I don't know what you mean by "valid" but I can say that sort of thing usually makes the whole thing suck. Almost always, in my estimation.

Absolutely. No need to read them in order and this book is one of my all time favorites. Happy reading!

I love Libero.FM and use it way more regularly than I ever used Audible. 10/10

Is there something like this for ebooks? I use Libby for what I can, but wait times are often months long.

You’re getting into what I deemed the best part of the book! Happy reading!

I love shopping at Bookshop.org and recommend it to all my friends as an alternative to Amazon.

I have your book and will read it next. I also have BANANA REPUBLIC, and BANANA MEN on my list to read. Very interesting fruit!

The original story will always be there. I thought the BBC ATWI80D was great, and respected the spirit of the original story (which is mostly to do with Fogg’s fuddy-duddy Englishness and eccentricities thrown into picaresquities around the world and how his sheer stubbornness pushes his group through them) while looking at the world of the time with a more nuanced, modern lens that nonetheless isn’t anachronistic. Lest we forget that Fogg marries an Indian woman in the original book, anyway!

Also I just love David Tennant.

It’s always interesting seeing how adaptations especially of classic stories that have been adapted many times evolve, and how new adaptations choose to stand out. I say if good writers want to spin something in some direction, please do! Sometimes it’ll work and sometimes it won’t. But I believe in principle that we shouldn’t be discouraged from trying.

Thanks for explaining this. I’ve always been confused how the two seem to be used quasi-interchangeably.

I'm intrigued, I'm gonna put this on my to read for 2023.

I have wild* bananas growing in my parents' backyard - I really can't imagine a world without bananas. It's one of the most normal plant I can think of - a house with a banana plant sticking out from behind it is one of those "standard drawings" you produce in grade school. I need to see why it's such a difficult crop to grow, and why/how it might go extinct.

*Well, I guess they aren't literally wild - it's the suburbia after all. But nobody farmed them or anything as far as we know - they just sorta do their own thing. The bananas they produce have crunchy seeds (of skittles size) inside. I promise I'm not taking the piss.

UK has EthicalConsumer dot org

I’ve been using it exclusively for buying books! I love it, especially knowing I’m supporting a local indie shop.

Thanks! Did not know about that.

I have historically always read the entire series before purchasing.

Basically a safeguard against buying a whole series because the first book or books were good, but then being disappointed later if the series runs out of steam.

Oh my goodness, please supplement your reading with this book or look up Rony Swennen who runs the Laboratory of Tropical Crop Improvement in Belgium. Amazing guy and an amazing research group too.

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. The only thing I would add and the reason I stressed dystopian fiction is that some of the behavior and requirements of the empire are culturally specific, arbitrary and intrusive in ways that remind me of the Handmaid's tale, or Mao's cultural revolution. It is an abusive eugenicist government that also fosters economic prosperity.

Or you could stop speaking cryptically like an idiot.

Sibling behavior isn't an indicator of parental quality.

Abusive families often choose one child as a scapegoat to prevent sibling solidarity against the abusers.

I would invite you, if you like, to take moments from the story and turn them into relevant allegory to either your life or society at large.

Like take the Jabberwocky, you could think of it as the ideal hero, someone who takes the magic sword and slays the beast, but based on the nonsense you can figure out that all heroic stories of vanquishing monsters are quite nonsensical as well. Take the glut of superhero movies we have, they are in large part propaganda to get us to root for powerful individuals against a monstrous other. This kind of thinking can be incredibly harmful if we don’t pay attention to the important fact that superheroes are nonsense.

Idk that Carrol intended for that or not but it doesn’t really matter what his intentions are. You can use literature however you like.

Not at all

Road to serfdom vs The general theory of employment, money, and interest. Not sure why the manifesto is being used. Even people of that particular persuasion would argue for Lenin state and revolution instead. Hell even the end of laissez faire: the economic consequence of the peace is better than the manifesto in a vs format.

Yes. Two Cities was one of those assignments I was surprised to enjoy so much. Same for Bronte.

One of my favorite books of all time with some of my favorite characters of all time. I first read this book when I was 14. Since then I've delved into several rereads. I'm nearly 36 now!

Thank you for this! I admit, I used to use Amazon a LOT for books, but now I try to buy everything through Bookshop or directly through my favorite local shop, The Last Bookstore. When I make an Amazon Wishlist for books, I use a plugin for the Chrome web browser that lets me add books from Bookshop or The Last Bookstore to my wishlist instead of the Amazon ones.

It's definitely not for everyone. One of my favorite books of all time and I always come away from a re-read observing something new about it, but yeah, the digressions are insane. There was a cheat sheet wayyyyyyy back in the earlier days of the internet (on geocities, basically) about the "beginner's guide to Les Mis" for people wanting to read the story but not the digressions. It was a really useful and handy reference for skipping anything irrelevant to the main story and cited exact chapters and chunks to bypass without missing out on anything at all. Perhaps something like that is still out there, OR you can just pick up an abridged copy to cut out the fat.

In the UK I recommend hive.co.uk

It's the same idea but a British company (and older the bookshop.org).