Weekend reading
Oct. 20th, 2025 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I hadn't planned on reading Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, both because I hadn't really clicked with any of her previous books and because I've seen mostly negative reviews of Katabasis specifically, but it was available as a short-term/lucky/skip-the-line loan on Libby and who am I to look a gift book in the mouth. I'm really enjoying it! Two rival graduate students of Analytical Magick descend to the underworld to rescue their dissertation advisor so they can graduate with his valuable recommendation; it's great for spooky season, with vivid descriptions of the very nasty ways one can die from doing magick wrong and something darkly whimsical about the version of Hell that they navigate with the ambiguous aid of the different accounts of underworld journeys (Orpheus, Dante, etc.) as filtered through alternate translations and theories of interpretation and academic technobabble. ( ... )
Back to the theme of Bad Times on Boats with Into the Raging Sea by Rachel Slade, a nonfiction account of the 2015 sinking of an American cargo ship after capitalism led it to sail directly into a hurricane. Technically focused on unfolding the narrative of a specific event (the loss of the El Faro in Hurricane Joaquin) but throws in a bunch of stuff for context, such as how hurricanes are formed and measured, the history of U.S. shipbuilding and shipping industries, etc.
Back to the theme of Bad Times on Boats with Into the Raging Sea by Rachel Slade, a nonfiction account of the 2015 sinking of an American cargo ship after capitalism led it to sail directly into a hurricane. Technically focused on unfolding the narrative of a specific event (the loss of the El Faro in Hurricane Joaquin) but throws in a bunch of stuff for context, such as how hurricanes are formed and measured, the history of U.S. shipbuilding and shipping industries, etc.