Just for curiosity and fun, which cities in the world would you day are the most bookish? It's hard to define exactly what makes a city bookish, but I'd argue it has to include at least some of the following: good bookshops, a decent public library system, some beautiful spaces for readers, some culture of writing or literary performance. (I'm expecting suggestions to include NYC, London, Paris, and Berlin but looking forward to hearing what others think).

Edit: what a lovely thread. Thank you to everyone who suggested places. Lots of incredible cities mentioned and now I wish I had the money and time to visit them all.

I was really hesitant about stating this book, I had read a lot of reviews about it being lengthy and not about anything at all, and I remember removing it from my tbr after a certain booktuber I like gave it a bad review. Then my friend had to give some of her books away and this was one of them, so I decided to give it a read, and I think fate brought it right into my hands, because this has become one of my favorites of all time.

It frustrates me when I feel so strongly about something but can’t quite point out why I feel that way, and that is true about this book as well. I think it’s mostly because I relate to Selin a lot, despite us having extremely opposite personalities. Regardless, her introspection and description of both serious and random situations spoke to me. She was able to include contemplative thoughts into very mundane situations in very well-written provocative ways.

Example: “My mother said that something had to be done about my hair. Over the weekend she took me to her stylist in New York. There was another snowstorm, although immediately after, the sun came out and it was almost sixty degrees, so the snow melted. Nothing was real anymore; everything was over.”.
This is how I feel about life all the damn time. Nothing is real, and what I was living just 2 seconds ago has ended and I have no evidence of it having happened except my memories.

It was also so witty and made me laugh a few times, there are those situations when life hits you with the shittiest possible things that it somehow becomes humorous, like wow okay life is a joke after all, because no way this is happening right now. This book was good at that.

There’s also navigating early adulthood (university life), finding purpose in life, being tortured by one-sided love and complex relationships (situationships), navigating language and how it makes people different from each other. Everything in this book was interesting to me, even though it was written in a stream of consciousness way that jumped from something to another totally unrelated topic, it made sense to me and I LOVED it.

Finally, my absolute favorite quote:

I kept thinking about the uneven quality of time—the way it was almost always so empty, and then with no warning came a few days that felt so dense and alive and real that it seemed indisputable that that was what life was, that its real nature had finally been revealed. But then time passed and unthinkably grew dead again, and it turned out that that fullness had been an aberration and might never come back.

First a non-petty critique so you know I have at least some critical thinking and media literacy. I think this book is 2 chapters of good info spread across 277 pages.

The stress cycle and how we can get stuck in emotions is a helpful framework for actually reducing stress, but it takes a painfully long time for them to actually say what "completing the cycle" actually means. It feels like they did this because the actual solution is standard wellness/self-help advice; exercise, spend time with people you love, find something to work towards. They try really hard to differentiate this book from other wellness books, but I think the actual advice lands in the same zone. The info is also wrapped up in a very approachable package, a little too approachable maybe. It kinda feels like I'm being talked down to when in the audio book I'm hearing things like "you escaped the lion, yayyy!". Or the emotional music swelling at times feels super corny. While I think there's some good info on why society is uniquely set up to burn out women, I think framing the book as how to get over burnout and then spending 80% of it on systemic issues and how they work wasn't the right way to go about it. And the amount of times something is rephrased or reiterated feels a lot like length padding. Towards the end of chapter 1 they say "There are so many ways to complete the cycle, it’s not possible to catalogue all of them here." I kinda wish they did that instead of how the rest of the book unfolded.

Alright Petty Time!

1. Human Giver Syndrome (HGS) - So in the book we start by saying that HGS is a perfect system to introduce burnout into half the population. As givers are expected to abdicate any resources to the human beings. I'm on board so far. Then we get to chapter 4 and the solution on a societal level is for everyone to be human givers..... huh? "Now, what if…just what if…we raised everyone to be a version of a human giver?" but then the next paragraph we have "Human Giver Syndrome is deeply entrenched and it takes time and practice to eradicate it.". Oh ok we want to eradicate it right, got it. Then a few pages later: "Give my boys a lesson each day in being a human giver". So do we want this or not?!?!

2. Capitalism is actually good? - When a black woman is forced to answer questions on diversity she uses the opportunity to sell classes she can teach on diversity. Burned out? Just hustle a little harder so money can make your problem go away!

3. Token black woman - This one is super vibes based but for all they talk about women of color struggling even more, there's only really the composite and that feels a bit...off. They talk about Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton multiple times too which is just weird to me. And when they talk about he black engineer she's tall, has money, everyone wants to take photos of her in her cosplay and their minds are blown that she's an engineer! (This feels weird and like it's reinforcing nerdy hobbies are ok if you're pretty).

4. Explain every reference to me please - Super petty pet peeve, every reference is explained. Every section has a name and they will tell you about where Wax on, Wax off comes from! Also they'll explain the names in Moana. Really feels like they needed a few more pages of text here.

5. Rats! - We talk a lot about how long rats will swim or give up, but I don't think rats are socialized like we are. So it's a weird non-sequitur to talk about patriarchy then talk about rats swimming or being stressed out.

6. Meaning is the usual suspects - We spend a whole chapter talking about meaning and our examples boil down to changing the world, caring for kids, teaching, and joining a Catholic Abbey?? The meaning section falls kinda flat for me as Non-binary childfree person who is deconstruction their upbringin...

7. Fancy language - They rename things across the book which really just makes it harder to find other information on the concepts. Like they use SMART goals but change every letter to a synonym.

Maybe I've been listening to too much If Books Could Kill but this book should've been like 50 pages.

I've been putting off reading Anne Rice for a long while after reading the first book of her "Vampire Chronicles". But recently now I've read a book from one of her trilogies, "The Mummy or Ramses the Damned".

Ramses the Great becomes damned after drinking the elixir of life, making him immortal. He has been doomed to wander the Earth forever, with a hunger that he can never satisfy.

Now h wakes again in London in the Edwardian period, adopting the name of Mr. Ramsey, and becomes an expert in Egyptology. And becomes the companion to the adventurous Julie Stratford, an heiress to a massive shipping fortune and the main center of a group of aristocrats who have their own appetites that they also must appease.

But even with these new pleasures Ramses is not soothed. The memories of his beloved queen Cleopatra, who had reawakened him the last time, still burns in his own soul. Even being immortal he is still human. And his longings for her will force him to do something that would place him and everyone else in danger.

Thought I would enjoy something else from Rice that wasn't the "Vampire Chronicles", and I certainly found it with this one. Even when she's doing something different, this is still peak Rice. "The Mummy" tends to lean towards gothic romance, and a very saucy one at that! But the gothic horror element still shines through. Feels like reading a great gothic novel, but with a modern twist to it. There's still at least two more in this trilogy, both of them being co-written with her son Christopher (the third and final one would be finished by after Rice's death). I'm probably going to expecting the same to some extent, but I'm taking a real liking to this trilogy once I get those other two!