Today’s book lists
Apr. 22nd, 2025 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fred_mouseFrom [Book Jockey Alex’s] blog:
- Notable Young Adult Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror of 2024 - while the original post was at the blog, the actual list is at ReacTor Mag.
- YA Book Bundles – Science Fiction & Fantasy, Part 1
- YA Book Bundles – Science Fiction & Fantasy, Part 2
general thought: Look, I get that the USA has a stranglehold on some aspects of publishing, and that someone writing from North America about books published in English is going to get a lot more options set in the USA. But for me to pick something set there to spend my precious reading time, the summary has to be spectacular. Ditto ‘class warfare (near) future dystopia’. I’m here for the escapism, dammit. In the Reactor article there were books more relevant to my interests later on, but I nearly noped out when the first five or so were so dire.
Overall - I didn’t quite make it through these lists. I found it near impossible to focus on the descriptions to see if there was something I was going to like; then I just skimmed to see if there was anything jumped out at me. Also, two of these are from 2020, so there were several I’ve either got on the wishlist, or have read. Of the ~80, I added four to the wishlist, but only one is a ‘really want to read’, and that’s because it is one of my must read authors.
The Spinoff’s best NZ books of 2024 - I found the summaries much more readable than the previous, and yet I added zero books to the reading wishlist.
The Best Books We Read in 2024—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2025 by Words without Borders - books in translation. Another one where the summaries/reviews were interesting reading, but none sparked an interest in actually reading the books.
Read Palestinian Speculative Fiction Reading List by Sonia Sulaiman - to be fair here, I’ve read five booklists already, and I’m starting to flag. But this is the last one, and then I can close the window, and I’m very invested in that. So, I’m expecting to be unmotivated by any of the books, and that is not actually a commentary on what is written. … and then I started reading and discovered it is a stack of links. For now, I’ve shoved it into the ‘reading plans’ tab group, which is where anything online short fiction gets put until I have the oomph to read it.
Nom nom nom
Apr. 20th, 2025 09:12 pmgot_quietI picked up these two CDs at the CD exchange a while back (when I got that Dream Theater album) but now I'm gonna review them. Tl;dr my music sniffing nose did it's job this time. I've picked up a few duds by just buying used CDs completely blind but I guess judging music by it's cover works well enough.
First CD is Prorok Ilja by Patriarch. It turns out this is kind of a group I have already heard. Many years ago for a fandom gift box someone recommended to me the band Batushka, which I enjoyed a lot, and this group is some sort of splinter group that happened after a rights fight. The tone is the same. Orthodox church vibes slathered in black metal and noise. This has been my play on repeat car CD since I got it.
The other CD I got I lost, and I don't remember the name of the band, so I guess I'll have to come back to that when it surfaces.
I've been reading a lot of Arcane fic, though the frantic pace at which I'm doing this has started to slow down a little, so I'm working on something of a "rec" list. It's more of a review list because some of the fic I've enjoyed I've enjoyed despite some rather significant issues, sometimes even with basic SPAG, but imo while it's certainly rude to give an unsolicited critique to an author, the personal journal is fair game.
And I have picked up another batch of snacks from the Eastern European shop. And, good news, the wall of snacks actually has a back side, so there are double the snacks that I originally thought! The bad news is I forgot entirely which ones I had gotten, or which ones I liked or didn't like. I stuck to the newly discovered back wall to prevent dupes.
Today I tried Gulliver from AVK. I didn't notice when I grabbed it, but it's a vegan chocolate bar, which on AVK's website says was developed well before veganism was popular. So it's a hipster vegan bar. It was also twice as big as all the other snacks, and is part of the "wafer covered in chocolate" family. Inside the wafer there is more chocolate, like a mouse, so this was a very rich candy and the 6" bar was more than enough for me. To likely no one's surprise, the quality of the chocolate is significantly better than our counter options here in the US.
I also tried a chocolate flavor frozen cheese curd snack. I think I liked it more than the orange even though the orange was good. It was chocolatey but not too rich or sweet. I'm becoming a real convert to these things, but I don't think they're easy to find without a specialty grocery like this nearby.
Happy Easter
Apr. 20th, 2025 07:17 ampotentiality_26...If you celebrate. I don't normally do too much, but we're having a family get together this year.
Lots of cooking to do!
Lots of cooking to do!
Enclosure
Apr. 20th, 2025 01:29 pmtemrisI knew the day where Thomas will say goodbye to football was approaching, but the more closer we get to that point, it gets harder to accept the truth.
I've never been good at parting ways, this is something I repeat a lot. Thomas has been a player who ever since I watched football, has just always been there. It was even saddening to see his appearances become mere minutes the last few seasons at Bayern. I also talked about my thoughts on his contract renewals at that club.
I've also never called myself a Bayern fan, I usually do not like teams that "dominate" their leagues. I know it's kind of a deadbeat saying now, "Serie A is the best because the championship is actually a race", but it's true. Last year, with Tuchel it seemed like a new domination of Leverkusen was coming; however, with nearly 10 points of difference with the occupiers of the 1st spot in the standings (as of 20 April), I think that wind has passed away some time ago.
It's not all sadness though. Even with his final appearance with Bayern in the CL, he's now sharing the record of most appearances in CL with Messi out of all people, in 3rd spot.
The legend you are, Thomas Müller. I will remember you well.
I've never been good at parting ways, this is something I repeat a lot. Thomas has been a player who ever since I watched football, has just always been there. It was even saddening to see his appearances become mere minutes the last few seasons at Bayern. I also talked about my thoughts on his contract renewals at that club.
I've also never called myself a Bayern fan, I usually do not like teams that "dominate" their leagues. I know it's kind of a deadbeat saying now, "Serie A is the best because the championship is actually a race", but it's true. Last year, with Tuchel it seemed like a new domination of Leverkusen was coming; however, with nearly 10 points of difference with the occupiers of the 1st spot in the standings (as of 20 April), I think that wind has passed away some time ago.
For that reason, Thomas has not been shown the same amount of respect a player has for "his" club, they give to other players like Reus for Dortmund -- who stayed even if they passed their rather successful era with Klopp. But I think, it's why Thomas has been ever more special, because no matter how much the whole squad changed from the time he started, Thomas has been integral.
People often undermine Thomas because he’s always been surrounded by a “good” squad of available top players in the world, so his importance is always undermined. But he always shows his difference when he’s subbed in, and you always realize his vacancy when they don’t start him.
There’s a reason he’s always been around for 15~ years for Bayern, when many players came and left.
This is what I said in my Tumblr blog last year, and I still stand by it.
There is no competing with how fiery his passion is for the game, for the club that even with that side of his, Thomas shows us that he's from the by-gone era of football. I'm mostly romanticizing it, but it's been said many times that at the peak of his career, Premiere Leauge clubs sought for him and he stayed at Bayern.
That also warrants another topic to talk about that is his private life.
It's not all sadness though. Even with his final appearance with Bayern in the CL, he's now sharing the record of most appearances in CL with Messi out of all people, in 3rd spot.
The legend you are, Thomas Müller. I will remember you well.
The Mistress of the Shadowland, Second Book, The next Chapter
Apr. 20th, 2025 12:44 pmhaebinIt's Sunday, it is time for a new chapter! I hope you'll enjoy it!
Thank you so, so much for reading, it means the world to me.
♥
( The Mistress of the Shadowland, Second Book, The next Chapter )
Thank you so, so much for reading, it means the world to me.
♥
Experimental Style Fic Recs
Apr. 19th, 2025 09:28 pmtoothpastepancakeSo, I LOVE experimentally written fic. Poetry, messing with formatting, nonsensical shit, stream of consciousness, so on. Here is a rec list. I will update it later!
Note: a good amount of these are explicit or potentially triggering. Please read the tags
( Read more... )
Note: a good amount of these are explicit or potentially triggering. Please read the tags
( Read more... )
20 HPI icons for the Monopoly round at icons10in20
Apr. 19th, 2025 05:59 pmtinnyThe anniversary 40th round at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
icons10in20 was a Monopoly game! That was so much fun! I decided - no surprise there - to make it an HPI set. Okay, two of them are actor pics of the HPI actors, but who's counting?
Teasers:
( 20 HPI icons )
Every single comment is treasured. All icons shareable! Concrit welcome. Check out my resource post for makers of textures and brushes I use.
Previous icon posts:
icons10in20 was a Monopoly game! That was so much fun! I decided - no surprise there - to make it an HPI set. Okay, two of them are actor pics of the HPI actors, but who's counting?Teasers:
( 20 HPI icons )
Every single comment is treasured. All icons shareable! Concrit welcome. Check out my resource post for makers of textures and brushes I use.