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cyanide-latte · 7 months

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Hey here's the heads up that if you're not wanting to give Amazon your money for these two Prime days and you're looking to buy books while also giving back to bookstores around the US and also get free shipping? Bookshop.org is doing free shipping on all orders today (Oct. 10) and tomorrow (Oct. 11)

#bookshop.org #prime deal days #book news #Cyanide speaks

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b3aches · 3 months

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On "The Lost Cause" by Cory Doctorow

tl;dr - The Lost Cause is an worthwhile read that provides a feeling of hope for the future. As with many novels by Cory Doctorow, it takes place in the near future and showcases one possible future.

A future where humanity is taking the drastic actions needed to manage the fallout of the climate crisis. But also a future where humanity is dealing with the backlash from the older crowd that fears change and the plutocrats that fund them.

The story is told from the point of view of Brooks Palazzo, a young adult living in Burbank California thirty years from now. The Green New Deal has passed, and he is part of the "first generation that doesn’t fear the future". He wants to make a difference in the world by joining the Blue Helmets AmeriCorps and helping to rebuild the lower half of San Juan Capistrano a mile inland.

Not everything is all rainbows and roses, however. Brook's grandfather and his Maga pals aren't huge fans of the changing world though. Neither are the plutocrats that lost out due to the GND...

You can get a copy of the ebook or audiobook directly from the author here. You can also buy the audiobook from libro.fm or get a physical copy from bookshop.org as a hardcover now or pre-order the paperback. You can also check and see if your local library has a copy.

This is going to be less of a review and more of an admiration for a specific trope that is masterfully used. Due to the nature of the trope, there will be spoilers, including major plot points near the climax of the novel. If you want to go in blind, stop reading now.

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." — Anton Chekhov (From S. Shchukin, Memoirs. 1911.)

So, Chekhov's Gun. It's a guideline when writing narrative fiction that is commonly interpreted as: every element in a story should be needed, and anything that isn't needed should be removed. You could probably also think of it as a form of foreshadowing, but I'm not an author nor an authority on narrative fiction.

Anyway, spoiler alert - Brooks' grandfather dies during chapter one of the novel. As is common when a family member dies, the living have the chore of sorting through a lifetime's worth of items. As Brooks is the sole remaining person in his family, that task falls to him.

This leads to the below setup for the trope:

I felt around the edge and found a length of floorboard that wasn’t stuck down, and beneath it, a heavy nylon loop. I hauled on it and a square of floor lifted straight up, revealing Gramps’s secret. He’d jackhammered away a neat square of foundation slab, dug down about four feet, and poured a concrete vault, which he’d filled with: three AR-15s; forty boxes of ammo; a bag of expired high-strength antibiotics; a wilderness survival kit identical to the one he’d given me for my first Scout sleepout, including the hatchet my Scoutmaster had confiscated before we got on the bus; topographical maps of LA County; and, wrapped in oilcloth, a wooden box like you’d keep poker chips in, but this was full of krugerrands, heavy and glinting dully, dated mostly from the first and second decades of this century.

As guns are now illegal, this leads to Brooks stashing the guns, ammo, and gold in the hills of California by page 80. They get mentioned a few times throughout the novel, reminding you of their existence, but don't become really relevant to the plot until right before the climax.

A part of the story that almost feels like it could be the climax.

A group of Maga terrorists have taken Brooks' friends hostage. Brooks decides that in order to save his friends he has to go into the California hills and get the guns.

This, turns out, was not necessary. In fact, it's revealed later that the likeliest outcome of trying to perform an armed rescue would have been his death.

So, it comes to pass that the guns were introduced in the first act, and were subsequently not fired in the third.

The scene that completes the arc of trope:

That was what my grandfather had raised me to expect: a final confrontation, an all-out war, a battle for the future of the human race and its planet. That was what he was planning for, and right up until that moment, as I cleaned off his guns and hid them in the construction waste, I had never really considered the possibility that he’d been wrong. I’d thought there’d be a war with two sides: Gramps’s side and mine. I’d never thought that the real war would be between the people who refused to go to war and the fools who thought they could shoot climate change in the face.

So we have the setup, the implication that the guns will be used later in the novel. Only, they don't get used. They're practically useless, and almost actively harmful. But, given the themes and messaging of the book, the guns being useless is the only possible outcome. The subversion of this trope[0] drives the point home. Having some kind of final showdown isn't the message. Individuals storming the building with guns to to save the day would fly counter to the message of collective action being the way we move forward.

The message I took from the book was that building shelter for refugees is the way forward, even if doing that gets you arrested.

That feeding the hungry is the way forward, even if you get fined for it.

That taking care of people, even if those people were previously pointing a gun at you, is the way forward. (note: ensuring that they don't have access to their guns anymore is wise.)

The only way forward is to build the systems of mutual aid now, even if building those systems will be fraught with adversity and challenges.

No matter what happens, we will always be building the future in the shadow of the present. Only with collective action can we move forward, and only if we take care of each other.

[0] so, I'm not entirely convinced that this is really a subversion of the trope. While the guns aren't fired, they are necessary to the plot in the latter part of the book. But again, I am not an author nor an authority on narrative fiction.

#The Lost Cause Novel #Cory Doctorow #libro.fm #bookshop.org #books #book #review #narrative analysis

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phoenixyfriend · 1 year

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Look what just arrived!

All purchased through Bookshop.org, which... apparently lets any random person do affiliate links? So here, I made one, with all the books I've been buying: Nixy's Recs

(Bookshop.org is an online bookstore that ensures profits are all directed to small, local bookstores instead of behemoths like Amazon or B&N. You can choose a store in your area to shop 'from,' or just allow the profits to go into the a more general fund that gets distributed evenly to all bookshops in the system. This post by @ebookporn and @batmansymbol does a great job explaining how it works.)

Strong Towns and Walkable City are both books I found through the Strong Towns YouTube Channel. I haven't read these yet (they only just arrived yesterday), but if they're at all like the videos, then I have high hopes.

And here are the specific books (again, affiliate links, which I've never done before but here goes):

The Keystone Jacket and Dress Cutter: An 1895 Guide to Women's Tailoring by Chas Hecklinger (Author), Kristina Seleshanko (Preface by)

Walkable City (Tenth Anniversary Edition): How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck (Author), Janette Sadik-Khan (Introduction by)

City Planning: A Very Short Introduction by Carl Abbott (Author)

Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity by Charles L. Marohn (Author)

#books #bookshop.org #walkable city #strong towns #fashion history #drafting #pattern drafting #city planning #phoenix recs #product reviews #kinda

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in-sufficientdata · 8 months

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Here, you're going to need this:

98 year old cook, author and great grandmother, Clara, recounts her childhood during the Great Depression as she prepares meals from the era. Learn how to make simple yet delicious dishes while listening to stories from the Great Depression. Filmed by her Grandson and Film Director, Christopher Cannucciari. The two filmed the episodes from 2007-2012. Clara recorded her first episode when she was just 91 years old. Clara passed away in 2013. She left us with her recipes and stories and hoped that they would continue to entertain and teach you and your future generations.

You can buy her book here:

(It's currently on backorder, but bookshop links to other sale sites, as well.)

#mine #recommendations #great depression cooking #clara cannucciari #bookshop.org #economy #capitalism #youtube

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the-knights-who-say-book · 1 year

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i remembered that i have an affiliate link to bookshop.org so that if you click this link and then buy a book from them i will get a 10% commission and you will get a book. so you know

if you are in the mood to get a book, i am currently in my feelings about the following

The Soldier’s Scoundrel, an m/m historical romance I have read three times which is so good and funny and never fails to cheer me up

Vespertine, a YA fantasy in which a teenage nun makes friends with the grumpy revenant possessing her and they save fantasy!France together

The Scholomance trilogy (literally when am I not)

When the Angels Left the Old Country, a historical YA fantasy which recently won awards for being good at being Jewish AND good at being queer

#bookshop.org #buy links #i havent posted my link in a while so for anyone who doesnt know. you can blacklist my tag 'buy links' to not see them

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francescaswords · 3 months

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Wintery Book Recommendations!

As I recall, most of the regulars to this space live in the Northern Hemisphere and are, presumably, currently quite cold. So I thought I would put together a list of cosy books to distract you as your nose runs and your glasses steam up every time you go from outdoors to indoors. Don’t need glasses yet? Just wait. Carmilla The vampire novel that came before Dracula, I have a very specific…

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#&039;The Scorpio Races&039; by Maggie Stiefvater #bookshop.org #Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu #cosy books #cosy reads #cosy YA #Francesca&039;s Thoughts #Good Omens #Good Omens: the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter #Good Omens: the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter Witch #The Scorpio Races #The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern #wintery books #wintery YA

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marblesarelost · 1 year

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I just went through my book wish list and put it on Bookshop.

(I'm not buying anything TODAY because I have to move in ....FML SEVEN WEEKS?... and I am not stupid enough to buy MORE BOOKS just to have to pack them up and move them. Not to mention some of them are on backorder or preorder and I don't want them going to the wrong address because I am moving in seven weeks.)

BEFORE adding a bunch more?

Um

It was over $300.

AFTER adding a bunch more?

I don't know how much it is, and I'm honestly afraid to add it all up.

WELP

Just added all to my cart.

YEAH

It's under a grand!

.....barely....

But a lot of these books are REALLY IMPORTANT -- Jared Sexton, Heather Cox Richardson, stuff about how we really are facing a civil war coming, stuff about how shitty it is to be poor in America (not that I don't KNOW that shit),and then there's the books I just fucking WANT: the Wolf Hall books by Hilary Mantel, the Shigeru Mizuki Japanese history mangas, new copies of the Paks original trilogy and the expansion of the world as well (I didn't like those as much as the original Paks books, but I liked them well enough, and also Sergeant Stammel -- gods bless him), Gaiman's Norse Mythology and American Gods and Stardust and a new copy of the Graveyard Book, and the Chronicles of Prydain which I really do need to read, and then there's the James Clavell** books that I legit HAVE to have and the Tolkien, again, I have to have them because somehow I do not have copies of the big Four and the Silmarillion and yes I AM getting the illustrated Hobbit and the illustrated Silmarillion separately because ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOLKIEN, DAMMIT

(** Yes, I'm aware that Clavell's work is very problematic. That being said, my mother once told me, when learning that at the time I was reading Shogun and really liking it, that Shogun was the only book she ever saw my father, my actual father, read.

Now I know for a fact, solid and cold, that Daddy liked Stephen King. He read a lot of King after he and my mom divorced. He's who turned me into a Constant Reader -- okay given that I read Pet Sematary when I was eight at my grandma's house -- by giving me The Eyes of the Dragon when I was young; by handing me IT and Christine and The Shining and The Stand when I was older.

All that being said, there is something very special to me about reading and enjoying and loving books that my father read and loved. It makes me feel that we are still sharing, still reaching out to one another, beyond the Boundaries of Death's Country.

Not to mention, King Rat is....horribly problematic. Horribly so. Yet there is something in it that reaches to me. Here is greed, here is horror, here is the worst that man can be to man. Yet here is generosity, here is quiet stoic heroism, here is mercy, here is hope.

Clavell's work is problematic, yes. Lots of work is. But there is something to be learned from it. Do I think every work has something to be learned from? Not really. Some is just shit, and that's the honest truth. But some, we can learn something from.)

and FML I still need to find the complete Keltiad -- the Aeron books and the Arthur books, Blackmantle was a horrible revenge fantasy -- (And just for the record, I KNEW her, I KNEW Patricia, she invited me to her HOUSE if I were ever in NYC, she named me her War-Badger, I counted her as a FRIEND, I MOURNED her when she passed, and I STILL think Blackmantle was a HORRIBLE revenge fantasy) and the complete Belgariad along with Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress --

....FUCK.

(If you're wondering why I didn't mention the Malloreon, it's because I read the first book and hated it)

...I'd love to have the complete Foxfire series...

...guess I'm gonna have to hit up AbeBooks or something too...

RIP the cash I was gonna set aside just for me I guess....

#book lists #bookshop.org #abebooks #holy crap #apparently I want a lot more books than I thought I did #That's at least two bookshelves worth #I'm not even kidding #And I already have two full bookshelves to take with me #I'm insane #books #books I want #books I have to have #books I love #again holy crap

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noblesvacation · 7 months

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A Gentle Noble's Sale

Okay, not exactly a sale, but still savings! Order in the next two days from Bookshop.org and get free shipping. It works on pre-orders, too, so now might be a good time to order Gentle Noble volume 7 or 8, coming out this November and next January respectively.

Bookshop.org is also a great place to shop because they support small, local bookstores across the USA and books like the Gentle Noble manga are always 7% off!

#A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation #A Mild Noble's Vacation Suggestion #Bookshop.org #book sales #manga #TokyoPop #穏やか貴族の休暇のすすめ。#休暇 #休暇だっと思って楽しみます。

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wbtym-pod · 6 months

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Looking for gifts and not sure what to get? Well the Ma'ams have your back! Check out our Bookshop.Org Shop to see a great selection of books and gifts; use code HOLIDAY23 on any of our Holiday Gift Guide items to get 15% off! https://bookshop.org/shop/wbtym I highly recommend checking out the Holiday Gift Guide - Binge Readers List and the Holiday Gift Guide - White Elephant Gifts for some truly excellent picks. This Sale Ends 12/18/2023

#podcast #comedy #romance #reading #romance books #book recommendations #book rec list #bookshop.org #gift ideas #unique gifts #coupons #discount code #affiliate links #Christmas Gifts #Holidays #Christmas #Book Lovers #Gifts for Book Lovers

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ebookporn · 1 year

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Bookshop.org to Sell E-books, Publish First Print Title

by Ed Nawotka

Online bookseller Bookshop.org will begin selling e-books by the of the year. It will also publish its first book, Our Strangers by Lydia Davis, in October.

According to Andy Hunter, founder and CEO of Bookshop.org, the initial rollout of will enable users to buy and read e-books in their web browser. The program will launch in Beta late this year. An e-reader app is also being developed and will be launched sometime thereafter.

"We are building the platform entirely from scratch," said Hunter. "We want to give independent bookstores a way to sell e-books and capture those sales that they are losing to Amazon," Hunter told PW during an interview at the American Booksellers Association's Winter Institute in Seattle.

Bookshop.org already has strong ties with the independent bookselling community. Beginning March 1, IndieBound.org, the ABA's consumer-facing online bookselling and marketing platform, will switch to using Bookshop.org to handle sales and fulfillment. All buy buttons on bookstores' sites or affiliated sites using IndieBound links will switch to Bookshop.org links.