371 ratings | 118 reviews | avg rating:4.83

Circa24’s Year In Books

Circa24’s 2024 Year in Books

Take a look at Circa24’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.

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Circa24’s Followers (20)

Circa24’s Bookshelves

to-read (66)
currently-reading (2)
read (378)

Circa24’s Friends (6)

Joseph Young

100 books | 163 friends

Jonathan

18,473 books | 262 friends

Nat

660 books | 79 friends

Zarzo Escribano

110 books | 2,554 friends

Sophia

271 books | 145 friends

Max Tower

71 books | 924 friends

2025 Reading Challenge

2025

READING

CHALLENGE

Circa24 Circa24 has read 32 books of their goal of 24!

133%

Circa24

Goodreads Author

Website

https://wordpress.com/page/circa-24.com/162

Genre

Science Fiction, Gay and Lesbian, Fiction

Member Since

August 2023

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/circa24

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Circa24 is a professor of Biology. She received a Doctorate in Zoology from The University of Toronto. For many years, she has taught classes on environmental biology and animal behavior. She has spoken at international conferences on the biological roots of cruelty, discrimination, and greed. She uses the pen name Circa24 to distinguish her creative writing from her technical and non-fiction works. Author’s comment: “Hey, if a pseudonym is good enough for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Mary Ann Evans, and Samuel Clements, then it’s good enough for me.”.

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I loved your sequel, , but I see that some people have trouble with the degradation endured by Tissi. Can you comment on why you made it so intense?

Circa24 In the beginning, I had intended to take an entirely different path, but Tissi dragged me into her world. That's why I warn people up front that the b…moreIn the beginning, I had intended to take an entirely different path, but Tissi dragged me into her world. That's why I warn people up front that the book will be unsettling.

Too often, enslavement is portrayed as little more than a form of forced labor. However, the greater horror is in its dehumanization, and that was the aspect I wanted to drive home. Every dehumanizing torture and every degradation in the book has precedence in one or more systems of enslavement. I chose the bakery setting because it was one of the most feared fates an enslaved person could endure in the Roman era. Like a sentence to the mines, it hailed a short life and tortuous death. Even the Romans acknowledged this, and it formed a core theme in the picaresque story by Apuleius, The Golden Ass where, in the 9th book, Lucius is sold into labor to drive a baker's mill-wheel.

Torture and degradation of the enslaved have been an accepted form of amusement through the ages and, as in American lynchings, have served as a bonding ritual to unite the empowered community against the subjugated one. I tried to leave out the torture reserved for Deilos, that was reportedly employed by several of the guards at Auschwitz-Birkenau and by the DINA at Villa Grimaldii under Pinochet (hence the names Birki and Rimm). More recently, one American army sergeant was convicted for a similar act of torture (Dishneau 2006, cited in: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/402871/s...). I tried to leave that bit out, but ultimately, I could not ignore the abjections of these victims. (When I substituted a less vial passage, the story didn't read right. However, I tried to temper it with his Harrie "name," Dielos, a double nod, first to the cult of Dionysus and Leto, the twin gods of love whose cult was centered at Delos. Second to Daedalus, the son of Icarus who flew too close to the sun and was a metaphor for truth (Remember: Deilos was a political prisoner, and they are often singled out for more horrific abuses.)

I also wanted to make the terror of the resistance palpable and the acceptance by most of society shocking. Each person who fights the system could be charged with an energy crime and become subject to the same filth and humiliation. Rather than a clear-cut good-guy bad-guy dichotomy, I have some characters awaken slowly to the horrors and others who experience sudden revelations. Like most of us, who don't give two thoughts about the people who make our cheap consumer goods, most people in Silent Consent and Endured just accept the conditions of the Nameless without thinking about their roles, Perhaps our world would be a little better if we asked how and who supports our quality of life, and include future generations in those computations.
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I loved the "morning person" scene at the hotel in An Encounter With Cows , but how was it that Jackie's student had a key to her room?

Circa24 Remember, he wasn't just Jackie's student; he was close to her and her second in command on the dig. Their friendship dates back years to when she fir…moreRemember, he wasn't just Jackie's student; he was close to her and her second in command on the dig. Their friendship dates back years to when she first worked on his father's ranch. Jackie and Kayla even housed him on occasion. Given these facts, Jackie could easily have given him a spare key to retrieve materials.(less)

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Circa24’s books

Average rating: 4.24 · 42 ratings · 14 reviews · 7 distinct works • Similar authors

	Thomas Hardy Was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years 4.36 avg rating — 14 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Silent Consent really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 11 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Endured by The Gods (Silent Consent, #2) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 8 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Silent Consent it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An Encounter With Cows 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Endured by the Gods: Silent Consent Book 2 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thomas Hardy Was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Circa24 is Currently Reading

Circa24 Circa24 is currently reading

The Night Agent

by Matthew Quirk (Goodreads Author)

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Dec 17, 2025 06:02PM

Circa24 Circa24 is currently reading

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)

by Gregory Maguire

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Dec 08, 2025 09:29AM

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Circa24 Circa24 wants to read Stereophonic by David Adjmi (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Circa24 Circa24 rated a book it was amazing Skeleton Man (Leaphorn & Chee, #17) by Tony Hillerman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
First a confession: I have not read all the Leaphorn and Chee novels before this in the series, so I may have missed a few things along the way (like Leaphorn's retirement). That said, I had no trouble following the story as if it were a stand-alone ...more
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This was a re-read for me, along with The Sparrow. Together, they are among the most powerful and engaging books I've ever read. In The Sparrow follows a Jesuit priest and linguist, Father Emilio Sandoz, who is present at the first discovery of an ex ...more
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One of the more interesting books I've read this year, and one with a great premise: A woman takes a job as a social-media post monitor. She's faced with the restraints and rules about which posts can and cannot be removed based on coded reasons in m ...more
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Quotes by Circa24 (?)

“I told you, Cow, Tarquin doesn’t demote. She destroys.”
― Circa24, Silent Consent

tags: cruelty, dystopian, dystopian-fiction, harries, lgbt, political-prisoners

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“She gazed over her oxygen mask at the small, smiling Christmas tree that sat on the table behind her. Tonight, the whirling sound of the disk in the drive was a song that was sweeter than any lullaby.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years.

tags: aids, aids-epidemic, circa24, grief, hiv, hospice, lgbt, protests, short-story-collection

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“When we entered the apartment, none of us had to ask about the food basket. From the look on Dad's face, we had received a ham. We always prayed for a turkey. It put him in a better mood.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years.

tags: alcoholism, christmas, emotional-abuse, food-baskets, poverty, short-story-collection

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Circa24’s Quotes

“At a gut level, she knew this illness was one more ploy by her mother—one more ploy to keep Karen under her mother's thumb”
― Circa24

tags: anger, circ24, death-and-dying, grief, lesbian, lgbt, mother-daughter-relationships

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tags: aids, aids-epidemic, circa24, grief, hiv, hospice, lgbt, protests, short-story-collection

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“I stopped and stared at the washing machine, and I felt revulsion at knowing that his things had been in there ahead of mine.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy Was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years

tags: child-abuse, denial-of-child-abuse, lgbt, revulsion, witnessing

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“When you reach our age, everyone wants to keep you alive with granola. Consider this breakfast an act of liberation. I got greasy egg sandwiches, bacon, and hash browns.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years.

tags: abandonment, birthdays, circa24, elderly, lesbian, lgbt, old-age, ontario, short-story-collection

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