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studiomikarts's reviews
83 reviews
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
This was my first time reading the second book in the Earthsea series. At first I was put off by how much worse the animal exploitation was (lots of religious animal sacrifice on top of the use of their body parts for other purposes already established in the previous book) but it was soon shown that humans were also being cruelly used by this society. The writing was just as good as the last book, so that made it easy to keep reading despite the upsetting material. Indeed, it became my theory that the animal exploitation was purposefully increased in order to create a harsh world for our protagonist to inhabit. Once Arha and Ged finally met was the point where I actually began enjoy the book. Until then, it was just the good writing and fast pace that kept me from giving up. Toward the end, I realized that my experience reading Ursula K. Le Guin's fantasy writing after being so disappointed in Diana Wynne Jones' feels just like when I read Alexandre Dumas after being disappointed in Victor Hugo. After being let down by a popular writer, reading a similar writer who lives up to their reputation is heartening. With this book, it eventually got so good that I couldn't help reading a chapter or two at a time, even when it made me late for whatever else I was supposed to be doing. Some elements I particularly enjoyed were reading a story from the point of view of the enemies from the previous book, seeing the environment I actually live in (sagebrush steppe) immortalized in a fantasy world, and getting a sort of behind-the-scenes look at the genesis of the Earthsea series in this edition's afterword. I didn't think I'd feel this way when I was reading the first chapters, but now that I've finished, I'd definitely read this book again. Here's a line I particularly loved, to end this review:
Living, being in the world, was a much greater and stranger thing than she had ever dreamed.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Physical abuse, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, and Murder
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
I did have a few gripes, like the absence of female protagonists (there literally are none, only supporting characters, and only three that I can recall, out of a supporting cast many times that number) and the strange way that the narrator switched from show to tell relatively often (though that did increase the story's pace significantly). The biggest negative was the rampant animal exploitation. It's not pleasant at all to read about seal skin, and fur coats, and dried fish, and just imagining all the death and horror these animals faced, in a story that uses their suffering only as the world's seasoning.
The negatives were still not enough to take away any stars from my rating nor to prevent me from picking up the next novel, however. I'm looking forward to seeing what tale it has to tell!
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Finally, a new-to-me fantasy book that didn't disappoint! Recently I'd been on a losing streak with my fantasy picks, whether they were older and highly recommended (like the works of Diana Wynne Jones) or brand-new gambles that I'd never heard of. This series is one that's been on my radar since the Studio Ghibli adaptation, but as that film didn't have the best reception, I was skeptical of the source material (especially combined with the unrelated disappointments in my other book choices). I finally gave this book a shot after my sister highly recommended it to me. I will definitely continue to trust her opinion, as this ended up being the exact sort of book that I love!
Here are some passages that really touched me:
Here are some passages that really touched me:
Vetch had been three years at the School, and soon would be made sorcerer; he thought no more of performing the lesser arts of magic than a bird thinks of flying. Yet a greater, unlearned skill he possessed, which was the art of kindness. That night, and always from then on, he offered and gave Ged friendship, a sure and open friendship which Ged could not help but return.
From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.
He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.
I did have a few gripes, like the absence of female protagonists (there literally are none, only supporting characters, and only three that I can recall, out of a supporting cast many times that number) and the strange way that the narrator switched from show to tell relatively often (though that did increase the story's pace significantly). The biggest negative was the rampant animal exploitation. It's not pleasant at all to read about seal skin, and fur coats, and dried fish, and just imagining all the death and horror these animals faced, in a story that uses their suffering only as the world's seasoning.
The negatives were still not enough to take away any stars from my rating nor to prevent me from picking up the next novel, however. I'm looking forward to seeing what tale it has to tell!
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Violence, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
The Side Dish Bible: 1001 Perfect Recipes for Every Vegetable, Rice, Grain, and Bean Dish You Will Ever Need by America's Test Kitchen
informative
slow-paced
3.5
There were lots of tasty recipes in this book that I enjoyed, including All-Purpose Gravy, Quick Buttered Peas, and Quick Green Bean Casserole, but my favorite was the Braised Red Potatoes. I've now made that one countless times since I first tried it. I love it so much that, since I have decided to remove this cookbook from my library, I'm going to write down the recipe in my personal cookbook so I can keep making it 🤤 The reason I've decided to part with this book is two-fold. First, although the subtitle only mentions plant ingredients, it is not a plant-based (and most certainly not a vegan) cookbook. Most of the recipes are easily veganized but I have plenty of actual vegan cookbooks where I don't have to engage in such mental gymnastics. The other reason is that, in typical America's Test Kitchen fashion, their "quick" and "easy" recipes very often take hours of exhausting work. For instance, the Quick Green Bean Casserole took two hours to make 🤯 When you include additional time to actually serve up, eat, and clean up after, that's a 3+ hour meal. Maybe if you're a professional chef, you can whip it up faster, but for the busy home cook that America's Test Kitchen claims to serve, it's out of touch, to say the least, to claim such recipes are ideal for a weeknight dinner.
The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún by Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
5.0
This was my second reading of this book. I orginally purchased it new, for a steeply discounted $6, at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon in 2015. I first read it over the next year or so after purchasing, which sets this latest reading almost a decade later. I remembered enjoying this book the first time, but it had been so long that I forgot most of the contents, which gave me the pleasant experience of reading something new.
There are so many aspects to enjoy about The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún. The core subject, J.R.R. Tolkien's poetic versions of some well-known ancient Norse stories is gripping. It takes a bit to get into the Eddaic rhythm, but once it clicks, it's hard to stop reading. The story itself is very dark and gruesome. Virtually every character engages in vile behavior, and the very few innocents face horrific ends. And yet it remains a gripping page-turner.
The academic writing of J.R.R. Tolkien and the well-researched annotations (and thoughtful editorial decisions) of Christopher Tolkien make for a whole other reason to read this. Not only do we get a glimpse into J.R.R. Tolkien's academic work and some origins for elements of his Middle-earth stories, we learn about Old English, Old Norse, and other languages, as well as the history, writing, and folklore of the regions, and even the history of the study of those subjects! Wow!
If you're interested in reading some non-Middle-earth and yet clearly related writing by J.R.R. Tolkien, if you're interested in learning more about the author in general, if you want to learn more about ancient Norse and English stories, or you just want to read a cool poem full of treasure, dragons, dwarves, magic, war, and revenge in an ancient European setting, I recommend this book!
There are so many aspects to enjoy about The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún. The core subject, J.R.R. Tolkien's poetic versions of some well-known ancient Norse stories is gripping. It takes a bit to get into the Eddaic rhythm, but once it clicks, it's hard to stop reading. The story itself is very dark and gruesome. Virtually every character engages in vile behavior, and the very few innocents face horrific ends. And yet it remains a gripping page-turner.
The academic writing of J.R.R. Tolkien and the well-researched annotations (and thoughtful editorial decisions) of Christopher Tolkien make for a whole other reason to read this. Not only do we get a glimpse into J.R.R. Tolkien's academic work and some origins for elements of his Middle-earth stories, we learn about Old English, Old Norse, and other languages, as well as the history, writing, and folklore of the regions, and even the history of the study of those subjects! Wow!
If you're interested in reading some non-Middle-earth and yet clearly related writing by J.R.R. Tolkien, if you're interested in learning more about the author in general, if you want to learn more about ancient Norse and English stories, or you just want to read a cool poem full of treasure, dragons, dwarves, magic, war, and revenge in an ancient European setting, I recommend this book!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Incest, Violence, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Infidelity, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol
Eat Real to Heal: Using Food As Medicine to Reverse Chronic Diseases from Diabetes, Arthritis to Cancer and More by Nicolette Richer
medium-paced
0.0
I went into this book with high hopes but they quickly disintegrated as I realized it was chock-full of half-baked pseudoscience. It seems like the original science is believable but what has been built on top of it is ridiculous, the blind efforts of a group of people who take a single study and treat it like gospel, instead of taking a healthy scientific and skeptic approach. The greatest evidence of this is in the fact that one of the core tenants is to juice your fruits and vegetables in order to remove the fiber (and who knows how many other micronutrients that are attached to it) but then to engage in weekly (or more often!) enemas to cleanse your system. I am only an armchair nutritionist, but even I can see the irony in these actions. How about keeping that fiber intact, and eating it, so that you don't need to enema at all??? There were a few diamonds in the rough, mostly in the recipes section. The apple crumble and banana nice cream recipes seemed the best ones; very easy and yummy looking. But they were peppered with nonsense talk about flushing cellular toxins or cleansing your organs. And detoxifying the liver? Detoxifying is literally the liver's job! Ridiculous. Anyway, I am sad to say I cannot award this book a single star, despite the goal setting section actually having a few nuggets that I felt 100% on board with and the nice glossary of resources at the end, including plenty of documentaries, books, doctors, etc. that I do truly believe in. The few good aspects only make me more sorry that I cannot recommend this book to anyone.
Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I'm giving this a three-star rating because the growing level of violence in the series, especially the repeated inclusion of graphic animal death to no apparent end except literary flavoring, makes me want to give zero stars, while the overall story was so compelling I want to award five. So in the middle with three it is. The speciesist treatment of animals by this series, especially when the core of the emotional story is that of growing understanding between members of two different species, has become too much for me to invest any more time in it. This was my last attempt at a full reading of the Temeraire books and I don't feel sorry to have already sold my entire collection to the used bookstore.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
The Minamata Story: An EcoTragedy by Sean Michael Wilson
dark
hopeful
informative
sad
fast-paced
5.0
I unintentionally started reading this. I was trying to get a Humble Bundle of books loaded onto my Kindle when I was told that this file was too big to send. That seemed odd for an .epub format, so I opened the file to see why it was so large. Well, a manga greeted me, and I flipped through the first pages, just to see if it was manga all the way or if it changed to text-only at some point, and that was enough to hook me! I went back to the beginning and read the whole thing in one go! Although the story is rooted in a dark historical event (caused by an ongoing problem: industrial pollution) it was overall filled with hope and a sense of wanting to share the story with the world to help us stop repeating history. While I can't speak to whether the latter is happening, the book has a great story, well paced, and told with lovely artwork. I'd recommend it to anyone curious about this event in Japanese history or wanting an example of the effects of pollution on human and other animal life.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Chronic illness, Medical content, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Death, Terminal illness, Violence, and Grief
The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony by Will Tuttle
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I'd heard of this book many times before, usually cited as a key influence in helping someone choose veganism, so when I discovered the audiobook available for free as MP3s on the author's Spotify, I dived right in. The book was more spiritual than I prefer but overall it made excellent connections and interesting arguments that I hadn't heard before. The core idea that the development of herding culture in prehistory is the source of all humanity's problems ever since, because it requires the separation and domination of others, has fundamentally changed the way I see pretty much everything in our man-made world. I hope next to acquire a physical or digital copy of the book so that I can take note of the many, many passages that spoke to and enlightened me. I'd like to be able to refer back to them in the future, and share them with others if the opportunity arises.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Torture, Violence, and Blood
100日後に死ぬワニ 100-nichigo ni Shinu Wani (This Croc Will Die In 100 Days) by きくちゆうき, Yuuki Kikuchi
emotional
funny
lighthearted
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Despite only possessing an intermediate understanding of Japanese, it was enough to both laugh out loud and shed tears in the course of reading this beautifully illustrated and heartfelt story. I picked up this manga from Half Price Books, never having heard of it before, but being instantly intrigued by the title. The story was masterfully executed and deeply touching 🥲 I'm so glad I came across this little book and brought it home.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death and Death
Buddhism and Veganism: Essays Connecting Spiritual Awakening and Animal Liberation by Will Tuttle
This book helped restore my faith when my reverent (and naïve) view of secular Buddhism came crashing down after learning that most Buddhists knowingly participate in carnism despite the core tenants of all Buddhist practices being plainly against it. Just like the followers of every religion and non-vegan philosophy I've ever encountered, Buddhists find all kinds of ways to twist words or use historical examples to justify their own merciless choices. The essays in this collection helped assure me that I'm not the only one to see how wrong it is.
Admittedly, some of the passages and, in one case, an entire essay were disheartening. For example, seeing the weak excuses of high level Buddhist leaders for their continued support of animal abuse makes me feel hopeless and powerless. But on the whole, the writings included here were both reassuring and empowering. Some even went so far as to offer practical advice for furthering the vegan movement, to help others choose the side of the animals and our shared livable environment. In fact, the last chapter inspired me to get more involved on social media for the first time in many years, by showing how self-isolation only hurts the cause (and lets down those who are trapped in the system).
Ultimately, I'm very happy I bought this book. It's exactly what I needed. I'd love to own a physical copy someday, that's how much I loved it.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Chinese Buddhists believe that “in the food we eat lies our grievance and hatred; if you want to know the reason for war, just go to the butcher’s house and listen to the cries at midnight.”
This book helped restore my faith when my reverent (and naïve) view of secular Buddhism came crashing down after learning that most Buddhists knowingly participate in carnism despite the core tenants of all Buddhist practices being plainly against it. Just like the followers of every religion and non-vegan philosophy I've ever encountered, Buddhists find all kinds of ways to twist words or use historical examples to justify their own merciless choices. The essays in this collection helped assure me that I'm not the only one to see how wrong it is.
This essential teaching emphasizing vegan values of caring and kindness is an important healing antidote to a damaging delusion common in many Buddhist, yoga, and other spiritual and progressive communities. We can call this delusion the “enlightenment fallacy” because it arises as a false sense of individual license to do as we like because we believe we are spiritually advanced.
There are many aspects to the enlightenment fallacy, and the various rationalization narratives are all the more insidious because of the armor they bestow, hardening hearts and conveying a toxic pseudo-spirituality that harms not just the animals but everyone in any way touched by these delusions and their resulting behaviors.
While it certainly may be helpful and healing to practice viewing the pain and loss that we personally experience as transient and illusory, it is the height of delusion to discount the pain and loss we inflict on others by rationalizing it as being transient and illusory.
Admittedly, some of the passages and, in one case, an entire essay were disheartening. For example, seeing the weak excuses of high level Buddhist leaders for their continued support of animal abuse makes me feel hopeless and powerless. But on the whole, the writings included here were both reassuring and empowering. Some even went so far as to offer practical advice for furthering the vegan movement, to help others choose the side of the animals and our shared livable environment. In fact, the last chapter inspired me to get more involved on social media for the first time in many years, by showing how self-isolation only hurts the cause (and lets down those who are trapped in the system).
Perfect free will is an illusion, because our thoughts, inclinations, and actions are not ours alone. They are manifestations that have their origins in the seeds planted by many factors, from personal upbringing to society to global history.
Modern veganism is here because slaughterhouses and factory farms are here. As the violence reaches ever more extreme levels, the vegan response represents our awakening to compassion and radical inclusiveness.
Only when I “give myself a break” from time to time can I heal, get stronger and cope better with the fact that we are surrounded by unrelenting evidence of animal suffering.
Ultimately, I'm very happy I bought this book. It's exactly what I needed. I'd love to own a physical copy someday, that's how much I loved it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death