For those of you not in the British and Celtic Isles, it is hot. Relentlessly so. For a cluster of geography accustomed to overcast skies and drizzle, weeks of cloudless sun and 25C+ temperatures, accompanied by the abominable humidity that so often infests our summers, has been thoroughly unpleasant.
A particularly striking thing for me is that despite our constant companionable griping, us locals have been dealing with it much better than my students, most of whom are used to 40C summers or worse. In some cases the humidity is brutal: if you normally live in a desert, it's like being smothered. I experienced some of this when I visited Hong Kong on the way back from the utter dryness of central China and was basically sandbagged by the tropical damp. But largely it's because they rarely actually experience the 40C: their homes have air conditioning, their schools are air-conditioned, the shops they visit are air-conditioned, and since most of this cohort are well-off, they normally get driven around in air-conditioned cars. So they're actually much less familiar with the hot weather than we are.
This is not terribly relevant to what I've been reading lately, except that I've been staying up reading late into the night waiting for my oven of a house to assume a more survivable temperature. Reading is one of the few relatively bearable activities, although I still find myself sitting motionless and shirtless, yet with rivulets of sweat pouring down my skin. Stay hydrated, everyone.
The Web
I discovered the Taskerland blog relatively recently; I don't remember how. It covers a variety of RPGs and horror literature, and I've found it interesting and thoughtful reading. Recently there are several commentaries on Thomas Ligotti's work (which Arthur also enjoys) as well as examinations of 2025 Ennies shortlists. Plenty of archives for me to mine there too. The author Moreau Vazh is interested in OSR gameplay, but doesn't confine themself to it.
Roger continues to review alarming numbers of books alongside his other writing. While many of them aren't to my taste, it's still interesting to hear about them - and every so often I pluck out something that catches my interest too.
Dead Trees
The British Library has been gradually rereleasing old strange material, under the Tales of the Weird series. I'm currently reading The Undying Monster, which is some kind of occult-psychic-supernatural mystery I have yet to unfold. Having a Manx author doesn't hurt. The writing style is distinctly period, in delivery and vocabulary - none of your naturalistic dialogue here, but plenty of evocative description. As yet I have, frankly, not the faintest idea what is going on, in the good way.
(It's also brought to mind that occult detectives love to come and investigate the misfortunes of wealthy households, but I don't remember ever encountering one who bothers to poke around the supernatural environment of the common folks. You'd think, statistically, there should be a lot more for them to find in more ordinary families.)
Before that, I finished Brainstorm, a book about epilepsy and neurology by Suzanne O'Sullivan. It was more aimed at a lay audience than I'd vaguely expected, and personally I'd have enjoyed a more in-depth look at the medical and scientific underpinnings. However, what it is is an accessible and exploratory look at the lives of several people manifesting very different forms of epilepsy, the challenges and decisions they face, and how their lives are shaped by - and maintained in the face of - disorders that the rest of society doesn't understand or cope with well. Well worth a look.
Digital Media
I've been making slow and exhausting progress through Chinese Rhetoric and Writing: An Introduction for Language Teachers, trying to better understand the interplay of Chinese and English in students' work (and my own understanding of Chinese-language writing). Motivation suffers from a current dearth of Chinese students - recently they've all been Middle Eastern or South Asian - and the very dense nature of this book, at least for someone whose linguistics background is more in sociolinguistics and phonetics.
Otherwise, diverting myself with some forgettable light novels for those "occupy brain without requiring much thought" periods. Nothing really worth commenting on.
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