Bookbird 📖 🐦‍⬛

On a wooden background: V. E. Schwab’s The Near Witch. The cover is white with a leafless tree on the left, a crow perched.

Light horror, not quite fantasy. A girl, a witch and small town politics.
There are some great things in this book. The genuine hatred of the rejected boy. The conflict of power, truth and conscience.
And then there’s an undercooked romance plot, thin characters and too many threads.
💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

On a sage green background, text that says “I also [heart] other people’s local bookshops which I only know from the internet” in a light font.

On a wooden background: Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer. The cover shows a woman wearing a headscarf and red tinted sunglasses. A knife is mirrored in her glasses.

Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer is a fun read about serious topics. All the ways women are powerless and some of the ways they are powerful…

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

On a wooden background: The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide. Cover shows the upper half of a cat’s face with reflective green eyes.

A very sweet book about loving and grieving and the multitude of unknowns of life. It’s slow and a little bit sad.

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

And they really didn’t want to be, but the gays and the feminists and the black people insisted they were people too.

As always, the stupid comparison between plant-based meat and fresh fruit and vegetables… Compare the plant based burger with a beef burger (an ultra processed cow, so to speak)! They are both junk food with too much salt and not enough fibre BUT ONE DID TORTURE A COW WITH INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY.

Loved Fates and Furies as well as Matrix. Am looking forward to this one.

Trump’s Meme Coin Scheme, Alphabet’s Earnings, and Cybertruck’s Competition — Pivot Kara and Scott break down Alphabet’s strong earnings, and why the company continues to dominate. Then, the Trump meme coin grift that’s raising serious corruption questions. Plus, Trump appears to fli...

Wins and Fails.
Listen to @pivotpod.bsky.social to learn that
@karaswisher.bsky.social and @profgalloway.com should really read Frankenstein and then enjoy the lovely quote.

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

Homogeneous also doesn’t mean “different from my opinion”. There is nothing homogeneous about academia. Just because people agree to be nice and respectful (including pronouns) when they debate and argue DOESN’T MEAN THEY ONLY HAVE ONE OPINION. EXCEPT MAYBE ABOUT WELCOMING BIGOTS!

Sry for yelling.

Have you ever tried to get a humanities department to agree on anything???

Bryology (MOSS) with Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer — Ologies with Alie Ward An instant classic. You’ll listen on repeat as world-renowned author, botanist, Indigenous ecology professor and bryologist Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about her passion for moss. Cozy up for the mo...

This is one of my favourite episodes of Ologies @ologies.bsky.social. Maybe my all time favourite.

On a wooden background: Carol Ann Duffy’s Feminine Gospels. Mostly beige, above the text three pairs of legs are cut off above the knee, wearing modest heels and modest skirts.

“Act like a fucking princess -
how they loved her,
the men from the press -
Give us a smile, cunt.
And her blue eyes widened
to take it all in: the flashbulbs,
the half-mast flags, the acres of flowers,
History's stinking breath in her face.”

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

On a wooden background: Carol Ann Duffy’s Mean Time.

It’s bee a while since I just read a book of poetry beginning to end.
In Carol Ann Duffy’s Mean Time the everyday is put into beautiful, and cutting and clever words.

“And we're all owed joy, sooner or later.
The trick’s to remember whenever it was, or to see it coming.”

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

On a wooden background: The Lemur by Benjamin Black. A man’s face behind smoke, his eyes are obscured.

Now here’s a text with few redeeming qualities. There’s a murder, a journalist, a lot of wealth and only a few barely interesting characters.
It’s short at least.

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

Blue sky text box reading, "The whole problem is that you can type anything into this box and people will see it."

I don’t kick every car parked on the bike lane. What more do they want???

On a wooden background: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. Author, title and two stylised plants from root to flower in red, orange and blue.

What a book.
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff is excellent. Every time you think you know what genre book you’re reading, she surprises you.
Quick and unsentimental. Yet deeply empathetic.
Hits like a Greek tragedy.

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

Yeah. Reading is not a completionist’s endeavour. Choosing is important. If I spend my time on a text I want to get something out of it. Just - sometimes - I get something out of a text I didn’t even want to read. ☺️

There’s also something to be said about the power not to read the things the powerful agree on.

Really?
I 100% agree: read what you want.
BUT
Also read things that don’t agree with you. Things that make you uncomfortable. Figure out why. Built up your own argument. Tell a story in return. Engage with the wider world.

On a wooden background: Ken Liu‘s The Grace of Kings. The cover shows mountains, the coast, with a castle, ships, a kite, a wolf above the mountains and large flowers.

I just finished Ken Liu‘s The Grace of Kings. It’s fast paced. Great world building. And a lot of plot. I enjoyed it.
The ending left me with a feeling of utter contempt for war and the men who yearn for it.
I think I need a break before I start the second one.

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

My dad has no artistic talent. None. Give him flowers in a vase, he’ll somehow put it somewhere in a way that makes both the flowers and the room look worse.
He loved the idea of AI art. So I showed him. He made some birthday cards. He loved it. For a day.
The next day, he said it looked soulless.

They don’t want to make art accessible. They promise to make talent accessible, but they can’t. All you get is weird pictures.
It’s not like there is no place for AI graphics. It’s just that by stealing in order to create AI, the product is fundamentally abhorrent.

On a wooden background: Cover of Claire Keegan’s So Late in the Day. Besides author and title the cover shows (painted, rough strokes) a room corner with a light grey wardrobe.

47 pages and large print. Not enough to fulfil my greedy wishes for more writing by Claire Keegan. So Late in the Day is a dense character study of an Irish man. It’s about loving who you are (or not) and the ability to love others. Especially within patriarchy.
More, please?

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

On a wooden background: Naomi Novik’s novel The Golden Enclaves. Cover is gold with black author and title as well as mystical eyes in and around an open arched door that shows an outline of a city.

Finished the third in the series.
An excellent read. All if them. Tangents pay off. Magic makes sense. Power corrupts. Characters are complicated.

💙📚 📖🦋 #booksky

Have we tried to Nudge©️ Schumer?

Quote from The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. It reads: I was angry at them for everything they'd done to build it, and I also couldn't stand to just turn my back and let it all come tumbling down. It wouldn't have fixed anything they'd done. It would only have made an even worse waste of it all.

The gardens at the London enclave. At one point El wonders about the ethical implications of enjoying something that is built on the exploitation of others.
The question of access reminded me a lot of debates about art and museums. Especially about stolen art and generational responsibility.

I’m already reading the last one. ☺️

That’s still my favourite of hers.

Yes, I’m reading the last one now. I love how she just sprinkles critical theory into the story, without being sanctimonious. Is it okay to enjoy Western art, even if it’s based on cultural theft etc.? Or is it more disrespectful to destroy it?
This is why I love reading.