Then and Now #41 (19/6/23-25/6/23)

 

Happy Sunday and welcome to the new year!  The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted @ Caffeinated Reviewer. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.  It is hosted weekly over at Mailbox Monday and every Friday they do a round-up of some of their favourite, shared reads!

Last Week

I had a pretty busy week, looking back at my diary. Not only was it full of the usual teaching and admin and research, but there was also a meeting about the recording of your work hours. I'm sure there is an official term for this in English as well, but I currently only know the German one xD Basically, since 2019 it is required by law in Europe to register your actual work hours to prevent unpaid overtime and to make sure everyone receives and takes their breaks etc. This hasn't actually been fully enacted on a national level in many countries, although some industries of course do it already. I have no idea how this would work for academia though. Of course some professors were freaking out about no longer being allowed to think or prep class on Sunday and that they would lose some of their freedoms. I can kind of see both sides. On the one hand I am absolutely pro a healthy work-life balance, to which this would contribute. On the other hand, my own job has me doing loads of different things at the same time which it would be incredibly challenging to accurately register. Furthermore, cause I'm doing a PhD, I'm in one of those weird roles where I only have a 50% contract, with the understanding that I work 100% but use the contracted time for admin and teaching, which thereby funds the other 50% for my own research. So how would I even go about registering this? We'll see how it works out in the end, but it made for a very interesting meeting!

All of that aside, this has also been a week for the history books, no? I mean, the whole Titan submersible thing was a nightmare from start to finish. Not only do I find it absolutely outrageous that having a sh*t ton of money apparently means you can do dumb things like dive down 3500 meters in a tube which isn't regulated, I also find it outrageous how much time and energy is spent on finding these people while we let refugees drown. On the other hand, however, the idea of being stuck down there for days knowing you won't be found is literally my worst nightmare. In a weird way I'm glad for them that it seems they died almost immediately upon being lost. They're still idiots though. And now there's a coup attempt in Russia! As I'm writing this on Saturday afternoon, it's still not clear how things will turn out, so I'll probably have to update before I post. Update: Well, that kinda fizzled out? I think there are gonna be major consequences though in the next few weeks and months.

Posted this week:

• Review: The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard by Kate Robards
• Review: The Hole in the Moon and Other Stories by Margeret St. Clair
• Review: The End We Start From by Megan Hunter
• Friday Friyay: The Hole in the Moon and Other Stories by Margaret St. Clair

Recommendations

Hozier released another song, which means I'm once again obsessed with another Hozier song. Honestly, I'd follow that man into the woods if he ever started a cult. Here's 'Unkown/Nth'.

Mailbox Monday

In Light of All Darkness: Inside the Polly Klaas Kidnapping and the Search for America's Child by Kim Cross (10/3/2023; Grand Central Publishing)

On October 1, 1993, a 12-year-old girl was kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom in Petaluma, California, during a sleepover with two friends, while her mother slept soundly in the room next door. This rarest of all kidnappings—a stranger abduction from the home—triggered one of the largest manhunts in FBI history.  Riddled with red herrings, grave mistakes, dead ends, and false leads, from fake ransom calls to junior high pranks to dramatic SWAT raids, the 65-day search for “America’s Child” became every FBI agent’s—and every parent’s—worst nightmare.

Many Americans remember Polly's face, which appeared on the national news every night, on the cover of People magazine, and on more than 8 million flyers distributed as far as China. The emotional gravity of Polly’s story touched every agent, police officer, and forensic technician who worked on her case. Many of these investigators have never shared their stories—until now.

New York Times bestselling author Kim Cross has written the first comprehensive account of what happened on that fateful night in October, as well as how the case forever transformed the Bureau’s approach to solving crimes. With unprecedented access to files, crime scene photos, a videotaped murder confession, and inside sources, In Light of All Darkness follows the investigators who pieced together the evidence that led to the arrest and conviction of the kidnapper—a man currently on death row—and made the victim a household name and a girl who will never be forgotten. The book will be published on the 30th anniversary of Polly's disappearance.

GCP reached out to me about this book since I'd read and enjoyed a previous True Crime book of theirs. I have heard of the Polly Klaas case before, so I'm very intrigued. Only downside, it's not available as a Kindle read so I'll have to try and read it through the NetGalley app, which I don't really enjoy.

City of Bones (Updates and Revised Edition) by Martha Wells (9/5/2023; Tor Publishing)

Before Martha Wells captured the hearts of MILLIONS with her Murderbot series, there was Khat, Sagai, and Elen, and a city risen out of death and decay…

The city of Charisat, a tiered monolith of the Ancients’ design, sits on the edge of the vast desert known as the Waste. Khat, a member of a humanoid race created by the Ancients to survive in the Waste, and Sagai, his human partner, are relic dealers working in the bottom tiers of society, trying to stay one step ahead of the Trade Inspectors.

When Khat is hired by the all-powerful Warders to find relics believed to be part of one of the Ancients' arcane engines, he, and his party, begin unravelling the mysteries of an age-old technology.

This they expected.

They soon find themselves as the last line of defense between the suffering masses of Charisat and a fanatical cult, bent on unleashing an evil upon the city with an undying thirst for bone.

That, they did not expect.

This updated and revised edition is the author’s preferred text.

I love Fantasy, ancient cities, arcane mysteries and weird cults. So even though I hadn't heard of City of Bones before, I am not entiiiireeelly on board. I'm saving this for the summer once the semester is finished and I have time to dive in!

Hit Parade of Tears: Stories by Izumi Suzuki (4/11/2023; Verso Books)

A new collection of stories from the cult author of Terminal Boredom

Izumi Suzuki had ideas about doing things differently, ideas that paid little attention to the laws of physics, or the laws of the land. In this new collection, her skewed imagination distorts and enhances some of the classic concepts of science fiction and fantasy.

A philandering husband receives a bestial punishment from a wife with her own secrets to keep; a music lover finds herself in a timeline both familiar and as wrong as can be; a misfit band of space pirates discover a mysterious baby among the stars; Emma, the Bovary-like character from one of Suzuki's stories in Terminal Boredom, lands herself in a bizarre romantic pickle.

Wryly anarchic and deeply imaginative, Suzuki was a writer like no other. These eleven stories offer readers the opportunity to delve deeper in this singular writer's work.

I actually received this one a few weeks ago, but still wanted to share it with y'all. I want to start it this weekend because I'm entirely on board with the stories that get teased in the blurb.

And that's it for me this week! What are you reading? And how was your week?