Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while back—though in this case, a while back is just last week. Uninhabitable Earth is about as depressing as you would expect it to be.
Like all the posts in my 2023 reads list, this comes at a lag, meaning I read this a while back—though in this case, a while back is just last week. Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time is a book that I’ve noticed on the shelf at the local library a few times. Because that particularly library jumbles together all of its English language books in a single room—kids’ books, comics, YA novels, and adult fiction and nonfiction—it’s always seemed a little out of place, and caught my eye each time I’ve been there. Having finally signed out a copy, …
I’m enjoying Jim Baker’s The Cunning Man’s Handbook, an exhaustive look at the practices of the cunning folk in England (and to some degree America) from 1550-1900, which I’m reading as research for the book I’m writing now (which has a cunning woman as a major character). Baker’s text is full of (ie. basically, completely composed of) countless examples of what folk magic involved in different moments during modern English history, and it also has lots of interesting observations on how much of what neo-pagans claim as history is actually just “invented tradition” (in the sense that Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger discuss in The …
A former student emailed me, asking–among other things–for advice about things to enjoy during her upcoming visit to Montréal. One of the things I suggested was to visit the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, and I couldn’t help but mention my favorite painting there, which, unsurprisingly, is of a teacher. Here it is: I know, hopelessly old-fashioned of me. I like more modern artists too, believe me! Kandinsky! Dali! Escher! Er… look, among my bundle of posters–now in storage in a warehouse someplace in Koream waiting to be shipped to me eventually–are at least a few prints much more avant-garde and …
One Good Turn: Eugie Foster is fighting lymphoma, and could use a hand, if you’re so inclined… she has some ebooks for sale, which will help her pay for her treatment. I picked up a couple, and figured I’d pass the word on while I’m at it. Literary: Ever been curious to check out Baudelaire? Don’t know which translator(s) most suit your tastes? FleursduMal.org is the site for you. You can read different translations of each of the poems from each edition, and make up your own mind! An interview with my friend Christine Lee Zilka and her coeditor at Kartika, …