What I’ve Read
Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Hugo Nominee 2023 Best novel – I would not vote for this book. I think the history element was fascinating, I think Moreno-Garcia did a really good job of situating this fictional set of circumstances into a place in history, but it felt a bit meh, a bit effortful, a bit lacking the charm of Mexican Gothic, and it felt very slow by comparison (which is a slow book). I have several other books from her that seem more interesting.

What I’m Reading
Legends and Lattes – Travis Baldree – 19%- Hugo 2023 Best Novel Nominee
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes – Rob Wilkins – 13% - Hugos 2023 Best Related Work Nominee (Delightful!)

City of Stairs – 4% Xing Book Club – 

Kristeva Powers of Horror – 39% - I keep running into this problem where Freudian analysis and its descendants feel like they are talking about a universal human infancy experience in forming views of the world AND ALSO turning to anthropology to mine it for anecdotes from specific “““primitive””” cultural practices. They hold them up as having something say to each other, and while the conclusions Kristeva draws out of these comparisons are sometimes interesting, it feels like there’s an assumption that an infant in Freud’s writing would have anything in common with a person engaging in, like, cultural practices half a world away? Like. Kristeva is both Bulgarian and writing in French -there’s got to be some local cultural contrast to draw from here that would have a far more grounded set of information to draw from. You’re claiming something is universal to human experience but can’t actual provide evidence that babies in the “”primitive”” cultures do the same thing as the babies in Western cultures? Like, it’s not unlikely to have lots of overlap – babies are gonna baby. But like, evidence? Please? But this is theory for theory’s sake, so I soldier on.

Dracula – Keeping up with Dracula Daily
The Count of Monte Cristo – 46% - Static

The King in Yellow 25% -static

What I’ll Read Next
What Moves the Dead 
Monstress
Horror: a very short introduction Darryl Jones.
The artist's reality : philosophies of art Mark Rothko
Helpmeet Naben Ruthnum.
Fun home : a family tragicomic Alison Bechdel.

Owned and need to read: California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Tom Stoppard, Invention of love, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon, Alisha Rai Partners in Crime, the Right Swipe, Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle