sublime

what have you been reading latelyy? what books have u been liking, what kind of books do you find yourself reading?

Hi, I'm good! Hope you're having a nice day too.

That's so nice of you to ask, I feel like I haven't talked about what I'm reading on here in ages, and I apologise in advance for the kind of extended reply this is going to be.

I finished East of Eden about two weeks ago, and I really loved everything about it: the writing style, the characters, the prose, how much feeling it had. I'm cautiously optimistic about the Netflix adaptation but I have a strong feeling they're going to girlboss the book up and you will find me very annoyed when they do. I don't know if you've read it, but I think Cathy, the character I'm worried they're girlboss, is extremely interesting as it is, and it wouldn't be the same story if it was a different character.

I've been sort of in between books since then, by which I mean I don't have a central book I'm reading. For context I normally think of my reading as one main book and then anywhere between two to four side books. Side books can become main books in the process.

On side books: I'm listening to Sourcery by Terry Pratchett on Libby, which has been quite fun so far. I tried to read In Universes by Emet North, which initially seemed like a fun play on the parallel universes/parallel lives concept, but ended up being a bit of a drag and I gave up with some 20% of the book left.

I've also been working my way through V. S. Naipaul's Among the Believers, Amos Oz's In the Land of Israel, Olivia Laing's The Silver Book, and Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda in Hindi. I think either of these can soon become the Thing I'm Reading Now.

It's interesting you ask what kind of stuff I've been reading, because I've increasingly found myself seeking out books that came before the 2020s. There's been very little in recent releases that has inspired me; even though I know that this isn't objectively the case, it's just been feeling like a lot of new books I see in stores are algorithmic, at least in the genres I'd normally seek out. Or this could just be a function of having a gigantic university library so I'm taking my time reading some older fiction that came out maybe ten or twenty years ago when I was a child.

Hi! I'm not sure I have writing that'll address this specifically, but I'm adding here instead books inspire me for a bunch of reasons:

All the Olivia Laing non-fiction: A Trip to Echo Spring, The Lonely City, Everybody, and Funny Weather

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

Figuring by Maria Popova, or her website: The Marginalian

Literary Occasions by V. S. Naipaul

lately ive been thinking a lot about drinking culture, not really about alcohol, but the social expectations around drinking, and the culture we've sort of created, especially in work settings (happy hours after work, expectations of drinking as contrasting with professionalism) and also like in college. i dont know i feel like i didn't explain this particularly well because i havent thought of it that clearly yet, but have you read anything that's kind of in the general area around this so to speak?

hi! funnily enough, i wrote an essay way back in college about how we can write history by studying alcohol consumption patterns in society, so i do have a bunch of fun things you can read:

Drink: A cultural history of alcohol by Iain Gatley

Alcohol and authority in early New South Wales: The symbolic significance of the spirit trade, 1788-1808 by Matthew Allen

Drunken Antics: The Gin Craze, Binge Drinking and the Political Economy of Moral Regulation by Cras Citcher

Binge Drinking: A Confused Concept and its Contemporary History 

Social Media, Alcohol Marketing, and Young Adults’ Drinking Cultures by Ian Goodwin, Antonia Lyons

Why Gen Z is drinking less by Solcrye Burga

Towards a Cultural History of Alcohol in France by Thomas Brennan

Alcohol: Anthropological/Archaeological Perspectives by Michael Dietler

(I'm sorry for ranting out here and asking this very randomly, i hope you're doing well. )

Absolutely. I don’t think it’s ever late. I’ve ended up in a different field than where I thought I would be, and it might still change. As have most of my friends, and it’s all good.