After a decade working in jobs focused on the future of media at Poynter Institute, Current TV, and Twitter, Robin Sloan has maintained a steady stream of creative projects, many internet related—z…
Just stared "Service Model" from Adrian Tchaikovsky. Best to go into it knowing nothing. It's hilarious, and not at all what I was expecting after reading some other Tchaikovsky books.
“From my childhood I have been,’ said I, ‘the object of the untiring goodness of the best of human beings; to whom I am so bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day.”
In the mood for some fiction. Nonfiction has been too depressing lately for me to read. There's enough depressing things going on in the world right now, I don't need to add to it by reading about history and politics. 😆
"About his large bright eyes that used to be so merry, there was a wanness and a restlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot use the expression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not like age; and into such a ruin, Richard’s youth and youthful beauty had all fallen away.”
“I passed on to the gate, and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head, put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my mother, cold and dead.”
Excerpt From
Bleak House
Charles Dickens
The Morning Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) August 1853 Dark Plate Etching (ch. 59, "Esther's Narrative") of Dickens's Bleak House, Part 18. Scanned image by George P. Landow;
John Barry's Philadelphia Spelling Book Arranged Upon a Plan Entirely New becomes the first American book copyrighted.
John Barry was a schoolmaster of the Free School of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. While no complete copy of the book exists today, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress has the printed title page and two pages of text that Barry originally deposited.
"When it comes to #queer kid’s #books, though, I’m always happy for an opportunity to buy and read more of these essential stories. When those stories are #Jewish? Even better."
Austro-Bohemian noblewoman, pacifist and novelist Bertha, baroness von Suttner was born #OTD in 1843.
Bertha's most famous work, "Die Waffen nieder!", was published in 1889. The novel depicted the horrors of war through the eyes of its protagonist, Martha von Tilling. Bertha's correspondence with Alfred Nobel influenced his decision to establish the Nobel Peace Prize. She is often credited with inspiring him to include a peace prize in his will.
"Remember, to the last, that while there is life there is hope."
English novelist and social critic Charles Dickens died #OTD in 1870.
Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed readings extensively; was an indefatigable letter writer; and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
#Reading Adams' 1992 novel "Mostly Harmless" for the first time. I was absolutely crazy about the first two Hitch-hiker #books just seven years earlier. Why didn't I care about this one? Think it was because I was disappointed with the third and fourth ones. And this one got bad reviews.
Cruel Provocations, half-fey hunters protecting a rural utopia from the mechanised war-machines of the towns, including the terrifying new walkers, each armed with a six-barrelled canon capable of terrifying carnage.
In celebration of #Pride#PrideMonth, you'll find the central relationship is FF, and there's a badass female revenge plotline.
“Der Tod und das Mädchen” (“Death and the Maiden”), etching 1510 by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) Collection the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ quartet dated 1826, was inspired by the Dürer etching and Matthias Claudius's poem "Der Tod und das Madchen"
British mathematician Charlotte Scott was born #OTD in 1858.
Her research focused on algebraic geometry, a field dealing with solutions to systems of polynomial equations. Notable works include her paper on binary forms and her research on the properties of algebraic curves. She co-authored "An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas and Methods in Plane Analytical Geometry," which became a widely used textbook. She was awarded an honorary degree by the UPenn in 1906.
Robin Sloan on Creating an Expansive and Immersive Sci-Fi Universe (lithub.com)
After a decade working in jobs focused on the future of media at Poynter Institute, Current TV, and Twitter, Robin Sloan has maintained a steady stream of creative projects, many internet related—z…