New character sketch. The pics I've been posting lately have all been secondary characters for a story I'm working on, I won't be posting the main characters for a while.
“How Did Frank Herbert Feel About Star Wars' Dune Influence? It's Complicated
Frank Herbert's feelings about Star Wars -- and its similarities to his epic Dune series -- were decidedly mixed. Here's why it's not a simple answer.”
Just finished this, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the UK parliamentary system and UK democracy. It’s a very readable deep dive into what does and doesn’t work at the moment (only published last month), and although it’s depressing along the way, it points to some relatively straightforward fixes at the end. We can change this if we choose. Read it and tell your MP! #books#democracy#Parliament
@helenczerski Thanks for the recommendation. From the other side of the pond, parliament looks just as disfunctional as congress. This should help clear up why.
This one-woman Indigenous-owned bookstore has put out a call for support to stay in business after a long series of family sicknesses and other struggles. If you love books and care about supporting small, BIPOC-owned businesses, check out Paperbacks and Frybread: https://paperbacksandfrybread.com/collections/new-books
The all-day flood of boost notifications for this post reminds me what I love about this site. Like anything I love, I reserve the right to criticize it and know it can improve in a lot of ways, but y'all are great.
@NerdyNativeMama - I hope you had a big day of business at the store. I know this post sent at least a few people your way, and I hope they keep coming.
I want to read a bit again. Can anyone recommend some nice books about birds (or a particular species or family)? I'd really like something about birds in Germany / Europe specifically. Written in either English, German or Swedish.
@mjohanning Flight Paths by Rebecca Heisman is a great new book about bird migration. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald has a ton of history of hawks and falconry mixed in with a memoir about grief. One of my favorite books overall. Those are the two English-language ones that pop to mind. Good luck.
"A Philosophy of Software Design" by John Ousterhout is the book on problem decomposition and system design I was looking for. Although general, the principles it presents are surprisingly effective at navigating the design space, shaping a system, and reducing complexity.
Today's queer indie author review: RD Noland's The Curious Thing About the Apartment Vent:
"There were so many things to enjoy about this story, from the meet-cute of the eavesdropping via air vent, to the fun side characters, to the developing relationship... It was hard to put this one down."
I finished all the Becky Chambers books.... The best IMO was the second Wayfarers book - A Closed and Common Orbit. It is Becky Chambers at her best, a dual intertwined coming of age story.
Whew, finally finished reading 'Alles is relatief' (everything is relative) by Marjolein Vrijenhoek. No more accidentally reading until way past bedtime because you completely forgot about the time.
Totally not my genre though, but her writing style is just so easy to read. So it was too easy to just keep on reading to see what'd happen next.
Basically a woman with her 2 kids go to a camping in France. She just had a nasty divorce behind her. She just wanted to spend the time with her kids and out of nostalgia because she used to go to a camping too as kid.
So, even though she was not planning to pick up any guys there, she did manage to meet one that she likes a lot. But then something happened and she got confronted with her ex again.
Yadda, yadda.
Like I said, not my genre. But damn, that was an easy read. :P Modern language, written in a way that is easy to relate to. That was her first book too, so I think she's got a lot of potential there. #Books#Boeken
@2ck If you mean why I grabbed that book, it was just random. My mother has an ebook subscription, 8 random novels every month. I have to download it for her and put on her ereader. As such I have access to those books as well and can read any of them anytime too.
So if I feel like reading something, sometimes I grab one from that collection and never quite know what to expect. The title looked interesting enough to me in this case.
This way I have read some nice gems, but also stupid books that I just cannot finish.