I wanted to deliver this rant

[minoanmiss]

Time and again in my childhood when given various ... unsutiable ... gifts.

Unlike this guy I wasn't pretty enough to do so, so I just said 'thank you' and gave the books to my local library.

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Comments

[bikergeek]

I am ever more flattered that you think I am good at gift-giving.

[minoanmiss]

You really are very perceptive and thoughtful. I ddon't have to think it, I know it.

[gwydion]

I liked a lot of types of books as a kid. Fantasy, history (non-fiction), and SF were my favorite, but I was pretty voracious and reading at an adult level from about 2nd grade on.

So adults were always buying me books. Some of them were my taste. Many of them weren't. I would smile and thank them, and at least give them a try. Series written by an author super popular with 2nd-3rd grade normie readers given me in 5th grade, by which point I was reading Shakespeare and the Sillmarillian? I dragged myself through so I'd have something relevant to say to the adult who'd shelled out for four of them. Duplicate of something I'd read years ago? Smile, thank you, straight to the library or a garage sale or the like depending on season.

I was polite. I knew they were doing their best and at the rate I read books, I was impossible to keep up with.

The most memorable though: My not Uncle Charlie (Dad's BFF since they were little kids) got me a big thick book made up of three novels by the same author. One of them I know was "The Thin Blue Line." (Not the more modern non fiction ones that make googling very hard in this area). Like they were all corrupt cops, sex workers, drugs, etc.. Very gritty.

I was eleven. O.o Me, internally: I am waaay too young for this. Also, very much not my taste. WTF, Uncle Charlie? You've literally known me since birth!

Several years later, Uncle Charlie carefully broached the subject of maybe having picked the wrong books to give as a gift. He was really embarrassed. I suspect he'd no idea when he bought the thing and had plucked it from a popular reads section at a chain book store and only found out what they were about later on. I was gracious about it the gift. I also reassured him I'd set them aside for when I was older. Which was true. Sold it off much later before a move having never read more than the first couple pages.

I felt like that guy inside, but I feel like being rude isn't really kind or helpful.

The rant is still inside my head every time.

[minoanmiss]

reads this with delight

I am being silly here. I would NEVER respond rudely to a gift. I just have been given some books... ahahaha at 11 I would have loved that dark and gritty book. I was very disappointed that Oliver Twist didn't have enough underworld in it. The books I'm thinking of are more like... Christian historical fiction. You can imagine just from that three word description.

Also I admit that 1/3 the reason I reblogged this guy is because he's very pretty.

[gwydion]

Oh, I loved gritty and dark, but dirty cops definitely wasn't my thing. :) Still isn't.

I too was terribly disappointed in Olier Twist for exactly that reason at about that age.

*shudders at Christian historical fiction* Luckily I was reading Mary Renault and the like when it came to historical fiction. A surprising amount of queer new wave science fiction, honestly, from second grade on. I'd ask about various books my dad was reading, make a note of which ones he said weren't for kids. Wait patiently for 3-6 months, then snake the off they shelf to read in secret.

Took him years to catch on, as I'd fluff the shelves and they had a million books and were always squeezing things to make more room.

That guy is extremely pretty and funny and he knows his history. My friend who introduced me to his vids says he wishes he could put us in a room together at a party and listen to us talk history. I used to be well known for doing entertaining versions of historical stories in answer to questions complete with voices and acted out bits. I think that's why my friend thought of me when he saw him.

[minoanmiss]

Athena bless Mary Renault! I always credit her and Misty Lackey for curing me thoroughly of the homophobia my parents and church tried to infest me with. You totally understand why after reading Renault I looked upon modern knockoffs of _Androcles and the Lion_ with ... disdain. But I never let it show because I am a kind person and both my parents had strong tireless arms. *laughs only a little bitterly*

ETA I forgot to mention the dirty cops. I was born and raised in the Bronx, a place which will give one the impression all cops are dirty, so I've been cynical about police since very early. In fiction, dirty cops get caught and punished, which I have always found entertaining.

I would LOVE to see you talk about history. And I should probably send this guy an appreciative comment that doesn't start with OMG YOU ARE SO FUCKING PRETTY

[gwydion]

I'm from Philly. I grew up knowing cops were just another gang, a form of violent organized crime.

I don't know if the main characters ever paid for their crimes. I didn't get that far.

I used to write about history a lot, but then we started invading countries under W. and I got more and more distracted by politics.

I still did a lot of history stuff through the end of Obama, but now I barely have time to looke at the archaeology press. Sigh. It's been a rough twelve years.

I was an ancient history through medieval sort of person academically, but I've studied a lot of other times and places on my own.

I miss it. I really do.

[minoanmiss]

PHILLAY fistbump

I love the Bronze Age and Clasical world. Most of the AD history I know involves colonization and the slave trade, in self defense pretty much.

It has been quite the twelve years. sigh

[gwydion]

*hugs and sends a warm cup of tea*

[full_metal_ox]

One of the most infuriating book gifts I received was when I was well into middle age: after the death of our mother, a co-worker—-whom I’ve never even met to this day—-of my brother’s decided that I needed a sanctimonious pastel self-help book on bereavement, the kind that takes you by the hand through the Five Stages™ (and you have to go through all of them, in order, or you’re not doing it right) and assures you that it’s okay to feel sad, or angry, or scared (thanks for your Official Permission Slip, but what if I’m feeling something that isn’t on the Authorized Emotions Menu? Huh?) I don’t even remember the author or title.

Wanna know what did help? Charlotte’s Web—-yes, I reread it at 53, and what do you propose to do about it?—-and then Steven Universe.

[minoanmiss]

I feel sorry for the trees who died to make the paper and ink that went into that execrable book.

_Charlotte's Web_ is a marvelous book and I will keep that in mind. And _Steven Universe_ is a marvelous show.

[full_metal_ox]

Charlotte’s Web had become acutely personal by that point: you had a fat pink creature (1) with an adoptive mother figure who, although she bore him only the genetic relationship common to all life, supported, mentored, and championed him even as she herself lay dying. And after her death, Charlotte left biological children who stayed around to keep Wilbur company.

Comes to that, Fern shares the maternal role as well; she loved him, cared for his physical needs, and pleaded for his life.

(1) Who would produce no offspring of his own; a kid’s book wouldn’t explicitly raise the subject, but Wilbur was being raised for pork.