#books of the summer

[e-b-reads]

Books of the Summer: May-Aug 2024

I'm back baby! These little blurbs at the top are usually where I put my disclaimer that these books are the ones I recommend, but not necessarily my favorites, and that particularly holds true for this summer when I consider a few that didn't make my list below: I read 20-something(!!) of the Hamish Macbeth mystery series, by M.C. Beaton, over June and July, and obviously I liked them because I just. kept going, but I also have several quibbles with them (e.g., twenty books and several years into the series, the main character is still "about 35"). I enjoyed them as something mostly brainless. Then in August, I read and very much enjoyed the Windrose Chronicles, by Barbara Hambly, a particular type of 80s portal fantasy, but in this case although my enjoyment was unalloyed, I feel like they're a rec for very specific circumstances or specific people. Anyway, thought both these series deserved some sort of honorable mention, but my official Books of the Summer are:

May

Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin): This is one of those tragedies where no one could have done anything different because of who they are as people, but even as you know what will happen from the beginning of the book, it's still worth reading to understand how. Also Baldwin is so good at writing. Not a happy book, but worth it.

June

Last Call at the Nightingale (Katharine Schellman): I'm recommending this one because it seems like I've seen (at least a few) people on the lookout for a good mystery set in the 1920s that is (queer) female-centric and not entirely trusting of cops, and this is definitely that. (Also the other book I saw being recced for that kind of thing was Dead Dead Girls, and I read it a little while ago and tbh was unimpressed with the writing.) I also read a few in another series by Schellman this summer, and I generally enjoy her mystery plots and attention to historical detail, while she also always makes sure she has a diverse cast of characters.

The Bellamy Trial (Frances Noyes Hart): A classic mystery (as in, published during the Golden Age), interesting in its trial formatting - the murder has happened, we're hearing everything in the courtroom sort of from the point of view of a pair of newspaper reporters. It's fun the way details are revealed.

July

The Ropemaker (Peter Dickinson): Did you know that Peter Dickinson was married to Robin McKinley? True power couple. I love The Ropemaker, I think I originally found my copy in a used book store with absolutely nothing to go on but the cover (it was years ago), and have read it several times. I particularly like that the main character doesn't have magic (and magic isn't entirely common in the fantasy world, though several other characters can do it), and she starts out feeling reasonably upset and left out, and then starts to realize that her own lack of magic is a particular, specific strength.

August

The Documents in the Case (Dorothy L. Sayers with Robert Eustace): I think I found this book by poking around the "Mysteries" section in a used book store, which is always a good way to find odd anthologies and Detection Club collections. This standalone mystery is, as it suggests, a collection of documents (mostly letters) meant to illuminate a mystery: handily, the son of the murdered man is collecting them and writes a little bit of analysis for us/the official to whom he is sending them, so we eventually get gaps in the story filled in. I particularly like the way that the nature of the medium means that every character is an unreliable narrator to some extent, and it takes a little reading before you can start to figure out who to trust more. I have read this a few times and always forget that it is kind of a chilling little story, in the end, but also really good!

[blumenundpoesie]

in dedication to summer rain and the smell of petrichor

[junotter]

just some designs mainly created because I wanted to draw hakama and then it spiral out from there

bald zuko under the cute

[flowersforfrancis]

[literarydesire]

When summer will once again be upon us

[nikswonderland]

𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘯 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘣𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘨𝘨𝘺 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘦𝘴…

[jdragsky]

i'm gonna go one step further and say it's actively good to engage with media you have fundamental ideological disagreements with, especially when you use that as a testing ground to conceptualize your own worldview and help you crystalize your perspective on things

[ginger-by-the-sea]

[myjetpack]

My cartoon for this week’s Guardian Books.

[lone-nyctophile]

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.

- David Viscott

[7amaspayrollmanager]

Alright let's imagine a scene that is all too normal in palestine. A palestinian business owner finds his building covered in graffiti stars of Davids and Hebrew that says "gas the arabs" and "death to arabs"

Now imagine there's a reporter there and asks the palestinian business owner what happens and they say "the jews attacked my business"

Pause. Now your response might be "uncle no. Say israelis not jews" and then this is when he would look at you like youre stupid because the israelis doing this are jewish. They are not the Christians or the druze or the palestinian ones with Israeli citizenship. They are Jewish israelis who believe in their religious supremacy. When you graffiti stars of david all over a palestinian business, car, or the street you seek that conflation. it sends a message, this is jewish land and you're next.

The problem is that these videos circulate in zionist circles. "Watch this video of children in gaza calling for the death of jews" "watch how they say they want to fight and kill jews" those children are referring to Israeli soldiers that come in night and do their raids with the star of David attached to their uniform or the ones that bomb them. It's easy to watch those videos and assume that palestinians are indoctrinating their children on anti semitism or you can realize that those children's only interaction with jewish ppl is through violence and parents cannot protect their children from this. Doesn't matter context is lost

Abby Martin went to Jerusalem and interviewed israelis for 2 hours and she says every israeli was extremely confident to say that this land is for them and that they should push the Arabs out and when she interviewed palestinians they spoke of freedom from occupation and their dreams. That's reality. Not the soundbites.

And yet we have invasive youtubers and interviewers constantly in the street of ramallah or wherever in palestine asking palestinians "do you hate jews?" And in those videos you hear those palestinians say "no we have no problem with jews we have a problem with occupation and we have a problem with zionism." Bc this is how we are trained to respond to this trope. Palestinians are very aware what the world thinks of us and the reality is that many palestinians have internalized it and we grow up reading books on the Holocaust and train ourselves to recognize anti semitic dog whistles so zionists don't get the soundbites they want.

So we say "anti zionism is not anti semitism" and we say "israeli zionists" and we do not say "jewish supremacy" even thought it exists in palestine but "zionist supremacy" and in these carefully worded speech we water down what is happening to us in an effort to not deter people away from solidarity. But it means nothing. The world categorically blames palestinians for rising anti semitism they blame us for jewish insecurity globally.

[ur-daily-inspiration]

[triflingthing]

secondhand books

[flowersforfrancis]

[galina]

I always dreamed I would have a home open to happening: weekend coffee with everyone gathering in the kitchen, dinner parties which leave laughter ringing in empty rooms for days afterwards, our bed a shore and us a wave crashing down in the early hours. In the morning, I get up and see our sofa made up with an array of pilows, knowing our home is full of our friends makes my heart hurt with the bursting joy of it all

[nikswonderland]

wandering through nature scenery