#vagabonds like hao jingfang

[amphiptere]

this audiobook is 21h long, it had better be engaging

#mine #vagabonds like hao jingfang #i am in the mood for sci-fi requiring some brain power but like i am not a reader capable of enduring much density in my fiction #or non-fiction #it's translated and literary pretty sure so those combined with the length do not bode too well for it being easy to read #there are plenty of foreign books ofc that are light and action-driven or whatever but in my experience it's the denser more literary ones #that get translated #i am curious to try more chinese fiction though! only one i've read before was sandalwood death by mo yan and i hated it #synopsis made it out to be right up my alley so i was pumped and then it was just either disgusting or insufferably boring #neither of which i'm totally here for #i can do disgusting in low doses i guess just take a few pages and be done with it that's fine fun even sometimes #but this was just entire chapters #i had to read that for class but we got to pick the book it just meant i was stuck having to finish it #ok on with things now #personal

[phaedraismyusername]

Just chucking my 10 pence into the ring for Women in Translation month with a handful of recs on the off chance it'll be of use to someone

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

- a short novel about a Korean woman who decides to become a vegetarian after a bad dream and how the people (mainly men) around her react to the decision and her subsequent spiral into stranger and stranger behaviour.

Convenience Store Woman by Sakaya Murata

- the story follows a neuro-divergent middle aged Japanese woman who loves her job at a convenience store more than anything and just wants to be left alone to do what makes her happy and how the people around her pressure her into conforming to what society expects from her (finding a man, getting a "real job", etc) and how those expectations negatively impact her life.

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

- a strange winding Argentinian novel about a dying woman and a young boy sitting in hospital together and telling stories. I don't really know the best way to sell you on this one other than you'll have to try it to know if you'll like it lol. But if you like a whole lot of weird and appreciate narratives and themes around environmental abuse then this could be for you.

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

- another Argentinian book but this time it's just a straight up consumption horror lol. It follows a man who works at an abattoir essentially in a dystopian society where animal meat is now poisonous to people so they've started breeding and mass-processing humans for meat instead. Does what it says on the tin and pulls absolutely no punches in the process lol.

Confessions by Kanae Minato

- an excellent little Japanese thriller. A class room of teenagers are sat down by their teacher on her last day of work to talk about her resignation after her young daughter died in an accident on school grounds, only for her to reveal that she knows that two of the students are responsible for her death, and the steps she's taken to set her revenge into motion. The rest of the book jumps pov every chapter as you watch the consequences ripple out from there.

and last but not least

Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang

- a Chinese sci-fi novel that follows a group of Mars-born teenagers who, after a civil war between planets, have spent their formative years on Earth as delegates and are now returning to Mars and how they deal with that, basically. It's the longest book on this list by far at around 600 pages but the writing is beautiful and the conversations about Mars being a communist ideal while Earth has reached the pinnacle of what capitalism can create are done in a way that doesn't feel at all soapbox-y and feels very fair in exploring the pros and cons of each system. Just an all around excellent book.

#women in translation #wit month #book recs #the vegetarian #convenience store woman #confessions #vagabonds #tender is the flesh #fever dream #sakaya murata #kanae minato #samantha schweblin #han kang #hao jingfang #agustina bazterrica #books #recs

[nellasbookplanet]

hello, have you read any science fiction or fantasy novels written in the past 10 years where the government is actively trying to improve the lives of its citizens? (and not in a creepy “we think they’re being helpful but actually they’re not” way)

Hm, that's tricky. Pet by Akwaeke Emezi is billed as utopian and mostly seems to fit, but most that I can think of either boil down to "shitty situation and everything sucks, but everyone including the government are trying their absolute best", or "not really about the government specifically helping so much as a general theme of cooperation and togetherness to solve conflict rather than fighting". Both these categories tend to blend bleakness and hard choices with hopefulness and togetherness.

In the first category: The Touchstone trilogy by Andrea K. Höst (teen girl walks through a portal to another planet, where she's roped into helping fight against extradimensional monsters in a special task force trying to keep the population safe); The Annual Migration of Clouds novella by Premee Mohamed (after societal collapse, a small community works together to regain their feet) & Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer (humanity has rebuilt itself into a utopia, but the threat of war risks this; very complex books that question the very nature of whether humanity can choose to become better than it is while still remaining human, definitely has some creepyness to it though)

Second category: The Children of Time trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky (epic sci-fi, humanity is fleeing the dead remains of Earth seeking a new home; on another planet, sentient spiders are evolving; will the two societies find common ground?), Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (frankly this one could go in both categories; Earth is threatened by a cosmic threat - as governments come together and race to buy time, an astronaut is sent far away to find a solution to save all of humanity, only to find unexpected help in an alien species) & Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang (human societies on Earth and Mars try to find common ground; a story that recognizes that there's no such thing as a utopia, and that human societies will always have to strive to be better and adapt to new situations and environments).

I would also suggest looking into books described as 'cozy' (not entirely my vibe, but more likely to check your boxes) or slice of life, especially Becky Chamber's Monk & Robot duology and Wayfarers series! The graphic novel Always Human may also check out.

#i'm sure there are many more but these were the ones that stood out to me #i hope you find something to your liking! #nella talks books #nella gets asks #oh i just remembered! where it rains in color by denise crittendon #and the best of all possible worlds by karen lord #may also work for you!

[tsunflowers]

it took me a while to get into "vagabonds" by hao jingfang bc the tone and style of it felt very unusual for science fiction. it does have lengthy political discussions about nations that don't exist and pages of descriptions of futuristic technology but the feel to it is somehow... I can only describe it as "delicate and emotional." most of the book takes place in a city on mars made of colorful glass spires and I think the vibe of the writing matches the vibe of the glass city

in the world of vagabonds a mars colony staged a revolution and went to war against the people of earth. while they were cut off completely from earth, the people of mars developed a communist society that values creativity and artistic freedom. earth became extremely capitalist. the book begins with a delegation of teens from mars returning from a years-long trip to experience earth culture. once they're back on mars they all realize that they no longer fit in with the society they grew up in and recognize its restrictions, but as they push for change they learn hard truths about the nature of society

as I read this book I asked myself "is this about China and the US." and I think the answer is "yes but no." I read a review today that suggested that the mars and earth of the novel are based more on the perceptions Chinese and Americans have of each other than the actual nations. that's an interesting perspective to take

as a novel, it's very long, it feels meandering, and it doesn't wrap up nicely. but it's interesting to read a novel set on mars that feels so emotionally driven and that asks questions like "what does it mean to have freedom? what does it mean to be creative?" also I really enjoyed that the main returnee has a very close and intimate relationship with a male friend of hers but the idea that they have romantic feelings for each other doesn't come up until the very end. they love each other and it's not important if it's romantic

I think you have to be in the right mood to read this book and then sustain that mood for 600+ pages but I enjoyed it

#my book review corner

[rebeccadumaurier]

2023 Books in Review

a tiered ranking of all the books i read in 2023! originally i was going to write up my commentary on each one but then i was like hahaha.....no, so below the cut is just a list of the titles/authors in each tier instead.

changed my brain chemistry

The Idiot, Elif Batuman

Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang

The Borrowed, Chan Ho-kei (trans. Jeremy Tiang)

My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier

Vagabonds, Hao Jingfang (trans. Ken Liu)

The Membranes, Chi Ta-wei (trans. Ari Larissa Heinrich)

Under the Pendulum Sun, Jeannette Ng

Severance, Ling Ma

He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan

Vita Nostra, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (trans. Julia Meitov Hersey)

Network Effect, Martha Wells

top-tier stuff

Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez (trans. Megan McDowell)

Brainwyrms, Alison Rumfitt

The Door, Magda Szabo (trans. Len Rix)

The Lover, Marguerite Duras (trans. Barbara Bray)

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

Strange Beasts of China, Yan Ge (trans. Jeremy Tiang)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Kim Fu

Tell Me I’m Worthless, Alison Rumfitt

Bliss Montage, Ling Ma

How to Read Now, Elaine Castillo

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer

The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin

If Beale Street Could Talk, James Baldwin

My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante

The Jasmine Throne, Tasha Suri

good, well-written

Carmilla, Sheridan Le Fanu

Life Ceremony, Sayaka Murata (trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori)

Yellowface, R. F. Kuang

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

Assassin of Reality, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (trans. Julia Meitov Hersey)

Witch King, Martha Wells

Tokyo Ueno Station, Miri Yu (trans. Morgan Giles)

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi

Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir

The Pachinko Parlor, Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)

All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Fugitive Telemetry, and System Collapse (Murderbot #1-4, #6-7), Martha Wells

Revenant Gun, Yoon Ha Lee

The Dry Heart, Natalia Ginzburg (trans. Frances Frenaye)

Gods of Want, K-Ming Chang

Paradais, Fernanda Melchor (trans. Sophie Hughes)

The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing

Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency, Chen Chen

The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon

Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie

An Unauthorised Fan Treatise, Lauren James

Upstream, Mary Oliver

The Art of Death, Edwidge Danticat

Meander, Spiral, Explode, Jane Alison

alphabet, Inger Christensen (trans. Susanna Nied)

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

flawed, but enjoyable

The Wicker King, K. Ancrum

Exit West, Mohsin Hamid

Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters

Flux, Jinwoo Chong

Bang Bang Bodhisattva, Aubrey Wood

The Murder of Mr. Wickham, Claudia Gray

Natural Beauty, Ling Ling Huang

The Monster Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Likeness, Tana French

The Cabinet, Un-su Kim (trans. Sean Lin Halbert)

The Kingdom of Surfaces, Sally Wen Mao

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, Franny Choi

good, well-written, but not my cup of tea

The Good House, Tananarive Due

The Transmigration of Bodies, Yuri Herrera (trans. Lisa Dillman)

Roadside Picnic, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (trans. Olena Bormashenko)

The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan

At Night All Blood Is Black, David Diop (trans. Anna Moschovakis)

Family Lexicon, Natalia Ginzburg (trans. Jenny McPhee)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo

The Kingdom of This World, Alejo Carpentier (trans. Harriet de Onís)

Against Silence, Frank Bidart

flawed, less enjoyable

Tenth of December, George Saunders

Counterweight, Djuna (trans. Anton Hur)

Authority, Jeff VanderMeer

Comfort Me with Apples, Catherynne M. Valente

Babel, R. F. Kuang

The Genesis of Misery, Neon Yang

Carrie Soto Is Back, Taylor Jenkins Reid

not ranking

These are nonfiction and they aren’t literature-related, so it just felt weird trying to rank them.

Visual Thinking, Temple Grandin

On Web Typography, Jason Santa Maria

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo (trans. Cathy Hirano)

#ange.log #ange.book

[madtomedgar]

books read in august, september, october, and november:

[i had to evacuate my apartment at the end of august and spent the next few months dealing with that plus being sick, so this is a comparatively small amount of books for the timeframe. also not typing out my thoughts about them because that just feels like a lot right now]

August:

Dear Life by Alice Munroe (the fictional equivalent of a still-life painting by a Dutch master. Technically fantastic, evocative, but fairly boring to me personally)

Art and Lies by Jeannette Winterson: Fucking fantastic, everything I love about Winterson. Rambling interiority, plots and characters colliding on multiple planes of reality, jumping the tracks for the author to just go off on tangents, weaving the taboos of queerness with other taboos and interrogating taboo and respectability with viciousness and compassion... yeah. good shit.

To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova: absolutely wonderful book about a part of the world i previously knew nothing about. I found it resonated a lot with Jewish intergenerational trauma. Highly recommend.

The Gone Dead by Channelle Benz: interesting idea, terrible execution. The author clearly put a lot of Tips For Writers into this story.

September:

A Memory called Empire by Arkady Martine: Easily the best sci-fi I've read this year, 10/10

October/November:

Vagabonds by Hao JingFang: interesting premise, very clearly from a very different storytelling tradition than I'm used to. I don't think the plot lived up to the themes.

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates: Excellent and insightful redux of race in the Obama years. Wish he brought more gender analysis to the table, but there are plenty other authors to do that.

#long post

[mogseltof]

3, 10 and 17 for the book ask!

eyyy!

3: Top five books I read this year (excluding answers to the other questions because I ate well this year)

A Very Stable Genius by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig (I'm currently waist deep in the follow up "I Alone Can Fix This") which is some of the most detailed investigative journalism applied to biography I've ever read, this thing is a doorstopper and covers the Trump presidency in great detail while still being extremely engaging. I Alone Can Fix This somehow manages to be even better at splitting the focus of its narrative but I haven't finished it yet, these were easily my best impule pick ups from the library this year.

Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang I read for bookclub and it was one of my favourites! The most lasting impression I got from the narrative was one of "Oh this is what it is like to exist while Chinese on the broader internet", it's a sci fi that takes a leaf out of the Dispossessed following the narrative of an 18 year old girl returning home to Mars after spending her teen years on Earth in capitalist society and the effects of everything around that. Very cool and an extremely good author.

Hell House by Richard Matheson is not the most recent release but I only got round to it this year and Jesus H Christ. Prototypical haunted house novel, you can see the fingerprints this thing left over the horror genre in its entirety, I loved every minute of it. Haunted houses, 20s occultism taken too far, seventies paranormal scientists trying to be taken seriously, washed up child psychics, New Age sensibilities put to the test, this thing has everything *pats the roof of this sucker*

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka I finished while camping in August and is one that's going to stay with me for a while. I loved this book, I loved its presentation of the afterlife, I loved the main character, and it's definitely the 'further reading' book of the year for me given how little I know about Sri Lanka's history, especially in this context of late 80s/early 90s conflicts. This one's my hard recommend of the list.

Leech by Hiron Ennes was deeply fascinating and threw me for the most loops. I love a hivemind and reading from the perspective of one was so cool, especially at the points of [redacted] and [redacted]. I was also totally taken in by the historicality of the setting so when I realised that what I was reading was actually [redacted] it hooked me even more. The interplay with the demographic elements as experienced by a parasitic hivemind was also deeply fascinating, this was my fastest read on this list because once I started I couldn't stop.

Honorary mentions to: The Darkest Web by Eileen Ormsby, Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll, The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, Mister Magic by Kiersten White, Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero (minus the last like, 500 words rip), and Troll Hunting by Ginger Gorman.

10: My favourite new release of 2023

I'm not great at keeping up with new releases but this one goes to my only preorder of the year,

A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher, which I absolutely devoured. There's something about the mid century occultists that I find both hilarious and fascinating, and Kingfisher/Vernon managed to hit exactly on what I love about reading about them, while also capturing the horror of being stuck in your racist grandma's house. I'm a huge fan of her protagonists as well, and 'furloughed archaeoentomologist' is overflowing with great character bits and I love her. I want to reread this book now because I opened it up to the first chapter to make sure I was remembering her job accurately and got totally sucked into the vulture commentary in the first few pages. Goddamnit.

In close runner up is Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle because holy fuck man, I read that like 2 days ago and I'm a little bit obsessed. I've known Rose Darlings. I've met all of those characters (except maybe the demons). Incredible work by the Tingler Master.

17: A book that suprised me with how good it was

Fairy Tale by Stephen King. One of my friends gave this to me right at the beginning of the year because she'd bought a copy and then had two friends buy it for her as well, and holy fuck mom. I'm really on and off with King, I love some of his stuff, but when I don't like it I hate it, and Fairy Tale I genuinely loved. There were definitely bits that made me go 'mmm', but King also had the forethought to cover for it in later narration which I appreciated ahahaha. I've never gelled with his fantasies before, so I wasn't expecting to enjoy this one, but this is the closest to a spiritual successor to the Oz novels as I've ever read, and I loved his take on it. Still kind of amazed at how much I loved it.

#another sad lieutenant #ask game #books #mogseltof reads

[traincoded]

top 5 birds. top five sci fi novels you think I should read. top five sweets. ok that‘s enough for now :)

1. indian mynah. so much personality. always playing a complicated and intense game nobody understands. the bird i will get tattooed first on me.

2. brown headed barbet. reminds me of those old men that dress exclusively in hawaiian shirts. had a religious experience when i caught sight of one.

3. indian koel. cuckoos have the most effective evolutionary strategy known to man. parasitism. their call makes it seem like the veil between worlds is thin.

4. great hornbill. being a bit extravagant ik but look at it! i read a poem about a hornbill family in school i have never forgotten and not found the poem again.

5. red vented bulbul. i love bulbuls in general. they're delightfully named and generally cute. but this one is striking with that crown and i love its call.

science fiction you should read! just 5?

1. the calcutta chromosome by amitav ghosh. atmospheric. amazing. features mosquitoes

2. the vagabonds, by hao jingfang. space! it will drag in the middle but its a book that's gotten even better the more i think about it. it's deeply in conversation with le guin's the dispossessed which i would rec first and this is just how i cheat.

3. the southern reach trilogy by jeff vandermeer. more horror leaning sci fi but this series kills with its character work. main character is a biologist.

4. contact by carl sagan, more of a classic sci fi novel than the others. written by a scientist so goes hard on the details. great female protagonist.

5. stories of your life and others by ted chiang. a collection of short stories about language and determinism. is genuinely brilliant and worth several rereads.

sweeets. this is just mood wise

apple crumble

atta halwa

warm brownie. vanilla icecream. the basics.

lemon custard

gulab jamun

#ask game #thank you i loved these. tumblr unfortuantely ate my first answer do this is attempt 2 #top 5 asks

[sanhaoche]

thank you @insideline for the tag! i love reading about you all and also talking about myself :)

Rules: tag 9 ppl you want to know better

Last song: unsure and can't check on spotify as i've since listened to an episode of you're wrong about but i'm currently obsessed with maggie rogers' new album so i'll say horses off that bc like. horses. running wild. i wish i could feel like that for just a minute! alt pop needs more women who wail and maggie gets it. thank you maggie for your service

Last show: last show i finished i think was abbott elementary? which was very good. last show i got at least mildly obsessed with was superstore before that. by that i mean i think i read almost all of the superstore fic on ao3 in like one night. my last concert however was carly rae jepsen at a lovely outdoor venue and it was an extremely beautiful experience :)

Currently watching: only murders in the building season 2! the finale is out on tuesday and i'm so excited and happy to be watching something that comes out an episode per week again instead of all at once lmao god. i haven't been into some of the choices this season (cara delevingne my parasocial enemy) but yeah. fun mystery and a bit of peril wrapped in an overall very comfy vibe. i also started watching the sandman bc i remember being into the comics like a decade ago (😩) but i'm less confident i will finish that. other than that unfortunately i think i've watched every good video essay on youtube at this point but i'm still making my way through some of the wait in the wings videos about musical theatre productions. and i am WAITING for michael's microphone to tell me about gossip girl!!!!!!!!

Currently reading: vagabonds by hao jingfang! she said NFTs suck and she was right (idk actually i'm only a third through lol). i've also been halfway through a place of greater safety by hilary mantel for hmm over a year but i WILL finish it. one day. anyway idk why i keep sabotaging my goal to start reading more again by choosing books that are a million pages long and slightly hard to get through.

Current obsession: um scotty james and the daniel ricciardo bottom agenda. let the man get fucked by his guypals for god's sake he needs it. rotating my WIP in my mind instead of writing it even though i am mostly making myself finish it to relearn how to write fiction after not doing it for like a decade. fantasising about buying a sewing machine instead of finishing my 2 ongoing crochet projects. going for dinner with friends as often as possible before it starts getting dark early and cold again. finding new recipes to try while i'm on leave from work before i start getting sick of having to cook in the evenings again. thinking about sinophobia, as always. fantasising about going back to china again.

i always come to these late so i feel like a lot of people have done this already lol. @nottiinrosso @20timesisay @maidenpole i don't think you have yet? but also no pressure. and anyone else who hasn't done it but wants to!!!!

@undetectorist YOUR TIME HAS COME ALSO. @dorothywilde as well x

#sorry this is so long i love to chat so much lol. #and i am not very good at starting or maintaining online relationships but i'm trying to get better and i am always open to talk! #so like if you ever want to message me about anything please do lol #just don't send me anon asks about specifics of f1blr drama i have mistakenly waded into pls bc despite all appearances #i don't actually like to stir shit. any more. #i actually desperately need to finish and post this fic so i can commence my career change from occasional tepid take haver #to wholesome harmless and fun content creator #i restrain myself on tumblr so much actually would you believe i am probably the least deranged here than i've been anywhere else #no more takes! fanworks only! i want a quiet life! #ANYWAY. i'm going back to work next week so i'll probably be on tumblr more lmao. though i work in higher education so. maybe not #unfortunately. shit sucks huh #tmi

[metamatar]

In Progress:

An introduction to the Three Volumes of Marx's Capital, Heinrich

Sanctions, Nicholas Mulder

Completed

Non Fiction

- Marxism and Politics, Ralph Milliband

- An unquiet mind, Kay Redfield

- Seeing Like a Feminist, Nivedita Menon

- Anatomy of Fascism, Robert Paxton

- Russia in Revolution, Stephen Smith

- What is History, E.H Carr

- Will To Change, bell hooks

- Transgender Liberation, Leslie Feinberg

- The Right to Be Greedy, For Ourselves, anarchist library

- State and Revolution, Lenin

- The Origin of Capitalism, Ellen Wood

- Beyond Caste, Sunit Guha

- The Argumentative Indian, Amartya Sen

- 11 Walks Through Expert Eyes

- Missing Out, Adam Phillips

Fiction

- The Witcher #1-3, Andrej Sapokowski

- His footsteps, through darkness and light, Mimi Mondal

- Attack Surface, Cory Doctorow

- Unauthorised Bread, Cory Doctorow

- On a Sunbeam, Graphic Novel

- The Viscount who Loved Me

- Think of England, KJ Charles

- reread: City Watch #1 to 6, Terry Pratchett

- The Vagabonds, Hao Jingfang

- Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk

- The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Doestoevsky

- High as the Waters Rise, Anja Kapmann

- The Horizon, Gautam Bhatia

- The Expanse #1-2, James Corey

- The Vegetarian, Han Kang

- The Cipher, Kathe Koja

- Roadside Picnic, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky

- Earthsea #1-3, Ursula k. Le Guin

- The Pull of The Stars, Emma Donoghue

- The Sparrow, Mary Doria Rusell

- My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

#books #my problem with non fiction is that everyone is bad at writing the middle parts #i feel like i grasp enough of the book halfway through to not want to finish it fr #2022 readings

[keplercryptids]

i'm reading Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang and it's good! weird thing is that normally i can only listen to a few specific genres on audiobook (nonfiction mainly, occasionally YA or poetry/verse). like, typically i NEED to read fantasy/scifi with my eyes, i just can't pay attention if it's audio. but for some reason i could NOT get into the written version of this book and have had great success listening to it instead. i think it might be the fact that its style is kind of nonfiction-y? or maybe i just can't read with my eyes right now lol.

anyway. it's the longest audiobook I've listened to in quite some time and im a little worried i won't finish it in the 4 days i have left on the library loan. i should probably do laundry tonight solely to give myself more audiobook time lol.

#booktalk

[celiabowens]

6 and 14 <3

Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

lol yeah. Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang (I bought a collection of short stories by her tho so this has to happen in 2021 lol), the last book in the broken earth trilogy (shame shame shame, I read The City We Became instead), Such a Fun Age (but I got it as a Christmas present to myself so it’s gonna happen soon hopefully lol), Master of Poisons (yeah the book is up for 27 bucks it aint happening soon)

What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

I don’t really have any unfinished reads besides Night Sky With Exit Wounds which I’m reading rather slowly. I would like to read A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe though since I got it a while ago! Maybe The Burning God but idk if I want to finish the year with that lol

thanks for sending these!!

#replies #venkasring #enjoy finishing tqt ehe

[feywildfiction]

February 2020 Wrap Up

It was graphic novel city this month courtesy of my coworker giving me a bunch of lgbt and horror recommendations.

What I read:

Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu by Junji Ito [It was alright; wouldn’t recommend it only because I found the story lacking.]

Safari Honeymoon by Jesse Jacobs [A masterpiece. If you like the artwork in Adventure Time, if you like body horror or weird fiction, this is for you.]

The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo by Drew Weing [It was alright. It’s a middle grade read so it’s pretty straight forward.]

Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites by Evan Dorkin, Jill Thompson [It’s as if someone watched Homeward Bound and Supernatural (seasons 1-3) and had a nightmare about them. It’s fantastic.]

Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O’Neill [It’s cute and short. F/F relationship.]

Trees Vol. 1 by Warren Ellis, Jason Howard, Jason Howard [A reread. Deploys the Bury Your Gays trope unfortunately with some transphobia on the side. Interesting concept though.]

The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill [Another quick and cute story. F/F relationship.]

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil A Rún Vol. 1 - Vol. 6 by Nagabe [Intriguing world-building, dark and yet hopeful in some ways.]

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer [Easily a top favorite read even though it took me about a year to finish it.]

Let’s take a look at which goals I completed:

1. Reduce my physical TBR to zero (0) before the end of the year by any means - Well I did finish Braiding Sweetgrass so yes, I did accomplish this.

2. Restrain from book buying for the year unless I absolutely can’t get the book via the library system - Broke this ban unfortunately. HOWEVER, it’s because none of my library branches had A Storm of Locusts and I really did need the two volumes of The Adventure Zone, sue me. And I also won a Goodreads giveaway for the book Vagabond by Hao Jingfang.

3. Read more nonfiction - I finished Braiding Sweetgrass and read Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu so success!

4. Read more graphic novels and comics - I really committed to this one. Read 13 of them.

5. Read non-American authors - Succeeded with this too thanks to Nagabe and Jungi Ito’s work.

6. Read more translated books - Again, success thanks to the Japanese authors.

#february 2020 wrap up #reading wrap ups

[rebeccadumaurier]

July 2023 Reading Review

Tell Me I’m Worthless, Alison Rumfitt: adored it, SO visceral. the haunting of hill house x white is for witching with a trans protagonist. a queer horror book For queer people you know

An Unauthorised Fan Treatise, Lauren James: tore thru this in one day, was so engrossed. a really funny and insightful web serial with commentary on the complexities of fandom culture and the internet. fabulously unreliable narrator. (i'm counting it as a book because it's being published as part of one soon)

Bliss Montage, Ling Ma: loved Severance and was not let down by this short story collection.

The Dry Heart, Natalia Ginzburg (trans. Frances Frenaye): like if elena ferrante wrote more murder. “why don’t more women kill their husbands?” so true bestie!

Vagabonds, Hao Jingfang (trans. Ken Liu): don’t know if i’ll ever read another book like this tbh. a slow-paced 600-page space diasporic epic critiquing the concept of utopia. ken liu you are a pillar of chinese SF

The Likeness, Tana French: pretty good and i liked cassie’s character development but did not enjoy being forced to read The Secret History 2.0 (one of my favorite books but the fandom sucks and dark academia is a stupid genre and also racist)

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel: ok it’s an excellent touching and nuanced graphic memoir about queerness and intergenerational trauma but honestly i would have read this years ago if someone told me it had a lot of literary references, because i am annoying

Authority, Jeff VanderMeer (Southern Reach #2): mehhhh. not as good as Annihilation and a wildly different book overall, but Area X and the biologist will always be special to me.

The Lover, Marguerite Duras (trans. Barbara Bray): this book is Chinese To Me. a very dreamy, vibes-based book where Duras mostly just flexes her prose writing skills but i’m all for it, would read more from her

it’s a translated fiction vibe for me recently! currently reading the door, roadside picnic, and a horse walks into a bar

#ange.log #ange.book

[fugitoidkry]

end of the year reading survey

thanks @bloody-wonder for tagging me!!

How many books did you read? Did you meet your goal? I've become a chaotic reader over the years, i tend to read what ends up in my hands because someone recommended it to me one day and weeks later i read it or because i knew/found about that book and put in a post-it for ‘To read’ in the future. I did tho read quite a lot last year! So i’m happy about that.

Most read genre? It’s a 50-50 between Fantasy and Sci-Fi

Longest and shortest book you read. Shortest was probably ‘How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories’ by Holly Black, and the longest was i think Heaven’s Official Blessing? I’m not sure about the last one because most of the books i read were around the 300 (min) 1000 (max) pages.

Favorite book published in 2021? Published... Mmm, ‘One Last Stop’ by Casey McQuinston was a fun ride, but i also loved to re-read the Simon Snow trilogy so i could get more into the last book (AWTWB) and the conclusion of the saga was more or less satisfactory.

Favorite debut book in 2021? None of this year. But! Imma put here ‘Cementery Boys’ by Aiden Thomas because while it was published in 2020 i read it last year and it was lovely! (and because i am still reading ‘Gentleman’s Club’ by N.T. Herrgott and i still have no opion about it, so there lol)   

Favorite book not published this year? AFTG.

A book that lived up to the hype. Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights.

A book that did NOT live up to the hype. ‘Iron Widow’ by Xiran Jay Zhao. God, so, i could literally write a 20 pages essay on my problems with this one book because it is not a ‘one thing i dislike but i can try to overcome it and give a second try’, but multiple things from narrative construction to characters to how certain themes are presented in this book. I feel bad because this book was hyped up for months and all the critics i saw before i read it where pretty good, but damn...

Book that felt like the biggest accomplishment. Uff, i don’t know. I think reading ‘Vagabonds’ by Hao Jingfang because it is been forever in my ‘To read’ list.

Favorite character. Andrew Minyard

Least favorite character. ANY. SECONDARY. CHARACTER. FROM. IRON WIDOW. But also any character that wasn’t Will, James or, to an extent, Violet from ‘Dark Rise’. Both books have the same problem when it comes to secondary characters that have either a) no personality beyond some memorable quotes that seem out of a Tumblr post or b) the story made you thought they were gonna have a much more impactful role in the story and then it was like the embodiment of the anti-climax (looking at you, Cyprian)

Most shocking book/moment. Well, the ending of Dark Rise even if you intuited it either because you know Pacat or because you started to pick the hints, still gave me goosebumps.

Favorite couple/OTP. Andreil!

The best written book you read this year. Uff, uh, that would be  ‘ Frankenstein's Mother’ by Almudena Grandes. 

Book that you pushed most people to read in 2021. AFTG and ‘In Other Lands’, probably.

Favorite book cover of the year. ‘These violent delights.’

Favorite book adaptation. Umibe no etranger because that is my comfort manga! Also freaking The Expanse. 

What book made you cry the most? Probably AFTG because reading it twice in the same year made me feel like grieving when i finished it. 

What book made you laugh the most? ‘In other lands’ by Sarah Rees Brennan. God, this book is just wonderful and Elliot is such a fantastic protagonist, like i couldn’t put down this book until i ended it and it cheered me a lot.

A new favorite author you discovered this year. Nora Sakavic, i guess. The majority of books i have read were from authors i already knew about, so.

Favorite book you re-read this year. Simon Snow trilogy. Honestly? The first time i read the book i was like ‘it is okay’, but after re-reading Carry On and Wayward so i could get more fluidly to AWTWB i appreciated many things that i either didn’t care about in my first read or didn’t notice. 

What is the best non-fiction book you read this year? ‘Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair’ by  Sarah Schulman.

I never know who to tag, so if anyone wants to do it, go for it :D

#this was fun!!!

[sanhaoche]

hey! Nice to meet you! I'm sorry if this is a bit weird lol but I was searching Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds hashtags and saw you talking about your experience reading. I'm in a kinda weird situation in college where I desperately need to find a SF chinese coming of age. Do you feel like this book might have some elements to it? Not necessarily the characters literally growing old or something, but going through some internal change and self reflection, in which they see themselves differently from where the novel started. Could you shed some light on it please? Thank you in advance!!!

hello, nice to meet you too! oh i would ABSOLUTELY describe vagabonds as a coming-of-age novel! a lit of the main characters are young people finishing education who really start to think about their world and their place in it, and who undergo a lot of internal change and transformation as a driving force of the book. i would also argue that the coming-of-age framing is even productive for thinking about the space colony society and the political transformations happening within it. all this to say, i think it would be perfect for you and i highly recommend it! and would love to chat about it any time especially if you do end up reading it ❤️

#asks #am i a bookfluencer now!!!!!