mother night, kurt vonnegut
“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
Madeline Miller - The Song of Achilles
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“What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
This advertisement is for a dark urban fantasy romance called ONE FOR MY ENEMY by Olivie Blake, with interior art from @littlechmura!
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Our stage is Manhattan in the modern day, where rival syndicates run by criminal witches tolerate uneasy peace, until fresh blood opens old wounds. Now, the descendants of bitter adversaries must navigate a treacherous crossroads.
The Antonova sisters—beautiful, cunning, and ruthless—serve their mother, the elusive Baba Yaga. The Federov brothers serve Koschei the Deathless, a shadow-kingpin of magical Manhattan…and their father. Star-crossed lovers, wayward scions, the angry, and the hurt—all must choose where they stand.
This is a story of the struggle between siblings, lethal magic, and tangled love. It’s Shakespeare run afoul of Slavic Folklore’s more treacherous specters, emerging shaking and bloody.
All love stories are tales of beginnings. When we talk about falling in love, we go to the beginning, to pinpoint the moment of freefall.
— Meghan O’Rourke
“Yes, of course we were pretentious – what else is youth for? We used terms like ‘Weltanschauung’ and ‘Sturm und Drang’, enjoyed saying ‘That’s philosophically self-evident’, and assured one another that the imagination’s first duty was to be transgressive.”
— Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
• Palestinian literature recommendations - small books with a big impact •
Here’s a few recommendations for short reads. If you’re looking for small books to help you reach your reading goal before the end of the year or for when you need a shorter read to suit your time, these are all fairly quick reads but very impactful.
All Palestinian literature. Most of these recommendations are short story collections and mostly translated from Arabic. They each show the different ways the Israeli occupation has affected Palestinians. From the start of the Nakba, to the blockaded Gaza Strip, to Palestinians refugees in the diaspora.
* Shatila Stories published by Peirene Press, nine contributors (Palestinian and Syrian): Omar Khaled Ahmad, Nibal AlAlow, Safa Khaled Algharbawi, Omar Abdellatif Alndaf, Rayan Mohamad Sukkar, Safiya Badran, Fatima Omar Ghazawi, Samih Mahmoud, Hiba Mareb. Translated by Nashwa Gowanlock
* Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories by Ghassan Kanafani, translated by Hilary Kilpatrick
* The Sea Cloak and Other Stories by Nayrouz Qarmout, translated by Perween Richards
* Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette
* The Book of Ramallah edited by Maya Abu Al-Hayat, various translators
Have you read any of these? Are there others any you would add to the list or recommend me to read? The Book of Gaza is one I have on my radar that I want to read at some point.
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“It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others.
