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The Little Aimless Library: Transit by Anna Seghers

 I'd like to try something a bit different today: a review of a normal book, something a little afield of the sort of geeky prose this blog was created to discuss. Another ambition of mine, aside from inspiring non-Who fans to give Faction Paradox a shot, is to get Who and Faction Paradox fans to broaden their horizons. As I've alluded to in the past, genre and series fiction - for a variety of reasons - can be an isolating place to be. There is little belief in movement to and from this realm, both from those who read it and those who don't. I'd like to start doing short, snappy reviews of non-Who books - non-genre books, even - to get some of y'all out of your comfort zones. I've tentatively titled this post "The Little Aimless Library" in reference to my Aimless Thoughts  series. Subject to change, of course.     The book I'd like to talk about today is Transit  by Anna Seghers, a 1944 novel about refugees in the second World War, translated fro...
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Jobsolete Sources

  Songs Used: Sweater Song loop by Local Fool on YouTube Aschiya by Don Rader Boschi Solitari by Piero Umiliani By The Time I Get to Phoenix by Lyman Woodard The Rapture - Rene Costy Moon in Pisces by The Players Association Feelings by Eef Albers Baby Farmer: https://historytools.davidjvoelker.com/babyfarming/baby-farming.html   http://cas.loyno.edu/sites/chn.loyno.edu/files/Bastardy%20and%20Baby%20Farming%20in%20Victorian%20England.pdf   https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/1834-poor-law/   Garden Hermit https://thevalemagazine.com/2024/02/20/inside-the-peculiar-world-of-garden-hermits/   https://web.archive.org/web/20190317042900/https://chartreux.org/en/origin.php   https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ornamental-hermits-were-18th-century-englands-must-have-garden-accessory-180982469/   https://archive.org/details/englisheccentric0000edit_r1x9/page/25/mode/1up?q=%22wear+a+camlet+robe%22&view=theater    https://arc...
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Aimless Thoughts: Rocky Roads Coda

I’m outside at midnight, hands in my pockets, because Artemis had to piss. Icy snow crunches beneath her paws. The only other sound is the only music anyone ever made in Oshkosh, the ceaseless industrial hum. Faint out here, but still audible on quiet nights. The thumping groans of distant quarries, junkyards and cloud machines, a sound I’d love to escape but couldn’t possibly sleep without. Lily kept the door wide open for me. From this angle you can make out the threshold in exact detail; the precise moment in space when graphite winter night gives way to the warm, burnt-orange glow of lights reflecting off wood panels. It’s the only color in sight. I faintly recall learning in eighth grade French that their word for door is “porte”. Artemis pulls the leash tense. The dog runs us along paths loosely dusted with snow. She keeps running til the house stops blocking the wind, then she barks and runs straight back to the door. I let her in and take a last look at the sidewalk and the...
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Aimless Thoughts: Sex, Dogs and Rocky Roads

  Every single name in this story has been changed, sans the name of anybody I’ve written about before. The reasons for this will become obvious pretty quickly. About two weeks before, in a parking lot “Didja know he used to sleep with a police radio on and bike over to anything happening close to the house?” “That sounds exactly like something my dad would do.” “No shit?” “Yeah.” “...” “I hope they can settle their shit before they die.” “Me too.” “Dad’s just so fuckin’ stubborn. I figured your grandpa might be more willing to say hi, with how bubbly and nice he is.” “Don’t let him fool you, grandpa’s just as stubborn as your dad.” “I guess they are brothers.” “Yeah. That’s all we got in this family, isn’t it? Just a buncha stubborn men.” About two weeks before, after finishing an episode of Breaking Bad “I’m on Walter’s side, honestly.” “I dunno, I’d hate to be Skyler here. Just trying to keep your husband alive and he refuses everything you offer him.” “Well, it’s his choice.” “...
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