I'm behind in this month's topic challenge. On the plus side, I won my first one, so I don't need to rage-quit the site if I lose.

We should do some kind of nonfiction for our next challenge. My test questions on Shelby Foote seemed to go ok. (One of my reasons for asking them was to see how nonfiction would go on the site).

"Humble Book Bundle: Summer Reading List by BOOM! Studios"

There's some really good stuff in that bundle!

Lumberjanes, Mouseguard, Goldie Vance, a real variety of quality comics.

"How I Learned to Follow My Own Advice and Let It Go," by Tobias Buckell for Apex Magazine.

"Cubist Nightmares in Comics," by James Gurney on Gurney Journey.

"The 50 Coolest Books to Read This Summer: 2018's Best Fiction and Non-Fiction (So Far)," by Mary Kaye Schilling for Newsweek.

"Language Choice, aka art of making making familiar things alien, making beautiful things ugly, making lovely things creepy: a thread," by Jeannette Ng on Twitter, and a personal note addendum by Aliette de Bodard.

Ooooh wow, Schuyler's Black No More got a reprint.

@Ash It's a principle I sort of always knew, because I saw the dissonance between my friends' experiences and the haole descriptions of my friends, but it keeps cropping up in unexpected places and I'm constantly amazed at how many people don't notice it at all.

See also, that tumblr thread a while back about how Native American names are transliterated while Greek and Roman names aren't.

There's good arguments for both techniques, it's mostly the double standard that stands out.

@Ash A while back I saw this article about funeral customs around the world. It's... eye-opening, seen through the lens of language choice.

@Ash And, well. Even just pointing things out can exoticise them.

"dress bodies in their best clothes," like American funeral customs don't do that.

(Also, I'd like to see this author do a write-up of Weekend at Bernie's.)

"Michelle Obama Unveils Cover of Upcoming Memoir," by Sameer Rao for Colorlines.

"The 39 Books We're Talking About This Summer," by Book World Editors for The Washington Post.

"Nnedi Okorafor: Worldbuilding With Food and Mud," by Thomas J. Spargo.

"Here's Our List of 8 Must-See Afrofuturist Films," by Zubaydah Bashir for Okay Africa.

That's very cool.

Nice.