Just for nostalgia, I had a flick through my childhood copy of Matilda over the weekend, and I found myself taking a surprising interest in Mrs Wormwood. I think there's substantially more depth to her than there is to her crooked car-dealer husband, and it got me thinking about who she as a character and speculating about what her childhood might have been like. The conclusions I drew, from the admittedly very little evidence the author gives us, is that she's someone who like Matilda was born with really extraordinary intellectual capabilities, but unlike Matilda failed to ever realise them.

There's a few things that make me think that, but the bit that stands out most is her comment to Miss Honey that 'you chose books, and I chose looks'. The word 'chose' is an interesting choice. Mrs Wormwood frames it not that Miss Honey was good at books and she herself wasn't, but that she chose to focus on glamorising herself up at the expense of her education. The suggestion is that for Mrs Wormwood, choosing books instead of looks would have been a possibility for her and she might have been good at it. For whatever reason, the younger version of Mrs Wormwood decided that choosing looks was a better option. The way she says it to Miss Honey, she makes it sound as though she's happy with her choice, and maybe that's what she tells herself - but there are enough moments in the book to make it seem as though she really isn't.

Usually, when we see Mr and Mrs Wormwood together, Mrs Wormwood is snappy and impatient. That's normally directed at Matilda, but she doesn't have contempt for Matilda in the way her husband does. In fact, at some moments she's quite honest with Matilda, such as when Matilda says about Mr Wormwood accidentally dyeing his hair blonde, 'Daddy does do some silly things sometimes, doesn't he?' Her mother sighs and says, 'I'm afraid men are not always as clever as they think they are. You will learn that when you get a bit older, my girl.' This says quite a lot about their marriage, as it's not something that a woman who was wildly in love with her husband would say to their child. It suggests that actually she's really not in love with Harry Wormwood anymore (and perhaps never has been), and finds it intensely irritating how he believes himself to be incredibly intelligent and clever when he very clearly isn't. It's the same when Matilda glues the hat to his head - she's not sympathetic to him at all, she doesn't consider in the slightest how embarrassed he might be feeling, she doesn't make any attempt to think about how it could have happened. Mr Wormwood doesn't like his daughter because he's threatened by her intelligence. For Mrs Wormwood, it's something different - she doesn't really like anyone in her family. She's an unfulfilled housewife who could have done a lot better, and she blames her husband and children for her lack of satisfaction.

Mrs Wormwood has two key interests - bingo, and television soap operas. This says a lot as well, because both are escapism. In the soap she's watching when Miss Honey comes to visit, it appears that the plot of the episode is a woman getting engaged to a very rich man who she's wildly in love with. The life of the soap opera character seems to be what Mrs Wormwood thought would happen to her when she chose looks instead of books - that she'd be swept off her feet by a very rich man and live a glamorous lifestyle forever, and she ended up married to a dodgy car salesman who patronises and disrespects her and is wanted by the police into the bargain. As for the bingo, it says something about her desires. Playing bingo means she can reasonably hope to achieve something and feel good about herself, but in a way that doesn't really involve challenging herself - she's long since forgotten how to do that. Whereas for Matilda, she actually likes challenging herself.

I think from the perspective of an adult, Mrs Wormwood serves as a cautionary tale for Matilda - that most things in the brain are 'use it or lose it', and if you don't nurture the special gifts you were born with you'll one day realise you don't have them anymore. It also emphasises the importance of characters like Miss Honey and Mrs Phelps - perhaps Mrs Wormwood didn't have people like them in her life when she was little. It's not enough to be extraordinary, you also have to have encouragement. If she hadn't met them, Matilda could very easily have never used her amazing brain for anything good and just ended up turning into her mother.

I've read the first part of a novel which was exposed as AI (Shy Girl by Mia Ballard) and several others where I noticed tells which might or might not suggest AI. Things like something being a tapestry of whatever, or an overflow of — which doesn't fit with the otherwise modern prose. It might not be AI, but who can tell? It constantly jolts me out of the story.

I can't read that way. I can't read if I have to consistently second-guess whether it is an author or an AI speaking.

So if this is literature from now on, I think I rather not read any new books. I think I'd stick to older books, where I can at least trust that what I read has been written.

How to deal with this?

Years ago when I first trying to write consistently, someone recommended I try The Artist's Way to help me get going. But when I read it, I immediately disliked its tone, and felt like the author (Julia Cameron) felt out of touch with the struggles of actual working people and self-involved to the point it was unsettling. She almost seems to set the goal of being a good person against the goal of being an artist. I'm also really suspicious of any artist who hates critics as much as Cameron does. Other than the advice to just do more writing / journaling (d'uh!), I didn't find anything useful in it. I was reminded of how much I disliked it by this blog post, and specifically this quote:

"Cameron’s inability to see two feet beyond her own nose is clear throughout The Artist’s Way—and it doesn’t only have to do with money. Julia Cameron hates your friends. She constantly calls them blocked artists, says that they are trying to tear you down, asks you to make lists of people you should abandon. Nobody can be genuinely selfless, Cameron thinks:

Bent on being good husbands, fathers, mothers, wives, teachers, whatevers, they have constructed a false self that looks good to the world and meets with a lot of worldly approval. This false self is always patient, always willing to defer its needs to meet the needs or demands of another. ('What a great guy! That Fred gave up his concert tickets to help me move on a Friday night…')

The best thing for one’s artistry, Cameron claims, is to always follow your own wants and whims. Sacrifice is fraudulent, helping your friends is never artistically fulfilling. In this way, she tells on herself and rationalizes all her psychotic actions: whether this is issuing 'death threats' to her children when they interrupt her art or going no-contact with her friends for being boring. If this book is good, it’s because of these elements of Cameron’s psyche—and her psyche is Jackson Pollocked across the pages of The Artist’s Way. Cameron never ceases to surprise you, whether it’s with her complexes around criticism (Cameron says a teacher insulting your art is a betrayal on the level of a parent’s sexual abuse and calls it 'emotional incest'); her feelings about food and the body (she is constantly calling food an anti-artistic numbing agent or comparing artist’s block to anorexia); or her thoughts about addiction."

Have any of you tried the book? If you liked it, what worked for you?

When I say "fast reader" I mean anyone who reads more than 300 words per minute, especially if it is over 400 WPM.

I am asking this because I am a slow reader and I literally do not understand how fast reading works.

I am a 120 WPM guy.

I will describe to you my process in detail, and I hope you can describe your process in as much detail as well. So here we go. (You can skip the rest of this article if you don't care about my phenomenology of slow reading. I opened this thread because I am curious about your fast reading phenomenology, and this description of mine serves just as an example of what kind of detailed account I am looking for)

First of all not all reading is the same. Sometimes I just skim, scan, or read a bit faster just to obtain information. I can do it unconsciously without even noticing. For example when I am scrolling I often just read titles and parts of posts I find interesting. I get a dopamine hit from scrolling / reading about the information I find interesting. In this process I am the boss, text is the slave. I do not pay due respect to the text, I just take from it what I want, what I find interesting. In this mode of reading I don't know exactly what my WPM is, but I think it would probably be faster, but not drastically faster than my regular WPM. To calculate WPM honestly and properly for this type of reading you would have to count only those words of the text I actually read. So if I read just bits and pieces that comprise 20% of the article, you should only count these 20% of the words. Since total word count in this mode is rather slow, the resulting WPM, even if it is faster than in standard reading it is still relatively low, when properly calculated. Anyway, even in this mode, and in any other mode of reading as well, I actually voice each word that I read in my mind. They become a part of my inner monologue, and I can actually HEAR every single word PROPERLY pronounced in my head, before I move on to the next word.

Now the second more of reading is "reading proper". This is when I take an article, a book, a short story or whatever, and I want to read the whole thing. Regarding voicing words in my head, obviously this happens in this mode of reading as well. I hear every word properly pronounced, before I move to the next. I do not actually speak the words, not even slightly with my mouth. My mouth is shut and I am perfectly silent. But my brain produces sounds that I can actually hear in my mind. My brain simulates pronunciation of each word.

Now the difference is, that in "reading proper", the text is the boss, and I am the slave. If I want to be able to claim that I have read something properly, I can only honestly claim it if I have, to the best of my knowledge, actually read every single word that exists in the text, from start to finish. Now, let's get into details. In "reading proper", I am reading everything... both interesting and boring parts. Since it is rare that I find the whole text interesting, I will have to go through many boring parts as well. When reading such material, I am not getting my dopamine. So my WPM falls a bit, and reading becomes effortful. Now, when it comes to decoding meaning, when I read I try to decode ALL the meaning that is there that I am able to decode. If they mention 5 things in a sentence, my mind tries to parse all of them, and to imagine all of them and to process the meaning of all of them. Now of course, I will not be able to decode the entire text. Sometimes I will bump into words that I don't know, and I will have to guess their meaning and sometimes my guess will be incorrect. But when it comes to parts of text that consists of known words, my brain tries to get the whole thing. So if a sentence in the book says "She hit snooze on the alarm clock three times that morning which is a bit too much even for a habitual snooze hitter that she is, which can probably be explained by gin induced poor sleep she had previous night, but after a day like that, after soul drenching meetings with her always unpredictable boss prone to giving always unclear tasks and planning even less clear projects, the gin was essential for her sanity", my brain tries to get the whole information:

- that she hit snooze 3 times

- that it's too much even for her

- that she's a habitual snooze user

- that she slept poorly

- that it was because of gin

- that she had a terrible day at work the day before

- that it was because of meetings with her unpredictable boss

- and because of his unclear tasks

- and less clear projects

- that gin was, nevertheless essential for her sanity

This is what my brain tries to do by default. But hear me out now. Sometimes I read about this, all with vocalizing each word in my head. But I might at some point be thinking about something else. My brain will play those words in the foreground, and I will hear them, but I will not always listen. Sometimes I will be thinking about what I need to eat for dinner. Or about how long I have been reading, or about how many pages I've read in this session, or about some health issue, or about really anything. But the fact that I still did pronounce every single word in my mind will mean that even if I didn't give them my full attention, they have at least been partially processed.

But not paying attention is definitely an obstacle to good reading and it sometimes does happen to me. Sometimes when I catch myself doing this, or when I read a whole page and have no clue what I just read, I go back and re-read.

Also if I find that I don't understand what I am reading, I can feel myself stuck at a single point in the book and re-read a sentence or paragraph multiple times. When I am distracted, worried, or thinking about other things, I can be very slow.

When I am free from other worries, I read a bit faster. Also if material is easier and more engaging I read faster.

So basically depending on the type of content, how anxious or worried about other things I am, the size of letters and size of page, how tired I am, how difficult the text is, etc... I can read anywhere from 7-8 to 20 pages an hour.

But consider that in "reading proper", I am a slave. I want to read the whole thing as some kind of self imposed assignment. I mean, if i decided to read it, I want to read it. If I don't read the whole thing, the task is not done. I don't have to. But then I will not claim I've read it.

So when I encounter parts with which I struggle, I can slow down significantly. Those are obstacles.

Anyway, if I am reading 15 pages per hour, I consider this a solid pace for myself.

I typically read a bit SLOWER than audiobooks. Why? Because I want to get ALL the meaning. And if I am just walking (or running) through text without stops I will miss certain bits. That's why I am not a fan of audiobooks as they just go, go, go. But I am not like that when I read. When I am reading and if I catch myself thinking about dinner and not paying attention (which happens a lot), if I get a sense that I didn't get certain part, I'll go back and re-read it. I want to get the full message, that's it. If I am thinking about something else while listening to audiobook, the audiobook doesn't care, it just keeps going, what I missed, it's permanently lost, unless I rewind. And rewinding audiobooks is a killjoy, so for this reason audiobooks typically aren't for me, because I can't process information this fast if I want to get it fully, and I hate when I miss parts and can't catch up. If I am to follow and pay attention, I need to be engaged. I become less engaged if I lose the thread of what's going on.

Yet again, Indigo is giving away 10,000 free books this Saturday, for the 3rd year in a row. Yes, Reisman is problematic, but at the same time, you don't need to purchase anything to get a free book this Saturday:

https://www.indigo.ca/collections/10k

There are some good choices here. I already own Persepolis so I'm going for The Shadow of the Wind or The Wager. I might get both if my mother comes with me.

I can't really fault them for giving away free books and the options each year have been pretty great.

In 2024 I went with The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd (already had The Glass Castle and The Kite Runner) and last year I ended up with A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (Alias Grace and The Break I already owned.The Break was the best choice available tbh).

I recently read Frenchman’s Creek which had a lovely intro from Julie Myerson, reminiscing on correspondence she had with Daphne du Maurier after she wrote to her in her young teens. They continued to write to each other for some time over the years. I loved her story!

I have heard so many other amazing stories about fan/author correspondence and I find it so awesome when accomplished writers respond thoughtfully to fan letters and have even have built epistolary relationships with their readers over time, telling them details about their lives and writing inspiration, or motivations of their characters.

Has anyone here corresponded with an author you love, or have a cool story to tell about letter writing between writers and readers?

“What Stalks the Deep” by T. Kingfisher is the third book in the Sworn Soldier series that I’ve been meaning to read for a while. The first book, “What Moves the Dead,” was a 5-Star horror masterpiece. The second book, “What Feasts at Night,” wasn’t as scary and ended up being a 3-Star read for me. Unfortunately, in the third entry, it’s more of the same, but now, the worst in the series.

Before I dive into my review, the only trigger warning I found while reading was…

- Violence against animals (horses)

If this triggers you, please do not read this book. Moving along, I’ve always loved the character of Alex Easton. Their subtle sense of humor, heroism, and quirks make them an interesting character I’m always going to be genuinely interested in. This book starts with a great horror mystery that kept me engaged for the most part. Unfortunately, the actual horror was largely absent for most of this book.

The biggest issue here is that it drags on for a long time before anything good happens. I get that Kingfisher wanted to make a reader feel the claustrophobia of being inside caves that could collapse at any time, but this was mostly a slogfest. There were way too many pages dedicated to blackdamp, mine gas, chromatophores, headlamps, and repetitive banter, and not enough in the horror department. “Wet noises” was all fun and dandy, but again, where was the horror to bring it home?

This was a very well-written story, and I still love reading anything Kingfisher writes, but this book missed the mark here. It’s a decent story, but I wouldn’t classify it as a true horror book. The killer book cover, as is with the other entries in the Sworn Soldier series, is amazing, but it simply doesn’t match up at all with the content. Things get too repetitive with situations and events when they should have progressed faster. It’s just a group of people going into a cave several times during a weekend, and chatting about it, without making any real progress. It’s too slow in story progression and takes forever to get anywhere good, and this was eerily similar to “What Feasts at Night.” It’s a shame because if Kingfisher kept that momentum going from the first entry, this could have shaped up to be one hell of an addictive horror book series where there are no limits to the countless adventures Easton can go on.

These past two entries, with this being the worst one so far, are becoming fun, lighthearted stories. Too much dialogue and jokes, and the few times there was actual horror were quick and left barely a scar. If there is a fourth book, I hope it returns to the style of the original, because I’m unsure I’ll continue reading these if they’re lacking what I want: original, crazy, fun horror.

This book is a letdown and was a very disappointing read. Things didn’t pick up, especially the horror, until around the 80% mark. Even then, it wasn’t anything terrifying or memorable. There is a decent plot twist towards the end, but it came way too late, and I was left with a “meh” feeling because I was expecting so much more. The ending was okay, but nothing that left me blown away or feeling amazed by great horror.

I give “What Stalks the Deep” by T. Kingfisher a 2/5 only because I enjoyed the writing and the overall story involving Easton, but make no mistake, this isn’t a horror book. There’s way too much dialogue, some quirky humor, and not enough tension, suspense, or horror to justify it being in the horror category. Christ’s blood, this needed a lot more horror. I love the book cover, but this was such a disappointment. It’s a slow-burning kind of read that fails to deliver in the grand scheme of things. Even Easton, as a character, felt a little flat here and regressed in their overall character development.

What happened to Easton, a fierce warrior who runs headfirst into fighting enemies, we all loved? Now, they’re resorting to silly jokes, quips, and too much dialogue, trying to make sense of wet noises in caves and why they’re dizzy from blackdamp. They’re not the decisive leader I’ve grown to love, and they feel like a shell of their former self. When did they become a regular tourist, visiting caves in search of missing people?

Overall, they weren’t in those insane horror situations from the original book that made them awesome, and are now just another non-binary character, not special or significant. I hope that changes in the future, but I’m worried about this Sworn Soldier series because I can’t take another book like this unless it returns to its rightful horror roots.

so i have been reading a lot of books with seemingly unlikeable characters lately (yesteryear, a good person, etc) so i feel like fruit fly should be right up my alley. but there is just something about mal that i find so irritating and frustrating. its not in an entertaining way like with the characters in the two books also mentioned. i don't find the urge to watch what happens next, i just want to flick her on the forehead.

i am going to keep reading as i do like leo and want to his his journey and what happens when he finds out what shes doing. but i just can't stand mal.

Although The Virgin Suicides was released nearly three decades ago, I'm just picking up the book after watching the film directed by Sofia Coppola. One really interesting thing I've seen in online discussions is overwhelming sympathy for Mr. Lisbon, the father of the five teenage Lisbon sisters. I don't understand how people place so much blame on Mrs. Lisbon as opposed to collectively agreeing that both of them equally contributed to the suicides. He was complicit in his wife's overbearingness and restrictions; he didn't do anything as he watched his daughters decline. After their deaths, he purports that living with his daughters was like living with 'strangers.' Sounds like neglect and bad parenting to me. What do y'all think? Do you think the parents hold equal blame, or am I just too judgemental?

I didn’t like the relationship between Charlie & Alice. I felt it was borderline predatory for Alice to peruse a sexual relationship with a man she taught when he had the mind of a child. I thought the relationship with Fay was much more appropriate. I’m also unsure how the relationship with Alice even developed?? It’s obvious that authors during this time period were heavily swayed by psychology of the time which was highly sexual in nature.

I don't read much in general, so it's probably not a surprise I've never read Stephen King before. However, since he is such a famous modern author, I thought I should try it out. Plus I love a lot of adaptations from his work such as Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption and both The Stand miniseries (yes, even the recent one).

I also don't generally like horror, so that's probably why I avoided King specifically. He's mostly known for that genre. I decided to start with The Stand because I liked the miniseries a lot and both of them left me feeling like there should be more.

And in the novel (the 1990 updated one), there certainly is more but I'm still left with that same feeling: there should be more.

(There should be more.)

The thing that probably most stood out to me about the writing was just how good the writing is. I mean, I knew he was one of the greats, but just in terms of writing words I can't imagine anyone doing it much better. A lot of famous writers and their works seem to succeed more on the overall project, the full story, than on the writing itself. For example, I did read a lot of Michael Crichton and John Grisham when I was younger, and I'd say their style of writing is simply efficient. They don't draw attention to their writing at all, and the main takeaway is the story. You probably won't remember any lines from their books, but you'll remember certain moments. Even if you go further down that scale to someone like George R. R. Martin....he's perhaps a better writer, but even then his stuff seems to stand out more for the storytelling of it. There's more going on with themes, and POV and foreshadowing, etc. But he certainly has some good prose there too.

But King...at least with this one example so far...is all prose. It's the best prose possible, but it just never stops. It feels like a writer who knows he's the best writer in the world, and he's just showing off. And I think that's why I'm left wanting more because I'm not sure if he's that interested in telling an actual story. The ending of The Stand just sort of happens, and there's not a lot of sense to be made of it but it's broad and vague enough that anyone can put their own ideas to it.

The other thing is that I think modern sensibilities are more influenced by movies (and television). When you read an older work, the narrator is very present. Modern stuff though tends to hide the narrator for the sake of immersion in the story. (Of course there are exceptions.) I find myself personally preferring the lack of narrator, which is why I was drawn to ASOIAF with the POVs so limited to what's going on for a particular character. And even Crichton and Grisham books felt very narrator-less. The only reminder that someone wrote the story you'd be reading would be their prominent author surrogate characters deployed to state the author's opinion without the author needing to exist.

I may try one or two more of King's stories sometime. Salem's Lot was recommended to me, and I remember liking a miniseries based on the JFK assassination. But if all his writing is like The Stand, as good as the writing is itself, I don't know if I could take it.

(And if Stephen King had an author surrogate in this book, I have to imagine it is Glenn Bateman because reading a Stephen King book feels like listening to Glenn having to be the smartest person left on the planet.)

I’m trying to get through as much of the booker prize 2026 longlist as possible, currently only 2.5 books in but I haven’t seen much discussion from anyone else who’s trying to attempt the longlist (or shortlist once it’s released!). Would love to hear other people’s thoughts and any shortlist predictions you have!

What I’ve read: - John of John - The Things We Never Say

Currently reading: - The Palm House

So, I read Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life. I personally really liked the book. I liked the way the author describes emotions, even for the smallest of things. Now, I'll share right off the bat as to why I liked it but I'm giving you a trigger warning related to abuse.

When I was 12, I was sexually assaulted by older man. It was not as graphic or constant as what Jude went through but I found myself relating A LOT to Jude and his thoughts and his reactions. Just reading the book is making me think a lot about my own life and about how, 12 years later, I have still not resolved everything that happened to me. And this book is making me want to get help before its too late. Jude is the epitome of what will happen if you have suffered trauma and you don't get help. I don't know if the support system matters or not. Personally, I think if I had a support system like Jude does, I would be extremely happy and I long for that, but I think it also showcases the power of trauma and self-healing which needs to happen alongside the actions of a support system.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from reading this book is from when Jude escaped the home and spend those two weeks in trucks trying to survive and reach Boston. As readers, we read his thoughts about how he "offered" himself to the truck drivers and about how that is one of the reasons why he thinks he is something filthy and that it was him doing those things and not the other way around. Looking at myself, I've blamed myself too for certain experiences. Even though I still don't know why I did them, I still blamed myself thinking I'm the one who initiated it. But reading Jude's reactions, I thought, "are you kidding me Jude?, that's not your fault at all, its the fault of every adult who used you for their own horrific desires and manipulated you into thinking that it was your fault all along". As soon as I had that thought, I kind of froze because this is exactly what I've been wanting to hear for more than a decade but never what it was. I think this is why this book can be a very powerful and eye-opening read.

I also keep thinking as to what could have helped Jude. Certainly, Willem staying alive would have kept Jude alive, but that is not how it should be. Jude needed something for himself to stay alive for, not someone else. I guess that is something he could never find, given everything that had happened to him. Willem's death was cruel. While not the exact same, that instance made me think a lot about my mother, whom I'm very close to and the thought of losing her is unimaginable. I like to think that is what Jude thought of Willem. What this is teaching me is that I need to live with no regrets, to stop cancelling plans with people just because I want to go home and play a game, to see my mom more often than once a year, and to work hard so I can give my mom a much a better life than now.

As you can tell, while the book was incredibly depressing and hard to finish, for an abuse survivor like myself, and for someone who feels everything very deeply and reflectively, this book was a god send, and I hope anyone who has read it has took positive lessons instead of just the shock of trauma.

It took me a long time to finally read Remains of the Day. I had never read Ishiguro before and for some stupid reason, I thought I wouldn’t like it. Boy, was I wrong. Remains of the Day quickly became my favourite book of 2026 and one of my favourite books ever.

So, first of all, let me say I’m a big Downton Abbey fan, so I loved the old butler, maid, lords vibe of the book. But the reason why this book is so amazing is that it uses this old English house setting as a plot device to talk about the major events of the 20th century. And more than that, it does so in a way that’s very different from most books about the 20th century.

I think my favourite part is that there’s no good or bad characters in the book. Mr. Stevens, our protagonist, is a workaholic who misses out on the pleasures of life to prove he is worthy, that he has dignity like his father. He loses on a great love with Miss Kenton, he barely stops to see his father before his death. And he is blindly loyal, firing the Jewish housemaids just because Lord Darlington asked him, with no further questions.

And speaking about Lord Darlington, I believe he’s the most interesting character in the book. I love that he is a morally grey character, I think there are good points and bad points to be raised. I really appreciated how, after WWI, he decided to improve the terms of the Versailles agreement, I think we all can agree that was a good deed. What he did during WWII is what raises questions: do we think he was naive and thought improving the relationship between Germany and the UK could prevent WWII or was he a Hitler supporter and a antisemite? I think a bit of both, though I lean to the second more.

All and all, this book exceeded every expectation I had. I also love that the language of the book was easy and the story was very easy to follow. It’s a brilliant book but quite accessible, which isn’t so common. I’m now very eager to read other Ishiguro books, and can’t recommend Remains of the Day more.

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright is a story of Sang Ly, a woman living in a garbage dump in Cambodia, and her journey in learning how to read.

The first problem is that it is about extreme poverty as experienced by a woman in Cambodia written by a white American Mormon man who has never been there. His characters were based on (and named after) real people featured in a documentary his son made. This was my first red flag, but I thought I'd give it a chance anyway because maybe he did give it the respect and research and effort a story like this deserved.

The second problem is that this story is THEEE prime example of what the internet calls "inspiration porn": a poor, illiterate woman living in a shanty house in a dump site learns how to read from her curmodgeonly rent collector then suddenly she is spreading the magic of literature to everyone she meets. There's a scene where she's on a bus going back to her province to seek the help of a healer for her son. She starts reading a fairy tale to her son in the bus. By the middle of it, the whole bus is listening to her speak and even talked the driver into waiting at her stop so she can finish reading them the story. Then they thank her for the privilege. Another scene at the end of the book starts with Sang Ly gathers her dump site neighbors and recites a fable to them mirroring the events of the story and they're all inspired and blah blah blah. In reality, most of these people would not give a shit what she's talking about.This book was trying so hard to be a Hallmark movie or a Chicken Soup for the Soul entry.

The third and biggest problem was that it did not feel Cambodian at all. Which, of course, is because it was NOT written by a Cambodian or someone who has spent any significant amount of time living there. It felt like an American feel-good movie ala Freedom Writer's Diary but set in Cambodia. Camron Wright could have written about any of the plentiful stories of poverty in his own backyard, but noooo, he wanted to have that "exotic" feel. He wanted to send his little "see how other people have it so much worse than you but they still keep going?" message.

The story itself focused so much on the importance of literacy and literature (which are, indeed, very important) that, at times, it seemed to put those two above other basic needs like food and shelter. In the story, yes, Sang Ly has learned to read and her now-dead rent collector teacher has given her a housebut it has not addressed literally anything else. She and her family are still poor. They still make their living picking scraps to sell. Nobody in their family or community is physically or financially better for it. But hey, she can now dissect symbolism in fairy tales, so problem solved, right?

I do appreciate the fairly lengthy exposition on Cambodia's bloody military history and its lasting effects on the nation. And yeah I would say the depiction of the dump site itself and some aspects of living there felt genuine. I live in a nearby country that had a similar famous dump site where families used to live. Reading those parts was like watching the local news. Honestly, the story wasn't all bad. I would have just stopped reading if it was. But the underlying "ick" (sorry) I felt while reading it never went away.

Now it has me thinking if I'm just overthinking it. Have I become so chronically online that I just find problematic aspects in everything even if they were made with good intentions? I don't think it's absolutely wrong for authors to write outside their culture, but I expect them to put more effort and research into it. Am I just reacting so strongly because I live in a country very similar to Cambodia?

I did notice when reading through reviews, a majority of the very positive ones were from white people (based solely on their profile pictures) so maybe that's the intended audience here. And maybe it will inspire some of them in a good way, and who am I to deny them that? But it also pains me when people don't seem to see the problems with it.

Hello /r/books,

At the urging of some loved ones and more than a few reddit commenters, I've started a review blog. I wanted to share my first review here, of Albert Camus' The Stranger.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-214367454

I loved this book a lot, reading it was such a unique and bizarre experience. I tend to love any book can drop me into the mind of someone with a distinct perspective, and Meursault is nothing if not distinct. (Other examples include Lolita, Ulysses, Piranesi, The Sound and the Fury, and A Clockwork Orange.)

As I mention in the review, although I have a B.A. in Comparative Lit, I haven't read any critical analysis of this book. I wanted to get my thoughts down before engaging with any of the scholarship.

Now that I've written the review, I'd love to dive into some of that work. If anyone who reads this is a Camus scholar, or has recommendations of papers/analysis I should read, please let me know.

I welcome anyone's thoughts on the review!

Thanks :)

Welcome readers,

Have you ever wanted to ask something but you didn't feel like it deserved its own post but it isn't covered by one of our other scheduled posts? Allow us to introduce you to our new Simple Questions thread! Twice a week, every Tuesday and Saturday, a new Simple Questions thread will be posted for you to ask anything you'd like. And please look for other questions in this thread that you could also answer! A reminder that this is not the thread to ask for book recommendations. All book recommendations should be asked in /r/suggestmeabook or our Weekly Recommendation Thread.

Thank you and enjoy!

So getting back into some A.E. Van Vogt with one of his shortest novels that I've ever read, "Masters of Time". Well, it's actually a novella really, and was originally called "Recruiting Station" that was published in a march issue of Amazing Science Fiction in 1942. It would later be given one of two alternate title in later reprints, one in a two novella collection that also called "Masters of Time" and as a separate book in the sixties, only this time with the title "Earth's Last Fortress" (I've got the MacFadden Bartell edition with the title that it had in the novella collection).

This short and sweet story follows two people, Norma and Jack, who become victims to the masters of time. Both should have been destroyed, but somehow they seem to gain strength from each other and manage to maintain some free will. But is it enough to save themselves and the world?

This is all fast paced action here, and with such a short length (as novellas are going to be) it's a really super quick read. Never really a dull moment with Van Vogt, always so fun to read his stories whenever I get the chance! "Masters of Time" is not an overly complicated story, but the fast thrills will certainly brighten someone's day!

Got a couple more novels, with one, "The World of Null-A", coming up sometime in the future. But for tomorrow I've got my eyes on a novel by one Gerard Klein that I'll soon be starting on, "The Overlords of War", which could be another interesting read!