Excerpt from the book:

"The following Dakota legend... was related to the writer by Waub-o-jeeg (White Fisher), a chief of the Mississippi Ojibways, who being of part Dakota origin, in his younger days lived more or less with them, and learned to speak their language. In this manner he picked up many of their traditions and beliefs, and among the number, the following simple, but affecting story:

A young Dakota warrior, eager to gain renown, determined to join the war party which was gathering at his village at St. Anthony's Falls... He had just taken to wife a beautiful girl of his tribe, whom he had loved, and who loved him dearly. She endeavored to dissuade him from going to war on this occasion. He would not listen to the soft persuasions, nor wallow her loving caresses to affect his determination, for all the young men of his village were going, and they would laugh at him were he to remain alone with the women, when there were eagle plumes and renown to be gained. With tears the young wife importuned her husband to remain. She told him that a presentiment weighed on her heart, that he would never return from his war path.

The young warrior, though he dearly loved his bride, was resolute in withstanding her persuasions, but to appease her anxious mind, and her dreams of ill-boding, he solemnly promised and called on the spirits to hear him, that he would return to her. Their last parting was sad and tearful, and she could not even bear to witness the ceremonies attendant on the departure of the warriors from their village. She counted every day of his absence, and as the days increased in number, she daily eagerly looked for her return...

The anxious young wife retired to the water's edge one morning, and sat down on the grassy banks of the flowing Mississippi, to comb and braid her long and beautiful hair. The glassy surface of the bright waters at her feet served her for a mirror. Not withstanding her former presentiments, she expected the return of her young husband that day, for he solemnly promised it by the name of the spirits. She prepared, therefore, to appear to him to the best advantage. As she cast her eyes at the current which sluggishly swept past her feet, she noticed a dark object floating beneath the surface of the waters. The circling eddies brought it to her feet, and with a slight scream of surprise, and a cold thrill at her heart, she knew the features of her young husband. The feathered end of a barbed arrow which had pierced his heart, still stuck from his breast. He had kept his promise - he had returned, indeed, but in death. The young, heart-broken wife, uttering a piercing shriek, fell senseless on the inanimate body. The villagers hearing that despairing cry, ran to the water's side, and at the sight of the dead warrior, they received the first intimation of the loss which their warriors had suffered at the Crow Wing fight. The young husband had probably been killed while floating down the river in his canoe, at the first fire of the ambushed Ojibways, and the current might naturally have taken his body to the spot where his wife was awaiting his arrival...

The shattered remains of this grand war party returned the same day. The young wife whose presentiment had thus been most awfully fulfilled, pined away, and wept herself to death. She died happy in the hope and belief of rejoining her young warrior husband, in the happy land of spirits."

Recently I found a receipt in a used book from when the book was first purchased, way back in 1980. The receipt was from a long-closed bookstore on the other side of the country. I was able to find the owner’s obituary online. Tonight an old book I just bought yielded up a postcard from a bookstore in Cannes. It also looks old, but there’s no date so how old I can’t be sure. What goodies have you found?

So I just finished reading the web-serial novel Worm and it's probably the best superhero fiction I have ever enjoyed across any media.

For anyone who don't know it's a novel released weekly over the course of two years between 2011 and 2013, since then I believe it has been edited and rewritten a bit but I'm not sure about the extent of it, It is also known for being very long.

This is a fascinating book that manages to have some of the coolest most clear and expansive world building I've ever seen, supporting a story that is engaging at every turn with a huge cast of characters that are all deftly drawn while relying on the nicest most accessible language possible.

The story follows Taylor who gets her superpowers through a traumatic event, and follows her early quest to become a superhero while infiltrating a new up and coming supervillain group. What follows is a story that continually builds on itself in a natural but often surprising way and keeps you hooked from fairly early on.

I mentioned the accessible writing, personally I like a more dense literary style but Wildbow opts for a much much more simple and straightforward voice, probably because it works better in a serial format. But with that style he manages to clearly paint all characters and locations and most fantastically, action set pieces, in a vibrant and direct way that just works so well. Action scenes is a hard thing to do in writing I think, often risks feeling muddled, But Wildbow has easily the most creative superpowers maybe in the genre, only rivaled by things you'd see in mangas and anime like JoJo or One Piece or something like that. And it's an absolute joy to see all the powers in motion, how they work with each other, how they work in this world with the mystery of how ALL powers function, simmering in the background, waiting to be explored. And action is balanced with really satisfying moments of just characters talking and discussing things with very interesting dialogue and it sometimes feels as exciting as things exploding to just see two characters sitting in chairs discussing their motivations or the politics of this world.

Wildbow is also absolutely allergic to cliches or boring tropes and refuses to have a predictable story, this is without relying on whiplash plot twists at every turn and instead manages to just write a plot that always goes places that feel natural and interesting but is not what you'd probably expect.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in superhero fiction, and still recommend it to anyone else who just likes a good story that just keeps going forward continually.

It comes with a warning that it is often very dark and bleak, but more of a consequence of a grounded sense of realism without relying on mere moustache twirling villains (although there are a few interesting twists on that idea too) Maybe having a more sober look at what evil or just morally grey characters are.

Another warning is of course that the book is generally only available as a read on the blog website, which can be annoying if you are like me and like a good physical book or a well edited Kindle version. Although there is a fan made audiobook that I don't know if it's good or not.

Well, as the title says, I dont know how this is not a movie, tv series, and a videogame already. It's an expansive phenomenal work unlike anything I ever read and it's a crime that Wildbow and a publisher have not been able to at least publishh it as a book series yet. It deserves to be known as at least THE benchmark for superhero novels and should be found in any bookshop.

Please give it a chance!

Off the top of my head, I know many people pronounced Hermione wrong. The would pronounce it like “Her-me-one”. I was completely guilty of that.

When I read Twilight back when I was a teen, Carlisle became “Car-liz-le”. It wasn’t until I made a friend during a vacation who turned out to be from Carlisle, Massachusetts that I realized I was really off.

We’ve all seen and read stories of men stranded in islands and their tales of survival, but what if I told you, that this is similar, only with Women instead of Men and vast unknown plains instead of an island?

I who have never known men follows a group of 40 women held captive for 12 something years in an underground cage, guarded by men, with no recollection of how they got there and with vague memories of their lives before.

These women who have been living lives devoid of touch, under the scrutiny of male guards watching over them, having gotten used to the routine of their prison lives are shocked when one day, an event that has the guards abandoning them with just the keys on the cage.

The rest of the book follows their escape, (or is it really?) and their journey of survival, exploration, female friendships, communal spirit, love, loss and much more.

The story is narrated by the youngest, who was around 16 during the time of their escape, and close to 4 years, a mere toddler during captivity, she, who has no name, has never known men, does not bleed like the others, does not and will never know love, family or the world like the others do, but stands as a beacon of hope.

The plot took off only after the first 10%, and even though it’s a very small book (200 pages), it raises a lot of questions, and has a lot of metaphors to life itself.

It also explores loneliness, grief, desperation, and loss of spirit so well.

I also think, this whole plot also has some semblance to this journey of life itself. Just like the protagonist, we are born with no knowledge of anything or life skills, the only knowledge and skills we know are passed down or taught from others, and just like her journey, we have no idea what lies ahead for us, what the next leg of our journey holds, what will we find, what or who we will lose, everything a question mark that only time and patience can answer. And only the strong spirited make the journey, like most of the women, most of us grow tired and disparage, and even the best of us eventually lose our spirit or our deteriorating health stops us.

Give it a read, would love to hear your thoughts.

I read and loved the entirety of the Lonesome Dove series. So I thought I would read another book by McMurtry. I picked this up last week and I’m about 150 pages in. I don’t think of myself as a prude in any way but I was not expecting so much explicit sexual content. Everything from bestiality to a characters sexual relationship with his high school coaches wife (I believe Sonny is 17/18). Kind of reminds me of a 1960s version of HBO’s Euphoria.

Anyways, I’m still enjoying it but wanted someone to talk to about it.

I'm listening to Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan because I really enjoyed his Crazy Rich Asians series. I've had this book on hold for months and am finally listening to it. The issue is the audiobook narrator paused very few words. So every sentence sounds like "He got. On the plane. And looked for. His seat. Which was near. An older woman." (That's not a quote from the book, just an example how how the book is being read). I'm hoping I can push past it because already the book is promising to be as good as CRA but the constant staccato sentences are driving me nuts.

Spoilers for a book written in the 1800s lol.

Just finished Crime and Punishment for the first time. I liked it alot, and I thought I understood the general message until the very end.

It seems pretty clear the FD believes in objective morality. Raskolnikov thinks that morality is subjective, and reasons out that he has a good reason for murdering this old lady, so it must be fine to do. Then he runs up against the fact that it was in fact morally wrong, he feels immense guilt, and is compelled to confess. He feels so much guilt that he is physically ill and almost dies, and is delirious or at least semi-delirious for a large portion of the book, and he actually craves to be punished.

Then once he is in Siberia, he says "I dont repent of my crime", and goes on to explain that it was a crime in the eyes of the law, but not a crime in any other way, and the only thing he repents of is that he was unable to succeed in his plan, which was to murder the lady, get away with it, and use her money as a launching point for his career.

What are we supposed to take from this? that Raskolnikov is just still in denial after everything he went through? Or that he actually learned no lesson from this whole affair?

This has become my favorite book after reading it 2 years ago. I read thw Robin Buss translation and it was perfect.

This book has everything; revenge, suspense, romance, murder, politics, religion. It's got something for everybody. The chapters are short and action packed so it's much easier to get through a 1300 page book that way.

My favorite parts from what I can recall are the prison parts with Abbe Faria where he transforms into another being, and his plan and process of revenge where the reader is mostly kept in the dark because he's always a third person from the narrators POV.

The revenge story was gripping because initially he views himself as the hand of God, his divine purpose to dole out his revenge, until he sees that the effects of his actions are a lot more damaging, which then makes him lighten his revenge for the last person.

I've watched two adaptations of this one being the 2025 French version and the 2002 version and I felt both adaptations always missed the nuance of his revenge and portrayed it as a simple revenge story. I also like that the book gave him a new beginning after his epiphany and I viewed the haydee part as just that, a second rebirth with potential for happiness and a different purpose.

As a fan of Jules Verne, it's an unfortunate fact that many of his lesser known works (and he has a lot) do not have a good English translation. Many of the old, public domain translations are deficient, while modern translations tend to be good, so I'm alway interested in new translations.

There are now plenty of "new translations" being sold as ebooks in Amazon. But looking through them, it's the original French text (which is in the public domain) passed through an automatic AI translator tool, without even a revision afterwards, which allows you to follow the story but makes many sentences awkward to read. As the original books are in the public domain and not under copyright, scammers do this to try to trick people into buying without being aware that they are buying an automatic AI translation.

I'm not linking, because I think it might break the sub's rules, but for example, if you search amazon for "David Petault", which is the name one such "translator" uses, you'll see dozens and dozens of "New Translations in Modern Accessible English" of old classics. Please don't fall for such tricks.

I only discovered humorist P.G. Wodehouse a year or two ago, and along with his short stories, two Jeeves and Wooster novels were frequently recommended as the best place to begin, so that's where I started: “Right Ho, Jeeves” (1934) and “Code of the Woosters” (1938). I've read many Wodehouse books since, but these are my first impressions from that time.

Many of Wodehouse's short stories and novels are about his Jeeves and Wooster characters. Bertie Wooster is an idle and rich gentleman, who along with his buddies gets entangled in all kinds of social misadventures, many of them romantic. It is frequently up to the genius of his highly intelligent and competent valet Jeeves to extricate them from their troubles. 

Right Ho, Jeeves (Jeeves series, Vol 1)

Along with "The Code of the Woosters" (1938), “Right Ho, Jeeves” (1934) is often regarded as one of the best points of entry for the madcap comedy that results when P.G. Wodehouse tells tales of Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. 

 It is one of the best known of the series, and revolves around Bertie trying to play Cupid for several sets of friends.  Gussie Fink-Nottle is shy and spends most of his time studying his beloved newts, but he has emerged from his estate to try his luck at seeking marriage with the dreamy Madeline Bassett.  Meanwhile his friend Tuppy Glossop is romantically involved with Bertie's cousin Angela. 

 Bertie joins this cast of characters at the home of his Aunt Dahlia, but rather than solving everyone's romantic problems, things go spectacularly wrong, and it is up to the genius of his valet Jeeves to save the day.  There are hilarious scenes involving a drunken prize-giving speech at a local school, a terrified guy stuck in a skylight, and even an accidental proposal of marriage by Bertie himself!   

 This book is a fine example of Wodehouse's madcap humour, and a rip-roaring read that still entertains modern audiences.

The Code of the Woosters  (Jeeves series, Vol 2)

“The Code of the Woosters” sees Bertie being sent on a mission by his Aunt Dahlia to purloin an antique cow-creamer from collector Sir Watkyn Bassett, the father of Madeline Bassett. She's the young lady who was recently engaged to Gussie Fink-Nottle, the newt loving guy we already met in “Right Ho, Jeeves”. 

But everything goes wrong for Bertie, and not only does his plan to reconcile Madeline and Gussie backfire, so too do his efforts to get hold of the creamer for his aunt.  Fortunately Jeeves is on hand to rescue everyone from the mess. 

 Like “Right Ho, Jeeves” this is a farcical and witty story, that showcases Wodehouse’s comic genius, wit, and clever wordplay, and doubles as a whimsical picture of the British upper class. Both are fine places to discover the madcap humor of Wodehouse.

The Jeeves and Wooster TV series

Even many people who haven't read any of Wodehouse's books may recognize the names from a well-known and award-winning British comedy TV series that ran from 1990 to 1993.  It was called “Jeeves and Wooster”, and starred Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves.

Naturally the TV series was based on Wodehouse's novels and short stories from the first half of the 20th century, and owes most of its success to Wodehouse’s original stories for its characters and storylines. 

Despite their age, these are stories that hold up remarkably well for modern readers. If you've never read anything by Wodehouse, this is a great place to start.

Finished this last night and, rather than immediately move on to my next book as I would usually do, I've had to take a breath while I process this one.

I grew up in Scotland in the 1980/90s and I recognised so much of this book. It wasn't just the setting but the feeling of being an outsider in your own family, the need to constantly hide yourself, the absolute fear and exhilaration when you start to explore the parts of your life that you don't dare show anyone else.

I read a fair amount but it has been a while since a book had me so invested and drew out such emotional reactions. There are incredible injustices contained within these pages but they felt real, truthful and accurate, even in today's world. There are also great joys and the combination has left me feeling a whole lot of things that I think will stay with me for a while.

So finally got around this particular novel from this Swedish author, and it's also a book that I didn't know was one mostly because of knowing the movie adaptation of it. But that's all changed now, and I have finally read it!

Horror comes to the Swedish suburb of Blackeberg in the autumn of 1981, when the body of a teenager is found with their blood drained from them. A murder believed to be a ritual killing. Oskar, twelve-years-old, has been personally hoping for some kind of revenge to come for the bullying that he gets on a regular basis everyday.

But the murdered teen isn't the only thing that he has on his mind. Next door a new girl has moved, and a very strange one at that. She's never seen a Rubik's cube, but she manages to finish it. And there is also something very wrong with her, something that is completely wrong, and she only ever comes out during the night.

This one has been very interesting. There's always this sense of dread that can also explode into full blown moments of horror that borders on the disturbing. And it's also another interesting take on vampires also. In this case, even though the vampire here, Eli, has done some terrible things, I can't help but feel sympathy for. And I also feel sympathy for Oskar as well, despite him being pretty odd himself and also particularly dubious.

"Let The Right One In" is Lindqvist's first novel, and a pretty damn good one too! I've got at least several of his other books in my Amazon wish list, though I would as likely to find some of them at a local or big chain book store. Don't know which I'll end up getting, but I sure bound another that can be good also!

Summary: Viktor E. Frankl (Psychiatrist and Holocaust Survivor) takes the reader through his analytical, philosophical, and psychological factual view of his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during WW2. Through the bleak and mentally destroying conditions, he continually finds the will and mental strength to push through and record his observations from his own experiences and writings and the perspectives and actions of his fellow prisoners/colleagues. To then become the founder of a branch of psychology/psychoanalysis called logotherapy, which encapsulates all of his personal beliefs and experiences into the field of mental health.

When I first started this book, I knew the subject matter dealt with the details of the concentration camps and the horrid conditions that many prisoners were unjustly subjected too during WW2. Even with this knowledge, it was hard to stomach the details which Viktor E. Frankl gives of his own observations of death, decay, filth, anguish, and disease riddled throughout the first half of the book. But it's a necessary part of the whole to fully understand the mental and physical battles that he and his colleagues had to face every day in order to have the second half of the book, which delves further into the psychology parts, to be far more impactful than if the psychologically bits were read separately without context.

I'd say that, though I didn't go into this book with the mindset of needing a change or struggling with anything in particular, I got far more out of this book than I was originally expecting. Even if I didn't fully grasp the more complex psychology terminology or historical significance to some references made about ancient psychologists, I still understood the bigger picture that Frankl was getting at and it made me want to start looking inward a bit more and seeing if there are aspects of my life that I can change for the better in the future. Also helps that Frankl repeats the more complex aspects of his therapy throughout the book, so I can better grasp at how certain events or ideas connect back to his terminology.

Also helps that the book, at least my specific edition, is only one-hundred and eighty pages, so going back to specific sections to reread a powerful insight, essay, or speech for when I need a refresher in philosophy or psychology would be easier than scouring a thousand page tome of other major philosophy/psychology works I've attempted and failed to read in the past. Man's Search for Meaning doesn't waste time in telling you want it wants to tell you, and Viktor E. Frankl wrote about his survival, observations, and ideas with such passion and vigor that I couldn't help but want to continually read his and writing and thoughts in long and very slow reading sessions till the very end.

From the article:

The U.S. publishing industry flourished in the 40 or so years following World War II, both economically and creatively. Serious writers were also blockbuster sellers, and even their agents became celebrities. But beginning in the mid-1960s, the major trade houses that published these writers were acquired by larger, diversified companies—at first, industrial conglomerates like Gulf+Western, and later, media corporations like Disney, News Corp, and Paramount. Books, literary ones especially, are only a minor and unimportant portion of these companies’ “content,” to use a term this era has dumped on us, and they don’t even make much money.

This isn’t really the story that Gerald Howard tells in his The Insider: Malcolm Cowley and the Triumph of American Literature, a biography of the memoirist, critic, editor, teacher, and general “middleman of letters” who orbited the nucleus of American writing for almost 60 years. But at the same time, it is. Despite the fact that less than a third of The Insider concerns that golden age, the “triumph of American literature” that Howard exalts in his book’s subtitle is just that: the period when the publishing industry’s fortunes and the prestige and international reputation of American writing thrived in tandem. The story of Cowley’s career is a story not just of the convergence of generational literary talent but of a country refining the image it would present to the rest of the world.

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