Alberto Manguel writes in A History of Reading, “Throughout the South, it was common for plantation owners to hang any slave who tried to teach the others how to spell… The slave-owners (like dictators, tyrants, absolute monarchs and other illicit holders of power) were strong believers in the power of the written word. They knew, far better than some readers, that reading is a strength that requires barely a few first words to become overwhelming. Someone able to read one sentence is able to read all… For all these reasons, reading had to be forbidden… An illiterate crowd is easiest to rule; since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it has been acquired, the second-best recourse is to limit its scope.”
— Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo

Damn, does any modern writer go harder than Daniel Handler?!

The three of us stood there for a minute. I don’t know what Stew was thinking, and the filing cabinet wasn’t thinking anything. But I was thinking, is this the world? Is this really the place in which you’ve ended up, Snicket? It was a question that struck me, as it might strike you, when something ridiculous was going on, or something sad. I wondered if this was really where I should be, or if there was another world someplace, less ridiculous and less sad. But I never knew the answer to the question. Perhaps I had been in another world before I was born, and did not remember it, or perhaps I would see another world when I died, which I was in no hurry to do. In the meantime I knew only the world I was in. In the meantime I was stuck in this police station, doing something so ridiculous it felt sad, and feeling so sad that it was ridiculous. The world of the police station, the world of Stain’d-by-the-Sea and all of the wrong questions I was asking, was the only world I could see.
— "When Did You See Her Last?" - All The Wrong Questions no.2 - Lemony Snicket / Art by Seth

I adore audiobooks but not Amazon - so here are my two favourite alternatives. Libby holds a special place here, making ebooks and audiobooks widely accessible for a very low budget. I also wanted to highlight @librofm, which allows for the support of individual bookshops (to my Berliners or anyone really, you can support @curiousfoxbooks on Libro FM)

#boycottamazon #librofm #supportyourlocallibrary #libby #books #bookreview

#Servicetoot zum mal dran denken:

#Bibliotheken haben uns über die schlimmsten Krisen hinweg geholfen die Gesellschaft zu erhalten.

Ist vielleicht gerade wieder ein guter Zeitpunkt um sie zu unterstützen.

#SupportYourLocalLibrary

“Maybe that’s why I tend to equate physical beauty with qualities with which it has absolutely nothing to do. I see a pretty mouth or a moody pair of eyes and imagine all sorts of deep affinities, private kinships. Never mind that half a dozen jerks are clustered round the same person, just because they’ve been duped by the same pair of eyes.” — *[Francis] “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt*

Ah-ha!! It's HOOPLA'S FAULT!!!

Dear #librarians, I volunteer to be your vigilante AI slop bounty hunter. You don't even have to pay me a bounty.

https://www.404media.co/email/7a1109dd-e6cd-46ac-be2f-a6d6461fc2ff

#library #publiclibraries #supportyourlocallibrary #AIslop #vendorslurry #catalogcuration #supportrealauthors #hoopla