"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Qin Shi Huang and his love for Mercury

Qin Shi Huang was the guy who basically invented the concept of “Emperor” in China, around 250 b.C., and I’m sure you’re familiar with his grand Terracotta Army. A thing you might be less familiar with? His love for mercury.

In order to boost some of his shapeshifting abilities and when the shit hits the fan, my main character sometimes drinks a mixture he calls amalgama, which is basically any mineral alloy with mercury in it, and it’s basically the only practical way to have liquid metal at hand without going full-on Smaug. While he does that, he warns the readers that the stuff will get them killed and briefly mentions Qin Shi Huang, but why?

We take a look at that today on my Patreon.

Hills Like White Elephants

I don’t think Ernest Hemingway needs any introduction, but his Death in the Afternoon maybe does: it’s a 1932 non-fiction book about Spanish bullfighting, and it’s part cultural study, part travel writing, and part reflection on courage, fear, death, and art. It’s not for the

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August 18, 2026 6:00 am
Summertime

Mapping the Furrow

Seamus Heaney was a major Irish poet, born in 1939 in County Derry, Northern Ireland, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He’s especially known for writing about rural life, memory, language, and Irish history. Death of a Naturalist is both the

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August 17, 2026 6:00 am
books and literature

Keanu Reeves & China Miéville: The Book of Elsewhere

It would be a vast understatement to say that this book was a surprise. Not being familiar with the comics (so unfamiliar, in fact, that I didn’t even know they existed), the first impact with the main storyline was “ok, what the hell am I

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August 16, 2026 9:00 am
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Hills Like White Elephants

August 18, 2026

I don’t think Ernest Hemingway needs any introduction, but his Death in the Afternoon maybe does: it’s a 1932 non-fiction book about Spanish bullfighting, and it’s part cultural study, part travel writing, and part reflection on courage, fear, death, and art. It’s not for the

Read More

Mapping the Furrow

August 17, 2026

Seamus Heaney was a major Irish poet, born in 1939 in County Derry, Northern Ireland, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He’s especially known for writing about rural life, memory, language, and Irish history. Death of a Naturalist is both the

Read More