angereads
đĽ near-30 queer femme based in FL/GA ⨠trading my soul for a 401k by day đ artist, crafter, & reader by night lover of horror, litfic, plants, & my cats 100% mood reader, anti đ , chinga la migrađ§
1701 points
0% overlap
My Taste
Reading...
60%
0%
18%
40%
0%
59%
angereads is interested in reading...
1h
Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora
Kristy Park Kulski
EXPERIENCE A TAPESTRY OF TERROR
From lengths of muscle and vein, ground bones, endless ropes of sinew...it is with our bodies folk horror is woven. Edited by Bram Stoker Award-nominee Kristy Park Kulski, this stunning anthology features contributions from some of the most acclaimed authors of the Asian Diaspora.
With Stories and Poetry ByAi Jiang, Nadia Bulkin, Christina Sng, Rena Mason, Lee Murray, J.A.W. McCarthy, Geneve Flynn, Bryan Thao Worra, Ayida Shonibar, Yi Izzy Yu, Angela Yuriko Smith, Kanishk Tantia, Robert Nazar Arjoyan, Saba Syed Razvi, Christopher Hann, Audrey Zhou, Seoung Kim, Rowan Cardosa, Gabriela Lee, Shawna Yang Ryan, Priya Sridhar, Jess Cho, and Saheli KhastagirAnd a Foreword by Monika Kim.
"Silk & Sinew screams with unquiet diasporic voices. The landscape itself is haunted by personal and collective history, unflinchingly examining intergenerational relations, colonialism, displacement and what makes us monstrous. A triumph of an anthology and an essential addition to the folk horror genre." -- Eliza Chan, author of Fathomfolk and Tideborn
"Visceral, poignant, unforgettable. The stories in this haunting collection made me weep. This book is eternal; a classic addition to every self-respecting library." --Nuzo Onoh, "Queen of African Horror" & Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award recipient
0
0Reply
angereads commented on angereads's update
6h
angereads is interested in reading...
18h
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
Caitlin Doughty
A young mortician goes behind the scenes, unafraid of the gruesome (and fascinating) details of her curious profession.
Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughtyâa twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabreâtook a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her lifeâs work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Doughty learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Doughty soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.
Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didnât know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?
Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Doughty's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Doughty argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).
6
4Reply
angereads is interested in reading...
18h
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
Caitlin Doughty
A young mortician goes behind the scenes, unafraid of the gruesome (and fascinating) details of her curious profession.
Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughtyâa twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabreâtook a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her lifeâs work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Doughty learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Doughty soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.
Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didnât know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?
Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Doughty's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Doughty argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).
6
4Reply
angereads is interested in reading...
18h
Walking Practice
Dolki Min
Squid Game meets The Left Hand of Darkness meets Under the Skin in this radical literary sensation from South Korea about an alien's hunt for food that transforms into an existential crisis about what it means to be human.
After crashing their spacecraft in the middle of nowhere, a shapeshifting alien find themself stranded on an unfamiliar planet and disabled by Earth's gravity. To survive, they will need to practice walking. And what better way than to hunt for food? As they discover, humans are delicious.
Intelligent, clever, and adaptable, the alien shift their gender, appearance, and conduct to suit a prey's sexual preference, then attack at the pivotal moment of their encounter. They use a variety of hunting tools, including a popular dating app, to target the juiciest prey and carry a backpack filled with torturous instruments and cleaning equipment. But the alien's existence begins to unravel one night when they fail to kill their latest meal.
Thrust into an ill-fated chase across the city, the alien is confronted with the psychological and physical tolls their experience on Earth has taken. Questioning what they must do to sustain their own survival, they begin to understand why humans also fight to live. But their hunger is insatiable, and the alien once again targets a new prey, not knowing what awaits. . . .
Dolki Min's haunting debut novel is part psychological thriller, part searing critique of the social structures that marginalize those who are different--the disabled, queer, and nonconformist. Walking Practice uncovers humanity in who we consider to be alien, and illuminates how alienation can shape the human experience.
Walking Practice features 21 black-and-white line drawings throughout.
Translated from the Korean by Victoria Caudle
3
0Reply
angereads is interested in reading...
18h
The Rabbit Hutch
Tess Gunty
Blandine isn't like the other residents of her building.
An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents â neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana.
Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch.
Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her apartment with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives.
Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom.
2
0Reply
angereads is interested in reading...
23h
Conversations with Friends
Sally Rooney
A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple.
Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil--and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment.
Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."
3
0Reply
angereads commented on a post
1d
Thoughts from 62% (page 345)
there are quite a few stories that iâve enjoyed so far. however, many of these feel like theyâre too vague for horror stories? maybe itâs just cause iâm white and not versed in indigenous culture. many of these are spiritual experiences or just spiritual stories without anything really happening. unfortunately this makes this book kind of drag on, which is a shame because i love many of the stories in this book!
4
4Reply
angereads commented on angereads's update
1d
angereads is interested in reading...
1d
The Secret World of Twilight: A Natural History of Dusk and Dawn
Sally Coulthard
Every day, just before sunrise and straight after sunset, magic happens. Dawn and dusk â those fleeting, half-lit hours â are when the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Skies flare with colour, landscapes shift in mood and an unseen cast of creatures emerges from the shadows. Welcome to twilight. In THE SECRET WORLD OF TWILIGHT, author and smallholder Sally Coulthard invites us into this magical in-between realm, where seductive night-blooming flowers open, secretive mammals stir, giant moths reign and fantastical sea creatures ride the tide. Twilight profoundly affects human life too â but in our age of electric light and closed doors, we've almost forgotten how to see it. Blending natural history, folklore and memoir, Coulthard reveals twilight as a vital, liminal one that has inspired awe for millennia and still has the power to illuminate our daily lives.
3
1Reply
angereads is interested in reading...
1d
The Secret World of Twilight: A Natural History of Dusk and Dawn
Sally Coulthard
Every day, just before sunrise and straight after sunset, magic happens. Dawn and dusk â those fleeting, half-lit hours â are when the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Skies flare with colour, landscapes shift in mood and an unseen cast of creatures emerges from the shadows. Welcome to twilight. In THE SECRET WORLD OF TWILIGHT, author and smallholder Sally Coulthard invites us into this magical in-between realm, where seductive night-blooming flowers open, secretive mammals stir, giant moths reign and fantastical sea creatures ride the tide. Twilight profoundly affects human life too â but in our age of electric light and closed doors, we've almost forgotten how to see it. Blending natural history, folklore and memoir, Coulthard reveals twilight as a vital, liminal one that has inspired awe for millennia and still has the power to illuminate our daily lives.
3
1Reply
angereads commented on a post
2d
angereads is interested in reading...
2d
The Book Censor's Library
Bothayna Al-Essa
A perilous and fantastical satire of banned books, secret libraries, and the looming eye of an all-powerful government.
The new book censor hasnât slept soundly in weeks. By day he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publishâallusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams, and pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture.
Reckoning with the global threat to free speech and the bleak future it all but guarantees, Bothayna Al-Essa marries the steely dystopia of Orwellâs 1984 with the madcap absurdity of Carrollâs Alice in Wonderland, resulting in a dreadful twist worthy of Kafka. The Book Censorâs Library is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.
2
0Reply
angereads is interested in reading...
2d
The Trial
Franz Kafka
Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafkaâs death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.
1
0Reply
angereads TBR'd a book
2d
Chain-Gang All-Stars
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own.
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.
Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.
2
0Reply
angereads entered a giveaway...
2d
angereads is interested in reading...
5d
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Max Brooks
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.
Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, "By excluding the human factor, aren't we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn't the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as 'the living dead'?"
Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.
1
0Reply
angereads TBR'd a book
5d
A Tale for the Time Being
Ruth Ozeki
In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solaceâand will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine.
Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchboxâpossibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.Â
Full of Ozeki's signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.
6
0Reply
angereads is interested in reading...
5d
Geisha, a Life
Mineko Iwasaki
"No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story. We have been constrained by unwritten rules not to do so, by the robes of tradition and by the sanctity of our exclusive calling...But I feel it is time to speak out."
Celebrated as the most successful geisha of her generation, Mineko Iwasaki was only five years old when she left her parents' home for the world of the geisha. For the next twenty-five years, she would live a life filled with extraordinary professional demands and rich rewards. She would learn the formal customs and language of the geisha, and study the ancient arts of Japanese dance and music. She would enchant kings and princes, captains of industry, and titans of the entertainment world, some of whom would become her dearest friends. Through great pride and determination, she would be hailed as one of the most prized geishas in Japan's history, and one of the last great practitioners of this now fading art form.
In Geisha, a Life, Mineko Iwasaki tells her story, from her warm early childhood, to her intense yet privileged upbringing in the Iwasaki okiya (household), to her years as a renowned geisha, and finally, to her decision at the age of twenty-nine to retire and marry, a move that would mirror the demise of geisha culture. Mineko brings to life the beauty and wonder of Gion Kobu, a place that "existed in a world apart, a special realm whose mission and identity depended on preserving the time-honored traditions of the past." She illustrates how it coexisted within post-World War II Japan at a time when the country was undergoing its radical transformation from a post-feudal society to a modern one.
"There is much mystery and misunderstanding about what it means to be a geisha. I hope this story will help explain what it is really like and also serve as a record of this unique component of Japan's cultural history," writes Mineko Iwasaki. Geisha, a Life is the first of its kind, as it delicately unfolds the fabric of a geisha's development. Told with great wisdom and sensitivity, it is a true story of beauty and heroism, and of a time and culture rarely revealed to the Western world.
3
0Reply
angereads commented on AcidicChaos's review of Gone Girl
5d
I don't know how I managed to go 15 years without having this book spoiled for me but I'm so glad I got to enjoy it fully! As someone who often predicts the end of a book, even thought I did figure out where the book was going overall, I was still thoroughly impressed and very much enjoyed the ride!
Also, let's just get this out of the way: I enjoyed every second of hating Nick Dunne and I mean that as the highest compliment to Gillian Flynn.
What This Book Does Well The tension. From start to finish, even with predicting significant aspects of the book, I enjoyed the entire ride because the reveals felt earned and this was a psychological thriller that actually understands psychology.
Flynn reward attentive readers in ways that felt almost conspiratorial! Very, very small details - like regional dialect differences level of small - become meaningful. I felt actively engaged because Flynn trusted me to notice things (or at least on a second read).
Where It Fell Short Well, it didn't.
The only reason I wouldn't reread it is because I was paying close attention the first time that I feel fully satisfied. I don't need to hunt for missed clues even though I'm sure I did miss some, but that's not a criticism it's a testament to how fully engaged I was!
Quality Almost 15 years later, this book still holds up for me! Maybe because this felt less like a 'whodunit' and more like a psychological case study wrapped in a thriller's pacing.
Flynn had an extraordinarily strong grasp of her character construction. Nick is the worst, but that is intentional. He earns every ounce of disdain (and more). Amy is fascinating and compelling throughout the entire novel. The imbalances between the couple was perfection, while there definitely was commentary on marriage, identity, and performance, honestly it was just a good show to watch it as it played out.
Final Thoughts If you have also avoided spoilers this whole time, please keep it that way, you will enjoy the ride so much more! I wish there was a sequel so I could see how the aftermath played out.
Who I Would Recommend This To Almost anyone who enjoys a good psychological thriller. Anyone who appreciates solid craft choices and layered characterization would enjoy this book! After all these years, Gone Girl still lives up to it's initial hype!
Score Breakdown Straight 5/5 all the way down (Personal enjoyment, Execution (did the story accomplish what it set out to do), writing quality, characters, plot)
29
10Reply
angereads commented on AcidicChaos's update
6d
AcidicChaos earned a badge
1w
Supporting* Women's Wrongs
Bronze: Finished 5 Main Quest books.
62
22Reply
