Elizabeth > Recent Status Updates

it's taking some time to work through this one. not the book's fault, it's tight and concise, i just ... shouldn't have started a book about lizzie borden around the anniversary of my own mother's death lol

Having a great time, but I did just have to physically stop and sit down after hearing the worst possible white-person-panicking way to pronounce "Liliuokalani". I didn't know you could get it that wrong. Guys.

genuinely laugh out loud funny in places, but the thing i appreciate the most is the author's commitment to assuming that anyone who leaves a 1-star review at a world heritage site has to be a dude.

The narrator is the same guy who read the Vorkosigan Saga audiobooks, so I keep nodding along like yes, yes, Hannibal, elephants, the Alps, and would probably keep nodding if spaceships appeared, no questions asked.

Library find! And obvs, first of all, we love a good botanical watercolor, but also: it's me, i'm the american fruit.

I am having a GRAND time. Each book I've read about the discovery of King Tut has had chunks of its assumptions AND assertions disqualified by the next. Net zero information gain. Well, no, MUCH information gain, net zero conclusions. isn't archaeology fun!

I was wondering if this would be a biology-focused history of papyrus sort of a la arathi prasad's 'silk,' but it's definitely more a wandering general history of literature lmao.

with a name like “seven rivers,” I kinda assumed it would be one important river per continent, with at least one doubling up bc, you know, antarctica. don’t know why I thought that lmao.

anyway, sad my girl the Amazon didn’t make the cut, but the Niger was an unexpected treat to learn about!

oh this is definitely ai generated. and I have a sinking suspicion the narrator is ai too; that was three different pronunciations of the same city name in the span of, like, ten minutes. which could still be a person, obvs, but if it is then the editing is VERY sloppy.

Mertz is always delightful to read, but I'm extra grateful for the addition to my lexicon of the word she's given those people who think the pyramids were built by mystics or aliens: pyramidiots.

Came in expecting to be all "I SUPPORT WOMEN'S WRONGS," but maybe with the exception of the procurer and the serial killer, I'm mostly sitting here like, "but :( she didn't :( do anything wrong? why are they executing her? :("

Genuinely fascinating look at the role geology, geography, and climate has had on nation-building.

Be warned there is a bit in the Middle East chapter where the author disappointingly just parrots the white Western line about Israel being a victim in the Palestine conflict. It is brief, but yikes.

i wasn't expecting to find a book in the library about the smurfette principle, much less one with 100 photographs from history that demonstrates it. it's not a thin book!

Picked this up because Delgado's expertise was mentioned in National Geographic's Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs, in connection with the wrecks of the Mary Rose and the Clotilda.

Ngl, the narrator of this one is v. dry, but they can't all be winners and the subject is still fascinating lol

I'm going to be honest, I did not expect Dominion voting machines to make an appearance. I am completely hooked.

oh this is going to be one of my favorites this year, I can already tell.

obvs the civilization being discussed here is very very narrow, but I do like Cahill's narration style enough to overlook that for the span of an audiobook lmao

Paused on this until my library hold on the physical copy comes through. Audiobook didn't come with a PDF and refers to pictures I can't see lol.

Deeply enjoying how many of these pieces are colorfully reef-themed. And beading really makes the sea creatures pop, who'd've guessed? My eyes enjoy all of it; I know just enough about beading to recognize the sheer amount of WORK involved.

This has been on my library hold list for awhile, and every time I saw it (all caps in the database,) I was unable to resist the urge to match the fervor. "WOMEN," I would agree.

I'm probably going to finish this in one sitting. WOMEN.

PAGE 3: "Kiyanna's use of thrifted items to express her creativity was so impressive and inspirational, not only was I hooked on thrifting, but I was hooked on her ... (blushes in gay)."

INSTANTLY CHARMED.

am learning a lot! could have done without the emotional whiplash of first learning that cardiac arrest is most common in the morning (my mother died at 8:10am,) and then only a few pages later reading the words "even bees can experience jet lag!"

This is a charming and very engaging book, but even if it was dense as bricks I'd still be grateful to it for explaining why it is, in fact, "octopuses" and not "octopi", something I did not know until now lol

considering the last book I read about Baghdad left a sour taste in my mouth, it was immediately noticeable to me just how much more enjoyable it is to read something by an author who actually ENJOYS his subject.

Library find! A book the size of my torso containing scans of a particular Amsterdam university's collection of rare books (and is thus eurocentric,) I'm admiring not only the chronology of printing it shows, but also how we DIDN'T get it right and how the fonts & typesets that we take for granted today were, in fact, the product of hundreds of years of trial and error.

I'm going to finish it, because I AM learning, but it's just ... disappointing when it's this obvious an author has nothing but contempt for his subject.

an interesting collection of six-word poems from students of all ages, essays from teachers, and installations from the kansas city art institute.

"Length: 30hrs" was a fake-out. There wasn't even dead air, it ended exactly where it should have lmao. Ah well! Genuinely great book, I adored the narrator's voice.

My version of the audiobook insists it's 30hrs long, but every official source for this title insists it's only 16hrs long, so we'll see what my special bonus time contains lmao

DENSELY academic. Which is cool!! The subject deserves it, I just have to pick the rhythm back up lmao.