Waelcome To My Book Blog

We read sapphic books here. StoryGraph: Cloudface

[a-book-of-creatures]

Book that was good: I liked it 👍

Book that was bad: this sucked 👎

Book that I wanted to like but which failed to live up to my hopes: I am going to write 10,000+ words explaining exactly why this book wronged me

[cloudbooks]

Only 2 books this month, but I was moving again so I’ll give myself a break. February should be a little more stable and I’m back to taking the train in to work which will give me a lot more reading time.

Jackson Alone was a strong short novel, but I wish the ending hadn’t been so abrupt. I also felt that the prose might have been lost in translation, but there’s only so much to be done about that.

Perfume & Pain was an interesting portrayal of addiction. I struggled to like the main character, but she grew on me as the story progressed. I might have liked the story more if I were more personally invested in LA culture.

[vancruejovi]

[cloudbooks]

A career change and moving across the country didn’t leave me much time for reading this year, but I’m also happy with everything I read! I let myself take some time and savor the books I was enjoying instead of rushing through them to get to the next.

Sunburn was a great surprise. It articulated the feeling of growing up queer in a conservative community very well. Not just the fear of discovery, but also the confusion as you have no frame of reference for what you’re going through.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi was one of the best fantasy books I’ve read in a while. It wasn’t especially new; it just hit all my favorite story beats of a fantasy adventure, and it did so with memorable characters and a unique protagonist.

[rederiswrites]

There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.

[alexseanchai]

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?

[rederiswrites]

I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!

[pandorasquillandquotes]

Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.

[vaspider]

A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.

Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...

[foxofninetales]

I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.

[electronsprotonscroutons]

Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar

[magneticdeclination]

The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come

[doctornerdington]

Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.

[bitchwhoyoukiddin]

DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.

I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.

[calystarose]

Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm

[cardiacanes]

I haven't read it in a while but The travels of a t-shirt in the global economy by Pietra Rivoli is a really interesting examination of cotton as a global crop

[cubistemoji]

Some observations on book covers

Edit because apparently this needs to be said: the point of a book cover is to tell you what you're about to read and whether or not you want to read it. Following trends in cover design doesn't mean the book is bad or had a bad cover designer. It's visual communication. I've read and enjoyed about half the books featured here.

[cloudbooks]

This was kind of a weird reading month for me. I didn’t have much time to read physical books, so it was mostly just whatever audiobooks Libby decided to throw at me from my list of holds. None of them were especially great, but none of them were bad, either.

Bloom and Gator Country both surprised me, though; they’re outside my usual genre and they were my favorite reads this month!

[seal-of-unknown]

me, begging, tears in my eyes: please. please just tell me what the book is about. the plot. please

a book annotation on the cover, unfazed: A Subversive Masterpiece. A Deep And Touching Story. The New York Times Bestseller. Go Fuck Yourself

[mlm-blues]

listen you NEED to borrow that book from the library. i know youve got like 10 other books lined up to be read but you need to go to the library. remind the library that it's loved and cherished

[official-library-posts]

official library post

[cloudbooks]

Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson was an excellent read. Your sapphic cottagecore dream turned into a gory nightmare, with an excellent portrayal of how easy it can be to get sucked into an abusive relationship.

[serial-unaliver-deactivated2024]

I want to see an ad like this but for like a Dostoevsky book

[chiikawas]

I thought the Dostoevsky booktok idea was too funny not try and create

[cloudbooks]

My current read. I’m loving it so far.

My sales pitch to anyone who wants to read it: “She’s a 10, but you’re the monster that she’s hunting.”

[aroaessidhe]

A mutual of mine has this database of 100+ books with butch/stud/masc sapphics that might be of interest to some people!

[justalittlebluetiefling]

How do you sort your books?

Color

Title

Author

Publication Date

Other

Voting ended onApr 16, 2024

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Multiple people have said VIBES and my brain is actually melting.

[xiranjayzhao]

Mystery solved, everyone!

Emails between the Hugo Awards admin team last year were leaked and turns out the American & Canadian members willingly went through all the finalists and removed those of us who they thought might offend China.

The leaked emails

The full exposé

Edit: We can't yet say for sure if the team did this due to government pressure or not. If you read the exposé there's a piece of evidence that suggests the local Sichuan government had a hand, but there's no confirmation. The point is that the Western admins chose to actively comply instead of uphold the integrity of the awards.

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil,

Sorry if this is trivial but I'm a bit confused re: the Hugo Award. Isn't it an American award? What does it have to do with Chinese censorship?

Thanks!

The Hugo Award isn't an American Award. It's an award given by (and at) the World Science Fiction Convention, which moves around. In 2023 the Worldcon was in Chengdu, China.

In previous years the Hugo process has been commendably transparent.

This year a number of books, people, and things that people nominated, in order that they be on the voting ballot, were declared "ineligible" and did not appear on the voting ballot.

No explanation has been given for why this was or why any of the individual works were ineligible. No explanation has been given for why no explanation can be given, other than "after we reviewed the constitution and the rules we must follow, we determined the work was not eligible," with no explanation of what the "rules they must follow" are.

There is a not-unwarranted suspicion here that it has to do with Chinese censorship. Other explanations would happily be entertained but the complete lack of information is difficult to deal with.

[dirtyriver]

Here's R. F. Kuang's statement: