#ReadingNotes thread for 2026, part II!
In which I attempt to corral my reading notes in a single thread.
So first sentences, running commentary, etc. will be posted as responses to this thread.
Previous thread for 2026 was disrupted by my move to a new instance but can be found here:
"We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. It was surprising there were so many of us left to die."
-- #FirstSentences of Louise Erdrich, *Tracks*
(Started 6/2. Notes will go here.)
"In the place I used to live, my rusty top bunk rocked like a boat. Night after night, it carried me off towards a secret crevice."
-- #FirstSentences of Dorothy Tse, *City Like Water*
(trans. Natascha Bruce, Graywolf Press, 2026)
Started this morning. Reading notes will go here.
"Jude had been teaching Engineering Communication and Design online for so long that the temporary virtual classroom seemed permanent. Every year or two someone in the department brought up in-person classes, but he wasn't surprised when the state of emergency extended another year, and they continued to wait for a return to normal that never came."
-- #FirstSentences of Rebecca Campbell, *Arboreality*
(Started tonight. #ReadingNotes will go here.)
Daily Notes From “Dance of Thieves” by Mary E. Pearson
This post is a little different from the usual essay-style ones. This time, I'm sharing my unfiltered, daily thoughts on Dance of Thieves, separated over 8 days as I was reading the book. Keep in mind that this is all just my opinion, so don't take my comments too seriously, and if you have anything you would like to share, feel free to do so. SPOILER WARNING: These are notes I wrote as I read the book, so if you intend on reading Dance of Thieves in the future, check out a different blog […]
"He was the second, or perhaps the third, Nero owned by my grandparents. With a grocery store that included a butcher shop and a slaughterhouse, they could feed as many dogs as they liked."
--- #FirstSentences of Louise Erdrich's story, "Python's Kiss"
(This is also the title story of her new short story collection. Reading notes will go here.)
New Things I Read is up: Czech wages and trams, Rust from a C++ shop, AI harnesses and prompt language, Americans abroad, handcarts, and British insults. A normal collection, basically.
"Should I dream one dream or seven?"
-- First sentence of William Vollmann, *The Ice-Shirt*
---
(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!
NearerAndFarther
Trevor Burrows
Scribble & Rewrite
Brian "bex" Exelbierd
