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glinda: sky pirates (stardust)
[personal profile] glinda
The weather has been glorious this week - seriously I had my lunch sitting on the grass outside my work yesterday - but is supposed to break in as dramatic a fashion as possible at the weekend with a return to snow. *sigh* Just when I was getting into the swing of walking to skating of an evening...

What I’ve Just Finished Reading
This week I mostly read Face Like Glass by Francis Hardinge and it was excellent. It continued to consume me for hours at a time and was suitably long to be satisfying and yet it didn't drag or feel like it had gone on too long. I could have read another couple of hundred pages about that world but I'm kind of glad that it ended where it did. (I would however, happily read a whole book about the 'Outside' world of this book.) For me it had everything that I always love about Diane Wynne Jones books, without the disappointingly rushed ending. I love the fact that she hints at the tropey obvious option with Madame Appeline and does something interesting and different (and heartbreaking and horrible and much more likely) with it. It's plotty and interesting and there's so much about identity and memory cultural oppression going on under the surface. I do in fact, want to read everything else she's ever written.

What I’m Reading
That one chapter of Time and Relative Dissertations in Space is still outstading... More actively I'm reading The language of this land, Mi'kma'ki which is a book about the Indigenous language of Cape Breton which is a confluence of issues close to my heart. It's both quite academic and very readable, essentially explaining the complexities and joys of the language to a knowledgable but non academic audience I guess? I suppose its aimed at people with an interest in and knowledge of minority languages, though not neccessarily this one? It's really interesting either way.

At the other end of the scale my current audio book is To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway and I can't decide if I'm even meant to like the main character or not. (I don't for the record, but I can't figure out if that's the book's intent or if Hemingway intends him to be a loveable rogue that we should root for?)

What I’m Reading Next
Something from the shelf I hope, I'm thinking something by Iain Banks maybe? Though I see from previous reading posts that I've been promising myself some Special Sound for a while...

Date: 24 Apr 2015 04:18 pm (UTC)
shanaqui: Zell from Final Fantasy VIII, not looking so good. ((Zell) Urk)
From: [personal profile] shanaqui
Oh, I do love Frances Hardinge's books. And I agree with the DWJ comparison. I just got Hardinge's newest book to review, and I am excite.

Date: 25 Apr 2015 09:33 pm (UTC)
shanaqui: Raijin and Fujin from Final Fantasy VIII. Text: got your back. ((RaijinFujin) Got your back)
From: [personal profile] shanaqui
That does not surprise me, ha. I recommend her most recent (aside from the one I have to review) too, Cuckoo Song. I was one of the first people to review that, and I fell head over heels for it. (My review.)

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Lister: "We're on a mining ship, three million years into deep space... can someone explain to me where the smeg I got this traffic cone?"
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- Red Dwarf

The Operative: "That girl will rain destruction down on you and your ship. She is an albatross, Captain."
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"You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."
- Breakfast at Tiffany's

"Love is merely an emotional adaptation to a purely physical need."
- A Life Less Ordinary

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- Giles, BTVS

Creativity is... viewing the world from a different angle. Taking things from everyday life that otherwise might seem mundane and go un-noticed, and turning them into something beautiful. Finding beauty where there seems to be none and changing the perceptions of others so they can see that beauty too. Making something out of seemingly nothing...

"They have not wanted Peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war -- as though the absence of war was the same as peace."
- Dorothy Thompson

"Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free."
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and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
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because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."
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