literature.cafe chat

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Local off topic chat for literature.cafe, any and all are welcome. For discussions of books and beyond! Please follow instance rules. Although focused for literature.cafe users, any and all are welcome!

To find more communities on this instance, go to: !411@literature.cafe

founded 1 year ago
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cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/15172721

cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/15172719

Hey everyone, I am working on a project for a science fiction college class. Initially I wanted to post a couple short stories I had ideas for on here, I still would like to do that. However as I started brainstorming and planning I realized one writing idea was longer form than a short story. So I still would like to post my short story once it is writing but I was wondering how people who write on here tend to actually start their writing, how much planning happens before ink hits paper as it were? Also how much help can newcomers find on Lemmy? I'd like to do a presentation on Lemmy as a resource similar to how reddit is commonly used. Any help would be appreciated!

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NaNoWriMo and AI Clash (www.404media.co)
submitted 3 months ago by overflow64@lemmy.ml to c/chat
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I did a book review of an overlooked metafiction classic: The Affirmation by Christopher Priest

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I've never use a book reading tracker before. But I made a few weeks ago a BookWyrme account.
BookWyrme is the fediverse book reading tracker and I'm marking books I've read when I remember them. Often, I need to add them to my instance as I've mainly read in French and many books needs to be manually added or imported before completing missing information.

This made made think about my journey as a reader. I've read lot older books in english or at least old enough to have more than one french translation. Would I love them with another translator or another translation? Would I enjoy reading them in english now? Would the langage difference be too much? Have a change too much as person?

I've read comics in paper format, volume by volume but I read them now online, chapter by chapter. How should I should I add them? Should I add both forms?

Which field are missing in BookWyrme to add information that are pertinent to me? What are its limitation? What are the workaround these limitations?

I looking for people to discuss these subjects.
Are you interested?

I don't want to write such big post again and make giant conversations but to publish smaller post on semi-regular basis and hear a bit of feedback.

Is this the right place? Do you know a more fitting community?

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Protesting the Decline of Reading (www.millersbookreview.com)
submitted 6 months ago by overflow64@lemmy.ml to c/chat
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Bookish Diversions: Do Audiobooks Count? (www.millersbookreview.com)
submitted 7 months ago by overflow64@lemmy.ml to c/chat
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Heya, I'm still here. Still working on things in the background and been quite busy. Right now the instance server needs some updates and the pictures backend is a little wonky. Gonna take the instance down for a bit presumably sometime tomorrow for some (hopefully) quick spring cleaning.

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As almost every readers, I have some favorite authors from which I like to read everything they publish. But I wonder how I can efficiently "follow" their publication. Do you know about a service (free, at least as in free beer, at best from the foss world)which can offer such syndication? I'm thinking about a personalized rss feed, or a e-mail, or any way. For the moment, I just look from time to time to their website or social media page but the issues I have are:

  • I look when I think about it (it would be better to be somehow notified)
  • It's time consuming and inefficient
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I'm French native speaker. I believe I can speak fluent English but I know want to discover English poetry. Where should I start ?

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I got a few, but mainly just stuck to the library.

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submitted 10 months ago by Roldyclark to c/chat
 
 

I'm new to the Ebook game and confused about the ecosystem. Do Amazon, Rakuten, and Barnes and Noble really control the whole market? Anywhere I can buy big titles not from big companies?

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  • Bag of bones: Made a post about this already.
  • Test Cricket By Jarrod Kimber: A history of the sport written by a great storyteller. Very digestable, the best book if youre a cricket fan.
  • Your face belongs to us: If you're on lemmy you likely care about your privacy and need to know about this. This is the emd of privacy.
  • God, Human, Animal, Machine: It's been the year of AI and this is a brilliant book to read with great history, philosophy and a personal touch. Very accessible too. (Discovered from the Ezra Klein podcast)
  • A dictionary of symbols by Juan Eduardo Cirlot: We all rely on symbolic expression, paeticularly in art. Reading emtries in this book as essays has improved the way I think about amd interpret art. It's an incredible tool if you find symbology important.
  • The last Mughal by William Dalrymple: I cannot recommend this enough. One of the most readable history books ever and based on an incredible time period that isn't talked about enough. Incredible individual stories. Really, it's a must read imo.

These are the important recommendations, read a lot of short stories this year and intend to post them on !shortstories@literature.cafe

Some books I haven't recommended since they weren't interesting enough and some were already talked about more than enough.

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Including:

  • Stats
  • Where I find my books
  • Where I find reading recommendations
  • My best reads of 2023

(The vast majority of these books are available in English, a couple are only in French. The review itself is in English.)

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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Levsgetso@lemmy.zip to c/chat
 
 

As @Arthur@literature.cafe requested, here's a review of Time Shelter. I apologize in advance for what you are going to read.

As this was my first work by Gospodinov i didn't know what to expect but i really enjoyed it!

I want to start with Gaustine, and precisely, his name. From Garibaldi and Augustine, a revolutionary and a philosopher (with interesting beliefs about time). That basically sums up what Gaustine is - a revolutionary for that world, someone who unifies others with their past, just as Garibaldi helped unify Italy. But does unity with your past free you from the constraints of the future? It's a question posed frequently by the book. For many the the certainty of the future that has happened brings them comfort, but the mistakes still lie in that future. He truly feels like somebody outside of time, even down to the way he speaks, a wanderer in time. For the most of the story he still was that young mysterious young man we met all the way back in that seminar, at least, until that "i don't know".

I must say that I definitely enjoyed the first part of the book more, I enjoyed the human aspect of it. Who are we without our past? What binds us to it? All those questions, all those characters' stories, even when most of them were so tragic. While I liked the philosophical aspect more, I still found enjoyment in the "social commentary" if I could call it that. As a Bulgarian it absolutely hit close to home, actually a lot of the book did. At the beginning of the book, when he talks about life under communism, about that room. It was so familiar, while I wasn't alive in those years it was just like talking to my father. The little toy cars, the strange foreign triangular candy... the famed truck driver who brought all of that home, like the one my grandfather was. Got bit carried away (lol) but the whole Referendum and everything before and after really felt realistic.

I also really loved G.(G.)'s character, a writer who can't remember his story, his time left falling out of his pockets. From the person who helps these people to someone who becomes one of them, being sent more and more back. From a few words, to a notebook of them, to phrases, names and after all that is left is that rose. Really loved how trough the story the line between G. and G.G. gets blurrier and blurrier. Gaustine didn't disappear without a trace as the main character states, he was always there, he never left. Also I actually liked how meta the book was at times and even funny while at it.

I've seen some criticisms that the book doesn't have a climax, but to be honest it doesn't need one. It laid out everything it set to tell and told it. From the promises of a better past to repeating those old mistakes again. But it shows what we, as humans miss, those days when we were happy and young, a shelter... After all everybody yearns for their own time shelter.

Thanks for reading trough this if you did, it really was fun writing it and made me think more deeply of what I read and dive deeper into it's meaning.

TL;DR Nice book

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Gabe, please remove this if it doesn't belong here.

The instance of my Mastodon account has chosen to federate with Facebook. This wigs me out, so I'm looking to migrate. Do y'all have any suggestions?

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