For the record

[cosmolinguist]

I've been trying, in my exhaustion, to pick relatively "fluffy" things from my library TBR list.

I've been surprisingly bad at this! I like non-fiction partly because it allows me more measured emotional interactions with my reading, but I've been surprised by the evocative depths of both The History of Magic From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden and The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight.

(The latter of which shouldn't have been quite so surprising, because I knew the story of people's ominous premonitions around the Aberfan disaster (many people died, mostly young children), so of course the book opens with a detailed recounting of the horrible event. But the book was also surprisingly tender towards its main character.)

Comments

Not that you asked

[jesse_the_k]

...but I've been embracing the joys of nonfiction that isn't about now in the last couple years. I was delighted by Marcia Bjornerud's Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks.

It's two books: a memoir of her scientific-personal-spiritual life as one of the first women in geology interspersed with a scientific intro to how rocks/minerals create earth and vice versa. Modern geology as a discipline is barely 50 years old, and its remit is 4 billion years of change.

She's taught intro to geology many times, in Wisconsin's Baraboo Hills, so she held my hand long enough for me to understand how earthquakes and volcanoes happen. (Can't remember now, but it was fun while it lasted!)

Re: Not that you asked

[cosmolinguist]

I only didn't ask because I already have a big list of books to go through and add to my library hold list etc. already. :) But I'm absolutely always open for more and this one sounds perfect for me. Thank you!

[meepettemu]

I enjoyed the premonitions bureau :)