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Bookwomble

Bookwomble

Joined April 2018

(he/him) Member of the Book-reading, Tofu-eating, Wokerati, Anti-growth Coalition: πŸ’–β˜πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆπŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈallyβœŠπŸΎπŸ‘¨πŸΌβ€πŸŽ€πŸ§πŸ»β€β™€οΈπŸ°πŸ€–πŸ›πŸ––
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Bookwomble
Doctor Marigold | Charles Dickens
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I picked up this nicely illustrated Dickens short story today, "Doctor" being the MCs given name, after the physician shown on the cover delivering him by the roadside.
Marigold is a "cheap jack", a name for a pedlar I've not come across before. This is one of several stories, or "prescriptions" (3 by Dickens), featuring Marigold, written by various authors & published in the Christmas 1865 number of "All the Year Round". Mine is a 1945 edition.

dabbe Beautiful edition. ❣️ 3d
Bookwomble @dabbe Yes, it's nice 😊 Showing its age a little (but so am I! πŸ‘΄πŸ»), and someone clipped the cover rather cackhandedly βœ‚οΈ, but the paper is good quality - surprising for the war period - and is still crisp, with minimal fixing 🦊All for just Β£3 πŸͺ™πŸͺ™πŸͺ™ 3d
dabbe @Bookwomble I bet it also smells like old-book heaven. πŸ€— 2d
Bookwomble @dabbe Yes it does! If I was to have a signature scent, it would include notes of second-hand bookshop on a rainy day, cat fur warmed in spring sunshine, and dark roast coffee at midnight, and I would brand it "Sourdust", after the Master of Ritual in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books ? 1d
27 likes4 comments
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Bookwomble
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"We want nothing more than to be treated as human beings worthy of the same respect and dignity as those who are neurotypical."
#TransRightsReadathon
The authors recruited 10 trans autistic people to participate in a qualitative research study designed to foreground their lived experience, rather than treat them as objects of enquiry.
As an academic book, the accounts are given third-person, have a summary of each chapter, then a conclusion ⬇️

Bookwomble ... giving an overview, so it can feel like there's some repetition, but that's part of the methodology.
This is straightforward read, though, despite its academic slant: no complicated statistics, thankfully, as they do my brain in πŸ€―πŸ˜† I loved this book, and learned a lot from it that will inform both my work and my personal life.
The pride flag is one of several I found online for trans-autistic representation.
⬇️
4d
Bookwomble As part of the Readathon, I made a donation to Gendered Intelligence, with whom I did some excellent training a few years ago: https://genderedintelligence.co.uk/ 4d
Aimeesue Thanks for the review. I work for disabled people, and several Autistic + trans folks. It can be a really terrible experience because if families are unaccepting, the person‘s gender identity often is "blamed" on the disability. Same with MH issues, so it‘s an uphill battle trying to get them the right care. It‘s so awful and frustrating. (edited) 4d
Bookwomble @Aimeesue That, sadly, reflects the experience of several of the people in the book, though all have positive experiences to share, too. Some of my family and some of the people I work with are trans or autistic, or both, so I've also heard some of these things first hand, too. 3d
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Bookwomble
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"NIHIL DE NOBIS, SINE NOBIS [Nothing about us, without us]
We wrote this book because we've noticed that while there is an increasing amount of research on the subject of gender identity and autism, there is distressingly little from the perspective of transgender and autistic people themselves."
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
#TransRightsReadathon

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Bookwomble
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#TransRightsReadathon πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ
I've finished reading the first of the ten chapters, Alex, a Canadian non-binary person of Jewish faith. Despite having to deal with professional medicalising of both their trans & autistic traits, Alex says they are lucky to have had an accepting & supportive family & rabbi. I was interested to learn that Judaism traditionally recognises six genders and that movement between those genders, to some degree, is accepted.

Bookwomble Bookmark is from Manchester bookshop, Queer Lit πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ 7d
TheBookHippie Love the bookmark!!! 6d
38 likes2 comments
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Bookwomble
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I'm reading "Trans and Autistic: Stories from Life at the Intersection" for #TransRightsReadathon ?οΈβ€βš§οΈ
As I'm back at work this week, it's unlikely I'll get to read more than this one book for the challenge. It's a series of summarised interviews with trans and autistic people, presenting their voices rather than talking about them as objects of study. It helps that the authors are both trans, neurodiverse academics.
@IndoorDame @TheBookHippie

TheBookHippie That sounds like a great read! πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ 1w
Bookwomble @TheBookHippie I'm hoping so🀞I've found the publisher, Jessica Kingsley, to be a reliable source of non-fiction by, for and about people who don't find themselves at the centre of the cultural and demographic distribution bell curve πŸ“ˆπŸ“‰ 1w
TheBookHippie @Bookwomble 🀞🏻keep us posted. I‘d love to read it if it‘s good. 1w
psalva I can‘t wait to see what you think! It sounds really good. 1w
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Bookwomble
Thirst for Love | Yukio Mishima
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"That day Etsuko went to the Hankyu department store and bought two pairs of wool socks."

A commonplace opening line, but I felt captured by this book in the first couple of pages. I'm hoping Mishima keeps it on a similar tack.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

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Bookwomble
Peter Pan | J M Barrie
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Pickpick

Well, it strikes me that all of the children are dead. They've died from some childhood infection, probably a chill caught from having the window open late at night, Peter Pan is the psychopomp guiding their souls into the afterlife, and a desolated Mary Darling sits in the silent, empty nursery imagining the adventures of her dead children, while her husband quietly loses his mind to grief.
It's dark πŸ–€

Suet624 I really appreciate this viewpoint. 2w
bibliothecarivs Whoa πŸ€” 1w
BkClubCare Cool cover 1w
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Bookwomble @Suet624 I'm sure the longevity of the story is due to the variety of different readings which can be made of it πŸ™‚ 1w
Bookwomble @bibliothecarivs That's what I thought as I was reading 😳 1w
Bookwomble @BkClubCare It's one of the Macmillan Collector's Library editions, which have the same eggshell-blue upper register, gilt page edges, ribbon and printed endpapers. They look handsome together on a shelf, though as this is the only one I've got, I've only seen that effect in a bookshop 😊 1w
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Bookwomble
Peter Pan | J M Barrie
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"To die will be an awfully big adventure!"

Bklover ❀️ 2w
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Bookwomble
Peter Pan | J M Barrie
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Last book purchase of our break is another children's classic I haven't read: Peter Pan. Visiting Dumfries before setting off for home, we went into Moat Brae, the house belonging to Barrie's childhood friends, where they played the imaginative games which formed the seeds of the book. I guess I had to get a copy while we were here! πŸ§šπŸ»β€β™‚οΈπŸ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώ

bibliothecarivs I love books as souvenirs! When I was last over there, I got The Canterbury Tales at Canterbury Cathedral, a novel about Hardy at Max Gate, and a children's book called I Was There...1066 at a local shop called Battle Books, among others. 2w
tpixie Amazing experience and great souvenir 2w
Aimeesue @bibliothecarivs Bibliotourism and souvenirs! I do that too - Moby Dick from Herman Melville‘s Arrowhead, An selection of her poems from Emily Dickinson‘s house, Collected short stories from Flannery O‘Conner‘s Andalusia. Some day I‘ll get to GB and make the grand tour of bookish places there. Although how I‘ll get them home is a mystery. πŸ˜‹ 2w
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bibliothecarivs @Aimeesue haha... yes, the struggle is real. We brought home 29 books from the UK in our luggage: https://www.librarything.com/catalog/bibliothecarivs?tag=England+2016+Trip+Souve... 2w
Bookwomble @tpixie It was interesting rather than amazing 😊 But we had no children with us, which it turned out is (understandably) the main target market, and children would find it amazing. The book is a great souvenir, and I'm enjoying reading it. 2w
Bookwomble @bibliothecarivs When we visit anywhere I'm looking for the twin trophies of an associated book and bookmark 😁 We visited Thomas Hardy's Cottage, in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset in 2008, where I got the tagged book. I don't think they had a bookmark, though! You got quite a haul on your visit! How many of them have you read? πŸ˜ƒ 2w
Bookwomble @Aimeesue Some nice additions to your collection, with special connections 😊 2w
tpixie @bibliothecarivs amazing thanks for sharing. 2w
tpixie @Bookwomble when my son was competing in gymnastics, we would listen to classics- Peter Pan, Jungle Book, and Mary Poppins. They were great reads and different from Disney. (edited) 2w
41 likes9 comments
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Bookwomble
The Complete Maus | Art Spiegelman
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Spiegelman starts by showing what a difficult man his dad was to live with, then unfolds the trauma he experienced of surviving the Holocaust, which doesn't excuse all of his later bad behaviour, but certainly explains it. I found that personal story as affective, in its smaller way, as his father's account of the Nazi genocide. 5⭐

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Bookwomble
Maigret's Childhood Friend | Georges Simenon
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I think I'm usually pretty good at picking out books I'll like, but the last few have been so-so to awful, so I'm falling back on the trustworthy Simenon to get me back on track. Cider, snacks and a compilation of cover versions of classic rock, pop and soul done by New Wave acts of the late 70s to mid 80s. Feeling settled and content ☺️

LeahBergen Love the emojis. πŸ˜† 2w
Bookwomble @LeahBergen Well, I'd edited them out as they seemed a little ribald and didn't quite capture my mood, but for the record they were: 😊 as a πŸ– in πŸ’©πŸ˜ 2w
LeahBergen Well, I grew up hearing that expression so I‘m here for it. πŸ˜† 2w
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Leftcoastzen I spy with my little eyeπŸ‘οΈ Billy Bragg!πŸ‘ 2w
Bookwomble @LeahBergen It's a common enough expression in my area, too πŸ™‚ 2w
Bookwomble @Leftcoastzen πŸ¦…πŸ‘οΈπŸ˜ I'll be getting into that one at the weekend once we're home from our trip and I can listen to the songs as I read it 😊 2w
TrishB That looks pretty perfect 😁 2w
batsy What @TrishB said πŸ™‚πŸ‘ŒπŸΎ 2w
Bookwomble @TrishB @batsy Yeah, it was a cosy setup ☺️ 2w
30 likes9 comments
review
Bookwomble
The Secret Life of the Owl | John Lewis-Stempel
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Mehso-so

Meh.

Swathes of factoids that might be gleaned from Wikipedia, padded out with a chunk of the Middle English poem "The Owl and the Nightingale", and with a couple of nods to "intelligent design" and creationism, I was underwhelmed and won't be bothering with anything else by this author. 2.5⭐

Lovely owl sketches by Beci Kelly, though.

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Bookwomble
The Secret Life of the Owl | John Lewis-Stempel
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"... evolved (or designed) ..."
Ok, just UNtagged this book as science ???
I'll keep it as non-fiction for now, but I'll be watching like a hawk! ?

Suet624 Wow. 2w
Aimeesue Yikes. He could‘ve avoided that whole problem by rewording the sentence. Why would you not just say « Each species blends into the environment in which it lives? (edited) 2w
SamAnne Ugh. . 2w
Bookwomble @Aimeesue I don't know the writer, but I did wonder if perhaps it's a publisher's sop to pacify the "intelligent design" market. 2w
Aimeesue @Bookwomble Oh, I‘d bet. Otherwise you‘d take it out. Sad what things have come to if we‘re pandering in "science" based books. 2w
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Bookwomble
The Secret Life of the Owl | John Lewis-Stempel
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Found a lively bookshop in Kirkcudbright today, Gallovidia Books, and came away these 😌
I thought I was going to read Maus next, as I haven't read it yet and this feels like a big omission, but I've read some heavy books recently, so I'm going to read about nature's silent killers - I mean nature's cute, fluffy feather-balls - instead πŸ¦‰πŸ˜Š

psalva I haven‘t listened to Billy Bragg in a while. That looks like a nice volume 2w
Bookwomble @psalva He's on regular rotation with me 😊 It is a nice book, as his lyrics by themselves are usually meaningful and articulate, and this has an introduction and notes by Billy himself, which adds to those qualities. 2w
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Bookwomble
Silk | Alessandro Baricco
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Pickpick

Picked this up somewhat randomly from an antique shop (not sure a publication date of 1993 is actually antique!), and found it rather beguiling.
I don't subscribe to the "show don't tell" rule (who makes up these rules, anyway?), and this is mostly told to the reader as if by an oral storyteller, with repetitions typical of traditional tales.
It's a story of travel, romance, exoticism & eroticism, told quietly, unaffectedly and with poignancy. 4?

BarbaraBB Beautiful story πŸ’• 2w
Suet624 Sounds lovely. 2w
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Bookwomble
Che: A Revolutionary Life | Jon Lee Anderson
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Pickpick

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #USAπŸ‡ΊπŸ‡² #Mexico πŸ‡²πŸ‡½
A quick read despite its 423 pages, and it has fantastic artwork with a cinematic feel.
The narrative is necessarily abridged, even in this tome of a book, and while it is sympathetic to Che and his ideals, it's not a hagiography as Che is shown personally executing people in the field of combat, and ordering executions when in power.
It was an interesting read for me, coming shortly after finishing ⬇️

Bookwomble ... Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", which deals with the liberation of the working class from a slightly different revolutionary perspective.
I've claimed this for the USA and Mexico in the Americas reading challenge, as those are the nationalities of the writer and illustrator respectively, which is how in approaching it, but from a subject POV, it could be claimed for Argentina, Cuba and Bolivia, too.
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB
2w
25 likes2 stack adds1 comment
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Bookwomble
Che: A Revolutionary Life | Jon Lee Anderson
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Against expectation, I was delighted to find a bookshop in the small town of Dalbeattie, and moreso to find it had a good selection of titles (even if one of those is amongst my lowest-rated books: "Dongarusalem", ? I'm looking at you!).
"Che" is a graphic-bio, which I'm going to read next.
"Arthurian Poets: Robinson" is an early 20thC collection I've not come across before, which I hope to be good?
Mishima's "Thirst for Love" sounds like a ⬇️

Bookwomble ... fascinating character study.
Chomsky's "On Anarchism" probably does what it says on the spine.
"Dumfrieshire Dales" is a guide to 40 walks I won't do.
The lodge we're staying in is well equipped, but shockingly without a suitable whisky glass (the champagne flute I used yesterday could have been disastrous if I'd filled it!), and while this still isn't a whisky glass, it's the right size, cute and was only 50p from a charity shop ?
2w
TrishB Great book haul. I can‘t believe there isn‘t a proper whisky glass in a Scottish accommodation!! 2w
Bookwomble @TrishB I know, right!? 🀯 2w
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Bookwomble
Dongarusalem | Graeme Lewis
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Panpan

5⭐ for counter-culture eco-activism, -10⭐ for praising David Icke "for being a great teacher", for using the conspiracy theorist comparison of people with sheep ("sheeple" not actually used, but was illustrated more than once), for using the conspiracy theory that the royal family are Alien Reptiles, & for a whole poem dedicated to moon-landing denialism.
I thought that at the discounted price of Β£1.50, I couldn't waste my money, but I was wrong.

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Bookwomble
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Mehso-so

Meh 🫀 It was ok. I was expecting to be blown away, and was mildly disappointed. There were some lines I liked, but I'm clearly not seeing the depths others find here. I'll reread it sometime to see if I can plumb anything more profound, as undoubtedly it's me, not Pablo. 3⭐
I'll read something else by an author from #Chile to do justice to my #ReadingTheAmericas2023 challenge.
@BarbaraBB @Librarybelle

Librarybelle I don‘t always discover the deeper meaning in poetry πŸ€·πŸ»β€β™€οΈ 2w
vivastory This is not Neruda's best IMO Have you read BolaΓ±o? If not, I'd recommend him as an alternative choice. If you're looking for a poet I really like Nicanor Parra. 2w
Bookwomble @Librarybelle Well, me neither, truth be told 😏 2w
Bookwomble @vivastory I'll give this collection, and perhaps another should I come across one, a chance. I see he was 20 when he wrote it, which is remarkable for that age but, perhaps, explains the overblown sentiment (or perhaps I'm a cynical old man πŸ˜„). Alain Fournier's poems written at about the same age appeal to me more. I've not heard of Parra, so another for the watchlist 😊 2w
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Bookwomble
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#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Chile πŸ‡¨πŸ‡±
On the way to Scotland for a few days. Naturally, it's pissing down, but as I've prepared for that eventuality with a massive stack of books & a bottle of whisky, I won't mind staying in, or getting soaked & wrapping up afterwards, as the case may be πŸŒ§οΈπŸ“šπŸ₯ƒ
Mrs B is driving while I read. Soundtrack has included The Proclaimers, Aztec Camera & Paolo Nutini for 🏴󠁧󠁒󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 solidarity, but Elvis is on now 🎢

BarbaraBB I love Neruda πŸ’•πŸ’•πŸ’• 2w
TrishB This sounds fab! 2w
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LeahBergen I have a soft spot for this Neruda collection. ❀️ Enjoy your getaway! 2w
Librarybelle Enjoy your trip!! 2w
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB @TrishB @LeahBergen @Librarybelle Thank you all - we had a touch of snow overnight, which looks lovely while not being too much of an inconvenience 😊 Unfortunately the Neruda didn't quite do it for me πŸ€·πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ 2w
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Bookwomble
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Pickpick

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #DominicanRepublic πŸ‡©πŸ‡΄
This had Philip K. Dick feels, with relatively ordinary people getting drawn into mind bending situations, perceptual time/reality slips, and fluidity of personality and body. It takes in politics, art theory, climate catastrophe, challenges a Eurocentric scientific worldview with Afro-Caribbean spirituality, and centres trans experience in the MC.
⬇️

Bookwomble Lots going on, and it was good, though I think I was missing a sense of heart, so I didn't feel fully invested in the characters. 3.5 ⭐
Parental Advisory: Swears, sex, drugs and violence, sometimes all at once, but not all the time
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB
2w
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Bookwomble
We, the Heartbroken | Gargi Bhattacharyya
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"Depressed heartbreak is rarely disruptive or demanding or loudly eccentric. Depressed heartbreak is like taking a step into death while looking like you have remembered how to behave. I think this tells us something about the half-deadness this world [under late capitalism] demands of us. Learning to go through the motions and not hope too much."

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Bookwomble
The Bell Jar | Sylvia Plath
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[heavy sigh 😞]
I wish I could go within a mile of a bookshop and not feel compelled to go in and buy like I'm living to 200 years old πŸ˜”
(This, and other lies I tell myself πŸ˜πŸ“š)
#BookHaul

vivastory You bought some gems!! Bell Jar has one of my favorite opening paragraphs. 2w
Suet624 All fantastic! 2w
dabbe Think of them as art, which they are. ❣️ 2w
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Bookwomble
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This cocktail is not in the tagged book, and isn't inspired by the pictured book, which just happens to be what I'm reading while drinking, so there's no real bookish justification for this post ??‍♂️
Anyway, it's inspired from the Karen's Diner menu, where Mrs B thinks she would fit right in as a member of staff: Vodka, Triple Sec, Lime Juice, Apple Juice, known as an "Are You Taking the Piss". Sweet, sharp and fruity, just like Mrs B! ??

Ruthiella Cheers! πŸ₯‚ 2w
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Bookwomble
We, the Heartbroken | Gargi Bhattacharyya
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β€œIn common with other bookish types, I have always existed partly in the shadows. Skulked around the edges of things. Chosen quiet times and deserted places. Enjoyed the gloomy nooks and crannies of life. Maybe assumed that this was true for everyone and learned to have just enough of a daytime public face to pass, while I retreated into my own elsewhere. And this was something I always enjoyed: the ability to maintain a secret elsewhere life."

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Bookwomble
We, the Heartbroken | Gargi Bhattacharyya
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"Heartbreak is an elastic kind of pain."

#FirsLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

kspenmoll Wow. 3w
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Bookwomble
We, the Heartbroken | Gargi Bhattacharyya
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#BookMail My Hajar Press subscription book arrived today, this one being (as far as I can tell before reading it) a series of meditations on collective grief by a sociologist and "one of the leading academics on race". Which sounds very worthy and, possibly, dry, but having a riffle through it looks rather personal and emotive.?
Hajar ask their authors to give a playlist to their work, and this one is rather encouraging: Spotify link in comments.

TrishB Some tracks on there! 3w
Bookwomble @TrishB I thought so, too. Some of the other playlists have been a bit too contemporary for me πŸ‘΄ 3w
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Bookwomble
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Waiting for Mrs B to have an eye test, popped out for a coffee, tempted by the breakfast bagel! β˜•πŸ₯―πŸ“–
#BooksAndCoffee #BooksAndBagels

thebackyardgnome I love bagrls! Wish you could just buy thrm in bakeries over here. 3w
thebackyardgnome Oh, and your pfp is the cover of my favourit album! 3w
Bookwomble @thebackyardgnome Where's "over here"? ? I love the Low album, too (obviously ?), and just about everything David recorded. A colleague I worked with in the 80s said he reckoned if David farted into the microphone, I'd buy the recording of it, and I don't think he was wrong! ?‍????? 3w
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Bookwomble
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #DominicanRepublic ??
I got this for the challenge, noting it's sci-fi, post-apocalypse, dystopian, time-travel with a trans MC, which was all promising. What I didn't look at before buying was reviews, which flag gory horror and graphic sex, which are not in my bailiwick - the fact I thought the word "bailiwick" is probably an indicator of just how far out of mine it's likely to be!? I'll just have to gird my loins!

Bookwomble Author, Rita Indiana, is also a musician, whose music I need to explore, and a vocal LGBTQIA+ advocate within traditionally patriarchal Dominican culture. Sounds like an all-round good egg πŸ₯šπŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB
3w
The_Book_Ninja Did you do a Mary Whitehouse and read it to the end just to make sure it wasn‘t in your bailiwick?πŸ§πŸ˜‰ 3w
BarbaraBB It sounds a bit like a book I just read: 3w
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Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja Ha, ha! πŸ˜‚ No, I'm still at the beginning of the book and will continue. I'm not such a prude that these elements will stop me reading, unless they become cruel, prurient or gratuitous. 3w
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB Ah, I saw a few Litsy reviews for that book but haven't read it. It sounds like the idea was interesting but, again, the execution (forgive the pun) rather too bloody for me. 3w
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble Well I‘ll be waiting for a detailed review! Have a good Sunday Mr Womble✌🏼 3w
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja You, too, Mr Ninj 😊 3w
BarbaraBB It wasn‘t very pleasant I admit. Can‘t recommend πŸ€·πŸ»β€β™€οΈ 3w
37 likes8 comments
review
Bookwomble
Blind Owl | Sadeq Hedayat
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Pickpick

This absolutely unreliable narrator is a blend of that from Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart", Dostoevsky's Underground Man and Raskolnikov from "Crime and Punishment", and Meyrink's Pernath from "The Golem". He utterly objectifies his whole perceptual world: things have significance only in how they relate to him, and those relationships are a repetitive cycling of elements in varying but finite combinations.
⬇️

Bookwomble Death, sexual obsession, putrefaction, drug-induced psychosis, misogyny, murder, suicidal ideation, fractured space-time and a blurred melding of personal existences combine in an unsettling psychedelic effect.
I liked it 😁
On a tangential note, Hitler really did spoil the toothbrush moustache for the rest of us, didn't he?
3w
Bookwomble @Suet624 Tagging so you can review your decision to stack. πŸ‘orπŸ‘Ž? 😁 3w
Leftcoastzen That‘s a lot to unpack!πŸ˜„ 3w
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Bookwomble @Leftcoastzen And in only 87 pages! 😳 3w
vivastory Chaplin wore it better 😁 3w
Suet624 Thank you! Definitely my speed. 3w
Suet624 @vivastory haha. So true. 3w
Bookwomble @vivastory And Ollie Hardy πŸ˜„ British comedian Richard Herring (fairly left wing) did a Hitler Moustache Tour a couple of years ago, for which he grew the same, and said it was a most uncomfortable experience! 3w
Bookwomble @Suet624 Have at it, then! πŸ˜πŸ‘ 3w
batsy That's great! All of my favourite references except The Golem which I haven't read, and now I think I should! 3w
Bookwomble @batsy The Golem is similarly feverish and (intentionally and effectively) difficult to separate what's happening from what the MC perceives as happening. Some knowledge of alchemical and tarot symbolism helps with the deciphering which unless you're a practicing occultist as Meyrink was, we now have Wikipedia for 😊 3w
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Bookwomble
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Wow! Loads of music to discover with this tag #IndependentWoman 😊🎢😌
Here's my offering:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1WM1fCJmHWz8allWdVg1EB?si=5IL27o7JTlKFEW9jkhKv...

#BooksAndMusic

BarbaraBB Could have been my list ?? I looove Beth Gibbons! And Dead Can Dance! And Anthony and the Johnsons! And Kate, Patti, Björk… ? 3w
vivastory Such a wonderful list! 🀘 3w
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB @vivastory Thanks for the 🎢 love 😊 3w
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Bookwomble
Blind Owl | Sadeq Hedayat
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"Apparently, each person has several faces. Some constantly wear only one of these masks, which naturally becomes stained and furrowed. This group is frugal. Some reserve their masks only for their own affairs. Others constantly change their faces but as soon as they get old, they realise they are wearing their last mask, which soon becomes frayed and broken, then their true faces emerge from underneath the final mask.”

Trashcanman Hugs to you my friend πŸ€— 4w
Bookwomble @Trashcanman Thanks, George 😊 πŸ«‚πŸ’– 4w
Suet624 Truth. 4w
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Bookwomble
Blind Owl | Sadeq Hedayat
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β€œThere are people whose agony of death starts in their twenties, whereas many others, at the moment of death, gently, slowly, snuff out, like a tallow-burning lamp that has run out of oil.”

Apologies for a somewhat grim Saturday-morning quote, though, I guess, depending on your engagement with mortality, it's possibly comforting.

Suet624 I think I need to find this book. The two quotes I‘ve seen are fabulous. 4w
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Blind Owl | Sadeq Hedayat
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"In life there are wounds that like termites, slowly bore into and eat away at the isolated soul."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

vivastory I read this one years and years ago. I recall really liking it. 4w
Bookwomble @vivastory I'd never heard of it prior to seeing this new translation by Penguin at the bookshop. So many books... πŸ˜”πŸ€”πŸ˜Œ I'm enjoying it, too. 4w
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Blind Owl | Sadeq Hedayat
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This was an impulse buy - it's got "Owl" in the title and I'm a bit of a strigiphile, so...???
Also, it's surrealist, psychological and was banned by the Shah of Persia, unbanned by the succeeding Iranian government, who then banned it again, presumably after reading it themselves and thinking, "Oh, shit! No!" It's short, so worth a bit of time. ?

Bookwomble The introduction looks spoilery, so I'll take Tolkien's advice and go straight to the author and read the introduction afterwards.
#BannedBooks
4w
psalva @Bookwomble looks interesting! Also, that‘s good advice- I always read the intro last, particularly with classics. 4w
batsy Oh, yes! I've had on my list for a long time. I'll keep an eye out for your posts. 4w
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All Dogs Are Blue | Deborah Levy, Rodrigo De Souza Leao
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Pickpick

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Brazil ??
Souza LeΓ£o's autobiographical novel of his experience of forced institutionalisation for schizophrenia in a Brazilian psychiatric "hospital" is harrowing & insightful, sad & funny, raw & tender, coarse & literate. Self-loathing is part of the sadness in reading his story, & there's a lot of fatphobic language directed at himself, as well as scatological imagery & institutional abuse. It's beautiful, too. ❀️‍?

Bookwomble @BarbaraBB @Librarybelle My fifth country for the challenge πŸ™‚ 4w
Librarybelle Hooray!! 4w
azulaco Adding to my possibles list for #Brazil. This sounds good. 4w
Bookwomble @azulaco It's a challenging read, but I found it rewarding πŸ™‚ 4w
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All Dogs Are Blue | Deborah Levy, Rodrigo De Souza Leao
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"I had moments of lucidity. They were few, but I had them. Sometimes the drugs did work. But there were people who didn't get better, even with the medicine. What good is hospitalisation, then? To gather together the human debris."

"My God! Fundamentalists are taking over the world. They're even coming here to recruit the utterly fucked. Religion nowadays just fucks with people."

- Rodrigo de Souza LeΓ£o

Bookwomble "Governments do so many things to destroy the lives of those who are a nuisance to them." 4w
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All Dogs Are Blue | Deborah Levy, Rodrigo De Souza Leao
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"If you don't suffer, you're not alive. If you're alive, you eat French fries. It's a good thing there are always French fries to ease the burden." ?
- Rodrigo de Souza LeΓ£o

batsy All of the quotes you've posted from this are just πŸ‘ŒπŸΎ 4w
Bookwomble @batsy It was as good as I'd hoped, if not quite what I'd expected, which was a positive thing 😊 4w
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All Dogs Are Blue | Deborah Levy, Rodrigo De Souza Leao
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"All Dogs are Blue is a comic modernist novel about being messed up - and then being messed up even more by numbing doses of pharmaceuticals."
From the introduction by Deborah Levy.

The story of a Brazilian man diagnosed with schizophrenia and his treatment in a psychiatric facility, written from the author's perspective of having lived those experiences. From the bits I've scanned, I have high hopes for this one.

Bookwomble This is a second entry for #Brazil πŸ‡§πŸ‡· in my #ReadingTheAmericas2033 challenge, but depth is as important as breadth 😊
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB
1mo
Librarybelle Yay! 1mo
BarbaraBB Sure thing πŸ˜€ 1mo
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batsy This sounds interesting! Thanks for putting it on my radar πŸ™‚ 1mo
Bookwomble @batsy It is, though there's slightly more about masturbation than I was anticipating (which, to be honest, was none) in the opening section that I've read so far. It's graphic, but I think not gratuitous, which makes a difference. 1mo
batsy @Bookwomble Oh, interesting! Certainly not what I might have expected either, but good to know that it doesn't feel gratuitous. 1mo
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Bookwomble
Of Love and Other Demons | Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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Pickpick

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Colombia πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄
As a work of literature this is a brilliant evocation of colonial decline, religious zealotry & the warping of character by dogmatism. Whilst empathy for most of the characters is possible, only two, the abused child & the atheistic Jewish doctor, approached likeability, the former from compassion, the latter from sympathy.
Why, then, having conjured an enthralling scenario, does MΓ‘rquez introduceπŸ‘‡(TW abuse)

Bookwomble ... paedophilia to the story? I can't see that it serves any narrative purpose, as the child's age is not given as the reason why the paedophile doesn't rape her, but rather his vow of chastity. There is no censure, implicit or explicit, of the paedophilic aspect of his infatuation. My discomfort is not with the character so much as with MΓ‘rquez himself. Given there is no actual sexual abuse (though other abuses are described), πŸ‘‡ 1mo
Bookwomble ... I've only docked it 1 star, so 4⭐ @BarbaraBB @Librarybelle 1mo
Graywacke I enjoyed the Rapunzel games he played with here. 1mo
Librarybelle Great review! 1mo
BarbaraBB Glad you enjoyed your first García Márquez! I hope you‘ll read more 1mo
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I got this slightly battered 1975 book of 19th C. plays yesterday: "The Hour of One: Six Gothic Melodramas". The inside flap of the dust jacket shows its original pleasant shade of gangrene.
Contents include "The Castle Spectre" by Matthew "Monk" Lewis; "The Vampire", featuring Lord Ruthven in an adaptation of Polidori's novel, "Frankenstein or the Man and his Monster", & "The Flying Dutchman", featuring the excellently-named Captain Peppercoal!?

Bookwomble The plays are given in facsimile, with a short illustrated introduction about the history of London theatre and melodrama, and an index of playwrights and principle actors. All for Β£3, so how could I resist? πŸ€·πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ 1mo
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Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame
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As I had to wait for the second-hand bookshop to open, I whiled away some time looking in a charity shop, where I picked up a copy of WitW, which is a glaring hole in my reading record. I also popped into Action Records, where I found Belle and Sebastian's latest, an old Beck disc of remixes from his Guero album, and a compilation of Courtney Barnett EPs πŸΈπŸ€πŸ“—πŸ’Ώ
#BooksAndMusic

Ruthiella I also only first encountered TWitW as an adult, and I really loved it. Hope you do too! 1mo
Bookwomble @Ruthiella I've seen many of the film and TV adaptations, so I feel I'm on safe ground 😊 Perhaps we can sometimes have a different or deeper appreciation of a classic children's story when we first find it as an adult 😌 1mo
dabbe Glaring hole for me, too! Thanks for the reminder! 😊 1mo
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TieDyeDude Nice! The Courtney Barnett EP set is great, I love her music! I've never read WitW either. I don't shy away from children's books as an adult, though. If they're good, it should matter what age you read them at ☺️ 1mo
LeahBergen That‘s a great little edition of WitW! 1mo
Bookwomble @TieDyeDude I've listened to quite a lot of her music online, but didn't have any in my collection until now. This disc is really good 😊 We're agreed on the longevity of the enjoyment of children's literature 🀝 1mo
Bookwomble @LeahBergen It's a 1965 Methuen edition, with Shepherd's illustrations. Only Β£2, which was a bargain as it's a nice clean copy 😊 I love that shade of green on the dust jacket πŸ’š 1mo
Bookwomble @dabbe I think we'll all have these idiosyncratic ellipses in our reading, which are as interesting in their way as the books we've read. I'm sure it's an idea that'll have been thought before (probably by Borges), but perhaps this is our "anti-library", and will naturally be vastly larger than our "read-library". 1mo
dabbe @Bookwomble Interesting thought and one I'll have to ponder. It is fascinating how we choose books and at what particular time we choose them--or not as the case may be. What makes someone finally pick up THAT book and say, β€œNow's the time.β€œ Sometimes that never happens, and the book still sits on that shelf or gets sent off to hopefully be chosen by someone else. #tobechosenornot #thatisthequestion 1mo
Bookwomble @dabbe I'm such a mood reader that I've got books I bought over 40 years ago I haven't quite felt I want to read yet, but certainly am not ready to let go of! πŸ˜„πŸ˜’πŸ“š 1mo
dabbe @Bookwomble Agree 100% ❣️ 1mo
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Having serendipitously found a copy of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which has been on my wishlist for decades, more due to forgetfulness than it being hard to find, I decided to treat myself to a chippy lunch: Pie, chips and gravy with a mug of strong black tea

TrishB That looks so good. 1mo
Bookwomble It was, @TrishB πŸ˜‹ Downside is that I don't think I can justify my weekly Friday night takeaway now. Friday night salad doesn't have the same appeal πŸ₯—πŸ˜πŸ˜„ 1mo
dabbe I am now and forever will be #sherlocked. ❣️ 1mo
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TrishB I‘ve just ordered the Friday night take away 😁 1mo
Bookwomble @TrishB What you having? Mrs B just got home from work and wants an Indian, so looks like I'm having takeaway tea after all πŸ˜† 1mo
TrishB πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚ tapas! We have loads of local restaurants that deliver, so brilliant choice. 1mo
Bookwomble @TrishB Sounds tasty! We're a bit out in the sticks, so just have "the basics": Chinese chippy, Indian and pizza. The Indian is a proper restaurant, though, and the food is amazing. 1mo
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Bookwomble
Halewood & Sons Secondhand Bookshop | Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom (Bookstore)
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Pickpick

Halewood's isn't a shop you go into hoping to find the books you want, it's a shop you go into hoping to want the books you find! πŸ“šπŸ“šπŸ“šπŸ“š This is a relatively uncluttered patch of flooring. It's a health and safety nightmare, but I love it 😊

SamAnne Love this! 1mo
Leftcoastzen I wish I was there! 1mo
TrishB Fun! 1mo
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dabbe Oh, Lordy. I could live there if someone would just bring me food and drink. How cool!🀣❣️🀣 1mo
TieDyeDude That's great! There were a couple stores like that in PA I used to love browsing in. 1mo
Bookwomble @SamAnne @Leftcoastzen @TrishB @dabbe @TieDyeDude After I'd been browsing for 30 minutes or so, the bookseller apologised for asking me to leave as he had book mail to post, saying he'd be back in half an hour of I was still in town. I did say I was fine being locked in, but damn those pesky health and safety rules... grrr 😀 1mo
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@LeahBergen Just in case you prefer not to follow links into the Wild Internet 😊 I wonder if this was the book cover you were thinking of?

LeahBergen Oh, now that looks familiar! πŸ‘ 1mo
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Illustrated Guide to the Lady Lever Collection | Lady Lever Art Gallery, Cecil Reginald Grundy, Sydney L. Davison
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Of the paintings I'd never seen before when I visited the Lady Lever Art Gallery, this is my favourite. It's by Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, titled "Jeunesse Doree" (Gilded Youth), painted 1934. The model, Kathleen Woodward, later became his second wife, there apparently being some overlap with his first wife ?

jlhammar Wow, that is so striking! 1mo
Bookwomble @jlhammar "Striking" was the very word I thought when I saw it. 1mo
LeahBergen This is gorgeous. I think it may have been used for one of the old green Virago covers. πŸ€” 1mo
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Bookwomble @LeahBergen Wel,l you made me look, didn't you... I can't find that specific painting used, but Virago did use one of Brockhurst's other portraits of Woodward for an edition of their Book of Ghosts https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?485530 1mo
batsy Something about her direct gaze... It exudes energy. 1mo
Bookwomble @batsy It's a captivating painting. 1mo
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Pre-Raphaelites: Beauty and Rebellion | Christopher Newall, Ann Bukantas
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Being required to take my remaining annual leave before April, I used a day to visit the lovely Lady Lever Art Gallery on the Wirral, and naturally came away with a book. This is one in a series of catalogues I have from museums for exhibitions I didn't see!
I did, however, see some of my favourite Pre-Raphaelite paintings, including Burne-Jones's The Beguiling of Merlin and Holman-Hunt's The Scapegoat. 🎨😌🎨

TrishB Both worth going for. 1mo
Bookwomble @TrishB For sure - I was going for the Pre-Raphaelites but deliberately didn't remind myself which they had so I'd be surprised. The Scapegoat was amazing to see as you enter the main gallery, but "I released a breath I didn't know I was holding" ? when I saw Merlin ? 1mo
TrishB Burne-Jones has always been a favourite ❀️ 1mo
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Bookwomble @TrishB I had a poster of his "Depths of the Sea" on my bedroom wall when I was a teenager ???‍♀️ 1mo
marleed I‘m sorry for your loss. I second Daisy Jones because it‘s a full cast audio and might really work if there a various listeners in your car. the House in the Cerulean Sea is a fun feel good story with great narration too! 1mo
Bookwomble @marleed I think you may have accidentally cross-posted πŸ™‚ 1mo
marleed Oh thank you - that was meant for WorldsOkayestStepMom as she travels for a family funeral. But your museum visit looks fascinating! 1mo
TrishB That‘s pretty cool 😁 1mo
Bookwomble @TrishB My dad thought it was weird - it wasn't a football team or Samantha Fox! 1mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble I though of The WHO‘s pictures of Lilly when I read this. I‘m the same age as Sam Fox and she became a phenomenon when I was an apprentice. There were pictures of her pasted all over the canteen in the yard. Looking back now, pics of a 17 year old girl were being put up by blokes in their 40s. No wonder girls didn‘t sign up for trade apprenticeships. 1mo
bibliothecarivs @Bookwomble I'm glad you got to see some Pre- Raphaelite works. Their paintings are hit-or-miss for me but when they're a hit, they're amazing. In fact, Millais' Mariana is my favourite painting. Also, I had a nearly life-size poster of Mel Gibson as William Wallace on my bedroom ceiling as a teenager. No room on my walls and no accounting for what teenage boys enjoy looking at πŸ˜„ 1mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja My dad was a builder's labourer, and our ideas of appropriate wall art were different! I think he thought I was a Midwich Cuckoo πŸ˜πŸ˜„ 1mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble well as you like a bit of art, maybe youβ€˜ll look forward to this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64729309.amp 1mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja "He didn't just make art, he was art!" I love this quote from Nile Rogers in the article. Thank you for sharing ? I know at least one thing I'll be doing in 2025 ??‍? 1mo
Bookwomble @bibliothecarivs Mariana is jewel-like. Such amazing colours! 🌈 1mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble πŸ™ŒπŸΌ I hope you get to go and I hope you enjoy 1mo
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Bookwomble
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"Veined and lustrous, ringed with pearl and azure,
With amber flecked, and orange and black,
Marvellous is the house of his abiding,
The curved, frail mansion on his glistening back."

- "The Snail"
#PoetryMatters #snail @TheSpineView
A re-post, but it fits the tag ??
There's a wonderful reading of the full poem here: https://youtu.be/HsSACOVsCdA

TheSpineView It is a great poem and the perfect choice! 1mo
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Of Love and Other Demons | Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Colombia πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄
I haven't read Marquez before, but Mrs. B has and says I'll probably enjoy him. I was going to read Love in the Time of Cholera for this part of the challenge, but I came across this in a second-hand book shop today, and it's less than half the number of pages, so... πŸ˜πŸ“– If I like it, I'll see about squeezing the other book in.
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB

Librarybelle Hope you enjoy! 1mo
BarbaraBB Me too though this is not his best one imo so I hope it won‘t scare you away from reading more by him in the future 🀞🏽 1mo
IuliaC It's good, I hope you enjoy it 1mo
Bookwomble @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB @IuliaC Fingers crossed 🀞😊 1mo
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A General Theory of Oblivion | Josι Eduardo Agualusa
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Late entry for #ReadingAfrica2022 #Angola πŸ‡¦πŸ‡΄ @barbarabb @Librarybelle
4⭐I enjoyed how Agualusa introduced small incidents which became significant later on, providing multiple perspectives of the same episode to build a fuller understanding of the intersection of different lives. However, I often forgot which perspective belonged to which character, though that's more due to my own concentration issues rather than any problem with the writing.

Librarybelle Sounds interesting! 1mo
BarbaraBB I read this one too. Good choice for the prompt. 1mo
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