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booktalk with kikir Locked account

LettersAndStories@wyrms.de

Joined 1 year, 3 months ago

Here for all the book talk, but only posting now and then about a book I want to talk about. Never not reading. Representation matters.

Always trying to build a canon without white cis male authors. Dream job: library curator.

fav genres: queer_feminist and anarchist dystopia and solarpunk sci fi exploring and dreaming worlds and togethers - after a revolution, after or fighting capitalism, white supremacy and racism, cis heteronormativity, ableism, patriarchy. I love reading cook books.

Current interests: solarpunk, emotional work, exhaustion and trauma, cooking, preserving and baking, from textile to plant fiber crafts.

Listening to audio books is reading, too.

Book talk in English and German.

Avatar alt text: my hand holding a book upside-town, nails painted in different pinks. Book title is partly visible, it's "Der Pilz am Ende der Welt" von Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

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booktalk with kikir's books

commented on Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (Legends & Lattes, #1)

Travis Baldree: Legends & Lattes (Paperback, 2022, Tor Books) 5 stars

Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes …

Listening to the audiobook: While I was charmed by the idea of Vivs story and about this loveletter to coffee, I'm finding both story and characters a bit flat and without layers. I love fantasy or sci fi that gives some revolutionary impulse or that include ideas about different/better societies and inacts revolutionary ideas. I can't find this in this novel, rather it expresses more conservative and capitalist ideas. At least there are some queer vibes, and I like the way different people meet and become friends and a small community.

Wild Textiles No rating

Wild Textiles

No rating

Alice Fox is a textile artist who works with material they grow on their allotment plot, they gather or find. They make fiber from plants, string from nettles or garbage.

In 'Wild Textiles' Alice Fox portraits plants and materials, documents processes. And shows their works: pieces and bowls from leaves that are sewn together, chestnut shells that carry weavings, vessels from dandelion or paper strings, the gall sculpture series - works that got me excited, and longing.

It's such an inspiring book, inviting to take into account what is around, to play, to explore, and to make art. For me it opened up room for new thoughts about the relation of crafts and arts.

Torrey Peters: Detransition, Baby (Hardcover, 2021, One World) 4 stars

A whipsmart debut about three women--transgender and cisgender--whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces …

Content warning violence mention

started reading Radical Friendship by Kate Johnson

Kate Johnson: Radical Friendship (2021, Shambhala Publications, Incorporated) No rating

A case for friendship as a radical practice of love, courage, and trust, and seven …

Content warning meditation

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reviewed Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak by Charlie Jane Anders (Unstoppable, #2)

They'll do anything to be the people they were meant to be — even journey …

Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak

4 stars

Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak is the second book in Charlie Jane Anders' Unstoppable YA sf trilogy. This is an incredibly solid second book of a trilogy. (This book is up for a 2023 Lodestar award as part of the Hugo awards.)

I think part of it is that Tina takes a backseat and Rachael and Elza get more of the spotlight. (Aside from the book covers sequentially being one, two, and then three headshots indicating which number of the book it is, this second book cover features Rachael and Elza vs the first book cover showing Tina, which I think is also an indication of the emphasis here.) This book has yet more uncomfortable feelings and processing and relationship renegotiation and grief and trauma.

I honestly enjoyed this book better than the first, because it's thematically very tight. It says it right on the tin, but dreams being bigger than …

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Becky Albertalli: Imogen, Obviously (2023, HarperCollins Publishers Limited) 5 stars

Imogen Scott has questions…

Imogen Scott may be hopelessly heterosexual, but she’s got the World’s …

quick online library read in between, it's a cute bi* coming of age story, as far as I can tell after the first 50 pages or so.

I like Becky Albertalli for queer coming of age books and representation of queer, especially bi* people, people of color, fat and disabled folks, but especially for strong representation of bi * characters and writing about bisexuality. Also: comfort reading!