User Profile

Wild Woila

wildwoila@wyrms.de

Joined 2 years, 5 months ago

I have #mecfs so I have a lot of time for reading, mostly #fantasy and #SciFi but I'm happy to dip into nearly anything.

Ratings: 1 star: I didn't like it 2 stars: it was okay 3 stars: I liked it 4 stars: I really liked it 5 stars: it was brilliant

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Wild Woila's books

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Neal Stephenson: Anathem (2008, William Morrow)

Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The …

Stephenson's best story

Anathem leads you down a garden path: The first few chapters happen in a compound that seems a lot like a monastery here on Earth, except that it’s sort of like a university too. The avout who live inside its walls study philosophy and theoretics, having contact with the outside world for only ten days each year.

“Avout”? Stephenson invents words that straddle the two perspectives, like “concent” (the compound isn’t quite a convent; it studies thought, so let’s bring in some of the word “concentrate’) and “saunt” (revered thinkers aren’t saints, but savants, which kind of works if you remember how Latin U and V are the same letter). Indeed, the book title itself is one of these, a cross of “anthem” and “anathema”. The words soon become familiar, and depending on the context, and maybe your prior knowledge of classical languages and religious rituals, you can figure many …

reviewed The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)

Robert Jackson Bennett: The Tainted Cup (EBook, 2024, Random House Worlds)

In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a …

Standard whodunnitwith very cool world-building

A murder mystery fantasy novel - why is this a first for me?! Fairly standard whodunnit which escalates to political intrigue, made distinctive by very cool world-building: an empire built to defend against leviathans attacking from the sea, whose bodily fluids enable a raft of fantastical bio-enhancements. Interesting characters and the potential for more fleshing out give the series much promise.

Fredrik Backman: Anxious People (Hardcover, 2020, Atria Books)

Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes …

The portrayal of people and their idiosyncracies is a joy

A bunch of charming idiots (i.e. everyday people) get thrown together and muddle their way through a crisis in the only way humans can: messily, and hilariously. Occasionally heavy-handed but the portrayal of people and their idiosyncrasies is a joy.

Ed Conway: Material World (2023, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)

Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. They built our world, and they will transform …

A high-octane tour

A high-octane tour through the materials that underlie our civilisation: sand, salt, steel, copper, oil & lithium. So many intriguing side notes that sent me off down rabbit holes (African ghost miners!). Really brings home the mammoth scale, complexity & interconnectedness of these critical industries that we take for granted. But also highlights their fragility, the environmental damage they cause, and the immense difficulty of reforming them to be sustainable.

reviewed Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (/Howl's Moving Castle)

Diana Wynne Jones: Howl's Moving Castle (Paperback, 2001, Eos)

As the oldest daughter, willful, outspoken Sophie knew that her life could lead to nothing …

Becky Chambers: Record of a Spaceborn Few (Paperback, 2017, Hodder & Stoughton)

Centuries after the last humans left Earth, the Exodus Fleet is a living relic, a …

Good premise but not much plot

Centuries after sending colonies into space as insurance against Earth's collapse, humans have integrated into alien civilisation. But now what purpose do those colonies serve, and what happens to their distinctive communal culture? Good premise but not much plot, and a few too many characters.

@polomexgetslit@bookwyrm.social Hmmm, I've recently done some IFS work and I wonder if you need to do it with a counsellor to really get it. I wouldn't have been able to give you a list of my Parts before starting with IFS, but they've gradually been revealed to me as I work on different issues/emotions that come up during the course of my life. And they are not fixed roles/personalities, but just avatars that are useful for a particular situation, and may not be present in other contexts or as time passes. I don't think of it as a true description of my psyche, just a model that is useful at a particular moment.

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Richard Schwartz, Alanis Morissette: No Bad Parts (2021, Sounds True, Incorporated)

Review of "No Bad Parts"

I’ve now borrowed dozens of books from the library, but "No Bad Parts" tested my patience. Every physical copy in my library’s network? Checked out. No digital copies available at all. I even borrowed my mother’s Chicago Public Library card—surely a big city system would have it, right? Nope. Every single copy was checked out, with a 40+ person waitlist for physical books and over 100 people waiting for a digital version.

So I caved and bought the Kindle version for $10. Not a terrible price, but it’s been a while since I actually paid for a book. The question is… was it worth it?

"No Bad Parts" is an introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapeutic model developed by Richard Schwartz. The book posits that we all have different “Parts” within us: subpersonalities that take on roles to protect or guide us. At our core is the “Self,” …

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Bessel van der Kolk: The Body Keeps the Score (2014)

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath …

Review of "The Body Keeps the Score"

This was not a book I approached lightly—or leisurely. "The Body Keeps the Score" is dense, academic, and filled with clinical insight. To get through all 460 pages before my next therapy session, I toggled between the physical copy and the audiobook. It actually became a unique way to experience the material—reading when I had time to sit and focus, then listening while doing chores or cooking. Switching between formats helped me move through the content quickly, but also made it feel like I was processing the book in layers.

Van der Kolk’s central argument—that trauma reshapes both the brain and the nervous system—is hard to unsee once you’ve absorbed it. Trauma doesn’t just color how we feel about the world; it rewires how we function within it, biologically and neurologically. The electrical signals in our bodies are affected. And while medication may have a place in treatment, the author …

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Becky Chambers: A Closed and Common Orbit (2017)

Once, Lovelace had eyes and ears everywhere. She was a ship's artificial intelligence system - …

I Cried

The dual stories, told in short, impactful chapters is such a powerful mechanism, and Becky Chambers wields it perfectly.

Both stories are riveting for their own, very different reasons. But both have to do with social justice, and personhood denied.

I found myself getting to the end of one chapter and being oh but I want to stay with this character! only to get embroiled in the other character's chapter immediately.

It's like an anti-cliffhanger. Rather than leaving you hanging, it pulls you in to the next segment, and then pulls you right back into the following.

If you liked The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - the previous entry by Becky Chambers, then I can super-recommend this.

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Thaddeus Russell: A renegade history of the United States (2010, Free Press)

This provocative perspective on America’s history claims that the country’s personality was defined not by …

Really interesting section on how the Italian mafia opened gay bars during the 50s and 60s - not just because they could profit off of them but also because several prominent mafiosos such as Fat Tony, who was known to have a long-term relationship with a Chinese drag queen, were themselves queer in some way. The raid on Stonewall was instigated by the Feds because the mob had been paying NYPD to leave the bar alone.