#jericho.txt

[dandelion-network]

Mid-Year Book Freakout

@doughtah said anyone can tag in so i'm tagging in

1.Best Book so far in 2024: The Intersectional Environmentalist: how to dismantle systems of oppression to protect people + planet by Leah Thomas. Thomas covers the lack of focus and consideration on environmental racism in discusses about climate change and sustainability by environmentalists from the Global North. There are loads of resources in the back of the book for future reading and education.

2.Best Sequel you've read so far in 2024: I haven't read any sequels but I have read the first book of 2 different series.

3.New Release you haven't read yet, but want to: Bury Your Gays by Dr. Chuck Tingle

4.Anticipated Release for the second half of the year: Don't have one. I only notice the year books are being released and not the actual months and days.

5.Biggest Disappointment: Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. The writing wasn't disappointing, but that ending? I mean I guess lol.

6.Biggest Surprise: The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker and it was only surprising because the movie adaptation really an incredible job actually adapting the story. I thought things would be more noticeably different or have different events but it's pretty 1:1 with minimal changes.

7.Favorite New Author: No new favorites.

8.Newest Fictional Crush: None.

9.Newest Favorite Character: Maia from The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. The best boy, the sweetest boy just doing his best.

10.Book that made you cry: None but reading Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis was an emotional experience.

11.Book that made you happy: ANNIHILATION BY JEFF VANDERMEER MY BELOVED

12.Most Beautiful Book you've bought/acquired this year: If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar. No one does book covers like poetry collections do book covers.

13.Book you need to read by the end of the year: I need to finish A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys and Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer

If you see this post on your dash, this is me encouraging you to do the tag.

[dandelion-network]

a friend and i were talking about books and they mentioned Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt was something they wanted to read and how they thought i would like it.

"huh" i said. "that book sounds familiar. let me see if it's on my tbr on Storygraph. It is!"

they responded "yeah I saw it on Goodreads and the first review on it said 'This is disgusting' and I thought 'jericho would like this'," 😭🤣💀

it's really something to be so Seen by friends

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the way no one can agree on a definition for "cozy horror" and how people's understanding of that term conflict with each other's versions of it honestly makes me laugh

at this point i think folk should just ask for gothic novel recommendations that exclude their chosen content warnings and call it a day

the person who defined cozy horror as halloween-y vibes + fall aesthetic though? genius. love that and would love to see what books fall into that definition

[dandelion-network]

My local used bookstore is claiming to have the 10 year anniversary editions of the first 3 books of Southern Reach series already

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i am very tempted to go ahead and buy the new edition of the southern reach series right now so i can get the autographed version but i really do not have the 100$ right now so hopefully this time next month i will.

bc who am i without that series, it has slowly become my personality

[dandelion-network]

had a successful book discussion yesterday with our environmental book club. i wasnt sure if people would like the book i chose (Silent Earth: averting the insect apocalypse) but one woman said it was one of her favorites and a man and son drove in from a different city to attend the discussion and report back to his wife who wanted to come but couldn't. two patrons even asked about the previous books they weren't around for.

there hasnt been a single book that someone didnt like or didnt have anything good to say about it. in every discussion, we (read: i) get compliments about our choices. [there was only one book that my co lead chose but the rest have been mine]

now i have to keep this up and start planning for next year

[dandelion-network]

One day I'll return to making reviews and reading updates on here. I rarely do book hauls anymore; before that library book sale one, the last one i did was April 2023 and i havent needed to do an unhaul in a minute. im very happy with the books i currently got.

it's not that im not reading. im not reading as much as i used to. im also having to read for book discussions at work. and if we're being real here, it takes a lot of consistent energy to make conversation or have interactions with people on here. i need to diversify my posts. that library ebook resources one is going a lot farther than i anticipated....

maybe i need to learn how to make book related memes, those go pretty far

[dandelion-network]

i didnt read a damn thing on the goodreads choice awards though 2 nonfiction books on there were already on my tbr or i started and still need to finish.

i've learned that they added a 'romantasy' category and i support that, but what i dont support is the removal of the graphic novel & comics, middle grade & children's and fucking poetry categories. were there no books published in these 3 categories this year? theres no way nobody nominated books for these categories so i assume they just didnt offer them as an option.

i went onto the goodreads subreddit and no one has mentioned this change yet.

[dandelion-network]

Two fiction novels to start this month off right and now I think it's time for 2 nonfiction books. One of which is the book we're reading for my environmentalism book club at work: The Nature Fix: why nature makes us happier, healthier, and more creative by Florence Williams.

Not sure what the other nonfiction book will be. I think it should be one from my unread shelves though. I think I also might return all the books I have checked out from the library. I'm just hoarding them at this point and I really need to read the books I already own. And since I own them, I get to write in them, which is fun for me.

[dandelion-network]

i need money as a poor person in general to help survive this capitalistic hellscape. but what i need more is like $500-800 to purchase replacement bookshelves bc ya boy has run outta room for his books and the current ikea bookcase i do have is broken

[dandelion-network]

Looks like Absolution will be coming out as hardcover while the reprints of the og trilogy will be paperback. Don't like that.

[dandelion-network]

I started Chuck Tingle's Camp Damascus and this book is activating my fight-or-flight response with all the gaslighting and just straight up lies this poor woman is being fed. Her father telling her that her curiosity about the world is the same as a sin and somehow a display of lacking in their god's light made me wanna fight.

I attended church as a kid, not because of my family but because I wanted to hang out with my friends who were Christian. Even in the presence of their god though, the religion never really took. So seeing what Rose has to deal with is maddening.

[dandelion-network]

still thinking about the tumblr poll on what we'd/i'd like to see from book blogs on here.

i dont really interact with many reviews or analyses on here. i reblog a lot of curated lists and photos of books or shelves covered in books. they look nice and those lists are for me to add to my ever-growing digital TBR.

but that poll listed 'updates on what they are reading' as an option and i have often made posts with my own updates on what i'm reading. with a bit of analysis here and there but not much. but that option on the poll also reminded me of an old post i made once, regarding jeff vandermeer's annihilation (southern reach trilogy) and robin wall kimmerer's braiding sweetgrass, where i briefly mentioned how both interrogate the concept of what is a person.

i didnt say much about it but i think i might revisit that idea in the forever (im rereading annihilation for work anyways). its not a unique topic by any means but i do wonder if its worth exploring using sources that aren't typically spoken about in the same conversation.

i'm not sure.

but i do want to write more complex, compelling thoughts about what i am reading. and i want to engage with other people's thoughts in the future. so there may be more of that going forward. i know there's not as much traction here compared to tiktok or even Xwitter these days. but i hope to find more and i hope others might decide to share their more deep explorations of the texts they are reading.

[dandelion-network]

Mid-Year Book Freakout 2023

so i was tagged by @violaeade (my main was tagged but its book-related so its going here)

1. Best book you’ve read so far this year

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi: My favorite book and poetry collection of the year by far. I was barely 1/4 in it when I could tell it was going to be my favorite book. It's a collection about environmental racism, climate change, xenophobia, police brutality, girl it had everything. I decided to read it because an article recommended it for people who enjoyed the science fiction novel How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu and I agree; if you liked that book, you'd enjoy this poetry collection.

2. Best sequel you’ve read so far this year

Mysteries of Thorn Manor by Margaret Rogerson: A novella that sorta kinda operates as a long epilogue for the previous Sorcery of Thorns book. I enjoyed that first book - and I love that we got a tall girl, love that for us. It was a fun time for those of us who enjoy fantasy romances (or romance fantasies??).

3. New release you haven’t read yet

Maroons by adrienne maree brown No One Will Come Back For Us by Premee Mohamed A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars edited by Erin Sharkey

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

5. Biggest disappointment

Entranced by the Basilisks by Lillian Lark: I didn't find the throuple compelling at all. Jasper felt like someone in his early 20s even though he's the director of the library. Ari and Emilia connection was based on...her being turned into a monster and him seeming inherently alluring I guess? I will say this book taught me that I don't like reptile monster sex. The hidden penis situation does nothing for me.

6. Biggest surprise

Release by Suzanne Clay: I was surprised to find that I enjoyed an age gap, employee + boss romance. It helped that the female lead is 32 years old and the man's like 55. I think the author did everything in their power to make sure male lead was super aware of the power dynamic and gave the female lead space and security in her job (because this is a complete fantasy). And they're bi4bi so that was the icing on the cake.

7. Favorite new author (debut or new to you)

Kimberly Lemming: She's a new romance author to me. I found all her stories to be fun and erotic in the best way. A true monsterfucker who understands there's not enough monster romances that involve women of color.

8. Newest fictional crush/newest favorite character

Unfortunately, I haven't obtained any fictional crushes or favorites.

9. Book that made you cry

Short Film Starring My Beloved's Red Bronco: Poems by K. Iver: Okay I'll be honest, it didn't make me cry. But out of everything I've read so far this year, it made me the most emotional. It's a collection of poems where many of them are addressed to or at least speaking to the author's dead friend who committed suicide.

10. Book that made you happy

Animal Castle Vol. 1 by Xavier Dorison, Félix Delep: a graphic novel that is in a similar vein to Animal Farm but the animals aren't becoming human, it's more of a story that is so blatant in its metaphor of how exploitative capitalism is. It's some good communist propaganda and I can't wait to read the next volume.

I'm tagging: @readingrobin, @somewherereadingg, @bibliophilecats, @logarithmicpanda, @bookish-brews, @amongtomesandtales, @the-knights-who-say-book, @thebookbud, @foxingfae, @bookphile, @jorammiireads and @crookedreads

if you've done this before or don't want to do it, feel free to ignore the tag. if you want to do this but i didn't tag it, do it anyways and tag me so i can see your answers

[dandelion-network]

I don't wanna set a number of books I should/want to read for 2024. I just wanna read the books I already have at any pace I need to, in addition to reading the books for the 2 book clubs I co-lead at work. That's it. If I read only 5 books next year, that's my business.

im also not gonna keep track of how many pages i read per day, like the update option in Storygraph. Maybe I'll include the day I start the book but even that feels unnecessary. If I finish it, then I finish it. I won't put it on my blog's right side column labelled "Currently" either.

I'll just read as much as I want and when I'm done, I'll post less of a review and more of a reflection and pondering I had in reading the book.

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I've been shopping primarily at my local used bookstore for the past year so much that when I went to an indie book store in a different neighborhood, I was shook at the prices. Nonfiction books from smaller publishers do tend to be on the more expensive side in general but the emotional turmoil I experienced looking at the price of a book I really wanted was a lot.

$30 for a paperback is a lot when at most you've been spending $7 on average for any format of book that's in 'like new' condition.