Florence, planless and plotless in 2026

(Painting by Gabriele Münter, from the exhibition at Musée d'art moderne de Paris)

I finished my first book of the year last night, so I guess it's time to start my 2026 thread.

I'm Florence, living near Paris, France. I resist plans of any sort, though I do have one this year, as I started the 2 year countdown to retirement. I don't plan on reading about it except boring online stuff. In the meantime I'm still enjoying my job in IT. The company I freelance full time for moved offices a couple of years ago, and though the new premises are very nice, they lack a library in the vicinity. I still have the rather well stocked library in my hometown though.

In my free time I'm also a visual artist, mostly video improvisations with musicians these days, some of which you can see on Vimeo.

I like to say I am plot challenged, as I have a hard time remembering enough of the beginning to understand what happens at the end. So my reading preferences are mostly driven by characters (I like to feel that the author has some empathy for all characters, even the bad ones) and writing. And romance! I read a lot of light fiction, especially SFF, especially romantasy, and also, in varying proportions, more "serious" literature. Hopefully the proportions will be more balanced this year. I'm still reading Moby Dick, but I keep getting distracted by easier or shiny new stuff, so it's progressing very slowly.

I am hosting the Short Fiction thread here on CR, so you'd think I was a heavy reader of short stories. I do try to read from time to time from one of the gazillion short story anthologies or collections I have on my ereader, or from links I find here or elsewhere.

This year I'm also hosting the Nonfiction thread. At the moment I am going through a Renaissance phase, and La France de la Renaissance was one of the three paper books I acquired last year. Unfortunately I couldn't find the book by the same title (La France de la Renaissance, histoire et dictionnaire) that I have to return to the library today. The one I bought only contains the first part of the one at the library, which I will have to borrow again. I wanted to keep it because it has a dictionary at the end. Oh well.

For Christmas I got (on my request) a doorstopper entitled Féminicides, une histoire mondiale. It's made up of many articles and excerpts, so it will take me a long time to read it. I will approach it wi5 my critical eyes wide open, especially the part about the European witch-hunts, which I'm pretty sure will contain some very debatable theories. I look forward to some fact checking and rabbit hole falling.

The third (chronologically the first) paper book I acquired last year is Amber Eyes and Other Stories by Joan D. Vinge. I liked it so much I immediately read Psion, and the first book I finished in 2026 is Catspaw. I love Vinge's characters and world building, and Cat's character is unforgettable. I would try to explain why, but the author herself tells it best in her 1996 introduction to Psion:

One of the things that makes him so real to me (and from the mail I get, to others) is his complexity: he's not easy to peg as hero or villain; his appearance and actions make him seem as one kind of person, while inside he's something else entirely. He takes a perverse pleasure in turning other people's perceptions about him upside down. He's a mass of conflicts: smart, loyal, tender, streetwise ... distrustful, cynical, and self-destructive. His idea of "normal" is pain and rejection, because that is all he's ever known.

I'm planning to read the third Cat book soon, and probably other Vinge books too.

Well, that's it for now. Onward to a new year of reading!

I love your thread title, Florence! Welcome back, and happy new year!

>2 labfs39: Thank you Lisa! A wonderful new year to you also!

Happy new year, Florence. Curious about what you mean by debatable theories on witch hunts, looking forward to your thoughts.

>4 LolaWalser: Happy New Year Lola!

I'll try to give you some background and explain my thinking.

I heard about this book in an interview with the editor and co-author Christelle Taraud on the podcast les couilles sur la table. The interview was very interesting. She started with the European witch hunts, which she sees as an effort to put women "back in their place" in a new vision of patriarchy that was evolving at the time (I hope I am not distorting what she said, I did not take notes and my memory is a bit vague). So as a hypothesis this sounded shocking but believable to this non historian. However, I started to have misgivings when Taraud cited Silvia Federici as an authority on witch hunts. Unfortunately I had already heard about Federici, and not in a good way. I hunted down the article below, which I vaguely remembered reading a few years ago:

Caliban et la sorcière, ou l’Histoire au bûcher
Part 1
Part 2

During the interview Taraud stated that the number of victims of the European witch hunts was at least 500,000. She said this was the consensus among historians. It's not. According to Wikipedia, the consensus seems to be in the vicinity of 40 to 60,000, with one estimation peaking at 100,000.

So again, the theories defended by Federici and Taraud and others may have some merit, but it's hard for this lay person to give any credit to historians who seem to ignore the consensus in their own profession. I mean, they can disagree with the consensus and give arguments for opposing theories, but to simply ignore it, to pretend it is other than it is, seems extremely unprofessional to me.

Happy New Year Florence. Lovely opening picture.

>5 FlorenceArt: very interesting!

>5 FlorenceArt: Interesting!

Also, great picture at the top of your thread

Happy New Year Florence

>5 FlorenceArt:

Hmm, well, I'm more inclined to trust Federici than Wikipedia (over 90% of editors being men) and that awful, tendentious hatchet job on Mediapart (invoking Michelet as a comparatively respectable historical study of the subject is laughable, for instance). Regarding just the disputed number of persecuted "witches", as far as I can tell she (Federici) wrote about "hundreds of thousands", not precisely 500,000. I'm willing to listen to the arguments for hundreds of thousands vs. tens of thousands of victims because I find it perfectly plausible that that many women? (not sure whether they include male victims) had been, if not outright killed, then persecuted over the centuries.

Really interested in how the topic develops. I think I have a recent French book on it in a queue somewhere, but not, IIRC, by Taraud (maybe Mona Chollet?) Anyway, happy reading!

>6 dchaikin: >7 Nickelini: >8 baswood: Thanks! Happy New Year to you all!

>9 LolaWalser: Well, again, she's entitled to contest the consensus of course, if she has proof. I don't know if she does that but maybe I'll find out in the book. The 500,000 figure is Taraud's indeed, not Federici's.

Thought it might be a good time to do some cleaning up at the beginning of the year in my "nominally reading" list. But I didn't find that many books to cull, just a bunch of "oh I need to get back to this... some day!"

I think I will officially stop reading The Saint of Bright Doors. I've been forcing myself to get back to it but I can't connect. I think it's the writing. The present tense narration doesn't work for me.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi doesn't really draw me in either. It's on page 9 of my Reading list (5 books per page) and I really don't feel like fishing it up.

Right below Amina are Ovid's Metamorphoses. I think I got the wrong translation. It felt right at first though.

I have to admit I gave up on The Blinding Knife. I love the characters but the plot is just too complex, and switching viewpoints make me dizzy.

I started A Book of Days today and I think that's a dud right there. I feel betrayed. Patty Smith is the author of my favoritest song ever. I knew she had branched out into other arts and wanted to check out her writing, so when I saw a recommendation somewhere on LT, I bought this without looking. I should have stayed with my original idea to read her memoir about Robert Mapplethorpe. But not right now when I'm mad at her.

Some books that I need to bring up to page 1 or 2 and start reading again:
99 Erics: A Kat Cataclysm Faux Novel
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
Petite histoire de l'Afrique
Witch King: I tried to read this when I was too stressed out for anything more sophisticated than simple romance. I need to give it another try.
La mémoire de Babel
Trans: A Memoir
The Twice-Drowned Saint: I didn't really give this one a chance

And soooo many others...

>11 FlorenceArt: “ But not right now when I'm mad at her.” 🙂 A good idea. Just Kids is a lovely memoir, though

>12 dchaikin: Thanks, noted !

My first short story of the year is "A Cautionary Tale" by Deborah Eisenberg.

While scrolling down the "reading" list on my ereader, I rediscovered The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg. I bought this some time after reading her contribution to The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013, which was sad and beautiful. The book is organized chronologically I think, and I was a bit disappointed by the first stories, from the collection Transactions in a Foreign Currency. Today I read the first one in Under the 82nd Airborne. I loved it, and I'm glad I found this collection again. Now it's on top of my reading list and I will try to keep it there by reading from it regularly.

>14 FlorenceArt: nice. Rediscoveries are free.

>15 dchaikin: Thanks Dan! I just found out that the story I read is available on the New Yorker web site. Here’s the link:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/03/23/a-cautionary-tale

I also like Eisenberg though have mainly read her stories while staying with a friend who owns the Collected Stories, so dip in and out over years!

The conversation about witches is interesting. Looking forward to your thoughts on Féminicides, une histoire mondiale. And I'll take a look at the non-fiction thread.

>17 wandering_star: She had a lot of stories published in the New Yorker. I don’t know how many of them are available without a subscription but here is the link: https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/deborah-eisenberg

>18 Dilara86: I feel there are a lot of myths around witches in some feminist circles, which was why I will approach that part of the book with some (not too much I hope) skepticism.

>5 FlorenceArt: >9 LolaWalser: Interesting. I think I'll go back to a book I was reading but set aside last year: Agnes Finnie: The Witch of the Potterrow Port. The author seems to be suggesting that Agnes was persecuted for her economic skills, with witchcraft a mere excuse. Granted, this is only one person, but it makes sense that others suffered the same fate.

>21 SassyLassy: I’m sure there were many cases like that. Women who were too powerful, women who were different, women who someone wanted to get rid of. The only thing that is clear from the little that I read is that it’s a very complex phenomenon, and maybe not that well understood. It occurred in very different places and contexts. Women were the overwhelming majority of victims so that has to mean something, but the proportions varied from place to place, and in some few cases men were the majority. In this case I think it’s really justified to say that "it’s complicated".

>14 FlorenceArt: I’d forgotten about Deborah Eisenberg - I remember I really enjoyed a story or two of hers a few years ago, though I can’t recall what or where.

>23 rachbxl: I guess it’s easy to forget her as her name doesn’t seem to pop up often around here, which is a shame.

Short story:

The Wives of Paris
Marie Brennan
In Mythic Delirium 1

They offered him a beautiful woman, power over men, victory in war.
So of course he chose the beautiful woman. He was a young man, after all.

What if Paris had made another choice? Fun exploration of alternate myths.

Currently reading:
On audio (with my mother): La Maison vide by Laurent Mauvignier
On audio (on my own): Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth by Adèle Yon
On paper: La France de la Renaissance by Arlette Jouanna
Library book: L'Art au XVIe siècle By Stefano Zuffi
E-book: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous François Ier
E-book: Une autre histoire de la Renaissance by Didier Le Fur

Plus some so-so SF fictions that I'm not sure I will finish.

ETA: touchstone fixed!

>26 FlorenceArt: fun update. It looks like a lot of interesting things

>27 dchaikin: Maybe too many! But yes, it's interesting stuff.

I had some trouble differentiating the two audio books at first, as they are both on a similar theme (family history). But they are very different, and the narrator is different, which helps.

>29 FlorenceArt: last month i was confusing my reading of Edith Wharton’s autobiography with my listening of Margaret Atwood’s. This was only while they were very young. Once Atwood started having boyfriends, i was in the clear. Wharton was certainly not going to acknowledge anything of that sort. 🙂

>30 dchaikin: 😄

Short story:
The Litany of Earth
By Ruthanna Emrys

Read in The Long List Anthology, which I’d been neglecting. I liked this novella. Apprently it is famous enough to have its own wikipedia page! I didn’t catch the Lovecraft reference (well, I did recognize the mentions of Cthulhu and the Necronomicon, but I don’t know enough Lovecraft to have recognized The Shadow over Innsmouth).

Now I’m intrigued. Maybe I should find the Lovecraft story and read it. I’m sure it has a very different outlook.

Looking forward to your reviews of La France de la Renaissance and Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous François Ier, which I might pick up if you find them decent...

>33 Dilara86: I like La France de la Renaissance a lot, though I’m reading it slowly because I don’t take paper books with me on the metro. I like her take on history much better than Le Fur’s.

Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris sous François Ier is not THE famous Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, although they are roughly from the same period. In fact I discovered that this is a very popular title, there are journaux d’un bourgeois de Paris for every era, even one Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris pendant la guerre du golfe I think (no touchstone for that one apparently).

Anyway the one I’m reading is interesting enough, and I downloaded the other one, the famous one, and plan to read it afterward.

>34 FlorenceArt: Thank you for this! Noted :-)

I switched Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth from audio to ebook. Because I needed one more ebook in my Reading Now list of course 😇

The Lasaran
Dianne Duvall
Aldebaran Alliance 1

A romantasy with all the clichés you can think about, and not very well written. I should probably have abandoned it, but I did care a little about the characters (all beautiful and nice of course). I will not go as far as picking up the next book, or any book by this author.

>1 FlorenceArt: Happy New Year! I love the painting in your first post. Looking forward to your thread this year.

>38 rasdhar: Thank you!

Short story
A Guide To the Fruits of Hawai’i
Alaya Dawn Johnson
In The Long List Anthology
Beautiful but sad and hopeless

Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth
Adèle Yon

"À vingt-cinq ans, on a toutes posé des questions sur Betsy"

The women in Yon’s family live under the weight of a vague threat of mental illness, exemplified by the fate of her great-grandmother Elisabeth, known as Betsy. Everybody knows about Betsy, but nobody knows exactly what the trouble was with her, although schizophrenia is often mentioned.

Yon is a researcher, she is writing a thesis on phantom doubles in cinema. She decides to go look for the facts. What she finds instead, or in addition to a few spare facts, is a lot of stories and interpretations, often contradictory.

I liked this book a lot. It works on several levels. There is of course the story, or stories, of Betsy, a strong independent woman with a tendency to anger, who was subjected to horrible "treatments". Ever heard of cure de Sakel (insulin shock therapy in English)? I hadn’t. And when that didn’t work, she was lobotomised. There is her husband, a man obsessed with religion who was obviously incapable of dealing with a lively, intelligent, independent wife.

There are the multiple Betsy stories, legends, rumors, memories, told by her surviving descendants, and the contradicting ways in which each of them tells and interprets them. In the last chapter, Yon gives up on reconstructing Betsy’s true story and invents her own, which makes as much sense as any of the others.

There is also a history of lobotomy and its uses. It was supposed to alleviate the patient’s suffering, but the case descriptions often emphasize her return to socially acceptable behavior. And yes, although there is no large scale study to prove this, there is a strong suspicion that a large majority of the victims were women.

There are also, in passing, plot summaries of Rebecca (the movie by Alfred Hitchcock) and Jane Eyre (the book) which completely changed my view of these books (I don’t think I’ve seen the movie Rebecca, but I think the summary applies to the book also).

It’s also very well written, which doesn’t hurt.

I heard about this book on the feminist podcast Les couilles sur la tables, and possibly also on CR.

>41 FlorenceArt: I heard about this book (...) possibly also on CR.
I read it and posted about it last November. Clearly you liked it more than I did :-D

>42 Dilara86: Thanks for the link! Indeed I must have vaguely remembered your mentioning this book, but I had completely forgotten your review :-)

>41 FlorenceArt: This book make me think about L'étrange disparition d'Esme Lennox / The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell. A book I have not read but which has been on my wishlist for ages.

Not in the mood for books about mental illness those days, so I'll pass, at least for the moment. But the subject is indeed rather interesting.

>44 raton-liseur: Yes, Esme Lennox sounds interesting !

>44 raton-liseur: I stayed up late into the night when reading Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. I could not put it down.

>46 labfs39: Don't tempt me...
I'm reading a bit more regularly CR threads and again, find temptations all over the place, more than what I can possiby read...

Thanks to Kate (@kjuliff), I discovered this short story: The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson. A story of the hard life in the Australian bush. This is from the late 19th century but the writing felt more modern to me. I liked it.

>48 FlorenceArt: The Drover’s Wife is such a wonderful story. I am glad that you got to read it. Henry Lawson was ahead of his time . You might try looking at his collective stories., but the Drover’s Wife is my favourite.

>49 kjuliff: Writers of his time do not always work for me, they often feel wordy and pompous, but this story’s prose was spare and to the point.

>48 FlorenceArt: Thank you for the link to the short story: it was very interesting. The use of the present tense felt quite modern.

>51 Dilara86: ~Yes, although written well over a century ago, there’s a modern, “in the moment” feel to Henry Lawson’s works.

>48 FlorenceArt: Sounds interesting. I might give it a try. It could be a nice come back to the Australian bush after my long (and not really satisfying) visit with Patrick White and Voss...

>49 kjuliff: Thanks for putting this short story on the radar of many of us! That's one of the reasons Club Read is so great!

Dark Joy
Christine Feehan
Carpathians 39

It’s been a while since I read Feehan. I discovered the Carpathians series in 2021, and read them almost back to back until I was caught up with the whole series. It was amusing seeing the series evolve. The first books were very chaste, then the sex scenes became more steamy as the series progressed. And then she tried to get a little more current with the gender thing. The problem with that, is the whole Carpathian world is based on gender stereotypes.

So what we have is a woman who insists on making her own decisions, but guess what, she ends up deciding to join the Carpathian world just like we knew from the start she would. (To be fair, this is one of the reasons I love reading this kind of book: there is no suspense since I know how it ends.)

I will copy here the comments I posted to LT in 2023, because they still pretty much express how I feel about this series:

Feehan’s books are a big heap of gender stereotypes. Men are big (yeah, like you think), hard (likewise), possessive, protective, dangerous, always on the verge of extreme violence, and beautiful, but, you know, in a masculine way.
Women are soft, courageous, loving, and beautiful in the eye of their man. Now that I’ve started to write this, I find that I have a lot less to say about her women, because they are more diverse than the men, there aren’t as many characteristics that could apply to all of them.

And then don’t get me started on the new age bullshit.

But hey, I enjoy her books anyway. One more on the huge pile of shameful reads.

>54 FlorenceArt: One more on the huge pile of shameful reads. - We all have them!

>55 SassyLassy: 😁

I feel I’ve been a little too tough on Christine Feehan. I meant to say that with all her faults, she does know how to tell a story, and I truly enjoy her Carpathian books.

I saw that her son is also writing romance and I’ve been mildly curious to see how similar, or not, his books are. I haven’t tried them yet though.

>54 FlorenceArt: One more on the huge pile of shameful reads. why not?

>57 baswood: Indeed! I think 2021 was the year I finally gave my romance addiction free reign. Still, I was happy to discover that there are also books that are less heavily loaded with stereotypes, so that I can feel slightly less guilty reading them 😉

The Boy Bride
A. J. Demas
Lion & Snake 1

I love A. J. Demas’s romances. This one’s only fault is that there is no number 2 yet, so I’ll have to wait to continue reading about Lill and Vanu. I miss them already.

Short story:

Hope Is the Thing With Circuits and Steel.

Weirdly poetic, which is exactly how I like flash fiction.

That sounds very interesting but the link doesn't seem to be working for me

>61 wandering_star: Fixed, sorry!

On Thursday I learned that a sketching festival is taking place this weekend in my city: Carnets d'hiver. The main event is tomorrow, but today there were two free workshops in the city's libraries. The info on the site is not very clear but I managed to get registered for the second one, with Alex Kuo from Taiwan. I had no idea what the workshop was about (well, apart from sketching) and was ready to be disappointed, but it was very interesting. We all received a stick made from a cherry tree twig and a small plastic vial containing India ink poured on gauze, which is a great way to carry it around without risk that it will spill out. He demonstrated how he uses those tools (very useful tip: when drawing a building, he starts by placing dots at the beginning and end of lines; that way you don't lose sight of your shape as you are drawing your line, as I tend to do), and then gave us a photo of a building in Taiwan, and we all tried to sketch it.





As usual, I took the quick and dirty (aka lazy) path and was finished way before the others.

I enjoyed this, I learned something, came away with a nice drawing stick, and left my contact to a woman who is planning to start a WhatsApp group to organize drawing outings in my area.

Wow! I haven't seen any of your art in ages. Thanks for posting.

>64 labfs39: Thanks! My interest in drawing is intermittent at best, and mostly dependent on external triggers (in this case, @ursula's sketches). But maybe I will become more constant if this WhatsApp group pans out.

>62 FlorenceArt: Thank you - I really like that story

>63 FlorenceArt: Nice drawing!
You had "Carnets d'hiver". In the big city near where I live, this week-end is Jardins d'hiver. I guess it's the season!

Thank you for mentioning me here because it made me realize I hadn't been to your thread!

I love Gabriele Münter.

Cool that you went to the free workshop, it sounds like it was fun and interesting! I know a lot of people use that dot trick - I've tried it a little. I love your drawing, and I can relate, I also take the quick and lazy path! Sometimes people compliment me on how I "suggest" things instead of drawing them in detail, and I have to confess it's just that I lack patience for the details.

I hope the woman with the WhatsApp group comes through, it's so fun to draw on location with others!

>67 raton-liseur: Must be 😁

>68 ursula: Thanks. Well, the group is now created, so that’s a first step!

Rabbit hole warning!

I am still reading L'Art au XVIe siècle. The book contains many photos and reproductions with very enlightening comments, but due to the relatively small size of the book, I've been looking up some of the images to see them with better details online.

And this is how I found a fascinating Wikipedia article about the many portraits of Elizabeth I. It's worth following the link just to see the numerous portraits, but the article itself explains the history, politics and symbolism behind those. Not being familiar with English history, I may have missed some of the implications, but it was a very interesting read nonetheless.

The Orb of Cairado
Katherine Addison

At first I felt this would not be as good as her other books in the same world, and then, as usual, I was drawn into it. The main character is similar to the one in The Cemeteries of Amalo. The story, as usual, was very confusing, with character names I had difficulties remembering, places and institutions I did not really understand. I think you have to accept to be a little lost in translation to appreciate these books, or maybe it’s just me. I love them.

I am on holiday for two weeks! I had a couple of hours to kill before I leave for (hopefully) warmer climes tomorrow morning, and the weather was fine for a change, so I took my sketchbook to Vincennes and tried to exercise my newfound confidence…

Yay for two-week holidays! Warmer sounds good to me right about now.

I'm so glad you are sharing your drawings. Although not an artist myself, I love these glimpses into the process.

>73 labfs39: Thank you! I am planning to make this a drawing holiday, but we’ll see how that goes. I took with me Alex Kuo’s wood stick and the gauze+ink vial. And also my Pixma pen, which I feel more comfortable with TBH.

Short story:

Sliding Through Time by Shawn Kobb, in Flash Point Science Fiction

Of course I don’t remember where I got the link from, though it was probably on CR.

Time travel is weird. But it can be funny sometimes.

And another one from the same source. A cool idea, but I was not fully convinced by the writing, and the ending feels a bit naive.

The Fridged Wives Book Club by Carol Scheina

A Winter’s Earl
Annabelle Greene

And another queer regency romance! Honestly this one wasn’t more than OK. Too much drama and pathos, too many unnecessary plot twists for my taste.

>72 FlorenceArt: I love seeing your drawings! I hope you enjoyed the experience, and warmer weather is always good for sketching.

I like that you took both the comfortable option and the new one for your holiday.

>78 ursula: Thanks! It was fun. Apparently I missed Alex Kuo by a few hours? days? how does one see the date on an instagram post? Although he chose to draw the holy chapel that was on my back when I was drawing the castle.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUkq67HjKvV/?igsh=MTl0ZTlkOHVjMmIwMQ==

Intergalactic Exterminator, Inc.
Ash Bishop
The Intergalactic Archives 1

A Kobo Plus book I downloaded because the title sounded fun. It’s. It’s not as good as I could have hoped, but it was indeed fun. Lots of action and some humor. This was the authors’s first book, so maybe I’ll give his next one a try at some point: Intergalactic Waste Management, LLC.

>79 FlorenceArt: Ah! The reel doesn't show the date, but if I go to his profile and click on the post, it says it was posted 3 days ago. (Why it has to be that complicated, I have no idea)

>81 ursula: Strange, I see it on my phone but not on my iPad. Oh well. I guess he was there on Tuesday, so the day after I was. The weather was still fine I see! I did think about drawing the chapel, but I chickened out 🤭

I’ve been drawing a lot, with predictably uneven results. Not sure if I should post all of those. Maybe I will revive my dormant Flickr account.

La Distinction - Librement inspiré du livre de Pierre Bourdieu
Tiphaine Rivière

I’m ashamed to say this had sunk down several pages in my Kobo reading list. E-readers are not the ideal medium to read graphic work, and I tend to forget about them. But I found it somehow, and actually managed to finish it. Despite the long time it took me to read it, I loved this book. I doubt that I will read Bourdieu’s book (even though I bought it), and this is an excellent way not only to learn about it, but to see how relevant it is today. The theories are illustrated via the interactions between a high school social sciences teacher and his pupils, each with their own background and personal history. I’m not sure there is any high school in France with such a socially diverse population, and the story seems a bit optimistic, but maybe I’m the one being too pessimistic. Anyway, this is highly recommended.

One last note on the graphic side: I liked the style, it was very expressive. One thing I found annoying: this habit (inherited from manga?) of drawing characters with huge mouths. But that’s just a small detail.

I did upload the drawings (all of them! Even the bad ones!) on my Flickr account, not sure this was the best choice.

https://flic.kr/ps/2oFcuf

Flickr has become much too annoying, I have moved to Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/farybole

>83 FlorenceArt: I enjoyed this graphic book too. I read when it was published and I must admit shamefully that it was my first introduction to Bourdieu...
I have a very superficial knowledge about Bourdieu, but am more and more interested in his work as, as you said, he remains so relevant today. I have some of his books in my wishlist and I bought an introduction to Bourdieu (that I was planning to read this month, but I'm not sure it will happen).

>63 FlorenceArt: That's lovely, and I hope the drawing outings pan out, it sounds like a good time. Enjoy the two weeks off!

>86 raton-liseur: I remember seeing your review. I should probably read an introduction too, but I have this stupid prejudice that I should read the original or nothing. I need to get over that.

>87 rasdhar: Thanks! I’m enjoying my holiday and drawing almost every day so far.

>88 FlorenceArt: I agree with you about reading the original, but decided to make an exception here because I don't have a sociology background (so I fear not being able to understand fully a sociology essay), and, more important, because Bourdieu has such a plethora of works and various themes that I would not know where to begin...

Short story:
A Year and a Day in Old Theradane
By Scott Lynch
In The Long List Anthology Volume 1

A magical heist story. Not bad, but not really my cup of tea.

>72 FlorenceArt: Your sketches are delightful, but the part I love most is your handwriting. It reminds me of the style of writing you see in Paris on daily menu boards (in chalk). I'm making a photo book of my recent trip to Paris and am looking for a typeface like that for all the text. :)

>91 Nickelini: Thanks 🤣

Beast Business
Ilona Andrews
Hidden Legacy 7

I discovered Ilona Andrews in 2019 through this series, and then read everything I could find by them (they are a husband and wife team). I still enjoy their books, but now I am a lot more conscious of the political implications. Their books take place in post-apocalyptic worlds where extreme violence is the only rule (I think the Innkeeper series is an exception to that). But of course their heroes always have an impeccable moral compass, so it’s OK if they prevail in the end by killing everything that moves. A John Wayne kind of world, with bigger guns. They make lip service to democracy, but in the end it’s all about individuals, and of course the good ones are also the strongest.

I still enjoy their books, but I feel a bit guilty about it.

I changed my mind again and uploaded the sketchbooks on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/farybole

>96 FlorenceArt: Nice!

>97 kidzdoc: Thank you! I’m proud it’s at least vaguely recognizable as a building 😉

These are great

>70 FlorenceArt: snared, if delayed, by rabbit hole trap…

>99 wandering_star: Thanks! The Chateau d’If is the fortress where Edmond Dantès, future Count of Montechristo, was imprisoned. I couldn’t visit because the sea and wind were too strong. I drew it from the neighboring island of Ratonneau (so named for its rats, though I didn’t see any). That’s why it’s so small on the page.

>100 dchaikin: My work here is done 😈

Wait, are you planning to put your drawings only on Tumblr? (and hopefully here when you want!)

I particularly love the last one, I think it's extremely recognizable and it has difficult architecture to draw! Your lines have a lot of life.

>102 ursula: Hi Ursula! Yes, I think I’ll post on Tumblr instead of Flickr or Instagram, it feels more comfortable.

Thanks for your comment! I think my lines have a life of their own, what they miss is angles that meet in the right places! Architecture is hard, it’s so rectilinear. Boats are even worse, but mountains are a lot easier.

No new drawing today. I’m getting tired, it’s time to go home! Which I’m scheduled to do tomorrow.

>103 FlorenceArt: Lines that are all in exactly the right places are boring and unnecessary unless you're an architect!

I know that end-of-the-vacation feeling. I usually spend the last day hiding and waiting to go home! :)

>104 ursula: Exactly!

I've been following the links in Reactor Mag's short story column for this month: Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: January 2026. I wasn’t impressed by the first two stories I read, but I loved Magical Girl: Corporate Failure.

Finally managed to finish Dreamfall. It took me some time to because it’s very dark, and I couldn’t see it ending well. I still loved it but I’m sad it’s finished. The ending is open enough to allow for a sequel, but I won’t hold my breath since Dreamfall was published in 1996. I do have more books to read by Joan D. Vinge, starting with The Snow Queen.

Short story (or novella actually)
The Regular
Ken Liu
In The Long List Anthology, volume 1, but I think it’s also included in his collection The Paper Menagerie
OK, I guess. There was a little too much explaining for my taste. The story felt a little formulaic and predictable.

Persuasion
Jane Austen
Not sure how many times I have read this, but I still love it. As usual, I love her sense of humor. Persuasion is one of my favorite Austen, along with P&P.

En l'an 2000
(The link will take you to archive.org where you can download the pdf)

Not really a book but fun and interesting. It’s a collection of images from 1899 purporting to describe life in 2000 France. As expected, they are largely off the mark. Actually it’s clear that the purpose was entertainment rather than verisimilitude. This is especially clear in underwater images, featuring a frog ball, underwater vehicles drawn by fish, and even a baleinobus (whalebus). These images were originally printed on paper lining cigar boxes.

I found a reference to this in Ken Liu’s article Why Science Fiction Can’t Predict the Future (And Why That’s a Good Thing) in Reactor Magazine, and of course I had to stop reading and search for those images. I still haven’t finished reading the article.


Voice mail in the year 2000

Short story:

The (Mis)Fortunes of Saint Ilia’s School for Gifted Girls, In No Particular Order - The Dark Magazine

Another of Alex Brown’s recommendations for January. At first the format annoyed me, so I didn’t finish it, but I left the tab open on my browser. When I got back to it I started getting interested, and after finishing it I had to go back and skim it again to see what I had missed. Interesting.

>111 FlorenceArt: Well, that is weird. I use fortune tellers as ways to quiz the kids on history facts (they have to pick a question, then lift the flap to see the answer), but now I'm having second thoughts, lol.

>112 labfs39: I didn’t even know what a fortune teller is, which probably accounts for my initial confusion.

>113 FlorenceArt: Ah, they were popular back in the day in the states. Along with the Magic 8 Ball.

>114 labfs39: I did see one or two at school when I was a kid, but the memory took some time to surface 😅

Éloge de la folie (In Praise of Folly)
Erasme/Erasmus

Not sure what to say, this is such a huge classic. I’m a bit annoyed because I bought the Garnier Flammarion edition, as these normally include notes and a presentation of the text and its historical context. Instead, it turns out this was just a 1936 translation, with a myriad useless notes pointing out which chapter and paragraph of each text Erasmus is referring to (he makes numerous allusions to Greek mythology, among other things), but with no explanation. I ended up abandoning this edition for another of the same translation, but without the distracting footnotes, and with the illustrations from Hans Holbein the Younger.

So I had to read this without any help, except for the Stanford article I read earlier. It didn’t ruin the text for me, but I’m sure I missed about a million nuances. Maybe I would have, though, even with a presentation and decent footnotes.

Anyway, at first I found it a bit annoying, as he starts by claiming everything that is enjoyable in life for folly, and painting a grim image of wisdom and wise people. But then he started to rant about religious matters, and that what interesting as a glimpse of the reasons for the reformation. And at the end he changed tack, from mocking the folly of all people in all stations of life, to praising the folly of apostles, especially Saint Paul.

So, an interesting read even though I probably missed most of its significance and implications.

>116 FlorenceArt: I read the Norton Critical Edition In Praise of Folly and other writings which contained plenty of critical essays which helped enormously. I certainly needed the help to appreciate the satire and the irony. Erasmus does not spare those religious leaders

>117 baswood: Yes, I still feel I should explore some more. I have read the Wikipedia entry (short but useful), the Encyclopedia Universalis one (even shorter although it’s sold at an outrageous price on Kobo; I didn’t pay because I subscribe to the site), and downloaded a fiche de lecture from Kobo Plus. Not satisfied by any of this, so maybe I should look at anglophone material.

>110 FlorenceArt: I downloaded the PDF: these illustrations are delightful.

>116 FlorenceArt: And now I want to read it again, if only to (hopefully) catch the things that went over my head decades ago.

>119 Dilara86: Thanks! I wish I could recommend a better version of Eloge de la folie. There must be better one available on paper, but I can’t find any in ebooks, and both my libraries only have those old public domain translations available.

The Summer War
Naomi Novik

I like Novik’s fairy tales for the 21st century. This one was short and very enjoyable.

Short story recommended by the Wyrmhole newsletter:

The Magician’s Apprentice - Lightspeed Magazine

And indeed it was excellent.

The Twice-Drowned Saint
C. S. E. Cooney

As often happens when I read a second book from an author I loved the first time, I was a bit reluctant to get into this one. I shouldn’t have. It’s beautiful.

Witch King
Martha Wells
Rising World 1

I bought this book when it came out, but at the time I needed easy and comforting reads, so I gave up on it. The plot is not that complex, but I always have difficulties keeping track of the different political actors. Anyway, this time I finished it and loved it. And the good part is, since I waited to read it, the sequel is out now. I started it immediately, and it seems to pick up right where the first book left off.

I've been wishlisting and even buying lots of books about the political situation we're facing and its history, but haven't read a single one, chain reading for comfort instead. To try and motivate myself, I made this list and tried to sort it more or less by degree of urgency.

The list is a bit of a mess, especially toward the bottom as it reflects my meandering interests, and of course I'll never read all that, but it's a start, I guess.

Revue Socialter - Résister aux nouveaux fascismes
Revue Esprit - La convergence des haines

Les irresponsables (Johann Chapoutot) (WL)
Comment le fascisme gagne la France (Ugo Palheta) (owned)
Des électeurs ordinaires - Enquête sur la normalisation de l'extrême droite (Félicien Faury) (owned)
La droitisations française, mythes et réalités (Vincent Tiberj) (WL)
Une étrange victoire - L'extrême droite contre la politique (Michaël Foessel, Etienne Ollion) (WL)
Reconnaître le fascisme (Umberto Eco) (WL)
En finir avec les idées fausses propagées par l'extrême droite (Vincent Edin) (WL)
Le choix de la guerre civile - Une autre histoire du néolibéralisme (Pierre Dardot, Christian Laval, Haud Guéguen, Pierre Sauvêtre) (WL)
Réduire au silence - Comment le droit est perverti pour bâillonnner médias et ONG (Sophie Lemaître) (WL)
Les Économistes contre la démocratie - Pouvoir, mondialisation et démocratie (Jacques Sapir) (WL)
La dette publique (Les économistes atterrés) (WL)
Debt - The First 5000 Years (David Graeber) (WL)
Bienvenue au Wokistan (collectif) (WL)
Les damnés de la terre (Franz Fanon) (owned)
Manifeste du Parti Communiste (Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels) (owned)
L'anarchie expliquée à mon père (Francis Dupuis-Déri, Thomas Déri) (owned)
Une théorie féministe de la violence (Françoise Vergès) (owned)
Une brève histoire de l'égalité (Thomas Piketty) (owned)
Le capital au XXIe siècle (Thomas Piketty) (WL)
The Origins of Totalitarianism (Hannah Arendt) (owned)
Nouvelles du Front (Marine Tondelier) (owned)
La stratégie du chaos - Impérialisme et Islam (Mohamed Hassan) (owned)
Essential Essays (Adrienne Rich) (owned)
Sister Outsider - Essays and Speeches (Audre Lorde) (owned)
As If Already Free - Anthropology and Activism After David Graeber (Holly High, Joshua O. Reno) (owned)
La distinction (Pierre Bourdieu) (owned)
Que sait-on du travail? (collectif) (owned)
The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things (Bruce Sterling) (owned)
The Human Condition (Hannah Arendt) (owned)
Books And Islands in Ojibwe Country (Louise Erdrich) (owned)
Africa Is Not A Country (Dipo Fayolin) (owned, though I think I may have meant to buy another by the same title!)
Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (Denis Diderot) (owned)
Les harmonies de la Nature à l'épreuve de la biologie (Pierre-Henri Gouyon) (owned)
Testosterone - An Unauthorized Biography (Rebecca M. jordan-Young, Katrina Karkazis) (owned)
L'Empire cybernétique - Des machines à penser à la pensée machine (Céline Lafontaine) (owned)
Techno-féodalisme (Cédric Durand) (WL)
Le mythe de la virilité (Olivia Gazalé) (WL)
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Fredric Jameson) (WL)
Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Anna Kornbluh) (WL)
The Future is Degrowth (Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, Aaron Vansintjan) (WL)
La biodiversité en question - Enjeux philosophiques, éthiques et scientifiques (collectif) (owned)
La valeur du service public (Julie Gervais, Claire Lemercier, Willy Pelletier) (WL)
The Hundred Years War on Palestine (Rashid I. Khalidi) (WL)
Comment tout peut s'effondrer - Petit manuel de collapsologie (Pablo Servigne) (owned)
Derrière le niqab (Agnès De Féo) (owned)
Barbès Blues - Une histoire populaire de l'immigration maghrébine (Hajer Ben Boubaker, Hermance Triay) (WL)

And also adding some of the many books I have started that have fallen to the bottom of the pile on my e-reader.
Démocratie ? Idées reçues et propositions (Mouvement Utopia)
Ten Myths About Israel (Ilan Pappe)
Histoire mondiale de la France (collectif)

Caught up!

>63 FlorenceArt: and other sketches:

I really like yours the best, seems to me drawings with too much detail aren't really sketches. There's something... "homeworky" about them, belaboured.

I see so many titles I wanted to get to and haven't, yet... *sigh*

>126 LolaWalser: Thank you! I'm glad you like my half baked sketches, since I'll never make anything more finished. Too lazy ☺️

In the last few months I have started campaigning for the municipal election, which is hard for me but at least I feel I'm doing something, puny as it is. We are now between the first and second round and are trying to pressure muleheaded (to say it politely) politicians who prefer letting the right, even the far right, win, rather than unite with other muleheaded left wing politicians. I'll be relieved when it's over.

Yesterday I bought three of the books in my list above, thus upending the order of priority that took so much work to build:

Les Irresponsables - Qui a porté Hitler au pouvoir ?
Reconnaître le fascisme
Barbès blues
Plus one novel recommended by the author of Barbès blues: Rue des pâquerettes

>125 FlorenceArt: Thats an impressive list of books to read - don't get too depressed. The list reminded me that I must get to read something by Thomas Piketty, but there are plenty of other books on that list I would like to explore.

Well done for getting involved in campaigning for the municipal elections. It's a bit different down here in the Gers where we voted last week for our local Mayor and knew everyone on the list.

>128 baswood: Well I do hope my campaigning is doing at least SOME good, because it’s really hard for me, I’m not made for the militant life. Even something as mild as phoning sympathizers to remind them to vote stresses me out.

Queen Demon
Martha Wells
Rising World 2
And now I have to wait for book 3!

>125 FlorenceArt: Interesting list. I read only one, I think, own a few, would like to read more. I feel it's difficult to read such books at the moment, despite the feeling that it would be the right thing to do.
I've listened to the interview by Chapoutot last month and found it enlightening. I had not realised that he is the one who wrote Libres d'obéir, which has been adapted in a graphic book that my daughter got last Christmas. I wanted to read it before Father Christmas handed it to her but did not make the time for it. Now I realise I should borrow it from her sooner rather than latter.

Looking forward to know what you think about your new acquisitions!
And hop all goes well tomorrow for the elections. Same as baswwod, I won't vote tomorrow. We had only one list in my small village, so they got reelected!

>131 raton-liseur: I think I know which one you read. In fact, La dette publique is on my wishlist thanks to you!

I’m not voting tomorrow either, my communist mayor got re-elected on the first round. I voted for a « citizens list » since there was no risk of the right coming even close to winning. My list got 2 seats out of (I think) 55, and to did LFI. The only right wing list on the council will be LR with 2 seats.

I was not campaigning in my city but in a neighboring one, where the right has been leading the town to ruin for 42 years, and will probably continue, as the two left wing lists refused to merge. I’m exhausted!

>132 FlorenceArt: I'm glad you put La Dette publique on your list following my review! I should read more from this group of economists.

Too bad the outcome for the election is not as you expected! I'm not shaped for a politics militant life either.
Hope you'll find time to rest and enjoy your week end.

I’ve been taking my mother to see an exhibition on most Fridays. Since the beginning of the year we saw:

Otobong Nkanga | Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris
George Condo | Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris
Gerhard Richter - Fondation Louis Vuitton
Philip Guston. L’ironie de l’histoire | Musée Picasso Paris
Raymond Pettibon. Underground | Musée Picasso Paris
Eva Jospin, Grottesco · Claire Tabouret, D’un seul souffle | Grand Palais
Mickalene Thomas, All About Love | Grand Palais

All of these were great, except Jospin/Tabouret which was meh for me, but my mother loved the cardboard grottoes.

Mickalene Thomas was an unexpected discovery, the poster on the facade of the Grand Palais caught my eye and I’m glad we decided to follow up. I had never heard of this artist. We both loved the expo.

Olive and the Dragon
Victoria Goddard
Greenwing & Dart

This short book felt much too long. Not that it was bad, but it felt like there was a lot of padding and redundancy. I think this may be intentional, to reflect how Olive Sees past, present and possible future versions of the people she looks at. In any case, it made me rather impatient, though I was glad to get to know Jemis’s mother.

Reconnaître le fascisme
Umberto Eco
I feel a bit cheated. Maybe I expected a magical formula, which in retrospect was a bit over optimistic. I certainly expected a clear list of criteria, and right now if feels rather jumbled. I need to reread it and take notes.

>125 FlorenceArt: That is a fantastic list. I've read a few of those titles, mainly around the time of the dissolution, when I was trying to soothe my rising panic at the political situation with hard facts and academic studies... Others are in my wishlist, but I'm half burnt out on politics right now. My town's new mayor is a former macronist and I'm not happy about it.

>137 Dilara86: Sorry about your new mayor! And I sympathize about the burnout.

I was toying with the idea of creating a list on LT. I have a new book to add to the list, following a video conference I saw yesterday:

Les vigilantes by Léane Alestra, about the women of the far right who are trying to subvert feminism, with the help of our political and business leaders. Scary.

>138 FlorenceArt: Oh, as you might have noticed already, I read Les vigilantes last September. I found it disappointing. Her interview with Salomé Saqué on Blast was more enlightening and in-depth than the book.

A list on LT is a great idea!

>139 Dilara86: Oh, I hadn’t noticed that, or maybe I forgot. Disappointing that the book was not as good as the interviews. I will look at the one you linked to.

Congrats on the elections. Apparently it went better than projected? By the way I saw this yesterday

>141 LolaWalser: I suppose it did. There was a real risk that the RN could take Marseille, and they were aiming for more large cities. They did progress in midsized cities though.

That cartoon… it’s hard to know where tolerance needs to stop. I suppose it’s natural to be all for tolerance as long as the ideas expressed are yours, but the right has become adept at wielding free speech as a weapon. "On peut plus rien dire" is the favorite phrase of those who used to be able to talk without having to hear any answers, and are now getting on prime time TV to claim they are being censored. It’s hard for me to be articulate on this subject.

Sketching update: a couple of pictures from a "drawing marathon" I participated in at the beginning of the month. A whole day drawing live models, 83 poses! I made ample use of my new favorite sketching tool from Taiwan.





(Edited to fix typo)

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles
Mossa & Pleiti 2
Malka Olders

I liked but not loved the first book in this series, so didn’t rush to pick up this one, but for some reason I felt like reading it now. On the whole I think I liked it more than the first one, except for the ending, which felt rushed and contrived.

The blurb describes this as "cosy space opera detective mystery", which sounds like a suspicious accumulation of hashtags, but it did have a cozy feel to it. The main protagonists have moved away from their stormy past and are tentatively feeling their way to the next phase of their relationship. I liked how the author uses small touches to show how this society has evolved from ours. The language contains a lot of loan words from other Earth languages than English, not all of them I understood, but I liked that idea.

So again, I won’t rush to get the next one, but will certainly do so at one point.

Another sketching update: the members of my local sketching WhatsApp group had our first outing, to draw the newly restored gothic church. There were 5 of us and we all enjoyed ourselves and made very different sketches. Unfortunately the church was closed so we only had access to the outside.

>141 LolaWalser: So good. It made me laugh grudgingly... I am likely to share it widely. Where does it come from by the way?

>142 FlorenceArt: Your remark about the "on ne peut plus rien dire" made me pick a book that has been on my shelves for some months now, « On ne peut plus rien dire... » : Liberté d'expression : le grand détournement by Thomas Hochmann. It's very short (60 reading pages), and so far it's a really good read. It's only 5 euros, and I feel it's really worth the little money and the short amount of reading time. I'll report more thoroughly when I complete my reading.

>146 raton-liseur: Sounds interesting ! I’ll be waiting for your review.

Short story:
Blade Through the Heart by Carrie Vaughn

In this latest installment of his adventures, Graff and his teammates try to recalibrate their relationship after last episode’s revelation. I find I am liking this series more and more.

>146 raton-liseur:

It was posted in a French discord I follow, it seems to be this account on Instagram (I don't have it so it doesn't let me scroll much):

https://www.instagram.com/petitpieddessin/

>145 FlorenceArt:

Such a great outdoors activity.

Love your art

>150 Nickelini: Thank you! 😊

>149 LolaWalser: Thanks for that.

>147 FlorenceArt: I'll try to write it soon.

Enjoying your schetches!

>134 FlorenceArt: I've never heard of Mickalene Thomas either but I love that, I'm looking her up immediately!

>143 FlorenceArt: 83 poses!! That's crazy. Nice work on these, very fluid. What is your favorite sketching tool? I think I missed that somewhere.

>145 FlorenceArt: And I love these too! The detail one is terrific. I love drawing with a group, even when people are looking at exactly the same thing the drawings are all so different.

>152 raton-liseur: Thanks!

>153 ursula: Thanks. We mostly do short poses, 3, 5 and 7 minutes. 7 minutes is too long for me 😅 I drew a few poses twice, because the first try wasn’t working, or because there was some time remaining.

My new favorite tool is the pointed wood stick I got in the workshop with a Taiwanese artist (see >63 FlorenceArt:). In the previous sessions I had been using my iPad mostly.

The Incandescent
Emily Tesh
I liked this book a lot, even though it felt a bit too wordy and drawn out at times. In addition to the fantasy plot (plus romance of course), it’s a declaration of love for teaching, teachers and adolescent students (the incandescent of the title). I have never been in a teaching situation with children, but it sounded maybe a little idealized, but heartfelt.

>147 FlorenceArt: Review for « On ne peut plus rien dire... » : Liberté d'expression : le grand détournement posted (here, if you want to have a look). It does not say much about the content but I hope one can feel my enthusiasm!

>156 raton-liseur: Thanks! I saw the review and wishlisted the book. It sounds like the kind of reference that can come handy in a kind of conversation that is, alas, becoming more and more frequent.

I love seeing your sketches. I'm trying to get back to doing that myself and it's encouraging!

>158 mabith: I wish I had a word of wisdom for you, but I think everyone is different. What works for me is to admit that I will never draw anything remotely resembling the subject or model, and just let what will happen, happen. The marathons are good for this. Also, once in a while I try to do a "drawing a day" week. There are many web pages that will give you suggestions of things to draw, some will work for you, some won’t.

>159 FlorenceArt: Yeah, I probably just need to set up a reminder and do five minutes of sketching a day maybe. My chronic pain makes holding pens and pencils for any extended period difficult, so I don't expect to really practice until my drawing is better, but it would nice to get the personal style I used to have back (or just the comfort with doing it).

Visited an exhibition on Salome at the Musée Henner on Friday. The museum is small and cozy. The exhibition was small too but there was neat stuff by Jean-Jacques Henner and Gustave Moreau. http://musee-henner.fr/agenda/evenement/salome

Drew a couple of sketches during a free improv concert on Sunday. The drawings are of a Japanese duo, a male percussionist and a female calligrapher. There was another duo after that but I didn't draw them.

There is another drawing marathon on Saturday. I'm thinking of joining only in the afternoon because I'm feeling a bit tired.

Love it! People in motion (as people usually are!) are really difficult, you captured them well.

>161 FlorenceArt: Nice!

>162 ursula: Thanks! In fact I was able to draw them because they were not very mobile. The percussionist was seated, and the calligrapher moved very slowly in hieratic poses.

>163 kidzdoc: Thank you 😁

I only stayed a couple of hours at the drawing marathon. I had trouble with my wood stick. I need to find another way to remove the ink. India ink when dried is waterproof, and so the ink no longer sticks to the, em, stick. I've been removing the ink with a cutter but that's obviously not working.



So I went back to the iPad for most of the drawings.

I'm in a book club! I have always considered reading to be a private endeavor, and I would still feel uneasy discussing fiction in a group, but non fiction is different.

This one is a political book club within the group I have been working with for the municipal election. We are going to do something called arpentage, a use of the word I find a bit strange. Literally it means surveilling, as in measuring a surface. Figuratively I have seen it used frequently by my mayor's communication team, as he likes to show his presence by walking a neighborhood with the residents. Apparently it's also a practice that has become popular in book clubs recently, mostly to help people who may be uncomfortable with reading. Each group member is assigned a chapter to read and discuss with the group. We are reading Nouvelle cartographie électorale de la France. I have a chapter of course, but the book is short enough and the meeting far enough away that I will have ample time to read the whole of it.

The authors have conducted an analysis of the results of the 2024 legislative ballot at the polling station level, cross referencing with socioeconomic data on the same neighborhood. Apparently this has never been done before at this level, since the data has only become available recently (see this article: Donnée électorale : pourquoi tout va changer).

After reading a few pages, one thing is very clear: the first party in France is abstention. I had heard that already, but here it is made glaringly obvious by the charts, where all percentages are shown in relation to registered voters, not votes cast. It's also interesting to see that abstention is highest in the poorest neighborhoods. This is not a new finding and has been described as a "cens caché", a reference to the times when a minimum wealth was required to have voting rights. Higher classes are more involved in politics and vote more, and thus have a better chance to ensure that laws and government will work in their favor. Which presumably increases the disenfranchisement of lower classes, who are even less motivated to vote.

In the last meeting of our group, we decided to stop worrying about whether the left will ever get it shit together and present a likely candidate in next year's presidential election. At least for now, we will concentrate on canvassing to get people to register, and hopefully to vote.

I have created a list: Résister au fascisme. The title is in French because it’s mainly centered on France, but I suppose we could expand the scope. Anybody can add books, if you feel inspired.

>166 FlorenceArt: Nice!
I look forward to your review of Nouvelle cartographie électorale de la France. I wishlisted it back in January, but I haven't read it yet: I am still hoping my library (or someone I know) purchases it so I don't have to...

>167 FlorenceArt: Will take a look!

>166 FlorenceArt: So interesting.
I hope you'll report on the book and on your group discussions.

>167 FlorenceArt: Good idea. I have only read one, and am in the waiting list at the library for Les Irresponsables by Chapoutot.

We (my mother and I) finally finished La Maison vide - 20.5 hours! Even with Denys Podalydès’s reading, I probably wouldn’t have finished it on my own, but my mother was transfixed. The writing is very lyrical. It felt a bit too much on audio, I don’t know how I would have liked to read it. I had a hard time getting into it, because I thought it was supposed to be a history of the author’s family, but he was very obviously inventing a lot of details. Then I happened on an article that mentioned it as a novel (and yes, it does say so on the cover too), even if it was very much inspired by Mauvinier’s own family history. Stupidly enough, that changed my outlook and I was able to see past my silly fixation and actually appreciate the story. I really liked the way he described the very flawed characters and made them real.

Still, I’m happy it’s finally over! My mother really enjoys these reading sessions, and we immediately started a new book, Je voulais vivre. I didn’t know anything about it going in, but it became immediately obvious that the book is about the infamous Milady of Alexandre Dumas’s novels, which is intriguing. It’s been a very long time since I read Les Trois mousquetaires, but I think I remember enough to appreciate this book. The reader is a woman and she has an agreeable voice, though she might be overdoing the drama a little for my taste.

>170 FlorenceArt: Interesting take on this book. I am not planning to read it. I guess I should, as I've heard people raving about it, but it does not seem to be the type of book I would really anjoy and there are enough book I really want to read not to feel compelled to try that one.

I like your ritual, it's a nice way to share reading. Do you just sit and listen or do something at the same time (no worries if it's too personnal a question and if you prefer not to answer)?
We are doing something similar sometimes with M'sieur Raton, usually listening to podcasts and/or book audio adaptations, and doing some handcraft activities at the same time. I really enjoy those quiet evening sessions.

>171 raton-liseur: I’m not sure I would have finished it if I’d been reading it on my own. One of my sisters gave up on it, I think another loved it, but I may be thinking about another book 🫤

I can’t just listen and do nothing, so I usually play on my iPad while listening. She just listens, and sometimes almost falls asleep 😅

>172 FlorenceArt: I hope you enjoy those moments, even if the book is not always the best choice from your point of view!

To Ride a Rising Storm
Moniquill Blackgoose
Nampeshiweisit 2

A bit annoyed that this second book ends on a huge cliffhanger. I can live with it, but I don’t have to like it.

Other than that, I found the writing rather uninspiring. I think that was also the case in the first book, but then the novelty of seeing the story from the POV of a young native woman made up for it. This aspect is still the main interest of the books, but the novelty has worn off. Still, I enjoyed it and will read the third book when it becomes available.

>167 FlorenceArt: I added a few titles to the list. I started with books I had actually read and liked, then changed my mind and added books from my wishlist too.

>169 raton-liseur: am in the waiting list at the library for Les Irresponsables by Chapoutot.
So am I. I'm 5th in line, so I probably won't get to it before summer...

>170 FlorenceArt: 20.5 hours is quite a commitment! I hadn't realised La maison vide was as long as this.
It's lovely that you can share audiobook reading time with your mother...

>175 Dilara86: We might read it more or less at the same time. I am 4th (out of 4 at the moment). After reading your comments (yours and FlorenceArt), I feel it would have been good to get it at the beginning of summer to have time to read it slowly if necessary.

Heavy Weather
P. G. Wodehouse
Blandings Castle

I’m not a raving fan on Wodehouse, but I enjoy him once in a while. This book was one that came up during my short lived subscription to the Early Bird Books mail list. It made me smile.

>177 FlorenceArt:
I'm exactly the same with Wodehouse. I do find his Blandings books more enjoyable than most - my favourite to date is Summer Lightning.
BTW, just found the non-fiction thread through one of your early posts this year. I read a fair amount, and found it off to a lively start, but it seems to have dried up the last few weeks. Not sure why - perhaps I'm missing something? - but have added a post about my latest read (still ongoing!).

>178 Willoyd: Thanks! I’m the one who’s at fault for the thread being forgotten, so thank you for fixing that.

A string of badly needed comfort reads.

Hemlock and Silver
T. Kingfisher

I love Kingfisher when she does romance, not when she does horror. This one was somewhat in between, and not very convincing either way, but enjoyable enough.

Looking for Group
Alexis Hall

Fun and warm like a fluffy old teddy bear. I had to read this one on my phone, since for,some reason my reader ate all the smileys.

Darksight Dare
Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric & Desdemona 16

Another warm and fluffy one. I liked it better than the previous book in the series.

And after years of hearing about Aubrey and Maturin, I finally started the first one, Master and Commander. Enjoying it despite all the mysterious words and the alarming number of apostrophes. I have no idea of what all the nautical words mean but I’m not planning on learning any. I’ll just happily feel my way around them.

>180 FlorenceArt: Enjoying it despite all the mysterious words and the alarming number of apostrophes. I have no idea of what all the nautical words mean but I’m not planning on learning any. I’ll just happily feel my way around them.

I love it. It's what I'll have to do when I read it.

This is exactly how I got through some Aubrey and Maturin books, by the 3rd one I had kind of a sense of what was actually going on in some of the descriptions. But I can read books like that with just a sense of "he went somewhere else on the ship" and "he did something with some sail", and feel perfectly fine about it.

>182 ursula: Exactly!

I received the links to download the Hugo 2026 packet a couple of days ago (and to vote), and I'm a little excited, and a little scared. There is no way I can read all this by the end of July, and how can I vote if I didn't read them all? Not to mention I'm not even going to download books that I know would scare me (looking at you, What Stalks the Deep). But oh, all the books!

2026-05-09 LT

Yesterday, our small whatsapp group met in a local park to draw the local wildlife. We wanted to draw the sheep and goats but they were hiding.


Can you spot the squirrel?


This parakeet posed for us while having lunch.




My feeble attempt at drawing the Paris skyline. Can you spot the Eiffel Tower?


This is an attempt to draw the goats from a few days earlier, but they were too fast for me.

>185 FlorenceArt: I love your quick sketches. You are able to capture a lot in an economy of lines.

>186 labfs39: Thanks! It's all in the eye of the beholder you know. We are very good at extrapolating ;-)

Master and Commander
Patric O’Brian
Aubrey-Maturin 1

I didn’t expect to like this book so much. I have no interest in nautical battles, and the descriptions go over my head anyway, but I was immediately attached to the characters. They are so lively and likely while being fully of their time. It felt a little strange to view the French as the enemy ☺️

I found A Sea of Words on Kobo Plus, which might shed some light on the vocabulary and context. And also Pirates and Privateers in the 18th Century, which is only tangentially related, but pirates!

Currently reading:
Nouvelle cartographie électorale de la France (need to finish that before the group meeting on the 21st)
Rue des pâquerettes
A Natural History of Dragons
And of course I have the new Murderbot, and all the Hugo stuff to read!

My first read from the Hugo list. I thought I’d start with a short story to get me going.

Six People to Revise You - Uncanny Magazine

Liked it. Moving and heartwarming, not in a cheesy way.

Platform Decay
Martha Wells
Murderbot 8

Yay, another Murderbot! As usual it was over too quick, and made me want to reread the whole series, but I can’t, I have a million books to read for the Hugos!

Anyway, still the same old snarky, paranoid and chronically anxious Murderbot. I loved it.

I’ve been nibbling at the Hugo packet for a few days. After the short story (see above), I had a look at the graphic novels. I disliked The Space Cat. If you’re going to make a cat talk, make it talk like a real person, not a vaguely racist feeling caricature. So I’m not voting for that. And now I’m curious and wary to read The Death of the Author, because I wasn’t crazy about the only book I’ve read so far by Okorafor, Binti. The story was good but I didn’t like the writing.

Then I tried A Girl And Her Fed, and boy was I confused. Happily the author had included an introduction in the material she submitted for the packet, explaining that the sample included 2025 episodes of a webcomic that has been going on since 2007. So now I’ve started at the beginning and bought the first volume. It’s weirdly engaging. I have now finished the first volume and will probably buy the next one.

Love the sketches! Between the books you're currently reading, and the Hugo packet, it looks like you'll be quite busy in the next few weeks/month :-)

>192 Dilara86: Thanks! Yes I’ve got a lot to read. I’d like to avoid starting new books outside of the Hugo packet, but there’s a very low chance of that happening.

I just found out that only the first chapter of A Girl and Her Fed is available as PDF download. I find reading the webcomic a little uncomfortable, but I guess I don’t have a choice. Oh, and I forgot to give the link to the webcomic : https://www.agirlandherfed.com/

Oops, duplicate post.

Missing Helen by Tia Tashiro : Clarkesworld Magazine

When Mark told you he was marrying your clone, you said “congratulations” on autopilot, because that’s what you say when your friend tells you they’re getting married, and you had promised to stay friendly after the divorce.

My second short story for the Hugo, and wow. I was skeptical at first, but this one really worked for me.

Another Hugo finalist:

In My Country by Thomas Ha : Clarkesworld Magazine

This one was not bad, but not as good as the other two I’ve read so far. Still, not bad.

Nouvelle cartographie électorale de la France
Youssef Souidi & Thomas Vonderscher

The authors made use of the detailed data provided by the Ministry of Interior on elections since 2017 (when Macron became president) and by INSEE (the national institute for statistics) on average revenue for the geographical area covered by each polling station. This unprecedented level of detail allows for a fine analysis of votes, and how they evolved, by income level, over the 5 national elections of the period (two presidential, three legislative) during which Macron spectacularly gained an overwhelming majority, then just as spectacularly lost it, while the far right steadily gained votes and representation, the traditional right virtually disappeared from the map, and the left managed to continue fighting with itself and losing credibility the whole time.

Very interesting, and I look forward to our book club discussion. I must also reread the two chapters I am responsible for, since I will have to present them.

Is the Hugo Packet a collection of short stories? How many have you got to read?

>198 baswood: It’s a collection of all the works nominated for the Hugo awards. Most of them are included in full length in the packet, a few are only present as excerpts. There are 6 finalists of each category: short stories, novels, novelettes, novellas, series, graphic works… I registered for the LA convention so I am entitled to vote for the final winners.

Here is the link to the complete list of finalists:
https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2026-hugo-awards/

As part of the Hugo packet I started to read Uncanny magazine issue 62, which was included for the Best Editor Short Form category (Editor Michael Damian Thomas). The first two stories were also finalists, and both are excellent: Kaiju Agonistes for novelette and Six People to Revise you, which I had already read (see >189 FlorenceArt: above). The third was maybe not on the same level but still pretty good.

Links are to the stories.

Kaiju Agonistes
Scott Lynch
In Uncanny Magazine issue 62
Finalist for best novelette, Hugos 2026
Scathing satire, and a very funny twist on a trope that tends to annoy me. I like!

For Whom the Hair Grows
Tia Tashiro
Nice take on a well-known fairy tale.

I'm following you partway down the rabbit hole. After enjoying Six People to Revise You, I read Missing Helen last night. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the links.

>201 labfs39: I must say I’m enjoying this Hugo stuff much more than I expected. So far everything I’ve read has been good or great (well, except The Space Cat, but I have to admit I didn’t really give it a chance), and I’ve read things I would never have otherwise, hadn’t even heard about most of them.

Still concentrating on the Hugo packet. So far I’m loving Dead Country, enjoying Inventing the Renaissance despite its iconoclastic take on history, and still intrigued by A Girl and Her Fed. And I read another of the short stories.

10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days - Uncanny Magazine

This one is a parable, or is it an allegory? I can never keep these literary devices straight. In any case, it’s subtle and to the point, or points maybe. It’s both easy and complex I think. Recommended.

>203 FlorenceArt: I wasn't quite sure what the author was trying to do with this one. Our future isn't as bad as it could be? Our future is going to be horrible? The most important thing is who you go through terrible times with?

>204 labfs39: Maybe all of the above? 😋

Personally I’d say, we don’t know what’s in store for us but it’s not good, but let’s face it, today is not that great either. But maybe we should just enjoy what we have instead of making up endless end of the world scenarios?

Three more from Uncanny Magazine issue 62:

With Her Serpent Locks
Another take on a myth, nicely done.

Men with Tails
Intriguing.

Your Personalized Guide to the Museum of the Lost and Found
Mysteriously moving, probably my favorite of the three.

I'll be curious how you find Death of the Author, I was talking to my aunt yesterday and she and my uncle both loved it. I read one from early in her career which had a lot of promise it didn't quite live up to, and I think it was over-hyped (and I know a friend found the same with a different book, especially the ending). Definitely feels like time for a revisit though.

>207 mabith: I will be my next read after I finish Dead Country. Unless it’s Ancestral Night, which would mean that I’d have read at least one book of all the nominated series. Or one of the shorter works maybe? Well, we’ll see.

Dead Country
Max Gladstone
Craft Wars 1

First book of one of the series selected for the Hugo awards. Of the 6 series, I already read all the available books for three of them (Emily Wilde, October Daye and The Chronicles of Osreth, my favorite by far). I’ve read the first book of Old Man’s War and don’t intend to read more. That leaves Craft Wars and White Space.

This book is in the same world as the first book I had read by Max Gladstone, Three Parts Dead. I had enjoyed it very much, but the next one, Two Serpents Rise, did nothing for me, and I never finished it. I’m happy to say that I liked this one very much, and look forward to reading the rest of the trilogy. The world building is good, and the characters are very relatable. The writing does not have the exceedingly lyrical quality that put me off in Two Serpents Rise. My favorite series is still The Chronicles of Osreth though.

Rue des pâquerettes
Mehdi Charef

I liked this largely autobiographical novel about a smart, curious and angry Algerian boy living with his family in a shantytown in a suburb of Paris. There is no plot, just a collection of vignettes about his life, his family, school, trying to escape through books and movies. It’s the first of a trilogy that I will certainly continue to read.

Yesterday our political book club had its first meeting. The discussion on Nouvelle cartographie électorale de la France was very interesting. The discussion on the political prospects (presidential and general elections next year) and what we can do to prevent a catastrophe was depressing, but we planned some actions for the next month.

Next meeting will be after the summer holidays, and this time we split in two groups reading two different books. I am with the group that will read Contre les élections (Tegen verkiezingen/Against Elections) by David Van Reybrouck. The other group will read "Ces gens-là" by Lumir Lapray, a French activist trying to understand why the people in her native rural area came to be so disenfranchised.

Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything
Effie Seiberg
(The link above currently returns an error, but I’m hoping it will come back at some point)

Hugo award finalist for short story. I get the idea and I suppose this kind of story is necessary, but it wouldn’t hurt if it was also well written. The truth is, this one is just not very good. I feel guilty just saying this but it’s true, at least to my taste.

Automatic Noodles
Annalee Newitz
Hugo award finalist for novella

At first I was a little annoyed by the not very good writing and the rather obvious feelgoodness of the book, while appreciating the questions it raises. But I ended up being swept up by said feelgoodedness. Also, the future Newitz depicts is eerily plausible.

This book reminded me a little of Becky Chambers, although the two books I read from her were better written.

I find I like the subject of robots, when they are used as a means to explore the difficulties we have in dealing with human diversity. Also, robots are cute, right? Well, except when homicidal. But I haven’t read any of those. This makes me want to list books I’ve read recently, that feature artificial intelligence. I won’t count the short stories, I would be sure to forget many.

The Murderbot series of course!
Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers series (only read the first two as I found her a little too sweet for my taste, but I may get back to her)
In the Lives of Puppets (I had actually forgotten about this one, but found it in my reading journal)
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

That’s all I can come up with for now. I’m sure I’m forgetting some.

Last of the Hugo short stories. I hated this one. It felt like a simplistic take on the AI is bad trope, which tends to annoy me, so maybe I didn’t give it a real chance. Anyway I won’t vote for that one.

Wire Mother by Isabel J. Kim : Clarkesworld Magazine – Science Fiction & Fantasy

While searching for the link I found the Wikipedia article on Harry Harlow, whose rather appalling wire mother experiment the title of this story is, I suppose, referring to. Double yuck.

So I’ve read all the short stories in the list. There are two I loved, two I liked and two I hated. I suppose I can only vote for one, so I’ll have to choose between Six People to Revise You and Missing Helen.

Interesting to read about your Political Book Club and thanks for the links to those short stories.

Short story:

Crabs Don’t Scream by H.H. Pak : Clarkesworld Magazine

Continuing with the Hugo packet, I started reading the selection provided by Neil Clarke, editor of Clarkesworld and finalist for Editor, short form. And this first story is… weird and exhilarating? I don’t know how to describe it, but I loved it.

I don’t think I will finish Death of the Author. It started well enough and I like the main character, but the writing is just too clumsy. I’m not enjoying this and I have many other books to read before the August deadline.

>211 FlorenceArt: Very interesting! Ces gens-là was on my radar, but not Contre les élections.

>217 FlorenceArt: I will probably read none of these books, but I enjoy following th ups and downs of your Hugo adventure. It must be exhilarating!

>218 Dilara86: I have read arguments for alternatives to elections, and I’m looking forward to this book.

>219 raton-liseur: It is rather exciting! There are categories I won’t have time to read enough of the material to vote in, but I’m planning to read all or almost all novels, novellas and novelettes. I didn’t expect to enjoy this so much!

Never Eaten Vegetables
H. H. Pak
Clarkesworld Magazine 220 (link is to the novelette on the magazine website)
Finalist for Hugo awards in the novellette category

And another excellent book with artificial sentients that asks difficult questions. I will have to look for H. H. Pak’s works, since the last short story I read, which I also loved, was from him.

Next short story from Neil Clarke’s selection for the Hugo packet (finalist for best editor, short form).

We Begin Where Infinity Ends by Somto Ihezue : Clarkesworld Magazine

This one was probably a little too naive and optimistic, especially at the end. But I must be in a sentimental mood, because I enjoyed it 😊

Pollen by Anna Burdenko, translated by Alex Shvartsman : Clarkesworld Magazine
Third story in Neil Clarke’s selection for the Hugo. I liked it.

So many interesting things in your thread that I can't comment on everything at once! :)

I find it so cool that you'll be voting for the Hugos! Will you be attending the conference?
I looked at the list of nominated editors and Neil Clarke is the only one I know. I like Clarkeswold magazine (though, why choose this name?) and I really liked as well one of his best of the year anthologies (I haven't read the others so that's why I can't say I liked them).
I'll have to look into what the other short fiction editors are up to! Only the name Michael Damian Thomas sounds vaguely familiar.

>224 chlorine: Thanks for stopping by! Yes, it’s pretty exciting to be voting for the Hugos. I only registered for the online parts of the conference (I think?). I’m certainly not flying to LA, for many reasons. I’m not that interested in the conference part TBH.

I have enjoyed the Clarkesworld selection so far (and yes, that name, it sounds a bit megalomaniac, doesn’t it?). There is also a selection from Beneath Ceaseless Skies, but I’ve only started one story so far so it’s too early to tell. Anyway I don’t see myself voting in this category, how can I judge an editor’s work, it’s mostly behind the scene, right?

>225 FlorenceArt: Yes there are good reasons not to take a plane nowadays. :)

I guess I could vote for an editor if I read far more than I currently do. I would then be able to decide which ones bring forward stories I like, stories that are diverse, and stories that bring something original to the scene that the others do not.
But there are so many things published that it's impossible for me.
At some point I considered voting for the Hugo and voting in the initial phase, so one year I got heavily into reading and tracking short stories. In the end I realised that I only scratched the surface of what was published and would be completely unable to vote.

>226 chlorine: Yes, I could not vote for the first round. I had read very few SFF books published in 2025. I would have voted for those, but based on what, with nothing to compare them to?

The Hugo packet includes 3 issues of Beneath Easeless Skies as a sample of Scott H. Andrews’s work, finalist for best editor, short form. I hope this one is not a representative sample.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies | The City of Tears by Molly Tanzer

This one was a meh for me. The story has promise but the writing was not very good.

I saw that you like robot stories. We probably have discussed this before because I keep pushing these stories at everyone I know who might remotely be interested so sorry if this is redundant, but have you read those by Vina Jie-Min Prasad? Fandom for Robots and A guide for working Breeds are among my favorites.

Also noting that you liked Automatic noodle factory that is on my wishlist.

I'm glad that you liked Platform Decay more than me. I was a bit disappointed by it but I seem to be in the minority.

Finally your political book club seems really interesting!

I have to admit I was leaning toward disliking this from the beginning, after reading the mediocre first story in issue 429. This one was even more mediocre IMO.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies | The Midwife in the Palace of the Forest King by Jelena Dunato

I went back to my reading journal to look for other stories I had read from this magazine. There aren’t a lot, but I didn’t hate them. Didn’t love them either, except maybe The Bonedrake’s Penance by Yoon Ha Lee.

>229 chlorine: I don’t think I’ve read anything by Vina Jie-Min Prasad. I will look hem up, thanks!

If you would like to participate in the book club, I can PM you with more details.

Wrap up of issue 62 of Uncanny Magazine, provided in the Hugo packet for the editor short form category (Michael Damian Thomas).

Kaiju Agonistes
Scott Lynch
Finalist for best novelette
Scathing satire, and a very funny twist on a trope that tends to annoy me. I like!

For Whom the Hair Grows
Tia Tashiro
Nice take on a well-known fairy tale.

Six People to Revise You - Uncanny Magazine
J.R. Dawson
Finalist for short story
Liked it. Moving and heartwarming, not in a cheesy way.

The Flaming Embusen - Uncanny Magazine
By Tade Thompson
I read that one last year and didn’t like it. The story was OK but the writing was extremely bland and clunky.

With Her Serpent Locks
Mary Robinette Kowal
Another take on a myth, nicely done.

Men with Tails
Rati Mehrotra
Intriguing.

Your Personalized Guide to the Museum of the Lost and Found
AnaMaria Curtis
Mysteriously moving, one of my favorites.

All in all a pretty satisfying issue.

Sociologist Théo Bourgeron offers a materialist analysis of the links between capitalists and the far right in France. In French.

Grand patronat et extrême droite : les nouveaux collabos | Blast

>231 FlorenceArt: Thanks but with my studies I really don't have the time to invest in a bookclub, even an important one. Maybe if it still exists in a year!

Still Water by Zhang Ran, translated by Andy Dudak : Clarkesworld Magazine

Story number 5 in the Clarkesworld selection for the Hugos.

Not sure what to say about this. It was sad and moving, and at first I thought it was a little hopeful, except…

(OK, huge spoiler ahead, seriously, do not read this if you think you might want to read the story.)

Should a mother have the right to write the script of her son’s hallucinated life? Even if it’s supposed to be for his own good, it feels terribly manipulative, and an abuse of power. Of course, just writing this does not mean the author approves, but I never got the impression we were supposed to question the mother’s action.

The Raven Scholar
Antonia Hodgson

Finalist for the Hugo award (novel)

I loved this book, and I’m happy that the Hugo packet allowed me to discover it. It manages to never be where you expect it, which I would not say is an important criteria for me, and yet it feels very refreshing. But above all, it has great world building and fantastic characters. No one is one sided, everyone has a dark side, even the worst characters are relatable (well, almost all of them), and even the gods manage to be intensely human (while providing comic relief). There might have been a tad too many plot twists at the end, but it didn’t spoil my utter enjoyment. My only complaint is that this is the first book of a trilogy (what is it with trilogies, it seems that fantasy books can never come in ones or twos), and considering the complexity and quality of this one, I’m not sure how long it will take before I can read the next one.

Highly recommended !

>236 FlorenceArt: Interesting. I read a picture book to my nieces recently that adopts the same "we" perspective in regards to crows called I Am We.

>237 labfs39: I am a city dweller, and to me crows don't seem especially gregarious, but I do find them interesting. And this sounds like an interesting book too!

Short story:

Butterfly Pavilion - Uncanny Magazine

Read in Uncanny Magazine issue 63, which is part of the Hugo Packet (and also available as part of my Kobo Plus subscription). Not sure what to say without spoilers. A subtle and non sensationalist take on a heavy subject. Maybe not unforgettable, but I liked it.

A short story from Neil Clarke’s selection for the Hugo:

The Apologists by Tade Thompson : Clarkesworld Magazine

Interesting. I liked the way it’s written, in short scenes like a movie script. It’s not very subtle but it works at the beginning, unfortunately the ending was much too didactic for my taste.

Short story:

In Lonely Lands
Victoria Goddard

A few minutes in the life of a woman who seems to be a little unmoored and unsure what to do with her life. I don’t have much to say about this one, it was very short but I liked it.

Duplicate!

The River Has Roots
Amal El-Mohtar

The end of the book took me by surprise, I was expecting something longer, even though I kept reminding myself that the book is a finalist for the Hugo in the novella category. But my reader said I still had 39 minutes to read, because the end of the book is taken up by an excerpt from her collection of short stories, Seasons of Glass and Iron.

I think this disappointment tainted my overall impression of the book, which felt like the beginning of a fairly decent fantasy novel (trilogy?) involving fairies. I’m sure there must be a technical genre name for fantasy books involving fairies. Or maybe that’s just the definition of the fantasy genre, and we need a technical name for fantasy that does not involve fairies?

Anyway. This was fine, but not up to my admittedly pretty high expectations, based on the only other work I’ve read from El-Mohtar: The Truth About Owls, which I loved (this is a direct link to the short story).

“To put it bluntly, the most powerful people in the world are preparing for the end of the world, an end they themselves are frenetically accelerating.”

The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism...

>244 FlorenceArt: Well, that's a depressing way to start my week. What a time we live in.

>244 FlorenceArt: Thanks Florence! That quote really did me in.🙃

ETA. I read the whole article and it’s a must-read. I really do recommended it. I was especially interested in the parts about AI and and data centers.

In arid and climate-stressed Spain, one of the groups calling for a moratorium on new datacenters calls itself Tu Nube Seca Mi Río – Spanish for “your cloud is drying my river”. The name is fitting, and not just for Spain.

>245 labfs39: Sorry 😢

>246 kjuliff: I do think AI can be useful, but the sad truth is that we are being fed AI regardless of its cost/benefit balance, and a lot of people use it as a toy without realizing, or maybe caring, about the environmental cost.

>247 FlorenceArt: I meant the first part of my post to be in a funny way. I agree with you about AI. It’s not only scary in the environmental damage that is already occurring, but in the fact that there are no limits or control controls on its development. It’s not like coding that can be altered.

Another short story from the Hugo packet (Neil Clarke’s selection):

Four People I Need You to Kill Before the Dance Begins by Louis Inglis Hall : Clarkesworld Magazine

I liked this one! And the ending is open, which I liked even better.

I probably won’t finish Ancestral Night. I don’t know what it is with Elizabeth Bear, I want to like her but every time I try one of her books, there is something that prevents me from enjoying it. This one is very, VERY wordy. I hesitate to use the word infodump, because it’s not THAT boring, but the thing is that it continues throughout the book, and it’s repetitive. Some of it is mildly interesting, some is old sciency tropes, and some is just repeating the same thing over and over again.

I was doing OK until about the halfway point, but then a cataclysmic event occurred and this obviously marks the beginning of a whole new story arc, and… I don’t HAVE to keep reading. That’s the superpower of a reader! I think I will take advantage of it now. Shazam! I’m off to read something more exciting.

>250 FlorenceArt: I don’t HAVE to keep reading. That’s the superpower of a reader! I think I will take advantage of it now. Shazam! I’m off to read something more exciting.

I should frame this and hang it above my reading chair to remind myself that I too have the power to say, "DNF and good riddance."

>251 labfs39: Yes! And it doesn’t even have to be a really bad book. This one was OK, and after all, enough people liked the series that it was selected for the Hugos. It’s just too long, and not for me.

Interesting stuff as always. I'm not downloading the short-stories you mention as I have a huge pile of them waiting for me on my ebook reader.
Have you read This is how you lose the time war by Amal El-Mohtar ? This was hugely praised (and it has won the Hugo award) but it was only meh for me, which has not made me want to read more by her.

>253 chlorine: No, I haven’t. I’ve been reluctant since I’ve had uneven impressions of the co-author, Adrian Tchaikovsky. Plus I don’t like time travel ☺️ but I’m planning to get to it some day.

Hmm, I’m having second thoughts about Ancestral Night. Maybe I’ll pick it up again later. In the meantime I need a palate cleanser, and started another Hugo finalist (novella), Cinder House.

>254 FlorenceArt: I think Max Gladstone is the coauthor of This is how you lose the time war, not Tchaikovsky?

Interesting that you've had uneven impression of Tchaikovsky. This is an author I'm very interested in and would like to read more of. So far I've loved Elder Race and liked Ogres a lot. What books of his would you recommend/warn to avoid?

FWIW I didn't care much about This is how you lose the time war even though I LOVE time travel. :/

>256 chlorine: Oops, yes! I mixed up the name but not the author, since Gladstone is the author of Three Parts Dead, which I liked, and Two Serpents Rise, that I DNF. On the other hand I liked Dead Country, so that’s two to one for. 🤷‍♀️

In fact I’ve never read anything from Tchaikovksy, so I’ll make a note of Elder Race and Ogres. Service Model is on my wishlist already.

Cinder House
Freya Marske
I liked this unusual retelling of Cinderella. It’s a finalist for the Hugo in the novella category.

We, the Fleet by Alex T. Singer : Clarkesworld Magazine

Part of Neil Clarke’s selection for the Hugo. An excellent story about first interspecies contact. As usual I was rather skeptical about the ease and speed at which communication is established, but that’s a minor quibble. The story is engaging and well told.

>259 FlorenceArt: I liked this story quite a lot as well. :)

>257 FlorenceArt: Service Model is already on my wishlist as well. :)

Zaï zaï zaï zaï
Fabcaro

A graphic novel that I picked up in the holiday rental I’m in at the moment. It’s completely absurd and deliciously funny. Fab, a graphic novel artist, finds out at the supermarket cash out that he forgot his loyalty card. He is apprehended by the security guard, but manages to escape after menacing him with a leek. While he is on the road and meets all kinds of people, his escape is commented on TV, in bars and at family tables all over the country. I had never heard of this author but I will look for more of his work.

Murder by Memory
Olivia Waite
Finalist for the Hugo, novella category

I have to admit that I went in with a negative prejudice. The title sounds like what it is, I guess, a cozy mystery, and that’s not something I particularly like. I only finished the book because it was so short, and honestly I was only half paying attention toward the end. The writing is very bland, and I also disliked the premise. In short, I disliked the book, though possibly it doesn’t deserve such scorn and it’s just me.

The last nominee in the novella category that I haven’t read is What Stalks the Deep, and I don’t know if I will try to read it. If I don’t much like cozy mysteries, I positively hate to be scared.

>261 FlorenceArt: I was a bit disappointed by Zai zai zai zai but I loved his roman photo Et si l'amour c'était aimer ? which is also absurd and deliciously funny.
Fabcaro also writes novels under the name Fabrice Caro and I found the ones I read very funny. I would not recommend readin long chunks in one sitting because they are not great litterature and I think you can get a bit fed up if you read too much at once but taken in short bites I like them a lot and there are usually laughing-out-lound moments.

>262 FlorenceArt: Have you read other works by T. Kingfisher? I really liked what I have read by her (and she was born the same year as me so that means that hopefully she will keep writing books for a large part of my reading life :)
I didn't read many but the ones I read were not scary. Nettle and Bone is tagged horror for instance and the beginning of the book make it seem like a horror book but it is not that at all, quite the opposite if that makes sense. I don't know about What stalks the deep though. The first book of this series is on my wishlist.

>264 chlorine: I love T. Kingfisher when she is not writing scary stuff. Her Clocktaur Wars and the Paladin stories are wonderful. What Moves the Dead was OK and not too scary, but what really stopped me was A House with Good Bones, which I had to DNF.

Red, Scuttle When the Ships Come Down - Uncanny Magazine

Weird and frustrating. Not recommended if you like a neat ending with all questions answered, but the strength of a short story, for me, is not to answer questions but to ask them. And this one has a lot of questions.

>264 chlorine: Adding Paladin's Grace to my wishlist. Also for my part I quite like to be scared when I'm in the mood for it and have trouble finding books that actually scare me. So I'm moving A House with good bones up a bit in my wishlist (it was already on it).

From Neil Clarke’s selection for the Hugo packet:

Abstraction Is When I Design Giant Death Creatures and Attraction Is When I Do It for You by Claire Jia-Wen : Clarkesworld Magazine

Dark dystopian tale about moral choices. Can’t say I enjoyed it, but I liked what it did.

Parc national des Cévennes (Guide Gallimard)

I don't usually review travel guides, but I'll make an exception for this one. I had the 2006 edition at home from a previous stay in the area, and borrowed the 2017 edition from the library to take with me. It's not the latest one, but that's OK, I can get the latest info from the web.

I read the first parts about the history of the region, the geology and geography, and the most interesting to me, the description of the different human habitats and the way humans shaped the landscape. I knew, for instance, that chestnuts were a food staple, but I did not realize that they were grown, not just picked up in the wild. In fact, although it was probably a native species, it has been grown since the Neolithic era. From the sixteenth century, forests were cut down to make place for orchards of grafted chestnut trees. The book also describes in detail the different types of architecture and installations, especially around water management. Very interesting.

I had also downloaded Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey on my reader, and still haven't read it. Maybe, if I visit a third time, I finally will...

What Stalks the Deep
T. Kingfisher

Well, that wasn’t scary enough to make me stop reading. Also, I liked Alex’s dry humor. I didn’t remember that from the first book.

ETA: turns out I missed (possibly on purpose) the second book in the series. I might read it some day, who knows.

I was back in Paris just in time to enjoy 40° temps. Just now there was a splatter of rain, and the temperature in my apartment has dropped down to 30°. Thankfully I also have an underground level (where my bedroom is) so I can always go hobbit if things get too hot upstairs, and I can sleep all right, so I’m luckier than many.

>271 FlorenceArt: We have had 40 degrees everyday for a week with a high of 43 - it sort of builds up.
However we have shutters on the windows and plenty of space around us and so it is not as bad as being in the city.

>272 baswood: Yikes! I hope you'll see the announced temperature drop soon. Here the forecast is still dire until (maybe) storms on Saturday night.

The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For
Cameron Reed

Finalist for the Hugo in the Novelette category.

Meh. I hesitated to finish this but it’s very short. Clumsily written with an unbelievable story and characters. The second half is a bit better. This one will not get my vote.

Just finished catching up on your thread. It's been interesting seeing your comments on all the Hugo nominees! It seems like a fun thing to do, but I think I'd just get too overwhelmed by it all.

>213 FlorenceArt: I quite enjoyed Automatic Noodle when I read it a few months ago, though I find it hard to see it as a book to make it onto an award shortlist. Though I didn't like Binti at all (and I noticed that you didn't either) but that won the award a few years back, so it's always hard to tell what's going to get in there.

Glad that you were able to read What stalks the deep!

The temperature in my flat is totally livable but I was squeamish about attending the pride march - turns out it was cancelled because of the heat.

>275 valkyrdeath: Thanks. It is fun, but a big commitment. I’m not sure I will do it next year. On the other hand, it made me discover books and stories, and a very weird webcomic, that I would probably never had heard about.

Yes, it’s interesting to see what was selected. In most cases I can see what the appeal could be, although personally some aspects put me off. It will also be interesting to see who wons.

>276 chlorine: Glad you didn’t suffer too much from the heat. A pride march in this weather would have been a disaster. I hope they manage to reschedule it before the next heat wave.

The Last Lunar New Year by Derek Künsken : Clarkesworld Magazine

Another story from Neil Clarke’s selection for the Hugo packet. Not sure what to say about this one. It annoyed me, and yet it’s an interesting (and disturbing) thought experiment. I ended up more intrigued than annoyed. Despite the fact (nitpicking on a very minor comment) that here is another author who doesn’t get evolution.

I'm sorry you are having such a heat wave. 40C in Paris and 43C in southern France is incredible.

>279 labfs39: Thanks. It’s cooler now, but the next one is already announced for the end of this week. I can’t complain though, as I said, I have no problem sleeping in my cave 😋

Since I'll need to create a new thread for the half-year, I might as well post the sketches from my Cévennes vacation. I'm told the subjects are recognizable, though I must admit I have some doubts.

Number 5 is a rock formation, here is the photo as I really don’t think that one makes sense if you haven’t seen the original.

You’re so talented. Thanks for sharing

Thanks for sharing, Florence. That rock formation is a good subject.

>283 Nickelini: Thank you!

>284 labfs39: Thanks. The Bois de Païolive was maybe my favorite walk during this vacation.

Nice sketches :-) The place names are so evocative, and the Païolive rock formation is very impressive!

>286 Dilara86: Thank you 😊