I'm still working through Moby Dick (very dense book but I'm enjoying it).
My non-fiction read atm is Plutocrats - The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland.
Figured I might as well understand what is happening even if I don't like it, lol. It's a pretty intellectual slog but I'm doing all right. Chrystia Freeland is amazing.

I took a break from Moby Dick to read God of the Woods by Liz Moore, which is a mystery thriller set at a summer camp in the Adirondack mountains in the seventies. It was very good and a compelling read. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on until the final chapters. Also a good commentary on rich people compared to us regular folk.

Now, back to Moby Dick. I'm still reading White Fragility which is a really informing and necessary read.

We are going to G's brother's place for a barbecue tonight and I'm excited to watch Episode 5 of The Vampire Lestat tomorrow. I saw a teaser clip that made me laugh out loud. I love the humour in this show.

I'm actually re-reading this one. Like The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, I read Moby Dick in my Myth and Language Class at university. It's been a long time since then and I want to revisit Captain Ahab, Ishmael, Queequeg, Starbuck, and so many more wonderful and distinct characters, including the white whale. There is a group of people who see a homosexual subtext between Ishmael and Queequeg, and although I think they are reading more into the behaviour of the time period than I would, I'm not averse to keeping my mind open. At the very least these two men are intensely joined in spirit, which is a joy to read. And I'd forgotten about the humour in the story. Parts of it are very funny.

As I mentioned, I like to read a non-fiction book at the same time that I'm reading a fiction book. This one is next in line.

I watched the documentary, Speechless, and felt no sympathy for the white professor who felt attacked by a request to join a peaceful protest that supported black students and faculty at his university. That professor (ex-professor now, I believe) referenced the author of this book as one of the left-leaning people who are promoting the ideology of (what he believes is) a radical and disproportionate examination of racism in white society.

So, of course I looked her up. And now I'm going to read her book, because, as a white woman with a ton of privilege, I feel a responsibility to educate myself about/ and uncover my own inherent racism. 

I did NOT realize the print was going to be as large as it was, lol.

This is a book I read for the first time in a Myth and Language class at university and I remember enjoying it. I should have re-read it when I was researching for my pirate series because there is alot of great 'what happens on board a sailing ship' stuff, particularly when the weather is bad. There are definitely problematic elements to it, as when the titular character finds himself on an island that is not inhabited by people familiar to him. Interesting to recognize, though, the racist and colonialist attitudes that were prevalent at the time. One of the things that Arthur and his men assess on the island is what is there that they can sell and profit from, ignoring completely the fact that the indigenous peoples living there should have first rights to all of it. Written by Edgar Allen Poe, the story is suitably haunting and unsettling and it is plain to see that Poe has a deep fascination with men being buried alive or trapped in tight confines. He did write The Cask of Amontillado, of course.

I like to read two books at the same time, and one of them is generally non-fiction. 

This one is interesting. I almost stopped reading it during the first chapter when he postulated some things concerning the toys that children are drawn to that I didn't fully agree with, but I kept reading. The chapter on gender and identity is quite good and he supports most of the things I believe. I'm not sure we align completely on our ideas about gender, and I don't think studying chimps and other apes adequately represents our uniqueness as humans. I don't believe humans are better than other animals, but that our use of language and complex tool using brain puts us in a very different category, so that discussions of gender and identity are a specifically human phenomenon.

What am I reading on Sunday, June 14th, 2026?

I found this on a recent trip to my local Indigo, in the bargain books section (LOVE the bargain books section!). I was immediately drawn to the cover and when I realized that it was a curated collection of writings about famous cities, I knew I had to have it.

Peter Furtado takes excerpts from various diverse voices throughout history and aligns them with an alphabetical list of the best known cities in the world. It's enchanting and eye-opening. I enjoyed the way it was structured, with a brief description (by the editor) of each city and why that city was renowned. Then the date of the excerpt and a description of the author and why they found themselves in the city they were describing. 

​I think I paid $20 for this hardcover edition and it was totally worth it.