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This little book nicely conveys the struggles, roadbumps, distractions, and challenges of writing a novel. Each two pages consists of an illustration on one page and text on the other. I love how deeply the author conveys the scene in just a few words and Gorey's recognizeable art style.

The SF/Fantasy-focused bookstore in #Portland is doing this book as part of one of its book clubs. I've only read Surface Detail from the Culture series, and thought I'd ready this early novel to better understand the universe. It's a really interesting perspective, the beginning of the book laying out the game-playing and Gurgeh's mastery of nearly any game he encounters as a way to tell the story.

The setting is described really well; you definitely want to read this in the cold of the winter, and it's best of you can read it with snow all around. The inspiration for this novel is a book about the dark side of living in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and draw upon it, it does. The descriptions of squalor and adversity go deep, though I'd like to have had more about the local townspeople in Minnesota, whereas the book only goes into detail for people in the cities of St. Louis and Chicago.

I don't fully understand the motivations of the main characters, though I apprecciated the story-telling.

@arnodegroote This is the third and final book in McCarthy's Border Trilogy. I highly recommend the other two novels, as well. I read them shortly after they came out as a recommendation from a close friend and also didn't know what to expect. All three are super engaging, gripping, and sometimes unbelievable. (well, it's fiction, but you know what I mean)

@cornellbox Thanks! Looks like it's something I need to put on my list, then, as I like those things.

@pluralistic@mamot.fr @gnoll110@ruby.social naming your company after some aspect of Middle Earth has sadly become a strong indicator that it's something we would all be better off to avoid.

Tucking into this one because @pluralistic@mamot.fr told me I had to. I don't know how nuts it's going to be, but the first couple chapters start out with some truly wild stories.

Promoting because the author is not allowed to.

#bookstodon #greed #facebook #enshittification

This is not a lightsaber-weilding, blaster firing, starfighter chasing Star Wars novel. This is about a steadily clenching fist squeezing the galaxy and the residents are just beginning to notice.

The novel is well-written, using multiple points of view in order to articulate the differing points of view of people as the shroud of empire begins its inexorable stretch across the galaxy, beginning with Coruscant and the core worlds. There is a lot of politics, intrigue, and discussion in this story, with an exciting side-jaunt to an historical world for excitement.

The book isn't short, but it is a slow burn smoldering at the beginnings of what Andor will eventually become, serving as fodder for anyone who enjoyed that series. If this sounds like you, I recommend this book with its background and all the little intrigues and nuances of Imperial politics it provides to the reader. The most important part of this story is a dawning of what the Empire means to the peoples of the galaxy, using Mon Mothma as an originally naive member of the Senate, and through her eyes we begin to see the true meaning of Emperor Palpatine's reach across the galaxy.

This conversation between two working-class citizens down in the depths of Coruscant demonstrates how the call to power and absolute authority appeals to those who think it will bring back their preferred way of life and how they're ready to support the new regime with vigilante-style violence, if necessary.

I'm about halfway through this guide to running kubernetes. This book is very well done, with lots of examples that walk the reader through not only effecting changes to their #kubernetes environment, but also really educate the reader as to what's going on under the hood. For all that, it moves along at a quick pace, depending on how much you want to explore or execute variations on some of the commands.

I was showing an out-of-town friend around at Powell's and she mentioned that her husband liked mystery novels. This one caught my eye due to the investigative nature it presents to the reader. She surreptitiously bought two and gave one to me.

So now I'm reading it, and it reminds me of E: A Novel that I read many years ago: bookrastinating.com/book/359398/s/e

The pacing of reading a novel through the characters' email interactions is fast and compels you to "read just one more", so this one is turning out to be quite the page-turner so far.

This book is a great resource for learning about and discovering Japanese knives. And to get there, the author provides the reader with a well-rounded history of both Western and Japanese cooking knives, highlighting their differences, the way they've been shaped by historical events, and how they evolve to address the cuisine typical to their region.

One part history, one part technical know-how, one part catalogue of knife types, and one part cookbook, this is an amazing resource.

Doctorow quoting Senator John Sherman's speech to Congress in 1890.