dewline | Entries tagged with books

Looking for informed opinions on any or all of the books in this bundle:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/visual-design-branding-mastery-quarto-books

I've bought a 3D design tools bundle from Humble already, and am considering this as well. In addition to my question about the specific books, I'm considering that this may be one of the few legitimate ways for a Canadian to support the ACLU right now.

Current Mood: curious

Sharing a note with you all. The book that inspired the first of my in-progress star-mapping projects has had its first volume remastered properly, also accounting for revelations found in assorted episodes of Strange New Worlds.

Details here.

If your Trek fandom leads you in the direction of trying to understand the Federation as a nation...this is a fanfic for you.

Current Mood: excited

If you're interested in the art of cooking on a tight budget in Ontario? You might sign up for this:

https://www.wellandlibrary.ca/event-details/an-afternoon-with-rachel-rosen

Current Mood: busy

I just found out via TrekBBS...

Current Mood: sad

Seemed like a good idea to put these choices out there.

Current Mood: busy

Some day, I want to do something like this for Ottawa:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/first-person-ode-to-montreal-mile-end-1.7092013

I've lived here since the summer of 1985, so...

Current Mood: busy

My ego got a bit of a boost just now:

https://bsky.app/profile/davidmack.bsky.social/post/3kl3ozbfbzv2z

Strongly recommending you read Star Trek: Picard - Firewall by David Mack as soon as you can.

Some additional reasons for doing so mentioned here:

https://bsky.app/profile/davidmack.bsky.social/post/3kl472iyerk2f

Current Mood: touched

Finally got that one today. A few weeks ago, it was PIC: Second Self.

I want to read them both, sooner than later.

Listening to this right now:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/george-grant-lament-for-a-nation-1.7050666

I should look that book up, and also re-read Michael Byers' Intent For a Nation: What is Canada For? That one, I do have a copy of at hand.

Current Mood: contemplative

Matt Galloway and Rachel Maddow discuss how "all of this has happened before; all of this will happen again"...and not in the context of Second Galactica.

Yes, what we're seeing in the States at the moment is not the first attempt to steer that country onto a permanently fascist course.

Current Mood: busy

I just brought a copy from the local library to the house for study, on the recommendation of

doc_paradise. I figure to start reading it over the next couple of days.

Current Mood: busy

Some of you may recall that the Comic Book Shoppe's Centretown store had been forced to relocate from a previous address further south on Bank Street a year or two ago due to a fire elsewhere on the block.

What I did NOT know was that they had moved into the old Prospero Books space on Bank and Slater until doing an unrelated Google Maps postal code search tonight! Excellent matching of tenant to location there! I hope they get to stay in that space for many years to come!

Current Mood: pleased

Yes, the same guy who wrote On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom.

This booklet - as near as I can tell - is an argument for taking what the UK's been doing with the NHS and Canada with Medicare and running with it as far and as fast as possible, from the position that such a course would maximise the freedom of most, if not all, citizens.

I hope to have more to say after I finish reading it.

Related note, discovered via Mastodon: Finnish insurance companies seem to have a pattern of making trouble for people dealing with ADHD. I wonder how much along similar lines is happening in Canada. Also, remembering one of the plotlines of Robert J. Sawyer's novel Frameshift...

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: The Current on CBC Radio

Started reading two books: The Rebel Christ by Michael Coren, and The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder. I'll try to keep you updated on my progress.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Home-for-now
Current Music: The Sunday Magazine on CBC Radio

I gave myself an indulgence on the weekend: The Atlas of Imagined Places.

Five thousand or so fictional places, and the author and cartographer putting this book together tried to figure out where they'd all be. Don't even try to figure out how to string together the backstories of how all these places from different fictional universes could co-exist. Just enjoy and debate the placements. I will.

Current Mood: nerdy

It seemed appropriate, when I saw something similar focused upon DT-45 on Twitter last night, to address Mr. Poilievre in like fashion. Call it photo-manipulation as op-ed cartoon, if you like.

A modified image of Pierre Poilievre, accompanied by a quote from Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 about how to be a demagogue

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Home-for-now

1. I've known James and Charlie as distant and friendly acquaintances going back a couple of decades. This worries me. Especially given the context as explained in the article.

https://www.comicsbeat.com/james-lucas-jones-and-charlie-chu-out-at-oni-press/

2. What Seanan McGuire describes here also worries me. The Pandemic, as many of you reading this blog understand too well already, is not over.

https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/1542227819140263938

Current Mood: anxious

1. Ottawa author Kate Heartfield gets to hold forth on the Big Idea of The Embroidered Book by way of Athena Scalzi:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/05/24/the-big-idea-kate-heartfield/

2. Dylan Reid at Spacing Media notes the contents of the "Rain" issue of Spacing now arriving in newsstands and mailboxes across Canada (and, I hope, elsewhere, too):

http://spacing.ca/national/2022/05/24/new-issue-rain/

3. Canadian national security is under threat in a way some of us never stopped worrying about, and others grew up never understanding until now:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/national-security-us-fox-news-threat-report-1.6459660

4. The process of recovery is underway, and it's complicated.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/storm-damage-ice-tornado-power-grid-ottawa-1.6463247

5. The Ottawa Titans have started their first baseball season.

https://apt613.ca/the-ottawa-titans-play-home-stadium-for-the-first-time-may-24-2022/

6. How to get help as needed during the Derecho-blackout of 2022:

https://ottawastart.com/ottawa-power-outage-where-to-recharge-get-a-shower-and-eat/

7. Fascist infiltrator in (New) Conservatives gets shown the exit door:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-party-resigns-racist-email-1.6463136

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Home-for-now
Current Music: Q on CBC Radio

I think I know of a place like this in Ottawa, a "hole in the wall" second-hand bookstore. All Books. I don't know how it got started, mind you.

More and more, though, I am thinking that - like the gentleman in this profile - I am going to have to become a bookseller myself to find new homes for my own collection. I would prefer to sell to people who find some kind of appreciation in each book going out my family's door.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/22/barcelona-bookshop-gracia-albert-costa

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Home-for-now
Current Music: As It Happens on CBC Radio