Activity tagged "books"

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Reviewing the 15 books I read in May

Belated May reading wrap-up. Lots of comfort/escapist reading this month, heavy on the litRPGs and detective novels. Favorite out of the fifteen was probably Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.

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@molly0xfff May reading wrap-up, reviewing the 15 books I read this month #litrpg #progressionfantasy #cozyfantasy #detectivebooks #readingwrapup #booktok #bookish #bookrecommendations #mayreadingwrapup ♬ original sound - Molly White
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“Don’t hurt anyone. Never bully people weaker than yourself. Help out those in need. Some would say that these rules are obvious. But the truth is, the obvious is no longer obvious in today’s world. What’s worse is that some people even ask why. They don't understand why they shouldn't hurt other people. It's not a simple thing to explain. It’s not logical. But if they read books they will understand. It’s far more important than using logic to explain something. Human beings don’t live alone, and a book is a way to show them that.”

Rintaro did his best to explain to the invisible listener.

“I think the power of books is that—that they teach us to care about others. It’s a power that gives people courage and also supports them in turn.”

Rintaro broke off for a moment, biting his lip.

“Because you seem to have forgotten,” he resumed with all the strength he could muster, “I’m going to say it as loud as I can. Empathy—that's the power of books.”
– Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books
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“School board member admits to banning books without reading them, faces lawsuit”.
Ellsworth Toohey in Boing Boing. Published .
"I don't like them. I wouldn't read them. I'll be honest I've read the reviews on some of them…" With these words at a public meeting, Tennessee's Rutherford County School Board member Stan Vaught admitted to banning books he hadn't read — a revelation that kicked off a federal lawsuit. According to the complaint, board members relied primarily on BookLooks.org, a website connected to the Hitler-quoting group Moms for Liberty, instead of reading the books themselves or considering their literary merit. The board repeatedly overruled their own librarians' recommendations to keep books like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, and Ernest Cline' Ready Player One because it has "characters discussing beliefs that heaven and god are not real."
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“Novelist Katie Kitamura: 'As Trump tries to take away everything I love, it's never been clearer that writing matters'”.
Sophie McBain in The Guardian. Published .
More broadly, fiction can act as an antidote to authoritarianism. If authoritarianism thrives when people are isolated, fiction brings people together, she says. “In the most basic way, writing is about opening yourself to another person’s mind. The most intimate thing I do on a daily basis is pick up a book and open myself to another person.” And, while the Trump administration may be forcing one way of life on the world, fiction’s job is, as always, to remind people that there are “other ways of being”.