Recent reading
Jan. 17th, 2018 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaPegasus by Robin McKinley
"Fthoom", really? That sounds like a sound effect in a comic. Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot! Recommended if you want to read about princesses soul-bonding with winged horses. The reason I read this now is becausetoft wrote a fairly long Yuletide fic about it, which I am much looking forward to, because toft usually writes really good and interesting stuff. Anyway, about the book: I think what I felt most ambivalent about is how the pegasi are described as being really strange and different from humans, but most of the things they actually say do not strike me as particularly strange and un-human. I guess part of that is, like, how do you actually write telepathic communication with an un-human being? Is it even possible? I did like how it conveyed them being physically different, though, and Sylvi's body dysmorphia when she stays in the pegasus country is interesting.
Global Eating Disorder by Gunnar Rundgren (read in the Swedish original)
A very interesting book about the problems with agriculture. Recommended! The author is one of the founders of the Swedish organic label KRAV, has a farm himself, and was a consultant to the FAO for many years. I get the feeling he knows what he's talking about and is also open about the things we don't know. Spoiler: the root causes of the problems with agriculture are (according to Rundgren) capitalism and fossil fuels. Which would have been my guess before reading the book too, but that doesn't mean you know about the specific mechanisms, and there was really a lot of stuff here that I didn't know. I liked how he stressed that you can't change one thing in the system (like "ban pesticides") and expect that to fix things or even be possible without other change. The author has a blog in English if you want to check him out.
"Fthoom", really? That sounds like a sound effect in a comic. Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot! Recommended if you want to read about princesses soul-bonding with winged horses. The reason I read this now is because
toft wrote a fairly long Yuletide fic about it, which I am much looking forward to, because toft usually writes really good and interesting stuff. Anyway, about the book: I think what I felt most ambivalent about is how the pegasi are described as being really strange and different from humans, but most of the things they actually say do not strike me as particularly strange and un-human. I guess part of that is, like, how do you actually write telepathic communication with an un-human being? Is it even possible? I did like how it conveyed them being physically different, though, and Sylvi's body dysmorphia when she stays in the pegasus country is interesting. Global Eating Disorder by Gunnar Rundgren (read in the Swedish original)
A very interesting book about the problems with agriculture. Recommended! The author is one of the founders of the Swedish organic label KRAV, has a farm himself, and was a consultant to the FAO for many years. I get the feeling he knows what he's talking about and is also open about the things we don't know. Spoiler: the root causes of the problems with agriculture are (according to Rundgren) capitalism and fossil fuels. Which would have been my guess before reading the book too, but that doesn't mean you know about the specific mechanisms, and there was really a lot of stuff here that I didn't know. I liked how he stressed that you can't change one thing in the system (like "ban pesticides") and expect that to fix things or even be possible without other change. The author has a blog in English if you want to check him out.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-18 12:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-18 08:35 am (UTC)