Gersande La Flèche wants to read Gaucher.ère contrarié.e by V.S. Goela
Les trajectoires paradoxales des treize personnages s'entrelacent comme les fils d'une tapisserie humaine bigarrée, toutes …
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Reviews and Comments
Why can't I read all these books!? 🍋🟩
🍵 Lots of nonfiction, literary fiction, poetry, classical literature, speculative fiction, magical realism, etc.
📖 Beaucoup de non-fiction et de fiction, de poésie, des classiques, du spéculatif, du réalisme magique, etc.
💬 they/them ; iel/lo 💻 blog: gersande.com/blog & gersande.com/blogue 💌 Find me on fedi @silvan.cloud/@gersande or bsky
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Gersande La Flèche finished reading Swan Dive by Georgina Pazcoguin
Pazcoguin's memoir covers the two+ decades of her career (which started when she was a child) at the New York City Ballet. The gothic humour was welcome and familiar around the tougher memories of relentless emotional, sexist, and racist abuse. During the more triumphant parts of the book (and there are some really great ones), your heart soars at Pazcoguin's words. Righteous!
Organized in a series of non-chronological vignettes (some very out of order), there is definitely a method to it, though it requires a bit of work to keep names and places and years straight. It pays off at the end: maybe you're even a little emotionally winded, but in the best of ways.
While the book offers a tantalizing and brutal window into the amazingly dysfunctional, abusive, and hurt/ing art form that is ballet, the book is careful (and wise) to anchor it to Pazcoguin's perspectives …
Pazcoguin's memoir covers the two+ decades of her career (which started when she was a child) at the New York City Ballet. The gothic humour was welcome and familiar around the tougher memories of relentless emotional, sexist, and racist abuse. During the more triumphant parts of the book (and there are some really great ones), your heart soars at Pazcoguin's words. Righteous!
Organized in a series of non-chronological vignettes (some very out of order), there is definitely a method to it, though it requires a bit of work to keep names and places and years straight. It pays off at the end: maybe you're even a little emotionally winded, but in the best of ways.
While the book offers a tantalizing and brutal window into the amazingly dysfunctional, abusive, and hurt/ing art form that is ballet, the book is careful (and wise) to anchor it to Pazcoguin's perspectives and memories. While there are villains (namely Peter Martins, the disgraced former head of NYCB) the book is firm in placing most of the responsibility at the feet of ballet's culture, audience, and gatekeepers. The issue is systemic; while individual actors can cause atrocious amounts of damage, the solutions have to go beyond holding them personally to account.
Highly entertaining, intensely relatable (despite my never doing anything remotely resembling being a professional dancer at NYCB), and a very hopeful read that I'll definitely revisit again.
Gersande La Flèche commented on Swan Dive by Georgina Pazcoguin
Continues to be very good. I don't really understand Broadway or musical theatre but the anecdotes about being in Cats are amazing.
Continues to be very good. I don't really understand Broadway or musical theatre but the anecdotes about being in Cats are amazing.
Gersande La Flèche started reading Swan Dive by Georgina Pazcoguin
Finally breaking my scary-long spell of no reading with the memoir of a mixed raced NYCB dancer who battled an enormous amount of mysogyny, racism, and fatphobia to become a force of nature. Am at 44 % of the ebook. Interesting, frank, sometimes convoluted but never in a bad way, and often intensely funny writing.
Gersande La Flèche stopped reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the …
I've had to return my copy to the library (been a while now actually) and my little "true crime" wonderings has seriously abated (see earlier notes on this book, I think I talked about it). I have some thoughts about the first couple chapters that I don't think I talked about here, but I'll probably eventually get back to Capote. Fluid writing style.
I've had to return my copy to the library (been a while now actually) and my little "true crime" wonderings has seriously abated (see earlier notes on this book, I think I talked about it). I have some thoughts about the first couple chapters that I don't think I talked about here, but I'll probably eventually get back to Capote. Fluid writing style.
Gersande La Flèche stopped reading Rage Inside the Machine by Robert Elliott Smith
We live in a world increasingly ruled by technology; we seem as governed by technology …
I probably will get back to this one day, but AI/machine learning/algorithm discourse is so demoralizing and discouraging to me that the idea of revisiting this book right now is really too much. But maybe one day.
Gersande La Flèche wants to read Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang
In Subprime Attention Crisis, Tim Hwang investigates the way big tech financializes attention. In the …
Another Maggie Appleton antilibrary find. Considering that I have very poor opinions about the place of advertisements in society, let alone digital spaces, this seems right up my alley. I think. I hope? We shall see. Throwing on the TBR pile!
Gersande La Flèche wants to read L'oeil de l'État by James C. Scott
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is …
Found in Maggie Appleton's antilibrary and thought I should add it to my own antilibrary (aka TBR shelf). I am either going to love or hate this book. Maybe both. Originally published in English with the title "Seeing Like A State."
Found in Maggie Appleton's antilibrary and thought I should add it to my own antilibrary (aka TBR shelf). I am either going to love or hate this book. Maybe both. Originally published in English with the title "Seeing Like A State."
Found in Maggie Appleton's antilibrary and it looks really good so I'm adding it to my own antilibrary (aka TBR shelf).
Found in Maggie Appleton's antilibrary and it looks really good so I'm adding it to my own antilibrary (aka TBR shelf).
Gersande La Flèche started reading Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen
It is the early 1600s, and Johannes Kepler's mother is accused of witchcraft. I love historical fiction. Apparently this was on CBC Canada Reads last year, but I only found out about it very recently.
Part of the historical background of this story is that "between 1625 and 1631, under the Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg, the Holy Roman Empire saw one of the biggest mass trials in European history, with an estimated 900 people executed in the Würzburg witch trials." (From wikipédia)
It is the early 1600s, and Johannes Kepler's mother is accused of witchcraft. I love historical fiction. Apparently this was on CBC Canada Reads last year, but I only found out about it very recently.
Part of the historical background of this story is that "between 1625 and 1631, under the Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg, the Holy Roman Empire saw one of the biggest mass trials in European history, with an estimated 900 people executed in the Würzburg witch trials." (From wikipédia)
Gersande La Flèche wants to read CAPS LOCK by Ruben Pater
Capitalism could not exist without the coins, banknotes, documents, information graphics, interfaces, branding, and advertising …
This just floated across my feed and it looks really interesting. Throwing it on the TBR.
Gersande La Flèche wants to read Waking the giant by Bill McGuire
"The ground beneath our feet may seem safe and solid, but earthquakes, volcanic blasts and …
The Earth is a dynamic planet of shifting tectonic plates that is responsive to change, particularly when there is a dramatic climate transition. We know that at the end of the last Ice Age, as the great glaciers disappeared, the release in pressure allowed the crust beneath to bounce back. At the same time, staggering volumes of melt water poured into the ocean basins, warping and bending the crust around their margins. The resulting tossing and turning provoked a huge resurgence in volcanic activity, seismic shocks, and monstrous landslides -- the last both above the waves and below. The frightening truth is that temperature rises expected this century are in line with those at the end of the Ice Age. All the signs, warns geophysical hazard specialist Bill McGuire, are that unmitigated climate change due to human activities could bring about a comparable response.
Gersande La Flèche started reading Fantaisies guérillères by Guillaume Lebrun
En ce début de xve siècle, tout est chaos au Royaume de France : les …
Ça commence très fort!
Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time …
He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.
It is time. I read Piranesi last year (2021) and was completely transported. I knew I wanted to pick up Norrell&Strange but the size is daunting and I want to give it proper attention. Hopefully I will have good reading time in the next couple weeks. Wish me luck!
(Also I sadly don't have a physical copy of this bad boy, I have a trusty epub instead!)
He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.
It is time. I read Piranesi last year (2021) and was completely transported. I knew I wanted to pick up Norrell&Strange but the size is daunting and I want to give it proper attention. Hopefully I will have good reading time in the next couple weeks. Wish me luck!
(Also I sadly don't have a physical copy of this bad boy, I have a trusty epub instead!)
Gersande La Flèche finished reading Case of the Zodiac Killer by Michael Morford
In the late 1960’s, and early 1970’s, an enigmatic serial killer terrorized the San Francisco …
Done, by the end it was a relief to put this one away. The first part of the book was a very quick read through the factual details of the case. Become less readable in later chapters, as these are in fact episode transcriptions, and without facts to rely on, the discussions about conjecture become repetitive and tedious.
At one point they mentioned factual issues with Robert Graysmith's seminal yellow book on the Zodiac killer, and I really wish they had discussed those in further detail.
Interesting if you need an overview of the facts in chronological order, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend sticking around past those chapters.
There were the odd spelling errors, typos, and mispelled names of places or people. Probably awkwardness left over from the transcription.
Done, by the end it was a relief to put this one away. The first part of the book was a very quick read through the factual details of the case. Become less readable in later chapters, as these are in fact episode transcriptions, and without facts to rely on, the discussions about conjecture become repetitive and tedious.
At one point they mentioned factual issues with Robert Graysmith's seminal yellow book on the Zodiac killer, and I really wish they had discussed those in further detail.
Interesting if you need an overview of the facts in chronological order, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend sticking around past those chapters.
There were the odd spelling errors, typos, and mispelled names of places or people. Probably awkwardness left over from the transcription.