What Smack Said #24
A new hobby and a celebration of art
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Who else is enjoying some lovely June weather? I love how late the sun stays up.
I've started a new hobby! I'm painting the page edges of books. Right now I'm only doing single colors, but next up is to try to do ombres and maybe some small flowers or feathers on top of the main color. (Something easy to draw, because I am awful at drawing.)
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I've had people ask why I would do this—yes, it's pretty, but... why? Why bother? Here's my answer: 1) it's pretty and I like pretty things, and 2) this is A Thing that people do, including major trade publishers, who will print special editions with sprayed edges. So it's not like I came up with this idea myself; it's been around for quite a while.
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So far I've only painted books that I've already read or am otherwise comfortable parting with. But that doesn't mean they're bad books! I just decided to start with books I wouldn't agonize over if I accidentally ruined them. I'm not going to lie, though, I'm very pleased with how they've come out so far.
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Below are the first two titles I painted:
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu and translated by Ken Liu, and
At the Table of Wolves by Kay Kenyon. My original plan was to leave these in a nearby little free library, but I'm offering them to you, my subscribers, first. All I ask for is the price of shipping.
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You can read a summary of
The Three-Body Problem here (you'll see it won and was nominated for a bunch of awards) and a summary of
At the Table of Wolves here. If I haven't heard from anyone in a few weeks, I'll go with my original plan to give them away.
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The best book I read this month was
An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson. It's a YA (young adult) fantasy novel with faeries. (Or fairies, or fey, or whatever other vowels you feel like adding on a whim.)
In it, a young but talented artist named Isobel paints a portrait for the faerie prince of autumn imbued with so much human emotion that revealing the portrait to the autumn court makes the prince look weak. He's pissed, and kidnaps Isobel to conduct a sham trial and punish her for it. |
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Things are never that simple, of course. There's a magic rot spreading from the absent king of the summer court and into the spring and winter courts, with the autumn court next on the list. On their way to the autumn court, Isobel and the prince, Rook, detour into each season's lands. They start out running from the rot, and by the end have accepted that they must stand together to destroy it, or they'll lose their lives and their homes.
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I didn't expect to like this book. The cover is gorgeous enough that I would read it just for that, but it's been around for several years and hasn't garnered great reviews. But
An Enchantment of Ravens is atmospheric and deeply moving. It's a reminder that our ability to feel and share our emotions in art or words is what makes us human, and it celebrates our ability to do so. The beauty and pain that art evokes makes our relatively short lives rich and worthwhile.
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The fey live almost forever, but they don't experience human emotion such as grief, joy, or anger; in fact, they're likely to execute anyone who develops the ability to feel deeply. But Isobel's portraits stir emotions in all of them, first by accident and then with intent. She brings about change with her art. It's drastic in comparison to the fey's static lives, but
An Enchantment of Ravens argues that our ability to create art that moves us can bring positive change to anyone who embraces it.
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Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey—I'd never read a manifesto before, but this isn't a bad way to start. It's constructed around the idea that rest is a human right, and that claiming rest and rest time for yourself is an active resistance to capitalism.
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Twwab—Another nonfiction read, this one about using personal boundaries to create a healthy distance from the people around us that can help fight burnout and other capitalistic ills. |
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