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The Best Horror Books of 2024 (So Far) | esquire.com
www.esquire.com The Best Horror Books of 2024 (So Far)Our favorites are digging grim tunnels into territory old and new, from haunted houses to whimsical horror comedies.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16892902
> The best horror books of 2024 according to the Esquire (April 10) > > - The House of Last Resort by Peter Straub > - This Wretched Valley by Lyndsey Kiefer > - Among the Living by Adam Nevill > - In the Valley of the Headless Men by Hernán Díaz > - The Haunting of Velkwood by Michael David Kiste > - Mouth by Paul Tremblay > - King Nyx by Christopher Golden > - The Angel of Indian Lake by Graham Joyce > - The Black Girl Survives in This One edited by Rion Amilcar Scott and Rebecca Roanhorse > - Bless Your Heart by Alyssa Maxwell > - Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by John LaRocca > - Diavola by Livia Llewellyn > - The Underhistory by Tessa Warren > - Incidents Around the House by Riley Sager (forthcoming
- libcom.org The Chicago 8 Speak Out! - Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner
A collection of works, published in 1969, by the defendants in the Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial. Following the clashses at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the US Department of Justice charged some of the organizers who had encouraged people to come to Chicago with incitement to riot, amon...
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library summer reading challenge help!
Hiya,
My local library summer reading challenge has a few items with which I could use y'all's help.
Read a book with a musical theme.
Read a book outside your comfort zone (I read mostly novels, and mostly sci-fi).
Read a book by an author from a different cultural background. (I'm a white American and I've already read Three Body Problem)
Read a book suggested to you.
I would appreciate any suggestions!
-Pidgin
- southsideweekly.com Consolidating Memories with Kendall Hill
Writer and photographer Kendall Hill prepares to publish his first book, titled FEVERDREAMS.
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Here are the nonfiction books NPR staffers have loved so far this year
>We see you, hard-core NPR readers — just because it's summer doesn't mean it's all fiction, all the time. So we asked around the newsroom to find our staffers' favorite nonfiction from the first half of 2024. We've got biography and memoir, health and science, history, sports and more.
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Where to Start With Ursula K. LeGuin?
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/34435904
> I've been seeing her name a lot lately in terms of good science fiction and fantasy. I feel like I've lost so much attention span in terms of my ability to read and stuff and I'd like to start getting back into it, perhaps starting with her (or Terry Pratchett lol). > > If I start with her, what's a good place to start with her work?
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2023 Stoker Award Winners for Best Horror and Dark Fantasy| bookriot.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16219937
> https://bookriot.com/2023-stoker-award-winners-for-best-horror-and-dark-fantasy/ > > The Bram Stoker Award is a prestigious literary award presented annually by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) to recognize "superior achievement" in dark fantasy and horror writing. > > Here are the 2023 Stoker Award Winners > > - Superior Achievement in a Novel: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due > - Superior Achievement in a First Novel: The Daughters of Block Island by Christa Carmen > - Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel: The Nighthouse Keeper by Lora Senf > - Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel: She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran > - Superior Achievement in Long Fiction: Linghun by Ai Jiang > - Superior Achievement in Short Fiction: “Quondam” by Cindy O’Quinn > - Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection: Blood from the Air by Gemma Files > - Superior Achievement in an Anthology: Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele & John Joseph Adams > - Superior Achievement in Long Nonfiction: 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered by Sadie Hartmann > - Superior Achievement in Short Nonfiction: “Becoming Ungovernable: Latah, Amok, and Disorder in Indonesia” by Nadia Bulkin (Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror) > - Superior Achievement in Poetry: On the Subject of Blackberries by Stephanie M. Wytovich > - Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel: Carmilla: The First Vampire by Amy Chu, art by Soo Lee > - Superior Achievement in a Screenplay: Godzilla Minus One >
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Romance novels for a beginner with no "impure love drama"
I do not read books as often as I watch movies, but I am willing to create a habit of reading by taking a suggestion for a book from this community, and I want to start from this genre.
However I am quite picky in this matter. I cannot stand romance involving breakups, betrayal, love triangle or anything of such sorts. All I am looking for a simple story where only the couple is the protagonist, if you understand what I mean. I do not wish for any other character act as a rival in their relationship. Minor inconveniences or tensions could still be tolerated but I wish for the couple to have a satisfying ending as they were destined to by spending time with each other or being involved in circumstances that reveal similarities between them.
I would be more inclined towards stories with settings during the present times or having the characters hate each other at first, but these are optional.
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Finally someone agrees with me on The Shining
Jessica Huang from Fresh off the Boat TV series, said this in response to Honey quoting the movie. I totally feel the same way.
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Romance books with more relatable male protagonists
I've been feeling really lonely lately so I've been trying to find any romance books to distract me.
However, the only books with male heterosexual protagonists I can find are either sports romances or have "alpha male" protagonists.
Are there any books where the main character is nerdier and more relatable?
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Is there a book/saga that you finished and cannot forget to the point where it gets harder to read other books?
For me, the first time this happened was with The Royal Assassin Saga from Robin Hobb, and then Metro 2033.
This year, it’s The Witcher saga… (I can’t move on) I love all those introspective books with thoughtful heroes trying to make sense of the world they are forced to evolve into.
Do you have any other book like that?
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Who is Stephen in Howl's Moving Castle?
At the start of the book, there's an acknowledgement by the author, that goes something like:
> This one is for Stephen > > The idea for this book was suggested by a boy in a school I was visiting, who asked me to write a book called The Moving Castle. > >I wrote down his name, and put it in such a safe place, that I have been unable to find it ever since. > > I would like to thank him very much.
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Optimistic/feel good left wing book recommendations
Any recommendations for left wing reads. Preferably something not depressing. Thanks!
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I'm trying to remember the name of a book....
Hopefully I'm in the right place.
This is what I remember. The book is set in outer space some time after an intergalactic war with an alien species. Large ships were built during the war. One such ship was placed on the very edge of the known universe, which was where the aliens came from, as an outpost/watchtower of sorts. They keep watch over the edge for any sign of the aliens returning. Anyways, the characters in the book realize that the universe is contracting back in on itself and destroying everything in its path. Over the course of the book they must figure out what is going on while staying ahead of the contraction.
Please help.
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Reina Roja
Después de ver la serie #ReinaRoja en #Amazon decidí comprar la trilogía de libros 📚 para mi #Kindle
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Paul austere died yesterday at the age of 77
His notable works include The New York Trilogy (1987), Moon Palace (1989), The Music of Chance (1990), The Book of Illusions (2002), The Brooklyn Follies (2005), Invisible (2009), Sunset Park (2010), Winter Journal (2012), and 4 3 2 1 (2017). His books have been translated into more than forty languages.[1]
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a way to list books by ratings in goodreads?
hi, i recently wanted to look for the best psychology books in [https://www.goodreads.com/] and website doesn't allow me to sort them by ratings. is there any way to do this? i don't want to end up searching "best psychology books" on web and look for ai generated blogs. thanks.
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Angry Robot launches open submission period with AI... and quickly reverses course due to community blowback
astrolabe.aidanmoher.com Astrolabe Digest: 040824Publisher Angry Robot reveals and then shutters an AI revolution, Commodore 64 finally hits Analogue Pocket, and a whole bunch of retro games sold for a whole bunch of money at auction
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My review of “Orientalism” (1978) by Edward W. Said
When I asked my friend how she found the book to be, she described it as “a jumble of thoughts that felt familiar.”
As Orientals, they indeed feel familiar to us. Although I never picked up the book before now, I couldn't say I have not read it. I read it on the faces of Western "political experts". I read it in laws of counterterrorism and anti-immigration. I read it in the newspapers, listen to it on the radio, and watch it on the TV. But most crucially, I read it when I look into the mirror, this self perception of being an “Oriental”, an inferiority complex transfused throughout the years from teachers and professors, intellectuals and celebrities, family and friends, and especially strangers.
>“Oriental students (and Oriental professors) still want to come and sit at the feet of American Orientalists, and later to repeat to their local audiences the clichés I have been characterizing as Orientalist dogmas.” (Ch.3, IV).
Orientalism, according to Said, is not merely a scientific, objective field as it has always been characterised by the Orientalist himself. Rather, it is a subjectivity: that is, the Orientalist does not study the Orient, but he “comes to terms” with an Orient “that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience.” Though the same may be said about the Occident which does not just exist as an inert fact of nature, for such divide is a social construct first and foremost, and does not translate smoothly into a physical or geographical classification.
Orientalism reflects a history of colonial exploitation. By scrutinising, interpreting and classifying the Orient, the Orientalist justified (in advance and after the fact) the West's right to dominate, restructure and have authority over the Orient.
Although the otherisation of the Oriental has already existed for millenia, Said traces back the changing point of Orientalism to the onset of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. It is at this point in time that Orientalism was institutionalised and 'scientisized'. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the majority of Orientalists were philologists and anthropologists. Yet, the core values of the scientific method—objectivity, disinterest, mutability—notwithstanding, Orientalism preserved, see “secularized,” the mythic discourses of premodernity.
>“the scientific categories informing late-nineteenth-century Orientalism are static: there is no recourse beyond “the Semites” or “the Oriental mind”; these are final terminals holding every variety of Oriental behavior within a general view of the whole field. As a discipline, as a profession, as specialized language or discourse, Orientalism is staked upon the permanence of the whole Orient, for without “the Orient” there can be no consistent, intelligible, and articulated knowledge called “Orientalism.”” (Ch.3, II).
Although Science, as an ideal of truth should theoretically be prone to change, admits proof and counterproof; the scientist still holds on his shoulders the overwhelming weight of his predecessors and their values. He is impelled to follow their path, avoid uncertainty and existentiality, to reproduce mythic discourses. And this is especially relevant to Orientalism.
From an existential standpoint, the gaze of the White Man makes of the Oriental man “first an Oriental [essence] and only second a man [existence].” Dehumanised, otherised and silenced; the Oriental is a piece of mold that can be shaped by the Orientalist according to the zeitgeist of his epoch on the one hand, and to the eccentric tendencies of his personality.
In the second half of the twentieth century, which coincides with the decolonisation movement and the zenith of American hegemony, Orientalism went through major transformations. European focus on philology was superseded by a jejune, American obsession in “Social Sciences”. The Orient became then the experimental laboratory of the American social scientist.
>“No longer does an Orientalist try first to master the esoteric languages of the Orient; he begins instead as a trained social scientist and “applies” his science to the Orient, or anywhere else.” (Ch.3, IV).
Late (read: American) Orientalism was shaped by government and corporate interests in the non-Western world, and fueled by the Cold War and competition with the Soviet Union. This is why very perverse and polemical "studies" of Islam were mass-published (especially by Zionists). Islam, according to the modern Orientalist, is a volatile and purely political religion, a force “contending with the American idea for acceptance by the Near East” along with communism. All this whilst maintaining the early myths of “Oriental despotism.”
>“The legendary Arabists in the State Department warn of Arab plans to take over the world. ... the passive Muslims are described as vultures for “our” largesse and are damned when “we lose them” to communism, or to their unregenerate Oriental instincts: the difference is scarcely significant.” (Ch.3, IV).
Edward Said's magnum opus is a seminal and well-acclaimed work. Yet it had its fair share of critics. Apart from the Zionists and Orientalists themselves (which we shall dusregard), some scholars criticised Said's dealing with the Middle East as a monolithic category consisting of pure Muslim Arabs. It is not entirely incorrect to say that Said did not leave much space to the other constituents of the region; however, Said is very well aware of the cultural and ethnic diversity characterising West Asia and North Africa. Rather, their virtual absence from the big picture is a better reflection of the Orientalist's vision of what the Near East is, in which non-Arabs and non-Muslims hold a peripheral, if not silent, role. Britain and France, Said contends, viewed themselves as the protectors of Christian minorities from the evils of Islamic "barbarism."
Moreover, Islam is equally simplified by Orientalists and reduced to Islamic Orthodoxy. In the Islamic Orient, everything cannot but be perceived as Islamic, even modernisation and the adoption of European technologies and institutions is itself Islamic. To reiterate a previous thought, the essence precedes existence.
It is important to note that this book was released decades before the 9/11 attacks which spurred another Orientalist wave. Although today the formal, academic field is almost nonexistent, its essentialist doctrines are still being disseminated into the masses, both in the West and the East. The face of Western progressivism has shown a grim, and not entirely unfamiliar face, especially amid the genocide in Gaza. The struggle against dehumanisation and exploitation is not over yet.
P.S. Take a shot every time you read the word Orient.
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Earthship / off grid building
Looking for recommendations for books about off grid living, and ideally, earthship biotecture.
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Im looking for a book about a girl with a magic eye on an air ship to catch magic only she can see
The book starts out with a girl with magic eye on a flying ship to catch magic sand only she can see. She has no memory of how she grew up. At the start of the journey a man destroys the ship, but safes her. During the book(s) it is reveled that the man and she herself are basically here to destroy humanity because humanity threatens magic. Instead she decides to destroy all magic herself at the end of the last book.
Edit:
Humanity retreated to safe parts of the world where magic isn't as strong. I think these parts are mostly cities and used completely by humans. Because the magic found in the wild and the land itself is deadly to humans, they can only traverse it using flying ships. Further they use these ships to gather magic gathered in storms to power their machinery. There is also a part where she travels with the demon boy through the wilderness which is super magical and beautiful.
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Books for Computational Linguistics?
Hi everyone, I've always had a special interest in linguistics and have informally studied a couple of different languages from all around the world. The different writing systems such as radicals in Chinese, Kurdish scripts and reading from right to left, to Inuit glyphs are all fascinating in themselves.
The IPA has been something fascinating, but I've yet to find a good resource that I could make sense of and hold my attention long enough to internalize the concepts.
I'm looking for books and authors that have a unique background. For example, seeing Chomsky's name in an automata formal language theory book was weird to think... But all the NLP stuff had foundation in older linguistic theory and ways people thought about the human brain, right?
Language and Information by Zellig Harris is an interesting read. John Sowa is another author I'd recommend for the whole way of ontology and computer systems. The particular book by him that I'm thinking is Conceptual Structures, I believe...? Would love to hear your thoughts, especially with all the AI hardware being released.
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Philosophy of religion recommendations for a beginner-intermediate?
Been on a theology kick for the past year and looking to read more into the philosophy because that’s the interesting part for me. I would say I’m not a beginner but not an intermediate. Would love some recommendations
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book apps recommendation
I am looking for some neat book reading apps. Bonus points if it lets me know if a sequel is released.
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Would you recommend reading the witcher series ?
How is the plot ? I can't stand plot holes . Also in what order should i read ? I have watched season 1 and 2 of the series and thought it was average and won't be bothering with season 3 as cavil is sacked after this anyway . Also i like the harry potter series as they have fleshed out characters and good plot with very minimal holes (why didn't you break the fucking wand harry your going to be an auror).
Also any good english translation which will cover the whole book ?
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"Tale of the Necromancer" - dark fantasy/horror story with a bit of philosophy
(Here You can listen to audio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCdlph835qc )
Today I’m going to tell you about a necromancer… Not just any necromancer, but the Necromancer… The one who was the first to make a pact with Death, who was the first to learn its dark secrets, who coined the creed of the ancient brotherhood of graveyard sorcerers….
But let’s start at the beginning. Centuries ago… No, more than centuries, thousands of years ago. It’s hard to say how long ago, because there are no chronicles so old as to date back to that time… In some country in the East; the name of that land, the name of the people who inhabited it, the language that people spoke, the names of the cities they inhabited. All this is lost in the darkness of oblivion….So, as I say, thousands of years ago, in some country in the East, there lived a man. An ordinary craftsman. He made pots out of clay. He couldn’t be called rich, but he certainly wasn’t poor. Well, he earned enough to provide a decent living for himself, his wife and two sons. And he could even afford small pleasures from time to time, such as a jug of wine for dinner or a small trinket for his beloved….
But, although his wife was beautiful and diligent, and his sons were healthy and diligent too, this man was deeply unhappy. What was the reason for this?… His profession.
First of all, when a man sits at the potter’s wheel performing monotonous and familiar motions by heart, he often does so in passing, while his mind is sunk in contemplation. Secondly, the potter’s life and work provided him with plenty of material for musings that were not very cheerful.
But before I go any further, you should know something : the people among whom the man lived have always been afraid of wraiths( the cursed corpses that walk the earth to harass the living). Ironically, the people feared the undead at a time when there was still no necromancer who could summon them from beyond the grave…. Therefore, they did not bury the corpse as we do today. Each body went to a pyre made of dry wood, which the priests set on fire. The pyre burned until all that was left of the deceased was ash, at which time the assembled family praised the merits of the deceased and raised a lament. The conflagration ritual was meant to ensure that the dead would not take revenge on the living, and the annihilation of the body was meant to prevent them from doing so, should the rite itself not be enough. When the fire was extinguished, the priests would collect the ashes and pour them into a clay urn, which was then buried in the ground.
We should remember that the future Necromancer was engaged in the processing of clay. But, as you already know, his creations were not only used to store wine, beer, water or milk… They were also a resting place for the dead members of his community. So, the Necromancer was not only a simple potter, but also a bit of a mortician. Every time someone died, the family of the unfortunate person would come to the potter’s workshop to order a new vessel in which the ashes would be placed. Therefore, the craftsman was aware of every death occurring in the area.
(Text is too long for characters limit, the rest You can read here: https://adeptusrpg.wordpress.com/2022/12/14/tale-of-the-necromancer/ )
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Mystery/ crime/ horror novel recommendations?
ETA: I have read and downloaded many of your recommendations and have had lots of fun reading them! You are such a welcoming enthusiastic bunch. Thanks a lot! Still looking for more suggestions in case someone wants to add to the ever growing list. So far this year I have read twenty seven books.
Looking for some good mystery novels/short story compilation, etc. Preferably no sci fi or futuristic stuff, no Stephen King. TIA.
FWIW just finished reading "We have to talk about Kevin" by Lionel Shriver. It was OK.
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Books similar to Wool, or the vaults in Fallout?
I really like the lore behind the vaults in the Fallout games. The only book I know that's somewhat similar is Wool, are there any others?
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Can you recommend a book for me please?
I’ve basically been ordered to pick up any fiction book and read, after a friend discovered I’ve not read anything but non-fiction for a decade.
The ones I’ve enjoyed in the past have been short, fantastical or sci-fi (think Aldous Huxley, Ian McEwan), but crucially with amazing first person descriptive prose - the kind where you’re immersed in the writing so much you’re almost there with the character.
I liked sci-fi as the world’s constraints weren’t always predictable. Hope that makes sense.
Any recommendations?
Edit: I’m going to up the ante and, as a way of motivating myself to get off my arse and actually read a proper story, promise to choose a book from the top comment, after, let’s say arbitrarily, Friday 2200 GMT.
Edit deux: Wow ok I don’t think I’ve ever had this many responses to anything I’ve posted before. You’ve given me what looks like a whole year of interesting suggestions, and importantly, good commentary around them. I’m honouring my promise to buy the top thing in just under 4 hours.
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What's a good book that unfolds over a short time in-story? No spoilers, thanks.
Everything takes place over a few hours, or entirely set during the immediate aftermath of an automobile crash, for example?
I'd like to avoid "and it was all a dream", time travel, or similar plot devices if possible.
I'm curious what a novel of any length purposely confined to a strict time window in-story reads like.
Maybe I should be reading more plays.
Thanks.
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The Most Recent Addition to my Research List: "Slave State : Evidence of Apartheid in America" by Curtis Ray Davis
www.thriftbooks.com Slave State : Evidence of Apartheid in... bookBuy a cheap copy of Slave State : Evidence of Apartheid in... book. Slave State is an incarcerated author's attempt to illustrate historical and contemporary failures in the Louisiana Criminal Justice System. It is a collection of... Free Shipping on all orders over $15.
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Academic and narrative books + podcast episodes on fragrance
I have compiled various works on smell, fragrance, and perfumery for anyone seeking more in-depth information on the matter. The following are links to titles themselves or podcast episodes from the New Books Network wherein a host interviews the author of a new book whose topic relates to fragrance or scent.
Books
Internet Archive
This search pulls up works freely available on the Internet Archive with the subject "Perfume". To read many of the listed books, you need to have an account on the Internet Archive to check them out from the digital library. It is free to register! I would highly recommend making an account since it'll allow you access to so much free multimedia.
- Perfume: Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin: A Cultural History of Fragrance from 1750 to the Present by Richard Howard Stamelman
- The Artifice of Beauty: A History and Practical Guide to Perfumes and Cosmetics by Sally Pointer
- The Scent Trail: How One Woman's Quest for the Perfect Perfume Took Her Around the World by Celia Lyttelton
Other Sources
- The Perfume Lover: A Personal History of Scent by Denyse Beaulieu
- Fragrance and Wellbeing: Plant Aromatics and Their Influence on the Psyche by Jennifer Peace Rhind
- The Case Against Fragrance by Kate Grenville
- Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance by Elise Vernon Pearlstine
- Sacred Luxuries: Fragrance, Aromatherapy, and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt by Lise Manniche
- Perfumery: The Psychology and Biology of Fragrance by D. M. Stoddart, Steve Van Toller, George H. Dodd
- An Ethnography of Fragrance: The Perfumery Arts of ʿAdan/Laḥj by Dinah Jung
Academic Works
- Fundamentals of Fragrance Chemistry by Charles S. Sell
- Great overview of fragrance as an industry
- Perspectives in Flavor and Fragrance Research by Philip Kraft and Karl A. D. Swift
- Some neat-sounding chapters include
- "New Woody and Ambery Notes from Cedarwood and Turpentine Oil"
- "Pyrazines and Pyridines from Black Pepper Oil (Piper nigrum L.) and Haitian Vetiver Oil"
- "New Alicyclic Musks: The Fourth Generation of Musk Odorants"
- Some neat-sounding chapters include
- Common Fragrance And Flavor Materials: Preparation, Properties And Uses by Johannes Panten and Horst Surburg
- This work speaks on sourcing and processing of various compounds used in fragrance
- Science and Technology of Aroma, Flavor, and Fragrance in Rice by Srivastav, Prem Prakash, and Deepak Kumar Verma
- For anyone who enjoys a good rice note. Here's a quote from the preface:
> Aroma is one of the diagnostic aspects of rice quality that can determine acceptance or rejection of rice before it is tested. It is also considered as an important property of rice that indicates its preferable high quality and price in the market. An assessment of all known data reveals that more than 450 chemical compounds have been documented in various aromatic and non-aromatic rice cultivars. The primary goals were to identify the compounds responsible for the characteristics and rice aroma. Many attempts were made to search for key compounds for rice aroma, but no single compound or group of compounds could be reported that are fully responsible for rice aroma.
Multimedia Materials
Here are some results from the George Mason University Open Educational Resource Metafinder on perfume and fragrance, which will bring up multimedia on the searched topic, including photos of antique bottles, vintage ads, articles, and more. The metafinder searches from various archives, including the Digital Public Library of America, the Library of Congress (of the U.S.), and JSTOR, for materials mentioning the search term(s) in their metadata (e.g., titles, content, or tags).
Podcast (on Books)
I have found that the New Books Network podcast has a great range of episodes related to sense of smell, fragrance, spices, and other scented items, going beyond the human species' experiences of this sense. As far as the format, the episode host simply interviews the author of a new book on its subject matter.
Below are the episodes I found just by searching the network's site for "fragrance" and "perfume". The types of books below range from monographs to biographies to literature. The pages linked below include a description of the book's subject, information on the author and host, and an embedded audio player with the episode so you can listen from the web page.
Science
- The Secret Perfume of Birds: Uncovering the Science of Avian Scent by Danielle J. Whittaker, hosted by Galina Limorenko
- Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind by Ann-Sophie Barwich, hosted by Joseph Fridman
- Sensory Experiments: Psychophysics, Race, and the Aesthetics of Feeling by Erica Fretwell, hosted by Chad Valasek
Biographies (of celebrities who had fragrance lines)
- Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography by Meryle Secrest, hosted by Oline Eaton
- On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide by Matthew Kennedy, hosted by Daniel Moran
History
- The Scent of Empire: Chanel No. 5 and Red Moscow by Karl Schlögel, hosted by Jana Byars
- Vanilla: A Global History by Rosa Abreu-Runkel, hosted by Amir Sayadabdi
- Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance by Elise Vernon Pearlstine, hosted by Miranda Melcher
- Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell by Xuelei Huang, hosted by Miranda Melcher
- The Scent of Ancient Magic by Britta K. Ager, hosted by Miranda Melcher
- Victims of Fashion: Animal Commodities in Victorian Britain by Helen Louise Cowie, hosted by Miranda Melcher
- Histories of Health and Materiality in the Indian Ocean World: Medicine, Material Culture and Trade, 1600-2000 by Anne Gerritsen and Burton Cleetus, hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
- Fragrant Frontier: Global Spice Entanglements from the Sino-Vietnamese Uplands by Annuska Derks, Jean-François Rousseau, and Sarah Turner, hosted by Julia Heinle
Literature
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The Historical Awareness of Khairy Al-Zahaby's “The Trap of Names” (2009)
Disclaimer: there is no English translation of this book
The setting is 14th century Syria witnessing a stand-off between the usurping Mameluke Sultanate, and the Mongol Ilkhan whose forefathers invaded from the East, and who, having converted to Islam, is seeking to govern the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
However, amid the grusomeness of the scenes delicately described and narrated, there is an overarching theme which the author fixated on: that is History.
The author does not accept history at face value. There are political ramifications at play that go largely unnoticed by positivist scholarship in the field. For the production of history is neither an objective nor symmetrical process: not everyone has the privilege of writing history, not even one's own history for that matter. The historian's discretionary power in selectively choosing what to convey and what to silence from the past precludes him from being a disinterested observer. History does not merely transmit events and happenings, but rather imposes lessons, ideologies, philosophies and entire worldviews. More precisely, the production of history translates, depending on the context, into the reproduction of the status quo.
The Mongol invasion is exemplary of this particularity of History. This event went down in history as the most horrific massacre in the premodern age; indeed, some historians go as far as to equate it with the Holocaust. This evaluation has been widely accepted and deemed uncontroversial by the scholarship of the last few decades, both in the East and the West.
However, since the twenty-first century, there have been efforts by some scholars to dissect those ramifications of history mentioned earlier within the widely-accepted narrative of “Mongol genocide.” Anja Pistor-Hatam for instance argues that the collective memory of the societies which experienced the invasion has to a certain extent exaggerated the degree of violence commited by the Mongols. What the premodern historians have transmitted secondhand in their books do not conform to archaeological evidence. Though if the extent of the destruction brought by the Mongols is not as significant as it was thought to be, “the trauma was very real” (Lane, 2008). The idea of foreign invasion was more fatal than the act itself, sending the affacted civilisations into existential crisis. The paranoia of the Foreign, the Other, is very well evinced by Al-Zahabi when the novel's characters who pondered on many occasions about the nature of the Monhol soldiers, concluding every time that they were not humans but mythical animals.
While endless literature is dedicated to the Mongol invasion itself, its aftermath and the cultural legacy of the Mongols in Iran and Iraq is rarely acknowledged. The Ilkhanids in fact contributed a lot to the enrichment of art and architecture, one of the perks of the cosmopolitan and diverse constituencies of the Mongol courts. Among the rulers' servants and elite were not only Muslims, but also Christians, Zoroastrians and Buddhists; for the Mongol rulers were more concerned about one's loyalty to the empire rather than religious or ethnic affiliation. Yet, especially in the Muslim world, this perspective remains ignored.
Reviving the bygone past, Al-Zahaby vividly shows the Ilkhan's fear of history, or more accurately his concern over the image that will be left of him by the chroniclers to the later generations:
>History is an invincible enemy, for when life creeps into it one would be buried in the ground, stripped of awe and undesired.
The Mameluke Sultan knew of the Ilkhan's weakness and thus surrounded himself with historians and chroniclers, his strongest soldiers against the imminent invasion. He gasps and declares:
>O God, may History be my friend and not my enemy.
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Bibliography / Further Reading
Al-Zahaby, Khairy. “The Trap of Names” (2009).
Lane, George. “The Mongols in Iran” (2008).
Pistor-Hatam, Anja. “History and its meaning in the Islamic Republic of Iran: The case of the Mongol invasion(s) and rule” (2012).
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “Silencing the Past:Power nd the Production of History” (1995).
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Help name the story: sci-fi, people living on different weekdays
Trying to find a book - remember the story vaguely, read it maybe 20-30 years ago. People are living/working on assigned weekdays and sleep in others, a couple are interested to move to the same day and somebody arranges it to fail in some way.
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There are 4336 pages in a foot of shelf, and other ideas about book logging...
The attached image is the number of books I have read this year with their page and audio length stats.
If you read audiobooks, ebooks, or library books, the satisfaction of owning tall stack of books that you have read will not be possible for you.
To help you with that, I wanted you know that I pulled a random foot of book shelf and added up the pages. There are 4336 pages in my random foot of paperbacks with one hard cover.
Now you could put together a spreadsheet that tells you how many audio weeks and shelf feet of books you have read without owning the physical books.
If there is interest in this, I could release a template.
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BookPecker.com
14509 books in 5 bullet points. Browse summaries of thousands of books and add new items to your reading list.