#all the beauty in the world

[ofliterarynature]

JANUARY 2024 WRAP UP

[loved liked ok DNF (reread) bookclub*]

Mammoths at the Gates • An Impossible Imposter • Greywaren • The Hexologists • Mister Impossible • Reclaiming Two Spirits • (Check, Please: #Hockey)* • Thornhedge • Call Down the Hawk • All the Hidden Paths • All the Beauty in the World • (The Raven King) • (A Strange and Stubborn Endurance) • (Blue Lily, Lily Blue) • The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie • The Missing Page • Bird By Bird • Lucky Red • Portrait of a Thief

I suppose I may as well start with the giant pile of Maggie Stiefvater and get that out of the way, lol. According to Goodreads, this was at least my 3rd time through the entire Raven Cycle. Despite that, I had only the vaguest idea of what happened in the last two books, and now having reread them (again), yeah, that tracks! I can hang with book 3 but I have no idea what was really going on in The Raven King, and as a series finale I didn't love it. It felt a lot like the dreamer plotlines drowned out the original Glendower and ley line story that we started with. But, Maggie being Maggie, I love the way she writes so much that I at least still enjoyed the reading experience. And it made an incredibly clear lead-in to the Dreamer Trilogy (which I had not read), it made total sense, I was hopeful! Again, Maggie being Maggie, I had a good time reading them, I liked learning more about the Lynch brothers, I'm always down for some art forgery, but I just didn't really like it and (while I'm glad for Maggie that she was able to write it) I could have lived without it. It completely did not have the vibe or charm of TRC and, criminally, did not include the Gangsey. How!!!!

The Missing Page - liked it! It felt a lot more solid as a mystery than the first book, which I greatly appreciated, though the villagers in the first book were maybe a bit more fun. I'm not feeling particularly inspired to go look up more Cat Sebastian after this, but if she writes another one of these I'd read it.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - I've had this one on my mystery tbr for a while, and for some reason I'd thought it was set in a much earlier time period than the 1950's? lol. Our protagonist is the youngest of 3 sisters growing up in genteel poverty with an absent father, and she has the run of the village, the house, and an incredibly well stocked chemistry lab left by an ancestor. She is both incredibly clever and terribly naive, and absolutely terrifying because of it. Flavia is fascinating as a detective, because she's not written as the protagonist of a middle grade mystery novel - she's a child. This was an interesting read, but I'm not sure it's what I'm looking for in a mystery novel and I don't think I'll continue the series.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance - reread this in advance of the sequel - it was a bit easier to see some flaws this time around, but had a good time! This *was* my first time listening to it on audio though, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it. It had a different person reading for each of the main characters and their voices just didn't pair well for me - not to mention one of them also read Lev AC Rosen's Lavender House and boy does he do some distinctive character voices.

All the Hidden Paths - didn't go quite so well. I think primarily my mental space was not pairing well with the tensions of reading this for the first time, I do think on a reread I might like it better. Somehow the spy/saboteur was my favorite character? He was soo bad at his job, I found it very funny. But overall, I think it was just a little too close to a rehash of the plot from the first book, leaving me to think Meadows might not be the best at writing mysteries. Luckily it does at least score high on my romance scale.

All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me - first nonfic of the year! I've been eagerly anticipating my library getting an audio copy ever since I first heard about this last year, it sounded cool, I'm fascinated by art museums and behind-the-scenes! Unfortunately I was not into it, and almost 2 months on I can't remember enough to even try to tell you why. It did pair interestingly with another recent read, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler, but I'm still learning how far into memoir territory I can go. Someone stop me from trying the other Met nonfic book I found recently lol.

Thornhedge - wonderful! No notes! I love fairy tales and this was a delight to read.

Check, Please! #Hockey - loved getting to revisit this for book club! I've been meaning to for a few years, because y'all. I've read so much fanfic, and I have no idea what is in the comic, what Ngozi posted as extras, and what is fanon. The comic had less than I was expecting! Still fun, my fellow book-clubber liked it, but my real love was the tweets! I'll definitely try to read Vol 2 this year so I can then browse the larger collection of them compiled in the Chirpbook.

Reclaiming Two Spirits: I saw this one on tumblr and fortunately was able to get access to the audiobook! It's a topic I was very interested in learning more about, and I did! But - this is a research project, more than anything, it could be very repetitive (which, fair. colonizers suck), and it felt distanced from its subject. I feel it's a book that definitely has its place, but it's not objectively a 'good read,' and I'd rather have had something from someone who is indigenous and two-spirit themselves.

The Hexologists - it has its quirks, but this was unapologetically a delight to read and I had a fun time! I'm a sucker for a world with a magic vs industrial revolution, not to mention a married pair of established investigators, and I always appreciate an author who's willing to get a bit silly. If there's ever more books I'd love to read them!

An Impossible Imposter - she is what she is, I had a good time! This one felt like it might have taken some inspo from The Moonstone 👀

Mammoths at the Gate - had a good time with this, as I always do with the Singing Hills books. Stories about stories are like catnip, I should reread them all sometime!

Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott (DNF) - I have only the vaguest memories of reading parts of this for a creative writing class in college, and now that I'm getting more into nonfiction thought why not? Unfortunately the audiobook version I got was read by the author, who absolutely does not have an audiobook voice/cadence. I considered trying again with the version read by someone else, but decided I wasn't actually interested enough to continue.

Lucky Red By Claudia Cravens (DNF) - the host of one of the podcasts I listen to was gushing about this one and I was like, sapphic western? Sign me up! I read about 25% of it, and it all seemed fine, it just wasn't feeling particularly interesting to me. Absolutely give it a shot if you'd like!

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D Li (DNF) - I knew going in this had been getting mixed reviews. I really like the idea of it - I enjoy a heist, am always interested in fine arts/art history drama, and vigilante art repatriation hell yeah! But this felt very much like it was trying to emulate a heist *movie*, and it just wasn’t working for me as a book. If this ever gets adapted I’d love to see it.

#bec posts #book log #wrap up 2024 #books #booklr #book reviews #the raven cycle #dreamer trilogy #maggie stiefvater #hither page #the sweetness at the bottom of the pie #a strange and stubborn endurance #all the beauty in the world #thornhedge #check please #reclaiming two spirits #the hexologists #singing hills cycle #veronica speedwell

[bookquotesforthesoul]

I like baffled people. I think they are right to stagger around the Met discombobulated, and more educated people are wrong when they take what they see in stride. Baffled people are surprised by things that are, in fact, surprising - that a Picasso is right there for them to breathe on, that an Egyptian temple has been picked up and moved to New York.

Patrick Bringley, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

#non fiction #memoir #patrick bringley #all the beauty in the world #art #book quote #metropolitan museum of art

[rachel-sylvan-author]

"All the Beauty in the World: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me" by Patrick Bringley book recommendation by Rachel Sylvan

Thank you @ms.paperback for the rec! ❤️

Thank you @patrickbringley for writing it! ❤️

#memoir #allthebeautyintheworld #patrickbringley #metropolitanmuseumofart #themet #artandhumanity #beautifulbooks

#The Met #All the Beauty in the world #Art #Art museum #Metropolitan Museum of Art #Art and Humanity #Patrick Bringley #Security Guard

[rexalogy]

Every Taylor Swift song

#I truly truly cannot empathize with anyone in limerence with her in fact it feels betraying. #all of the interesting beautiful art in the world and the only thing you can blow up is another implicitly conservative value white woman? #having to write narratives about her hypothetical dykeishness to feel comfortable with that dissonance? as if that would even absolve her #it’s not that I hate Taylor I just hate this unwillingness to engage with where her worldview has serious limitations and it seeps #throughout her discography. I think loving art comes with being able to recognize where it fails #what politics are present in it. it’s not deep it’s not subtext it’s all just right there

[beebeedibapbeediboop]

The forest king and the postwoman

#artists on tumblr #art #illustration #character design #oc #digital art #SORRY for reposting but I wasn't satisfied with the sketches so I'm making a new post without it #postwoman #the postwoman #adalore #king of the forest #original #original character #Ill draw more of him because I love him #also he is beautiful to any human but for all natives of the world the postwoman lives in he is UGLY AF

[arataka-reigen]

I'm trying to start a movement here

[ID: The first 3 images are edited versions of the "Let's take ibuprofen together" meme. The captions now say "Let's read shoujo together". They each show a person holding their hand out to the viewer; a character from the series Benigyokuzui, Mob from Mob Psycho 100, and Jerma. / end ID]

ID provided by @siroofington thank you so much

#and don't even think shoujo is just romance. you cant even begin to understand the rich world of shoujo. join me in this beautiful journey. #let's read shoujo together #<my tags from that other shoujo post #i was definitely referencing the let's take ibuprofen together meme #gi talks #shoujo #anime #shounen #my happy marriage #natsume yuujinchou #akatsuki no yona #requiem of the rose king #colette decides to die #basara #just tagging a few off the top of my head that don't include only romance so more people can check them out #i haven't read all of them but i heard great thinga #josei #josei is also a dying art form and i'll just lump josei and shoujo together tbh #kimi ni todoke #1k #gi talks animanga #1 #b

[stil-lindigo]

link

on twitter, a viral thread started where people around the world shared their translations of “If I must die”, the last work of Dr Refaat Alareer also known as "the voice of Gaza". A beloved poet, teacher and life-long activist for Palestine, he was recently assassinated along with members of his extended family by a targeted Israeli air strike. His loss leaves a hole in the heart of palestinians all over the world.

Below the cut, I’ll be posting the translations of his poem, with links to the original posts. Unfortunately, tumblr limits posts to a maximum of 30 images. I will update when I can.

Arabic (Refaat’s mother tongue)

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2. Spanish

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3. Irish

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4. Dutch

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5. Greek

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6. German

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7. Vietnamese

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8. Tagalog

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9. Serbian

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10. Japanese

and the traditional japanese calligraphy version

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11. Nepali

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12. Tamil

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13. Bosnian

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14. Indonesian

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15. Romanian

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16. Italian

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17. Albanian

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18. Urdu

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19. Turkish

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20. Polish

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21. Norwegian

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22. Galician

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23. Swedish

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24. Jawi

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25. Bengali

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26. Russian

#probably one of the most beautiful threads to ever grace twitter's rotten husk of a platform #i really earnestly almost cried #when people say the world stands with palestine #they mean they speak with palestine as well #israel murders palestinian poets to silence their voice. their culture. their lifeblood #in response the world amplifies his voice tenfold #but what a loss #what an unforgivable loss #i hope it is some consolation to those who loved refaat that his words are now immortalised in languages all over the world #that he has united so many people in their pursuit of palestinian freedom #please please please feel free to add your own translations onto the post in reblogs #i just havent seen anything about this thread on tumblr yet #im just the messenger #palestine will be free #the words of refaat alareer will be immortalised #and his students will carry on his legacy #ah but it is almost 5am and i havent slept #when i wake up i will add more #free palestine #israel #refaat alareer #rest in peace

[badwaves]

got shifty on da brain tonight (first comic inspired by this post)

#gravity falls #ford pines #stanford pines #fiddleford mcgucket #shifty #i know canonically they were wearing masks around him or w/e but i live in the beautiful world where shifty was just ford's weird ouppy #or alternatively his weird son. i'm torn because i'm so 🤔 about shifty copying ford's avuncular mannerisms but also #i talk to my cats like human children all the time. i perhaps think about this way too much

[mobius-m-mobius]

Maybe he wants to mix it up. Sometimes you get tired of playing the same part. Is that possible? He can change?

The Avengers (2012) // Loki (2021 - )

#mobius #loki #lokius #mcuedit #lokiedit #marveledit #the very definition of to be loved is to be changed!! #funny how meeting someone who freely chooses you above all they've been created to know and serve suddenly makes choice look pretty good #who knew 🥰🙃 #honestly the genuine belief mobius has in them is so overwhelmingly beautiful sometimes i think about it and have to just take a minute... #and for loki to return that with such conviction to the point of facing their biggest fears oh i can't ;;;;; #also yes my loki series being open ended agenda continues bc there's no rest until we get at least another season lol #be the energy you want in the world and all that :')) #owen wilson #tom hiddleston #marvel #owenwilsonedit #dianagifs

[tempo-takoyaki]

I’ve read too much Shizun angst lately, so I wanted to draw him happy with his husband.

#svsss #scumbag system #scum villian self saving system #scum villain #ren zha fanpai zijiu xitong #mxtx #mxtx fanart #bingqiu #luo binghe #luo bingmei #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #myart #I don't know how it became so detailed I was possessed I think #the sketch is freaking hilarious because it's like three lines and then boom lineart idk how it happened i swear #i was feeling it #I hope sqq is happy he did marry the most beautiful man of his world after all

[bookquotesforthesoul]

If you want to know if something is funny, see if it makes you laugh. If you want to know if a painting is beautiful, see if it evokes an equivalent response, one as definite as laughter though usually quieter and shyer to emerge.

Patrick Bringley, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

#non fiction #memoir #patrick bringley #all the beauty in the world #book quote #art #beauty #metropolitan museum of art

[elysianymph]

james is very fascinated by muggle cameras. lily and regulus notice this of course and lily pitches an idea: to get james a camera for his birthday. they save up the money they need for a higher quality camera and wrap it up in a fancy box and present it to him on his birthday. the smile james gives them is worth every penny they spent.

they expected the obsession that came after. james took his camera everywhere, always taking pictures, not just of the the scenery or himself, but of his friends and family and most importantly of lily and regulus. what they didn't expect was that james had all of their photos printed and compiled them into an album, decorated it and drew little hearts and stars and flowers on it and wrote down little notes of what had happened the day the photos were taken. he revealed this album to them on their anniversary as a shared gift.

some of the many pictures james has taken of his lovers:

#regulus paints his lovers #lily writes poems about their beauty and love #and james photographs them #in a world where all three of them die in the first war these pieces are all harry has left #fuck i made it sad #remember the album hagrid gives harry in the first movie? yeah thats the album james made for them #loving someone so much you want to immortalize their beauty and existence <\3 #im gonna go cry now #jegulily #jegulus #jily #regulily #james potter #lily evans #regulus black #marauders #marauders era

[ryllen]

A question I have just recently,

can Sebek handle spicy?

this is what i generally think of fae.

tho i think,

lilia knows spicy spices from his travel.

even tho in dragon form, malleus breathes fire from his mouth, and fire is hot, it might be like the kind of fire that doesn't hurt him in the first place

sebek father might bring spicy spice from human world with him, but since i think of him as a mellow man, he might not be interested in spicy food in the first place

#honestly it makes me wonder all the nrc students ability to handle spiciness & i wish everyone would start putting them into tiers #twst #twisted wonderland #do i tag this as sebek #i do want to know what others think of him #sebek zigvolt #i think the octas would be very bad at it #but floyd probably keeps on challenging it so he gains tolerance over it #riddle would be very bad with it #ace would be pretty good #but deuce would be a little less #or do u think punk him would dare other punks on spicy food #who would shed tears #who would break a sweat #who would eat like it's nothing #who would wail asking the great seven to take them to the after world #i am just wondering bcs of the rabbit sausage roll in deuce hometown #leona who never lift a finger finally break a sweat from spicy food #who knows we even see tears in his eyes while he endures it silently #can vil stay beautiful eating spicy food #despite his tough claim can epel handle spicy #anyhow do u know there's samyang 1/2 spicy now #that's the only one i can eat without suffering like actually enjoying it #idia i feel like he would wrinkle from spicy food #but what if he is some connoisseur of instant noodles so he had been eating spicy ones quite a lot #my brother always love to see me suffer over spiciness

[putonyourbathingsuits]

David Byrne of Talking Heads performs at Agora Ballroom in Atlanta Georgia. November 18, 1980 (Photo By Rick Diamond)

#david byrne #talking heads #he’s genuinely the most beautiful man in the world #look at his face I wanna kiss him all over #1k

[queenkinqs]

people love to talk about invincible for it's over the top gore and violence, but i really do think the show's writing is at it's best when it's just two people have a conversation

#LIKE UGH #this scene + 'you dad. i'd still have you' are probably my two fave scenes in the entire show like WOWW #the casualness...the familiarity.....the intimacy........like wow #you can tell just how much rex and eve care for each other despite the fact that rex has hurt eve so deeply #and you can tell how much rex regrets hurting eve just based on how he talks about all of the stuff that eve went through on her own #and how rex was given the opportunity to grow and change because of her LIKE!!!!! #also all the references to the rex splode prequel comic...rex hiding in her room for a year...eve showing rex her family portrait #(which didnt happen in the comic so i am assuming their gonna add it to their eventual adaptation of the comic plz) #AND EVE my beautiful princess who deserves the world and then some #atom eve #rex splode #invincible #shut up birdy #that one oomf who doesnt play abt rex and eve

[crowleave]

ok so the thing is, the kiss really was the best way crowley knew to convey his feelings to aziraphale because nina and maggie were right, they do talk but they never say what they mean.

but that doesn’t mean they don’t understand each other, at least to a certain extent.

and crowley knows aziraphale

he knows that he loves books and plays and the stories made by humanity. he watches his angel learn magic the human way and finds out he learned french the human way and knows better than anyone how much he loves human food. he throws a ball to get nina and maggie together because that’s what the humans in jane austen novels would do.

crowley knows that aziraphale romanticizes humanity, loves the drama and the stories and every little thing that makes humans human.

and what could be more human than a desperate kiss asking someone to stay

#good omens #and don’t get me started on crowley #crowley loves humanity too but it’s more than that #crowley loves the universe #crowley loves humans but he also loves the earth and the animals and the nebulas #he’s the first one to point out the goats were blameless too in the job situation #he loves every part of the creation that he helped build #and that’s why he questions it every time god wants to destroy all of their beautiful creations #because why make this beautiful world just to destroy it #in conclusion: aziraphale loves the world and crowley loves the universe and they both love each and i’m always in pain #i definitely went off on a tangent there but i just love them so much