literature.cafe chat

Haven't gotten much reading done, been extremely busy with Sublinks stuff and playing baldurs gate 3. I did make a blog post about my issues with lemmy and why I am focusing on sublinks and the lemmy devs unfortunately dismissed all the criticism I had and then proceeded to tell off the Beehaw admins and told them to leave lemmy. It's unfortunate. I am proud of my blog post though.

I am still here, paying for the server. Just doing stuff in the background as I can. My DMs are always open too, even if I seem away I promise I'm not. I'm currently working on accessibility auditing the Sublinks frontend, planning on starting a test environment later tonight for that. 😅

I read Gabe’s post (😄) and am also working through Quenby Olson’s Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons). I’ve been enjoying it so far but it’s definitely a slower read than I was looking for at the moment.

Im listening to Dune, i watched the second film the other day and decided i would listen to the book now.

Do graphic novels count? I recently decided to get back into comics and have been enjoying them immensely. “Do a Powerbomb” was so fun, and now I’m reading “68” which is an intense Vietnam war zombie apocalypse recommended by another lemmng, different mood but really fun

I’m trying to get into the Popul Vu — it’s a piece of Mayan literature that covers their cosmology. Interesting and challenging story telling. Does anyone have experience with it?

There was a discussion a while back on lemmy.nz about a childhood classic by an NZ author called Under the Mountain.

I was in the library the other day and saw it, so I thought I'd read it. While I know of the book, I wasn't sure I'd ever actually read it. So now I am, though I haven't got far enough through to tell if I've read it before.

I just started Catfish Lullaby by A.C. Wise. I read a short story by them in a horror anthology a while back, and liked it enough to want to give their other work a try.

I started Blood Meridian by McCarthy. It was a Christmas gift from an American friend. I had never heard about it before then, and I went into it more or less blind. It’s a much bleaker read than I was expecting, but the language is keeping me hooked: it has been a while since last time I had to check the meaning of an English word, and this me taught me plenty.

On the side, I’m reading a German young adult romance novel to learn better German. It’s a light read, to nicely compensate and lift my spirits a bit.

I just finished both Tulipomania (about the Dutch tulip craze of the 1700s - not as exciting as I thought it would be, lol) and Inside Out and Back Again (about a young girl’s experience of fleeing Vietnam and landing in Alabama as a refugee). I really loved Inside Out and Back Again. I had been putting it off because I thought it would be long and/or heavy, but it’s all poetry and was a very fast read.

With poetry on the brain, I moved on to Milk & Honey, from “Instapoet” Rupi Kaur. It reminded me of the poems you used to find in zines in the 90s/early 2000s, but without any alt subtext. So…kind of basic “young woman finds out she has to love herself” poems. I guess I would have appreciated that earlier in life, but I found them kind of uninspiring.

Oh! I also just finished The Bear and the Nightingale - a really fun read I stayed up late to devour. It’s a Russian medieval fantasy/fairytale, set in a realistic-feeling household and wider Russian imperial and Christian context. There are spirits everywhere, but also tension with those converting to Christianity and neglecting the traditional spirits - which has a lot of unintended consequences. Spooky, funny, grim, and action-packed, all in one book.

Sorry if this comment here is inappropriate but I have a question for a Mod or the kind soul that runs this instance.

Could you please message me privately so I can ask a question?