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I read Olga Ravn's The Employees ("A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century"), and this book sure has some attributes.

The format of this book is ~entirely in disjointed and anonymous (confessional?/professional)? statements to an off-page undescribed committee.

Statement 015 I'm very happy with my add-on. I think you should let more of us have one. It's me and yet it's not me. I've had to change completely in order to assimilate this new part, which you say is also me.

Statement 011 The fragrance in the room has four hearts. None of these hearts is human, and that's why I'm drawn toward them. At the base of this fragrance is soil and oakmoss, incense, and the smell of an insect captured in amber.

I've included two partial statements here for flavor from adjacent pages, because this is the only way I feel like I can convey the Annihilation-esque vibes of this book.

The book opens with a preface that these statements are to help improve future workflows and prevent future deviation(!). There's a lot of creepy workplace language of productivity and add-ons and forced updates, but the book itself dwells more on employees struggling with uncertainty about what it means to be a human or a constructed humanoid.

I am still not sure what I think about this, but I am glad to have read it.

I came to this book through a Twitter thread by the author explaining the difficulties she had in getting it published and promoted: as it centers on a young woman and has a romance in it, it was assumed to be YA and was seen as problematic for depicting parental and sexual abuse, which frustrated Reid as she as writing gothic horror for adults. I had been perceiving it as YA myself and so avoided it, but knowing the above, I sought it out.

The Books That Burn review on this page is an excellent summary, so I won't bore you by repeating it! I'll just tell you all the things I loved about the novel.

The heroine. So often, female protagonists in fantasy/historical fiction fall into the same stereotypes. Marlinchen defies them. She is quiet, weak, oppressed; her instinct is to placate and obey. She is afraid much of the time. The great rebellions of her story would be minor events in others. She is not pretty. I LOVE her. She's an excellent example of how a character can be passive/reactive while still having agency.

The romance.The romance with Sevas very much serves the plot and Marlinchen's character development - the story is not "a romance", it is not something with a plot plotline and a romance plotline that intersect at points. Sevas is also just as much an oppressed and penned-in character as Marlinchen and the two of them find comfort, joy, and safety in and for each other. Genuinely so compelling.

The worldbuilding.I love a good fantasy world centered strongly on a real culture, pulling from it in ways that deepen the world and also keep it coherent. This one is quite Russian, but also with its own history - it's a city in a region that was recently annexed by not!Russia, and very quickly built up around Marlinchen's family home. A great way to combine the old magic/folktale feel with a post-industrial culture!

It was amazing?

Admittedly I love sarcastic female leads with devastating one-liners, but I really liked this book. It's a fictional take on an episode in Patricia Highsmith's life, when she was anonymously writing low-grade comics while penning what would become Strangers on a Train, followed by The Price of Salt, later renamed Carol.

The muted color palette effectively captures the grayness of Patricia's life, between her boring jobs and the rest of the world telling her she should stop being a lesbian. An occasional pop of orange signals a rare moment of excitement, and I love how Hannah Templer renders shadows in the thriller scenes, or how she mimics old comic books style to illustrate Highsmith's stories.

There's also a little mise en abyme here, that makes us realize just how far we've come since then: the story shows a lesbian writer in the 1950s, struggling to sell a novel with lesbian main characters that get a happy end at a time when putting your name on a comic book would be career suicide. And now in 2023 we get to read about it in a comic book crafted by two queer women, that features a problematic queer lead and won an Eisner award this year.

I remember hearing about the book "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson in my fifth grade science class. The story of a women scientist who sounded the warning about the danger of pesticides and chemicals in the environment was told almost like a legend. Indeed, the book itself has had an impact far beyond its content. It ranks as one of the most influential books of the 20th century and one of the few works in human history that can be said to have a direct impact on how we live and understand our world. The books reputation is well-deserved. It is a damning critique of modern society and our over-reliance on technology, chemicals, and poisons to attempt to dominate and control nature. Carson concludes that, like the threat of nuclear war, humanity's use of increasingly deadly forms of toxic chemicals in agriculture put into the power of our own destruction in our hands.

The book works for a variety of reasons. First, the book is lucid in the best tradition of popular science writing, making its points clearly, concisely, and with deep erudition. Second, the book is in the best tradition of ecology, which emphasizes the fundamental interconnected of all life on earth. Third, Carson is a very good writer who writes brilliantly and poetically. The fundamental strength of the book is that Carson balances strong scientific understanding with the ethical and moral component of the subject. She is genuinely angry at the damage wrought to the environment. I would argue that without this balance, the work either becomes a dry academic text or an angry polemical screed.

Finally, Carson always keeps the effect of chemical pollution on human bodies and human activities firmly in her narrative at all points. You can mention the damage done to bird populations and that will make people sad. But mention that these birds are the birds that people like to listen to in the Spring and people will begin to take notice of the direct on their own lives. "Silent Spring" lives up to the adage coined by Upton Sinclair about his novel "The Jungle," which took place among immigrants in Chicago who worked for the meat-packing industry. While his novel was supposed to be focused on the exploitation of workers in the factories, people were more disgusted with reports of rats in sausages and rotten meat. The led Sinclair to remark "I aimed for [readers'] hearts but I hit their stomach's instead." Carson was able to make people understand viscerally the effect that these chemicals have on the world around us, in the food we eat and the water we drink, and residing in our very bodies.

Many things have changed since "Silent Spring" was written. It led to the banning of DDT worldwide. In many ways it kick-started the second environmental movement. But Carson's fundamental charges against man's obsessions with technology, government inaction in the face of industries, and the hubris that we can control our environment, are still just as potent as ever.

📘️ Neuerwerbung der Gustav-Landauer-Bibliothek Witten:

Constanze Schwärzer-Dutta:

Liebe mit Köpfchen

Tipps einer Autist*in für neurodiverse Beziehungen

Als Autistin und erste zertifizierte Paarberaterin für neurodiverse Paare in Deutschland zeigt die Autorin auf, wie glückliche Beziehungen zwischen autistischen und nichtautistischen Partner*innen funktionieren können und welche Tipps und Tricks beim Umgang mit typischen Konflikten helfen.

Constanze Schwärzer-Dutta ist als autistische Frau und Paarberaterin seit über 20 Jahren in einer glücklichen Beziehung mit einem nichtautistischen Partner. Die Gehirne und damit die Gedanken, Gefühle und Erwartungen der beiden sind sehr unterschiedlich: sie sind ein neurodiverses Paar. Dies macht ihre Liebe intensiv und spannend, führt aber auch zu Missverständnissen und Konflikten. Welche Freuden und Herausforderungen solche neurodiversen Paare erleben und welche Werkzeuge aus der Paarberatung ihnen helfen können, beschreibt dieses Buch. Autistischen Menschen macht es Mut, Beziehungen einzugehen und diese zu pflegen, neurodiversen Paaren gibt es Hoffnung und zeigt ihnen zeitgemäße Lösungswege für ihre Probleme in verschiedenen Beziehungsphasen: von Online-Dating über Abwasch, Familientreffen und Burn-Out-Prävention bis zu den Wechseljahren. Durch Einblicke in die Erfahrung einer autistischen Frau mittleren Alters trägt es zudem zu einem differenzierten Bild von Autismus bei.

Prolog – Meine Reise

1 Einleitung 1.1 Warum und wozu dieses Buch 1.2 Beziehungsphasen: Aufbau dieses Buches 1.3 Aus welcher Perspektive ich schreibe 1.4 Für wen ist dieses Buch geschriehen? 2 Vor der Beziehung 2.1 Was will ich, was brauche ich und was kanm ich geben 2.2 Autgender, sapiosexuell, alt, sucht Wochenendbeziehung 2.3 Absolute Beginners, Autismus und Incels, zufriedene Singles 3 Einen Partnerin finden, einander kennenlernen 3.1 Verknallt, verliebt, verheiratet? 3.2 Wo und wie finde ich einen Partnerin? 3.3 Waran merke ich, dass ersie zu mir passt und wann ist der richtige Zeitpunkt für…? 3.4 Freundschaft + Sex = Beziehung? 3.5 Online-Dating: Paradies für Autistinnen? 4 Die Anfangsphase der Beziehung: der Umgang miteinander, mit eurer Umgebung und mit den eigenen Gefühlen 4.1 Ab wann sind wir „zusammen“? 4.2 Verliebt sein aushalten und Freiräume erhalten 4.3 Liebe zeigen und erkennen 4.4 Sex und Konsens 4.5 Miteinander kommunizieren lernen 4.6 Herkunftsfamilien und Freundeskreise kennenlernen und einbinden 4.7 Partnerin als Dolmetscherin oder Therapeutin? 5 Die Beziehung stabilisieren, Bedürfnisse neu verhandeln 5.1 Wie möchtet ihr eure Beziehung weiterentwickeln? 5.2 Zusammenziehen und wenn ja, wie 5.3 Geld und Gerechtigkeit 5.4 Mut zum Putzplan! Arbeitsteilung im Haushalt 5.5 „Wie war dein Tag, Schatz?” Kommunikation im Alltag 5.6 „Kinder oder keine, entscheiden wie alleine!“ 5.7 Autismusdiagnose während der Beziehung 6 Konflikte in neurodiversen Besiehungen und ein konstruktiver Umgang damit 6.1 „Es fühlt sich an, als müsste ich auf rohen Eiern laufen…“ 6.2 Gegenseitige Empathie und Theory of Mind 6.3 Kommunikation und Streitkultur 6.5 Versprochen ist versprochen? Umgang mit Absprachen 6.6 Als Paar in Gesellschaft 6.7 Stressmanagement oder die Morgen- und Abendroutine 6.8 Krisen und Notfälle erkennen 6.9 Gewalt 6.10 Depressiv durch neurodiverse Beziehungen? 7 Stärken und Freuden neurodiverser Beziehungen 7.1 Wir sind verschieden, und das ist auch gut so! 7.2 Sexualität 7.3 Partner*in als Spezialinteresse 7.4 (Neuro)Diversität als Stärke 7.5 Geschlechterrollen 7.6 Treue als Loyalität 7.7 #AutisticJoy oder ein Freudentänzchen zum Abschluss 8 Und nach 20 Jahren? 9 Sieben zusammengefasste Tipps 10 Glossar Literatur Danksagung Anmerkungen

openlibrary.org/books/OL38575404M

inventaire.io/entity/isbn:9783960421467

ildb.nadir.org/283203.html

bookwyrm.social/book/482372

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As an autistic person who often feels isolated from representation in media and art this is such a refreshing read. Non autistic writing, while still entertaining, is just structured differently. And while I've gotten used to it, the opportunity to hear pure unfiltered autistic literature is so special. It feels like I have a more direct connection to the authors than I generally do from non autistic writers. As if the compatibility layer I always use to read books can just be removed. This is of course very difficult to explain effectively but it's just a feeling I get.

All of these stories are very personal and heartfelt and they go into very intense places sometimes, but the tone almost always resolves to positivity. Also, each story has a content warning at the start which is thoughtful.

Some of the stories focus in particular on British life as it is a British book, but that did not really detract from the content in my mind as the stories are diverse. (It not being US-centric is a bit of a nice change of pace anyway)

The stories were short and it was worthwhile to take a long pause after each one to really absorb it and bask in the feelings and thoughts of each author.

All in all I would recommend this book to everyone, autistic folks as well as non autistic folks who want to understand the autistic mind better.