tbr – aquapages

Start of 2023 TBR: fantasy, poetry and … climate change?

January 18, 2023January 20, 2023aquapages // eline2 Comments

I post so rarely that I’m amazed people still read these posts, but thank you and please share what books you are excited for this year.

Fantasy

Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #2) by Tamsyn Muir. I loved the first book, I’ve been struggling to get through this one to be honest.
Babel by R. F. Kuang (also dark academia): going in pretty blind, but hoping for the best.
A Vampire’s Redemption (The Inquisition Trilogy #2) by Casey Wolfe (queer): the first book was great!
The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith: I don’t remember who described this as a morally gray type of character doing the trope of “coming out of retirement” and returning to power, only that protagonist is also a librarian.
Arcanum Unbounded by Bradon Sanderson: a collection of Cosmere stories.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark (queer): I’ve heard so many great things about this debut fantasy set in Cairo with murder mystery and secret societies.

Poetry

Lunch Poems by Frank O’Hara
Closer Baby Closer by Savannah Brown (released in february)
War of the Foxes by Richard Siken

Classics, memoirs and essays

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (classic): I’ve tried getting through this book once already, I love the experience of reading it, but it’s so dense I struggle to get into it (more so than other classics even, idk why?).
The Lonely City: adventures in the art of being alone by Olivia Laing (essay/memoir): I wanted to read this when moving away from university, but it’s like four years later now.
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (memoir): I do not know anything about this book, but it appeared on my tbr shelf somehow.

Nonfiction and science

Immun by Anne Spurkland (in norwegian)
Firmament: the hidden science of weather, climate change and air that surrounds us by Simon Clark
The Story of More: how we got to climate change and where to go from here by Hope Jahren
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer: this book keep being referenced in so many science podcasts I listen to!
Friends: Understanding the power of our most important relationships by Robin Dunbar

Personal project / rant

I don’t really do new year’s resolutions, but a type of personal project this year is read or watch more indigenous stories. Probably it would be mostly Sami related, as that’s the indigenous group I have closest knowledge / association with. Last year two separate things were in the national news here around the same time. The first was the question of how far climate change activists were willing to go, in terms of violence against property and/or people. The more I read of the discourse, the more I hated the existential negative parts which never pointed out successful past campaigns (like those fought by indigenous people for their local environment) or had any future strategies in mind. Because I get that climate change has gotten to the point where it is going to be bad anyway, but if you want to be an activist you should have thoughts on how you think it can be better, for your own well-being if nothing else. It hightlighted to me that the values which you base your «ideology» on matters. It’s too easy otherwise to fall into elitism, or the «the world would be better with less people in it» or, you know, eugenics.

Anyway. The other thing in the news a lot was Sami politics where there’s proof non-sami (and right-wing) people were encouraged to meddle in indigenous politics. Mostly to undermine rights and use of land or for financial gain, as far as I understood. And that also often has an enviromental side. It brought up the question of who is Sami «enough» to vote on Sami politics here, but the norwegian government has pretty well-defined requirements. And some fall outside of those, even if they would consider themselves Sami, so that is another debate. But personally I do fill every requirement to be considered part of that registry of Sami people. So I feel like it’s natural that I’ve come to a place where I want to know more.

On the science side, I’m taking atmospheric physics and climate change as a course, which has been great so far.

Summer TBR | Book Things

June 19, 2022aquapages // eline2 Comments

I’ve yet to make a list of books to read this year, mostly because some of these books I’ve been wanting to pick up since 2020.

Audiobooks

Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #2) by Tamsyn Muir: fantasy book with necromancers in space, the first book was an experience. I tried to read this once, but the writing style is very peculiar compared to the first book, so someone recommended I listened to the audiobook instead.

We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled – Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman: I don’t remember where I saw this book first, I hope it’s as good as the reviews seems to say in that it’s accurate about giving space to the “voices from syria”. It’s always difficult to know before you pick up a book, which is why more so than other books I make sure to read non-fiction on my TBR before sharing it.

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden: I’ve already read half of it some time ago, it’s a memoir in how it showcases a lot of Snowden’s life and what built up to him being a whistleblower for the NSA spying on its own citizens through mass surveillance. I did not expect how much he points out the different government structures and the tools the US government had at their disposal already before 2013. I think the backstory part is less interesting to me than Snowden’s thoughts and reflections, but it’s still bound to be worth listening to.

Classics

The only way I get myself to read classics is to buy a nice physical copy and then stare at it for months until I might want to, and then more often than not be very happy I did read it.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: I’ve already started reading this and stopped, because I needed to pay more attention than I could right then.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I did read this once, I can’t remember much except it starting my Mary Shelley fascination and loving the writing style, but I got this stylish physical copy so I’m going back to it.

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus: who does not want to read Camus’ philosophy? (But at the same time never feels quite up for the “meditations on suicide”)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: each time I pick up this book I get two chapters in, puts it down for too long, and have to reread at least one chapter. One would think that you could finish a book that way, but yet I never seem to get through it. It is nice when I do read it though.

Fantasy & Other Nonfiction

The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith: I once saw this recommended with the trope of the morally-gray “retired” character who’s pulled back into action. It might be true considering it’s an epic fantasy with a protagonist who is Head Librarian of a library, which is also a neutral space in Hell. It has a pansexual main character, yet I did not get the impression it’s a big part of the story.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark: I’m really excited to read this urban fantasy set in Cairo in Egypt with djinns which features two brilliant female protagonists who tries to uncover the murder of a secret brotherhood. It has queer romance, thieves and steampunk elements.

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides: a dark academia type of book with both a secret society for women, a therapist who is trying to solve a murder at her old university and a suspicious professor of Greek Tragedy.

The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4) by Maureen Johnson: the amateur detective protagonist of the story has moved on from the several deaths on her boarding school into the real world, more specifically called in to investigate unsolved cases in a camp area. Along with her friends of course, who all got into the boarding school because of their various skills.

Book of Night by Holly Black: I’ve just committed myself to read Holly Black’s books until they’re no longer interesting anymore. This one is supposed to be an adult debut with a dark fantasy of “shadowy thieves and secret societies”. I’m just hoping it does not make the same grave mistakes “Ninth House” by Leigh Bardugo did as it was her first “adult” novel, but turned out to be simply violent for the spectacle.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: a supernatural story set in the 1950s featuring love, enormous wealth, debutante balls and gothic mysteries.

Those Who Prey by Jennifer Moffett: it’s about a lonely college freshman seduced into joining an exclusive cult, a trip to Italy, trying to escape and a mysterious death.

Other People’s Clothes by Calla Henkel: the protagonist and her friend is studying abroad in Berlin, looking for vibrant adventures and starts partying, featuring a bit of murder.

Non-fiction

The Story of More by Hope Jahren – How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here: The author is a geobiologist researcher who has already proven her ability to communicate science in “Lab Girl”. At first sight it seems like a solution-focused climate change book with a lot of science to explain every step behind it.

Firmament – The Hidden Science of Weather, Climate Change and the Air That Surrounds Us by Simon Clark: Simon Clark is another scientist who has proven he can communicate science well, as someone who has yet to take a atmospheric physics course I’m excited to get a primer on it.

Poetry

I don’t find there’s that much to say about poetry collections before reading it, even if you know of the poet there’s no certainty they do not bring something totally different this time, but I’m very excited to get to all of them.

Lunch Poems by Frank O’Hara

What Is This Thing Called Love by Kim Addonizio

Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O’Hara

So Far So Good by Ursula K. Le Guin

Dark Academia Book Recommendations (& one horrible one)

April 17, 2022May 9, 2022aquapages // eline8 Comments

I’ve seen people I respect really hate the dark academia concept, and I get that as it out of context and/or romanticized ends up portraying academia in unpleasant ways. Both in being too good or too bad. But as book and movie genre goes, it really is about how obsessive a person and group can get when they’re all in the same place, under immense pressure following their passions, with the weird group dynamics that can create. Like cult-ish, or featuring too many mysteries for someone to not be keeping secrets.

Books I’ve Read

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio: A typical dark academia book in that it’s very centered around a cast of characters (both friends and enemies) attending the same classes, performing greek plays, being in general theatric and dark. You can see how the characters are pushed to excell and that they know that themselves, before they start to unravel from guilt. It’s is ways similiar to the secret history, but I found this book missing in some aspects like the complexity of the characters.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: I’ve read this book multiple times, it’s the perfect dark academia book. The synopsis says what it needs to; “Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last – inexorably – into evil.“

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: I’ve never written a full review of this book, and yet it is one of my favourites. It’s a deeply tragic story with many different acts or settings. It’s mostly about friendship, survival and loneliness, where the protagonist goes constantly from good situations falling apart to surviving the worst ones. It features a bomb in a museum killing the protagonist’s mother, a lost painting, rich families and abusive homes. And also a character Boris, pulling the protagonist into a deep friendship with some homoromantic subtext. As Rick Riordan put it “If nothing else, read this book to meet Boris“. He’s somewhat of a criminal genius. All throughout this book there’s some mystery and urgency in the survival.

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo: It’s different to a lot of the other books here, because the English professor protagonist is definite murderer, trying to avoid persecution while roaming around on the university campus. The other protagonist is a student, who brings a lot of obsessiveness in taking things into her own hands when her friend gets sexually assaulted. It definitely showcases the potentially worst sides of an (academic) institution with abuse of power from everyone in charge. Less about the group dynamics, and more about the individuals’ dark paths.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles: A boarding school of boys lives their life while a war is brewing outside in the world, constantly dripping into theirs. It fits with the dark academia concept because of that obsessiveness attached to the secluded group dynamic the boarding school brings. There’s a lot to say about this coming-of-age story, but personally the relationship between Gene and Phineas felt like those really destructive friendships that behave almost like romances (even if that was not the goal). The distant war and the situation is wearing the whole group down, with dramatic consequences.

Books On My TBR

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: Filled with riddles and mystery, with the protagonist living in an endless labyrinth of “classical architecture stitched together” which he works to understand. There’s searches for knowledge and a debate for it being the good for humanity or for power.

Maurice by E. M. Forster: It’s a classic gay novel making a point to criticize the romanticization of the posh ivy league, it might not fit all the criterias, but that’s central.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth: A sapphic novel set in a school for girls spanning two different times; one which lead to the school closing as the girls died from a wasp incident, and one where it’s newly reopened and allegedly cursed.

Those Who Prey by Jennifer Moffett: It’s a lonely college freshman seduced into joining an exclusive cult, a trip to Italy, trying to escape and a mysterious death.

The Magus by John Fowles: I’m a bit unsure yet how dark academia this is, but it should have rich dudes, the protagonist getting a teaching position on a remote Greek Island and befriending a local millionaire, which turns into a deadly game with a lot of mental manipulation andn torture. All steeped in metaphor, symbolism, eroticism, mythology and shakespeare. Which sounds like it fits.

Peace Breaks Out by John Knowles: It’s less known than “A Separate Peace”, but in some way I hope it’s more of the same? It’s post-war and dealing with some weird consequences of relief and guilt, mostly told by the teacher of an all boys school. Can’t quite promise it’s dark academia, but will eventually get to it.

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: A queer thriller set in a private school dealing with institutionalized racism.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Mixing elements of the supernatural with science and academia, with love stories, enormous wealth, debutante balls and gothic mysteries.

Update after reading mexican gothic: definitely dark and horror, less academia, except for character’s interest and knowledge of plants and mushrooms. Wouldn’t immediately say it’s dark academia.

Mona Lisa Smile by Deborah Chiel: The protagonist gets a teacher position at an all-girl school trying to get the girls to follow their passion in the 1950s. Described as “dead poets society” with girls.

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee: An intense, sapphic novel with an unreliable narrator, obesessions and mysteries.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl: A dense novel where a smart protagonist is looking for similiar friends at a private school, with success, but also a drowning, a hanging and a lot of dealing with murder mystery.

The Lessons by Naomi Alderman: A naive narrator from a poor background enrolls in a prestigious university, meeting a close-knit intellectual and wealthy friendgroup (sounds a lot like The Secret History) featuring manipulation, intense romances and gay and bi characters.

This book was just a horrible attempt at dark academia;

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo: You cannot just give your characters all this past and current, very explicit, trauma and then not play out the consequences in any shape or form. It is not the shortcut to “darker” or more “mature” content that this book was so heavily marketed as, it only brings up questions of what is for shock factor (and creates a unneccessarily long trigger warning list). Yale is the setting, which Bardugo attended, but there’s barely anything related to academia. There’s a powerful magical rich group of people (secret society style), the protagonist supposedly coming from a poor background. But the poor people are portrayed as sell-outs, they’re drug-dealers, murderers, something to leave behind. There’s racism that’s never confronted and the most badly written and handled sexual assault I’ve ever read (at which point I stopped reading it). That says something as I just read Philip Pullman’s take on a girl being nearly gang-raped on a train by soldiers the moment she enters his world’s equivalent of muslim land and told to cover up afterwards. WHO LETS THESE (until then good) AUTHORS WRITE THIS JUST BECAUSE THEY’RE FAMOUS AND SUPPOSEDLY CHANGING FROM YA BOOKS TO MORE MATURE?

Five Star Predictions pt. 2 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

February 16, 2021aquapages // eline3 Comments

I really love these posts personally because it makes me so excited for other’s & my TBR. But – latst time I did this it took closer to ten months for me to get around to reading all the books. It will hopefully be a lot sooner this time, as I made the list shorter. I already have a lot of these books on my shelf as well, so they’ll stare at me as a constant reminder.

The Hidden Girl & Other Stories by Ken Liu: I loved “The Paper Menagerie & other stories” by the same author, but it’s been years since I read the collection of short stories for the first time. It’s just stories that live in my head now. Just the day I remembered so I found this new release and then happened to walk right past it by accident in the (norwegian) library – my luck! I snatched it so fast. This collection is of sixteen fantasy & sci-fi short stories and a novelette.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas: The cover is awesome, but so is the description of “a trans boy determined to prove his gender to his traditional Latinx family summons a ghost who refuses to leave”. Trying to find a murderer, queer & trans people, cool ghosts! Brujos! I’ve seen both very positive and slighly let-down reviews, so I’m still a bit nervous because I’m so ready to love it.

Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel: I’ve somewhat started reading this already, on a very scenic train-ride, before forgetting it in my pile of physics textbooks. So I already know that it’s such a good writing and narrative about how we think about math, and felt very approchable to both the math student (young and older) and the ones that are just interested. I rally loved the points on reconfiguring how kids learn about math, like introducing category theory eariler, because it’s just boxes we put math things in, but gives the first step to the why’s that seem to rarely get answered in learning kids math.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: Ocean Vuong’s writing is already stunning and gets deep under your skin, that I know. I can’t imagine this debut novel – about being an immigrant, trauma, queer, family dynamics and love – being any less than his poetry.

Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe (web comic link): I’ve always loved mythology and gods being modernized or otherwise rewritten, and I just got back into web comics so this very much loved web comic on greek gods seem like the perfect next one for me.

End of Year TBR (2020)

November 19, 2020November 3, 2020aquapages // eline1 Comment

Last year, 2019, I made a TBR for the whole year, with very varying results as I did not take enough into account the fact that I was going to university for the first time, hahha. I knew I would have less time, but the actual time I did have to myself, let alone to read for fun, was still so much less than expected.

This year I’ve only made two smaller TBR lists; Spring TBR! & Queer TBR of June for #PrideLibrary20. I want to make a summary update of this years TBR posts at the end of the year as well, but before that – why don’t I make another TBR with the books I might read between now and next semester start in early january? Take into account that it’s exam season, but it finished up early for me this year. So I don’t think any of these books will get started before 10th of December, at the very least. I’ll probably need even more downtime to recover, as I expect the time until exams to be extra dramatic this covid-riddled year.

The End of Year TBR

Audiobooks

We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman (memoir, nonfiction; history, war, politics)
We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafzai (nonfiction; memoir, feminism, politics)
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (poetry, YA contemporary, lgbt; queer girls)

Poetry & graphic novels

Sweetdark by Savannah Brown (poetry)
Paper Girls vol. 3 – 6 (graphic novel)
On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden (graphic novel, lgbt; f/f, sci-fi)

Science

The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go From Here by Hope Jahren (science; climate change)
Love and Math by Edward Frenkel (science; math)
Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku (science; physics)
Astrobiology: A Very Short Introduction by David C. Catling (science)
The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry (was also on 2019 TBR oops, philosophy; disability)

Fantasy & sci-fi

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett (fantasy)
The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust #2) by Philip Pullman (fantasy)
Dune by Frank Herbert (read for bookclub, a classic sci-fi)

Etc.

Kant: A Very Short Introduction by Roger Scruton (nonfiction; philosophy – preparing for obligatory philosophy class in spring)
The Trial by Franz Kafka (reread for bookclub, classic)
A norwegian collection of debut poets – Signaler 2019
Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman (politics)
A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver (nonfiction; poetry writing)
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

The Eleven Books I Never Seem to Finish (Part Two)

July 27, 2020July 27, 2020aquapages // eline2 Comments

I’ve got a currently-reading shelf on goodreads that always contains too many books that I picked up and never really finished or stopped reading. And then I made a post all about my excuses and what I liked or didn’t like about them, which got way to long and this is the second part of that. Here’s part one.