My October Reading: Feminism, Poirot, Cambodia

My October reading is introduced to you by The Assistant!

• Takako Shimura “Wandering Son” vol.5 [Japan] 
• Roxane Gay “Bad Feminist” [USA] 
• Shamini Flint “A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree” [Malaysia, Singapore] 
• Agatha Christie “Death on the Nile” [UK] 
• Rebecca Solnit “Men Explain Things to Me” [USA] 

July Reading: Llamas, Theater, Icebergs and Sheep

My July reading is introduced to you by Smol Bear!

Books:

Rajaa Alsanea  “Girls of Riyadh” (بنات الرياض) [Saudi Arabia] 

Kaoru Mori “A Bride's Story” Vol. 1-3 (乙嫁語り) [Japan] 

Brian K. Vaughan “Saga. Vol.1” [USA] 

Sarah Waters “Tipping the Velvet” [UK] 

Tadashi Ozawa “How to Draw Anime & Game Characters. Vol. 2 : Expressing Emotions” [Japan]

Kameron Hurley “The Geek Feminist Revolution” [USA] 

Anu Holopainen “Sisarpuut” (Syysmaa #2) [Finland] 

Short stories:

My April Reading: Lies, Dials and Cyborgs

My April reading is introduced to you by Tiny Basket Owl! ^^

• Marissa Meyer “Cinder” [USA] 
• Anu Holopainen  “Welman tytöt” [Finland] 
• Agatha Christie “The Seven Dials Mystery” [UK] 
• Fumi Yoshinaga “Ōoku: The Inner Chambers” vol.4-6 [Japan] 
• Frances Hardinge “The Lie Tree” [UK] 
• Riad Sattouf “Tulevaisuuden arabi: Lapsuus Lähi-idässä” (L'Arabe du futur, The Arab of the Future) [France]

March reading: Finnish werewolves, Grumpy cat and cute detectives

My march reading is introduced to you by Chuck (aka the yellow angry bird) and Minion Pig. In march I decided to read more Finland than usually.

Salla Simukka “Punainen kuin veri” [Finland] 

Niskatuki ja muita sarjakuvia [Finland] 

Aino Kallas “The Wolf's Bride” (Sudenmorsian) [Finland] 

Ana Blandiana “The hour of sand: selected poems 1969-1989” [Romania] 

“Grumpy cat: yrmeä kirja (Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book)” [USA] 

Emmi Itäranta “Memory of Water” (Teemestarin kirja) [Finland] 

Agatha Christie “Partners in crime” [UK] 

Octavia E. Butler “Wild Seed” [USA] 

“Punainen kuin veri” (As Red As Blood)

Aino Kallas: The Wolf's Bride

A woman turns into a werewolf and tastes freedom – from men, social norms and obligations. That's what The Wolf's Bride (Sudenmorsian) by Aino Kallas is about. It was first published in Finnish in 1928. I chose to read the story in English, because it was written in “archaic Finnish” which I figured would be too hard for me, probably. :D

February reading: oceans, Pluto and cute baby bats

Quite a delicious list of everything I've read in February introduced to you by the Spotted Dragon!

武内 直子 『美少女戦士セーラームーン』 vol. 5 (Naoko Takeuchi “Sailor Moon” vol. 5) [Japan] 

Wu Ming-Yi “The Man with the Compound Eyes” [Taiwan] 

Issui Ogawa “The Lord of the Sands of Time” [Japan] 

Jeff VanderMeer “Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction” [USA] 

武内 直子 『美少女戦士セーラームーン』 vol. 6 (Naoko Takeuchi “Sailor Moon” vol. 6) [Japan] 

Nnedi Okorafor “Lagoon” [USA]

Wonderbook

At first I got this book from the library, but soon I bought my own copy. Wonderbook is a cool illustrated guide for the writers of speculative fiction. Really fun quirky drawings there!

January Reading 2015: Crossdressing women, time-travellers and infidels

My January books are introduced to you by Giggling Frog!

Zack Whedon “Serenity: Leaves on the Wind” [USA] 

Kameron Hurley “Infidel” [USA] 

Hergé “Tintin in Tibet” [Belgium] 

Robert Cheeke “Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness: The Complete Guide to Building Your Body on a Plant-Based Diet” [USA] 

Marjorie M. Liu “Black Widow: The Name of the Rose” [USA] 

Audrey Niffenegger “The Time Traveler's Wife” [USA] 

Nekota Medetai “Hamsteripäiväkirjat” vol. 5 (Hamster Club) [Japan] 

Agatha Christie “The Secret Adversary” (Tommy and Tuppence #1) [UK] 

Nekota Medetai “Hamsteripäiväkirjat” vol. 6 (Hamster Club) [Japan] 

Terry Pratchett “Monstrous Regiment” [UK] 

Fuyumi Soryo “Mars: Horse With No Name” (includes stories "Sleeping Lion" and "A One-Carat Fruit") [Japan]

I miss Firefly T_T 

Read this on the New Year night.

Quotes from I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban

“I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.

I Am Malala will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world.” - from Goodreads

Let me share a few quotes from Malala Yousafzai's powerful book with you:

'I know the importance of education because my pens and my books were taken from me by force,' I said. 'But the girls of Swat are not afraid of anyone. We have continued with our education.'

If one man, Fazlullah, can destroy everything, why can't one girl change it?

Education is our right, I said. Just as it is our right to sing. Islam has given us this right and says that every girl and boy should go to school. The Quran says we should seek knowledge, study hard and learn the mysteries of our world.

Half a doctor is a danger to one's life […]

Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human.

We Pashtuns love shoes but don't love the cobbler; we love our scarves and blankets but do not respect the weaver. Manual workers made a great contribution to our society but received no recognition, and this is the reason so many of them joined the Taliban – to finally achieve status and power.

Books I read in November: boxing, space opera and hamsters

November books are presented to you by Losik!

Boris Akunin “Любовник смерти” [Russia]

Thora Kerner, Jin Baron “Japania mangan avulla 1/2” (Japanisch für Manga-Fans) [Germany] 

Ann Leckie “Ancillary Justice” [USA] 

Suzanne van Rooyen “The Other Me” [South Africa, Finland] 

Tiitu Takalo “Kehä” [Finland] 

Nekota Medetai “Hamsteripäiväkirjat” vol. 4 (Hamster Club) [Japan] 

Arthur Conan Doyle “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” [UK] 

武内 直子 「美少女戦士セーラームーン」 vol.4 (Naoko Takeuchi “Sailor Moon” vol.4) [Japan] 

Marjane Satrapi “Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return” [Iran, France] 

Historical mystery novel by Boris Akunin. 

Thrilling even though I guessed the bad guy. :D

Quotes from The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Futuristic Brazil, bisexuality, art and death in the lush world of The Summer Prince. 

Quotes from The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

“You’re an artist,” I say. “And I don’t think anyone but me truly understands what you mean by that. Not that you paint or you sculpt or you see the world in colors. You mean that you manipulate, that you express yourself on objects and use them to express you. You mean that when you chose to be the summer king, you chose to use your own body as a canvas that no one could ignore.”

I'm an artist, after all, and I live for spectacle, for the construction of emotional states and evocation of suppressed feelings. 

She loved me enough to let me go and I loved her enough to stay.

Quotes from The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan

The Drowning Girl is one the weirdest books I've ever read. It's a beautifully written story about a girl who heard a siren.

India Morgan Phelps — Imp to her friends — is schizophrenic. Struggling with her perceptions of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about her encounters with creatures out of myth — or from something far, far stranger...
(From Goodreads.)

Was it a mermaid, a werewolf or both? Imp tells the story of her hauntings, and it might haunt you as well. Here are some quotes from the book.

Quotes from The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan

There's always a siren, singing you to shipwreck. Some of us may be more susceptible than others are, but there's always a siren.

8 Discworld Quotes

I'm slowly getting to know Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, and today I felt like sharing a few quotes from the books I've read. Enjoy. :-)

"Granny had counted the temples with a thoughtful look in her eyes; gods were always demanding that their followers acted other than according to their true natures, and the human fallout this caused made plenty of work for witches."

-"Equal Rites"

"His hair was more hairy, his clothes more clothy, his boots the epitome of bootness. It made your head ache just to look at him."

-"Mort"

"The ability of skinny old ladies to carry huge loads is phenomenal. Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother."

-"Reaper Man"

We Need Diverse Books Campaign

Last year I decided to read more diverse books. I realized that most of the books I read were written by and about straight white males. I am a feminist and I love learning about this world and people from different cultures, but you wouldn't be able to tell it by looking at my bookshelves: J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Dan Simmons, Ivan Yefremov, all great authors, but so monochrome in a way...

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I started searching for stories written by / about women, people of colour, LGBT folks, and discovered so many lovely authors I never heard of before! Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, Malinda Lo, Margaret Atwood, to name a few. How could I miss them? And how many more books to read! This world is so colourful and beautiful, and it's time to enjoy it fully through the books.

Quotes: Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness

  The Left Hand of Darkness is a thought-provoking science fiction novel about a planet of androgynous people. They're sexless most of the time, and it was interesting to read about a society without gender.

Quotes from The Left Hand of Darkness:

Consider: there is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves, protective/protected, dominant/submissive, owner/chattels, active/passive. In fact the whole tendency to dualism that pervades human thinking may be found to be lessened, or changed, on Winter.

They do not see one another as men or women. This is almost impossible for our imagination to accept. What is the first question we ask about a newborn baby?

A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.

Quotes: Tehanu (Earthsea)

Quotes from Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin

But do you see, Aunty, I never saw a man till I was a woman grown. Only girls and women. And yet I didn’t know what women are, because women were all I did know. Like men who live among men, sailors, and soldiers, and mages on Roke - do they know what men are? How can they, if they never speak to a woman?

Flint had never washed a dish in his life. Women’s work. But Ged and Ogion had lived here, bachelors, without women; everywhere Ged had lived, it was without women; so he did the “women’s work” and thought nothing about it. It would be a pity, she thought, if he did think about it, if he started fearing that his dignity hung by a dishcloth.

Quotes: The Farthest Shore (Earthsea)

Quotes from The Farthest Shore by Ursula Le Guin

'He does have a Gontish accent.'

'If I could speak to dragons in their own language,' Arren said, 'I wouldn't care about my accent.'

When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.

'In Enlad,' said Arren after a while, 'we have a story about the boy whose schoolmaster was a stone.'

'Aye?.. What did he learn?'

'Not to ask questions.'

Quotes: A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea)

Quotes from A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

Mastery is nine times patience.

To hear, one must be silent.

To light a candle is to cast a shadow.

Heal the wound and cure the illness, but let the dying spirit go.

It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.

Quotes from The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin

Choice, ice, opium. Выбор, лёд, опиум

Quote of the day:

Each choice you make only lasts forever if you keep making it forever. - Khatzumoto, AJATT

Цитата дня:

«Каждый сделанный вами выбор длится вечно, только если вы продолжаете делать его вечно.» - Khatzumoto, AJATT

Photo of the day:

Фото дня:

5 inspiring quotes. 5 вдохновляющих цитат

"When the wind blows, some people build walls and others build windmills." - Chinese proverb

«Когда дует ветер, кто-то строит стены, а кто-то — ветряные мельницы.» - Китайская поговорка

"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

«Непреложный знак мудрости — видеть чудесное в обыкновенном.» - Ральф Уолдо Эмерсон

There are more of you!

See anyone familiar?

Видите кое-кого знакомого?

Pirozhok's relatives! Mine looks somewhat fatter...

Пирожковская родня! Мой выглядит упитанее...