even mor reads

Low-key morn­ing in Berlin.

Read­ing Al­ice in Won­der­land and hav­ing a chill break­fast.

Here’s oth­er re­cent reads, con­tin­ued from last time:

In­vis­i­ble Cities by Ita­lo Calvi­no
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    5/5
An in­cred­i­bly cre­ative book with so many in­ter­est­ing pos­si­ble sce­nar­ios. It’s in­sane how much is in this book and it was love­ly to read about all these pos­si­ble places.

Nev­er­where (Lon­don Be­low, #1) by Neil Gaiman
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
**SPOIL­ER ALERT**  Ear­ly Neil Gaiman re­al­ly has an in­ter­est­ing vibe. I en­joyed this book, it fol­lowed the hero’s jour­ney and was a tad bit pre­dictable but I thought the nar­ra­tive it­self and the en­vi­ron­ment he cre­at­ed was imag­i­na­tive and clever. This nov­el had a part which spurned a nice thought, so Door was taught by her fa­ther how to open. I gath­ered from this the idea that all things like to open, even peo­ple. This made me re­al­ize that the key to dis­cov­er­ing peo­ple, is ask­ing the right ques­tions – to get them to open. 🚪 Oth­er than that, my fa­vorite part was the mar­quis’ lich non­sense and Old Bai­ley be­ing so cooky and sim­i­lar to old greg.

Think­ing, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kah­ne­man
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ³⁄₅
Whoa, this book was tough. It took months to di­gest its con­tent. I learned many things from read­ing this which could help me to make bet­ter choic­es, but it was in­cred­i­bly long and the amount of data pre­sent­ed was a bit over­whelm­ing for some­one who is not an econ­o­mist.
Over­all I was pleased with all the new words and con­cept I be­came fa­mil­iar with, but I think it could have been 200 pages in­stead of 400 and more suc­cinct.

Phone Detox: Bring san­i­ty to your most in­tense tech­no­log­i­cal re­la­tion­ship by The School of Life
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ²⁄₅
This was not enough in­for­ma­tion and not help­ful. It is a sil­ly lit­tle thing worth lit­tle more than a pass­ing dis­tra ruin when it could have ac­tu­al­ly been some­thing im­por­tant and valu­able.

The Al­chemist by Paulo Coel­ho
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ³⁄₅
His was a pleas­ant read, and a nice one to pick up while on the road. It com­forts one with the idea of achiev­ing a ‘per­son­al leg­end,’ fol­low­ing one’s heart and look­ing for omens. It read like a fa­ble, and one had to sus­pend dis­be­lief to en­joy it. Over­all this was quite pleas­ant though in­cred­i­bly ide­al­is­tic.

The Ser­pent and the Rain­bow by Wade Davis
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ³⁄₅
This book was wild and in­ter­est­ing. There were a lot of in­ter­est­ing sto­ries told through­out the nar­ra­tive. I en­joyed get­ting to learn more about Hait­ian prac­tices and I knew noth­ing of the vodoun be­fore pick­ing this book up. It’s in­ter­est­ing how strong a cul­tur­al myth can be­come that it man­i­fests as real mag­ic. Fol­low­ing his quest to solve what the recipe for the poi­son con­tained was re­al­ly fas­ci­nat­ing and the au­thor does a lot of brave things to fig­ure out what he want­ed to know. Over­all pret­ty in­ter­est­ing read.

The Call (The Call, book 1) by Peadar Ó Guilín
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    5/5
This book is amaz­ing.
I start­ed read­ing it and couldn’t stop, it was so in­ter­est­ing. The main char­ac­ter Nes­sa was pa­tient, hu­man and watch­ing her deal with loss af­ter loss was in­tense.
I adored the hor­ri­fy­ing fae realm they built, and the twist­ing that the Sidh did to the bod­ies of the peo­ple who had been called.
I was even hap­py with the love sto­ry, which is rare for me. This one was done in a tact­ful and mean­ing­ful way that seemed based on friend­ship and mu­tu­al friend­ship.
I was re­al­ly pleased with hav­ing a dif­fer­ent­ly abled fe­male pro­tag­o­nist and how they nev­er fixed her with mag­ic but she al­ways found ways to em­pow­er her­self.
Her friend­ship with Mea­gan was also sweet, I ap­pre­ci­at­ed her loud mouthed friend who valiant­ly spoke her mind. The pac­ing and fore­shad­ow­ing in this book was done in such a cap­ti­vat­ing way that it caught me. Best book I’ve read this year.

The Book of Nod by Sam Chupp, An­drew Green­berg
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR   AU­THOR   AU­THOR ³⁄₅
So this book was every­thing it said it was go­ing to be, a dra­mat­ic larp prop. It told the sto­ry of the Kin­dred in epic flow­ery prose and was filled with sketchy black and shite il­lus­tra­tions. I ap­pre­ci­at­ed some parts of it a lot. Like the Tore­ador and Malka­vian speech to their clans were awe­some. I can see how this ma­te­r­i­al would be used in game as a source and I’m hap­py it is avail­able. I found parts of it so cheesy it was hard to di­gest, but it’s part of the charm of World of Dark­ness at times.

The Scar (New Crobu­zon, #2) by Chi­na Miéville
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
**SPOIL­ER ALERT**  Mieville con­tin­ues to just be so im­pres­sive. It was so in­cred­i­ble how this sto­ry kept my rapt at­ten­tion as it moved for­ward. Nev­er would I have ex­pect­ed to love a pi­rate sto­ry as much as I did this one. It was such a cool set­ting to have a city built of chained to­geth­er ships. I love how he’s cre­at­ed his own blend of mag­ic and sci­ence and even how this book makes qui­et, quick ref­er­ences back to Per­di­do Street Sta­tion.
His char­ac­ter cre­ations in this were so fan­tas­tic. Bel­lis was re­al­ly the op­po­site of a typ­i­cal hero­ine and showed pride in her abil­i­ty to choose how to re­spond to the world in­stead of be­ing con­trolled by her emo­tions. Even though she was of­ten cold, un­wel­com­ing, she was al­ways her­self and seemed gen­uine. She was also pret­ty aro­man­tic, choos­ing in­stead to fo­cus on a per­son­’s mind or their voice.
In con­trast, the cre­ation of the Lovers was so fas­ci­nat­ing. Their bril­liant sadism, so many twin scars, their huge scheme for the city.. it was such a de­light to read about an en­tire city be­ing caught up in the pas­sions of two peo­ple. Their nar­ra­tive of cre­at­ing and com­plet­ing one an­oth­er was also quite sat­is­fy­ing, and I thought the woman sail­ing off into the sun­set so that she could dis­cov­er the Scar was so po­et­ic. She sought a big­ger scar than her lover could ever give her, filled with in­fi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties for com­ple­tion.
Mieville is re­al­ly great about giv­ing women their own agency in his books, and I ap­pre­ci­ate this when com­pared to oth­er au­thors.
It’s also in­cred­i­ble to see him put to­geth­er a nar­ra­tive of lib­er­a­tion for Tan­ner Sacks. See­ing him go from a pris­on­er to lead­ing the Ar­ma­da by the end of the book was in­cred­i­bly heart­en­ing.
The con­cept of the Pos­si­bly En­er­gy in this was also so great, the nigh – Bel­lis that al­most was and the real – Bel­lis. You can tell that Mieville has been a Dun­geon Mas­ter be­cause his books, these longer epics more than the short sto­ries read lot like a D&D cam­paign. With each char­ac­ter be­ing shaped out and in­ter­est­ing and the over all plot com­ing to­geth­er in a bril­liant, seem­ing­ly ran­dom but of­ten planned out way.
Also I no­ticed with­in here that Mieville has a se­ries of spe­cif­ic fas­ci­na­tions, like the act of wa­ter com­ing through gills and his fas­ci­na­tion with the brine and depths of the sea is so well hon­ored in this nar­ra­tive.

And
since I fin­ished read­ing while you were read­ing:

Alice’s Ad­ven­tures in Won­der­land by Lewis Car­roll
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ³⁄₅
This book is the orig­i­nal weird fic­tion and I en­joy that it ex­ists and what it has sired. I did not ter­ri­bly much en­joy read­ing it, how­ev­er, be­cause it was a bit too non­sen­si­cal for me, there was a huge amount of sus­pend­ing dis­be­lief – not be­cause of the fan­tas­tic na­ture of the book but just the fact each thing seemed re­al­ly point­less. It seemed a lot like a mush­room or an acid trip, and if I re­mem­ber cor­rect I’ve read some­where that it’s meant to have these par­al­lels be­cause Al­ice for­gets who she is and which size she’s sup­posed to be. She is also an ut­ter­ly rude char­ac­ter in this nar­ra­tive and al­though she’s sup­posed to be a child, her im­pa­tient ques­tions were and con­stant in­ter­rup­tions were not par­tic­u­lar­ly fun to read.
Though I am hap­py what this nar­ra­tive has spawned, I more en­joyed Through The Look­ing-Glass.

—car­nelian king

Flom­mist Car­nelian King is a per­form­ing artist, prod­uct de­sign­er, toy mak­er and non­bi­na­ry clown cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Berlin. Copy­right © 2019 Car­nelian King.

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