In other news, I have recently begun learning #mandolin 🥰
I had my eye on this one for months. Turns out, my wife made a note of it and started saving up and bought it for me for my birthday and it's probably the best birthday gift I've ever gotten. I've had her for a little bit now but haven't posted.
I named her Ursula K. Mandolin.
They bring me so much joy 🩷 (both my wife and Ursula K. Mandolin, and of course #UrsulaKLeGuin)
I finished the second book in the saga titled "The Tombs of Atuan". It's great.
It follows the story of Tenar, a girl taken to an old temple in the desert to be the priestess devoted to the "Nameless Ones", ancient gods long forgotten.
She was very lonely there; all her life changed when she met Ged, the first book's protagonist, who was in the underground labyrinth under the temple looking for an ancient relic. This encounter completely changes Tenar's life.
The main topics of the book are freedom, gender, and the power relations emanating between those, reflecting the anarchist views of Ursula.
New on my blog is the second half of my top 10 imaginary worlds. I get a bit deeper this time (or go on a bit more!), as these are ones that have shaped me as a writer.
@bookstodon Finished the first book 'A wizard of Earthsea'. I like how the book is not about good vs evil. It's more about a personal search of oneself. #fantasy#UrsulaKLeGuin
I recently read a compilation of #UrsulaKLeGuin short stories- The Unreal & The Real volume 1 Where On Earth. These are her realist stories. Her writing never fails to illuminate & this line from Unlocking the Air was a gut punch in the context of modern times #books@bookstodon
"Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality."
“The Gethenians do not see one another as men or women. This is almost impossible for our imaginations to accept….One is respected and judged only as a human being. You cannot cast a Gethnian in the role of Man or Woman, while adopting towards 'him' a corresponding role dependant on your expectations of the interactions between persons of the same or oppositve sex. It is an appalling experience for a Terran ” #ursulakleguin The Left Hand of Darkness #transvisibilityday
This is excellent news and I hope to see more announcements like this.
“The Yurok will be the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed Tuesday by the tribe, Redwood National and State Parks and the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League.”
When I hear of the Yurok, I am reminded of Yurok Robert Sprott who was a close friend of Dr. Alfred Kroeber, founder of the anthropology dept at Cal Berkeley. Kroeber’s daughter #UrsulaKLeGuin writes about Sprott in her essay “Indian Uncles”.
This was lovely. So well-deserved of its Ursula K. le Guin Prize win (and Philip K. Dick award nomination).
Near-future fiction at its best. I love well-done intertwined short stories like this. It may be a tad too optimistic about us humans, but it's nice to have a smidgen of hope.
Fantastik edebiyatı küçümseyen birkaç kişiyle aklımı sıyırmadan sohbet etmeye çalıştım. Geçenlerde ölüm yıldönümünde yâd edilen rahmetli #UrsulaKleGuin teyzeden bahsedeyim dedim ancak beyhûde bir çaba. Şemseddin Sâmî'nin, Muhayyelât'ın "çocukça" olduğunu belirtmek için ''Eyne's-serâ ve's-Süreyya (yer nerde, Süreyya yıldızı nerde) demeyecek miyiz?" deyişini hatırladım. Şark cephesinde yeni bir şey yok velhâsıl.
I need your help #bookstodon. One of the classes I'm taking at the graduate level this semester is Religion & Science Fiction. I read more fantasy, and would like to do my research paper on something that's not obvious (like ST/BS5/Matrix/etc.) & I'd love to use more modern sf rather than the golden age classics.
Anyone have any interesting ideas for my research paper on regarding the intersection of religion and science fiction?
I'll mention #DouglasAdams as well. But point you toward Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It's goofy and fun and not terribly deep, but the conceit that Earth was built as a computer to figure out the ultimate question strikes me as an answer to religion.
Soon, The Language of the Night will be available once again! Ursula's 1979 collection of essays will be reissued by Scribner on May 14th, with a new introduction from author Ken Liu.
"[H]ow a generation of Arab intellectuals tried to introduce cultural renewals in their homelands through the forces of modernity and secularism. Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, on occasion, death. Brilliantly weaving together the strands of a tumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry [...]"
Verlagsreklame
Merke ich mir mal.
(Arnold Hottinger, Islamische Welt, 2004, Fußnote Seite 38)
"[...] in der Einsamkeit des Felsengipfels ein Kloster [...] man musste das letzte Stück Wegs über Felsen hinaufklettern. [...] Das Eingangstor der dicken Umfassungsmauer war niedrig, so dass ein jeder Besucher sich tief bücken musste; wer dazu zu stolz war, sollte auch nicht in den Klosterhof eintreten." #ArnoldHottinger
Wieso muss ich jetzt an Estraven in 'Die linke Hand Der Dunkelheit' denken? Wäre er zu stolz? Gibt es eine solche Szene?
Looking start a new series in the coming year. Can you help me out #Bookstodon? Because you can only have four poll topics on Mastodon, I'll be posting a second polls with a few more options below. I'll take the top two from both rounds and make final four poll! Go to the comments for a link to the second poll.
@seanbala@bookstodon The Hainish novels explore a unique style of Sci-fi. I don’t know where I would be now if I hadn’t read ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ and ‘The Dispossessed’. Classics in the true sense. #ursulakleguin#books