What are you reading?

[Seance]

^ Yeah Kindred is good but brutal! I'd recommend more of her books, I've read the "Lilith's Brood" series and enjoyed them a lot.

Recently re-read Valis by Philip K Dick. Although I sort of wish I had this version
so I could re-read the whole series in order.

The first time I read these I checked them all out sequentially from a library—back when
libraries still trafficked in physical books.

Man I'd love that version! I loved Valis but not got round to checking out the series yet.

Might be interesting to read Robert Temple's new book after that series.

Apparently Robert Temple's book The Sirius Mystery from 1976 influenced PKD to change
the star he thought his pink laser of information beamed into his brain was coming from. Initially
he conjectured Albemuth. Then settled on Sirius.

Talk of "plasmate" and how the universe is a hologram and the pink laser as an info beam in PKD
also sort of seem to have something in common with Robert Temple's new book, A New Science
of Heaven.



Or... human concepts frame how human minds conceive of that which is that we don't understand.
For Newton the universe is like a clock.
Some people now seem to the think the universe is like a hologram/virtual reality construct made by a computer.

Scientists call it "dark matter" and "dark energy" because 99% of the universe is made up of "stuff"
that scientists have no clue about (humans are "in the dark", not the matter or energy).

[coldbrightsunlight]

That sounds pretty wild. Maybe worth checking out

[Seance]

Just finished reading the 800-page Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas (1971).

Lots of interesting stuff. Lots of galling/entrancing parallels in circumstances and mindsets.
We live in a time where self-confirming beliefs have run rampant and amok. The internet
has (contrary to the pitch from the utopian salespeople) exacerbated the situation instead of
dispelling disinformation.


Just started reading Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici (2004).

[Kacey Y]

I've been reading Plain Bad Heroines, it's a lesbian New England gothic novel. I enjoy the vibes of it, but the story is so meta and layered across time jumps and narrative devices that it can get a little difficult to keep focus. It jumps between the story of people making a movie adaptation of a novel, that is sort of a Capote style fictionalization of a morbid tragedy involved girls at a prep school in the 1800s, to the actual lives of the school mistress of that prep school and her lover and their messy secret life (both their back stories and after the tragedy, out of order). There's also a lot of potentially supernatural occurrences that they all have in common, some of which may be staged by the production of the film, because they're semi-secretly manipulating and filming the actors behind the scenes, to get a reaction as a meta narrative artsy angle. It's sometimes hinted at by the narrator that she's unreliable and everything we're reading is subjective and manipulated for our reactions.

I don't dislike it, but I find myself wishing I was reading the fictional novel within the novel, as just a regular narrative lol

[coupleonapkins]

Somehow didn't realize Miranda July released another bewk this year, so I'm gonna haveta get inn on that akshun

I did finally see Kajillionaire (not bewk) this yeer, and it was pleasant in all thee right wheys

Still gotta find a cheep copy of that vegetarian korean cookbook, since my librerry has a waitlist of 45 ppl & the digital version eggspired?!? Either that or one o' dose phaidon spensive dingys if I get a merchant/ivory gift card at thee gift swap next week, but you KNOW I'll just end up with a can of peanut SNAKES instead

[Seance]

Currently reading Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. It's fascinating and a restorative read.
https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/entangled-life


Recently picked up (but haven't yet read) Ancient Sorceries by Algernon Blackwood. It's part of the Penguin UK "Weird Fiction" series. Weird that David Lindsay isn't part of this series. Penguin UK already publishes A Voyage to Arcturus.

Seems like it would make sense for their "Weird Fiction" to include The Haunted Woman or Sphinx or Devil's Tor.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/series/WEIRDFIC/weird-fiction


https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/317266/ ... 0241441589

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

I'm reading Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower right now. I'm finding it weirdly affecting (and slightly anxiety-inducing) if only because at the first level it resembles all the 80's after-the-bombs-drop post-apocalyptic novels I read when I was young (why in the world did they let the Scholastic Book Club sell that stuff? To toughen us up, I guess.) It's grim version of twenty-years-in-the-future from twenty years ago isn't quite here yet, but it does register as hitting the right notes.

(I have no idea where the book is going, so no spoilers please!)

[friendship]

I'm reading Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower right now. I'm finding it weirdly affecting (and slightly anxiety-inducing) if only because at the first level it resembles all the 80's after-the-bombs-drop post-apocalyptic novels I read when I was young (why in the world did they let the Scholastic Book Club sell that stuff? To toughen us up, I guess.) It's grim version of twenty-years-in-the-future from twenty years ago isn't quite here yet, but it does register as hitting the right notes.

(I have no idea where the book is going, so no spoilers please!)

Oh man, I tried reading that in 2023 and it gave me anxiety attacks because the setting seemed (and seems ever more so) so plausible. One of these days I'm going to get my Feelings under control and finish it though because the writing was fantastic, naturally.

Over winter I read Mark Danieleswki's mega-tome Tom's Crossing. It was fucking outstanding imo.

A couple weeks ago I read Denis Johnson's Train Dreams after seeing the film and I gotta say I think the film had more depth?? Super short novella though, a good way to spend an afternoon.

Last week I read The Mattering Instinct by Rebecca Goldstein which lead to some heavy personal revelations that I'm still processing.

Now I'm in the middle of Lauren McQuistin's No Lost Causes Club, a half-guide half-memoir about addiction and recovery. Very relatable, funny, and heartfelt prose about the struggle to cope with being a human being in this world.