#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

"On 20 January Donald Trump officially became president of the United States, much to the consternation of almost 50 percent of the US electorate, and many others around the world."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

"SecUnits don't care about the news."

I feel that, Murderbot ?‍?

This is a re-readable series; I'm enjoying it more the second time around ?

At the risk of gorging myself, I'm going to re-read the first four Murderbot books before reading the following two for the first time, after which I will buy the latest one.

Also, I am well peeved that "Network Effect" is marginally larger in length and breadth than the other books. Who the fuck okayed that? ?‍♂️???
#BookPeeves

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

"In my eyes
Indisposed
In disguises no one knows
Hides the face
Lies the snake
And the sun in my disgrace
Boiling heat
Summer stench
Neath the black, the sky looks dead
Call my name
Through the cream
And I'll hear you scream again

Black hole sun
Won't you come
And wash away the rain?
Black hole sun
Won't you come"

?️Soundgarden
?Black Hole Sun
?Superunknown
?️ https://youtu.be/3mbBbFH9fAg?si=AtF6fUIXaUwPTFfr

"Secondhand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack...in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world."

"Of all kinds of human weaknesses, the craze for collecting old books is the most excusable. During the early phases of the disease, the book-lover is content to purchase only books which he [sic] reads. Next he buys books which he means to read; and as his store accumulates, he hopes to read his purchases; but by-and-by he takes home books in beautiful bindings and of early date, but printed in extinct languages he cannot read." ????????

A little #BookHaul from my morning in Manchester, and a visit to the Queer Lit bookshop. I hope to read these all in the first quarter of 2025. Well, I can dream, can't I? 🤔💭🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

I've been cat-sitting for my son while he and his partner were visiting friends, and taking advantage of being in the city, I'm having breakfast at Gran T's in Ancoats.
I'm enjoying Gossip from the Forest, with its blend of nature writing & the author's riffs on fairy stories.
It's a two-bookmark-book: the red for the page I'm on, the black for the notes, in, If I do say so myself, an excellent example of #BookmarkMatching 🔖🔖😁
#BooksAndCoffee

#BookHaul
Although my beloved Broadhurst's Booksellers is no more, browsing in another shop I found that they have an entry in this 1982 Guide to the Secondhand and Antiquarian bookshops of Great Britain, so I had to buy it. When I come to read it, I will undoubtedly be checking which are still open, and will be making appropriate entries on Library Thing. ⬇️

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
"You may have picked up a stone from the beach and taken it home, or carried a small pebble with you as a reminder of a visit to a place of special significance; maybe you have visited ancient monuments made of stone, or you are simply intrigued by the tales and myths that surround stones."
Yep to all this!

Soundtrack:
?️The Supremes ?
?Stoned Love
?️https://youtu.be/D2ce7FWOAM8?si=sZ0su3DcEuVbx32b
#BooksAndMusic

Next up, a lushly illustrated cultural history of stones. I like a niche deep-dive, so have high hopes for this one: the author's credentials seem impressive. 💎🪨🗿

I enjoyed Wassef's memoir of balancing private life and co-managing a chain of independent bookshops in Cairo as much as I'd hoped, and more than I expected. I don't think I'd have liked to work for her though!
It was an engaging insight into recent Egyptian society and culture, as experienced by an educated, middle class, liberal woman in a patriarchal and increasingly conservative country.
Although I didn't get to her shop, Diwan, when we ⬇️

I may be a bit premature, but this is Skye, a rescue cat we've applied to re-home. We met her today at her foster home, now we have to wait for the animal shelter to do their checks and give their approval. Hopefully, we can bring her home in about a week or so 🤞😺
#CatsOfLitsy #FingersCrossed

“Never make a decision based on fear or guilt or guided by what you think is easier. Choose what rings true to you.”

#SundayFunday @BookmarkTavern

It might be time to re-read this... ??

This LitHub article quotes from the book: "The incumbents refused to get out. It was very simple. They merely charged illegality in the elections and wrapped up the whole situation in the interminable red tape of the law." Sounds familiar! ?
https://lithub.com/how-jack-london-foresaw-the-anti-democratic-future-with-the-i...

I bought this a couple of years ago, and was reminded to take it off the shelf by the StoryGraph "reading the world" challenge, which this year has Egypt as one of its prompts.
The Diwan bookshop opened its first Cairo store in 2002, so it was there when we were passing through in 2008. I didn't get to it, and in fairness, given our limited time, I wouldn't have curtailed visiting the Cairo Museum, but still, it would've been nice... ????

"Sometimes we're up, sometimes we're down
But our feet are always on the ground
We always laugh, don't have to cry
And this is the reason why
We got love power.
It's the greatest power of them all.
We got love power
And together we can't fall." ❤️✊❤️

?️Dusty Springfield
?Love Power
?Dusty... ...Definitely
?️ https://youtu.be/b3tV_AptOsE?feature=shared

Bennett, under the pseudonym Francis Stevens, was an early writer of weird fiction, admired in the 1920s (Lovecraft), but long eclipsed by others in the genre (Lovecraft), and not included in a seminal overview of the weird, "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (Lovecraft). Even some photos of her are of doubted authenticity (the one I've posted is held as genuine). She is belatedly being seen as an originator of dark fantasy, so it's nice to ⬇️

"Extract from entry of May 17, 19--, in the log of the Portsmouth Bell, British merchant vessel, Captain Charles Jessamy, Master:
The floating scoria and ashes covering the sea in an almost unbroken thickness from six to fifteen inches are greatly impeding our progress."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

This is a good locked-room mystery with an interesting detective who, my manga-reading daughter tells me, she felt may have been, in part, an inspiration for the Death Note detective, L.
I liked the metatextual discussion of locked-room mysteries by the narrator & by the characters, which bore directly on the story itself: very clever. The setting and cultural insight was interesting, too.
I've ordered the second in the series from the library 😊

This is a good locked-room mystery with an interesting detective who, my manga-reading daughter tells me, she felt may have been, in part, an inspiration for the Death Note detective, L.
I liked the metatextual discussion of locked-room mysteries by the narrator & by the characters, which bore directly on the story itself: very clever. The setting and cultural insight was interesting, too.
I've ordered the second in the series from the library 😊

#BookHaul
My son got me a present of Murderbot hardbacks, partly to regularise my collection into uniform editions, partly to replace the ones I'd lent him which he water damaged! 🌊📚😱 😄
I got Enchanted Creatures and Claimed! for myself, the latter being my next read.

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

A koto plays a part in the plot of "The Honjin Murders", though as I'm near the beginning of the story, quite what its significance is I've yet to discover. However, the mention of the instrument immediately made me think of the sublime "Koto Song" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet, so their album "Jazz Impressions of Japan" is now my soundtrack ❤️ ??❤️

https://youtu.be/LbdD9gPnhhM?si=mh0jsYkKny4gLWLQ

#BooksAndMusic

I thoroughly enjoyed Helen Wilson's cultural history of the robin. Focusing on the European robin (Erithacus rubecula), it includes the American robin (incongruously Disneyfied into Mary Poppins's London in A Spoonful of Sugar, though not as alarmingly as Dick van Dyke's cockney accent), the Asian magpie robin, & other species unrelated genetically but which have been given the name.
Lots of wonderful photos & illustrations: a quick, light read.

One of my 2024 Christmas books. Still suitably seasonal as snow is still on the ground, and a robin is an occasional visitor to the garden.
Time to find out a bit more about Britain's favourite bird ❤️🐦‍⬛❤️

#ClassicLSFBC @Ruthiella @RamsFan1963

Stories, mainly melancholy, about US white colonialism in the guise of interplanetary settlement.

Written in the shadow of WWII and the atomic bombings of Japan, Bradbury gives a pessimistic view of the human capacity for self-destruction, genocide, ignorance & bigotry couched in beautifully lyrical prose that captures the sadness of decay and decline, grief for the passing and the passed, & a scintilla ⬇️

"One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets."

- Rocket Summer ?☀️?

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

[Illustration: Peter Thorpe]

#ClassicLSFBC
Usher II is one of Bradbury's invectives against censorship, written in 1949, obliquely referencing McCarthyism, and directly referencing book bans and book burnings, even if set in his own future.
It's hard not to see MC William Stendhal as other than an authorial avatar, driven mad by the destruction of his 50,000 book library at the hands of investigators of the Moral Climate crusade, he plots his revenge upon the repressive ⬇️

"How could I expect you to know Mr. Poe? He died a long while ago, before Lincoln. All of his books were burned in the Great Fire...He and Lovecraft and Hawthorne and Ambrose Bierce and all the tales of terror and fantasy and horror and, for that matter, tales of the future were burned. Heartlessly. They passed a law. Oh, it started very small. In 1950 and '60 it was a grain of sand. They began by controlling books of cartoons and then ⬇️

#BookMail #EarlyReviewers

I've been lucky recently with the Library Thing giveaway program, winning books I've requested AND actually receiving them!
This one is a psychological study of the impact of war & long term conflicts on identity, group dynamics, and the dehumanisation of the other.
Is it surprising that the outcome of seeking to genocidally bomb your opponent into oblivion is not peace but more war? Who could possibly have guessed?🫠

#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

Some Martian music as I'm reading Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles/The Silver Locusts".

• Pixies, Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons: https://youtu.be/DNtRoTB9gB4?si=W3aQeCyRkMAnB-z_

• David, Life on Mars?: https://youtu.be/AZKcl4-tcuo?si=l8cGA2jX8a-E8iSY

• Camille, Mars is No Fun: https://youtu.be/_hvDvMk4S-o?si=ipW3XGWXYk1V7kkP

• Marc, Ballrooms of Mars: https://youtu.be/X46oHcSa5RA?si=IwgXLAY6zSHSFqhh

#ClassicLSFBC

The #ClassicLSFBC pick for January is Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles", which I've read before in the Harper edition in the middle, and the GN version on the left.
While I've had it longer, I've not yet read the UK version, titled (after one of the stories) "The Silver Locusts", so I'll be using that one for the group read.
The contents are slightly different to the US edition: it drops "The Fire Balloons' and adds "Usher II", so I'll ⬇️

"When the brutal 50-year tyranny of the Assad dynasty collapsed last month, people danced in the streets in many parts of Syria as they contemplated an unprecedented new beginning."
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

#SocialistStandard issue 1445, has an editorial about the regime change in Syria, a main article about how tech companies leverage political power, continues its series of essays about socialism based on an address by William Morris, ⬇️

I'm probably more interested in this book as an artifact than for its contents, which were, nonetheless, interesting.
I picked up this 1901 edition in Durham, and the beautiful inscription shows that it was held by the St. Cuthbert's Society at the university. I can't quite make out the signature, but it looks like J. D. Hall, perhaps.
It was published jointly in Dublin & London, the little bookbinder's sticker suggesting this one was printed ⬇️

Just holding onto that Christmas spirit a Lyttelton longer! I miss Humph, though his replacement, Jack Dee, is appropriately curmudgeonly. This 2003 Christmas special was a parody of Dickens, including most of the usual games.

Still, as the Christmas tree of time sheds its needles into the fluffy slippers of destiny, and the tremulous foot of fate is pierced by the accidental acupuncture of eternity, I notice it's the end of the review.

The last book I'll start in 2024 ⏳

The last book I'll finish in 2024 was Simenon's tale of a marriage marred by family interference, bourgeois suspicions, emotional betrayals and psychological abuse.
Set in the claustrophobic environs of a seagoing freighter, dogged by bad luck and paranoid tensions, it's a bit like the film "The War of the Roses" at sea. The story builds to a climactic sea rescue with inevitable tragic consequences.
⬇️

I *might* have time to squeeze in a final book before 2024 is over.
This is a non-Maigret Simenon about a boat captain whose wife insists on accompanying him on the maiden voyage of his new vessel. Marital tensions build and fracture, though to what end I'll have to read to discover! 💔🌊💔

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book of 2-3 page essays about objects and ideas that enter our culture either as essential threads in the social fabric, or as fun and modish niche elements, with an ephemerality that may not be apparent but which always assets itself.
The focus is on Western culture, and I'd like to see a companion volume taking in other cultures, as those things we've lost or given up are as telling as those things we hold onto.

A Palestinian boy sets off on a school trip in 1968, reflecting on his experience of having known life only under the Israeli occupation. His mother, waving him off, reflects on her experience of surviving the horrors of the 1948 Catastrophe, when Palestine was abandoned by the British and occupied by Israelis. She visits her mother, who recalls the withdrawal of Ottoman occupation, and the succeeding British and Israeli occupations. ⬇️

"This book is a collection of objects that once populated the world, but do so no longer."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

I'm about halfway through this collection of 85 short essays about defunct and superceded objects and the ideas they manifested. I'm really enjoying it, and while each essay is brief, the information density of reading them in one consecutive stretch is cognitively demanding, so I'm taking a brief break to rest my ?

BBC Radio 4 has a new series of some of the Holmes short stories read by Hugh Bonneville 😊

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0kbcyb3

#NoPlaceLikeHolmes

Merry Festivus, to those who celebrate 🥳
#BookHaul #Christmas
All cultural histories, in one way or another.

Being the time of year it is, I couldn't resist a book about that quintessential seasonal animal that sums up the spirit of good cheer & holiday companionship: the Christmas Squid🎄🦑🎄
Lancashire legend holds that the squid climbs up the outhouse drain with its packet of gifts, which it deposits with its tentacle through the coalhouse ⬇️

I read a different author's cat memoir earlier in the year, and was upset by that writer's focus on her pets' ill-health and deaths, frequently caused by her own neglect.
This book is somewhat more balanced in following Mii's life from kittenhood, through 20 years of companionship, inevitably dealing with illness and death, so not for anybody likely to be distressed by such detailed descriptions.
What really distinguishes it from that other ⬇️

Well, Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," of course, and Dylan Thomas's "A Child's Christmas in Wales," too, but the Sherlock Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" always gives me the Christmas feels ? ????️‍♂️

#SundayFunday @BookmarkTavern

Having just bailed on a self-help book, let's see how I get on with (yet another) author's cat memoir! 😸

I picked this up because I like the title and the author/illustrator's name, Dancing Snail💃🐌
It's a self-help book about depression and fatigue, lots of illustrations to reduce cognitive load in delivering its message. I'm not a great fan of self-help books, but it'll be interesting to see how this one comes across.

Oh, yeah, a gratuitous #BookmarkMatching photo 📖🔖

Wrong legion for the story, but I do what I can! 😀

This was a great historical novel set in the 367CE Roman province of Britannia, a period about which we know enough to provide interesting background, while also vague enough to give an author lots of latitude to play around & I thought Duckworth did justice to the material.
The story follows Alberic, an exiled Saxon prince, and Dominicus, an embittered young legionary, as their paths in the conflict raging across the island gradually converge, ⬇️

Four #LibraryHaul GNs this week, of which Conan was the best, precisely capturing the classic sword & sorcery aesthetic, by Crom!
The Star Wars book was unreadable and I bailed. The Force was weak in that one!
Venom was ok, a flashback to the Lethal Protector's early career, featuring Silver Sable & Nick Fury, with Doctor Doom the antagonist. Workmanlike rather than inspired.
⬇️