We lived a few blocks from Amazon Park. Philip used to take us there because it was so close, but also because it had a good playground for kids, with swings and slides and a dinosaur you could climb on.

THIS IS A FANTASY BOOK PARTIALLY SET IN EUGENE, OREGON! this is why i love reading books set in places i know. playgrounds are not just for kids, i first met this extremely silly dinosaur in my early 30s. it may not be my hometown, but it is my heart's hometown 💚

Like my sprite, he played music, and like my sprite, he played music, and he made his surroundings dazzle with beauty.

is this repetition a typo that didn't get edited out, or am i missing something?

 As he drives, he listens to a motivational audiobook called Kill or Be Killed: Using the Lessons of the Battlefield in the Boardroom. Apparently it was written by someone in the Israeli special forces...

hey, so, what in the actual fuck is this? can someone please tell me whether or not Richard Osman is a zionist? i love Taskmaster, so i wanted to read books by the contestants, but this prompted me to look into the author's history regarding his views on & actions for or against Palestine; i'm finding mixed messages (including NO clear pro-Palestine messaging, other than saying that the word 'scallions' comes from Palestine, which doesn't even really count other than some people think they're Israeli).

i get that this character is not supposed to be a good person, but if you're an author who adds something like this in, and you're not a piece of shit like your character, it's your duty to bring it up in terms that DON'T just glorify it. you could even just follow it up with something like, "Many, many people say they are committing a genocide against the Palestinian people, but he doesn't care, because he is an asshole."

i came up against this in Automatic Noodle. the author's note says that the author cares very much about environmental conservation, but then mentions AI & doesn't talk shit about it in the same sentence 😫