Scratching Itches
Jun. 5th, 2025 08:37 amI have made many a post about how no other writer scratches the same itch that Robin McKinley does, but here is another one, expanded out to talk about other writers who scratch very specific itches.
I am skeptical of the BookTok/GoodReads "readalikes" conversation, because I don't think there are any writers who actually readalike--every writer is distinct--and also I hate the tendency of book copy to compare books to other books/writers ("for readers of...") mostly because the comparisons are usually bad comparisons! Book B is nothing like Book A actually! Why did you even say that it was? Have you, person who wrote the copy, actually read both books? Etc.
However, I do think that thoughtful comparisons of writers can be helpful is the conversation is very specific about what you're actually comparing. For instance: if you ask for writers like Austen and someone suggests Heyer, that could work really well if what you're looking for is "romance set in Regency England written by someone who isn't just writing about Regency England via osmosis of reading a thousand other Regency novels" but it would simply be frustrating if what you're looking for is "gorgeous early 19th century prose and keen-eyed commentary on human foibles and social expectations." See?
So I'd like to have a discussion about what itches particular writers scratch that are difficult to find in other writers' works. That's not elegantly phrased, but maybe examples will help.
I'll probably make several posts about this featuring a handful of favorite writers or perhaps favorite books and I would be VERY interested to hear what itch-scratchers you're always looking for, whether in the comments or in your own posts. And if you can think of any writers or specific books that hit any one of the points I'm looking for below, please, please share recs! Recommendations are my love language!
When I say that I want more books like Eva Ibbotson's (adult) books (and Star of Kazan), what I mean is one or some combination of the following:
+ golden descriptions of pre-WWII Europe (particularly Hapsburg territory, particularly Vienna) with its sense of how diverse Europe was with dozens of different cultures all jostling with each other
+ colorful, eccentric, specific characters (mostly these are supporting characters in her books, not the leads, but I am happy whenever they arise) evoked through amazing details
+ beautiful writing about love for the arts, including moments of transcendence and grace in the midst of sorrow
What I'm not talking about:
+ the romances, which I find only partially convincing most of the time
When I say that I want more books like Robin McKinley's, what I am saying:
+ close attention to the domestic details of life from baking to raising newborn puppies to creating fire-proof dragon-fighting gear
+ an atmosphere that is warm without being saccharine--there's sorrow, pain, loss, etc. alongside the coziness
+ wonderful evocations of magic
+ wonderfully realized female characters (Beagle's Tamsin did this for me, if you want another example)
What I'm not talking about:
+ any particular one of her settings--I like them all but I don't go searching for them
+ fairytale retellings--these can be good! but often are not
When I say I want more books like Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series, what I mean is:
+ vividly evoked specific historical settings, a strong sense of place, settings that are rare and not over-visited (look, I love Victorian London as much as anyone, but sometimes I'd rather have a story set in Central Asia or the Incan Empire or something)
+ close attention to how power affects how people move through the world (without getting preachy)
+ focus on how marginalized people find agency and build lives despite the limits enforced on them by those forces of power
+ depictions of people trying (sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to build relationships across those societally-enforced lines
What I'm not talking about:
+ historical mysteries, necessarily (I love historical mysteries when done well but SO many of them just do not work for me)
When I say I want more books like Susanna Clarke's, what I mean is:
+ magic that is beautiful but untamable, wild and fey
+ delightful footnotes or digressions
+ love for scholarship, history, books, etc.
+ a sense of wonder
+ a sense of the writer's deep understanding of the literature and history of the era she's writing about
What I'm not talking about:
+ conflicts between men wielding magic in different ways
+ Regency-era fantasy, necessarily (again, most of this does not hit for me)
I am skeptical of the BookTok/GoodReads "readalikes" conversation, because I don't think there are any writers who actually readalike--every writer is distinct--and also I hate the tendency of book copy to compare books to other books/writers ("for readers of...") mostly because the comparisons are usually bad comparisons! Book B is nothing like Book A actually! Why did you even say that it was? Have you, person who wrote the copy, actually read both books? Etc.
However, I do think that thoughtful comparisons of writers can be helpful is the conversation is very specific about what you're actually comparing. For instance: if you ask for writers like Austen and someone suggests Heyer, that could work really well if what you're looking for is "romance set in Regency England written by someone who isn't just writing about Regency England via osmosis of reading a thousand other Regency novels" but it would simply be frustrating if what you're looking for is "gorgeous early 19th century prose and keen-eyed commentary on human foibles and social expectations." See?
So I'd like to have a discussion about what itches particular writers scratch that are difficult to find in other writers' works. That's not elegantly phrased, but maybe examples will help.
I'll probably make several posts about this featuring a handful of favorite writers or perhaps favorite books and I would be VERY interested to hear what itch-scratchers you're always looking for, whether in the comments or in your own posts. And if you can think of any writers or specific books that hit any one of the points I'm looking for below, please, please share recs! Recommendations are my love language!
When I say that I want more books like Eva Ibbotson's (adult) books (and Star of Kazan), what I mean is one or some combination of the following:
+ golden descriptions of pre-WWII Europe (particularly Hapsburg territory, particularly Vienna) with its sense of how diverse Europe was with dozens of different cultures all jostling with each other
+ colorful, eccentric, specific characters (mostly these are supporting characters in her books, not the leads, but I am happy whenever they arise) evoked through amazing details
+ beautiful writing about love for the arts, including moments of transcendence and grace in the midst of sorrow
What I'm not talking about:
+ the romances, which I find only partially convincing most of the time
When I say that I want more books like Robin McKinley's, what I am saying:
+ close attention to the domestic details of life from baking to raising newborn puppies to creating fire-proof dragon-fighting gear
+ an atmosphere that is warm without being saccharine--there's sorrow, pain, loss, etc. alongside the coziness
+ wonderful evocations of magic
+ wonderfully realized female characters (Beagle's Tamsin did this for me, if you want another example)
What I'm not talking about:
+ any particular one of her settings--I like them all but I don't go searching for them
+ fairytale retellings--these can be good! but often are not
When I say I want more books like Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series, what I mean is:
+ vividly evoked specific historical settings, a strong sense of place, settings that are rare and not over-visited (look, I love Victorian London as much as anyone, but sometimes I'd rather have a story set in Central Asia or the Incan Empire or something)
+ close attention to how power affects how people move through the world (without getting preachy)
+ focus on how marginalized people find agency and build lives despite the limits enforced on them by those forces of power
+ depictions of people trying (sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to build relationships across those societally-enforced lines
What I'm not talking about:
+ historical mysteries, necessarily (I love historical mysteries when done well but SO many of them just do not work for me)
When I say I want more books like Susanna Clarke's, what I mean is:
+ magic that is beautiful but untamable, wild and fey
+ delightful footnotes or digressions
+ love for scholarship, history, books, etc.
+ a sense of wonder
+ a sense of the writer's deep understanding of the literature and history of the era she's writing about
What I'm not talking about:
+ conflicts between men wielding magic in different ways
+ Regency-era fantasy, necessarily (again, most of this does not hit for me)
what i'm reading wednesday 4/6/2025
Jun. 4th, 2025 08:31 amAnd we're back with book updates!
What I finished:
+ Lady of Perdition, the 17th (!) Benjamin January book by Barbara Hambly. This is one of the field trip books that's set outside New Orleans, this time in the Republic of Texas, which sounds like it was hell for anyone who wasn't a white dude, even more so than the rest of what would become the southern US later. The inciting incident of the book is so harrowing in concept (though not in actual description) I don't even want to speak of it but is very much a reality of being Black in the antebellum US.
It's also one of the ones where we meet up with a character from an earlier book, and those always make me wish I weren't reading the series so very slowly. The last time we met said character, it was back in book 7! Which I read several years ago! So I had vague memories of her and much stronger memories of the vibes of that book. But Hambly does a good job of reminding us of what we need to know without being heavy-handed.
Lots of good Ben-and-Hannibal stuff in this book, though, as always when we're away from New Orleans, I miss Rose and everyone back home. And as always with every single book in the series, I spend the whole time going, "When will Ben get a bath and a good meal and a full night's sleep?????" Poor guy is in his 40s, won't someone let him rest? If you're into whump, you don't get much better than Ben. I want to wrap him up in blankets (actually, no blankets, since all the places he goes are so very hot) and let him sleep for a thousand years.
All in all a good but not standout entry in the series. A thousand bonus points for a plotline involving stolen archives, apparently based on a real occurrence! THE TEXAS ARCHIVE WAR WAS A REAL THING.
+ The Incandescent by Emily Tesh, which I appreciated a lot but did not love. Tesh is a great writer, and this book has a fantastic premise--one of those dangerous magical schools books, but told from the perspective of one of the instructors. What makes this work so well is that Tesh clearly has a background in education and the book is, in many ways, an exploration of what it's like to be a teacher, both in the basic dealing with administrative tasks and finding time to grade papers and also in the struggle to connect with and inspire students. The book is suffused with real details of what teaching in a British school is actually like, and I always enjoy a take-your-job-to-ficbook take.
Our main character is, as in Tesh's last book, another strength. Tesh writes fantastic flawed characters--Walden isn't as immediately off-putting as Kyr from Some Desperate Glory, but her besetting sin is pride and it's a doozy. She's so well-intentioned and trying so hard and she's way more likeable than Kyr starts out, but also, like, LADY. So realistic in the depiction of an academic with a PhD and a certainty that her understanding of her field (in this case magic) is superior to everyone else's. The book is about her learning her limitations and to appreciate other people's insights and I liked that a lot.
We get a fun outsider pov of the four students who would, if this book was written by anyone else, be the main characters, and I must say that I would absolutely read a fic bout Will pining for Nikki. The magical system is quite fun and distinctive and lends itself well to formal study.
So yeah, I think this is a very strong book, I really liked it, but it didn't scratch any particular itches for me that would bump it up into the tier of books I love. Still, I like Tesh's writing so very much and can't wait to see what she does next.
+ Miss Silver Comes to Stay, the 15th(!) Miss Silver book by Patricia Wentworth. As usual, I don't have a great deal to say; I always enjoy a Wentworth book, but they're always doing loosely the same thing. I do appreciate her commitment to having the victim be someone we really hate.
+ The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. I haven't read this one since my British Gothic Fiction class in undergrad. (This was a summer semester class and there were only four other people in the class, and I think I was the only one who really wanted to be there. But I really wanted to be there, so hopefully I made up for the others' lack of enthusiasm.)
I remembered this as more of a horror story, but I think that's me confusing it with the film adaptation The Innocents, which is a banger of a movie and highly recommended. The book is also a banger, but it feels much more like a psychological thriller than a horror story imo. The fun of it is the perspective of our main character, an example of the gothic governess type, whose mind we're immersed in. Is she crazy? Is she evil and lying to us? Is everything she's describing really happening?
This is a book about suggestion and subtext, and I love that about it. More is not stated than is, which is always really effective in a ghost story. In this case, though, the things that aren't stated aren't related to the actions or appearance of the ghost/monster/killer but instead to the nature of the damage the bad guys are doing to the alleged victims. The book is more chilling than scary, which I'm into.
This was apparently James's selling out book, and I, for one, wish he sold out more often. There can never be enough gothic novels in the world as far as I'm concerned.
What I'm reading now:
+ Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie. I read most if not all of the Poirot books in middle school, but that was...over twenty years ago, so I remember nothing about this particular one. Shoutout to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scripsi for mentioning it as one of her favorite Christies!
What I finished:
+ Lady of Perdition, the 17th (!) Benjamin January book by Barbara Hambly. This is one of the field trip books that's set outside New Orleans, this time in the Republic of Texas, which sounds like it was hell for anyone who wasn't a white dude, even more so than the rest of what would become the southern US later. The inciting incident of the book is so harrowing in concept (though not in actual description) I don't even want to speak of it but is very much a reality of being Black in the antebellum US.
It's also one of the ones where we meet up with a character from an earlier book, and those always make me wish I weren't reading the series so very slowly. The last time we met said character, it was back in book 7! Which I read several years ago! So I had vague memories of her and much stronger memories of the vibes of that book. But Hambly does a good job of reminding us of what we need to know without being heavy-handed.
Lots of good Ben-and-Hannibal stuff in this book, though, as always when we're away from New Orleans, I miss Rose and everyone back home. And as always with every single book in the series, I spend the whole time going, "When will Ben get a bath and a good meal and a full night's sleep?????" Poor guy is in his 40s, won't someone let him rest? If you're into whump, you don't get much better than Ben. I want to wrap him up in blankets (actually, no blankets, since all the places he goes are so very hot) and let him sleep for a thousand years.
All in all a good but not standout entry in the series. A thousand bonus points for a plotline involving stolen archives, apparently based on a real occurrence! THE TEXAS ARCHIVE WAR WAS A REAL THING.
+ The Incandescent by Emily Tesh, which I appreciated a lot but did not love. Tesh is a great writer, and this book has a fantastic premise--one of those dangerous magical schools books, but told from the perspective of one of the instructors. What makes this work so well is that Tesh clearly has a background in education and the book is, in many ways, an exploration of what it's like to be a teacher, both in the basic dealing with administrative tasks and finding time to grade papers and also in the struggle to connect with and inspire students. The book is suffused with real details of what teaching in a British school is actually like, and I always enjoy a take-your-job-to-
Our main character is, as in Tesh's last book, another strength. Tesh writes fantastic flawed characters--Walden isn't as immediately off-putting as Kyr from Some Desperate Glory, but her besetting sin is pride and it's a doozy. She's so well-intentioned and trying so hard and she's way more likeable than Kyr starts out, but also, like, LADY. So realistic in the depiction of an academic with a PhD and a certainty that her understanding of her field (in this case magic) is superior to everyone else's. The book is about her learning her limitations and to appreciate other people's insights and I liked that a lot.
We get a fun outsider pov of the four students who would, if this book was written by anyone else, be the main characters, and I must say that I would absolutely read a fic bout Will pining for Nikki. The magical system is quite fun and distinctive and lends itself well to formal study.
So yeah, I think this is a very strong book, I really liked it, but it didn't scratch any particular itches for me that would bump it up into the tier of books I love. Still, I like Tesh's writing so very much and can't wait to see what she does next.
+ Miss Silver Comes to Stay, the 15th(!) Miss Silver book by Patricia Wentworth. As usual, I don't have a great deal to say; I always enjoy a Wentworth book, but they're always doing loosely the same thing. I do appreciate her commitment to having the victim be someone we really hate.
+ The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. I haven't read this one since my British Gothic Fiction class in undergrad. (This was a summer semester class and there were only four other people in the class, and I think I was the only one who really wanted to be there. But I really wanted to be there, so hopefully I made up for the others' lack of enthusiasm.)
I remembered this as more of a horror story, but I think that's me confusing it with the film adaptation The Innocents, which is a banger of a movie and highly recommended. The book is also a banger, but it feels much more like a psychological thriller than a horror story imo. The fun of it is the perspective of our main character, an example of the gothic governess type, whose mind we're immersed in. Is she crazy? Is she evil and lying to us? Is everything she's describing really happening?
This is a book about suggestion and subtext, and I love that about it. More is not stated than is, which is always really effective in a ghost story. In this case, though, the things that aren't stated aren't related to the actions or appearance of the ghost/monster/killer but instead to the nature of the damage the bad guys are doing to the alleged victims. The book is more chilling than scary, which I'm into.
This was apparently James's selling out book, and I, for one, wish he sold out more often. There can never be enough gothic novels in the world as far as I'm concerned.
What I'm reading now:
+ Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie. I read most if not all of the Poirot books in middle school, but that was...over twenty years ago, so I remember nothing about this particular one. Shoutout to
scripsi for mentioning it as one of her favorite Christies!what i'm reading wednesday 21/5/2025
May. 21st, 2025 08:28 amWhat I finished:
+ The Horse and His Boy. What a mixed-bag of a book! Honestly this is the strongest book in the series plot-wise imo. Aravis and Bree and Hwin are such fantastic characters! Shasta is a little less so in that common way that protagonists are often less interesting than the surrounding characters, but he has a lovely moment of growth towards the end that I really appreciate. We've again got a lot of really great images--the two horses riding side by side with the lions on either side, the tombs like beehives, the walk in the fog, etc. The pace is great, and it's enjoyable from start to finish.
But holy Orientalism, Batman! I would give big money to know what Edward Said would have thought of this book! The racism is of the kind that doesn't seem malicious but is no less potent for that. I can't even start talking about it because I would end up writing a dissertation or something. In Lewis's defense, we have in Aravis a Calormene who is relatable and admirable but flawed--a real person. That mitigates some of the nastiness, but obviously it's not enough. All the other Calormene are either actively terrible people or ridiculous (or both), and don't even get me started on the "Narnia and the North!" stuff.
I don't blame people for loving this book as it is, as I said, a thoroughly enjoyable one. But I also am appalled by it. Sometimes it is VERY clear that this book was written by a white British guy born in the Victorian era.
+ The Magician's Nephew. Speaking of the Victorian era.... This book is such a prequel. Let's explain where everything the other books came from! Here's the whole backstory! I don't think this is a bad thing, but on rereading it, it solidified my opinion that it's best to read these books in publication order. Reading this one right before the finale (which I am not looking forward to) is the right call, imo, because it gives the book an oomph it simply would not have if read earlier in the series. Frankly, I enjoyed this one more than I remember doing as a kid.
The images I remembered from this one were the yellow and green rings, the Wood between the Worlds, Jadis riding Boadicea-style on top of a hack, Aslan singing the world into existence, and flying on the Pegasus up to the mountains. To this I will add a few things that I hadn't remembered--Polly and Digory navigating the attic, the way the Lantern grows, etc.
I love that this book is about power and the arrogance of those who think they can wield it because they're ~special~. Should this book make me think of Nietzsche? Who knows. But it sure does--this is a book about how those who think they are an Übermensch suck actually. We've got both Uncle Andrew and Jadis who have no regard for anyone else, view people as (almost literal) guinea pigs, and think that might makes right. Contrasted with that we have the humility of Frank and Nellie, and in the middle, Digory who is tempted and first makes the wrong decision (with the bell) but ultimately makes the right decision (with the fruit).
An aside--one theme of the series I absolutely did not pick up on as a kid is all the ways in which we justify our own flaws, vices, and bad decisions to ourselves. Edmund, Eustace, and Digory all justify their bad behavior and decisions, and each have important moments where they admit not only that they were wrong and hurt people, but also that they told themselves a story about why they did things that they knew was a lie. This is not something I see a lot of in books for kids, and I think it's great.
The stuff about Digory's mother is very moving knowing that Lewis's mother died when he was a child--he doesn't linger on that pain in the book but it's there, lending some real pathos to the story.
+ A Study in Scarlet. After I read TMN, I was in the mood for some Victoriana, and who's more Victorian than Sherlock Holmes? I hadn't read this one before--I've read quite a few of the short stories and The House of the Baskervilles, but I think that's all. I've also seen quite a bit of Granada Holmes, so I'm very familiar with a lot of the stories, but I don't think I ever watched this particular episode? Honestly, Holmes and Watson are so familiar that it's interesting all on its own to try to put yourself in the headspace of meeting them for the first time, no matter how impossible that is.
Holmes is, of course, an instantly iconic character, even in this first book where he's not fleshed out quite as much. I enjoy how he simply will not use brain space for things he doesn't think are important (politics, literature, the fact that the earth orbits the sun) even if I disagree strongly with him about the importance of those things!
I had not realized this book was a hit piece on Mormons! I mean, I get it! Mormons are easy to write hit pieces about! But I simply did not expect it! Nor did I expect that we would take a whole 1/3 of the book telling the backstory as its own story without Holmes or Watson or London anywhere in sight!
My biggest takeaway from the book was, wow, Steven Moffat really took this story and made it so much worse, didn't he?
What I'm currently reading:
+ After seeing Sinners, I was like, "I need a book that makes me feel the humidity on my skin and fills my ears with the sound of cicadas," so I dipped back into the Benjamin January books, this time with Lady of Perdition. I have been intentionally reading the series verrrrrry slooooowly so that it won't be over too soon; I've gotten to the point where I only read it when I'm in a very particular mood.
This is one of the not-set-in-New-Orleans books, which I never like quite as much as the books that are set in New Orleans or the bayous around it. I always like the field trip books! But just not quite as much. This time we're in the Republic of Texas and Hannibal and Shaw have accompanied Ben to try to track down a free girl of color who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. One thing I deeply appreciate about this series is the way that it makes it very clear that even those Black people who are "free" as in not-enslaved are always in a precarious position--that freedom can be revoked at any time if a white person is violent enough, and the law will always be on the white person's side.
Anyway, more on this book after I finish reading it.
Up next:
City of Stairs had to go back to the library before I finished it, but I will certainly finish it later. I haven't read any more of Tendencies yet, but I need to get back into after my trip.
I will make myself read The Last Battle and I look forward to continuing the Westmark books with The Kestrel as well as checking out Emily Tesh's new offering, The Incandescent.
+ The Horse and His Boy. What a mixed-bag of a book! Honestly this is the strongest book in the series plot-wise imo. Aravis and Bree and Hwin are such fantastic characters! Shasta is a little less so in that common way that protagonists are often less interesting than the surrounding characters, but he has a lovely moment of growth towards the end that I really appreciate. We've again got a lot of really great images--the two horses riding side by side with the lions on either side, the tombs like beehives, the walk in the fog, etc. The pace is great, and it's enjoyable from start to finish.
But holy Orientalism, Batman! I would give big money to know what Edward Said would have thought of this book! The racism is of the kind that doesn't seem malicious but is no less potent for that. I can't even start talking about it because I would end up writing a dissertation or something. In Lewis's defense, we have in Aravis a Calormene who is relatable and admirable but flawed--a real person. That mitigates some of the nastiness, but obviously it's not enough. All the other Calormene are either actively terrible people or ridiculous (or both), and don't even get me started on the "Narnia and the North!" stuff.
I don't blame people for loving this book as it is, as I said, a thoroughly enjoyable one. But I also am appalled by it. Sometimes it is VERY clear that this book was written by a white British guy born in the Victorian era.
+ The Magician's Nephew. Speaking of the Victorian era.... This book is such a prequel. Let's explain where everything the other books came from! Here's the whole backstory! I don't think this is a bad thing, but on rereading it, it solidified my opinion that it's best to read these books in publication order. Reading this one right before the finale (which I am not looking forward to) is the right call, imo, because it gives the book an oomph it simply would not have if read earlier in the series. Frankly, I enjoyed this one more than I remember doing as a kid.
The images I remembered from this one were the yellow and green rings, the Wood between the Worlds, Jadis riding Boadicea-style on top of a hack, Aslan singing the world into existence, and flying on the Pegasus up to the mountains. To this I will add a few things that I hadn't remembered--Polly and Digory navigating the attic, the way the Lantern grows, etc.
I love that this book is about power and the arrogance of those who think they can wield it because they're ~special~. Should this book make me think of Nietzsche? Who knows. But it sure does--this is a book about how those who think they are an Übermensch suck actually. We've got both Uncle Andrew and Jadis who have no regard for anyone else, view people as (almost literal) guinea pigs, and think that might makes right. Contrasted with that we have the humility of Frank and Nellie, and in the middle, Digory who is tempted and first makes the wrong decision (with the bell) but ultimately makes the right decision (with the fruit).
An aside--one theme of the series I absolutely did not pick up on as a kid is all the ways in which we justify our own flaws, vices, and bad decisions to ourselves. Edmund, Eustace, and Digory all justify their bad behavior and decisions, and each have important moments where they admit not only that they were wrong and hurt people, but also that they told themselves a story about why they did things that they knew was a lie. This is not something I see a lot of in books for kids, and I think it's great.
The stuff about Digory's mother is very moving knowing that Lewis's mother died when he was a child--he doesn't linger on that pain in the book but it's there, lending some real pathos to the story.
+ A Study in Scarlet. After I read TMN, I was in the mood for some Victoriana, and who's more Victorian than Sherlock Holmes? I hadn't read this one before--I've read quite a few of the short stories and The House of the Baskervilles, but I think that's all. I've also seen quite a bit of Granada Holmes, so I'm very familiar with a lot of the stories, but I don't think I ever watched this particular episode? Honestly, Holmes and Watson are so familiar that it's interesting all on its own to try to put yourself in the headspace of meeting them for the first time, no matter how impossible that is.
Holmes is, of course, an instantly iconic character, even in this first book where he's not fleshed out quite as much. I enjoy how he simply will not use brain space for things he doesn't think are important (politics, literature, the fact that the earth orbits the sun) even if I disagree strongly with him about the importance of those things!
I had not realized this book was a hit piece on Mormons! I mean, I get it! Mormons are easy to write hit pieces about! But I simply did not expect it! Nor did I expect that we would take a whole 1/3 of the book telling the backstory as its own story without Holmes or Watson or London anywhere in sight!
My biggest takeaway from the book was, wow, Steven Moffat really took this story and made it so much worse, didn't he?
What I'm currently reading:
+ After seeing Sinners, I was like, "I need a book that makes me feel the humidity on my skin and fills my ears with the sound of cicadas," so I dipped back into the Benjamin January books, this time with Lady of Perdition. I have been intentionally reading the series verrrrrry slooooowly so that it won't be over too soon; I've gotten to the point where I only read it when I'm in a very particular mood.
This is one of the not-set-in-New-Orleans books, which I never like quite as much as the books that are set in New Orleans or the bayous around it. I always like the field trip books! But just not quite as much. This time we're in the Republic of Texas and Hannibal and Shaw have accompanied Ben to try to track down a free girl of color who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. One thing I deeply appreciate about this series is the way that it makes it very clear that even those Black people who are "free" as in not-enslaved are always in a precarious position--that freedom can be revoked at any time if a white person is violent enough, and the law will always be on the white person's side.
Anyway, more on this book after I finish reading it.
Up next:
City of Stairs had to go back to the library before I finished it, but I will certainly finish it later. I haven't read any more of Tendencies yet, but I need to get back into after my trip.
I will make myself read The Last Battle and I look forward to continuing the Westmark books with The Kestrel as well as checking out Emily Tesh's new offering, The Incandescent.
what i'm reading wednesday 14/5/2025
May. 14th, 2025 08:57 amWhat I finished:
+ Westmark by Lloyd Alexander. I read the Chronicles of Pyrdain a couple of times when I was a kid and also The Iron Ring, but I completely missed this series. Several people with good (read: my) taste had it on their 100 books list, so I ordered it through interlibrary loan.
I see why people imprinted on it! I did not imprint on it, being not the right age for it, but it went directly to my "wish I'd discovered it as a kid" shelf on GoodReads. Alexander is better at the prose level than I realized as a kid, and it was a joy to read his writing. I liked our main character Theo, who is a person who always tries to do the right thing but is not always sure what that is (relatable) and is surrounded by people with different ethical frameworks than he has. I hate to be all "the publishing industry has gone downhill!" but honestly, very few authors (Hardinge, as always, is a big exception) are doing this level of nuanced morality and prose on even the YA level, much less the MG one. It's a joy to read "old school" YA/MG books and be so totally trusted by the writer. That said, it is very much a book for kids, so every time I wanted the writing to really dig into a particular idea or feeling, it didn't, but, like, that's a me problem. It's perfect for a MG reader!
I also think it's interesting how his worldbuilding looks at a glance like Generic Medieval European Fantasy, but it's clearly not--this is actually Reformation-era fantasy with the importance of printing presses and a Cromwell-esque villain, and it reminded me that your worldbuilding doesn't have to be complex to be good and distinctive. Just a few details make things feel realistic.
Also, this is an aside, but I was looking at Alexander's GoodReads page, I do not think I'd ever seen a picture of him before, and I am so taken by his face, especially his nose. He looks like a Froud illustration! Exactly what a children's fantasy author should look like! What a wonderful face!!!
+ Also, Everything Is Tuberculosis again. I had long ago put both the book and the audiobook on hold at the library and then ended up buying a copy of the book instead, so I read it right after it came out, but the audiobook hold finally arrived last week so I listened to it again. I still think it's great; I still wish it was longer; I still understand why it isn't.
What I'm currently reading:
+ Still working on City of Stairs. I might not finish it before it's due back at the library and then I will probably have to wait for it to come around again!
+ I also finally started Tendencies by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. This is my first time reading more than short excerpts of queer studies icon Sedgwick and damn, that woman could construct a sentence. This book is a collection of essays and I am reading one essay at a time. It'll take me a while to get through it but she is not a writer that you rush through! Many of her insights seem even more relevant now than they did in the early 90s when she was writing.
+ Westmark by Lloyd Alexander. I read the Chronicles of Pyrdain a couple of times when I was a kid and also The Iron Ring, but I completely missed this series. Several people with good (read: my) taste had it on their 100 books list, so I ordered it through interlibrary loan.
I see why people imprinted on it! I did not imprint on it, being not the right age for it, but it went directly to my "wish I'd discovered it as a kid" shelf on GoodReads. Alexander is better at the prose level than I realized as a kid, and it was a joy to read his writing. I liked our main character Theo, who is a person who always tries to do the right thing but is not always sure what that is (relatable) and is surrounded by people with different ethical frameworks than he has. I hate to be all "the publishing industry has gone downhill!" but honestly, very few authors (Hardinge, as always, is a big exception) are doing this level of nuanced morality and prose on even the YA level, much less the MG one. It's a joy to read "old school" YA/MG books and be so totally trusted by the writer. That said, it is very much a book for kids, so every time I wanted the writing to really dig into a particular idea or feeling, it didn't, but, like, that's a me problem. It's perfect for a MG reader!
I also think it's interesting how his worldbuilding looks at a glance like Generic Medieval European Fantasy, but it's clearly not--this is actually Reformation-era fantasy with the importance of printing presses and a Cromwell-esque villain, and it reminded me that your worldbuilding doesn't have to be complex to be good and distinctive. Just a few details make things feel realistic.
Also, this is an aside, but I was looking at Alexander's GoodReads page, I do not think I'd ever seen a picture of him before, and I am so taken by his face, especially his nose. He looks like a Froud illustration! Exactly what a children's fantasy author should look like! What a wonderful face!!!
+ Also, Everything Is Tuberculosis again. I had long ago put both the book and the audiobook on hold at the library and then ended up buying a copy of the book instead, so I read it right after it came out, but the audiobook hold finally arrived last week so I listened to it again. I still think it's great; I still wish it was longer; I still understand why it isn't.
What I'm currently reading:
+ Still working on City of Stairs. I might not finish it before it's due back at the library and then I will probably have to wait for it to come around again!
+ I also finally started Tendencies by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. This is my first time reading more than short excerpts of queer studies icon Sedgwick and damn, that woman could construct a sentence. This book is a collection of essays and I am reading one essay at a time. It'll take me a while to get through it but she is not a writer that you rush through! Many of her insights seem even more relevant now than they did in the early 90s when she was writing.
what i'm reading wednesday 7/5/2025
May. 7th, 2025 08:29 amWhat I finished:
+ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is definitely the Narnia book that I had the strongest memories of. I can't decide if it's because I reread it the most or whether the particular imagery in this book just hooked into my brain.
But again: so many delightful images! It's just chock full of them! Everything from the painting coming to life to pushing the serpent over the end of the boat to dragon!Eustace to the magician's book to the birds eating the feast to the mermaid girl to the lily sea...I love it!
The book is very episodic, which suits a voyage book. It's a parallel to LWW because it's a story about the transforming power of Narnia and Aslan, but it feels different because, as Edmund says, Eustace was just an ass; Edmund was a traitor. I really like Eustace's arc and think he's a great character. He and Reepicheep are the stand-outs in this particular book.
Anyway, I think this one is rollicking good fun, though I understand why someone might not like it if they find the episodic stuff annoying.
+ The Silver Chair, which was the one I was most looking forward to revisiting. I have a theory that this was Tolkien's favorite because it has the atmosphere of what he would call "true Northernness." This is the book which has the most ties to Lewis's background as a medievalist--even for someone like me who's not super familiar with medieval lit, that much is obvious.
I really enjoyed revisiting this one. As I mentioned, I think Eustace is a great character and I love Jill too--I love that she's allowed to be the type whose reaction to things is to cry (same) but is still very brave. But in this one, Puddleglum is the character stand-out in the way that Reepicheep had been in previous books. I love Puddleglum.
If there's one thing I have learned from reading soooo much British kidlit, it's that boarding schools are hotbeds of bullying. Apparently this was a universal thing, so it makes sense to start there. The idea of wanting to escape a place like that so badly that you open a portal to another world must have been something a ton of kids fantasized about.
I also like that this book opens with Jill basically screwing things up and then has her and Eustace continue to screw things up and yet they get back to where they need to be.
Favorite bits: being blown on Aslan's breath, the Parliament of Owls (which I had such a strong memory of! best chapter title ever!), the Arthurian energy of the Lady of the Green Kirtle, Jill looking in the cookbook and figuring out what's going on, the imagery of eating living rubies and diamonds, climbing out of the underground into a typical Narnia revelry (Lewis loves his Narnia revelries).
+ Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik. As with most short story collections, this was hit and miss. I didn't much care about the Teremaire stories, and having not read the Scholomance books, that one hit less hard than it's probably intended to. Some of them were fine--the pirate lady, the fairy godmothers one. I wasn't crazy about the Irene Adler one, and I think I missed some of what "Lord Dunsany's Teapot" was trying to do (though it had a perfect title).
"Seven Years from Home" was her trying to do Le Guin and not quite succeeding--it was worth reading, but didn't quite do what I think it wanted to, perhaps because it was better-suited for a longer format. The final story was not my favorite, but it did introduce the world in which her next novel will presumably be set, and the worldbuilding was intriguing enough that I'm looking forward to it. It was fun visiting the "Spinning Silver" story and seeing where the novel originated. "Castle Coeurlieu" had great atmosphere.
But my favorites were "Seven" and "Buried Deep." The latter was a very atmospheric retelling of Ariadne's story, which I dug--I don't think the world necessarily needs more novel retellings of Greek myths right now, but if Novik wrote such a novel, I would certainly read it. And the worldbuilding details in "Seven" were just SO GOOD. I was delighted all the way through that one.
I did enjoy going to read some GoodReads reviews and finding that the stories that some people loved, others hated and vice versa. TASTES!
Basically: please, Ms. Novik, write me another novel I want to read! Because when we're on the same wavelength, I love your writing so so much! It's just unfortunate that we spend so much time on different wavelengths!
What I'm reading now:
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, which has some very wild worldbuilding and truly feels like nothing I've read before. Love that his Shadow of the Leviathan books are fantasy mystery novels and this one is a fantasy spy novel. We could use more of both in the world.
+ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is definitely the Narnia book that I had the strongest memories of. I can't decide if it's because I reread it the most or whether the particular imagery in this book just hooked into my brain.
But again: so many delightful images! It's just chock full of them! Everything from the painting coming to life to pushing the serpent over the end of the boat to dragon!Eustace to the magician's book to the birds eating the feast to the mermaid girl to the lily sea...I love it!
The book is very episodic, which suits a voyage book. It's a parallel to LWW because it's a story about the transforming power of Narnia and Aslan, but it feels different because, as Edmund says, Eustace was just an ass; Edmund was a traitor. I really like Eustace's arc and think he's a great character. He and Reepicheep are the stand-outs in this particular book.
Anyway, I think this one is rollicking good fun, though I understand why someone might not like it if they find the episodic stuff annoying.
+ The Silver Chair, which was the one I was most looking forward to revisiting. I have a theory that this was Tolkien's favorite because it has the atmosphere of what he would call "true Northernness." This is the book which has the most ties to Lewis's background as a medievalist--even for someone like me who's not super familiar with medieval lit, that much is obvious.
I really enjoyed revisiting this one. As I mentioned, I think Eustace is a great character and I love Jill too--I love that she's allowed to be the type whose reaction to things is to cry (same) but is still very brave. But in this one, Puddleglum is the character stand-out in the way that Reepicheep had been in previous books. I love Puddleglum.
If there's one thing I have learned from reading soooo much British kidlit, it's that boarding schools are hotbeds of bullying. Apparently this was a universal thing, so it makes sense to start there. The idea of wanting to escape a place like that so badly that you open a portal to another world must have been something a ton of kids fantasized about.
I also like that this book opens with Jill basically screwing things up and then has her and Eustace continue to screw things up and yet they get back to where they need to be.
Favorite bits: being blown on Aslan's breath, the Parliament of Owls (which I had such a strong memory of! best chapter title ever!), the Arthurian energy of the Lady of the Green Kirtle, Jill looking in the cookbook and figuring out what's going on, the imagery of eating living rubies and diamonds, climbing out of the underground into a typical Narnia revelry (Lewis loves his Narnia revelries).
+ Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik. As with most short story collections, this was hit and miss. I didn't much care about the Teremaire stories, and having not read the Scholomance books, that one hit less hard than it's probably intended to. Some of them were fine--the pirate lady, the fairy godmothers one. I wasn't crazy about the Irene Adler one, and I think I missed some of what "Lord Dunsany's Teapot" was trying to do (though it had a perfect title).
"Seven Years from Home" was her trying to do Le Guin and not quite succeeding--it was worth reading, but didn't quite do what I think it wanted to, perhaps because it was better-suited for a longer format. The final story was not my favorite, but it did introduce the world in which her next novel will presumably be set, and the worldbuilding was intriguing enough that I'm looking forward to it. It was fun visiting the "Spinning Silver" story and seeing where the novel originated. "Castle Coeurlieu" had great atmosphere.
But my favorites were "Seven" and "Buried Deep." The latter was a very atmospheric retelling of Ariadne's story, which I dug--I don't think the world necessarily needs more novel retellings of Greek myths right now, but if Novik wrote such a novel, I would certainly read it. And the worldbuilding details in "Seven" were just SO GOOD. I was delighted all the way through that one.
I did enjoy going to read some GoodReads reviews and finding that the stories that some people loved, others hated and vice versa. TASTES!
Basically: please, Ms. Novik, write me another novel I want to read! Because when we're on the same wavelength, I love your writing so so much! It's just unfortunate that we spend so much time on different wavelengths!
What I'm reading now:
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, which has some very wild worldbuilding and truly feels like nothing I've read before. Love that his Shadow of the Leviathan books are fantasy mystery novels and this one is a fantasy spy novel. We could use more of both in the world.
(no subject)
Apr. 26th, 2025 10:04 pmLol there’s an entire section of the Chronicle of Narnia wiki page about the reading order question!!!
(no subject)
Apr. 23rd, 2025 06:19 pmPeople, I am now DYING of curiosity.
What order did you read the Chronicles of Narnia? Because I read them in publication order (starting with LWW) and the set of books I grew up with numbered them in that order. But apparently nowadays they're selling them in chronological order? But I seriously cannot imagine reading The Magician's Nephew first? But maybe everyone does and I am just wrong to think that most people start with LWW?
What order did you read the Chronicles of Narnia? Because I read them in publication order (starting with LWW) and the set of books I grew up with numbered them in that order. But apparently nowadays they're selling them in chronological order? But I seriously cannot imagine reading The Magician's Nephew first? But maybe everyone does and I am just wrong to think that most people start with LWW?
Poll #33026 another narnia poll
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33
in which order did you read the narnia books?
View Answers
chronological
9 (27.3%)
publication
17 (51.5%)
no particular order
6 (18.2%)
other (explain!)
1 (3.0%)
what i'm reading wednesday 23/4/2025
Apr. 23rd, 2025 08:39 amWhat I finished:
+ More than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner, which I LOVED. When I say I recommend this book to everyone, I mean that I am following you around your house or place of employment with the book in my hand trying to push it into yours. That kind of recommendation.
This book just bursts with humanity, which is the highest compliment I can give a book. I love all the different things it's doing, weaving lots of strands together while still being fairly short, incredibly clear, and very readable.
The premise is, "People are saying that AI has killed the English class essay. How should we react to that?"
Warner's answer, "Good riddance to the English class essay!" (He has written an entire book about how terrible the 5-paragraph essay is that I can't wait to read.)
He starts with the question: "What is writing for?" To communicate, obviously, but that's not all. Writing is a way of thinking and feeling, and he talks about how important experience and context is to writing. He's very clear about how what AI does is not writing in the way that humans do and he's pretty forceful about how we need to stop anthropomorphizing a computer program that is incapable of anything like intention. He discusses what AI does and what it doesn't do, asking, "What are the problems it's trying to solve? Which of those problems is it capable of solving? Which can it definitely not solve?"
And he also asks, "Why do we teach writing to students? What do we want them to learn? And are our assignments actually teaching them that?" Warner, a long-time writing teacher and McSweeney's-adjacent dude, hates the way writing is taught and he's very persuasive in convincing you that we're going about it all wrong, teaching to the test, prizing an output over process, when the process is every bit as important as the output. He has lots of ideas about how to teach better that made me want to start teaching a writing class immediately (I should not do that, I would not be good at it, but he's so good at it that it energized me!) and I am convinced that if we followed his guidelines, the world would be a better place.
He also talks about the history of automated teachers and why they don't work and spends several chapters giving us ideas to approach AI with. He's like, "Look, if I try to speak to specific technologies, by the time this book is published, it'll all be obsolete and I'll look silly. So instead I'm going to give us a few lenses through which to look at AI that I think will be helpful as we make choices about how to implement it into society." He is a fierce opponent of the shoulder-shrugging inevitability approach; he wants us--and by us, he means all of us, not just tech bros--to have real and substantive discussions about how we are and aren't going to use this technology.
He's not an absolutist in any way; he thinks that LLM can be useful for some kinds of research and that other, more specific forms of AI could be really useful in contexts like coding and medicine. I agree! It's mostly LLMs that I'm skeptical of. He's very fair to the pro-AI side, steelmanning their arguments in ways that the hype mostly doesn't bother to do. (Most of the people hyping AI are selling it, after all.)
Throughout, he insists on embracing our humanity in all its messiness, and I love him for that. Basically this book is a shout of defiance and joy.
Here's some quotes I can't not share!
et cetera
As I said on GoodReads, this should be required reading for anyone living through the 21st century.
+ I've also started a Narnia reread for the first time since I was a kid. I have now read the first two and I had opposite experiences with them: I remembered almost everything from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and almost nothing from Prince Caspian. This is no doubt the result of a combination of a) having reread one way more than the other as a child and b) one being much more memorable than the other.
There were a few tiny details that I hadn't remembered from TLtWatW, like the fact that Jadis is half-giant, half-jinn or that it's textual that the Turkish Delight is magicked so that anyone who eats it craves more. But everything else was very clear in my mind: the big empty house, the lantern in the woods, Mr. Tumnus, the witch in her sleigh, the conflict over whether Lucy is telling the truth, the Beavers, Father Christmas, the statues, Aslan and the stone table, the mice and the ropes, waking the statues, etc. This book is so chock-full of vivid images and delightful details that truly it's no surprise that it's a classic. Jack, your imagination! Thank you for sharing it with us!
PC, on the other hand, is much less memorable, imo. Truly the only thing I remembered going in was the beginning where the kids go from the railway platform to Cair Paravel and slowly figure out where they are. That is still a very strong sequence! Oh, and Reepicheep! Reepicheep is always memorable! But there aren't nearly as many really good images in this one as in the first one.
That said, there were a few that came back to me as I read: Dr. Cornelius telling Caspian about Narnia up at the top of the tower, the werewolf (it's "I am death" speech is SUPER chilling), everybody dancing through Narnia making the bad people flee and having the good people join. AndBirnam Wood the trees on the move! Tolkien must have loved that bit! I'd forgotten that Lewis did it too!
It seems really important to Lewis that there be frolicking and dancing and music as part of joy, and I love that. Both books include extended scenes where the girls and Aslan and various magical creatures are frolicking. There's also a very fun bit where Lewis describes in great detail the different kinds of dirt that the dryads eat which adds nothing to the story but is so weird and fun that you don't mind. He clearly had a blast writing that sequence.
But still, this book just isn't nearly as compelling as the first one, imo. It's fine! I don't dislike it! But it doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies the way the first book does.
Both of the books are told in a style that is very storyteller and not novelist. The narrative voice is absolutely that of an adult telling a child a bedtime story, which is charming and also absolutely the reason so many people have so many formative memories of being read these books aloud. They lend themselves to that so well!
But of course the down side is that there's very little real characterization. On the whole, this is fine, because that's not the point. But it does make me appreciate writers who can do both even more. There is character conflict (should we believe Lucy? Edmund's whole arc; etc.) but the characters are very loosely sketched. What do I know about Caspian except that he thinks Old Narnia is super cool? Not much! Frankly, the dwarves in book 2 are, besides Reepicheep, the strongest characters.
I actually think the Aslan dying for Edmund bit is not as heavy-handed as it could have been as an allegory. Like, yes, it's very much matches up the Passion story, but the idea of a character dying in another's stead is universal enough that I can see how those who weren't familiar with the New Testament just totally accepted it and didn't find it confusing.
I found the sequence in PC where Lucy is the only one to see Aslan much more heavy-handed in a "you must be willing to follow Jesus even if no one else will go with you" kind of way. There were a few lines that made me say, "Really, Jack? You could have dialed that down a notch." I do super like that Edmund was first to see him after Lucy though!
So yeah, I look forward to seeing how I feel about the coming books. I remember the most of Dawn Treader and am looking forward to Silver Chair more than the others. The only one I'm dreading is Last Battle, for obvious reasons.
What I'm currently reading:
+ Voyage of the Dawn Treader! The painting of the shiiiiiiiip.
+ More than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner, which I LOVED. When I say I recommend this book to everyone, I mean that I am following you around your house or place of employment with the book in my hand trying to push it into yours. That kind of recommendation.
This book just bursts with humanity, which is the highest compliment I can give a book. I love all the different things it's doing, weaving lots of strands together while still being fairly short, incredibly clear, and very readable.
The premise is, "People are saying that AI has killed the English class essay. How should we react to that?"
Warner's answer, "Good riddance to the English class essay!" (He has written an entire book about how terrible the 5-paragraph essay is that I can't wait to read.)
He starts with the question: "What is writing for?" To communicate, obviously, but that's not all. Writing is a way of thinking and feeling, and he talks about how important experience and context is to writing. He's very clear about how what AI does is not writing in the way that humans do and he's pretty forceful about how we need to stop anthropomorphizing a computer program that is incapable of anything like intention. He discusses what AI does and what it doesn't do, asking, "What are the problems it's trying to solve? Which of those problems is it capable of solving? Which can it definitely not solve?"
And he also asks, "Why do we teach writing to students? What do we want them to learn? And are our assignments actually teaching them that?" Warner, a long-time writing teacher and McSweeney's-adjacent dude, hates the way writing is taught and he's very persuasive in convincing you that we're going about it all wrong, teaching to the test, prizing an output over process, when the process is every bit as important as the output. He has lots of ideas about how to teach better that made me want to start teaching a writing class immediately (I should not do that, I would not be good at it, but he's so good at it that it energized me!) and I am convinced that if we followed his guidelines, the world would be a better place.
He also talks about the history of automated teachers and why they don't work and spends several chapters giving us ideas to approach AI with. He's like, "Look, if I try to speak to specific technologies, by the time this book is published, it'll all be obsolete and I'll look silly. So instead I'm going to give us a few lenses through which to look at AI that I think will be helpful as we make choices about how to implement it into society." He is a fierce opponent of the shoulder-shrugging inevitability approach; he wants us--and by us, he means all of us, not just tech bros--to have real and substantive discussions about how we are and aren't going to use this technology.
He's not an absolutist in any way; he thinks that LLM can be useful for some kinds of research and that other, more specific forms of AI could be really useful in contexts like coding and medicine. I agree! It's mostly LLMs that I'm skeptical of. He's very fair to the pro-AI side, steelmanning their arguments in ways that the hype mostly doesn't bother to do. (Most of the people hyping AI are selling it, after all.)
Throughout, he insists on embracing our humanity in all its messiness, and I love him for that. Basically this book is a shout of defiance and joy.
Here's some quotes I can't not share!
"Rather than seeing ChatGPT as a threat that will destroy things of value, we should be viewing it as an opportunity to reconsider exactly what we value and why we value those things. No one was stunned by the interpretive insights of the ChatGPT-produced text because there were none. People were freaking out over B-level (or worse) student work because the bar we've been using to judge student writing is attached to the wrong values."
"The promise of generative AI is to turn text production into a commodity, something anyone can do by accessing the proper tool, with only minimal specialized knowledge of how to use those tools required.. Some believe that this makes generative AI a democratizing force, providing access to producing work of value to those who otherwise couldn't do it. But segregating people by those who are allowed and empowered to engage with a genuine process of writing from those who outsource it AI is hardly democratic. It mistakes product for process.
"It is frankly bizarre to me that many people find the outsourcing of their own humanity to AI attractive. It is asking to promising to automate our most intimate and meaningful experiences, like outsourcing the love you have for your family because going through the hassle of the times your loved ones try your spirit isn't worth the effort. But I wonder if I'm in the minority."
"What ChatGPT and other large language models are doing is not writing and shouldn't be considered such.
"Writing is thinking. Writing involves both the expression and exploration of an idea, meaning that even as we're trying to capture the idea on the page, the idea may change based on our attempts to capture it. Removing thinking from writing renders an act not writing.
"Writing is also feeling, a way for us to be invested and involved not only in our own lives but the lives of others and the world around us.
"Reading and writing are inextricable, and outsourcing our reading to AI is essentially a choice to give up on being human.
If ChaptGPT can produce an acceptable example of something, that thing is not worth doing by humans and quite probably isn't worth doing at all.
"Deep down, I believe that ChatGPT by itself cannot kill anything worth preserving. My concern is that out of convenience, or expedience, or through carelessness, we may allow these meaningful things to be lost or reduced to the province of a select few rather than being accessible to all."
"The economic style of reasoning crowds out other considerations--namely, moral ones. It privileges the speed and efficiency with which an output is produced over the process that led to that output. But for we humans, process matters. Our lives are experienced in a world of process, not outputs."
et cetera
As I said on GoodReads, this should be required reading for anyone living through the 21st century.
+ I've also started a Narnia reread for the first time since I was a kid. I have now read the first two and I had opposite experiences with them: I remembered almost everything from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and almost nothing from Prince Caspian. This is no doubt the result of a combination of a) having reread one way more than the other as a child and b) one being much more memorable than the other.
There were a few tiny details that I hadn't remembered from TLtWatW, like the fact that Jadis is half-giant, half-jinn or that it's textual that the Turkish Delight is magicked so that anyone who eats it craves more. But everything else was very clear in my mind: the big empty house, the lantern in the woods, Mr. Tumnus, the witch in her sleigh, the conflict over whether Lucy is telling the truth, the Beavers, Father Christmas, the statues, Aslan and the stone table, the mice and the ropes, waking the statues, etc. This book is so chock-full of vivid images and delightful details that truly it's no surprise that it's a classic. Jack, your imagination! Thank you for sharing it with us!
PC, on the other hand, is much less memorable, imo. Truly the only thing I remembered going in was the beginning where the kids go from the railway platform to Cair Paravel and slowly figure out where they are. That is still a very strong sequence! Oh, and Reepicheep! Reepicheep is always memorable! But there aren't nearly as many really good images in this one as in the first one.
That said, there were a few that came back to me as I read: Dr. Cornelius telling Caspian about Narnia up at the top of the tower, the werewolf (it's "I am death" speech is SUPER chilling), everybody dancing through Narnia making the bad people flee and having the good people join. And
It seems really important to Lewis that there be frolicking and dancing and music as part of joy, and I love that. Both books include extended scenes where the girls and Aslan and various magical creatures are frolicking. There's also a very fun bit where Lewis describes in great detail the different kinds of dirt that the dryads eat which adds nothing to the story but is so weird and fun that you don't mind. He clearly had a blast writing that sequence.
But still, this book just isn't nearly as compelling as the first one, imo. It's fine! I don't dislike it! But it doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies the way the first book does.
Both of the books are told in a style that is very storyteller and not novelist. The narrative voice is absolutely that of an adult telling a child a bedtime story, which is charming and also absolutely the reason so many people have so many formative memories of being read these books aloud. They lend themselves to that so well!
But of course the down side is that there's very little real characterization. On the whole, this is fine, because that's not the point. But it does make me appreciate writers who can do both even more. There is character conflict (should we believe Lucy? Edmund's whole arc; etc.) but the characters are very loosely sketched. What do I know about Caspian except that he thinks Old Narnia is super cool? Not much! Frankly, the dwarves in book 2 are, besides Reepicheep, the strongest characters.
I actually think the Aslan dying for Edmund bit is not as heavy-handed as it could have been as an allegory. Like, yes, it's very much matches up the Passion story, but the idea of a character dying in another's stead is universal enough that I can see how those who weren't familiar with the New Testament just totally accepted it and didn't find it confusing.
I found the sequence in PC where Lucy is the only one to see Aslan much more heavy-handed in a "you must be willing to follow Jesus even if no one else will go with you" kind of way. There were a few lines that made me say, "Really, Jack? You could have dialed that down a notch." I do super like that Edmund was first to see him after Lucy though!
So yeah, I look forward to seeing how I feel about the coming books. I remember the most of Dawn Treader and am looking forward to Silver Chair more than the others. The only one I'm dreading is Last Battle, for obvious reasons.
What I'm currently reading:
+ Voyage of the Dawn Treader! The painting of the shiiiiiiiip.
Life has been very busy! So I haven't read a lot! But I did manage to finish one book I'd been looking forward to for months!
What I finished: A Drop of Corruption, the second book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. Y'all, I love this series! And if anything, I loved this second book more than the first! No sophomore slump here! (Although others disagree and don't like it as much! I'll be interested to see what consensus emerges, if one does!)
For those of you who haven't read the first book: this is a traditional mystery series, except that it's set in a fantasy world of incredible worldbuilding. Instead of technology in the sense we know it, this culture manipulates plants to create everything they need. So their buildings are built of plants and they use bioengineered plants to alter human beings, giving them almost supernatural skills--memory, strength, whatever.
There are also huge sea creatures (hi kaiju!) that come ashore and wreak unbelievable havoc; the empire that dominates the series exists essentially to protect people from these creatures. And the creatures have very potent blood that can have weird effects on living organisms. All of this is connected is surprising ways.
In this world we have Din, a young soldier who has been altered so that he has perfect recall. He gets assigned to be the assistant of a very, very eccentric old lady named Ana, who works as a kind of military detective, pursuing justice throughout the empire and also just being weird and off-putting. I adore her. More weird old ladies as heroes! The story is told from Din's POV--he's essentially the Watson to Ana's Holmes.
I won't go into details about this second book except to say these things: a) the plot is so much fun, b) the worldbuilding deepens significantly from the first book, c) we get some insights into Ana's mysterious past that had me vibrating with excitement and the need for book three, and d) RJB's afterword made me very fond of him as a person. I'm picking up what you're putting down, sir, and I salute you. I definitely need to seek out his other series.
What I'm going to read next: I haven't started it yet because I just finished ADoC last night, but next up is More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner. I heard him interviewed on one podcast or another, and I need to read about writing from someone who actually values it.
Book summary:
So yeah! Relevant To My Interests, as we used to say.
What I finished: A Drop of Corruption, the second book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. Y'all, I love this series! And if anything, I loved this second book more than the first! No sophomore slump here! (Although others disagree and don't like it as much! I'll be interested to see what consensus emerges, if one does!)
For those of you who haven't read the first book: this is a traditional mystery series, except that it's set in a fantasy world of incredible worldbuilding. Instead of technology in the sense we know it, this culture manipulates plants to create everything they need. So their buildings are built of plants and they use bioengineered plants to alter human beings, giving them almost supernatural skills--memory, strength, whatever.
There are also huge sea creatures (hi kaiju!) that come ashore and wreak unbelievable havoc; the empire that dominates the series exists essentially to protect people from these creatures. And the creatures have very potent blood that can have weird effects on living organisms. All of this is connected is surprising ways.
In this world we have Din, a young soldier who has been altered so that he has perfect recall. He gets assigned to be the assistant of a very, very eccentric old lady named Ana, who works as a kind of military detective, pursuing justice throughout the empire and also just being weird and off-putting. I adore her. More weird old ladies as heroes! The story is told from Din's POV--he's essentially the Watson to Ana's Holmes.
I won't go into details about this second book except to say these things: a) the plot is so much fun, b) the worldbuilding deepens significantly from the first book, c) we get some insights into Ana's mysterious past that had me vibrating with excitement and the need for book three, and d) RJB's afterword made me very fond of him as a person. I'm picking up what you're putting down, sir, and I salute you. I definitely need to seek out his other series.
What I'm going to read next: I haven't started it yet because I just finished ADoC last night, but next up is More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner. I heard him interviewed on one podcast or another, and I need to read about writing from someone who actually values it.
Book summary:
A veteran writing teacher makes a "moving" (Rick Wormeli) argument that writing is a form of thinking and feeling and shows why it can't be replaced by AI
In the age of artificial intelligence, drafting an essay is as simple as typing a prompt and pressing enter. What does this mean for the art of writing? According to longtime writing teacher John Warner: not very much.
More Than Words argues that generative AI programs like ChatGPT not only can kill the student essay but should, since these assignments don't challenge students to do the real work of writing. To Warner, writing is thinking--discovering your ideas while trying to capture them on a page--and feeling--grappling with what it fundamentally means to be human.
The fact that we ask students to complete so many assignments that a machine could do is a sign that something has gone very wrong with writing instruction. More Than Words calls for us to use AI as an opportunity to reckon with how we work with words--and how all of us should rethink our relationship with writing.
So yeah! Relevant To My Interests, as we used to say.
what i'm reading wednesday 9/4/2025
Apr. 9th, 2025 09:07 amBeen super busy with other things, so I haven't read much lately. But I did finish two books in the last two weeks:
What I finished:
+ How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur. Schur is the creator of Parks and Recreation and, more relevantly, The Good Place. To write TGP, he did a massive amount of research into moral philosophy, and he decided to use all that knowledge to write a book for laypeople (with a little bit of help from an actual moral philosopher).
And it is so delightful! I listened to the audiobook, which was absolutely the right choice. He has the stars of TGP make little cameos reading certain things, and it is so delightful to guess who he'll have pop up when (obsessed with how he has Jameela Jamil read all the most British things and Marc Evan Jackson whenever he wants to emphasize the dryness of a certain quote). Also, Schur has a great style of reading which is conversational without being too conversational. If you can do audiobooks at all, listen to this instead of reading the book.
Basically it's an overview of different strands of moral philosophy by way of lots and lots of dad jokes. Schur is a deeply dorky guy (complimentary)--if you've seen his shows, you know what I'm talking about. But he also cares so much about being a better person and making the right decisions. I particularly loved that he introduced us to various streams of (mostly but not entirely Western) thought (deontology, virtue ethics, utilitarianism, existentialism, ubuntu, etc.) and treats them like a toolbox-- his take is that some are more appropriate at one moment than another, and sticking to just one is probably a bad idea (agreed!). Some things come easier to some people, but if you work hard, you can get better in all areas. He's gentle and forgiving of human frailty, understands that a lot of this is difficult, and really wants his readers to connect with these ideas and build a better life with them.
His whole ~thing~ is trying to be better today than you were yesterday, which reads as super Jewish to me even though this book is not from a religious perspective at all.
I enjoyed this book from start to finish and recommend it to all!
+ Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All by Laura Bates.
YIKES. This book is excellent and readable but also probably the most harrowing non-war book I've ever read. It does what it says on the tin.
Bates dives into different (mostly online) subcultures that are made up of men who really hate women in different ways and with different philosophies of how to react but with similar results (violence, basically). I don't know that there's anything new here, but the service this book provides is uniting a bunch of disparate cultural strands, understanding misogyny as one of the most powerful forces in 21st century society, and helping you see that the effects of it all on our culture. Bates really hammers home the differences in how we treat terrorists who are Muslim (or even explicitly white supremacist) vs. how we treat terrorists who hate women. I don't think I'd realized just how many of the mass killers of the past decade or so are more motivated by hatred of women than by even white supremacy (though that usually goes hand-in-hand).
Bates has a lot of compassion for boys and very young men who stumble into these ideas--there's a chapter about how the internet, particularly YouTube, funnels them in this direction whether they want to go there or not. If she was writing now, she'd probably add TikTok and podcasts to this, but either way, I came away convinced that even though it's almost certainly not the intention of the designers of these platforms to push boys and young men towards extremism, it's happening as a function of the way the platforms work.
Bates very much focuses on Anglophone culture, but there are similar dynamics from Brazil to France to South Korea. The book is a couple of years old, and honestly I felt really conscious of how much worse it's gotten since it was published, the way that people influenced by these ideas are in power now through the current administration's merry band of sexual abusers, and how misogyny has become an explicitly political force. I have been increasingly concerned about the divergence in political views of young women and young women, and while those particular statistics aren't outlined here (probably because they hadn't been gathered when she was writing the book), they were there in my mind the entire time I was reading it.
The last chapter is a "what can we do?" chapter, because there's always one of those. I have mixed feelings about how effective I think her propositions are, but I do think she's right that this is a problem that men have to fix themselves. The blackpilled men are simply not going to listen to women, no matter how sympathetic or right we are. Men have to come up with different models for masculinity. Bates honors the men who are doing this work...but I myself am not particularly optimistic that there are enough of them to turn back this tide. I hope I'm wrong. I really, really hope I'm wrong.
Honestly, it was probably a good thing I read this right after Mike Schur's book because I needed to hold onto the reminder that there are lots of men out there who are doing their best to be good people. Obviously I already knew that, but it helped to be able to say, "But there are lots of Mike Schurs in the world too!" to myself as I was reading.
What I'm currently reading:
I was starting Babylonia and feel unsure about whether I could put up with the style to read a book that will no doubt be very interesting, but I immediately dropped it when I got an alert on Libby yesterday. I thought I'd have to wait a couple more weeks for A Drop of Corruption, but some lovely person returned the ebook early so it came through yesterday! Yay! Obviously that is my first priority!
What I finished:
+ How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur. Schur is the creator of Parks and Recreation and, more relevantly, The Good Place. To write TGP, he did a massive amount of research into moral philosophy, and he decided to use all that knowledge to write a book for laypeople (with a little bit of help from an actual moral philosopher).
And it is so delightful! I listened to the audiobook, which was absolutely the right choice. He has the stars of TGP make little cameos reading certain things, and it is so delightful to guess who he'll have pop up when (obsessed with how he has Jameela Jamil read all the most British things and Marc Evan Jackson whenever he wants to emphasize the dryness of a certain quote). Also, Schur has a great style of reading which is conversational without being too conversational. If you can do audiobooks at all, listen to this instead of reading the book.
Basically it's an overview of different strands of moral philosophy by way of lots and lots of dad jokes. Schur is a deeply dorky guy (complimentary)--if you've seen his shows, you know what I'm talking about. But he also cares so much about being a better person and making the right decisions. I particularly loved that he introduced us to various streams of (mostly but not entirely Western) thought (deontology, virtue ethics, utilitarianism, existentialism, ubuntu, etc.) and treats them like a toolbox-- his take is that some are more appropriate at one moment than another, and sticking to just one is probably a bad idea (agreed!). Some things come easier to some people, but if you work hard, you can get better in all areas. He's gentle and forgiving of human frailty, understands that a lot of this is difficult, and really wants his readers to connect with these ideas and build a better life with them.
His whole ~thing~ is trying to be better today than you were yesterday, which reads as super Jewish to me even though this book is not from a religious perspective at all.
I enjoyed this book from start to finish and recommend it to all!
+ Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All by Laura Bates.
YIKES. This book is excellent and readable but also probably the most harrowing non-war book I've ever read. It does what it says on the tin.
Bates dives into different (mostly online) subcultures that are made up of men who really hate women in different ways and with different philosophies of how to react but with similar results (violence, basically). I don't know that there's anything new here, but the service this book provides is uniting a bunch of disparate cultural strands, understanding misogyny as one of the most powerful forces in 21st century society, and helping you see that the effects of it all on our culture. Bates really hammers home the differences in how we treat terrorists who are Muslim (or even explicitly white supremacist) vs. how we treat terrorists who hate women. I don't think I'd realized just how many of the mass killers of the past decade or so are more motivated by hatred of women than by even white supremacy (though that usually goes hand-in-hand).
Bates has a lot of compassion for boys and very young men who stumble into these ideas--there's a chapter about how the internet, particularly YouTube, funnels them in this direction whether they want to go there or not. If she was writing now, she'd probably add TikTok and podcasts to this, but either way, I came away convinced that even though it's almost certainly not the intention of the designers of these platforms to push boys and young men towards extremism, it's happening as a function of the way the platforms work.
Bates very much focuses on Anglophone culture, but there are similar dynamics from Brazil to France to South Korea. The book is a couple of years old, and honestly I felt really conscious of how much worse it's gotten since it was published, the way that people influenced by these ideas are in power now through the current administration's merry band of sexual abusers, and how misogyny has become an explicitly political force. I have been increasingly concerned about the divergence in political views of young women and young women, and while those particular statistics aren't outlined here (probably because they hadn't been gathered when she was writing the book), they were there in my mind the entire time I was reading it.
The last chapter is a "what can we do?" chapter, because there's always one of those. I have mixed feelings about how effective I think her propositions are, but I do think she's right that this is a problem that men have to fix themselves. The blackpilled men are simply not going to listen to women, no matter how sympathetic or right we are. Men have to come up with different models for masculinity. Bates honors the men who are doing this work...but I myself am not particularly optimistic that there are enough of them to turn back this tide. I hope I'm wrong. I really, really hope I'm wrong.
Honestly, it was probably a good thing I read this right after Mike Schur's book because I needed to hold onto the reminder that there are lots of men out there who are doing their best to be good people. Obviously I already knew that, but it helped to be able to say, "But there are lots of Mike Schurs in the world too!" to myself as I was reading.
What I'm currently reading:
I was starting Babylonia and feel unsure about whether I could put up with the style to read a book that will no doubt be very interesting, but I immediately dropped it when I got an alert on Libby yesterday. I thought I'd have to wait a couple more weeks for A Drop of Corruption, but some lovely person returned the ebook early so it came through yesterday! Yay! Obviously that is my first priority!
Book Cover Meme! 20/20
Apr. 9th, 2025 09:02 amChoose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you, 1 book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews: just covers.
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery
I revised my books list--I replaced individual volumes with series to get it right at 100 and added a few childhood faves I had forgotten. I'm much happier with this list!
[eta] I forgot Encyclopedia Brown!!!
[eta] I forgot Encyclopedia Brown!!!
(no subject)
Apr. 8th, 2025 08:31 amThis is inspired by how many of us have one or two Narnia books on our books lists.
I read all of them multiple times, but it was definitely Dawn Treader that I reread the most. The imagery is seared into my brain--falling through the painting, Eustace the dragon peeling off his skin, the star's daughter, the mermaid scene, the flowers on the water, Reepicheep going off in his boat to explore what's past the end of the world....
Though I will say, now that I think about it, the one I most want to reread is The Silver Chair, which, from my vaguer memories of it, I would guess was Tolkien's favorite. Heck, maybe I'll reread all of them!
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36
Which non-TLtWatW Narnia book did you most imprint on as a kid?
View Answers
Prince Caspian
2 (5.6%)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
13 (36.1%)
The Silver Chair
3 (8.3%)
The Horse and His Boy
6 (16.7%)
The Magician's Nephew
3 (8.3%)
The Last Battle
1 (2.8%)
I didn't read any of these books as a kid
8 (22.2%)
I read all of them multiple times, but it was definitely Dawn Treader that I reread the most. The imagery is seared into my brain--falling through the painting, Eustace the dragon peeling off his skin, the star's daughter, the mermaid scene, the flowers on the water, Reepicheep going off in his boat to explore what's past the end of the world....
Though I will say, now that I think about it, the one I most want to reread is The Silver Chair, which, from my vaguer memories of it, I would guess was Tolkien's favorite. Heck, maybe I'll reread all of them!
Book Cover Meme! 19/20
Apr. 8th, 2025 08:24 amChoose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you, 1 book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews: just covers.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
Book Cover Meme! 18/20
Apr. 7th, 2025 08:18 amChoose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you, 1 book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews: just covers.
Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye
Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye
Book Cover Meme! 16/20
Apr. 5th, 2025 07:43 pmChoose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you, 1 book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews: just covers.
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Mark A. Noll
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Mark A. Noll
Book Cover Meme! 15/20
Apr. 4th, 2025 08:33 amChoose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you, 1 book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews: just covers.
The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
