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girlgenius_lair2025-11-10 12:14 am
marycatelli) wrote in girlgenius_lair2025-11-10 12:14 am
chomiji (chomiji) wrote2025-11-09 08:26 pm
chomiji) wrote2025-11-09 08:26 pm
Entry tags:
Wait, What? (Wild Adapter News)
Kazuya Minekura to Resume Wild Adapter Manga After 9 Years
Ichijinsha announced on Monday that Kazuya Minekura will resume her Wild Adapter manga when Ichijinsha's Ichijin Plus web manga site returns after maintenance on August 8. The new 50th chapter of the manga will be the first chapter for the manga in nine years since the 49th chapter debuted on Ichijinsha's Zero-Sum Online site in 2016 .....
The comments on this indicate that the article dropped July 2025. On the other hand, the article also notes that Saiyuki Reload Blast continued in September 2024. Does anyone know whether it did?
rachelmanija (rachelmanija) wrote2025-11-09 10:25 am
rachelmanija) wrote2025-11-09 10:25 amEntry tags:
Strange Houses, by Uketsu
This is such a fun, unique book. The opening grabs you immediately: Uketsu shows an architect friend the floor plan of a house that his friends are considering buying. The architect spots a number of odd elements that aren't just bad planning, but suggest a very carefully planned and bizarre MURDER HOUSE!
The floor plan of that house and two more come into play repeatedly as Uketsu and his friend investigate, unraveling a truly weird and sometimes spooky mystery via a series of interviews. This book breaks all sorts of rules - it's entirely told rather than shown, a lot of it is exposition, the author appears as a character, and that's not even mentioning the very large role that floor plans play - and I could not put it down.
Is the solution to the mystery absolutely nuts? Sure. Is the book a whole lot of fun to read? Absolutely. Will I recommend it to my customers? You bet!
Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion, who has a nice afterword about translating it.
Apparently Uketsu is a Japanese YouTuber who only appears wearing a mask, like Chuck Tingle if his thing was drawings and creepy mysteries rather than horror and getting pounded in the butt. I can't wait to read Uketsu's other book, Strange Pictures.
nineveh_uk (nineveh_uk) wrote2025-11-09 09:32 am
nineveh_uk) wrote2025-11-09 09:32 amI've got such a wonderful pear
It's been a fabulous season for pears. I assume that this is to do with the weather (drought-stressed trees giving their all for fruit?), but week after week even the most average bag from the supermarket has delivered fragrant, juicy pears that ripen and then do not immediately rot. I had some gorgeous Comice pears from the market last week that were enormous.
Anyway, I can't find the link that I had wanted to give and which the post title references* - all knowledge not contained on the internet shock! - so have the Eddie Izzard sketch.
*It was a music hall(?) song from the days in which there were "comediennes", sung by a woman who was probably not Joyce Grenfell, in which she declaims at length how she has such a wonderful pair of eyes. They don't make 'em like that any more...
Anyway, I can't find the link that I had wanted to give and which the post title references* - all knowledge not contained on the internet shock! - so have the Eddie Izzard sketch.
*It was a music hall(?) song from the days in which there were "comediennes", sung by a woman who was probably not Joyce Grenfell, in which she declaims at length how she has such a wonderful pair of eyes. They don't make 'em like that any more...
philomytha (philomytha) wrote2025-11-08 11:14 am
philomytha) wrote2025-11-08 11:14 amEntry tags:
undercover hijinks galore
Even more of Manning Coles's Tommy Hambledon books, this is proving a wonderfully entertaining series and I am having a blast with it all - the books are pretty light-hearted, with lots of humour but also plenty of adventure and twists and turns of the plot, and the characters are all vivid and delightful.
The Green Flash
Tommy Hambledon goes undercover in Switzerland trying to find out more about a mysterious Swiss chemist who may have invented a new and exciting form of explosive. Unfortunately, the Nazis also want this Swiss chemist and his explosive, and also the Swiss chemist is not at all who he seems, and within a very few pages Hambledon has been abducted by the Gestapo who believe him to be the Swiss chemist, and is set up with a laboratory in Berlin and ordered to make novel explosives. Excellent undercover hijinks, with Hambledon deciding his best defence against knowing zero chemistry is to be the most bad-tempered, arrogant and annoying scientist ever, while trying to avoid anyone who knew him the last time he was undercover in Berlin in a totally different identity only a few years earlier. Another tremendous undercover adventure with all the frills you can hope for and Hambledon coming up with a superb way to finally extricate himself from the situation. I had a great time with this one.
The Fifth Man
Five British soldiers are taken from POW camps in Germany and persuaded to return to England as spies for the Nazis. Four of them surrender to the British police or are killed as soon as they arrive. The fifth does something very different. I am really liking how Manning & Coles are introducing new sets of characters for their books as well as having continuity with the recurring characters, and the lead character of this book, Anthony Colemore, is fantastic. Colemore was a petty criminal and smuggler who broke out of prison in England, fled to the Continent, decided he wanted to fight Nazis so wound up in the French army just in time for the fall of France, quickly changed identities and uniforms with a dead British officer to get better treatment and promptly ended up in a POW camp where the Germans identified his newly assumed identity as a close relation of a British Fascist and invited him to spy for them. And it only gets more complicated from there, Manning & Coles love playing with false identities for all their characters and wringing every possible trope they can out of them, and it's great. Hambledon is largely in the background for this, running Colemore as an agent but not doing much in the plot, but Colemore is more than strong enough as a character to carry the story, he is the sort of character who should get recruited by Miles Naismith for the Dendarii Mercenaries, he loves taking initiative and showing off how good he is and is endlessly resourceful at making his schemes work. I also shipped him tremendously with another fascinating character, the ingenuous young German officer he escapes with from a British POW camp, who is also not all he seems.
A Brother For Hugh (also titled With Intent to Deceive; also online lists vary about the order the series should go in, but this one is definitely next)
The first post-war adventure, again with new characters. James Hyde has had a very boring life working for his father's business and never going anywhere. But when his father dies, James sells the business and discovers he's a rich man, and starts to think he wants adventure. Meanwhile, Hugh Selkirk looks extremely like James, but while James has barely left Yeovil in his life, Selkirk is dashing and well-travelled British-Argentine businessman with a serious problem: a gang of mafia-style crooks stole some Nazi gold stashed in Argentina, Selkirk stole it from them, and both the gang and the remaining Nazis are hunting him. Selkirk and James meet, James tells Selkirk he wants adventure, and since they resemble each other, Selkirk suggests they have a mini-adventure by swapping identities for a few days. He doesn't mention to James that he's being hunted by both the mafia and also the Nazis. James Hyde settles down in Selkirk's hotel with Selkirk's devastatingly competent manservant Adam looking after him (they are very shippable, and Adam is Not What He Seems) and it's all going well until someone shoots Selkirk and a crook tries to break in through James's hotel window. Another one where Hambledon's role in the plot is largely confined to following around collecting up the assorted gangsters that are being left giftwrapped around the place. Also there's an adorable heavily-implied-to-be-gay couple in this who run a model railway shop together and have a fantastic time aiding and abetting Selkirk and his friends and thwarting the police.
Let The Tiger Die
I have no idea what relationship the title has to the book, but it's a great title. After all the new characters, we're back to Hambledon taking the lead when his Swedish holiday is interrupted by his own urge to run around investigating things that look a little weird. Being Tommy Hambledon, within a chapter he's wanted for murder and been abducted twice in rapid succession and in possession of some mysterious documents, and he doesn't know why. It turns out some communists are trailing around Europe assassinating stray wanted Nazis, and because Hambledon stepped in when he saw an assassination taking place in the street, now the stray wanted Nazis think he's one of them, and the communists want to assassinate him too. This involves a ridiculous and fantastic chase across Europe from Stockholm to Cadiz. Even better, Hambledon decides to call in James Hyde and the gay model railway couple from the previous book to help him with his scheme to avoid the assassins while unravelling the entire fugitive Nazi organisation and its plan to restore the Third Reich all in one go. Tremendous fun and even more identity porn as Hambledon pretends to be himself, the guy just adores his fake identities and they're always fun to watch.
The Green Flash
Tommy Hambledon goes undercover in Switzerland trying to find out more about a mysterious Swiss chemist who may have invented a new and exciting form of explosive. Unfortunately, the Nazis also want this Swiss chemist and his explosive, and also the Swiss chemist is not at all who he seems, and within a very few pages Hambledon has been abducted by the Gestapo who believe him to be the Swiss chemist, and is set up with a laboratory in Berlin and ordered to make novel explosives. Excellent undercover hijinks, with Hambledon deciding his best defence against knowing zero chemistry is to be the most bad-tempered, arrogant and annoying scientist ever, while trying to avoid anyone who knew him the last time he was undercover in Berlin in a totally different identity only a few years earlier. Another tremendous undercover adventure with all the frills you can hope for and Hambledon coming up with a superb way to finally extricate himself from the situation. I had a great time with this one.
The Fifth Man
Five British soldiers are taken from POW camps in Germany and persuaded to return to England as spies for the Nazis. Four of them surrender to the British police or are killed as soon as they arrive. The fifth does something very different. I am really liking how Manning & Coles are introducing new sets of characters for their books as well as having continuity with the recurring characters, and the lead character of this book, Anthony Colemore, is fantastic. Colemore was a petty criminal and smuggler who broke out of prison in England, fled to the Continent, decided he wanted to fight Nazis so wound up in the French army just in time for the fall of France, quickly changed identities and uniforms with a dead British officer to get better treatment and promptly ended up in a POW camp where the Germans identified his newly assumed identity as a close relation of a British Fascist and invited him to spy for them. And it only gets more complicated from there, Manning & Coles love playing with false identities for all their characters and wringing every possible trope they can out of them, and it's great. Hambledon is largely in the background for this, running Colemore as an agent but not doing much in the plot, but Colemore is more than strong enough as a character to carry the story, he is the sort of character who should get recruited by Miles Naismith for the Dendarii Mercenaries, he loves taking initiative and showing off how good he is and is endlessly resourceful at making his schemes work. I also shipped him tremendously with another fascinating character, the ingenuous young German officer he escapes with from a British POW camp, who is also not all he seems.
A Brother For Hugh (also titled With Intent to Deceive; also online lists vary about the order the series should go in, but this one is definitely next)
The first post-war adventure, again with new characters. James Hyde has had a very boring life working for his father's business and never going anywhere. But when his father dies, James sells the business and discovers he's a rich man, and starts to think he wants adventure. Meanwhile, Hugh Selkirk looks extremely like James, but while James has barely left Yeovil in his life, Selkirk is dashing and well-travelled British-Argentine businessman with a serious problem: a gang of mafia-style crooks stole some Nazi gold stashed in Argentina, Selkirk stole it from them, and both the gang and the remaining Nazis are hunting him. Selkirk and James meet, James tells Selkirk he wants adventure, and since they resemble each other, Selkirk suggests they have a mini-adventure by swapping identities for a few days. He doesn't mention to James that he's being hunted by both the mafia and also the Nazis. James Hyde settles down in Selkirk's hotel with Selkirk's devastatingly competent manservant Adam looking after him (they are very shippable, and Adam is Not What He Seems) and it's all going well until someone shoots Selkirk and a crook tries to break in through James's hotel window. Another one where Hambledon's role in the plot is largely confined to following around collecting up the assorted gangsters that are being left giftwrapped around the place. Also there's an adorable heavily-implied-to-be-gay couple in this who run a model railway shop together and have a fantastic time aiding and abetting Selkirk and his friends and thwarting the police.
Let The Tiger Die
I have no idea what relationship the title has to the book, but it's a great title. After all the new characters, we're back to Hambledon taking the lead when his Swedish holiday is interrupted by his own urge to run around investigating things that look a little weird. Being Tommy Hambledon, within a chapter he's wanted for murder and been abducted twice in rapid succession and in possession of some mysterious documents, and he doesn't know why. It turns out some communists are trailing around Europe assassinating stray wanted Nazis, and because Hambledon stepped in when he saw an assassination taking place in the street, now the stray wanted Nazis think he's one of them, and the communists want to assassinate him too. This involves a ridiculous and fantastic chase across Europe from Stockholm to Cadiz. Even better, Hambledon decides to call in James Hyde and the gay model railway couple from the previous book to help him with his scheme to avoid the assassins while unravelling the entire fugitive Nazi organisation and its plan to restore the Third Reich all in one go. Tremendous fun and even more identity porn as Hambledon pretends to be himself, the guy just adores his fake identities and they're always fun to watch.
chomiji (chomiji) wrote2025-11-06 12:12 am
chomiji) wrote2025-11-06 12:12 am
Drive-By Wednesday Reading: The Rose Field ~and~ Dead Hand Rule
Wow, there have been a lot of fantasy sequels/series volumes out these past few weeks.
The Rose Field, the final installment of the second trilogy (called The Book of Dust) of Philip Pullman's series about Lyra Belacqua, was a compelling read, a frequently violent road trip that has side quests into fantastic set pieces, but it was ultimately pretty dissatisfying for me. The ending didn't stick the landing: I kept thinking, "But what about Plot Point X? And Plot Point Y?" etc. And these aren't trivial issues, either.
I'm currently reading Dead Hand Rule, the latest volume of Max Gladstone's Craft Wars series. So far it's mostly about the heroes of the first series coming together in the city of Alt Coulomb to gather allies for a push again the current Big Bad, whose rise to power was told in the first two books. It's good to see Tara Abernathy, Kai Pohala, Caleb Altemoc, Abelard (yay!), and Cat Elle (yay!) again. Mostly everyone is having regrets about their actions thus far and dealing with difficult potential allies, including some previous foes. I'm waiting for the storyline to start hitting on all cylinders, and hopeful that it will eventually do so.
Next up will be the latest Penric and Desdemona novella by Lois McMaster Bujold, "Testimony of Mute Things," which I understand will be a dive backward into Penric and Des' shared past.
rachelmanija (rachelmanija) wrote2025-11-05 09:26 am
rachelmanija) wrote2025-11-05 09:26 amEntry tags:
When the Wolf Comes Home, by Nat Cassidy
This book is very hard to describe without spoilers, so I'll just cover the setup. Aspiring actress/current waitress Jess is having a bad night that gets much worse when she finds a scared little boy who's run away from his father. Things get extremely strange from there. This book is a wild ride.
I read it in a single sitting, so it's very propulsive. It's also very dark/bleak, despite some absurdist humor arising from the premise. I enjoyed it a lot while I read it, but it's now months later and it hasn't quite stuck with me the way some other books have. Nestlings is still my favorite of his.
Content notes: Child abuse/harm is central to the story. So is an accidental needle-stick with a possibly contaminated needle.
Spoilers! Also contains some light spoilers for Stephen King's Firestarter.
( Read more... )
Entry tags:
Yuleswaps 2025: ALL MATCH-UPS SENT!
Here we go. Please watch this post! We will update here as each batch goes out:
Candy? SENT as of 6:47 PM PST 11/4!
Drinks? SENT (twice, lol) as of 6:51 PM PST 11/3!
Books? SENT as of 6:39 PM PST 11/3!
( INSTRUCTIONS & REMINDERS )
SENDING DEADLINE: Friday, November 21, 2025
Extensions/Defaulting: Pre-research your post office/courier service hours, and plan to send as early as you can! BUT if your best-laid plans fail, and you need an extension -- we get it! Please bypass the shame spiral and email us ASAP. We want to know what's going on but rarely hesitate to grant brief extensions, especially to historically reliable swappers.
And, of course, if you need to default for any reason, the above is doubly true!! Life happens, but if you let us know as soon as it does, we can help out your recipient AND probably have you back next year with minimal anxiety.
One More Time: don't forget to check in at Swaps Central! And a safe, merry Swapstide to all!
Current FAQ and very old resources post here, for anyone who needs them. Questions and comments here or via email, as always.
Kat & Livi & Helen
Candy? SENT as of 6:47 PM PST 11/4!
Drinks? SENT (twice, lol) as of 6:51 PM PST 11/3!
Books? SENT as of 6:39 PM PST 11/3!
( INSTRUCTIONS & REMINDERS )
SENDING DEADLINE: Friday, November 21, 2025
Extensions/Defaulting: Pre-research your post office/courier service hours, and plan to send as early as you can! BUT if your best-laid plans fail, and you need an extension -- we get it! Please bypass the shame spiral and email us ASAP. We want to know what's going on but rarely hesitate to grant brief extensions, especially to historically reliable swappers.
And, of course, if you need to default for any reason, the above is doubly true!! Life happens, but if you let us know as soon as it does, we can help out your recipient AND probably have you back next year with minimal anxiety.
One More Time: don't forget to check in at Swaps Central! And a safe, merry Swapstide to all!
Current FAQ and very old resources post here, for anyone who needs them. Questions and comments here or via email, as always.
Kat & Livi & Helen
rachelmanija (rachelmanija) wrote2025-11-01 10:13 am
rachelmanija) wrote2025-11-01 10:13 amEntry tags:
Alphabet Fic Game
Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for [starting] a fic title? One fic per line, 'A' and 'The' do not count for 'a' and 't'. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.
A. Autumn Gold. Saiyuki/Saiyuki Gaiden. Fear is the end of the battle and you can't find your captain.
B. Burn. Original Work. The revolutionary hides her face to conceal her identity. The princess silences her voice to preserve her purity. They know each other. And they don't...
C. The Colors of Lorbanery. Earthsea. The woman who had once been Akaren stayed inside her house for several days, changing.
D. Dorset: Portal to the House. Piranesi/Grand Designs. Maggie and Olabisi plan to transform a ruin containing a portal to the House into a cozy home with an artist's studio. But the ruin's status as a scheduled monument and the unique challenges of its proximity to the House endanger their project.
E. Eilonwy Wanderer. The Prydain Chronicles.. Eilonwy travels Prydain in search of her place in life.
F. Five Times Balerion Saved Rhaenys and One Time She Saved Him. A Song of Ice and Fire. A butterfly flaps its wings, a kitten chases the butterfly, and a girl and her cat get a different destiny.
G. The Goddess of Suffering Scam. The Lies of Locke Lamora. In the early days of the Gentleman Bastards, Locke impersonates a self-flagellating acolyte of the Goddess of Suffering, and Jean stands by as the muscle in case the mark catches on. You know what they say about the best-laid plans.
H. A Hatching at Half-Circle Sea Hold. Dragonriders of Pern. “That’s a rather extraordinary proposal, Menolly,” said the Masterharper.
I. IP, YEVRAG NIVEK. The Leftovers. Kevin Garvey makes another visit to the hotel.
J. The Journey. Annihilation - movie. Lena explores the beach by the lighthouse.
K. Kilo India Tango Tango Echo November. Original Work. When the Marines are sent to protect Springfield, MT from an alien invasion, a grizzled staff sergeant finds a whole lot of kittens in need of tender loving care.
L. The Life of a Cell. Annihilation - movie. The being that leaves the Shimmer carries with it some of both Lena and Dr. Ventress.
M. Men Sell Not Such In Any Town. "The Goblin Market" - Christina Rossetti. I have fruit that shatters like glass and fruit that must be spooned up like pudding, fruit that tastes like caramel and fruit that tastes like roasted meat, fruit that glitters and fruit so translucent you can see your fingers through it and fruit that glows golden at twilight, fruit like silver coins and monstrous hands and autumn fog, fruit that loses all its flavor unless you eat it straight off the tree as it tries to coil around your tongue.
N. No Reservations: Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia/No Reservations. I’m crammed into a burrow so small that my knees are up around my ears and the boom mike keeps slamming into my head, inhaling the potent scent of toffee-apple brandy and trying to drink a talking mouse under the table.
O. one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan. The Stand - Stephen King. Flagg rewards Lloyd for doing a good job.
P. Professor Xavier's Haunted Mansion. X-Men comics. The ghosts of dead (or temporarily dead, or dead in another timeline) X-Men and villains haunt the halls of Professor X's mansion.
Q. The Quiet Rebellion of Tardigrade Sela Writings. "The Author of the Acacia Seeds" - Ursula K. Le Guin. You are no doubt familiar with the major genres of tardigrade literature.
R. The Realm of Persephone. Greek mythology. Persephone takes Hades blackberry picking.
S. The Story of Marli-Hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inle. Watership Down. What lies on the dark side of the moon? Ask the Black Rabbit. He knows.
T. To See a World in a Grain of Sand. The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick. Jane was the first to notice that a ragtag band of refugee meryons had made a camp behind a sofa in the student lounge.
U. An Unexpected Catch. Dragonriders of Pern. Lessa and other Benden women visit Southern Weyr to help out with a fishing tradition; things don't go as planned.
V. Vintage Year. The Fall of the House of Usher - TV. Verna visits Arthur Pym in prison.
W. The Woman Who Watches the King. Piranesi. For some, the House is a prison. For some, it's a place of healing.
X.
Y. You're Wrong About Misericorde. The Dark Tower. You're Wrong About podcast. Sarah tells Mike about the lost horror movie that became an urban legend. Digressions include the chemical formula for mescaline, Sarah imitating Ethan Hawke imitating a Yorkshire prop witch, and where the fat goes after it gets vibrated out of your body by a $19.99 girdle sold on late-night TV.
Z.
We all seem to be getting stuck on X and Z. But I also almost got stuck on J, the only letter where I couldn't select from multiple possible stories.
A. Autumn Gold. Saiyuki/Saiyuki Gaiden. Fear is the end of the battle and you can't find your captain.
B. Burn. Original Work. The revolutionary hides her face to conceal her identity. The princess silences her voice to preserve her purity. They know each other. And they don't...
C. The Colors of Lorbanery. Earthsea. The woman who had once been Akaren stayed inside her house for several days, changing.
D. Dorset: Portal to the House. Piranesi/Grand Designs. Maggie and Olabisi plan to transform a ruin containing a portal to the House into a cozy home with an artist's studio. But the ruin's status as a scheduled monument and the unique challenges of its proximity to the House endanger their project.
E. Eilonwy Wanderer. The Prydain Chronicles.. Eilonwy travels Prydain in search of her place in life.
F. Five Times Balerion Saved Rhaenys and One Time She Saved Him. A Song of Ice and Fire. A butterfly flaps its wings, a kitten chases the butterfly, and a girl and her cat get a different destiny.
G. The Goddess of Suffering Scam. The Lies of Locke Lamora. In the early days of the Gentleman Bastards, Locke impersonates a self-flagellating acolyte of the Goddess of Suffering, and Jean stands by as the muscle in case the mark catches on. You know what they say about the best-laid plans.
H. A Hatching at Half-Circle Sea Hold. Dragonriders of Pern. “That’s a rather extraordinary proposal, Menolly,” said the Masterharper.
I. IP, YEVRAG NIVEK. The Leftovers. Kevin Garvey makes another visit to the hotel.
J. The Journey. Annihilation - movie. Lena explores the beach by the lighthouse.
K. Kilo India Tango Tango Echo November. Original Work. When the Marines are sent to protect Springfield, MT from an alien invasion, a grizzled staff sergeant finds a whole lot of kittens in need of tender loving care.
L. The Life of a Cell. Annihilation - movie. The being that leaves the Shimmer carries with it some of both Lena and Dr. Ventress.
M. Men Sell Not Such In Any Town. "The Goblin Market" - Christina Rossetti. I have fruit that shatters like glass and fruit that must be spooned up like pudding, fruit that tastes like caramel and fruit that tastes like roasted meat, fruit that glitters and fruit so translucent you can see your fingers through it and fruit that glows golden at twilight, fruit like silver coins and monstrous hands and autumn fog, fruit that loses all its flavor unless you eat it straight off the tree as it tries to coil around your tongue.
N. No Reservations: Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia/No Reservations. I’m crammed into a burrow so small that my knees are up around my ears and the boom mike keeps slamming into my head, inhaling the potent scent of toffee-apple brandy and trying to drink a talking mouse under the table.
O. one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan. The Stand - Stephen King. Flagg rewards Lloyd for doing a good job.
P. Professor Xavier's Haunted Mansion. X-Men comics. The ghosts of dead (or temporarily dead, or dead in another timeline) X-Men and villains haunt the halls of Professor X's mansion.
Q. The Quiet Rebellion of Tardigrade Sela Writings. "The Author of the Acacia Seeds" - Ursula K. Le Guin. You are no doubt familiar with the major genres of tardigrade literature.
R. The Realm of Persephone. Greek mythology. Persephone takes Hades blackberry picking.
S. The Story of Marli-Hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inle. Watership Down. What lies on the dark side of the moon? Ask the Black Rabbit. He knows.
T. To See a World in a Grain of Sand. The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick. Jane was the first to notice that a ragtag band of refugee meryons had made a camp behind a sofa in the student lounge.
U. An Unexpected Catch. Dragonriders of Pern. Lessa and other Benden women visit Southern Weyr to help out with a fishing tradition; things don't go as planned.
V. Vintage Year. The Fall of the House of Usher - TV. Verna visits Arthur Pym in prison.
W. The Woman Who Watches the King. Piranesi. For some, the House is a prison. For some, it's a place of healing.
X.
Y. You're Wrong About Misericorde. The Dark Tower. You're Wrong About podcast. Sarah tells Mike about the lost horror movie that became an urban legend. Digressions include the chemical formula for mescaline, Sarah imitating Ethan Hawke imitating a Yorkshire prop witch, and where the fat goes after it gets vibrated out of your body by a $19.99 girdle sold on late-night TV.
Z.
We all seem to be getting stuck on X and Z. But I also almost got stuck on J, the only letter where I couldn't select from multiple possible stories.
nineveh_uk (nineveh_uk) wrote2025-11-02 03:38 pm
nineveh_uk) wrote2025-11-02 03:38 pmEntry tags:
Adventures in Disney+
I subscribed to Disney+ in the summer for a £1.99 per month (with adverts) offer for a simple reason. I wanted to watch Rivals, and I wanted to watch Shogun. At the end of the offer I succumbed to continuing a few months more for £3.49 per month to finish series 1 of Only Murders in the Building, and watch a few films I hadn't managed. It's been entertaining, but Disney definitely doesn't make enough of interest to keep me going beyond this calender year.
The adverts, surprisingly, aren't too bad, but then nothing is worse than Eurosport advertising, and Discovery+ has now made that £30.99 per month (it was that a year not so long ago) and removed the no-adverts for subscribers. But that is another rant.
Rivals You had to be there, I think, whenever it was that the latest Jilly Cooper bonkbuster from the library was the big thing. I was there, so I enjoyed this utterly ridiculous television, which due to timing, I watched with my parents. It had the sense not to make something serious out of this utter froth, but to let it be over the top 80s fun. The casting is terrific. I don't know whether they decided to make Cameron Cook African-American before or after the casting call, but it was an excellent choice, and not only for a strong performance from Nafessa Williams. Forty years on, it highlights Cameron's status as an outsider among this incestuous, privileged bunch to make her more than a ball-breaking bitch. There is an inevitable problem of casting David Tennant as Tony Baddingham, namely that his charisma is way ahead of everybody else. This helps make it plausible that he's got where he has, but really doesn't help Rupert's actor, who is perfectly adequate but not in the same league as Tennant on the acting or charisma front. It also doesn't help that Tony is 100% right about Rupert being a nasty piece of work whose politics are, shall we say, rather flattered by production. Cooper's transformation of the character was masterful, but she is good at characterisation and I found the politics easier to put aside on the page than on the television where they are somehow just not there except that for their uncommented-on pervasiveness. Rupert really cares about and sympathises with the underlying causes of football hooliganism. As a Thatcher minister in the 1980s, yes. It also pulls its punches on Declan and Maud a bit, whose parental failures are more explicit in the novel. Anyway, it's utter tosh, but sparkling tosh, recommended if you enjoyed the books back in the day and don't expect anything else. I will probably resubscribe for a month to watch series 2, especially given the different-from-the-book cliffhanger.
Shogun. Back to the 80s too with Shogun, a new adaptation of the 1975 doorstopper. The harsh way to put this would be that I would probably prefer Richard Chamberlain's character interpretation of seventeenth century ships' pilot John Blackthorn who finds himself washed up in Japan and caught in aristocratic power struggles (loosely based on real figure William Adams). That's not entirely fair. There's a lot to like here, from the outstanding performance of Sanada Hiroyuki as Lord Toronaga, to the visuals, and it tells its story pretty well. The weakest performances, unfortunately, seem to come from the two leads of Cosmo Jarvis and Anna Sawai, but the real problems are not so much the actors, as the presentation. Jarvis/Adams is written and played as far too much of a bolshy European/American audience everyman who has no patience with these backwards Japanese or realism about his position as a de facto captive, as opposed to a seventeenth century man with the prejudices of his time - but also his own experience of an extremely hierarchical society. The concept of bowing to a social superior is hardly going to be new to him, even if these particular bows are. As for Sawai/Mariko, it feels like the 1970s really show through the character's origins, with the background TV sexism of 2025 failing to dig into the character's potential. There's a lot to like about her, but it didn't feel adequately explored, not helped by the tendency to use the character to infodump. I'm sounding very grudging here, and I was disappointed in comparison to the glowing reviews, which I felt in retrospect were bowled over by the obvious successes (including the handling of the languages, which is done extremely well) and didn't look closely enough at other elements. It's decent TV that I can completely see why many people enjoyed, and there were some very strong performances, but one of those things where one just feels that there was the potential to be better with a more nuanced script. I may look out for some of the actors in other things, though.
Currently watching Only Murders in the Building, which is fun, but tenser than I had osmosed. Possibly I ought to have paid more attention to the title...
The adverts, surprisingly, aren't too bad, but then nothing is worse than Eurosport advertising, and Discovery+ has now made that £30.99 per month (it was that a year not so long ago) and removed the no-adverts for subscribers. But that is another rant.
Rivals You had to be there, I think, whenever it was that the latest Jilly Cooper bonkbuster from the library was the big thing. I was there, so I enjoyed this utterly ridiculous television, which due to timing, I watched with my parents. It had the sense not to make something serious out of this utter froth, but to let it be over the top 80s fun. The casting is terrific. I don't know whether they decided to make Cameron Cook African-American before or after the casting call, but it was an excellent choice, and not only for a strong performance from Nafessa Williams. Forty years on, it highlights Cameron's status as an outsider among this incestuous, privileged bunch to make her more than a ball-breaking bitch. There is an inevitable problem of casting David Tennant as Tony Baddingham, namely that his charisma is way ahead of everybody else. This helps make it plausible that he's got where he has, but really doesn't help Rupert's actor, who is perfectly adequate but not in the same league as Tennant on the acting or charisma front. It also doesn't help that Tony is 100% right about Rupert being a nasty piece of work whose politics are, shall we say, rather flattered by production. Cooper's transformation of the character was masterful, but she is good at characterisation and I found the politics easier to put aside on the page than on the television where they are somehow just not there except that for their uncommented-on pervasiveness. Rupert really cares about and sympathises with the underlying causes of football hooliganism. As a Thatcher minister in the 1980s, yes. It also pulls its punches on Declan and Maud a bit, whose parental failures are more explicit in the novel. Anyway, it's utter tosh, but sparkling tosh, recommended if you enjoyed the books back in the day and don't expect anything else. I will probably resubscribe for a month to watch series 2, especially given the different-from-the-book cliffhanger.
Shogun. Back to the 80s too with Shogun, a new adaptation of the 1975 doorstopper. The harsh way to put this would be that I would probably prefer Richard Chamberlain's character interpretation of seventeenth century ships' pilot John Blackthorn who finds himself washed up in Japan and caught in aristocratic power struggles (loosely based on real figure William Adams). That's not entirely fair. There's a lot to like here, from the outstanding performance of Sanada Hiroyuki as Lord Toronaga, to the visuals, and it tells its story pretty well. The weakest performances, unfortunately, seem to come from the two leads of Cosmo Jarvis and Anna Sawai, but the real problems are not so much the actors, as the presentation. Jarvis/Adams is written and played as far too much of a bolshy European/American audience everyman who has no patience with these backwards Japanese or realism about his position as a de facto captive, as opposed to a seventeenth century man with the prejudices of his time - but also his own experience of an extremely hierarchical society. The concept of bowing to a social superior is hardly going to be new to him, even if these particular bows are. As for Sawai/Mariko, it feels like the 1970s really show through the character's origins, with the background TV sexism of 2025 failing to dig into the character's potential. There's a lot to like about her, but it didn't feel adequately explored, not helped by the tendency to use the character to infodump. I'm sounding very grudging here, and I was disappointed in comparison to the glowing reviews, which I felt in retrospect were bowled over by the obvious successes (including the handling of the languages, which is done extremely well) and didn't look closely enough at other elements. It's decent TV that I can completely see why many people enjoyed, and there were some very strong performances, but one of those things where one just feels that there was the potential to be better with a more nuanced script. I may look out for some of the actors in other things, though.
Currently watching Only Murders in the Building, which is fun, but tenser than I had osmosed. Possibly I ought to have paid more attention to the title...
philomytha (philomytha) wrote2025-10-31 01:26 pm
philomytha) wrote2025-10-31 01:26 pmEntry tags:
the Tommy Hambledon series by Manning Coles
A series of spy adventures written in the 40s and 50s and set from WW1 onwards. I found this series by wandering around the books on Faded Page tagged with WW1, and have been inhaling them this week, the perfect counterbalance to a bad cold and a somewhat stressful half term holiday. 'Manning Coles' is a pseudonym for two people, Adelaide Manning and Cyril Coles, who co-wrote the entire series, and Cyril Coles actually was an undercover agent in Germany during WW1 and based some of the plots on his own experiences; the WW1 story is notably more realistic than any of the others.
Drink To Yesterday, Manning Coles (1940)
The first in the series, and by far the most serious and dark of all the ones I've read. The book has a framing device of the inquest into the mysterious death of an unknown person; we then go back in time to young Michael Kingston's schooldays and his precocious skill at languages with his equally brilliant teacher Mr Hambledon. At the outbreak of war, Mr Hambledon vanishes from the school and young Michael itches to join up and eventually does so under a false name. From there he is then recruited for intelligence work and deployed to Germany as the fake nephew of Hambledon, who is also in the spy business. One of the fascinating things about this book is that the narration, which is mostly from Michael's POV, uses whatever name he's currently going by as his name in the narration; how spies have to adopt specific identities and completely subsume themselves in them is one of the recurring themes of the book. Anyway, while undercover they collect information of various sorts and Michael gets recruited by the head of German intelligence in the area (a war-wounded aristocrat with 'flashing dark eyes' who likes to take young Michael out for dinner and sardonic conversation) and sent back to England, and rapidly discovers that life as a spy is terrifying and morally complicated and involves killing innocent people or destroying their lives. He and Hambledon have a wonderful mentor-friendship-slashy dynamic, there are adventures galore and the whole story is a very good read, though with a rather dark and unhappy ending.
Toast To Tomorrow (also titled Pray Silence, 1940)
I think this one has been my favourite so far. While Tommy Hambledon was Presumed Dead at the end of the previous book, given that the whole series is about him, it's not much of a spoiler to say no, he is not dead. In fact he is in Germany, suffering from amnesia. While amnesiac he concludes that he was a good German soldier during the war, he makes friends with a wide range of people which unfortunately include Hitler, and rises to become quite powerful in the growing Nazi party right up to when he gets his memory back. The authors just throw everything at the amnesia tropefic aspect of this, it's great; in general they love to lean in to all the spy tropes and situations and dramas. Hambledon then sets about trying to make contact with London and sending them intelligence without getting himself killed by the Nazis. Tons of exciting adventures of Hambledon living undercover and trying to figure out how to make the best of his unexpected situation, with unexpected allies and enemies and all sorts of spy shenanigans and a fascinating depiction of Germany just before WW2 got started.
They Tell No Tales (1941)
Back in England in 1938, Hambledon and his faithful comrade acquired in the previous book settle down to live together near Portsmouth and are given a young and somewhat feckless agent to help them investigate why naval ships keep mysteriously blowing up. This one has a large and complicated cast and is closer to a murder mystery than a spy novel, though it's very good fun as that, with all sorts of shenanigans and near-misses and a ruthless German spy ring and Hambledon trying to teach his young agent some survival skills as he sends him out to tackle the problem. The story has disguises and mysterious shootings and red herrings and all the trimmings of a classic spy/crime drama and I had a blast with this one too.
Without Lawful Authority (1943)
This introduces two new main characters, Warnford and Marden. Warnford was a military engineer working on new designs for tanks who was cashiered after his designs mysteriously found their way into the enemy's hands; Marden is the gentleman burglar Warnford caught trying to rob his safe. In the classic Golden Age style they like each other instantly and team up to set about trying to clear Warnford's name and catch the spy who really did steal the tank designs. In the process of this they stumble across an amazing number of other spies, whom they capture, tie them up and leave with a note for Hambledon to tidy up, so then Hambledon is trying to figure out which rogue agents are catching German spies for him. It's a great romp of a plot, though somewhat marred by the ending which involves a showdown in a lunatic asylum which - well, it's period-typical, but not in a good way. But all the same it was a fun light read and Warnford and Marden are great.
And I am looking forward to reading more of these, I believe Hambledon returns undercover to Germany in the next one which should be excellent.
Drink To Yesterday, Manning Coles (1940)
The first in the series, and by far the most serious and dark of all the ones I've read. The book has a framing device of the inquest into the mysterious death of an unknown person; we then go back in time to young Michael Kingston's schooldays and his precocious skill at languages with his equally brilliant teacher Mr Hambledon. At the outbreak of war, Mr Hambledon vanishes from the school and young Michael itches to join up and eventually does so under a false name. From there he is then recruited for intelligence work and deployed to Germany as the fake nephew of Hambledon, who is also in the spy business. One of the fascinating things about this book is that the narration, which is mostly from Michael's POV, uses whatever name he's currently going by as his name in the narration; how spies have to adopt specific identities and completely subsume themselves in them is one of the recurring themes of the book. Anyway, while undercover they collect information of various sorts and Michael gets recruited by the head of German intelligence in the area (a war-wounded aristocrat with 'flashing dark eyes' who likes to take young Michael out for dinner and sardonic conversation) and sent back to England, and rapidly discovers that life as a spy is terrifying and morally complicated and involves killing innocent people or destroying their lives. He and Hambledon have a wonderful mentor-friendship-slashy dynamic, there are adventures galore and the whole story is a very good read, though with a rather dark and unhappy ending.
Toast To Tomorrow (also titled Pray Silence, 1940)
I think this one has been my favourite so far. While Tommy Hambledon was Presumed Dead at the end of the previous book, given that the whole series is about him, it's not much of a spoiler to say no, he is not dead. In fact he is in Germany, suffering from amnesia. While amnesiac he concludes that he was a good German soldier during the war, he makes friends with a wide range of people which unfortunately include Hitler, and rises to become quite powerful in the growing Nazi party right up to when he gets his memory back. The authors just throw everything at the amnesia tropefic aspect of this, it's great; in general they love to lean in to all the spy tropes and situations and dramas. Hambledon then sets about trying to make contact with London and sending them intelligence without getting himself killed by the Nazis. Tons of exciting adventures of Hambledon living undercover and trying to figure out how to make the best of his unexpected situation, with unexpected allies and enemies and all sorts of spy shenanigans and a fascinating depiction of Germany just before WW2 got started.
They Tell No Tales (1941)
Back in England in 1938, Hambledon and his faithful comrade acquired in the previous book settle down to live together near Portsmouth and are given a young and somewhat feckless agent to help them investigate why naval ships keep mysteriously blowing up. This one has a large and complicated cast and is closer to a murder mystery than a spy novel, though it's very good fun as that, with all sorts of shenanigans and near-misses and a ruthless German spy ring and Hambledon trying to teach his young agent some survival skills as he sends him out to tackle the problem. The story has disguises and mysterious shootings and red herrings and all the trimmings of a classic spy/crime drama and I had a blast with this one too.
Without Lawful Authority (1943)
This introduces two new main characters, Warnford and Marden. Warnford was a military engineer working on new designs for tanks who was cashiered after his designs mysteriously found their way into the enemy's hands; Marden is the gentleman burglar Warnford caught trying to rob his safe. In the classic Golden Age style they like each other instantly and team up to set about trying to clear Warnford's name and catch the spy who really did steal the tank designs. In the process of this they stumble across an amazing number of other spies, whom they capture, tie them up and leave with a note for Hambledon to tidy up, so then Hambledon is trying to figure out which rogue agents are catching German spies for him. It's a great romp of a plot, though somewhat marred by the ending which involves a showdown in a lunatic asylum which - well, it's period-typical, but not in a good way. But all the same it was a fun light read and Warnford and Marden are great.
And I am looking forward to reading more of these, I believe Hambledon returns undercover to Germany in the next one which should be excellent.
skygiants (skygiants) wrote2025-10-29 09:15 pm
skygiants) wrote2025-10-29 09:15 pmEntry tags:
(no subject)
The other Polly Barton-translated book I read recently was Asako Yuzuki's Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder, which I ended up suggesting for my book club on account of intriguing DW posts from several of you.
Butter focuses Rika Machida, a magazine journalist, on the cusp of becoming the first woman in her company to break the glass ceiling and join Big Editorial, who decides that her next big feature is going to be an insider interview with the infamous prisoner Manako Kajii. Kajii is accused of murdering several men that she met on dating sites after seducing them with a fatal combination of sex, personal attention, and French cooking; in the eyes of the public, however, her greatest crime is that she somehow managed all this femme fatale-ing while being Kind Of Fat.
After a tip from her best friend Reiko -- a housewife who quit her own promising career in hopes of starting a family -- Rika, despite having no previous interest in cooking or domesticity, writes to Kajii about getting her recipe for beef stew. This opens the door for a connection that gets very psychologically weird very fast; Kajii, behind bars, tests Rika with various little living-by-proxy challenges -- eat some good butter! go to the best French restaurant in town! eat late night ramen! after having sex! and tell me all about it -- and Rika, fascinated despite herself, allows herself to be manipulated. For the interview, of course. And also because it turns out good butter is really good, and that eating and making rich food for herself instead of working to keep herself boyishly thin (the prince of her all-girl's school! One of the Boys at work!) is changing her relationship to her body, and her gender, and to the way that people perceive her in the world and she perceives them.
This is more or less what I'd understood to be the plot of the book -- a sort of Silence of the Lambs situation, if the crime that Clarice was trying to solve by talking with Hannibal was societal misogyny -- but in fact it's only about half of the story, and societal misogyny is only one of the big crimes under consideration. The other one is loneliness, and so the rest of the book has to do with Rika's other relationships, and the domino-effect changes that Rika's Kajiimania has on the other people in her life. The most significant is with Reiko, which is extremely fraught with lesbian tension ( spoilers I suppose ) But there's also Rika's mother, and her boyfriend, and the older mentor that she has secret intermittent just-lads-together meet-ups with in bars to get hot journalistic tips; all of these relationships are important, and usually ended up in places I didn't expect and that were more interesting than I would have guessed.
Not everything landed for me about this book, but this was one thing it did pretty consistently that I appreciated -- Rika would think about something, and I would go, 'well, that was didactic, you just said your theme out loud,' and then the book and Rika as protagonist would revisit it and have a more complicated and potentially contradictory thought about it, and then we'd go back to it again, and it usually ended up being more interesting than I would have thought the first time around. It's a long book, possibly too long, but it's equally possible I think that it does need that space to hold contradictions in.
It was however quite funny to read this shortly after Taiwan Travelogue -- another book I have not written up and should probably do so soon -- and also shortly after What Did You Eat Yesterday and also seeing a lot of gifsets for She Loves To Cook and She Loves To Eat ... fellas, is it gay to be really into food? signs point to yes!
Butter focuses Rika Machida, a magazine journalist, on the cusp of becoming the first woman in her company to break the glass ceiling and join Big Editorial, who decides that her next big feature is going to be an insider interview with the infamous prisoner Manako Kajii. Kajii is accused of murdering several men that she met on dating sites after seducing them with a fatal combination of sex, personal attention, and French cooking; in the eyes of the public, however, her greatest crime is that she somehow managed all this femme fatale-ing while being Kind Of Fat.
After a tip from her best friend Reiko -- a housewife who quit her own promising career in hopes of starting a family -- Rika, despite having no previous interest in cooking or domesticity, writes to Kajii about getting her recipe for beef stew. This opens the door for a connection that gets very psychologically weird very fast; Kajii, behind bars, tests Rika with various little living-by-proxy challenges -- eat some good butter! go to the best French restaurant in town! eat late night ramen! after having sex! and tell me all about it -- and Rika, fascinated despite herself, allows herself to be manipulated. For the interview, of course. And also because it turns out good butter is really good, and that eating and making rich food for herself instead of working to keep herself boyishly thin (the prince of her all-girl's school! One of the Boys at work!) is changing her relationship to her body, and her gender, and to the way that people perceive her in the world and she perceives them.
This is more or less what I'd understood to be the plot of the book -- a sort of Silence of the Lambs situation, if the crime that Clarice was trying to solve by talking with Hannibal was societal misogyny -- but in fact it's only about half of the story, and societal misogyny is only one of the big crimes under consideration. The other one is loneliness, and so the rest of the book has to do with Rika's other relationships, and the domino-effect changes that Rika's Kajiimania has on the other people in her life. The most significant is with Reiko, which is extremely fraught with lesbian tension ( spoilers I suppose ) But there's also Rika's mother, and her boyfriend, and the older mentor that she has secret intermittent just-lads-together meet-ups with in bars to get hot journalistic tips; all of these relationships are important, and usually ended up in places I didn't expect and that were more interesting than I would have guessed.
Not everything landed for me about this book, but this was one thing it did pretty consistently that I appreciated -- Rika would think about something, and I would go, 'well, that was didactic, you just said your theme out loud,' and then the book and Rika as protagonist would revisit it and have a more complicated and potentially contradictory thought about it, and then we'd go back to it again, and it usually ended up being more interesting than I would have thought the first time around. It's a long book, possibly too long, but it's equally possible I think that it does need that space to hold contradictions in.
It was however quite funny to read this shortly after Taiwan Travelogue -- another book I have not written up and should probably do so soon -- and also shortly after What Did You Eat Yesterday and also seeing a lot of gifsets for She Loves To Cook and She Loves To Eat ... fellas, is it gay to be really into food? signs point to yes!
philomytha (philomytha) wrote2025-10-29 10:03 pm
philomytha) wrote2025-10-29 10:03 pmEntry tags:
Whumptober: Last One Standing
This one's not particularly whumpy, but inspired by today's prompt anyway, a little ficlet, with thanks to tweague for pointing out that I could just skip the tricky bit!
No. 29: “I hope you see the sun someday in the darkness.”
Fainting | Broken Dishes | Last one Standing
( Biggles team adventure )
tweague for pointing out that I could just skip the tricky bit! No. 29: “I hope you see the sun someday in the darkness.”
Fainting | Broken Dishes | Last one Standing
( Biggles team adventure )
rachelmanija (rachelmanija) wrote2025-10-28 04:40 pm
rachelmanija) wrote2025-10-28 04:40 pmEntry tags:
One more possible birthday gift
If by any chance you read my book Traitor, the final book in The Change series, a review anywhere would be fantastic. It doesn't have to be positive or appear literally on my birthday.
Sherwood and I managed to release it on possibly the second-worst date we could have, which was October 2024. (The worst would have been November 2024). So a little belated publicity would be nice. I'd be happy to provide a review copy if you'd like.
Sherwood and I managed to release it on possibly the second-worst date we could have, which was October 2024. (The worst would have been November 2024). So a little belated publicity would be nice. I'd be happy to provide a review copy if you'd like.
skygiants (skygiants) wrote2025-10-27 11:14 pm
skygiants) wrote2025-10-27 11:14 pmEntry tags:
(no subject)
Speaking of literary sff about how humans project out their loss and grief, Mai Ishizawa's The Place of Shells is sort of the opposite of Luminous -- where Luminous sprawls out into big branching intersecting plotlines and detailed, evocative worldbuilding, The Place of Shells spirals in on itself, carefully layering its metaphors on top of each other as the world echoes its protagonist's own interiority.
The unnamed narrator is a Japanese PhD student studying medieval saints in Göttingen, Germany, in the summer of 2020. The first quarantine regulations are just beginning to relax, and, as the world opens up a little bit again, she's visited by her old grad school friend Nomiya, who unfortunately died in the 2011 tsunami, and whose body was never recovered. The meeting is, inevitably, a bit awkward, mostly small talk -- it's hard to make a connection after nine years, especially when one person has been changing and moving through the world and the other has not -- but Nomiya seems to be enjoying Göttingen. He decides to stay for some time. The narrator feels that it would be rude to ask him whether he's going to return home to Japan for the Ghost Festival.
As the summer unfurls, in a series of encounters and re-encounters with friends new and old, the city of Göttingen gets stranger. The planet Pluto, which was removed from Göttingen's scale-model planet-themed walking trail some time ago, keeps intermittently re-appearing. The narrator's roommate keeps taking her dog out to look for truffles and instead the dog finds strange lost objects, all of which seem to have profound significance to somebody. Nomiya comes to dinner with the narrator's old grad school advisor and brings a friend, a nice man who appears to be experiencing the city from approximately a century previous. In fact, time is slipping all over Göttingen: and what is time, or memory, except something that lives in a landmark or an object? The narrator studies medieval saints. She understands things in terms of iconography.
I picked this up largely because it was translated by Polly Barton, who also translated Where The Wild Ladies Are and Butter (post on which forthcoming) and at this point I've decided I should probably just read everything she translates because it's clearly going to take me interesting places. This book, absolutely another data point of reinforcement.
The unnamed narrator is a Japanese PhD student studying medieval saints in Göttingen, Germany, in the summer of 2020. The first quarantine regulations are just beginning to relax, and, as the world opens up a little bit again, she's visited by her old grad school friend Nomiya, who unfortunately died in the 2011 tsunami, and whose body was never recovered. The meeting is, inevitably, a bit awkward, mostly small talk -- it's hard to make a connection after nine years, especially when one person has been changing and moving through the world and the other has not -- but Nomiya seems to be enjoying Göttingen. He decides to stay for some time. The narrator feels that it would be rude to ask him whether he's going to return home to Japan for the Ghost Festival.
As the summer unfurls, in a series of encounters and re-encounters with friends new and old, the city of Göttingen gets stranger. The planet Pluto, which was removed from Göttingen's scale-model planet-themed walking trail some time ago, keeps intermittently re-appearing. The narrator's roommate keeps taking her dog out to look for truffles and instead the dog finds strange lost objects, all of which seem to have profound significance to somebody. Nomiya comes to dinner with the narrator's old grad school advisor and brings a friend, a nice man who appears to be experiencing the city from approximately a century previous. In fact, time is slipping all over Göttingen: and what is time, or memory, except something that lives in a landmark or an object? The narrator studies medieval saints. She understands things in terms of iconography.
I picked this up largely because it was translated by Polly Barton, who also translated Where The Wild Ladies Are and Butter (post on which forthcoming) and at this point I've decided I should probably just read everything she translates because it's clearly going to take me interesting places. This book, absolutely another data point of reinforcement.