A Whetstone to the Spirit: An Interview with Barbara Kingsolver
'The Poisonwood Bible' author on mothering, farming, ecology, and life
https://orionmagazine.org/article/barbara-kingsolver-interview-spring-2023/
#novels
Finished Becky Chambers - "The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet'
Enjoyed it. I kept reading it eh? I wouldn't call it 'typical' science fiction but interesting...particularly the relationships were interesting...alien sex and other relationships... I found some of the aliens quite interesting but never really understood the technology or even the reasons why it was done as it was done or why.
Worth the read 3.5/5 IMO
Perhaps I should follow this plan...
https://lithub.com/how-to-get-into-thomas-pynchon-on-the-occasion-of-his-birthday/
Welcome to Brandon Sanderson's Fantasy Empire
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a43438119/brandon-sanderson-profile/
You May or May Not Agree. :) :) :)
https://lithub.com/13-adaptations-better-than-the-books-theyre-based-on
What an Opening!!! I may have just discovered a new author to satisfy my longings... :)
"After I die and things settle down, I’ll reevaluate my life, and specifically the cracks between my speech, behavior, posture, and my chickenshit love. That “tender land” will be an excellent place to reflect on life, with beautiful drifting catkins and bright peach blossoms. Right now, however, they have taken the muzzle of a loaded gun and placed it against the back of my head, invoking the reputation of the revolution. With death lodged in my throat, I have no choice but to soon proceed to the execution ground and wait for the bullet. Laughing at the prospect of death, I’m prepared to cross the bridge that leads to the underworld. Prior to the execution, I drank a bowl of wine, and did not feel a trace of resentment. Hatoyama prepared a banquet for me, with ten thousand cups. Revolution must be like this. I’ll lay down my life in battle, shattering my bones, scattering my blood, and destroying my body and my spirit. In three days or at most a week, Hongmei and I will both be standing on the execution ground, next to the river that runs past the base of the mountain. We’ll both be wearing handcuffs as we kneel at the edge of the pit, after which we’ll return to our tender land. Our remaining time is like the final drops of water in a Shangganling water kettle, each drop as precious as a jewel. My life’s furnace is about to be extinguished, a furnace that ignited mountains and rivers, streams and gullies, and the entire land. It ignited the air and forests, water and women, animals and rocks, grass and footsteps, crops and men, the seasons and roads, as well as women’s wombs, hair, lips, and clothing. The spring river water flows west, as the east and west winds engage in fierce battle. Mother, mother—after your son dies, please arrange for his grave to face east, so that he may view the town of Chenggang. ..."
10 pages left to read in “All the Light We Cannot See”
Anthony Doerr is a genius writer…
…you may ask why did I stop… I was hyper-ventilating… :)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18143977-all-the-light-we-cannot-see
Cormac McCarthy Rides off into the Sunset
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/02/cormac-mccarthy-rides-off-into-the-sunset/
Another one I've tried to read a few times...and always put it back down
https://www.wired.com/2022/11/geeks-guide-fire-upon-the-deep/
#books #novels #scfi #sciencefiction #writing #writers #authors
The Book of the New Sun is a dense, allusive work that initially presents itself as sword and sorcery, gradually reveals itself as planetary romance, then becomes increasingly concerned with theology and metaphysics.
Writing a novel offers an extended experience of not getting to the point. So does reading one.
(which is my biggest issue with novels vs. short stories and why I prefer the latter)
https://lithub.com/suzanne-berne-asks-us-why-write-a-novel-why-read-a-novel-and-why-now
Interviewed in 1998 for The Paris Review, he stated that:
After living in Jamaica and writing The Book of Jamaica, I accepted that I was obliged, for example, to have African-American friends. I was obliged to address, deliberately, the overlapping social and racial contexts of my life. I'm a white man in a white-dominated, racialized society, therefore, if I want to I can live my whole life in a racial fantasy. Most white Americans do just that. Because we can. In a color-defined society we are invited to think that white is not a color. We are invited to fantasize, and we act accordingly.[6]
The themes of Continental Drift (1985) include globalization and unrest in Haiti. His 2004 novel The Darling is largely set in Liberia and deals with the racial and political experience of the white American narrator.
Writing in the Journal of American Studies, Anthony Hutchison argues that, "[a]side from William Faulkner it is difficult to think of a white twentieth-century American writer who has negotiated the issue of race in as sustained, unflinching and intelligent a fashion as Russell Banks".[19]
Russell Banks, praised author of ‘Cloudsplitter,’ dies at 82
His story "Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story" completely blew me away when I first read it. Still Does!!
I think I better read it again...
Reddit user NoxZ recently posted: “There’s a lot to unpack in The Passenger and far smarter people than me will take a long time to do that. I’m just thankful it’s here at all. I was beginning to lose hope.”
Is there anything more distinctly American than MacGyvering your own gunpowder out of piss and bat shit to kill a bunch of Native Americans?
“Those who survived would often remember these horrors with a certain aesthetic to them. In that mycoidal phantom blooming in the dawn like an evil lotus and in the melting of solids not heretofore known to do so stood a truth that would silence poetry a thousand years. Like an immense bladder, they would say. Like some sea thing. Wobbling slightly on the near horizon. Then the unspeakable noise. They saw birds in the dawn sky ignite and explode soundlessly and fall in long arcs earthward like burning party favors.”
WOW! This is a killer essay/review of Cormac McCarthy....includes some spoilers...
On War, Fatherhood, and the Half-Life of Cormac McCarthy’s Literary Fission
https://lithub.com/on-war-fatherhood-and-the-half-life-of-cormac-mccarthys-literary-fission/
For you and your book-loving family and friends
I can certainly vouch for a few of these -- Claire Keegan and Patti Smith in particular!
https://lithub.com/23-great-books-to-give-as-gifts-according-to-booksellers/
The Award-Winning Novels of 2022
The Books That Took Home This Year's Biggest Literary Prizes
"DeLillo is often seen as a visionary, a prescient writer who saw what's coming, but really what he does is observe what was really always there, and focus on it"
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221213-why-don-delillo-is-americas-greatest-living-writer
