what?
I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. It’s what it says on the tin: I read books that made me think of my co-bloggers for whatever reason, no matter how trivial. In fact, all of my reasons are pretty trivial. So take that as you will. That’s all there is to it. These aren’t “I think my co-bloggers would like these books.” They’re simply, “These books made me think of them.” You’ll notice that some of these picks aren’t fantasy, scifi, or speculative in the slightest. Okay.
Anyway, this post is pretty long, so here are links:
sara
on top of glass: my stories as a queer girl in figure skating by karina manta
Why? This book makes me think of Sara because I have this hunch that she likes figure skating. It’s just a hunch, though; I don’t have anything to back it up.
(cw: ED, anxiety, body image)
On Top of Glass tells multiple stories of Karina Manta’s journey of self-discovery. They’re focused and intertwined mainly with her journey as a figure skater. Something I didn’t know before reading this book is that figure skating is different from ice dancing. I think Manta describes it as like, figure skating → pop, ice dancing → alternative music. Or something along those lines.
There’s a story where she talks about how she first came out as “not straight” and how she looked online for types of sexualities. I thought it was admirable how she admitted that she realized she wasn’t straight but also didn’t know which “label” fit her. Spoiler: she ends up with “bisexual” because, in her words, it fits who she is the best. But the journey of self-discovery for her went beyond “Okay, I’m not straight,” and I liked how she shared that. And then not to mention having to actually come out to her friends. She also notes that coming out is a continuous process, not a one-time event.
I also enjoyed reading about her figure skating career and its evolution. She talks about discovering ice dancing and becoming absolutely enraptured by it, watching and memorizing YouTube videos. She becomes an “encyclopedia” of ice dancing information (her word). Something I appreciated was how she is up-front about her struggles with anxiety, her body image, and an ED. I can’t imagine these things were easy to discuss, but she was so open about them. She’s also not shy about admitting that her decisions were sometimes harmful to others. She wasn’t always the hero of the story. And you can tell she loves figure skating. It’s not sugar-coated or anything. The sport is talked about in a way that you can just tell it’s in her bones.
Anyway, that’s it.
tam
the last dog on earth by adrian j. walker
Why? Dog! Tam has a dog. That’s, um, why this book made me think of them. Look, I never said my reasons were going to exactly be deep.
CW: a minor character dogwhistling, which is addressed within the book itself
The Last Dog on Earth is a book about a man and his dog holed up in a second-storey flat while the end of the world and riots rage on outside. Reginald is agoraphobic and severely doesn’t like human touch. Lineker, his dog, just wants to show what a loyal dog he can be. But then one day a girl shows up—not speaking but drawing the two shut-ins outside to save her and themselves.
This book is told from the perspective of Lineker and Reginald. I was pleasantly surprised that the dog was given a full-fledged character. While his chapters do contain some humorous moments due to dog-perspective tropes, they aren’t treated as side-quests but as an equally important half to Reginald’s chapters. Speaking of which, his chapters are mainly told in the form of “journal entries.” I found this to be brilliant for his character, given his avoidance of people. And! He’s a writer. So to me it made perfect sense that he’d be comfortable writing down his story in journals rather than “narrating” it to us himself.
All that said, while I did enjoy this book, I think in the long run it won’t be one I’ll think back on in the future. It’s the type of book that was good in the moment but doesn’t leave that lasting of an impression. I think the reason is that while the characters were well written and fleshed out, the actual plot seemed to take a step back. In general this is fine, but that didn’t seem like the intention here.
Overall, this book was filled with humorous and poignant moments. I thought it was an entertaining, in-the-moment read. I liked reading from both the dog’s and the man’s perspectives.
And that’s all for that!
wol
the house of owls by tony angell
Why? Owls! Yes, that’s it.
This is gonna be a rather short review. The House of Owls is pretty much what it says on the tin: a book about owls. The author talks about his experience with observing owls and lots of interesting facts about them. Throughout, we also learn bits about the author himself.
I thought the book did a great job of presenting the information of owls in interesting and compelling ways. He’s also an illustrator, so the book is filled with fantastic illustrations of the owls he’s talking about. I learned a lot about owls I didn’t know before. A great, quick read!
But wait! There’s more! I also read The Hidden Lives of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Nature’s Most Elusive Birds by Leigh Calvez.
This is a good book, but it feels very surface level. I wish it would’ve gone deeper into either the author’s own personal journey or deeper into the science of owls. That being said, the writing was approachable, and I did learn a few things.
jenia
politeness: some universals in language usage by brown & levinson
Why? Linguistics. Also, I already had this book on my shelf. (Finally a topic I have some knowledge on!) This will definitely be the longest review in this list, simply due to how much there is to unpack.
Brown & Levinson’s theory of politeness was influential, and that’s practically an understatement. First published around 1976, they later added an expanded introduction where they addressed various criticisms, applications, and general thoughts on their original paper. Brown & Levinson’s theory of politeness relies on the assumption that two factors are universal (i.e., that they occur in all societies): 1) people have face, 2) people are concerned with maintaining their own face and/or protecting other people’s face. Their theory is also grounded in the assumption that the Gricean maxims are essentially true.
What is face? They use the colloquial meaning here, like in the phrase, “to save face.” They posit that people have a positive face and a negative face. A positive face is essentially one of wanting to belong to the group. A negative face is essentially one of wanting independence. (Just to be clear, there is no value judgment on “positive” or “negative.”) The book gives attention mainly to three languages: English, Tzeltal, and Tamil. However, they cite various other papers showing that an abundance of other languages fit the theory as well. So anyway, what is the theory?
Basically, various modes of communication instill (or have the possibility to) a face-threatening act (FTA). Requests, apologies, criticisms, congratulations, etc. The paper makes it clear that they don’t assume an FTA happens in literally every instance of communication, though. But when a possible FTA occurs, there are various strategies on how to mitigate it or not:
- Bald on record: Do the FTA; screw the consequences! (“Read this book!”)
- Positive politeness: Mitigate the FTA by making the person feel like part of the in-group. (“Let’s read this book together!”)
- Negative politeness, On-record: Mitigate the FTA by giving the person an “out.” On-record because it uses conventional language that’s obviously a request. (“Do you want to maybe buddy read this book?”)
- Negative politeness, Off-record: Same as the previous one. Off-record because while it’s still technically a request, the wording gives leeway for the addressee to not interpret it as such. (“That’s a great book. We should read it together sometime.”)
- Off-record: literally just not doing anything
Now, there are some things that must be said. Different cultures will use one strategy more or less than the others. For example, in a positive politeness society, the frequent use of negative politeness strategies might come across as overly distancing. Furthermore, the power dynamics and relationship between the speaker & addressee matter. For example, one could assume that a boss would be more comfortable using a bald on record strategy with an employee, whereas an employee might use a negative politeness strategy to their boss.
Obviously, this is a crash course and doesn’t even begin to dive into all the nuances of the theory. (The book is about 283 pages, not including notes and indices.) Brown & Levinson go into incredible detail, giving various examples across the three aforementioned languages. They also offer suggestions on applications in fields such as social anthropology, linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Has it received criticism? Yes. For instance, Richard Watts (2003) posits that it’s not actually a theory of politeness but a theory of face. He doesn’t necessarily disagree with them on what they’re claiming; he disagrees on what they’re claiming it applies to. Another big name in the field you’ll often see cropping up is Jonathan Culpeper. His focus is in (im)politeness, and he has published The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politness with Michael Haugh and Daniel Kadar. He also has a website on impoliteness, detailing some of his theories and research. (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/impoliteness/). Again, he’s not necessarily against Brown & Levinson’s overall theory. His research does, however, show that their theory can be expanded and modified; and that impoliteness isn’t necessarily just “do bald on record strategies at inappropriate times.”
Brown & Levinson’s theory has also been applied to the world of ESL—most notably in studies involving how students across cultures respond to corrections.
There are legitimate reasons to use every strategy depending on the context. (Note: For all intents and purposes, these “strategies” aren’t consciously chosen. People don’t think, “Okay, this person is a stranger. We look to be about the same age. We’re in the US. Therefore, I’m going to use a negative politeness strategy to request something from them.”) Once you’re familiar with the theory, it can be interesting seeing the various strategies pop up in, for example, book reviews.
So yeah, this has been an extremely surface level look at Brown & Levinson’s politeness theory.
travis
kalila stormfire’s economical magick services by lisette alvarez
Why? I hear Trav is the main person behind the Inn’s podcast apparently? And that he’s a big fan of audio dramas? But don’t quote me on that.
Kalila Stormfire’s Economical Magick Services is a wildly delightful audio drama about an independent witch who sets up shop in the city to offer help to others—just no love spells. Unfortunately, someone or something keeps trying to sabotage her business.
It’s three seasons long with about 42 episodes. However, this doesn’t include various “initiate files” episodes where Kalila does tarot readings for various people, including some crossovers. The series begins in a straightforward podcast style; Kalila records her thoughts in an audio journal, telling us about the client (or lack of clients) she recently had. However, as the series grows (and the budget), the cast expands to include more characters played by a variety of voice actors. The series features a diverse cast of characters from different races, sexualities, neurodiversities, etc. It’s set in our world but reimagined. It touches on a variety of issues; any episodes with content warnings have them at the beginning.
What I loved about the series is how expansive it became. Kalila goes from trying to figure out how to run this small business of hers to slowly being dragged into the middle of a much larger conflict. There’s a portal fantasy element later on that worked so well. I also loved seeing Kalila grow as a character as things moved forward. She falls in love with one of her clients, Desiree Onasis. They become almost like an anchor for her. They become such an integral part of the story, and they’re one of the first people to fully accept all parts of Kalila. Desiree quickly became one of my favorite characters.
This was such a blast to listen to. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to give audio dramas a chance but just aren’t sure where to look. The worldbuilding is slow but steady. The writing is entertaining. And the cast is spectacular. Episodes can be found wherever podcasts can be downloaded.
Hiu
the cask of cranglimmering by dawn vogel
Why? Some people might have expected a book about cabbages. That’d be too easy. (Though, I mean…that’s not a good excuse since I took the easy route for everyone else.) Actually, books revolving around cabbages are—you might want to sit down for this—pretty uncommon. Instead, I went with something else: whisk(e)y. Hi Hiu, does that spelling bother you?
The Cask of Cranglimmering by Dawn Vogel is a self-published science fantasy book about a cask of whiskey that has been stolen. Svetlana has one good eye and is the captain of The Silent Monsoon, a definitely-not-pirate ship. Solely involved in trading, though others view the two as interchangeable. She hears about the stolen cask and an enormous reward for retrieving it. She and her crew, of course, take up the offer. They run into more trouble when an ethereal ghost ship appears and steals away the one person who possibly could’ve helped them solve the mystery.
This novel straddles the line between whimsical and serious. It’s overall a very fun read with some great characters. It also features a bisexual main protagonist; it’s part of her character but isn’t a main focus in the story itself. For those who enjoy oddly specific tropes, this one has the “discovering old technology [but future technology for us as readers] that still works and has a quaint feeling” trope. Sorry, I don’t know how to phrase that. Other examples include The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey and A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers.
The world is one where airships are common. In fact, the oceans are all impassable due to literally being boiling. There’s a city built on different levels powered by an active geyser. You’ve got class politics at play as well. It’s all pretty fast-paced as well.
Sometimes the chapter transitions do come off as a little jarring. This might sound like an odd complaint, but sometimes it’s like the chapters obviously stopped/started where they did. That is, the lead-in to the new chapters feels disjointed at times, like we’ve missed out on some information. Something else that might bother people is that this book ends on a cliff-hanger. It’s part of a trilogy, and—well—not everything is answered.
All in all, this was a fast, fun read with lots of whimsy and adventure. It leans more on the scifi side of science fantasy as well. I’m happy I decided to read this and will probably be looking into the sequels.
conclusion
I think this was a lot of fun to do! No lengthy conclusion cause the post is long enough already. Bye!
