I’ve read a clutch of sad, beautiful works of speculative #fiction over the last few years, most notably Sandra Newman’s The Heavens and Ling Ma’s Severance. Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark now joins their ranks. Nagamatsu’s novel-in-stories chronicles a climate change–fueled pandemic that catalyzes profound scientific advancements but at enormous costs. My favorite of the stories, “Pig Son,” gutted me. #sf #sciencefiction

Question for the #histodons: Does anyone know of resources providing biographical details of representatives to the 1869 Hungarian Jewish Congress? I am trying to track down information about Adolf Sessler. The Pinkas ha-kehilot entry for Hlohovec, Slovakia (aka Galgocz, Freistadl, etc.) identifies him as a Neolog representative from Nitra. #Jewish #history #Hungary #Slovakia #genealogy

Popular culture often relegates representation of Chinese immigrants in the late 19th, early 20th century American West to San Francisco’s Chinatown, while the wider West is portrayed as demographically homogenous. Mark T. Johnson’s The Middle Kingdom Under the Big Sky is not only a deeply informative corrective but also a fascinating account of the role Chinese immigrants and their descendants played in shaping the West and China itself. Highly recommended. #history #Montana