Eggplant.place

1y

#OTD in 1856 playwright George Bernard Shaw was born.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw

George Bernard Shaw books at PG

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/467

#plays #literature #books

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

What Are You Reading?

I’m at the car dealership this morning for some maintenance. What are you reading? For me it is The Fall by Albert Camus. Here’s an early excerpt from the book: “Anyone who has considerably meditated on man, by profession or vocation, is led to feel nostalgia for the primates. They at least don’t have any ulterior motives.”

#WhatAreYouReading #Reading #Books #Literature #Camus #Primates #Anthropology

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

James Hogg & Mikhail Bulgakov

In the latest London Review of Books podcast, Marina Warner & Adam Thirlwell look at how James Hogg’s JUSTIFIED SINNER & Bulgakov’s THE MASTER & MARGARITA represent fanaticism, be it Calvinism or Bolshevism, & consider why both writers used the fantastical to test reality

@litstudies

https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/close-readings-james-hogg-and-mikhail-bulgakov

#Scottish #Russian #Soviet #literature #JamesHogg #MikhailBulgakov #gothic #horror #fanaticism #Calvinism #Bolshevism #fantasy

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

I am pulled to the river by the hook in
my teeth. Swans, herring gulls, flick
of a cormorant, a bridge in lunular arch:
write down each…

—Siobhan Mulligan, “Salmon Run”
published in The Last Good Year: New Writing Scotland 38 (ASL, 2020)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws38/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #naturewriting

Siobhan Mulligan
SALMON RUN

I am pulled to the river by the hook in
my teeth. Swans, herring gulls, flick
of a cormorant, a bridge in lunular arch:
write down each. No vein of iron, no piston
to pump. My grandmother
would have avoided this. Her lungs
would swallow smoke as

salmon swallowed sewage, slag and
oil, steel and cistern smell, home settling
in choking gills. Years combed the water
into river again, but cycles stalled.
Rewilding required.
Now they swarm in shattered
patterns, fins glinting like
slicked stone.

Taste calls them on the currents:
the delicate peat of their hatching stream.
Generations flick past like calendar pages:
salt, smoke, citrus scent, calling me
like a dream.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

205d

Here Stewarts once in triumph reign’d,
And laws for Scotland’s weal ordain’ d;
But now unroof’d their Palace stands,
Their Sceptre’s fall’n to other hands;
Fall’n indeed, and to the Earth
Whence grovelling reptiles take their birth…

—Robert Burns, “Lines etched on a window at Wingate’s Inn, Stirling, 26 August 1787”

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #18thcentury #satire #RobertBurns #graffiti

Lines etched on a window at Wingate’s Inn, Stirling, 26 August 1787
Robert Burns

Here Stewarts once in triumph reign’d,
And laws for Scotland’s weal ordain’d;
But now unroof’d their Palace stands,
Their Sceptre’s fall’n to other hands;
Fall’n indeed, and to the Earth
Whence grovelling reptiles take their birth.
The injur’d STEWART-line are gone,
A Race outlandish fills their throne:
An idiot race, to honour lost—
Who know them best despise them most.

ALT

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

#Literature
#Exploring

So I decided to pull some older works from @gutenberg_org and see what I can learn.

I need to reread some of Shakespeare and maybe take advantage of the library to read some older philosophical works.

Need to read more in general.

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

What Is an Artist According to Sigmund Freud?

According to Freud, artists have a unique quality of sublimating their desires into creative fantasies and sharing them with their audience.

by Anastasiia Kirpalov

https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-artist-according-sigmund-freud/

Books about Freud -- Views on art at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/10788

#Art #Books #Literature

Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1808–27, oil on canvas, 189 x 144 cm, Louvre

Oedipus stands nude, youthful, and muscular, confronting the crouching Sphinx. He is caught mid-answer, confidently gesturing toward her, symbolizing human intellect in defiance of fate and mystery. His poised figure, bathed in sharp light, contrasts with the shadowy, contorted body of the Sphinx—part lion, part woman—whose claws and piercing gaze intensify the psychological tension of the scene.

The background features a rocky cliff and a distant landscape, subtly alluding to the myth’s journey motif. The lifeless body of a previous victim lies at Oedipus’s feet, underscoring the high stakes of this mythical encounter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_and_the_Sphinx_(Ingres)#/media/File:%C5%92dipe_explique_l'%C3%A9nigme_du_sphinx_-_Jean-Auguste_Dominique_Ingres_-_Mus%C3%A9e_du_Louvre_Peintures_RF_218.jpg

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Transmission #28 – From the Head of Sericulture
Transmission from: Briony Ash, Head of Sericulture, Luxembourg Base, Copernicus D Crater, Moon
Earth Received Time: 12 June 2045, 10:13:49 UT

The latest report from Project Abeona, a small group of poets living off-world in a speculative future

(Transmission #28 by Pippa Goldschmidt)

https://projectabeonapoetry.substack.com/p/transmission-28-from-the-head-of

#Scottish #literature #poem #prosepoem #scifi #sciencefiction #speculativefiction

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

I had a holiday from awkwardness. Can you have sex? was solved. Most people have been or known a doubled self like us…

—Nuala Watt, “Pregnant & Squint”
from The Department of Work & Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish (Blue Diode, 2024)

1/2

https://www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page/the-department-of-work-and-pensions-assesses-a-jade-fish-by-nuala-watt

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #disability #pregnant #pregnancy #motherhood

Nuala Watt
Pregnant and Squint

I had a holiday from awkwardness. Can you have sex? was solved. Most people have been or known a doubled self like us. Briefly my conditions were disabled.

Test to term I never had to console a passer-by spooked by my movement. People knew what to say. When are you due? Do you know what you’re having? Yes, a break.

We were disconcertingly well. Nothing Abnormal Detected said midwives’ scribbles. Just before childbirth, everyone’s disabled. For me, same old, same old. I had cohabited with fatigue for years; my balance was dreadful; I already leaked.

Suddenly I had twice the rights on buses. I could be the belly, if I liked, or the girl balanced on a semi-circle. I qualified for both the reserved seats.

I liked the quaint but truthful phrase ‘with child’.

The government forced me to list what I couldn’t do. I had to excise you from my answers. Whilst I described the most disastrous days, the falls, the fits, the faff, the time I collapsed while trying to use a tampon, my oddly capable body made your kidneys.

ALT

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Pan-Asianism Redux, or Why We Think Japan Is Special

Observers have long hailed Japan’s aptitude for cultural synthesis. Is this characterization warranted, or does it reflect a collective fantasy about exceptionalism?

By: Waiyee Loh

https://daily.jstor.org/pan-asianism-redux-or-why-we-think-japan-is-special/

Japanese literature at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=japanese+literature

#Books #Literature #History #Japan

Okakura, Kakuzo, 1862-1913

The book of tea : a Japanese harmony of art culture and the simple life

The cover of The Book of Tea:
Often adorned with traditional Japanese motifs, such as tea leaves.

Covers often use soft, earthy tones mirroring the tranquil spirit of the tea ceremony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_book_of_tea_-_a_Japanese_harmony_of_art_culture_and_the_simple_life_(IA_bookofteajapanes00okakrich).pdf

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Elizabeth Hamilton (1756?–1816) was (probably) born #OTD, 25 July. We republished her 1808 novel THE COTTAGERS OF GLENBURNIE, edited by Pam Perkins: an entertaining & skilful dissection of 18th-century class issues, British imperialism, & war

@litstudies

1/2

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/glenburnie/

#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

#OTD in 1883, Franz Kafka is born

Books by Kafka at PG

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1735

Cover of Der Prozess (German version of The Trial)

#literature #books

Edited 1y ago

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12015.Feersum_Endjinn

1 of thi moust entataynink syfy reeds ov ol, hooj recomindayshn :)

#books #amreading #reading #kindle #literature #booktoot #book #knihy #scifi #sciencefiction @bookstodon @scifi @knihy

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

“Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye’re sleeping.”

—The Laird of Dumbiedikes, on his death-bed, to his son (in THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, by Walter Scott)

28 July is World Conservation Day. Here’s “Dumbiedikes”, by James Robertson – you can listen to him read the poem online here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z2ZrMu__OY

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem #Scots #Scotslanguage #WalterScott #WorldConservationDay #environment

Dumbiedikes
James Robertson

“Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye’re sleeping."
—The Laird of Dumbiedikes, on his death-bed, to his son
(The Heart of Midlothian, by Sir Walter Scott)

Hoo mony trees tae prent a thoosan buiks?
Hoo mony buiks tae pulp a thoosan trees?
Hoo mony trees tae launch a thoosan boats?
Hoo mony boats tae sink a thoosan trees?
Hoo mony trees tae licht a thoosan fires?
Hoo mony fires tae smoor a thoosan trees?
Hoo mony trees tae mak a thoosan kists?
Hoo mony kists tae yird a thoosan trees?
Jock, when I’m awa, dae this for me –
howk oot a hole and in it stick a tree.
I carena gin it’s birk, beech, aik or rowan,
Sae be’t when ye’re sleepin, Jock, it’s growin.
Its canopy will spreid, its seeds will faw;
it micht be hame tae mavis, merle or craw;
speeders will hing their brigs on it, I doot,
and peerie-weerie beasties venture oot
upon the mappa mundi o its bark,
while kail-worms mak a denner o its sark.
Amang its ruits the glunchin taid will rest,
the frettin, fykie yird-moose bigg her nest,
and dentylions and puddock-stools upheeze…
In sair times, Jock, we’re sair in need o trees.
Stick in a tree, stick in a thoosan mair,
and mind o me when I’m nae langer there.
Hoo mony daiths afore the planet dees?
Tae gie the planet braith, hoo mony trees?

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Call for papers:
(Un)natural Stevenson: Wild transgressions across literature, ecology, science & gender
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 11–12 May 2026

This conference aims to explore the concept of nature/natural in Robert Louis Stevenson’s work, & to investigate Stevenson both as a writer of dichotomies/dualisms & of their wild transgressions

@litstudies

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EoselkYayxzSXzW36aDZTbZv_SQt8cCG/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #LiteraryStudies #ecology #science #gender

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Explore an Online Archive of 2,100+ Rare Illustrations from Charles Dickens’ Novels

via @openculture (from the archives)

https://www.openculture.com/2024/12/explore-an-online-archive-of-2100-rare-illustrations-from-charles-dickens-novels.html

Charles Dickens books illustrations are available to download for free here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=charles+dickens+books+Illustrations&title=Special%3AMediaSearch&type=image

Charles Dickens at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/37

#Art #Books #Literature #bookillustration

David Copperfield, The ominous River by Phiz.

The image depicts the River Thames near the London docklands, a recurring symbol of both mystery and menace in Dickens’s novels.

Rendered in delicate line work and shadowed crosshatching, the river dominates the foreground, dark and still, bordered by ragged boats, leaning piers, and warped structures shrouded in fog. The water’s surface reflects the silhouettes of ships and industrial detritus, while in the distance, indistinct human figures suggest clandestine activity or silent tragedy.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:David_Copperfield#/media/File:David_Copperfield,_The_ominous_River.jpg

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

150 years of the bizarre Hans Christian Andersen

His oddball stories were driven by his outsider status and strange appearance.

By Frances Wilson

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2025/07/150-years-of-the-bizarre-hans-christian-andersen

Hans Christian Andersen at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2298

#Books #Literature #literarycriticism

Portrait of Andersen by Franz Hanfstaengl, dated July 1860.

His long, expressive face, prominent nose, and deep-set eyes are rendered with sensitivity. Andersen’s gaze is directed slightly away from the viewer.

He wears a dark jacket with a scarf wrapped around his neck. He is sitting in a high-backed chair, with a pen in his right hand and his left arm resting on the arm of the chair, holding a few sheets of paper. On the left-hand side of the portrait, a long curtain forms part of the scene.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen#/media/File:Hans_Christian_Andersen_2.jpg

ALT

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

For years I wandered hill and moor
Half looking for the road
Winding into fairyland
Where that blacksmith kept a forge

Who’d heat red hot the dragging links
That bound me to the past…

—Kathleen Jamie, “The Tradition”
published in THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-bonniest-companie/9781509801718

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Kathleen Jamie
The Tradition

For years I wandered hill and moor
Half looking for the road
Winding into fairyland
Where that blacksmith kept a forge

Who’d heat red hot the dragging links
That bound me to the past,
Then, with one almighty hammer-blow
Unfetter me at last.

Older now, I know nor fee
Nor anvil breaks those chains
And the wild ways we think we walk
Just bring us here again.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

ALT Book Fringe 2025
4–29 August, Edinburgh

Entirely run & curated by three of Scotland’s leading indie bookshops – Argonaut Books, Lighthouse – Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop, & Typewronger – ALT Book Fringe is a free, alternative August literary festival

https://www.lighthousebookshop.com/events/book-fringe-2025-alt-edition-returns

#Scottish #literature #Edinburgh #books #bookfestival

Save the Date
August 2025
Book Fringe
Argonaut
Lighthouse
Typewronger

A dynamic, inclusive, alternative, community-led book festival

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Robert Burns’s POEMS, CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT was published #OTD, 31 July 1786.

Copies are 3 times rarer than the Shakespeare First Folio: Patrick Scott & Allan Young are tracking the histories of surviving Kilmarnock Editions

1/3

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2017/11/kilmarnock-burns-book-history/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #RobertBurns #Scots #Scotslanguage #18thcentury #BookHistory #RareBooks

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

205d

30 Years of Creative Writing Festival
28 Feb & 1 March, University of Glasgow – free

A 2-day festival of readings, workshops, panel discussions & activities celebrating the discipline of Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, featuring alumni, current students & staff

@writingcommunity

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/30-years-of-creative-writing-festival-tickets-1980884011402

#Scottish #literature #writing #creativewriting #Glasgow

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

205d

How reading books regulates your nervous system

Books don’t just stimulate the mind — they trigger physiological changes throughout the body.

by Anne-Laure Le Cunff

https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/how-reading-books-regulates-your-nervous-system/

#books #literature

Camillo Golgi's image of a dog’s olfactory bulb from his Sulla fina anatomia degli organi centrali del sistema nervoso, 1885.

A detailed anatomical illustration on aged cream paper showing layered neural structures of a dog's olfactory bulb. Large, bold black neurons dominate the middle sections, their sprawling dendrites branching upward like bare winter trees. At the top, shaded gray dome-shaped glomeruli are populated with star-shaped red neurons whose processes weave through flowing parallel fiber bundles. Slender blue threadlike fibers run vertically throughout, contrasting with the heavy black axons. At the bottom, finer and more delicate cells scatter into an increasingly sparse network of thin black lines. The overall composition has a striking visual rhythm, moving from dense complexity at the top to open, airy tracery at the bottom, with letters (a, b, d) annotating specific structures throughout.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Camillo_Golgi#/media/File:Camillo_Golgi's_image_of_a_dog%E2%80%99s_olfactory_bulb_(detail_2).jpg

ALT

3 1 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Was The Importance of Being Earnest the most scandalous opening run of all time? How Oscar Wilde’s greatest play kicked off his tragic fall from grace

By Ben Jureidini

https://www.tatler.com/article/the-importance-of-being-earnest-opening-run-scandal

The Importance of Being Earnest at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844

#Books #Literature #Theatre

Jack (George Alexander) tells Gwendolen (Irene Vanbrugh) the address of his country house, while Algernon (Allan Aynesworth) secretly overhears.

Alfred Ellis - The Sketch, p. 412

Scene in Act I of The Importance of Being Earnest, original production

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest#/media/File:Importance-Act-1-Jack-Gwendolen-Algernon.png

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

208d

“Sid Meier’s CIVILIZATION was one of the most addicting games of my life… I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Iain M. Banks shared the addiction and that his Culture novel EXCESSION was in part inspired by it.”

—Peter Tieryas on how Sid Meier’s CIVILIZATION helped inspire Iain M. Banks’s 1996 Culture novel EXCESSION

@bookstodon

https://reactormag.com/on-iain-m-banks-and-the-video-game-that-inspired-excession-sid-meier-civilization/

#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #videogames #Civ #Civilization #SidMeier

3 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

It’s the cocktail hour. The air is still.
Mister gets busy on the charcoal grill.
Social-kissing women, backslapping men
has failed to break the ice. But then
Missiz appears like magic from the dusk.
Cool, ten years his junior, she smells of musk
and ‘Madame Rochas’. Two small spots of anger
high on her cheekbones linger…

—Liz Lochhead, “Fourth of July Fireworks”

Published in THREE SCOTTISH POETS, @canongatebooks 1992

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #4thofJuly #FourthofJuly