Lavanya Gopinath

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”🌺 -James Baldwin

@patrickc Beautiful. Part of the description is similar to Samantha Harvey’s Orbital.

Just discovered Ruskin's The Nature of Gothic. Remarkable essay: #page151" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">gutenberg.org/files/30755/30…. "The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast amount of knowledge, but I have never yet seen any one pictorial enough to enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in physical character which exists between Northern and Southern countries. We know the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which would enable us to feel them in their fullness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world’s surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun: here and there an angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight. And, having once traversed in thought its gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life: the multitudes of swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted leopards, glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color, and swiftness of motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and dusky plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey: and then, submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their being, let us not condemn, but rejoice at the expression by man of his own rest in the statutes of the lands that gave him birth. Let us watch him with reverence as he sets side by side the burning gems, and smoothes with soft sculpture the jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine, and rise into a cloudless sky: but not with less reverence let us stand by him, when, with rough strength and hurried stroke, he smites an uncouth animation out of the rocks which he has torn from among the moss of the moorland, and heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and wayward as the northern sea; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of wolfish life; fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds that shade them."

I had an enjoyable coffee conversation with Srishti Khurana on her Coffee with the Curious podcast. We explored my opinions and my life journey, covering various chapters in a nice, meandering discussion. Do give it a listen when you have some time! open.spotify.com/episode/3SSXgu…

With that Atwoodian pink book jacket, how could I not buy the book?! Even without it I would’ve but hush. Slow burn over weeks is the plan💃🏻

They’ve been around for a long while. Marking time and reminding me of their mark on me. I’d like to think I outgrew them in my early twenties. I wonder if that means they are like small clothes still hanging in the cupboard of myself. #packingmybookshelf

What a joy to finish a book in a day, to rush to get work done so that you can get to the book again! As you can clearly see from all my gushing, I heartily recommend this book. Read it, thank me later!

I came across an insta post of someone recommending this book a couple of days ago. I read “letters”, “old woman” and “mystery“ and decided to read it right away. It is one of those rare things when a book really calls to you and you drop everything else to read it.

Read this book, thank me later! ✨✨✨✨✨

“We attempt to correct via art imbalances in our own emotional economy.” read.amazon.in/kp/kshare?asin…

♥️👌🏻 newyorker.com/magazine/2025/…

@chenthil_nathan Damn. This is heartbreaking

Last meeting with him 2 years ago. Go well Nandhu.

Can't believe. Old blogger friend, fellow metblogger, gone too soon.

Surprisingly, or not, Instapaper is still around. Time to reverse migrate. As well as read from Perplexity, continue to mourn the loss of Google Reader years after it stopped being cool to do so, declare that printed book revival becoming strong gives one hope…

It was a good ride. Go well! Pocket is Saying Goodbye: What You Need to Know support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/futur…

MCP 🔁 It is client server all over again!

Joan Didion’s Notes on Therapy | The New Yorker 🖤🤍💛 newyorker.com/magazine/2025/…

“The endless adjustments are our lives” read.amazon.in/kp/kshare?asin…

Online: We will resume Poongabook online meets in April. Themes: *April* - AI (in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, either written by AI or about AI or AI plays a significant role in the text). April 6th, 5pm starting time.

Since most of our followers have moved on from active engagement on twitter, we are now available on whatsapp as well. Do follow us there if that’s convenient whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vb…