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02/10/2025

This week, our blog post comes from Lisa Mahoney, an English Professor (and avid library user)!

Humans are natural-born storytellers. We move from home to work to social activities and back again all the while communicating with others via story: “Guess what happened on the way to work?” “Let me tell what so-and-so did today.” “A funny thing happened when I went…” We weave in and out of different situations using narrative to entertain, explain, persuade, and ultimately be seen. Stories are easy to understand. Stories foster empathy. Stories elucidate values and worldviews. In short, stories are powerful. My favorite is fiction. The best illuminate deep insights that have broader reach beyond just what happened. They speak about not just the main character but about all individuals. 

While I’m not opposed to true stories, it’s not my go-to, and even when a memoir stirs up enormous buzz, and everyone I know recommends it, the engagement and motivation to actually finish the book lack purchase. I guess I just get a little bored, truth be told. My imagination isn’t sparked, my feelings aren’t triggered, my empathy teeters on the brink of apathy. One book changed all of this for me: The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel ben Izzy. I first read it twenty-two years ago and have since re-read it close to a dozen times. I have gifted numerous copies and recommended it innumerable times. Before this book, I had a hard time with a lot of the Me-ness in memoir and, to use the old cliché, was a little over the navel-gazing. And maybe I have a hard time with newer titles because this little gem stands as the litmus test for them all. None so far have passed the test.  

Izzy’s story is at its base about loss, finding meaning in that loss, and not fighting against what your own story is that needs to play out. Izzy is a professional storyteller hired to perform at schools, weddings, festivals, etc. At thirty-seven, in otherwise good health, Izzy was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. During the procedure, his vocal nerve was affected. What a bum deal: a storyteller who loses his voice. Not only was the loss a physical one but because it was tied so intricately to his vocation it was a complete loss of self. He embarks on a journey to get his voice back and inexplicably comes face to face with his old mentor-turned-curmudgeon Lenny.

Lenny leads him on a story-journey to truly see his situation and not fight it. He reminds him of the timeless ancient tales that he tells in his professional life, and the treat for readers is that each chapter is introduced with an aligning parable and its origin. The book’s prologue is “The Beggar King,” a classic from Jerusalem. Others like “The Lost Horse” from China and “Optimism and Pessimism” from the Czech Republic and “The Happy Man’s Shirt” from Italy (among so many others) preface each prong in Izzy’s own chronology of this life-altering event. Through his sometimes-harsh interactions with Lenny, Izzy is slowly brought into his reality of not having a voice. He works toward acceptance and forgiveness in search of happiness. 

Ultimately, stories are the crux of life. At a pivotal point in the story, Lenny goads Izzy into telling stories again. Izzy resists because he can’t talk. Lenny says, “Telling stories is not about the words you say. When you have a story inside you, and an open heart, you become a conduit—the story flows through you. As for the words…they’re merely commentary.” Shortly after, what becomes the one true theme for me, Lenny tries to shake the self-pity out of Izzy by pushing him into the reality of his new life. He says, “You walked out of my door twenty years ago and set off to seek adventure. And now here you are, back again, in the middle of a grand adventure. What more do you want?” Izzy responds, “Out.” Lenny explains, “It doesn’t work that way. What would happen if a character tried to escape from a story you were telling?” explaining that they stay put or they’d ruin the story. They can’t leave; they are the story. And here Lenny lays the epiphany out for Izzy: “That’s your problem. For months now, you’ve been trying to scrape and claw your way out of your own story…. But that’s not the way it works. You’re in a story. I’m in a story. Everyone is inside a story, whether they like it or not.” 

Like it or not, we’re all in our own stories. If you want a heartwarming, bittersweet, honest odyssey, read Joel ben Izzy’s story. 

 

 

No Subjects
02/05/2025
profile-icon Victoria Slaughter

I grew up between the pages of Youssef El-Sebai's novels. Khalil Gibran’s short stories haunted my teenage mind for weeks. I couldn’t put down Taha Hussein’s El-Ayam (The Days) or Naguib Mahfouz’s Bidaya wa Nihaya (A Beginning and an End). In high school, puzzled, I perused the works of some of the greatest Arab poets, such as Al-Mutanabbi and Antarah Ibn Shaddad. 

At the same time, I was learning how to order at a restaurant in English, struggling with tenses and past participles, and confusing “so” with “too.” 

Now, years, hundreds of flashcards, and a continent later, my English grammar and vocabulary notebooks have been superseded by Western classics from 19th- and 20th-century authors. 

While I still underline new words and annotate complex structures, I now have the chance to directly absorb the thoughts, experiences, and stories of people from a different culture and time—in their own voices, through their own writing. 

When I find myself in a library or bookstore, I almost absentmindedly gravitate toward the classics section. Sometimes crouched down, sometimes on tiptoes, but always overwhelmed and grateful, I browse the novels of increasingly familiar authors. 

I picked up Sylvia Plath’s The Collected Poems. Although I have only read The Bell Jar and some of her poems, I can now recognize her unique style instantly. Plath has patterns. She employs the same words repeatedly throughout her work—brood, rook, fen, and marauder. Climactic questions end many of her stanzas, and counterintuitively, these inquiries tend to provide the final answer, painting the full picture. It is easy to see that Plath is a fan of alliteration. Her words often flow seamlessly, as in her titles “Tale of a Tub” and “Southern Sunrise.” 

One poem I keep going back to is Winter Landscape, with Rooks. It is hard to articulate why I connect with one poem more than another, but I will try anyway. The first time I read it was the best time I read it. Oblivious to what lay ahead, I took in the description of the dark, hibernal landscape and the out-of-place, snow-white swan—only to realize, in the final lines, that the narrator is the rook and the bleak landscape mirrors her cold, broken heart. The enjambment (the continuation of a phrase from one line to another) makes reading this poem effortless and satisfying. 

I am still working my way through The Collected Poems. In the meantime, I’ve picked up other classics such as Giovanni’s Room, Maurice, and The Woman in White, quenching my thirst for ideas and words written more than a century ago in a language I did not speak a decade ago. 

New flashcards—this time of Italian words—are accumulating in my room. I still cannot confidently order in a restaurant or conjugate in all tenses, but I dream of the day I can pick up a classic Italian novel, because now, I learn a language for literature.

by Mohamed Chawki Mhadhab

No Subjects
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01/27/2025
profile-icon Dr. Brittnee Fisher

This week, our blog post is provided by everyone's favorite history professor/Sci-Fi reader, Matt Giddings! 

Hello again! It’s your resident sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast history professor here. This time around, I thought I’d talk about an epic fantasy series (or two) by an author I enjoy named Tad Williams. Williams has written in a bunch of genres, but he first got his start in the late 80s and early 90s in the epic fantasy genre with a trilogy named “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn.” (NB it was a trilogy in hardcover, but they split the last book into two paperbacks – it was too long to be published as one). Of late, he returned to the genre to write a sequel series called “The Last King of Osten Ard.” The last volume of this came out last November, and since then I’ve been re reading the first series and reading the second for the first time- and I have some thoughts!

              So, let me start this out by saying I love some worldbuilding. If you write a book, and it’s in a secondary world and you need to put a map and an appendix in your book, I already preordered the hardcover. I’m here for it. That’s the kind of fantasy that Tad Williams is doing here – and he lands aesthetically, structurally, and thematically right square in the middle of a genre dominated by the Grandmaster of Fantasy, J. R. R. Tolkien. Let me just stop here and say that if you have never read The Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit, you obviously should because they are foundational to the genre of fantasy as we know it and also they are just good in general. I’ll keep banging this drum until I’m in the cold, cold ground, as I sure the membership of the St. Augustine Campus Book Club could tell you (I am looking at you Brenda Hoffman). Tolkien didn’t invent fantasy as a genre, but he casts the longest and largest shadow over the genre as it existed in the late 20th century in English – and Tad Williams clearly felt that he needed to write his way out from under that shadow when he started volume 1 of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn way back in the late 1980s. It’s all there – a young kid as main character, mysterious evil overlords, spooky wraiths, strange and cagey elves, magic artifacts (swords and not rings, but still) and a journey! 

              If Memory, Sorrow and Thorn was Tad William’s attempt to grapple with Tolkien, I think he succeeded. I don’t wanna spoil the plot, because it’s a good one and I’ve always enjoyed these books, but it really reads like almost a Tolkien homage in some ways. The books were very successful, and so well received that a TV script and short story writer named George R R Martin realized that you could do interesting things with multivolume fantasy stories, and as a result stopped painting miniature 13th century French knights and started writing a series of books about them fighting each other called “A Song of Ice and Fire.” No, really, I’m serious. And for Tad Williams, well he went off and wrote a lot of other stuff – some steampunk elf fairy tales, some cyberpunk fairy tales and even some elf fairy tales. He’s all over the place! 

              But readers (and maybe his publisher) and for sure his wife always nagged him about a Memory, Sorrow and Thorn sequel. So, he obliged. In 2017, he published a novella, “The Heart of What was Lost” that immediately follows the last book of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and serves to set up the new series, which he began publishing soon after.              

              The most interesting thing about “The Last King of Osten Ard” to me is that Williams has, like American fantasy in general, kinda drifted away from Tolkien since the 1980s. This series features (some) of the same characters, but it’s been 30 years for them – they are older, and so is Williams.Reading these books I can’t help but be struck by the absence of the familiar Tolkien tropes – no long journey (he handwaves a lot of the travelling) the presence of a much more complex and interwoven plot, and perhaps most strikingly the bad guys aren’t faceless evil goons – they have a major role in narrating the plot. Not only is that a change from “Memory, Sorrow and Thorn”, it’s a huge change from Tolkien, where the Orcs and Sauron himself are largely unseen antagonists, other than the battlefield. There’s still some Tolkien in the books – it is fantasy after all. But it’s a more mature writer embedded in a genre that spent the last 30 years continuously moving away from some of the tropes that had been crystallized by Tolkien – and for all that I love The Lord of the Rings, it is refreshing. 

              Now, it’s not only Williams that’s doing this – Brandon Sanderson and Joe Abercrombie are two writers that come to mind, and no discussion of “Fantasy that’s not Tolkien on purpose” is complete without a mention of the towering presence of Steven Erikson, who has written the most consequential fantasy series of the last 30 years while at the same time deliberately rejecting Tolkien as a matter of course (and his books have SO MANY maps and a huge appendix!). But, Williams is a fascinating example of a writer who started in one place and went to another, and you can read him as he goes – and the books he wrote on the trip are excellent! 

I’ve got one more book in “The Last King of Osten Ard” left, so soon I’ll have some thoughts about the series as a whole – you can always find me and chat about it on either the Palatka or St. Augustine Campuses! 

Here’s the whole series, in order, for reference:

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn:

  1. The Dragonbone Chair (1988)
  2. Stone of Farewell (1990)
  3. To Green Angel Tower (1993) (2 volumes in paperback)

Interquel:

The Heart of What was Lost (2017)

The Last King of Osten Ard:

  1. The Witchwood Crown (2017)
  2. Empire of Grass (2019)
  3.  (interquel) Brothers of the Wind (2021)
  4. Into the Narrowdark (2022)
  5. The Navigator’s Children (2024)
No Subjects
01/21/2025
profile-icon Kayla Cook

[CONTENT WARNING: mentions of death, blood, human remains, and suicide]

As someone with autism, I’m no stranger to falling down a hyperfixation rabbit hole. Last winter, and through much of 2024, I was obsessed with the lost Franklin Expedition, as some longtime readers of the Book Blog may or may not be aware.

This winter, I have developed a different, but no less strange literary obsession: bogs. More specifically, bog bodies.

This all started in early December, when I received an advanced reader copy of Johanna Van Veen’s Blood on Her Tongue via NetGalley. In this book, which will be released this March, a woman named Lucy receives news that her sister, Sarah, fell ill after assisting in the autopsy of a bog body which was found on her husband Michael’s property in the Dutch countryside. While trying to pry a rock out of the body’s mouth, Sarah cut her finger on one of the body’s teeth, and bog water got into the wound. After this, Sarah began to display some alarming behaviors, which included a sudden and severe wasting illness, a refusal to eat, changes in mood, and, most strangely of all, an intense thirst for human blood. Shortly after Lucy’s arrival at Sarah and Michael’s house, Sarah kills herself after attacking her doctor, who was also a lifelong friend (conflicts of interest didn’t exist in the 1800s); she wakes up again in her casket less than a week later on the morning of what would have been her funeral.

At first, based on this information and the title of the book, I thought, Vampires! Nice! I love vampires!

Lucy begins searching through her sister’s diaries and papers to see if there is any clue as to what has been going on, and she finds a number of scientific publications on blood-drinking bats, ticks, and a strange zombie ant phenomenon. And the whole time, I’m thinking it’s got to be vampires.

It was not vampires. What it actually was is a bit strange and a bit hard to explain, and a whole lot more terrifying. If you like gothic horror and appreciate a good sisters-before-misters story, you might enjoy this one. I’d certainly recommend it.

This book led me to return to a book I’d bought last year but never read past the first few pages, Kay Chronister’s The Bog Wife. This book tells the tale of the Haddesleys, who live on a cranberry bog in West Virginia which has supposedly been in their family for twelve generations. Their father, Charles Haddesley XI, is dying, and his five adult children know this means soon they’ll have to do the ritual that every generation of Haddesleys has done for the last eleven generations: at the moment of their father’s death, they must give his body to the bog; then, the next day, the eldest son must leave the house and venture into the bog naked, bathe in the bog muck, and go in search of The Bog Wife—a fully formed humanoid woman that the bog makes from scratch once a generation—and when he finds her, they must consummate their marriage in the place where his father died, and then return to the Haddesley estate to live as the unofficial lord and lady of the castle ruins that exist, for some reason, in the middle of this Appalachian cranberry bog (it sounds super weird, but Chronister makes it make sense later).

There’s a problem, though: Charles “Charlie” Haddesley XII, Charles XI’s eldest son, is impotent and requires a cane to walk. So, Charles XI asks his second and only other son, Percy, to kill his brother, and to be sure to do it before Charles XI dies so he doesn’t “confuse the bog” about who the eldest Haddesley is. Percy, of course, can’t bring himself to kill his brother, and their father dies the morning after this conversation, before he can be taken down to the bog. When they try to give his body to the bog, it doesn’t accept him, and his body simply floats on top of the sphagnum for a disturbingly long time. Nevertheless, the next morning, Charlie drags himself through the bog in search of his wife, only to find that the bog has not created a woman for him to marry. The bargain which has existed between the Haddesleys and the bog for centuries has been broken, and no one knows why, or what they should do.

This book is also gothic horror, of the Southern variety. It’s also a beautiful story about the give-and-take relationship between humanity and Mother Earth, and a subtle commentary on climate change. There’s much to be said as well about the way Chronister handles generational trauma, and recovering from abuse. This one is probably my favorite of the two books I’ve mentioned so far.

Chronister’s Bog Wife got me thinking, though—Are there bog bodies in North America? After perusing Ye Olde Google, I found out that, yes, there are! And there are even some from Florida!

In the 1980s at Windover Pond, just outside of Titusville, Florida, an underwater cemetery containing the remains of a civilization that existed 7,000–8,000 years ago was found while preparing a wetland for development. Researchers have not discovered much more about this community than what can be gleaned from these bodies and the grave goods found with them. DNA analysis cannot link them to any known Native American population, either from the past or who still exist today, so no one knows who these ancient Floridians were. What is known, however, is that they existed as a community for at least a thousand years, and that they predated metallurgy, agriculture, and most forms of pottery in Florida, but that they must have had some kind of cultural or spiritual beliefs about the orientation of the body in the grave because almost all of the bodies were found in the same position, facing the same direction. They also showed signs of having used medicine such as grapeseed and other local plants which are known to have healing properties or the ability to alleviate pain and help with digestion. Their clothing is also almost all plant-based, though there was evidence of deerskin used to cover the bodies in structures shaped almost like small, one-person teepees.

The Palatka campus library has a book about this discovery, Life and Death at Windover by Rachel K. Wentz. Overall, this book provides an excellent explanation of the findings of the archaeological digs that occurred at the site in the ‘80s, which makes sense because Wentz, though she was never there herself, was a student of one of the archaeologists who led the excavation. I would recommend reading this book if you’re interested in learning more about the graves at Windover, but I probably wouldn’t recommend using it as a source for a paper because Wentz does not cite any sources, she makes several grandiose claims that she doesn’t back up with data, and her writing could have benefitted from another round of proofreading and editing.

No Subjects
01/13/2025
profile-icon Brenda Hoffman

Years ago, when I read Mary Karr’s wonderful memoir Lit, she gave English majors permission to admit they hadn’t read books from the so-called canon. I’ve never read Moby Dick. I’ve never read Ulysses. I’ve never read Plato’s Republic. And I’m not ashamed. Like book club, I read what I want!

During winter break, I picked up Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, another book that I’ve never read. I know the story, or so I thought I did. Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to discover that he’s turned into a bug. (And Gregor isn’t just any old bug; he is a dung beetle, according to the charwoman.) But that’s all I knew about poor unfortunate Gregor. Kafka’s sad, sad, sad story is an engaging, strange, and un-put-down-able novella that moved me to tears. 

A salesman who is on the road most of time, Gregor is at his family home when the metamorphosis happens. Getting out of bed proves to be difficult for the guy, as he can’t quite negotiate his four extra legs. Gregor’s family is confused when the once-punctual workaholic hasn’t come to breakfast, and he’s so late that his boss comes to pick him up! Gregor attempts to speak through the door and offer excuses for his tardiness, but his voice is also altered, almost beast-like. 

This slim paperback edition is 60 pages long, and I devoured it in about an hour. Now I want to talk about it with others who’ve read this gem. I’ve asked several friends who said, “I read it years ago.” And the conversation ends there. I googled analyses of Kafka’s masterpiece. Most critics claim that Gregor’s transformation stands for alienation. But I see the theme as cruelty to those people who are closest to you, those who support you both monetarily and emotionally. Gregor was the family’s main support system, and when he could no longer work, he was neglected. Reading about his neglect will make you weep. His parents and sister, Grete, are unlikable characters who grow to hate the man (bug) who is of no use to them. SPOILER: I cried when Gregor reveals to the reader his secret plan to send Grete to a conservatory to play violin. Even as a beetle, he has more feeling in one of his four legs than all members of his family combined. 

So…will someone please read Kafka’s most famous book so we can talk about it! I promise not to shame you if you’ve not read it yet. 

You can access a copy from the SJRState library: Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis online

 

No Subjects
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12/16/2024
profile-icon Dr. Brittnee Fisher

One time a year I am guaranteed to do a lot of reading is during my winter break. Every year, I look forward to curling up in a comfy chair with a cup of hot chocolate to catch up on my ever-growing “to be read” list. If I have projects to get done around the house during my time off, you can usually find me working on those while listening to an audiobook. There’s nothing like a good story to make the time fly by while doing chores!

Did you know that SJR State students, faculty, and staff have access to the library’s physical and digital resources while we’re off on winter break? This includes books (print and digital), audiobooks, and streaming videos! Here is a quick roundup of resources that could help you stay merry during our much-needed break!

Libby is the Library’s newest resource, but many of you may already be familiar with it. Libby is a database that allows you to enjoy eBooks and digital audiobooks on the device of your choice. Libby has a great app that you can download to your phone or tablet to access our growing collection of eBooks and audiobooks. You don’t need a library card number- just search for St. Johns River State College by name, and you’ll be prompted to sign on. Once you’ve been authenticated, you can send books to your device to start reading!

Our streaming video database, Kanopy, invites you to celebrate the season with a special selection of holiday films. Whether you are looking for kid-friendly content to entertain the whole family or holiday-themed films to get into the seasonal spirit, Kanopy has got you covered. Kanopy’s easy-to-use app makes it simple to access your favorite holiday films on the go or from home on your TV or mobile device. 

For those of you who want to check out DVDs and books in print to enjoy during the holiday- please do! You can keep them during the break and bring them back NEXT YEAR. Remember, students, faculty, and staff can check out an unlimited number of books at one time and up to three DVDs at a time. If you need recommendations, please let a campus librarian know. I have no doubt that our team of librarians can hook you up with a pile of books and movies to keep you busy until 2025.

Here are a few of my favorite reads from this year:

No Subjects
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12/09/2024
profile-icon Dr. Brittnee Fisher

Here is another excellent contribution from Professor Matt Giddings!

So, let’s talk about luxury space communism!

OR

“How would I find meaning in life if I didn’t have to work – HEY LOOK AT THAT ALIEN!”

 

One of the fundamental aspects of our modern world is that is that you must work in order to get the necessities of life. It’s just the way things are – you need a job. Or two. 

But what if you didn’t? What if we had all the resources we needed at our fingertips? There’d be no money (what would you need it for?). You wouldn’t need a bank account, no taxes, you might have a job, but maybe only if it was a vitally important one that needed doing, and you could probably do whatever you wanted to do with your life, right? 

DON’T THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME!

This concept is called ‘scarcity’ by economists. Well, technically, we’re talking about ‘post-scarcity.’ Scarcity is what we have now – there’s not enough resources to go around, so those resources have a lot of value (because people who need them buy them so that they have them and people who can’t afford them have to go without).  But, what if technology created an environment that made all of that obsolete? What would life be like? That’s ‘post-scarcity’ – a world in which everyone’s basic needs can be met automatically, and people live in a society in which material wealth is so commonplace that thinking about it makes no sense. 

Well, good news! Science fiction authors have been thinking about this for a while, and I’d like to share a couple of them and their ideas with you here in this blog post! 

Now, this isn’t necessarily new – Star Trek was the first major piece of media to play around with this idea. It’s not a main theme in a lot of the shows, since most of the characters are hard at work as scientists and crewmembers on Federation vessels, but it occasionally pops up. 

But what about written sci fi? Well, two of my favorite authors have written extensive sci-fi series that deal with just this issue! 

Iain M Banks and The Culture

The late Scottish author Iain M Banks (sometimes Ian in his other works) got his start with literary fiction – weird literary fiction (go check out The Wasp Factory.) But, when he wasn’t writing literary fiction, he wrote a series of books set in a future called “The Culture.” It’s the name of the setting, and it’s the name of the series. The whole list of culture works is as follows:

Consider Phlebas (1987)

The Player of Games (1988)

Use of Weapons (1990)

The State of the Art (1991)

Excession (1996)

Inversions (1998)

Look to Windward (2000)

Matter (2008)

Surface Detail (2010)

The Hydrogen Sonata (2012)

The Culture, as described by Banks is a utopia – people basically live forever, poverty and want are pretty much unknown, and Minds (AIs) run everything as smoothly and efficiently as possible. 

So, what do you do in the Culture? Whatever you want! Art, music, partying, you do whatever. But, some people…they want meaning in life, the kind of meaning that people in our society might get from running a business or government service. What do they do? Well, in the Culture, the government (such as it is) has an organization called “Special Circumstances” that deals with, well, special circumstances. It ends up being the place where people who can’t just live a life of idleness (or don’t want to) end up. Sometimes, as in The Player of Games, they recruit someone who has a very particular skill to help them. 

What Banks seems to be getting at here is that space communism run by AIs would be pretty good. Your average person in the Culture lives one heck of a good life. But, sometimes that’s not enough. And, as you read further in the series, Banks describes other civilizations who reach the point of the Culture and step back, away from the endless utopia, or having reached it, step forward into a transcendent post-physical existence (the series calls this Subliming).  It’s one of those ideas that seems great but does have some downsides.  Banks is clearly pretty optimistic about society in such a culture, but he does understand that people do derive meaning in life from the things they do – people want to do more than just exist. 

Banks has a lot else to talk about – Consider Phlebas is a rollicking adventure beyond the edges of The Culture, and Excession, though famously hard to read, mainly involves a group of AIs (The Interesting Times Gang) as they try to solve a problem maybe even they aren’t up to the task of handling. The descriptions of Mind to Mind communication in this novel have long made it one of the Internet’s favorites. 

Neal Asher and The Polity

Another author who has dealt with the same themes in his own way is the British author Neal Asher. The majority of his writing in this regard is part of a series called “The Polity” – like The Culture, the name of the series and the setting. Currently, the series clocks in at 26 novels or short story collections, ranging from stand alone’s to trilogies – but here, I’ll focus on the most accessible introduction to the series, the first published book in it, called Gridlinked (2001).  Asher’s setting is similar – space, spaceships, AIs, aliens, and so forth. But he’s a lot more sanguine about it all – the AIs in this setting took over from the humans after a brief war (The Quiet War) and now they run everything better, faster and more efficiently. But, as one character or another occasionally wonders throughout the series, if the AIs run everything, are the humans in the series basically pets? You take care of your pets, and you love your pets, but your pets aren’t people. They’re pets. 

And that’s one of the dilemmas that Asher brings out that doesn’t seem to bother Banks – in a world like that, you swap control for comfort, and for most people that’s fine, but for the ones that aren’t ok with it, what do they do? In The Culture, you join Special Circumstances and go on adventures. In the Polity, you become a separatist and try and blow-up stuff. In Gridlinked, the main character, Ian Cormac, is a police officer who hunts Separatists down.  They are usually portrayed as foolish, quixotic individuals who don’t know a good thing when it drops immortality and a life of leisure in their laps. But there’s an undercurrent in Asher’s work that sympathizes with them – after all, they seem to have realized that life lived in AI provided comfort lacks meaning – even if it has everything else. I don’t want to spoil too much, but some giant crab aliens (The Prador) show up and put that idea on the backburner for a bit, but not forever. 

And of course, what if the AIs weren’t all good? What if, like you do in our world, you get a pet owner who is abusive or neglectful? And of course, the AIs say they wouldn’t do that, but then again, they could be lying. I mean, we lie.

Asher’s work has a lot else going on- weird aliens, body horror, cyborgs, interplanetary wars, insane robots – but one of the though-lines is this ambivalence to the core feature of the setting – the seeming utopia provided by AIs. 

So, is a world of seeming luxury a good or a bad thing? Well, a lot of the problems people have now – disease, homelessness, aging – probably wouldn’t exist. So that’s a net positive. But, per Banks, we’d need to think about what life really means and how to derive meaning from it as a society. That’s a fundamental human trait that wouldn’t change much, he thinks. And per Asher, maybe a society like that isn’t so good. Or maybe, it’s not one that we as humans can make for ourselves.

Either way, both of these authors have given me a lot to think about! I’d recommend their work to any science fiction fans! I’d love to hear your comments, and if you’re on the St. Augustine or Palatka campuses, come find me and chat! I like history, science fiction and fantasy! 

 

 

 

No Subjects
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12/02/2024
profile-icon Dr. Brittnee Fisher

Like countless others in the cult of Diana Gabaldon, I patiently wait for the next book in the Outlander series. I wish I were better at watching television and had the patience to binge the Outlander show. Perhaps it could help my time without Jamie and Claire’s adventures on paper pass more smoothly. But alas, here I am, looking for Outlander fulfillment in a world full of BookTok recommendations- bound for disappointment. 

There are glimpses of hope here and there. One bright spot in my gloom was the audiobook Waypoints: My Scottish Journey, which was written and read by Sam Heughan (Jamie in the show). Sadly, his accent in real life isn’t as strong as the one he uses to portray Jamie, but he’s a pleasure to listen to all the same. If you are a fan of self-discovery through adventures in nature, you will enjoy this one. Overall, this book gives STRONG fall vibes, so the timing is right. 

But I need more. I need an epic historical romance. I need passion. I need angst. Do not lead me wrong; frantic internet searches for “what to read after Outlander” and “romance books like Outlander, NOT erotica.” Throwing the dice with Ross Poldark by Winston Graham. Will it be worth a twelve-book commitment? I pray to the book gods this isn’t Bridgerton 2.0- A swing and a miss.

Upon finishing Ross Poldark, I can confirm that it didn’t fill the void. It wasn’t a bad book, but it didn’t give me what I was looking for. There is no epic romance, no adventure, just a book about family drama. I’m one and done with that series. 

A successful find for this Outlander addict was The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. This book meets several of the requirements. Historical fiction- check. Romance-check. Time travel- check. Two corresponding stories are being told within this one fun novel. This style allowed me to maintain a sense of interest in both narratives because they played off one another. This is the first of a three-part series. I haven’t decided if I’ll continue it, but it’s nice to know that I have an option if I find myself craving an Outlander fix again! 

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11/18/2024
profile-icon Victoria Slaughter

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I've been thinking about the things I value most, and books are easily in my top five. I believe that books have a unique way of feeling deeply personal and providing solace and insight exactly when we need it.

Lately, I’ve been reading The Librarians' Guide to Bibliotherapy. It has given me an even deeper appreciation for the role books can play in one’s well-being. The foundation of bibliotherapy is the deliberate use of books to intentionally support mental health and personal growth. It has been fascinating to explore how stories can help us navigate complex emotions, process life events, or simply just feel understood. Bibliotherapy is more than just reading for enjoyment—it’s about choosing the right book at the right time to nurture your mental health. Now, keep in mind, bibliotherapy should be used in conjunction with other forms of therapy or support.

While reading, I have learned how books can help with grief, anxiety, or depression, offering solace when needed most. For instance, a novel that reflects one’s current situation has the ability to provide a sense of emotional validation, while a memoir can offer new insights and coping mechanisms. Whether through a novel, memoir, or a self-help book, bibliotherapy has the ability to harness the power of words to help individuals heal, grow, and find balance in their lives.

Books invite us to slow down, reflect, and engage with the world through someone else’s perspective—while still letting us retreat into the comfort of our imaginations. So, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, let’s take a moment to be thankful for the stories that bring us joy, healing, and connection. 

What books are you grateful for?

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11/13/2024
profile-icon Andrew Macfarlane---SJR State College

Hello everyone, I hope you are all heading into the holiday season well!

This week I would like to discuss a book I have not finished yet, but it is good enough to recommend. One of my many personal interests is reading about music. One of the areas I like to study most is Seattle's music. Known most recently in our minds for the 1990s scene of grunge/rock and roll music, Seattle is also the birthplace of other musical legends like Quincy Jones, and the person I would like to speak about today, Jimi Hendrix.

The book I am reading, Room Full of Mirrors, is a biography about the life of Jimi Hendrix. When I begin a rock biography, I like to imagine how the musician or artist began. I ask myself questions like “Did this person sit in their room and play all day?” Or maybe “Did they have a teacher or a parent that showed them initially how to play and they ran with it?” In the case of Jimi Hendrix, it was mostly his pure desire to express himself through a guitar that made him want to be great.

Jimi grew up poor in Seattle. It is mentioned he first began playing a broom and mimicking the broom like a guitar to songs on the radio. Like it seems in many cases of great artists, his parents divorced when he was a younger boy. Jimi eventually obtained a beat-up acoustic guitar with one string, which he played while walking around the neighborhood. When he got to high school, Jimi finally obtained an electric guitar. Jimi was left-handed, but his father, a demanding alcoholic insisted he play right-handed. To get around this, Jimi would flip the guitar over and become proficient in playing it upside down to fool his father. When Al Hendrix, his father would walk out of the room, Jimi would flip it again back to his correct, left-hand playing side.

This is just one brief insight into the life of Jimi. I don’t want to ruin what happens next so I will say check it out for yourself! You will learn of tales from his Army experience, playing circuits around the southern United States and sharpening skills!

I do fear though, getting to the end of Jimi’s brief story. I say this only because I feel that I know what may happen next even if I haven’t gotten there yet. Many artists get to a level of fame where the talent they possess becomes big business. It makes a lot of money for many people. I think that artists who are young and have this vision get taken advantage of. Everyone wants a piece and there is money and careers on the line. Almost like a rocket that just cannot stop. Something like this I fear happened to Jimi, sadly, as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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