As I may have mentioned twenty-two thousand times, I gave up magical thinking in 2019, and this was very smart of me because 2020 turned out to be a magical thinking minefield. Luckily I have a — actually, I have lost control of this metaphor and do not know what sort of a thing you’d use to protect against a minefield. I’m coming up all mine-sniffing animals, and I don’t want my very successful self-administered cognitive behavioral therapy to feel in any way connected with exploding rats or whatever. What I’m saying is, I am safe from the minefield of…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
My pandemic reading seems to come and go in waves — one month I’ll be tearing through books like there’s no tomorrow, and then another month I am just staring at the page blankly trying to make myself engage with what’s on it. August was a good reading month, and I can already tell September’s not going to be. I’ve got like sixteen YA books checked out that I’m officially excited to read, but I can’t get started on any of them, or any other book either. Is anyone else having this problem? Luckily, I read two terrific contemporary YA…
Leave a CommentAre there infinite ways to say THIS HAS BEEN A WEEK? Because that’s what I need. In Louisiana alone, the cops killed a Black man named Trayford Pellerin (link); a white guy killed an unarmed Black man in a Trader Joe’s parking lot (link); and a massive (though not as massive as we feared) hurricane struck the southwest coast of the state (link). That is one single state that those things happened in. And yet at the same time things keep happening in many states. Please, please do whatever you can do to ensure that Trump does not get reelected…
Leave a CommentA friend recently mentioned that quarantine lets you discover what everyone’s fail state is, which I thought was incredibly smart. Mine is definitely Control Freak, often manifest in the subcategory Resource Hoarding. One way in which this has manifested during quarantine is that I’ve spent all my travel money on books. Ordinarily I am quite frugal about buying things, but this year I have acquired an undue number of books — though admittedly that’s partly because I’m trying to support independent bookstores. So it was a thrill that Whiskey Jenny agreed to devote this podcast to the books we’ve acquired…
Leave a CommentWhat what? What’s that you say? I READ SOME BOOKS? Yes, wow, we are all correctly very impressed by this news. I read some books! In this economy! As two hurricanes barrel down on me at one and the same time! Wow! (I also read Not the Girl You Marry and definitely want to read more by Andie Christopher, but I did not immediately write down my thoughts on it and now I remember nothing about it.) Bringing Down the Duke, Evie Dunmore Annabelle Archer can stay at Oxford under a few, conflicting conditions. To be permitted to study outside…
Leave a CommentThis is a clearinghouse for all glossing of book references, memes, etc., for Harrow the Ninth. Please comment to add things — I know I missed stuff. And I am very sorry that this exists. I was home sick one day and it was one of those days where I was casting my mind about for something to do that would feel productive but be moderately insane, and this is what I plumped on. There are going to be oblique and explicit spoilers in this post, so do not read it if you mind being spoiled! Also, please hop into…
1 CommentNoemà Taboada likes being escorted to glamorous parties by handsome men, and she has every anticipation that she can go on doing so — until her father orders her to go into the Mexican countryside to check on her cousin Catalina. Since Catalina’s marriage to Virgil Doyle — an Englishman and scion to a family that once owned a silver mine but has fallen on hard times — they have heard very little from her, until they receive a letter in which she begs them to come save her. There are ghosts in the walls, she says. They are speaking…
Leave a CommentOr: Inside baseball, the podcast! Today, I welcome Adrian of the Spectology podcast to talk about this year’s Hugo Awards, which were, in technical terms, a shitshow. Before we begin, here’s a link full of links about what happened at the ceremony, in case you are curious. You can also check out the full list of this year’s winners, who were terrific. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below, or download it directly to take with you on the go! Bonus Episode Here’s a list of everything we talked about! Robert Silverberg and his whole deal…
Leave a CommentFor some reason, it feels like all of my links are along the theme “untenable situation is untenable.” I am not sure why, except I guess we are all feeling exceptionally untenable about life these days. I read a New York Times article (link) about how we’ve all hit a wall, quarantine-wise, which seems accurate to my own experience and that of my friends-and-relations. If you’ve got anything that’s making you happy in quarantine, hit me up and let me know what that thing is! (My happy things are Indian food and Harrow the Ninth.) Anyway, on to the links!…
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