Reading with the Bathman
- Thread starter Flamencology
- Start date
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Cassandra Williams is twelve; her little brother, Wayne, is seven. One day, when they’re alone together, there is an accident and Wayne is lost forever. His body is never recovered. The missing boy cleaves the family with doubt. Their father leaves, starts another family elsewhere. But their mother can’t give up hope and launches an organization dedicated to missing children.
As C grows older, she sees her brother everywhere: in bistros, airplane aisles, subway cars. Here is her brother’s face, the light in his eyes, the way he seems to recognize her, too. But it can’t be, of course. Or can it? Then one day, in another accident, C meets a man both mysterious and familiar, a man who is also searching for someone and for his own place in the world. His name is Wayne.
Namwali Serpell’s remarkable new novel captures the uncanny experience of grief, the way the past breaks over the present like waves in the sea. The Furrows is a bold exploration of memory and mourning that twists unexpectedly into a story of mistaken identity, double consciousness, and the wishful—and sometimes willful—longing for reunion with those we’ve lost.
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
Trying to look for something new to read is difficult when you have severe A.D.D......
.... you end up finding shit like this, which leads you down a rabbit hole.....
...not to mention all of the inlaws who worry that I might read something like this to my grandson.... I mean Frank Zappa had a crazy household, where Moon talked about weird magazines and dildos being randomly scattered around the house... and she and Dweezil turned out.... um.....
... so about those book suggestions... ?
.... you end up finding shit like this, which leads you down a rabbit hole.....
...not to mention all of the inlaws who worry that I might read something like this to my grandson.... I mean Frank Zappa had a crazy household, where Moon talked about weird magazines and dildos being randomly scattered around the house... and she and Dweezil turned out.... um.....
... so about those book suggestions... ?
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
The “best short-story writer in English” is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: Here is a collection of prismatic, resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.
“Love Letter” is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the midst of a dystopian political situation in the (not too distant, all too believable) future, that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and one another. “Ghoul” is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado and follows the exploits of a lonely, morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything he takes for granted about his reality. In “Mother’s Day,” two women who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of a hailstorm. In “Elliott Spencer,” our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist finds himself brainwashed, his memory “scraped”—a victim of a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed as political protesters. And “My House”—in a mere seven pages—comes to terms with the haunting nature of unfulfilled dreams and the inevitability of decay.
Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances.
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
What does it mean to be a Bad Jew?
Many Jews use the term “Bad Jew” as a weapon against other members of the community or even against themselves. You can be called a Bad Jew if you don’t keep kosher; if you only go to temple on Yom Kippur; if you don’t attend or send your children to Hebrew school; if you enjoy Christmas music; if your partner isn’t Jewish; if you don’t call your mother often enough. The list is endless.
In Bad Jews, Emily Tamkin argues that perhaps there is no answer to this timeless question at all. Throughout American history, Jewish identities have evolved and transformed in a variety of ways. The issue of what it means, or doesn’t, to be a Good Jew or a Bad Jew is particularly fraught at this moment, American Jews feel and fear antisemitism is on the rise.. There are several million people who identify as American Jews—but that doesn’t mean they all identify with one another. American Jewish history is full of discussions and debates and hand wringing over who is Jewish, how to be Jewish, and what it means to be Jewish.
In Bad Jews, Emily Tamkin examines the last 100 years of American Jewish politics, culture, identities, and arguments. Drawing on over 150 interviews, she tracks the evolution of Jewishness throughout American history, and explores many of the evolving and conflicting Jewish positions on assimilation; race; Zionism and Israel; affluence and poverty, philanthropy, finance, politics; and social justice. From this complex and nuanced history, Tamkin pinpoints perhaps the one truth about American Jewish identity: It is always changing.
A colleague is married to a Jewish guy, which is quite rare here, and the stuff she told me his family and the wider community have said or done to her and her kids because they aren't on f the faith is horrible
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
Although I only publicly admit to reading Comic Books.... I was having a private chat with @Flamencology and was going to attach this picture of my bookshelf, and didn't realize that wasn't an option.
So hey everybody... Baimun actually does read too.
So hey everybody... Baimun actually does read too.
Motorik
Kick Henry Jackassowski
Although I only publicly admit to reading Comic Books.... I was having a private chat with @Flamencology and was going to attach this picture of my bookshelf, and didn't realize that wasn't an option.
So hey everybody... Baimun actually does read too.
View attachment 78422
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Although I only publicly admit to reading Comic Books.... I was having a private chat with @Flamencology and was going to attach this picture of my bookshelf, and didn't realize that wasn't an option.
So hey everybody... Baimun actually does read too.
View attachment 78422
A comic book is coming this week!
(Not superhero stuff, though. Just the boring old non-fiction graphic novel sort.)
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
Don't ever downplay the importance of that story telling format as "Just a Comic Book"....
... Because one should always remember..... the entire Egyptian historical record was a "Graphic Novel".
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark! A Vagrant, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beaton, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush―part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can’t find it in the homeland they love so much. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands, where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet is never discussed.
Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, northern lights, and boreal forest. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
If you are Sherlock-like, you may suspect that I’ve done a couple of these in advance…
The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it’s all we dream about: the hideously slim chance we’ll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls.
And now the impossible dream has come true. I’m out, we’re all out—and I didn’t even have to turn into a monstrous dark witch to make it happen. So much for my great-grandmother’s prophecy of doom and destruction. I didn’t kill enclavers, I saved them. Me and Orion and our allies. Our graduation plan worked to perfection: We saved everyone and made the world safe for all wizards and brought peace and harmony to all the enclaves everywhere.
Ha, only joking! Actually, it’s gone all wrong. Someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in my stead, and probably everyone we saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war. And the first thing I’ve got to do now, having miraculously gotten out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.
MonkeyZero
Mexican Mayonnaise Weiner Sandwich
I'm on to you!
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
Out of hospital now.
I can speak a bit now as well.
Had some brain bleeding after surgery, so a minor stroke.
No movement problems, only language.
(looking forward to that improving, no good smiley for that)I’m really really really tired.
Get some rest.... we'll be here when you get back.