A former UN worker and prominent architect, Johan van Lengen has seen firsthand the desperate need for a “greener” approach to housing in impoverished tropical climates. This comprehensive book clearly explains every aspect of this endeavor, includingdesign (siting, orientation, climate consideration), materials (sisal, cactus, bamboo, earth), and implementation. The author emphasizes throughout the book what is inexpensive and sustainable. Included are sections discussing urban planning, small-scale energy production, cleaning and storing drinking water, and dealing with septic waste, and all information is applied to three distinct tropical regions: humid areas, temporate areas, and desert climates. Hundreds of explanatory drawings by van Lengen allow even novice builders to get started."
Link to where I got the synopsis
Announcements & Information
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
❤️ Come listen to music with your fellow Hexbears in Cy.tube
💖 Come talk in the New weekly queer thread
🧡 Monthly Neurodiverse Megathread
💛 Read about a current topic in the news
⭐️ June Movie Thread ⭐️
Reminders:
💚 You can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments and discussions over upbears
💜 Sorting by new makes your comrades happy
🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can go here
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
spoiler
Aid:
💙 Comprehensive list of resources for those in need of an abortion -- reddit link
💙 Resources for Palestine
Theory:
❤️ Foundations of Leninism
❤️ Anarchism and Other Essays
❤️ Mega upload with theory for many tendencies
Hey, @thethirdgracchi, I don’t know for sure if this is your thing, but I thought you might be interested in this post about the economic problems facing independent publishers right now.
https://dalkeyarchive.substack.com/p/ambition-bigger-than-the-supply-chain
Great article. Have a few books preordered from Dalkey and I now understand why they’ve been delayed lol. I wish beyond anything they’d reprint Arno Schmidt’s Bottom’s Dream (since I’m not paying $1000 for a used copy) but I’m sure that’s decades away at this point.
It also means that, if you’re a sapiosexual millionaire looking for a bookish tax write-off, you should get in touch. We need you to make this work at the level which readers, writers, translators, scholars—the culture as a whole—deserves.
I would love nothing more than to win the lottery and then give it to Dalkey, they’re fucking heroes.
I ordered that the day it was released! For $60, if I recall correctly. It occupies a proud place on my shelf and every time I flip through it it brings me joy. I have very much not read it cover-to-cover, though. In due time . . .
Don’t miss the post about the production of that book: https://dalkeyarchive.substack.com/p/how-does-this-get-read
I would love nothing more than to win the lottery and then give it to Dalkey, they’re fucking heroes.Yes, very much this. The things I’ve heard that are bad about them generally stem from them not having enough money. (And O’Brien having been a tyrant.) One reason their recentish output has been a little stale is because they’ve been dependent on grants from countries’ tourism offices trying to translate books that the governments think are important exports, rather than of special literary interest. (This is something vague I heard from a translator friend, who knows Dalkey translators but hasn’t worked for them himself.)
Very very jealous. Arno Schmidt is a personal favourite of mine, love everything I’ve read by him thus far. Can’t wait to be a curmudgeonly old guy and make my way very slowly through Bottom’s Dream.
any description or comparison you can make? I’ve seen him in libraries but i’ve never looked into him, just know he’s postwar. I’ve read one novel by Bernhard and part of another though i’ve stalled out recently. wikipedia says schmidt plays a lot with colloquial language. colloquial language is a huge weak spot for me in german cause i mainly read academic nonfiction so that could be a good but difficult thing
He’s not at all like Bernhard save for his utter disgust with the post-war German establishment’s collaboration with the/being straight up Nazis. He’s this joyous writer who has bizarre punctuation, incredible wordplay, and writes these almost cozy novels of domestic life (for example, one is about a guy trying to find some super rare coin who slowly grows to love his bed and breakfast hosts, another is about a guy making a nice little fuck nest in a forest during the lead up to the second world war, etc) with language that feels as progressive and mind-blowing as Joyce. I love him to pieces but he’s very difficult to get into unless you just let things flow and allow him to take you somewhere else.
that sounds appealing. mostly i like prose thats elaborate and innovative without being overwrought, and i also really like jokes. i’ll probably find something on libgen or whatever and check it out. thanks for the recommendation
& unfortunately adhd issues are making it difficult to get in the flow of reading at this very moment but i have a appt soon so hopefully helps me read again soon
edit also i realize i didn’t say this, what i liked about bernhard is pretty much just the way he writes, it’s probably been like a year or two since i read Beton and i don’t remember what the book was actually about lol. but yeah joyous is a pretty clear contrast. idk if you’ve ever read anything by krasznahorkai but i saw someone on twitter describe him as “if the world bernhard’s characters thought they lived in was actually real” and i thought that was the funniest shit ive ever seen
I’d heard the Bernhard comparisons before but thought it was just from people who couldn’t get past the lack of paragraph breaks. That comparison is hilariously awesome, even if I only really know it from one side. I’ll have to give Kraznahorkai a shot, especially now that I’ve seen the film of Satantango. I’ve only read one of his novellas so far.
Bernhard is my favorite writer. I took my username from Der Untergeher.
