We are not going back. We’ve been here for millennia. We are here now. We will be here long after they are rotting in the ground. 🏳️⚧️
What a fun tumblr site for those interested in vintage computing.
Finished reading: The Dream Hotel: A Read with Jenna Pick by Laila Lalami 📚 OMFG, too soon. This book was beautifully written but hit way too close to my heart. Too true under our current dictatorship. A very hard read in 2025. t’s spot on true, happening today in American’s concentration camps in the US south and southwest as well as their offshore camps in Guantanamo and El Salvador.
I’m absolutely blown away by Delilah Bon. Her music, and more importantly, her lyrics are so powerful. I first heard her song “Dead Men Don’t Rape” at the end of Alice Maio Mackay’s film T Blockers.
(Aside: T Blockers is a fantastic film, great horror, great political message, beautifully shot and amazing acted. Check it out).
It’s so great to hear a strong voice calling out bigotry and privilege, that still rocks. Each time I hear it, my heart soars.
Happy Trans Day of Visibility 2025! 🏳️⚧️ We are strong, we have always been here, and we aren’t going anywhere.
Finished reading: Paper Doll by Dylan Mulvaney 📚
A very fast read, finished in one sitting. I liked how she intertwined journal entries with reflections and other essay-like sections to give us a story but not one that had to be on a strict forward-moving timeline. I think I’d give it 3.5 or 4 stars.
Didn’t Finish: Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami 📚
This book started out very slow, but then I got interested, but then it just wasn’t keeping my attention. I made it about 25% of the way through. Clever idea.
Happy bday, Lord Derby. Your Iliad is still one of my favorites, after Caroline Alexander’s & Emily Wilson’s.
Tattoo is finally, I think, happening! And maybe two. They always say you can never stop at one after you’ve had your first. I’m planning my second while drawing my first, and maybe I’ll do the two at the same time. Both reflects my explorations (Dawn), in my self and my gender, and my (a)vocation. I’m so excited. I’ll see if I can post pictures (drawing and eventually the real deal once I’m able to book it and make it happen!) 🩷
Finished reading: Holding Wonder by Zenna Henderson 📚
I liked her book The Anything Box” much more. But, I did enjoy “You Know What, Teacher” and “Loo Ree”.
Finished reading: Vanishing Monuments by John Elizabeth Stintzi 📚
A stunning work of joy and sadness, reflection, becoming and unbecoming. I don’t normally like experimental writing but this is fantastic. Moving, disconcerting yet ringing true to my inner eyes and ears. I look forward to reading more works by them.
Finished reading: Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico 📚
An okay read that I took out from the library. It felt a little lifeless to me but not so much that I didn’t want to finish it.
I added a bunch of books to my read shelf for 2025, but since I did it in bulk, I didn’t have a chance to post each review. So, here’s a quick rundown of my thoughts.
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Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori): 5 stars. Simply a joy to read. Beautiful writing, beautiful ideas. Superb. No hesitation or doubt that this was a five-star read.
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Gliff by Ali Smith: 4 stars.
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Skinship by James Reich: 4 stars. It was a very fast read, so nicely done with writing craft, which made it flow so smoothly. I’m a sucker for a generation ship novel.
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Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon: 4 stars. Not quite as good as Lady Audley’s Secret, but still a great romp of a novel. Braddon’s writing style simply compels you to keep reading, even if the situation feels incredulous!
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The Clone by Theodore L. Thomas & Kate Wilhelm: 1 star
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Girlmode by Magdalene Visaggio/Paulina Ganucheau (illustrator): 4 stars
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Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler: 2 stars.
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How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History by Josephine Quinn: 4 stars.
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Lifeboat by James White: 3 stars.
I read The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Bettany Hughes in 2025 and gave it 3 stars
A good read that I picked up at one of my favorite local shops. This book, while packed with information, would probably have been better as a long-form journal/magazine piece rather than a book. It felt like reading a Wikipedia article, where you keep clicking to go deeper and deeper down different rabbit holes. There was a lack of cohesion in each section, more of a well-researched data dump rather than a contained piece.
Having said that, my favorite chapter was on the Mausoleum of Halikarnossos. I think it was partly due to her citing various sources that I have always enjoyed and have copies of, such as Homer’s Iliad, Aulus Gellius’s Attic Nights and Herodotus’ Histories.
I read Listen Listen by Kate Wilhelm earlier this year and gave it 3 stars.
After having finished “The Clone” which Theodore L. Thomas co-wrote with Kate Wilhelm, I was getting worried. Wilhelm is a fantastic writer, who brings depth & psychological to her work. “The Clone” from 1965 was simply awful. I think Wilhelm hit her stride in the late 1960s/early 1970s and that’s where some of her favorite works of mine can be found, like The Abyss, The Downstairs Room, The Killer Thing, The Infinity Box, Margaret & I, Somerset Dreams and Other Fictions, The Clewiston Test, and, of course, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang.
This new book, “Listen, Listen” was better than The Clone, but not her best work. Still, a good book by Wilhelm is worth more than a great book by a lesser craftswoman. It contains three novellas, one novellete, and a speech she gave on writing science fiction.
The first novella, “The Winter Beach” (1981), is the Kate Wilhelm I know and love. A hint of science fiction but an abundance of psychology, philosophy and simply beautiful writing. “Julian” (1978) is a shorter novellete that’s a great story for the most part, even with its weird ending. Still, wonderful craft at work.
The novella from 1981, “With Thimbles, with Forks, and Hope”, didn’t do anything for me. I didn’t enjoy it and ended up skimming it. I think the next novella, “Moongate” from 1978, was even worse.
The concluding essay “The Uncertain Edge of Reality” from a talk she gave at a convention in 1980, was good. Nothing spectacular like Joanna Russ’s essay collection “To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction” from 1995, but still an interesting read.
Finished reading: Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite 📚
Beautifully written, very fast read, love generation ship stories. Plot a little thin but a joy to read.
A new dawn … that simple little phrase can mean so much. New joys or new tears. New fears or new hopes. But, if you do it right, always exploring. I have so many new things to explore and hope that each dawn brings a little joy to me and others.