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The International Booker Prize | The Booker Prizes The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for the best work of fiction from around the world which has been translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland

thebookerprizes.com/internationa...

The International Booker Prize | The Booker Prizes The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for the best work of fiction from around the world which has been translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland

Yet these days far more weight is given to translators in carrying the credit for a work - illustrated by the International Booker Prize being for author & translator... thebookerprizes.com/internationa...

PS I last year read two translations of Ovid's metamorphoses, chapter from each - being verse it was interesting. I will never now learn Ancient Greek so I'll read Herodotus in the Tom Holland translation this year, & also look at a second or third translation for comparison. Fiction is different.

Oof. I led a book club focused on classics, and assigned The Brothers Karamazov. We discussed a plot point, and nothing meshed, so I asked each member to read that first paragraph in their copy. Each was wildly divergent, barely comparable. I’ve struggled to read translated works ever since.

Simenon has had multiple translators & even different titles to the same works at varying times, though all published by Penguin in the UK. It is an issue. Why one might expect a translator to be particular to one author. At least for modern works.

Have you ever wondered how a jumping spider eats?

Well now you know! 😜 #jumpingspider

Watched Song Sung Blue, the true story of a Neil Diamond tribute act based in Milwaukee, and wow, that had all the feels. Well worth seeing, and not just because Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson sing amazingly well and have great chemistry. Just a heart rending story.

I used to live in Seattle. Hard approve for their public health valentine’s messaging: “My love for you can't be explained by science. Just like the new federal vaccine guidelines.” #IDSky #Valentines

Ah -you lived in Seattle but did not seattle there!

It is getting awfully crowded up there. We risk a cascading catastrophe that will create so much space junk that we cannot use any satellites... think on that.

I’ve been given a tip-off that reading my books helps with today’s Independent cryptic crossword… 🏺⚡️

✍️ puzzles.independent.co.uk/games/crypti...

For those tired of winter and ☔️ weather, there’s growing evidence into following week of more consistent high pressure influence from Azores High.

There also looks to be an attempt next weekend in the S. I think this all points to eventual very mild conditions in final week of Feb, say mid teens.

We have hardly had a winter. One week of frost & snow in January.

Curtains? Oh pull yourself together!
🤭

Stoic quote image

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
– Marcus Aurelius

#stoic #philosophy #wisdom

There we have it, US media. He has revoked the ruling. He has not revoked the scientific finding that led to the ruling. Those are not the sort of thing one can revoke. This is not hard. If you're keen not to be actively complicit, use words properly.

View inside MAST Southampton of Garth Marenghi's Bursted Earth show.

An evening of culture

Nearly 100% of Florida in drought, worsening fears of wildfires, water shortages Water managers are asking people in six counties to limit showers, reduce water, wash cars on lawns and reduce laundry loads.

Nearly 100% of Florida in drought, worsening fears of wildfires, water shortages

Millions of Floridians are living in drought conditions intense enough to warrant burn bans and water shortage warnings as the fire danger climbs.

#Drought #Florida

www.tallahassee.com/story/weathe...

“A Cult of Ignorance” by Isaac Asimov, 1980 American author Isaac Asimov scrutinize the slogan “America’s right to know” and argues that it will remain meaningless as long as knowledge is associated with a form of elitism. Full article from 198...

nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
Isaac Asimov
aphelis.net/cult-ignoran...

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life,

Trump revokes landmark ruling that greenhouse gases endanger public health The White House calls it the largest deregulation in US history, but environmentalists say it will prove costly for Americans.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

PS Now going to get you a book on spider identification! 👍

Beavers!

Just watched 1993 X-Files Ghost in the Machine - an AI becomes conscious. "That's decades away" says Scully! Ends a bit HAL-like. Still, shows that the writers really were thinking about the possible as well as the fantastical.

“Nothing has to be true, but everything has to sound true.” Asimov

@matthewcobb.bsky.social Another artist unable to paint a cat!

Another evolutionary biologist exposed as a jerk Well, as more of a jerk — I think everyone already knew that Robert Trivers was a poor excuse for a human being. But he came up with all these interesting concepts in theoretical evolutionary…

Here's a thing about that I came across earlier.
freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2...

Oh! PZ! Not looked at his stuff for a few years...

A dearth of interesting fiction in Observer & S.Times but I must comment on some other bits... tomorrow!

A friend sent me a link to an X tweet about Epstein & his connection with evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, that said 'no one is talking about this'. In seconds I searched & found this is not the case. I learnt that Trivers has espoused some unpleasant views, & that X is filled with racist hate

non-fiction: elite capture stokely speaks when dragons fly a taste of power: a Black Woman's story assata tip of the spear soledad brother balagoon: a soldier's story

fiction: friday black stories model home raybearer archangels of funk bluff: poems Black arms to hold you up

some recs for Black history month! (and always!)