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#novel

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High culture meanwhile is coasting on fumes.

Examples of the Dead Weight

#Jazz & Blues: what started as the raw, electric sound of oppressed communities turned into sanitized museum pieces. Jazz festivals & university programs drained it of its soul, leaving behind an academic husk.

The #novel was once king, the high-water mark of Western art. Now it's the sad uncle nobody visits. Streaming killed it. TikTok buried it. Nobody wants to read Franzen when they can watch Succession.

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Today in Labor History January 12, 1876: Working class novelist Jack London was born. As a kid, he was an oyster pirate in Oakland, along the shores of the San Francisco Bay. As a young man, he became a hobo, riding the rails from town to town, looking for handouts and sometimes work. He wrote about these experiences in his short novel, “The Road.” He was also a lifelong alcoholic, which contributed to his early death. In his novel, “John Barleycorn,” he wrote about both his alcoholism and his experiences as a laborer in numerous low-paid, backbreaking jobs. He was also a socialist and a champion of unions and working-class activism. With respect to strikebreakers, he famously wrote: "After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles." London was also one of the first Haoles (non-Native Hawaiian, or white person) to learn how to surf in Hawaii.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #jacklondon #fiction #union #scab #socialism #hawaii #surfing #novel #alcoholism #oakland #pirate #books #author #writer @bookstadon

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Poll! For 2025, what new nerdy obsession should I dive into with all the gleeful abandon my ADHD will allow? I'm leaning toward A) getting my #HamRadio license, B) finally #Writing the #SciFi #Novel I've had kicking around in my head for nearly 30 years, C) exploring #BookBinding, or D) starting into #GeoCaching. What should I do? Open to other suggestions as well. Feel free to boost for reach if you're so inclined. Thanks and have a happy new year!

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“Friend. What a word. Most use it about those they hardly know. When it is a wondrous thing.”

I've not read too many new releases this year but picked up Hisham Matar's "My Friend's" in March, based on how much I loved his previous works. It did not disappoint one bit, and I had to write on it. Such a *perfect* novel. Do read it if you have not yet!

thenovel.substack.com/p/chapte

#books @bookstodon #Literature #novel #fiction #MyFriends

The Novel · Chapter 2: In exile with"My Friends"By Sarah Farooqui
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Only a few more days! Released Dec 10th!

When Kallista Robins, 52 met Alexander Harrison, 55, she might be instantly attracted to him but his obnoxious behavior left her cold.

#read #readromance #romance #romanceauthor #bookstadon #authors #authorsOfMastodon #author #writer #amWriting #novel @bookstodon@a.gup.pe @bookstodon@fedigroups.social #writingCommunity #wordweavers #creativity #bookstodon #WritersCorner #Writer #creativeWriting

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This book sounds lit AF.

"The Dekrepitzers, it turns out, are a fictional #Hasidic sect wiped out by the Nazis, except for their dynastic lone survivor Rebbe Shmuel Meir Lichtbencher, the #novel’s protagonist, who is captured by the Russians and forced to serve in the Russian army for three years. When he returns to his shtetl in the southern mountains of Poland, all he finds is Shoah-wrought death and destruction. He has become a Hasidic #rabbi with no Hasids, no relatives and nothing but an old family violin, which he plays remarkably well—though in a most unusual manner."

momentmag.com/the-last-dekrepi

Moment Magazine · Book Review | A Rebbe with a Fiddle and No Followers“There is much to be charmed by in this novel and even more to learn from it.”
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Today in Labor History December 2, 1867: British author Charles Dickens gave his first public reading in the United States at Tremont Temple in Boston. He described his impressions of the U.S. in a travelogue, “American Notes for General Circulation.” In Notes, he condemned slavery and correlated the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad. Despite his abolitionist sentiments, some modern commentators have criticized him for not condemning Britain’s harsh crackdown during the 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica. During his American visit, he also spent a month in New York, giving lectures, and arguing for international copyright laws and against the pirating of his work in America. The press ridiculed him, saying he should be grateful for his popularity here.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #slavery #abolition #fiction #books #novel #dickens #author #writer #reading @bookstadon

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Free Reading Wednesday: Royalty 1x03 “Den of the Forest Mother” Week 3

99geek.ca

Hollywood is a mess, but I’m writing novels like TV shows, a new “episode” every month in 4 weekly acts! And it's all free on my patreon, no pay wall. Subscribe for free to get it all in your inbox.

#Fantasy #Fiction #Read #Reading #Novel #Free #DnD #DarkFantasy #Television

THIS WEEK: The warrior mother Lin gets closer to the forest with a cure for her brother, while the Royal Marius marches on her village.

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I'm not saying I know that the romantics genre is responsible for most of these, but I'm going to assume it is... I guess there's nothing like a fragile woman to get the old romance going in the men that wrote her 🤔😂

@litterature @bookstodon @bookbubble @humour

#LitteratureMemes #Litterature #Memes #Romantic #Romance
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Fiction
#Bookwyrm #Bookworm #Bookstodon #BookLove #BoostingIsSharing

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Today in Labor History November 16, 1849: Russian authorities gave a death sentence to author Fyodor Dostoevsky for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group called the Petrashevsky Circle. He and his colleagues were lined up before the firing squad when, at the last minute, a cart arrived with a letter from the Tsar, commuting their sentence. He still had to serve 4 years hard labor in Siberia. Dostoevsky alludes to his experience before the firing squad in his 1868-1869 novel, “The Idiot.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #radical #deathpenalty #executuion #russia #dostoevsky #writer #author #fiction #novel #books @bookstadon

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Today in Labor History November 5, 1916: The Everett Massacre occurred in Everett, Washington. 300 IWW members arrived by boat in Everett to help support the shingle workers’ strike that had been going on for the past 5 months. Prior attempts to support the strikers were met with vigilante beatings with axe handles. As the boat pulled in, Sheriff McRae called out, “Who’s your leader?” The Wobblies answered, “We’re all leaders!” The sheriff pulled his gun and said, “You can’t land.” A Wobbly yelled back, “Like hell we can’t.” Gunfire erupted, most of it from the 200 vigilantes on the dock. When the smoke cleared, two of the sheriff’s deputies were dead, shot in the back by their own men, along with 5-12 Wobblies on the boat. Dozens more were wounded. The authorities arrested 74 Wobblies. After a trial, all charges were dropped against the IWW members. The event was referenced in John Dos Passos’s “USA Trilogy.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #anarchism #Everett #massacre #vigilantes #police #policebrutality #union #strike #books #fiction #novel #writer #author @bookstadon