My lower back/spine is flaring up again for no clear reason except maybe I’ve been sitting too much. It brings me pain in the form of pulsing nerves down the side of my hip and thigh, mostly while sitting. It hurts if I try to bend backward too far, which sucks cause that’s a commonly prescribed exercise. And overall it just really brings me down because I loved being a strong person. Like yes let me carry this heavy thing for you I am A Strong Woman. And now, for the last 4 years since my extremely Bad Back Time, I’m afraid to lift things because what if it sets off my back? What if it gets *worse* and the pain becomes ever-present? I can’t walk for more than 10 minutes, can’t stand for much more than an hour, without my back starting to hurt. “Go see a doctor! See a PT!” Yes, good! I should do that—again! Because I’ve gone before and nothing helpful comes of it. But hey maybe fifth time’s the charm?
So like. Where art the fandom journalists? People will reference big hullabaloos that happened in the past and I’m like yes and??? Do you have an archival timeline I can read to understand what happened?
It’s something I’m coming to value very highly as a librarian working in a para-archival field. I’ve got documents and clippings and essays about events that took place and I’m realizing how valuable that would be in fandom society. Because it *is* a society, and fandom anthropology feels like a part of fandom studies, and I just wish I was rich so I could make this my life.
I did a spreadsheet of my lord of the rings collection and took pictures of everything. As a result I put together this mildly overwhelming collage of all my Tolkien books.
10 sets of lord of the rings (my best is the 1966 second editions in the top left, green jackets)
Musician/restorer YouTuber Lan Wangji who finds old instruments at flea markets and spends a few videos cleaning, restringing, tuning, polishing a piece until the final video when he plays it and shows how beautiful something can be if you give it time and care.
No idea if anybody wants to hop on the StoryGraph train with me (haljonesy is my username) but! I’m doing the “read the world” challenge for 2024 and it’s really cool! It can be so easy to just settle into a genre or area of literature, and recognizing that maybe you’ve done that is good! Pushing yourself to read outside your sphere can be such a fun experience. I finished my first leg of the challenge and read a book by a Ghanaian author, set in Ghana. It was delightful.
Illustration by Cynthia Sheppard, art direction by Christine Foltzer. Yes those are RED SPRAYED EDGES and yes this is a ROMANCE CLINCH.
High heat. Low stakes. Sharp steel.
Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family’s wealth, something that Matti has been trying—and failing—to do for the past ten years.
What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.
Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn’t plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible—and inconveniently handsome—wool merchant like Matti.
However, neither Matti’s business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As the days count down to Matti’s wedding, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti’s house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca’s secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away, when the truth could mean losing everything you want?
Preorder US (October 8th)
Preorder UK (October 10th)
Add on Goodreads
(UK/Commonwealth readers, there'll probably be a different cover for us, so watch this space! Or subscribe to the author newsletter to get all the essential updates.)