#borrowed book

[autumn-librarians-bah]

could we get a snapshot of an apartment building filled with nature/thats post apocalyptic/abandoned? doesnt have to be big btw, we only really use like, 2, 3 rooms in our headspaces (being the main areas and meeting room, which.. could basically be the same in this). our only specific request is a lookout/room with big windows or a balcony and the view from it. thanks ^^ - ⛭ & ♡

Book borrowed!

Checked out: One (1) snapshot of an abandoned apartment building

Library card: ⛭ & ♡

MAIN AREA:

The main room overlooks a space between two buildings. The inside of it has moss and ivy on the walls and has a light covering of leaves on the floor. It generally remains around morning or dawn in this area at all times. There is a stairwell in the corner. if you follow it up, it reaches the fronting area, and going down will reach the meeting room.

MEETING ROOM:

The meeting room is directly below the main room. One wall is made of windows, and the rest of the room has rubble on the floor surrounding an empty table. Very little light reaches here, but it's never too dark to see or to be uncomfortable.

[tonreihe]

Via interlibrary loan.

[autumn-librarians-bah]

Can we request a headspace?

The general vibe is "boys room" with blue color palette. Aesthetic is melancholic and goth/emo

Book borrowed! Checked out: One (1) snapshot of a headspace, themed around 'boys room', goth/emo, and melancholy. Contains one (1) bedroom, one (1) hangout area.

Library card: N/A

//Side note: We've never done anything like this before, so if this isn't what you wanted, we're sorry!

BEDROOM:

The bedroom is a small, cozy area. The lights are usually quite dim, and the window opens up to a foggy, drizzling field that always hovers around dusk. The room has posters covering the wall and little items cluttering the desks- these change to reflect the headmate living within's current interests. It's usually a little on the colder side within the room as well! The door from this room leads to the hangout area.

HANGOUT AREA:

The hangout area has a wall of windows on one side, which show the same field as the bedroom. The ceiling has little star stickers attached, and the interior has shelves filled with games and small decorations from each headmate. There's a small TV in front of a soft blue couch, which switches channels depending on the mood of the viewer. In addition, the room itself changes size if more people want to gather there or if only one person is inside. The area smells faintly of rain most of the time.

[bunnyandbooks]

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R. F. Kuang

This book has been getting a lot of traction on social media so I was interested to read it. Very briefly (and for my own recollection later), it centers around a boy from Canton, orphaned by the plague, who is summarily rescued just on the cusp of death that claimed his family and brought to England by Professor Lovell to be trained in the art of translation, with the goal of getting admission to Oxford’s prestigious translation school, nicknamed “Babel.” In this world, the industrial revolution occurs through the globalization of languages, using the connotative gaps in translation of words to proliferate magical effects through the medium of silver, which means non-English kids like the boy, self-named “Robin,” are valuable. But as Robin grows up and wrestles with the inherent colonialism of Babel, he struggles with his own morals that both privileges him and enslaves him. Possible spoilers under the cut.

There’s a lot going on from the just the title -- you can pick this book up and guess it’s probably not going to end happy. Kuang isn’t exactly hiding the ball on what her thesis is, and the story hammers it home pretty clearly: violence is necessary to disrupt and challenge inherently racist institutions. This is the conclusion that Robin spends the entire 500 page novel coming to; the rebels championing a non-violent solution are killed; Robin’s former cohort, a white woman named Letty, who ostensibly champions changing the system from within is so unforgivable by the end of the book that nothing she says sounds credible -- a bit like Glinda in Wicked, if Glinda didn’t have any character development; the other white woman character in the book only finds redemption through death. There isn’t any room for compromise in Kuang’s book, but it’s also important to remember that a reconciliation story is now what she’s setting out to tell here.

Babel is inherently an allegory to government institutions that benefit from foreign assets and knowledge, who thrive off the exploitation of people, but are offended by the notion of such foreign nation and its people’s own sovereignty. The briefest reviews of any period of history can show scenarios that are applicable. And because Kuang is so learned and so brilliant, and is a skilled linguist and writer, she can weave an incredibly compelling narrative that explains the philology that forms the basis of the unique magic system in this book, while also expounding on the socio-economic ramifications of both colonialism and also domestic rebellion. While I agree with a lot of assessments that the pace is slow, I never once felt bored, and I credit to her strength as a writer.

I suppose if I have any complaints, the first was the lack of resolution. Even Les Miserables, which I kept thinking of throughout the third act, showed us the final defeat, with the townsfolk sadly picking up the pieces. We don’t know the result of the great last stand by the translators’ rebellion, and it feels rather unsatisfying. It also felt unfair that we get introduced to Victoire in the epilogue of the 500 page book, especially given that takes place of a true resolution. Couldn’t she at least have heard news? 

The second is related to the lack of compromise, I suppose. Robin and his cohorts are motivated to take down racist institutions largely because of loyalty to the motherlands from which they were stolen, and most characters don’t have any ties to those countries in the present day of the narrative. Instead of focusing on acting because it’s the right thing to do, it’s the idea that people of color, and I say this as a person of color, owe something to the land of our ancestors. Which does not account for people who are bi-cultural. And that solid line of a person of color only allowed to belong to one bothered me, though I again had to remind myself that Babel wasn’t that kind of story. So it was mostly about fighting my inherent biases, too.

[mariakureads]

I just finished reading Ernshaw's "The Wicked Deep". Read the rant or rave over at Mariakureads

Read the rant or rave over at Mariakureads

[mariakureads]

Book Review: The Wicked Deep

I just finished reviewing Ernshaw's "The Wicked Deep". Read the rant or rave over at Mariakureads

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw Kindle Edition, 320 pages | Published March 6th 2018 by Simon Pulse

It’s always a good feeling to be able to read a book from my actual TBR list and not one that I just grabbed from the shelf. I envy those readers that are very faithful to their TBRs – You are all amazing!

So I add this to my TBR in 2018 and 8 months later, I actually read it! This is a…

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[mariakureads]

In an era where it seems that only a girl in a dystopian future can save the world, can Joe Hart's heroine in the 'The Last Girl' be the one to save the world?

Read the rant or rave on this book over at Mariakureads

[bristolbookworm]

The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick

This is becoming a historical novel, describing an alternative present in the 1960s, Dick uses the device of a book offering the perspective of the route history did take, which is widely held as both dangerously radical and impossible. Strangely though, little pivots around that device except the author of the book (who only appears in the last couple of chapters) and one of its readers. Far…

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