Q: What do you do when a war criminal walks into a library?
A: Throw the book at them.

I trust you will join me in a collective AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA at the continued malfeasance (or as a friend suggested "skulduggery")(which is objectively a cooler word even if it seems like sometimes these bastards can't even be bothered to put more than token effort towards hiding their obvious misdeeds) of our government, and also trust that we're all already inundated with news of that on the Internets so until we get down to this week's column I'm going to talk about books.

BOOK NOOK

Having learned my lesson (whereas previously I lessed my learnin') about not recommending books before I actually finish them to make sure the ending isn't a disappointment, allow me to share two books that I have recently enjoyed and also finished.

First is "Death of the Author" by Nnedi Okorafor. A sci-fi novel of African futurism (as much of her work is), this is simultaneously a story of a sci-fi author interspersed with chapters of the book she's writing about robots. Unlike some books in recent memory, this one really manages to stick the landing in a way that is both surprising and satisfying, for which I give her a lot of credit. (not just me; she keeps winning awards for it.)

And secondly - and frankly, even more enthusiastically - a graphic novel that a friend recommended (who had previously recommended another graphic novel I loved, so I had high hopes) called "The Snagglepuss Chronicles". This one was so good that as soon as I finished it I went right back and read it again, which is something that I do roughly never. It is about the Red Scare, and Stonewall, and the nature of art, and truth, and what's worth fighting for, and most importantly it is a tremendously enjoyable read that is simultaneously genuinely funny and heartwrenching.

SETH OF THE AUTHOR

Meanwhilst, this month is crunch time for me to finish revising the upcoming second edition of Rhode Island Curiosities. I suspect they won't be putting a "New and Deproved!" sticker on it (although I'm just saying, if you did make these stickers, there's no shortage of things to stick them on)(starting with Windows 11), even though I am removing a couple dozen really cool listings from 2005 for no reason other than the fact that they no longer exist. But I suppose I will be adding some new cool listings to make up for it. ("Seth is unparalleled when it comes to encouraging people to buy his books" "Good thing for all those other authors.")

I haven't written any new books in a half-decade (and revising this one hardly counts) because I find books so overwhelming to write. Not from workload -- a couple decades of freelance writing means I have zero doubt I'll have everything in ahead of deadline -- but because my standards for quality in a book are unreasonably high. With these emails, I'm not too worried if they're stupid (I work hard to ensure they are), because I know you're going to quickly read them and then throw them away (or in many cases, skip right to throwing them away, which I have to admit is even more efficient) and they're inevitably something disposable.

WRITING FOR POSTER(IOR)ITY

Conversely, when it comes to a book which is going to stick around forever (or at least until I'm dead, which is my forever)(wait, does that mean that song "Forever Young" is just about dying young?)(damn, Google suggests this is true)(Next you'll tell me that "Born in the USA" isn't even rah-rah patriotic.) with my name on it, I'm forever unsatisfied with the quality. As I mentioned, the last time I put out a book was half a decade ago, and even though I remain proud of it (as the most me book I've ever released), it also didn't even take a full month before I was looking back and saying, "Damn, I wonder if I shouldn't have included this poem."

Thankfully, it was too late because the book was already released. Much more trying was my magnum opus (or "big penguin") From God To Verse, which took me so long to write that by the time I had gotten to the end, I was already unsatisfied with the beginning. I went back and rewrote Genesis and probably could have spent the rest of my life just rewriting the book from start to finish forever, but I narrowly dodged that Sethyphean fate by being bo(u)lder and releasing the book a mere 10 years after I had started it.

RIGHT ON TIME

Still, all in all I'm probably happiest writing shorter things weekly (or fortnightly), and this week we're discussing a particular obsession of the regime. I've written before about the War On Different, but just yesterday Trump took time out of his busy schedule of not having a plan for the aftermath (or even duringmath)(no surprise the guy claiming he'll lower drug prices by 600% isn't good at anythingmath) of his illegal foreign wars, to specifically post about trans people.

As usual, raising the issue was immediately followed by talking about children, because the claim is always that it's important to constantly shit on trans people and control other people's lives who aren't harming anyone in order to "protect the children", which is why this week's column is imaginatively titled

• We Must Protect The Children
  

We must protect the children! That's our country's favorite song,
A simple moral principle to help tell right from wrong.
We must protect the children! That's the politician's creed,
A guiding light to show what's right, and what laws we may need.

In recent months, young children have been tear gassed nationwide,
Minnesota, Portland, Chicago, all mercy is denied.
As chemical weapons have been deployed at will by ICE --
Fired into cars, used near pre-schools -- the children pay the price.
Now five-year-olds have been detained, to aid this awful mission.
Their letters show that they've been held in terrible conditions,
And then authorities stepped in to confiscate their crayons.
We must now act, for children's sake! ... I guess be anti-trans?

We must protect the children! Not from tear gas, ICE, or prisons,
But from those other kids who choose to live as they envision.
Forget the concentration camps, we can't address that yet;
Transgender swimmers who earn fifth place, they're the real threat.

...

All around the globe we're killing children every day.
The bombs that drop on Gaza oft come from the USA.
With tens of thousands of kids killed or injured as they drop,
Their lives and homes destroyed from carnage no one cares to stop.
And just last weekend we found one more country to assault,
No war approved by Congress, yet no will to make it halt.
But doubtlessly the 80 children just killed in Iran
Prize Kansas's new drivers license edicts anti-trans.

We must protect the children! That's the reason that we give
For targeting transgender folks who simply want to live.
We cannot let them peacefully just go about their day;
It's vital, for the children, that we take their rights away.

(80 was the official death toll over the weekend when I submitted my column; it's well over 100 now.)

(Okay fine, one more collective AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I hate it here.)

OH NO I'M THE DOOMSCROLL

So I think we can all agree the world is terrible but books are good. Consequently I encourage you all to read books, and meanwhile thanks for making the world slightly less terrible in whatever ways you do that including just being decent human beings. As always, I also thank you for reading, will be back in two weeks with another column, and who knows, perhaps by next newsletter it won't even be winter anymore and we can enjoy a brief moment of happiness.

But just in case, get some books from your local library.

Q: What's the difference between a book and Chuck Schumer?
A: A book has a spine.

I want my paperback paperback paperback paperback paperback paperbaaack
I want my paperback pape--

Silly Paperback Kid,
Seth