boxofdelights

Reading: Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt, for next month's Tawanda book group. Not enough octopus.

Just read: The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay, my pick for Tawanda book group. Mini essays that convey how much beauty the world has, still.

Next up: The Mountain Crown by Karin Lowachee and Brighter than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang, for SF book group.

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad, for Tawanda and Fort Collins Reads. The book group isn't until October, but my library hold came through now, so I have to read it now.

The History of Sound: Stories, by Ben Shattuck also has to go back to the library soon. This was recommended by Bev, who I know through Xeriscape Demonstration Garden and Urban Forestry Alliance.

I don't have any paying work right now but I still took my trike out for Bike To Work Day
( trike and breakfast )

I also picked up a t-shirt, a book, and a map of Fort Collins bike paths

The table after book group
( Read more... )

I put out a big stack of books to give away but only Little Bee by Chris Cleave got taken. There is also a lot of food left over.

We read The Book of Delights by Ross Gay this month.

It's Swan Lake, but the swan is a beautiful dog and the lake is a comfy chair
( sleeping dog )

I am rereading Piranesi for library book group tonight. I am overwhelmed anew with how much I love Myself/Piranesi (though that is not my name)/Matthew Rose Sorensen before he remembers what was done to him. He is so appreciative of everything that is beautiful and good, so brave in the face of everything painful and terrifying, so interested in everything he doesn't understand, and so honest and careful about documenting what he learns! He is a Beloved Child of the House, whose Beauty is immeasurable, its Kindness infinite.

This book group does not usually read SF so I am interested to see what we make of it.

Tilda is a Hungry Thing. She had an allergic inflammation in her ear, which led to seven days of Apoquel (wrapped in a tiny bit of cheese) twice a day, and then seven days of Apoquel once a day. Today is the first day she _didn't_ get the Apoquel after dinner. She has been following me around giving me this LOOK ever since.
( Hungry Thing )

As always, the first thing that hit me was the smell of thousands of herbs and flowers, a dry, green, enticing smell that got into my lungs and soothed the world away, mortal peril forgotten. A warm light bathed the place, shining from several living octopus-like creatures tangled in the ceiling beams. Rows and rows of hundreds of little tins and jars lined the walls, all of them labeled in Laemura's spidery handwriting: Apple Mint Innocence. Lavender Regret. Smoky Cinnamon Vengeance. Doomed Foreknowledge With Toasted Walnut And Sage.

from The Last Hour Between Worlds, by Melissa Caruso

The Three Ws are:
1. What are you currently reading?

I'm in the middle of The Great Transition, Nick Fuller Googins, for solarpunk book club. The transition is to a sustainable way of living. There's a lot of horror in the immediate past, and a lot of life that is just gone forever. The two viewpoint characters are a teenage girl and her father. Her father, who did heroic work during the crisis, when he was a teenager, wants to focus on how much better things are now, and how we are all working together to make them even better. Her mother, who did different kinds of heroic work, says no, we can't relax: the people who caused and profited from the crisis still have too much money and power, and they are working to turn us back to the exploitive and destructive path. We have to stop them.

I'm enjoying it, except that the teenage girl has an (occasionally too-vividly described) eating disorder.

2. What did you recently finish reading?

The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, for Tawanda book group. Much better than I was expecting.
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, for classics book group. Last read when I was a teenager, when all that sexism and racism was just normal.
Algorithms of Oppression, by Saffiya Noble, for Slow Book Club. This was a hard read, in both subject matter and writing style, so it was good to have the book club to talk it over with, a few chapters at a time.
A Sorceress Comes to Call, by T. Kingfisher, for SF book group. A delight.

3. What do you think you’ll read next?

The Last Hour Between Worlds, by Melissa Caruso, for SF book group. If I can find it.

We were walking the dogs yesterday and I took a photo that got 405 favorites and 226 boosts on Mastodon:
( A little free library in a tree trunk, and the book I took from it )

Neighborhoods always feel better with Little Free Libraries.

I don't get many trick-or-treaters, but I made an offering!

( cut for photo )

( Mount TBR )

We Do This Til We Free Us for Slow Book Club, which had its first (online) meeting Monday. We discussed parts 1 and 2. We'll discuss parts 3, 4 and 5 next month. I thought the discussion was really good! It's open to new members, so if you would like to jump in, let me know.

Always Coming Home for Solarpunk Futures bookgroup, later today (Thursday). This bookgroup is also online and open to new members, so if you are interested in discussing Always Coming Home this evening, let me know.

The Meadow for Classics bookgroup
Artful for 1000 Books To Read Before You Die
Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books for Fort Collins Reads
The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton for Tawanda bookgroup
Lonely Castle in the Mirror for SF bookgroup

Mathematical Mindsets for ideas on working with a kid who is way behind where school wants her to be in fourth grade

The Paper Playhouse and Craft The Rainbow due back at the library soon.

I hosted book group last Sunday and I'm only just feeling recovered today. We read How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community, by Mia Birdsong, which is a very timely book about weaving the web of connections that we all need to survive the current omnidisaster. Eight people showed up at my house!

I made broccoli & tofu with peanut sauce, a tomato-lentil dish, spiced nuts (sweet and not sweet), and served salad, bread, cheese and crackers. My friend Karen made mojitos.

I also had door prizes: a stack of books. Six of them went home with someone.

( pics )

I'm about to go to an event at the library called Open Book Connections: Speed Dating & Friending and I'm suddenly panicking that everyone else there will be looking for a date and I will be standing alone in a corner. I've got a good book though. I chose Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass.

Here's the event description:

Are you a book lover looking to build connections with fellow readers in a fun and relaxed setting? Join us for an evening where books, conversation, and new connections come together!

How it works:

Bring Your Favorite Book: Choose a book that you absolutely love, whether it's a timeless classic, a recent bestseller, or an unexpected gem. You’ll get the chance to share why this book resonates with you and hear about others’ literary passions.
Speed Dating with a Twist: In our speed dating-style setup, you'll engage in brief, rotating conversations with fellow participants. During each round, you’ll have several minutes to explain what makes your chosen book special and connect with others over shared reading interests.
Continue the Conversation: After the speed dating rounds, we’ll unwind with mocktails and treats. This is your chance to further chat with the people you've met, discuss books in more depth, or simply enjoy some great conversation in a laid-back atmosphere.
Stay Connected: If you meet someone you'd like to stay in touch with after the event, simply write down their name during the speed dating rounds. If you both note each other's names, we'll email you with each other's contact information to help you keep the connection going.
This event is all about making connections—whether it's over the joy of a favorite book or the thrill of discovering someone with similar reading tastes. No pressure, just good conversation and great company.

Readers of all ages and backgrounds who are passionate about books and open to meeting new people are welcome to attend. Whether you're a mystery lover, fantasy fanatic, or fan of memoirs, there’s a seat at the table for you.

My neighbors and I have fallen into the habit of shoveling each other's sidewalk when we are doing our own, because if you are out there why not. They do it more often, because they get up in the morning and I do not. So whenever I am baking a big batch of cookies I bake some for them, to keep up my end.

First snow this year, they shoveled, and I said thank you when we crossed paths. Neighbor said actually, their youngest child did it; they're making him work! I left cookies at their door a few days later.

Neighbor texted: "Thank you so much for the ginger snap cookies!! These are our favorite!!"
Me: "I hope [child's name] likes them too!"
Neighbor: "For sure!"

This morning, even though it was very cold, the public sidewalk was shoveled from one alley to the other, and so was the walk to my front door, which was not something we have done for each other before. The shoveling was thoroughly done, the whole width of the sidewalk, so I'm going to guess it was not the child's job this time.

I'm thinking, ginger cookies and brownies? Ginger cookies and Mexican wedding cakes? Ginger cookies and spiced nuts?

On the other hand, where will this end?

I just hated The Berry Pickers, the first book I finished this year. It has a good topic: A very young Canadian First Nations child is stolen by a white woman who wants a child, and the next fifty years are narrated in alternate chapters by the stolen child and her brother. I appreciated the author's choice to make the kidnapper parents ordinary people who did their best to be good parents; it makes it clear that stealing a child is a monstrous act that damages everyone it affects, even if you don't pile more child abuse on top.

But the writing is just sentimental and dull. It doesn't deserve to be hated. I should have just put it down when I realized it wasn't for me. But this is for book group. I refused to read the books this member chose in previous years, which were also sentimental, melodramatic, and dull novels about worthy topics, so I had made up my mind I was going to push through and finish this time. Mistake.

The other book I'm reading is a delight:

The baby plant root has forty-eight hours after it decides to emerge to locate water and nutrients, and then push out a leaf or two and begin photosynthesizing, before it runs out of resources and dies. The first green parts of any plant are folded preassembled and waiting inside the seed. This preassembled plantlet bears little resemblance to the plant itself; it consists of one or two cartoonish green lobes on a short green stem, the manifestation of the plant emoji, and it is entirely temporary.

From The Light Eaters, by Zoe Schlanger.

We're in a cold spell. A lot of trees are budding out, due to the last several weeks of warm temperatures.

Dutch, my 1/3 scale Bernese Mountain Dog, loves sitting outside in the cold. Tilda does not. She is happy running around, but while Dutch can sit out there on squirrel patrol for hours, Tilda wants to come in. And then she wants to go out, because Dutch is out there without Tilda. And then she wants to come in, because it is cold.

Inside, Tilda likes to tuck herself behind me in the big comfy chair. Here is the position she gets into:

( Read more... )
(These are the same photos I posted to Mastodon)

I just read Not Lost (Never Lost), a moving short story by Premee Mohamed: https://psychopomp.com/not-lost-never-lost/

I'm in the middle of The Light Eaters, a good book about plant intelligence by Zoe Schlanger, and Free Love, a novel by Tessa Hadley, which are both due back to the library but I'm not willing to relinquish them and pick them back up after someone else has had a turn yet, even though

I have A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn,
How to Read Now, by Elaine Castillo,
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See,
The Berry Pickers, by Amanda Peters,
Kings of the Wyld, by Nicholas Eames,
and Self-Made Boys, by Anna-Marie McLemore
all on deck for book groups this month.

I got a trike!

( trike )

I bought it second hand from someone who just didn't use it. While I was bringing it home, I got a notification that "AirTag Found Moving With You". The previous owner didn't mention an AirTag, but I think it has to be somewhere on the trike. Should I contact the previous owner, or will I be able to find it and take it off myself?

ETA: the person whose pickup I borrowed to transport the trike has an AirTag on her pickup, so I'm assuming that's where the notification came from.

I finally got to see Hamilton. My friend won the ticket lottery, and her partner didn't want to go on a school night so she asked me. We were in the third row.

I've loved the songs for a long time, but seeing the real thing is amazing. So many talented people working together, working so hard, and so precisely, to make this beautiful, intricate design happen!

My friend asked someone in the row behind us to take our picture. She took her mask off for the photo so I did too, although I probably would have chosen not to if I had thought about it beforehand. Peer pressure is real! I got the new vaccine in September and I used my antiviral mouthwash before I went and it was only for a moment.

( pix )

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/517-ten-free-ebooks-for-getting-free

Haymarket Books is offering free ebooks, until Dec 5:

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
by Angela Y. Davis

Hope in the Dark
by Rebecca Solnit

How We Get Free
Edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Class Struggle Unionism
by Joe Burns

Elite Capture
by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

Socialism . . . Seriously
by Danny Katch

Let This Radicalize You
by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba

Unbuild Walls
by Silky Shah

The Black Antifascist Tradition
by Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen

Palestine in a World on Fire
by Katherine Natanel and Ilan Pappé

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reading wednesday

Bike To Work Day

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The ballet of sleep

Piranesi

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The Last Hour Between Worlds

reading Wednesday

tree trunk library

Halloween

Mount TBR

book group

speed friending

I raise you one

wednesday reading

new year

wednesday reading

trike!

seeing Hamilton

Ten Free Ebooks for Getting Free