

Yesterday I read a quick, quirky and fun short story from Reactor Mag (formerly tor.com):
The Three O'Clock Dragon by John Wiswell.

Also yesterday I bought another paper copy of Montaigne's Essays. I do hope this will be the right one, given the price: it's the Pléïades edition (82 euros!). It has the original text with no modernization whatsoever, but I think I can get used to that. And it has a LOT of notes and a complex system to identify them: capital letters are footnotes for translating difficult words or expressions, small letters are for variants (not interested) and numbers are for other end notes. Whew. I hope this will help me get past my current block, I've been stuck reading and rereading the same chapter in different versions. I think this is the fifth version I have actually bought, not counting all the free ones I tried.




And since I was in an actual bookshop, I also bought Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book (Notes de chevet). It's a bit strange for such a classic but there is only one French translation currently available, and it's not available as an ebook, except for a smaller book that is a shortened version.

I feel you re Montaigne: I am in a similar situation right now. I spent some time in Gibert looking at what was on offer, thinking I might find the Quadrige academic version (I couldn't find it) or maybe a second-hand Pléiade (I like its "seriousness" but I hate its tiny fonts and transparent paper), which they didn't have either. They had the biblio versions with and without the Michel Onfray preface - risky because they were wrapped in plastic so I couldn't check the text inside and I was never going to buy a book that had Onfray on the cover anyway... In the end, I got the Pocket modernised spelling version. It said "Texte intégral" on the front and back cover. And what do you know, it *doesn't* contain all the essays! I've decided to stick with it but I am stalling right now...

I’m not crazy about the old fashioned font of the Pléïades, but in this case it goes well with the text, and it’s less distracting than I thought. I don’t mind the thin paper, I quite like it actually. What I don’t like is the new car smell!

I bought the biblio version despite the Onfray preface, but I didn’t trust its translation for no good reason, I think it was the absence of notes, and also… Onfray!

The Folio classique is OK if you can stand the font changes, but it really annoyed me.

>200 FlorenceArt:

Two faves in one post!

So are you reading the essays from the beginning?

>203 LolaWalser: Yes, I am. At first I bought two essays in a volume for high school students, with lots of comments: Essais: Des cannibales, Des coches. I don't remember why I bought this, but I was surprised to find Montaigne so modern and so easy to read, so I decided to read them all from the beginning.

Archangel’s Lineage
Nalini Singh
Guild Hunter 16

The Guild Hunter series is not my favorite of Singh’s, but this was still an enjoyable quick read. I do think that the books are a bit too heavy on pathos. I’m glad I have so many books by Victoria Goddard to read yet, she has a much lighter touch.

>204 FlorenceArt:

I'm tempted to join you. I have read through complete essays only once. More for some individual ones and Raymond Sebond's apology. But there's a book about M and his heart's pal La Boétie I should probably read sooner...

The Return of Fitzroy Angursell
Victoria Goddard

I read this hot on the heels of The Hands of the Emperor, and I was a little taken aback at first by the sudden change of character and tone from Kip to Fitzroy. Also this is the first of Goddard’s books that I read written in the first person. But she is still the same Victoria, and I love her characters and the delicate way she tells their stories.

Tor.com: Summer 2023 Short Fiction

It took me so long to finish this book that I had completely forgotten the first stories, to the point that I re-read the first one, thinking that I had somehow skipped it. So nothing really memorable here, but the ones I remember for recency were OK. Maybe slightly better than OK for The Three O’clock Dragon.

The Assassins of Thasalon
Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric & Desdemona series, not sure what number

Another delightful adventure of Learned Penric and his demon Desdemona.

I doubt I will manage to finish The Enchanted April. It came recommended by many and I expected to like it, but it's not what I expected. But that would still be OK except for this one character who is so crazily unbelievable, I can't get past that. I suppose I am meant to take it as humorous hyperbole, but it just doesn't work for me.

>200 FlorenceArt: The Pléiade edition of Les essais happens to be co-edited by my uncle and my aunt. :) I hope this is the right one for you. I'm not vouching for it though as I haven't read it or any of Montaigne's work. My uncle and aunt were the literary ones in the family whereas my father, their brother, was the scientific one and I take after him: though I love reading, Montaigne feels too literary for me.

>209 chlorine: Wow, really? That’s impressive!

Montaigne is not as hard to read as you might think, you know 😉

Take a Hint, Dani Brown
Talia Hibbert
Brown Sisters 2

I enjoyed this book just as much as the previous one. The plot is classic romance with all the clichés you can expect (except that the usual gender stereotypes are missing, which is nice), but the dialogs are hilarious and remind me of Georgette Heyer.

Petty Treasons
Victoria Goddard
Lays of the Hearth-Fire 2

Very short book about Cliopher Mdang (Kip)’s first years as the Hands of the Emperor, from the point of view of the emperor, who is at the same time starting to fix the damaged magic of Sunidh.

I still think Kip is a little too perfect, but I can’t really hold that against him as he is (as all of Goddard’s characters are) so lovable. I love how all the books are loosely connected and each unveils some new aspects of the Nine Worlds’ history that is hinted at in the others. I hope that sentence makes sense! I look forward to all the books on the Nine Worlds I have yet to read (or, in the case of Greenwing & Dart, reread).

Tous nos corps
Géorgui Gospodinov
Translated from the Bulgarian by Marie Vrinat (no English translation?)

I downloaded this collection of very short stories (free with my kobo plus subscription) because I read several reviews of Time Shelter by the same author, but I was reluctant to commit to buying the book. I like the format of very short stories (between one and three pages), and I liked this book, but maybe not as much as I wanted to. Some of the stories were funny, although the humor didn’t always work for me. Some were poetic, and some left me indifferent. I bookmarked 8 out of 104, so not a huge success for me, but nice enough for short breaks while reading other books.

Derring-Do for Beginners
Victoria Goddard
Tales of the Red Company, either number 1 or 3 depending on how you look at it. There is a fun chart describing the reading order of the Nine Worlds books here, but I get the impression that in most cases, the reading order is not that important.

Every time I start a new Victoria Goddard book, I feel reluctant to leave the characters in the previous one I read. And every time I find myself enamoured with the new ones and reluctant to leave them at the end of the book. This time I was already acquainted with Fitzroy and Jullanar.

This short book describes how the first three members of the Red Company met and decided to go on an Adventure together. It’s not as well developed as others and especially The Hands of the Emperor, and it would have benefited from better editing to remove small mistakes such as typos or missing words. But I enjoyed it very much, and it’s exactly the type of book I need right now.

I will have to read one of her books someday, but with my current low-lever of reading I don't think it will be any time soon.

Demon Daughter
Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric and Desdemona 12

I think I have come to the last book of the series, for now. Maybe I should go back to the Vorkorsigan saga. Or there is also The Knife Children, a follow-up on the Sharing Knife.

>216 FlorenceArt: Apparently Bujold is close to finishing the 13th book in this series. :)
She said she's thinking that July may be possible for the ebook.

>217 chlorine: Oh cool! Thank you.

When I visited my mother last weekend, she had this magazine, and I read it almost cover to cover, but I still bought a copy at the train station on the way back.

7th May was my mother's 91st birthday, but also, it turns out, the 70th anniversary of the battle of Dien Bien Phu.

The colonization, and independence war, of Indochina is not something we know much about in France. It was displaced in international memory by the Vietnam war, and in French memory by the Algerian independence war. Algeria was a population colony, and the war involved conscripts, so it was much more closely felt in France.

I highly recommend this magazine. It is well written and illustrated, and I learned a lot of things, most of them horrifying. It deliberately takes the point of view of the colonized in this history, and also their descendants here in France.

>219 FlorenceArt: This sounds really interesting!

>220 chlorine: It really is! It should still be available in newstands.

Short story: The Tale of the Mother and the Hexed VCR

By Nika Murphy
Luna Station Quarterly (June 2023; issue 54)

Unfortunately this no longer seems to be available online. It was on my Pocket feed at the recommendation of Alex Brown in Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: June 2023.

This story was not at all what I expected. It was very unsettling in its depiction of the difficulties of motherhood. I can't really say I enjoyed it, but still it felt worth reading.

Short story: The Ultimate Safari
Nadine Gordimer
In 10 Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing

A story of refugees. I didn’t care much for the writing, the voice of the narrator (a little girl) felt fake. The story itself was moving and, sadly, very much relevant today.

I am now again at the place in Metamorphoses where I got so confused I decided to go back and start again from the beginning. Aaand… still confused. There are so many characters, often designated as son or grandson of each other, I can’t keep track of who’s who, and who it is Juno is pursuing this time, and why. This edition doesn’t help, there are practically no footnotes and certainly nothing to help me keep track. I do enjoy Marie Cosnay’s translation though, with its unusual mix of poetic and everyday language. I guess I’ll just have to go with the flow and stop worrying about the details. I’m usually pretty good at that. I’m at the end of book IV so quite a bit to go yet.

>126 FlorenceArt: >157 valkyrdeath: Re Moby Dick and notes: the Oxford classics paperback edition has excellent notes throughout. I tend to read notes at the end of each chapter - it doesn't interrupt the reading flow, but it keeps more obscure aspects clear.

>219 FlorenceArt: That makes sense about Algeria being more of a focus than Indochina. Sounds like a fascinating edition of the magazine.
Have you read Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (Dien Bien Phu, un coin d'enfer)?
It's been years, but it's probably something I should reexamine.

-----

As always, lots of interest here.

----- Edited to add what a spectacular garden your mother has.

>226 SassyLassy: Thanks for stopping by! Yes, the garden is wonderful. It was my father’s really. We are doing our best not to take her away from it.

Notes can be frustrating, especially if they lead to an obscure bibliographical reference instead of the explanation you need. But I’d rather have them than not.

I haven’t read Hell in a Very Small Place. It sounds interesting but I’m not really drawn to military history.

Wicche Hunt
Seana Kelly
Seawicche chronicles 2

Not much to say here, just your standard romance between a witch (sorry, wicche) and a werewolf. Reasonably enjoyable.

Short stories:

Lena
Recommended by Chlorine in the Short Fiction thread. Interesting and thought provoking.

We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read
Recommended by Alex Brown on Reactor Mag. I'm sure there is deep meaning in there, but it passed me by entirely. Maybe I should have read it in one go, it's not that long. But I interrupted my reading for no good reason, and when I took it up again I couldn't bring myself to be interested and skimmed rather than read to the end.

>229 FlorenceArt: Glad Lena got you interested!

I actually have a tab open on We will teach you how to read! I don't remember where it was recommended, probably reddit. I'll try to read it this week-end, we'll see what I think about it.

Short story:
The Magician and Laplace’s Demon
Tom Crosshill
In The Long List Anthology

Not sure what to think about this. It felt full of clichés about AI and quantum physics, but, thinking back, the treatment was different. More subtle. And the end is… deliciously ambiguous. So I like it more in retrospect than I did while reading.

>231 FlorenceArt: I usually don't like ambiguous endings so I won't rush to read this one! :)

I've often felt guilty in the past about my lack of political involvement, and wondered if it would ever come to a point where it would become morally untenable. Now it's become a question of when, not if. And frankly and don't feel at all up to the challenge.

Yesterday I bought two books: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, and Des électeurs ordinaires (a sociological study of far right voters), mentioned by Dilara. If that sounds to you like an alibi to continue living as before, you are probably right.

>233 FlorenceArt: I’m across the ocean from you, but know the feeling

I'm going to have to return Voix de femmes au moyen âge (again), but I'm planning to get back to it very soon (again). I'm making slow progress but it's a bit of a doorstopper (about 1000 pages). I am now reading Christine de Pizan, and for the first time I am enjoying the text itself better than the introduction. There are three texts by her in the book. The first one, La vision de Christine, didn't do much for me. I'm not much interested in allegories, and Christine's dialogues with France and various Virtues... well, I skipped most of it and only read the short autobiography she inserted in the middle of the book.

The second text however, Le Livre des trois vertus, is absolutely fascinating. It was written as a complement to La Cité des dames, and in fact was also published as Le Trésor de la cité des dames.

Le Livre des trois vertus is a practical manual on what it means to be a virtuous woman, depending on your rank and situation in life. The book details the duties pertaining to and dangers menacing women from princess to pauper, with special chapters on widows (this one obviously based on Christine's own bitter experience), old women and young unmarried women. Both duties and dangers are numerous. The main lesson is that women should behave according to their situation in life (including clothing, there is a rant on women who wear clothes too rich for their rank). A woman should love her husband (who was chosen by her parents), no matter how unlikable he may be, and carefully guard his and her reputation. Christine has many injunctions for women, but she also tries to give them agency by teaching them to make the best of their situation. And it's OK to have fun too, provided you do it demurely, chastely and not too loud.

This book is a fascinating look at the lives of French women in the 15th century (the book was published in 1405). And now I'm curious about La Cité des dames and hoping to get to it soon.

>235 FlorenceArt: read that ages ago and loved it. I think its time for a reread, now that my background in the time period will give me more context

>236 cindydavid4: It is really interesting !

I finished Le livre des trois vertus, so I won’t have to return the book while I’m in the middle of a text. After that is a third text by Christine de Pizan, Le Ditié de Jeanne d’Arc, and after that Les Évangiles des quenouilles, which sounds very intriguing.

I had time to read Le Ditié de Jeanne d’Arc before I returned the book, so I’m finished with the section on Christine. I have La Cité des dames on my reader, I hope it will prove to be a decent translation and edition.

City of Bones (revised edition)
Martha Wells
I had read this book when I was reading everything I found by Martha Wells, but didn’t remember much about it, so I thought it might not be as good as her others. In fact it’s more than fine. I have no idea how much she reworked it for this new edition, but I suppose the plot and the characters are the same. Khat and Elen are both very angry, and it occurred to me how much anger is a recurring theme in her books. I’m very happy to have reread this.

Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander
Victoria Goddard
A short book focusing on the journey Kip’s great uncle and teacher took to visit him in Solaara. Just what I needed, still as full of love and wonderful characters as ever.

Short story:
Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy by Xia Jia
In Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 96
From The Long List Anthology

A few short slices of ordinary lives set in a strange future where technology has even more power on people than it does today. I thought the writing felt a bit naive, or is it the translation? Or maybe it's because Chinese writing is so different from ours. It doesn't seem to follow the same rules. The author's note at the end clarifies what she was trying to do with this: show that whatever the technology is, people keep living "lives as meaningful as they're ordinary". This made me appreciate the story more.

>238 FlorenceArt: I have yet to read anything by Martha Wells that is not Murderbot. And you make me want to try Goddard more and more. :)

BTW I don't know if you've heard but it seems like the last Penric book is out.

>240 chlorine: Do try Goddard if you like Bujold! They have a lot in common I think.

Do you mean Demon Daughter? I’ve read it already 😁

Afrique subsaharienne, un continent d’histoires

I started this book during a bout of interest in African history, triggered by The Invention of Women which I read last year. It’s a collection of articles from the French magazine L’Histoire. The articles are sorted chronologically according to the historical period covered, and my interest wavered a little when we got to the colonial period, so it took me more time than it should have to finish it. They were all interesting, but I should probably read something more structured and systematic. I’m a little sad that I retained so little memory of those, but hopefully if I keep reading something will remain at length? I do have at least two books on the history of subsaharan Africa, which I should get to.

>240 chlorine: … or did you mean Penric and the Bandit? I just found out about it and bought it!

And in the meantime:

A Grave Robbery
Deanna Raybourn
Veronica Speedwell 9

I like this series but don’t love it. This one was a bit too gothic for my taste.

>243 FlorenceArt: Yes I meant Penric and the Bandit. :) Enjoy! :)

Goddard is on my wishlist so maybe I'll read a book by her sometimes in the future. :)

Penric and the Bandit
Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric and Desdemona 13

Already finished ! And just as enjoyable as the previous installments.

>245 FlorenceArt: That was quick! :)

>246 chlorine: It’s very short 😊

Two short stories today.

Aishwarya Rai by Sanjana Thakur
winner of the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (thanks Rasdhar for the link)
Not sure what to say. It's a bumpy read, but very worthwhile.

The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado
In Granta magazine
From The Long List Anthology
Very strange. I think I like it.

>248 FlorenceArt: I read something by Machado a while back but can't remember which story it was. I liked it and it made me want to read more of her work. I've downloaded this one.

Short story:
Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim in Clarkesworld Magazine

This was mentioned in the short fiction thread and I intended to read it, but it took another random link for me to finally get there. It's excellent. Thoughtful and sarcastic, it asks hard questions and nobody is spared, especially not us, the readers.

>238 FlorenceArt: Another Victoria Goddard fan! My favorites so far are A portrait of a wide sea islander and At the feet of the sun.

Following your long list anthology reading with interest.

>252 markon: I’m not sure I could point at a favorite among the Goddards I have read, although The hands of the Emperor and The Return of Fitzroy Angursell stand out a little, I think.

Just popping up to say hello. I do follow along, but don't always have something to say.

>254 labfs39: Hi Lisa! That’s OK, I guess my "reviews" are too abbreviated to inspire much comment 🙃

>255 FlorenceArt: More that I'm in a dull space at the moment and not very insightful.

Act Your Age, Eve Brown
Talia Hibbert
Brown Sister 3

Last of the Brown sisters trilogy. Just as fun as the others.

How to be a Normal Person
TJ Klune

TJ Klune has been popping up in my recommendations, but I have been ignoring him, because although I do read gay romance from time to time, my preference goes to heterosexual ones. Obviously this must change. As regards TJ Klune, I mean.

I read this because I’ve been looking at the BingoDog challenge in the category challenge group, I can already cross 9 of the 25 boxes, but I was having difficulties with the box "Topic about which you have specific knowledge". In fact I think the title originally mentioned expertise, and the only topic I have expertise on is my job, which I love, but I’m not going to read about it. So I decided to replace expertise with personal experience, and looked up asexual on LT and I found this little gem.

OK, this is emphatically NOT a literary gem. It has some serious believability issues, but then I don’t think it ever set out to be realistic. It did make me laugh to tears, and the characters are just adorable. And the Internet as a slightly unhinged life counselor was just hilarious.

>258 FlorenceArt: Ok, that sounds like a must read when I need some humor. I was surprised to enjoy House in the Cerulean Sea as much as I did when I read it for my book club. Like you say, the characters were endearing and the humor welcome (his Extremely Upper Management was a riot).

>259 labfs39: Aha, noting!

That was a fantastic show in your fair city, Florence. How are the Olympic masses treating you?

>261 LolaWalser: Yes, it was rather surprising. The Lepen tribe hated it.

I have fled the city for now and am trying to photograph roe deers in my mother’s garden.

Les mauvaises herbes (Grass in English)
Keum-Souk Kim

Not sure how I feel about this. The drawings are beautiful, maybe too beautiful for the subject, which is decidedly harsh. But I liked the story of this woman’s life, no matter how hard and ultimately sad, and also the delicate way her dialogue with the author was described. I didn’t like the last chapter, which describes a pointless search for physical traces of her slavery. But then, I also don’t see the point of visiting the site of nazi extermination camps, and many would probably disagree.

>263 FlorenceArt: It's been a while since I read this, but I wonder if the search for physical "traces" as you say, has to do with a desire to "prove" one's story, since victims can be dismissed.

>264 labfs39: It didn’t seem like it to me. In a way, the sexual slavery part of her life was the one that least needed to be recognized. Although it was far from enough, there was at least some kind of recognition. But it was only one of the many different ways in which she had been abused and victimized. in the French version, there is an afterword by a Korean historian that emphasizes this.

>263 FlorenceArt: I haven't read any graphic novels (as yet) but this one sounds tempting.

As an aside, would you say the translation of the title is apt? 'Mauvaises herbes' are weeds I thought.

>264 labfs39:. Interesting idea

>266 SassyLassy: Yes, I also wondered about the differing translations, and which one is closer to the original. My guess would be grass, though the French title is not completely at odds. It emphasizes the outspoken and rebellious streak in Oksun, which is always a selling point in France. The afterword by the author explains that weeds come back up after they've been trampled.

>266 SassyLassy: >267 FlorenceArt: The Korean title is 풀 which does translate to grass. I wonder if part of the title's meaning isn't bending without breaking. All this discussion makes me want to read it again!

>267 FlorenceArt: >268 labfs39: Thanks for the input; interesting idea of weeds coming back (all too true!) versus bending without breaking as grasses do. I guess I have to read it!

Sorry, bending without breaking is right, I just expressed it badly!

>270 FlorenceArt: I think it was I who expressed badly - bending without breaking is what grasses do. I made it sound as if they break. I understood what you were saying!

The House in the Cerulean Sea
TJ Klune
Cerulean Chronicles 1

It took me a while to get into this, but I ended up loving it. The reason for my initial reticence was that the writing felt a bit childish at first. The worldbuilding is rather ham handed (dystopian bureaucracy world where it rains all the time / paradisiac island on the cerulean see where the sun shines all the time) but it does work in the end. And as in the first TJ Klune I read, the characters are rich, believable and lovable.

>272 FlorenceArt: Lovable is the perfect word. And "Extremely Upper Management" is a hoot.

Primal Mirror
Nalini Singh
Psy-Changeling Trinity series 8

This series is still a pleasure to read. Predictable in an enjoyable way for me. Although I must say Singh seems to have a rather idealized view of children, but who am I to say, I never had any.

Thursday was a holiday, and the olympic games being on a hiatus now (before the start of the paralympics in a couple of weeks), I thought it safe to venture out and visited Centre Pompidou for the first time in ages (you’d think I didn’t have a yearly subscription 🙄).

I was a bit disappointed and disoriented at first, because the exhibitions weren’t where I was expecting them. Only one of the two special exhibition spaces at the top was open, and it housed (along with various other spaces throughout the museum) “Bande dessinée, 1964 - 2024”. Which, well. I am of the opinion that graphic novels / comic books / manga / BD, however you want to call them, are books, and I like to read books in the comfort of my home, or on trains, but not standing up in a gallery.

So I didn’t enjoy that part, and it took some effort to find the exhibitions I wanted to see, but they were worth it. Two were about wonderful artists I had never heard about, Vera Molnár and Bernard Réquichot. The third was about Hervé Di Rosa, whose work I know a little already, and I have to confess that I didn’t spend as much time in those rooms as they probably deserved.

The best surprise by far was Vera Molnár. I linked to the Pompidou page for the exhibition above, but it doesn’t do her justice, and because the photos looked so boring I almost gave in to laziness and didn’t visit. That would have been a shame. She can do amazing things with straight lines and squares. Here is an article that looks much more interesting, although I haven’t read it yet.

The Nonesuch (reread)
Georgette Heyer

Because sometimes only the familiar will do, and because Meredith reminded me of how much I like Heyer, I picked up one of her books at random. Turned out not to be one of my favorites, because there is a character that is frankly unlikable instead of being simply ridiculous, but I still enjoyed it. And it will do for the Bingo Dog “reread an old favorite” square.

A Sorceress Comes to Call
T. Kingfisher

I bought this book as soon as it was available, without trying to find out what it was about, because T. Kingfisher. I was slightly disappointed at the beginning that it seemed to be horror, not my favorite genre, and what’s more, a fantasy Regency horror. I think there is far too much Regency (or Victorian for that matter) literature around. It doesn’t stop me from reading it, but it annoys me slightly. In this case, however, the T. Kingfisher factor far outweighed the other two, and I ended up loving it. Maybe I should try more of her horror novels, which I have been avoiding so far.

Short story:
The Bonedrake's Penance by Yoon Ha Lee
Published 2014 in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue #143
From The Long List Anthology

This story doesn’t look like much at first sight, but it grew on me. A moving story, told in a sober style, that hints at a whole universe of untold histories. This is what short stories are about, for me.

Thank you for putting Vera Molnár and Bernard Réquichot on my radar: I'd never heard of them.

>279 Dilara86: Neither did I! In the case of Réquichot that may be understandable, he had a very short active period (he committed suicide days before his second exhibition). But Molnàr died last year at 99, and she was still doing art from her retirement home in Paris. I should have heard about her before.

She was planning to do NFTs, or maybe did them (still haven’t read the article!). She prepared the Beaubourg exhibition with the museum staff. It was meant to celebrate her 100th birthday.

Two short stories:
The Dishwashing Women by Tryphena L. Yeboah in Narrative Magazine (free account required)
Shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Fiction and mentioned by Rasdhar in the Short Fiction thread. The story is good but I didn't care much for the writing. Too wordy and didactic.

One Ear Left Over by Jonathan Olfert in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
A more or less random find while browsing old recommendations. Not bad.

For Real
Alexis Hall
Spires 3

More fluff! And another queer romance author that I will certainly read again. Someone at CR mentioned this author but of course I can’t remember who. I picked this book because I was curious about the kink element, and be warned that there are some detailed descriptions thereof. Apart from that it’s a very classic plot, two insecure people hurt by life find happiness in each other’s arms. Never gets old for me. The writing felt a bit plodding at the beginning but it got better (or I grew used to it?) and it has some very funny moments.

>282 FlorenceArt: Someone at CR mentioned this author but of course I can’t remember who

That happens to me too. Sometimes I can suss it out by looking at who else owns the book, other times I scroll around senselessly and still never find it!

>283 labfs39: Exactly! Lately I’ve been trying to note the name of the reviewer on the LT book, but that only works if I think of whishlisting it.

Petits Viêt-Nams
Dominique Rolland

I chanced on this book while searching for a digital copy of Indochine, 1858-1954 (which I didn’t find). There was a mention of Sainte Livrade in the magazine, and since the book was available for free as part of my Kobo subscription, I didn’t hesitate to download it, and ended up loving it.

At the end of the Indochinese war, many families, wives or concubines of French soldiers and their children, were shipped to France. They were housed in several camps, including an ex military camp near Sainte-Livrade in the Lot-et-Garonne department in the Southwest of France. This was of course meant as a temporary measure. In 2009, when this book was written, they were still there. Not all of them of course, mostly the ones that were hopelessly unassimilated, mostly old women. At the time the book was written, the camp was about to be “rehabilitated”, i.e. destroyed. The book narrates the gathering of families that was traditional over the weekend of August 15, and the stories of the people who grew up in the camp and their parents.

The author is clearly very invested emotionally, this is not a dry ethnographic report. She is herself of partial Vietnamese descent, and although she doesn’t have a personal link to the camp, she built strong connections with its people over the course of researching the book. The book is illustrated with old and new photos of the camp’s people, which on my ereader had a rather becoming grainy look.

A very interesting book on an episode of French recent history I knew nothing about, and on what it means to be Eurasian in France today.

Yesterday I met two old friends from the US, and so I got to revisit the Beaubourg exhibitions just before they close. I was happy that my friend seemed to share my enthusiasm for Vera Molnár. We had dinner at the Georges, the restaurant at the top of the museum, which I’ve always been curious about. It was hilariously over the top in its trendiness (the waiters and waitresses had incredible outfits!) and we had a lot of fun. The food was excellent and not too overpriced, considering the setting.

>285 FlorenceArt: I didn't know there still was a camp in 2009! This is shocking.

>287 Dilara86: I didn’t even know there was a camp!

>285 FlorenceArt: Very interesting. I wish it were translated. Your comment about older women who were unassimilated struck a chord. I tutored just such a woman when I lived in the Midwest, and it was sad how such an intelligent woman, successful and independent in pre-war Viet Nam, could live the rest of her life in isolation due to language and cultural barriers. Her children went on to become very successful, but she was left behind.

>289 labfs39: Life was very hard for these women. They were often living a relatively privileged life in Indochina, with maids and so on. And suddenly they were dumped in these insalubrious barracks, with no money and no support. They had to work as farm hands to make a living for the family. Non profits like the Cimade tried to help the children, sometimes by taking them away temporarily, but I get the impression the women were considered a lost cause.

>290 FlorenceArt: In Em's case, she ran a very successful textile company in pre-war Viet Nam, which then made uniforms for the US military. After a traumatic escape from the beaches, truly horrific, she ended up in the Midwest and set up a small textile business in her garage. She put all four of her children through college, but never learned to read or speak English well. She had to rely on the pictures on labels at the grocery store. Her goal was to learn enough English to be able to get a driver's license and gain a small measure of freedom.

>291 labfs39: Her goal was to learn enough English to be able to get a driver's license and gain a small measure of freedom.
And did she?

>292 Dilara86: Sadly, no. She was in her 60s when we began working together, and despite her efforts, she didn't make a lot of progress. After I left Bloomington, we kept in touch via holiday cards read by her children until she passed a few years later.

>293 labfs39: That is sad, but inevitably, the older you get, the more difficult it is to learn a new language.

At the Feet of the Sun
Victoria Goddard
Lays of the Hearth-Fire 2

I might have found this book a tad long (it is objectively long), especially the first half or so. I confess I’m not very interested in mystical journeys of self-discovery. But it got better, and better, and now that I’ve finished it I’m feeling a bit lost and sad. The story of Kip and Fitzroy is far from over, but the next book isn’t planned for a few years. I might have to make do with rereading the Greenwing and Dart series.

Harking back, it could have been my thread for the Alexis Hall. I've read and re-read a few of his this year, including For Real. It's one of his earlier books, so I think his writing from the get-go tightens up later. Though really, I notice that less because I'm mostly doing first-reads via audiobooks, as he's somehow lucked out to have fantastic readers for most of them.

>296 mabith: Good to know his writing may have improved. I will read more from him I think.

Dragon Summons
Viola Grace
Sector Guards 8

It’s been a while since I read a book by Viola Grace. It’s still pure fluff and not necessarily that well done, but I still enjoy it. And at least the woman main character seems to have a little more agency than usual. I might go back and read the beginning of the series. Her books can usually be read out of order, but she never bothers to put in a reminder of the context, so it may help to read the first. Or not, who knows.

Agent of Change
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Liaden Universe 1 (or 4, depending on who you believe)

I hadn’t heard about this series until Karen (karspeak) mentioned it. I looked it up and this book was free on the Kobo shop, in two different editions which I now both have! I must have forgotten I already had one version when I got the second one. I liked this very much and will read more of the series soon. The world building is fascinating, and I loved the different interactions and misunderstandings between species. The characters are painted with a light brush but very much alive nevertheless. I look forward to getting to know them better.

The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul
Victoria Goddard
The Red Company Reformed 2

I love how Goddard revisits the same events in different books, with a different point of view. Here the main character, as the title states, is Pali Avramapul. She is complex and a little tortured, and is finding it hard to deal with, well, everything. Especially Fitzroy Angursell.

Unfit to Print
KJ Charles

KJ Charles is one of those authors that Kobo keeps trying to sell to me whenever I buy a queer romance. I’ve been resisting, just on principle, and also because I tend to avoid Victorian romances. I don’t especially want to read a 21st century story with 21st century characters in period costume. A queer romance in Victorian England with a happy ending? Well, this one pulls it off rather believably I have to admit. A very short and enjoyable read.

A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience
Stephanie Burgis

A very short book, almost a short story. I should probably scratch Burgis from my list of authors. I liked the first book I read by her, the second was less interesting, and this one is definitely a miss.

The Game of Courts
Victoria Goddard
Another very short book, but this one was thoroughly enjoyable. I got to know Conju better, who was only marginally present in the other books I’ve read.

Wolfsong
TJ Klune
Green Creek 1

This is the third book I read by TJ Klune in a very short time, and all three were different. I expected a standard werewolf romance with this one, but it’s much darker. The writing is different too, and very effective. It has the exact combination of tension and romance that can make an addict out of me, so now of course I crave more.

Waiting for the Flood
Alexis Hall
Spires 2

Looks like I’m going backwards through this series. I liked this one as much as the previous one I read, For Real. Seems I like tortured and unlikable male characters. One of my favorites series from years ago also had one (Doctrine of Labyrinths by Sarah Monette/Katherine Addison). Anyway, I will keep reading Alexis Hall.

Conflict of Honors
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Liaden Universe 2

I liked this book a lot, though I found it to be a little less original than the first. It has some recognizable tropes from romance novels, and the romance aspect is more visible here than in the first one, where it was very discreet. None of that is bad as far as I’m concerned, but I did like the unusualness of the first one. In any case I will follow up on this series.

In the Lives of Puppets
As usual with TJ Klune, the characters were wonderful and the story was very engaging. I enjoyed it, but there were several things about the world building that I did not like. The robot world did not feel very believable, and I disliked the underlying assumptions about the role of blood and genetics in the transmission of memory. But well, it was still a nice read even if it annoyed me.

ETA: the short story at the end is excellent.

Boyfriend Material
All the blurbs of all the books I’ve seen by Alexis Hall tout him as the author of Boyfriend Material, so I thought I’d read this one next. I suppose that this was his first bestseller, but for me it was a bit of a letdown compared to the others I’ve read. Mostly because of the last part, which didn’t feel very believable. So, not my favorite although I did enjoy it.

Those Who Hold the Fire
Victoria Goddard
Lays of the Hearth-Fire 1.5 (more or less)

Forgot to mention this one which I read between >307 FlorenceArt: and >308 FlorenceArt:. Very short and, as usual, very nice although not on the level of her longer works.

The Frost Fair Affair
Tansy Rayner Roberts
Teacup Magic 2

I enjoyed this second book of the series, more perhaps than the first one, or at least more than my memory of the first one. The story and characters are subtly drawn, and for me it was a quietly enjoyable read.

The House of the Red Balconies
A.J. Demas

I like this author, and this new book did not disappoint. Her website says that she "writes about love and fictional politics in an imaginary version of the ancient Mediterranean", and she actually makes it works. Her characters are very likable and the world building works well. And at least it’s a change from Regency or Victorian Britain!

Le sermon sur la chute de Rome
Jérôme Ferrari

I was intrigued by the title, which I stumbled upon while lurking in the category challenge group, then wowed by the writing when I looked at the excerpt. I should probably have read the blurb instead of skimming it. I was under the impression that this was one of those feelgood books where a couple of bumbling strangers revive a sleepy village by taking over the local bar. The only part of the sentence that is true is the taking over of the local bar (the two guys are not strangers to the village). This is a very dark book, but it manages to combine a very pessimistic view of human nature with empathy for the characters, who should be anything but likable but are somehow not entirely despicable. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t pay attention to the blurb, I would probably not have read the book if I had. I did enjoy it, though not in the comfort book way that I am mostly into at the moment. It’s certainly not comfortable, but it’s saved by the excellent writing and the very human failure of the characters.

Carpe Diem
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Liaden Universe 3

Really enjoying this series. In fact I already started on the next one (in publication order at least), Plan B.

Cetaganda
Lois McMaster Bujold
Vorkosigan saga 6

This series was my first contact with Bujold, and for a long time I didn’t even know she had wrote other things. I first read Mountains of Mourning, which was beautiful, and read a few books after that. Unfortunately the character of Miles, although very relatable, stressed me out with his manic energy, and so I didn’t go very far with him. Lately, having read and loved most of Bujold’s other available works, I wanted to come back to this one. I’m not sure where I stopped before, and I might even have read Cetaganda already, since I owned it. This one felt slightly less manic than Miles’s adventures with the Dendarii Mercenaries. I still like Miles very much as a character, even though I have my reservations about his actions. Jennifer (jjmcgaffey) mentioned that he seems to calm down somewhat as he gets older, so I will get back to this series, while I’m waiting for the next Penric and Desdemona.

Good Neighbors
Stephanie Burgis

A month ago I said I would stop reading Burgis, but I still felt tempted by this collection of shorts originally published on her website as a series. It started well enough, I liked the first story, it was funny and had great characters. The second was less good and started to feel a little too formulaic. The third continued the trend. In all, it was so short I didn’t have time to get bored, but this time I think I’m really done with this author.

On Friday I baked, and on Saturday I cooked: two opportunities to listen to podcasts! Both in French.

An extremely enlightening interview with the author of a book describing how the author of nouvelle vague managed to rewrite the narrative around cinema and invented the concept of a genius director creating a movie all on his own (and yes, he is almost by definition a man, white and from a privileged background), negating the collective nature of movie making, and paving the way for numerous and grace abuse of power, since the Great Man' Creativity cannot be hindered by secondary concerns such as basic human decency.

The podcast: Cinéma français : l’homme, l’artiste et le prédateur - Les Couilles sur la table - Binge Audio

The book: La Nouvelle Vague, un cinéma au masculin singulier

And another book recommendation that sounds interesting: Désirer la violence: Ce(ux) que la pop culture nous apprend à aimer.

The second podcast was less of a surprise, since it's on a subject that has already been discussed on Méta de choc. It's about all the pseudo science businesses spend money on as an alibi to avoid tackling real problems in the workplace, placing the onus of ”stress management” on employees instead of asking why there is so much stress to be managed in the first place.
Le business des croyances en entreprise - Méta de Choc

Sketch!: The Non-Artist’s Guide to Inspiration, Technique, and Drawing Daily Life
France Belleville-Van Stone

A recommendation from Lisapeet, and I agree with her comments: nothing I didn’t already know, but I enjoyed the author’s style and outlook, even though her approach to drawing is almost the exact opposite to mine. A quick read and good for my motivation to take up drawing seriously (again).

>316 FlorenceArt: I once worked in a place that had a half dozen small rooms, cupboards really, just large enough for an armchair and an outlet for your laptop. The staff called them the crying rooms, because so many of the staff used them as a place to escape and cry during the day. An organization that built into its infrastructure rooms for overwhelmed staff... that says something about the work environment, doesn't it?

>318 labfs39: That’s horrible!

Band Sinister
KJ Charles

I keep saying I don’t want to read any Victorian romance, and I keep doing it anyway, because there’s so much of it. This was another good one, I must admit, and I didn’t feel it was too anachronistic, or maybe I’m just getting used to it. It wasn’t just 21st century characters in period costume though, they felt real and very engaging.

ETA: maybe it was Regency rather than Victorian? Whatever.

Plan B
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Liaden Universe 4

I suppose no space opera is complete without a war, but I must say I was perfectly happy with the relatively low level of suspense and violence in previous volumes. I still enjoyed this one, though I hope this won’t become a trend. Interesting new characters and more of the previously introduced couples. I already bought the next one (still reading in publication order because that’s what makes sense to me, but from the blurb this one will take place a generation earlier).

The 7C Stories by Alice Degan:
The Tenants of 7C
The Siege of 7C
7C Goes Down

After I finished the latest A. J. Demas, I searched the web to check if there was a book by her I hadn’t yet read. There isn’t, under this name. But I found out that she also publishes under her real name, Alice Degan. I read these three short books (short stories really) close to each other and will eagerly await the next one. This is urban fantasy, centered on a flat whose rooms can’t seem to stay in one place, and one of its occupants, a young werewolf, his roommates and friends. Like the Demas books it has rich and likable characters, and engaging world building. I will look for more books by Alice Degan.

Local Custom
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Liaden Universe 5

I am now well and truly hooked for this series. Thankfully there was no war in this one, but a lot of cross-cultural misunderstanding, and of course romance. I am reading the books in the order they were written, and in this fifth installment the authors’ skills have clearly much improved. The world building continues to be revealed, and the above mentioned cultural misunderstandings are more realistically handled in their complexity than in the first book. I missed the clutch turtles, a little, but I’m sure they will turn up again sooner or later.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea
TJ Klune
Cerulean Chronicles 2

This is the sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea. It’s much darker, with unsettling parallels to our own real life darkness, although it remains unrealistically optimistic (and magic saves the day in the end, which is rather depressing if you look at it from our perspective: I don’t think magic will save us, and I have serious doubts about the saving potential of humans). I choose to focus on the escapist aspect of the book though. I liked it better than the first one. As usual with Klune, its strength lies with the lovable and believable characters.

>324 FlorenceArt: I might need something like this - optimistic and with lovable characters - in my reading life right now.

>325 Dilara86: Don’t we all! The Cerulean books do have an underlying darkness to them though. For something lighter I would recommend How to Be a Normal Person, though of course your mileage may vary.

>326 FlorenceArt: Thank you for the recommendation. As it happens, I was actually thinking that the combination of nice people in a dark setting might make me feel better and less misanthropic :-)

>327 Dilara86: Ah yes I see. In that case, go for it! Also, In the Lives of Puppets corresponds to your description perfectly.

Still binge reading the Liaden Universe books.

Scout’s Progress

In the afterword, the authors mention that the two books Local Custom and Scout’s Progress have been derided as the Mills and Boone of space opera, and there is some truth in that, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying them, on the contrary. There is always a romance aspect in their books, but in these two it takes central place. These two books also shed some light on the stories of the generation before Val Con’s.

I Dare

This one still has plenty of romance, but it takes second place behind the definitely space opera-esque plot. I enjoyed all of it.

I already bought the next two books, but I’m hesitating a little. I Dare ended on a rather shocking grand finale, and I’d like to know what happens next, but that story won’t be told until book 19, if I understand correctly. On the other hand, I’m sure the books in between will be just as good. Decision, decisions.

Till Human Voices Wake Us
Victoria Goddard
Tales from Ysthar 1

Took me a bit to get into this, as it’s quite different from other Goddard books I’ve read. But Raphael does have a lot in common with Fitzroy Angursell. And I ended up loving this book.

I feel a bit guilty for not knowing any of the poems quoted. I think quite a few must be Shakespeare’s sonnets, but there were others. I was hoping for a list at the back of the book, but no, and I didn’t bookmark the pages to I probably won’t find them again. But I think I might look for Shakespeare, there must be at least a dozen editions on Kobo.

I just found out the title is from T. S. Eliot and will look for that too.

Balance of Trade
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Liaden Universe 8

A whole new cast of characters for this book set a couple of centuries before Val Con and Miri’s time, the start (I hope) of a new story arc. I look forward to reading more about them.

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen
KJ Charles
The Doomsday Books 1

Another surprisingly believable (to me) regency gay romance, with an interesting take on the social and political situation of the time and place (the Romney Marsh). I’ll admit it doesn’t take much to impress me since I know next to nothing about British history and the Napoleonic wars, but Charles seems to have done at least a minimum of research and I learned things I didn’t know. Plus the romance was enjoyable, as always for me.

Manuel de résistance à l’extrême-droite: comprendre, combattre, être prêts
Thomas Guénolé

I didn’t completely finish this book but I wouldn’t count it as DNF. Is DNF binary or a continuum? Anyway, I can’t say I regret reading this, it’s food for thought. The book is a catalog of arguments to convince others of the dangers of electing a far-right president (didn’t feel very convincing) and of actions against it when it happens, legal or otherwise. The actions I didn’t outright reject were either unavailable to me, or I doubt very much I will have the courage of acting them, but of course that’s my problem, not the book’s.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Thimothy Snyder

I almost didn’t finish this one, but I went back to it after I finished Manuel de résistance à l’extrême droite, and the end felt less vague, more practical and more doable for me. It is very US oriented and some chapters felt weird, but on the whole I would say that it’s the better of the two. The chapter on using terrorist threats, whether real, questionable or outright fabricated, to justify state terror, was eye-opening, with several examples of Russia using or faking terrorist events to nudge European countries toward far right power.

«A Nazi leader outmaneuvers his opponents by manufacturing a general conviction that the present moment is exceptional, and then transforming that state of exception into a permanent emergency. Citizens then trade real freedom for fake safety.»

with several examples of Russia using or faking terrorist events to nudge European countries toward far right power.

What, and none of the US doing exactly the same? LOL

Snyder is of that useless Anglo neoliberal skool that forever trumpets against "totalitarianism" because useless liberals find it a comfortable drawer in which to confound fascism and leftism, and past that they have zero ideas. "American democracy" guuuud--never mind that they've been chanting that since the days of genocide and slavery, and all through the structural oppression of reservations and Jim Crow.

A Restless Truth
Freya Marske
The Last Binding 2

This book felt very different from the first one. At first I thought I might be confusing it (A Marvelous Light) with another of the dozens of Victorian or Regency fantasy books I’ve been reading, but the author in the afterword admits that she needed to write something different and lighter this time (A Restless Truth was written in 2020). It is indeed lighter and more humorous than the first. It also has an Agatha Christie feel that isn’t really my cup of tea, but I did enjoy it. I think this may be the first F2F romance I read that actually feels convincing.

The Silver Bullet Gambit (no touchstone yet, will need to get back to it)
Alice Degan
The 7C Stories 4

I like these stories, but this one felt a bit frustrating as it ends on a cliffhanger of sort. I have the next one on my reader now.

Terec and the Wall
Victoria Goddard
Terec of Lund 2

Another slightly frustrating book. The first one, Terec and the Wild was probably my least favorite of Goddard’s so far. I liked this one better now that I know how it fits in with her other nine world stories, but it still ends inconclusively. Apparently this is part of a planned four book series, but the next two are not yet available.

Crystal Soldier
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Liaden Universe 9

So this is the story of the founders, Cantra and Jela, and the tree! As usual, I’m not always following the plot but I love the characters (yes, including the tree). This is the first half of a duology and I will certainly read the second half, Crystal Dragon, very soon.

Today I visited an exhibition at the Carnavalet museum: Paris 1793-1794. It was intriguing but not as informative or structured as I hoped. Some years ago I started reading about the French revolution, but as usual this fancy didn't last very long, and I think the books I read stopped in 1791 or 92. I was planning to read a biography of Robespierre some day, and then another about Napoleon. So much to read...

St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid
C. L. Polk

Maybe it’s because of the way I read this (started reading on the Reactor website, then looked for a way to load it to my Kobo, and finally settled on downloading Some of the best of tor.com 2020, so I might have been a bit distracted), or because it came recommended both by LT and Alex Brown at Reactor Mag, but this felt a bit disappointing. I should probably reread it later, when I’m in a more objective or forgiving mood. Also there is a sequel that Alex Brown loved too, but I don’t always agree with their taste.

And by the way, I used to be able to store tor.com stories on my Pocket account and download them to my reader that way, but it no longer works and that annoys me.

(The above is a link to the story on Reactor, but there is also a touchstone: St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid)

Ivy vs. Elm
Ordinary World (7C)
Alice Degan
The 7C Stories 6&7

Sad that this is the last of the 7C stories published to far. This is an ongoing story, so it’s frustrating to be left waiting for the next installment. And I already had trouble keeping track of all the characters when I read them back to back!

I like that the characters in A. J. Demas’ books are nice people trying to do their best, and the books she writes as Alice Degan are the same. In the last one the character is not so nice, but you do get to sympathize anyway.

Wanted, A Gentleman
KJ Charles

Also, A Thief in the Night by the same

I need to either stop complaining about regency romance, or stop reading them. Obviously I choose the former. I like how KJ Charles makes men from different social backgrounds meet (and of course fall in love). Somehow she makes this work, and let’s be honest, as long as I like the characters and there is romance, I may not be a as much of a stickler for verisimilitude as I thought I was.

The Lightning-Struck Heart
TJ Klune
Tales from Verania 1

A hilarious take on the fantasy quest trope. TJ Klune can always make me laugh to tears. Too bad the ending dragged on for much longer than was enjoyable. Still, I loved it.

>343 FlorenceArt: “I need to either stop complaining about regency romance, or stop reading them” 🙂 I say embrace them. What do you think is your draw to them?

>345 dchaikin: Good question (and good advice). I think it’s not the regency settings as such, it’s more that I’d rather have some exotic element. My preferred brand of exoticness is fantasy, but I’ll take an imagined past. I tend to avoid books that are set in the same world I live in, especially for romance but I think that may be true of other novels too. I read to escape, especially these days.

i get that. If reading itself is a form of escape, is reading escapist lit like doubling down? Like - this reading drug isn’t enough. I need something stronger? 🙂

>347 dchaikin: 😲

>348 FlorenceArt: 😂 ( .... that was humor, right? )

>349 dchaikin: 😉

Iron & Velvet
Alexis Hall
Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator 1

I don’t read much crime fiction, but I do like me a snarky PI, and Kate Kane can snark with the best of them. Actually this is more urban fantasy than crime I guess, as the series title implies. Anyway, I loved it.

Shadows & Dreams
Alexis Hall
Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator 2

Not as much fun as the first one. Will wait a bit before trying number 3.

Catching up on my reviews of short stories from Some of the best of Tor.com 2020

How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobučar
Rich Larson
DNF, didn’t like where this was going.

The Girlfriend’s Guide to Gods
Maria Dahvana Headley
Some kind of take on Greek mythology? I felt a bit confused.

St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St, Brigid
See above, >341 FlorenceArt:

If You Take My Meaning
Charlie Jane Anders
Nice. Hopeful tale of trying to heal interspecies relations.

Crystal Dragon
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Liaden Universe 10

This is the first of the Liaden novels that I had some difficulties reading. I’ve always found their plots rather confused (or maybe just confusing to this easily confused reader) and far-fetched, but this one was even more confusing and far-fetched. But as usual the characters were wonderful, and I ended up loving it as much as the others.