Community Archive

🧵 View Thread

🧵 Thread (17 tweets)

Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @RichardMCNgo

@RichardMCNgo asked me about books i find meaningful, which made me realise that while i can pretty easily answer: "this book? meaningful y/n?", i'm not sure how to describe what those books have in common

8 0
3/22/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

it seems like the way i actually answer this question is after turning the last page I ask myself: "okay, you've read it, so what? " and it depends on whether i feel something like relief or thoughtfulness or awe, as opposed to *shrug*

5 0
3/22/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

so im going to talk about some books which evoke a feeling or an aesthetic or a sense of place or an insight i found valuable

3 0
3/22/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

Homecoming by Cynthia Voight: A young adult novel about four children abandoned by their parents trying to figure out what 'home' could be and where to find it. this book evokes a terrifying sense of responsibility, the dawning sense that there really is nobody else to figure

3 0
3/22/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

things out and tell you what to do. It's also surprisingly happy and incredibly atmospheric, soaking you in the sun and sea of a Maine summer. it reminds me that a child's priorities for a childhood and a home are often very different from those an adult might pick

2 0
3/22/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

Significant Digits: a sequel to HPMoR, this book is about the day-to-day life of people trying to tackle very large problems bit by bit. It's also about leadership, how the most difficult part of doing big things is getting people to work together, the compromises you might

3 0
3/22/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

consider making in doing so and which ones are worth it and which ones are definitely not. i really enjoyed the epic scale of the worldbuilding and the frisson of a hard choice turning the scales of a conflict much much later.

3 0
3/22/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold: A fantasy novel about - surrendering to the gods? What sticks with me is the main character, Cazaril, who embodies humility to an extent I haven't seen anywhere else in fiction. A man so worn and battered by life he simply does not

4 1
3/24/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

feel the kind of entitlement - to respect, status, recognition, remembrance - we almost always do.

6 0
3/24/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

the Poldark series by Winston Graham: a series of romance novels set in 1700s rural Cornwall at the dawn of the industrial revolution. im always struck by how recent the idea of a surplus is (for the majority of humans). once immersed in an economy and way of life that

2 0
3/30/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 4 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

is juust barely starting to involve more than subsistence farming (like the characters in poldark), it's mind-boggling to realise that roughly 1% of the UK's people work on growing food for the rest. what do the rest do??

1 0
3/30/2021
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditoralmost 2 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

strange how often I return to the idea of “a sense of place” - why is that something I care so much about when thinking about what makes a book meaningful?

1 0
10/15/2023
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditoralmost 2 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

thinking about The Kindly Ones, an AJ Hall short story (technically Draco/Neville fic) AJ Hall spent a lot of time sailing around the Adriatic and it comes through in how suffused this story is with sun and sea

1 0
10/15/2023
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditoralmost 2 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

it’s somehow the most exhilaratingly happy story I’ve ever read despite being about a woman on her honeymoon discovering she’s made a terrible mistake

1 0
10/15/2023
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditoralmost 2 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

have been feeling an inexplicable urge to reread poldark these last few weeks

1 0
10/15/2023
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditoralmost 2 years ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

in retrospect it’s clearer why I like these books - Ross and Demelza have excellent King energy - they care and dare for their people

1 0
10/17/2023
Placeholder
Imp@imperialauditorover 1 year ago
Replying to @imperialauditor

"so what?" is looking for the animating spirit https://t.co/GPYHOuhIAG

Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanvover 1 year ago

yes! this is always the thing i look for in all my work, i tend to call it "animating spirit". i remember the precise moments that FAN and Introspect each ignited their own. i was adamant about not shipping either till they had it, and they are both flawed, unfinished works... https://t.co/1CYtu7ix7F

150 5
1 0
5/18/2024