everything there is made of light

I am right on the edge of getting ill, I think, that sort of tiredness that is more in the head than in the rest of the body, where I am slow to react and slow to think and everyday things feel just a little bit too much, so having done a fair amount of parenting (video games with smol son, colouring with smol daughter, making sure both of them are reasonably fed), I have left them to sit with their uncle while their father our spouse makes dinner, and I myself am lying on the bed with my laptop and Spotify and a cup of maple ginger tea.

Listening to Strange Angels inevitably took me to thinking about Pamela Dean's novel Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, and then to the enjoyable reading old rec.arts.sf.written posts about it. It does not quite work for me as a book, but I love it and find it fascinating, and it introduced me to Anderson's album, which I likely would not love so much if it did not carry the extra resonance of Dean's story. I think I have read the book too recently to reread it, but it is tempting... perhaps I will reread The Secret Country trilogy instead, I have not read it in many years and I bought them all as ebooks a while back -- I own them all on paper but I really do find ebooks (with their resizable font and compact nature) more convenient.

On another note, I have been doing Drops every day to study Japanese, although I have not yet done today for reasons which escape me -- right now because my ipad is downstairs and I am upstairs and I do not want to move, which is not the best reason but it is something like one. And I will have to go down soon anyway, because dinner; spouse is making turkey chili in the InstantPot, which is excellent, and the children may need supplementary foods -- but just a few minutes of sitting here first.

All of the thinking about Dean's book made me think about how one ambition I had, once, was to be the sort of reviewer of books that did such justice to them that an author I loved might be glad I had written about their book. I am not certain what that would look like in the practical world, but it is something to consider as I continue to think about ambition and desire and writing/creating and just what it is I want to do with myself beyond all the things I am already doing.

Reading Update

Not on Wednesday, because on Wednesday there was a baker's dozen of Girl Scouts whose decisions I needed to facilitate, but now seems good. Where am I with my books?

Recently Finished
Far Afield by Shane Mitchell, which was a marvelous combination of travelogue and recipe that felt grounded in Mitchell's experience of the places she wrote about. The photographs were beautiful and also interestingly chosen; much food, yes, but also the people, and the people in action, doing the things that are important to them -- fishing, riding, herding sheep, praying. The book felt respectful rather than wide-eyed at the cultures it portrayed, which I appreciated.

I also finished Stevenson's Miss Buncle Married and am now confirmed in my belief that I do not really like Stevenson, so I sent the rest back to the library. It is just too much farce and not enough real people.

Tana French's The Witch Elm was unsurprisingly very good, although having just finished it I am still sorting out what I think about all of the pieces -- and I started to talk about how it is not my favourite, but then I wanted to say which one is my favourite and I am not certain, I like them all so much in different ways, I think that is a post of its own.

On the Go
Eat My Words by Janet Theophano, which suffers from being from 2002, before Google had digitised so many records, so there is a lot of Theophano explaining how impossible it is to find information about various women whose cookbooks she is studying, whereas I can spend five minutes on Google and get a slew of geneaology, census records, church records, etc etc etc. It makes it an odd reading experience; I really am interested in the texts themselves, but my interest in Theophano's analysis of the texts is fragmented by the amount of time she spends speculating about things which are now more knowable. I will finish it but it is not thrilling me.

A Traveller in Time by Allison Uttley is a children's story about time travel that is not structured at all like I would have expected -- it is much less a straightforward adventure and much more circular and reflective. I am about 3/4 of the way through and curious to see how it ends up so I can consider it properly.

Carol Anderson's White Rage is about the history of structural racism in the US. I am finding it very necessary reading but I have to take breaks because it is so infuriating; I am hoping as it moves closer to the present day I can start figuring out specific ways to address some of the things she explains, because I am appalled at what has been done and that I have gone so long without really knowing about it.

Forthcoming
I read the first Binti book by Nnedi Okorafor, was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it, and now have two more waiting for me.

Rice, Noodle, Fish is another food travelogue, this one by Matt Goulding, focused on Japan.

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing, it looks like it is both about loneliness as an experience and about specific artists being lonely in New York and how that shaped their art.

I hear the sounds of the Instant Pot venting its pressure, so now downstairs for dinner.