The only place I post about books now is the trans mega

And it works, better than any c/literature posting that I've seen anyways. like how many people here (including me) have been encouraged to read orange book now? maybe the way to inspire people to Read Literature is to, idk, just talk about books with enthusiasm, who knew. more broadly — I think that a lot of the bemoaning about "no one reads literature anymore" could be solved if we just make books a topic of discussion again; and i think books as a discussion topic works better if there's no Great Western Canon-esque expectations attached.

One of the things that truly surprised me about Nevada is that nobody here has really said that while it's just one book, it sort of sets a tone by being about a relatively-privileged white trans woman? It makes more sense if you know that every book in its wake is the same thing lol.

other people have said it better than me, but the publishing industry is truly a hot mess and I think it's possible that the trans litfic world kind of got a stroke of unexpected luck? or maybe it's a case of a small scene getting an unexpected spotlight (esp in recent years w detransition baby getting huge), kind of like grunge was just a small pnw thing that blew up? my trans lit prof is assigning us books by akwaeke emezi and rivers solomon and camilla sosas villada, which is cool. so the books by trans authors of color are out there, it's just a matter of time before they blow up as they deserve to. (edit: I also think that the trans litfic scene is still pretty niche even though there have been breakout successes from it; and that's within the niche modern literature in general, so it's a niche within a niche)

yay for lesbian murder horror!!

ask me how it went!

so how did it go?

I think the slop/treats discussion is better when applied as an analysis of how people engage with media, rather than the media that they engage with. unfortunately I usually see the latter rather than the former.

I'm guilty of having fallen into the eurocentrist literature trap in the past as a poc myself... I think I'm still working to deprogram myself of it. So I don't like seeing threads on here that reinforce it, especially in the context of all the white people who use this site. like, it displeases me to see a Great Literature thread where a majority of the authors are white and/or men — says something about unexamined bias, I think. if i read more books i'd feel more comfortable giving diverse recs, but unfortunately reading has been hard for me the past few years due to chronic illness/neurodivergence reasons.

btw i will take the lesbian murder horror recs!

I personally associate vonnegut with late middle/early high school, since that's when I was reading him, lol.

idk as someone who also enjoys my share of Literature™ I do feel like this site is way too elitist about it? like, all media has a craft to it; all kinds of media can be close-read and inspire critical thinking and empathy. it's cool to want to read more books but so much of Serious Literature discussion is about putting other books down (said from the perspective of someone who used to engage in it). also i scrolled through that thread and while there were some ppl recommending non-white authors it still struck me as quite eurocentric

was this by any chance inspired by the literature thread from earlier today?