the problem is that there are like a dozen books that this sounds like, but the one I read actually was pretty good

I feel like I read the beginning of a semi-recent (but probably pre-pandemic) book about sweden or norway that was really informative for, kind of, the social history of the last century that makes it the way it is, and for the life of me, cannot remember what it was.

I don't know if you know this, but @zunguzungu.bsky.social is one of the founders of a thing called the OAKLAND REVIEW OF BOOKS which both is and isn't what it sounds like. It has a website now — which both does and doesn't look like a regular website. www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org

Showing up to No Kings with a sign reading “monarchy is an affront to human dignity but, when incorporated into a liberal democratic system, may nevertheless be a useful safety valve for nationalist and/or authoritarian impulses” and then getting clobbered by a Buttigieg-supporting grandmother

Point at the sky, you cowards!

It's Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, October 14 - October 19: www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/calendar/

🔥🔥🔥

This looks so good.

Here's a podcast where two guys read every Kurt Vonnegut novel and talk about them endlessly, in case you were worried this opinion wasn't sourced in solid facts gradschoolvonnegut.libsyn.com/0-grad-schoo...

lol deep cut

ok, here's one you cowards: Kurt Vonnegut is the most creative and innovative postmodern writer of his cohort and people who don't like him are just mad that 15 year olds dig his novels

yes! and there ARE lots of good ones out there. it's just that so many bad novels use the BAD version of that, and there are SO many bad novels

It is kind of funny that his memory of falling in love with her is, essentially, that she looked like both a child *and* a gorgeous woman, like, does he literally not have people to help him TRY to beat the allegations?

You officially live in a “show me your papers” nation, if you were wondering how far along things are now.

And ICE took his unhoused friend.

the kind of vulgar freudianism that animates a LOT of novels that center around a buried trauma in the past is often the very worst and least insightful model of the human psyche

"If Huckleberry Finn was a gorgeous young woman, he’d be Keaton" would be less of a wild thing to say if he wasn't, you know, Woody Allen

he's old, but you know, I wouldn't have thought that was news, I bet he remembers a lot of people

What are the odds Bari and Olivia subscribe to the “nothing before eight years ago” school of journalism?

happy Sacco and Vanzetti day, everyone

I actually bought it because of this but I've been enjoying it www.msn.com/en-ca/news/w...

Irish authors so often really execute on premises that, if it were an American writer, I would put right back on the shelf

am enjoying Naoise Dolan's The Happy Couple. light and fun, well executed

fwiw www.etsy.com/search?q=TAK...

dudes rock

“I had previously assumed a 10-year depreciation curve, which I now recognize as quite unrealistic...Based on my conversations over the past month, the physical data centers last for three to ten years, at most.” futurism.com/future-socie...