Tree planting is a tough job, and kudos to anybody who does it, but the hatred was killing us. The rock hated our hands, elbows, our wrist bones. The hatred the sky held for us for being dry; it would make us slick and slippery. The hatred the bugs had for us, keeping our stores of blood inside our skin, making it hard for them to feast. And the hatred we had begun to feel for waking, sleeping, eating, having people speak when we didn’t want, busting in on solitude privations; the hatred we learned for the land, the trees, the sky, for all life. Somehow that was the worst.

I think it's perhaps not only commendable that good sci-fi comments on the current moment, but perhaps is almost inevitable. If an author manages to write something that semi-predicts a part of the future, in a way they've risen above the mind of their own time.

Or ... unfortunately, that's what this post, and that photo, USED to be about. Then I started writing this post and couldn't simply submit half-remembered ideas.

Stupid me, I wanted to verify my information.

And this might be a controversial opinion, but, having read Rage, I think Stephen King was entirely, entirely correct to do let it lapse. It's often been said that Stephen King nails his characters, and really gets inside characters' heads to bring them to life, and in this book he nails the mindset of ... not who a school shooter IS, but how a school shooter IMAGINES the scenario will go when he does his deed…

On the one hand, I can confirm I have two precious first editions that I cherish by an author I’ve enjoyed my entire life. On the other hand, I feel like I scammed an old man…

Tom Bombadil seems to be the most ridiculous, parenthetical character in all of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. However, in a way that I imagine Tolkien found rather humorous, in taking a closer look, Tom Bombadil becomes the load-bearing Krusty the Clown poster of the entire story. Without him, the whole tale falls apart.

He was smiling at me like he was trying to be friendly. But not showing teeth. Not with his eyes either. Something about it didn’t look right. It was more like the skin was pulling back from his mouth.

Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error is one of a kind

An insider’s look into this fascinating subculture.

Chapter One

First two chapters