“Forgive Me If I Don’t Talk Much At Times. It’s Loud Enough In My Head.”

smoking cigarette & sipping mango, watching the world spin: fighting the urges, my mind is a maze, a cage of contradiction, lost in addiction, losing to my misery, life presents me blessing, good things, in which candid moments of bliss, lie awake & alive, alive as essence, greenery is all I need, nature's naked gifts of life, breathe breath into me, ouroboric wandering idol, cosmic ghost; inward & outward, great thing of wondrous depth, not in death.

Some small things in this world that I like and am very grateful for #1

Ice

Slipper socks

Sun umbrellas

Passing Thoughts

I’m sat here at the kitchen countertop

my laptop on a chopping board

watching my mother's jam pot

simmer away the plums and sugar - 

I’m here to stop it boiling over.

It has already done it once 

the sticky pink liquid has become

stained glass on the hob cooker

it hasn’t reduced much

so I might be here just a little while longer

there is no force of nature that says “come here” like the ocean

Things I look for in history books:

🟩 Green flags - probably solid 🟩

Has the book been published recently? Old books can still be useful, but it's good to have more current scholarship when you can.

The author is either a historian (usually a professor somewhere), or in a closely related field. Or if not, they clearly state that they are not a historian, and encourage you to check out more scholarly sources as well.

The author cites their sources often. Not just in the bibliography, I mean footnotes/endnotes at least a few times per page, so you can tell where specific ideas came from. (Introductions and conclusions don't need so many citations.)

They include both ancient and recent sources.

They talk about archaeology, coins and other physical items, not just book sources.

They talk about the gaps in our knowledge, and where historians disagree.

They talk about how historians' views have evolved over time. Including biases like sexism, Eurocentrism, biased source materials, and how each generation's current events influenced their views of history.

The author clearly distinguishes between what's in the historical record, versus what the author thinks or speculates. You should be able to tell what's evidence, and what's just their opinion.

(I personally like authors who are opinionated, and self-aware enough to acknowledge when they're being biased, more than those who try to be perfectly objective. The book is usually more fun that way. But that's just my personal taste.)

Extra special green flag if the author talks about scholars who disagree with their perspective and shows the reader where they can read those other viewpoints.

There's a "further reading" section where they recommend books and articles to learn more.

🟨 Yellow flags - be cautious, and check the book against more reliable ones 🟨

No citations or references, or references only listed at the end of a chapter or book.

The author is not a historian, classicist or in a related field, and does not make this clear in the text.

When you look up the book, you don't find any other historians recommending or citing it, and it's not because the book is very new.

Ancient sources like Suetonius are taken at face value, without considering those sources' bias or historical context.

You spot errors the author or editor really should've caught.

🟥 Red flags - beware of propaganda or bullshit 🟥

The author has a politically charged career (e.g. controversial radio host, politician or activist) and historical figures in the book seem to fit the same political paradigm the author uses for current events.

Most historians think the book is crap.

Historical figures portrayed as entirely heroic or villainous.

Historical peoples are portrayed as generally stupid, dirty, or uncaring.

The author romanticizes history or argues there has been a "cultural decline" since then. Author may seem weirdly angry or bitter about modern culture considering that this is supposed to be a history book.

The author treats "moral decline" or "degeneracy" as actual cultural forces that shape history. These and the previous point are often reactionary dogwhistles.

The author attributes complex problems to a single bad group of people. This, too, is often a cover for conspiracy theories, xenophobia, antisemitism, or other reactionary thinking. It can happen with both left-wing and right-wing authors. Real history is the product of many interacting forces, even random chance.

The author attempts to justify awful things like genocide, imperialism, slavery, or rape. Explaining why they happened is fine, but trying to present them as good or "not that bad" is a problem.

Stereotypes for an entire nation or culture's personality and values. While some generalizations may be unavoidable when you have limited space to explain something, groups of people should not be treated as monoliths.

The author seems to project modern politics onto much earlier eras. Sometimes, mentioning a few similarities can help illustrate a point, but the author should also point out the limits of those parallels. Assigning historical figures to modern political ideologies is usually misleading, and at worst, it can be outright propaganda.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. "Big theory" books like Guns, Germs and Steel often resort to cherry-picking and making errors because it's incredibly hard for one author to understand all the relevant evidence. Others, like 1421, may attempt to overturn the historical consensus but end up misusing some very sparse or ambiguous data. Look up historians' reviews to see if there's anything in books like this, or if they've been discredited.

There are severe factual errors like Roman emperors being placed out of order, Cleopatra building the pyramids, or an army winning a battle it actually lost.

When in doubt, my favorite trick is to try to read two books on the same subject, by two authors with different views. By comparing where they agree and disagree, you can more easily overcome their biases, and get a fuller picture.

(Disclaimer - I'm not a historian or literary analyst; these are just my personal rules of thumb. But I figured they might be handy for others trying to evaluate books. Feel free to add points you think I missed or got wrong.)

Melissa Febos, Abandon Me

let me stay,

dancing like fae among flowers

lost to the breeze

and summer sun-showers

I seek a truth only a breadth away from mine

Any quotes about night and stars, please? ✨

"The night is shaped like a howling wolf."

— Alejandra Pizarnik, Extracting the Stone of Madness; from ‘Paths of the Mirror’, tr. Yvette Siegert

"Then, it being night, and the twin stars of Castor and Pollux just visible in the sky, I spoke of that tragedy, of two brothers whose love we might find unnatural, so stricken in grief when one was killed that the other, begging for his life again, accepted instead that for half the year one might live, and for the rest of the year the other, but never the two together. So it is for us, who while on earth in these suits of lead sense the presence of one we love, not far away but too far to touch."

— Jeanette Winterson, from 'Sexing the Cherry'

"The night is cold and delicate and full of angels"

— John Ashbery, Rivers and Mountains; from ‘The Ecclesiast’

"Oh starry starry night! This is how / I want to die."

— Anne Sexton, All My Pretty Ones; from ‘The Starry Night’

"Life is too short to be all daylight. Night is not less; it’s more."

—Jeanette Winterson, from 'Why I adore the night'

"…a strange night-time otherworld of darkness and starlight and the fine line between life and death."

— Katherine Clements, from 'The Coffin Path'

"But the Orphics say that black-winged Night, a goddess of whom even Zeus stands in awe, was courted by the Wind and laid a silver egg in the womb of Darkness; and that Eros, whom some call Phanes, was hatched from this egg and set the Universe in motion."

—Robert Graves, from 'The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition'

"That doesn’t stop me having a tremendous need for, shall I say the word — for religion — so I go outside at night to paint the stars [...]"

— Vincent van Gogh

"Night. Such a beautiful word."

— Janet Fitch, from 'Chimes of a Lost Cathedral'

"Why shun darkness? / The night abounds with diamond drops."

— Forugh Farrokhzad, Asir (Captive); from 'On Loving', tr. Sholeh Wolpé

"Dear, though the night is gone, / Its dream still haunts to-day,"

— W. H. Auden, Selected Poems; from ‘Dear, though the night is gone’

"There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, "Consume me."

"I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams."

— Virginia Woolf, from 'The Waves'

"By day I am nothing, by night I am myself."

Fernando Pessoa, from 'The Book of Disquiet', tr. Margaret Jull Costa

"...the frozen glitter of stars, shattered glass on black silk..."

— Maggie O' Farrell, from 'Hamnet'

"I sometimes fancy that my body is made up of all the different stars. Leo’s in my chest; I’m sure it’s Leo because my heart roars."

— Jeanette Winterson, from 'Boating for Beginners'

"Night, the night again, the magisterial wisdom of the dark."

— Alejandra Pizarnik, A Musical Hell; from ‘Desire for the Word’, tr. Yvette Siegert

"If only at the midnight hour / You’d send me a greeting across the stars."

— Anna Akhmatova, Seventh Book; from Sweetbrier In Blossom; ‘In a Dream’, tr. Judith Hemschemeyer

"Under the shield of night, / let me unburden the moon."

— Forugh Farrokhzad, Reborn; from ‘Border Walls’, tr. Sholeh Wolpé

"The night snows stars and the earth creaks."

— Ted Hughes, Wodwo; from ‘The Howling of Wolves’

For one gradually passing moment

the swirling mist clears a path

leaving cool crystals grasping

onto each strand of grass