"Should I dream one dream or seven?"
-- First sentence of William Vollmann, *The Ice-Shirt*
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(Started this morning. #ReadingNotes will go here.)
#WilliamVollmann #Bookstodon #WilliamTheBlind #TheIceShirt #FirstSentences
I pulled together the first "Things I Read" post: links and light commentary on Native rights and originalism, why AI success could still be economically bearish, the failure of the low-end Windows laptop market, and why geldings changed horse society.
"The rain continued. It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains. It came by the pound and the ton, it hacked at the jungle and cut the trees like scissors and shaved the grass and tunneled the soil and molted the bushes. It shrank men's hands into the hands of wrinkled apes; it rained a solid glassy rain, and it never stopped."
-- #FirstSentences of Ray Bradbury's "The Long Rain"
What a great opening!
"In the town they tell the story of the great pearl--how it was found and how it was lost again."
-- First sentence of Steinbeck's *The Pearl*
#ThePearl #JohnSteinbeck #ReadingNotes #FirstSentences #Bookstodon
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Started this morning. Will probably read quite quick, but notes will go here.
When I finished the second chapter of The Caves of Steel, I had a lot of … opinions.
Check them out here: https://hopfieldiswriting.com/2026/02/19/entering-the-caves-of-steel/
#TheCavesofSteel #Reading #ReadingNotes
"My beloved aunt,
I am as innocent and forged in the image and likeness of God as any other, as every other, though I have been a cabin boy, shopkeeper, and soldier, and before then, long before, a small girl at your skirts."
- #FirstSentences of *We Are Green and Trembling* by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (translated by Robin Myers)
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Started last night -- but was exhausted, so only got through three pages. Was awake enough to get excited by this first sentence though. Read a bit more this morning, and this is great so far.
#GabrielaCabezónCámara #Bookstodon #ReadingNotes #WeAreGreenAndTrembling
I absolutely *loved* this article, which is ostensibly an investigation of fandom, but ultimately uses that to poke at things like criticism, aging, community, and more.
Super well-written, super funny, and a bit moving. It even moves with the breathlessness, the rhythm of fandom. I loved everything about it. Could easily use it in a #Writing class of some sort.
#GiftLink below.
"'What a piece of work is man!' marvels Hamlet, "how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! ... in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! ... the paragon of animals!"
In a few short lines, Shakespeare gives us the most prominent theme in the history of Western thought: human beings are the most clever, moral, and capable spcies on earth.
But I wonder, if we truly believe we are so much better than other species, why have we spent thousands of years driving home the point?"
-- #FirstSentences of *The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters* by Christine Webb
Started today, 2026-01-02. Reading notes will be shared here.
#ReadingNotes thread for 2026!
Going to try my best to corral my reading notes in this thread this year, making it easier to mute/filter (if you desire).
So first sentences, running commentary, etc. will be posted as responses to this thread.
"The Salinas Valley is in Northern California. It is a long narrow swale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the center until it falls at last into Monterey Bay."
-- #FirstSentences of John Steinbeck, *East of Eden*
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This is my first read of East of Eden.
I am finishing the first Library of America volume of his novels, 1942-1952. Page numbers for these #ReadingNotes will reference that edition.
Trevor Burrows
Brian "bex" Exelbierd
Hopfield is Writing