Eggplant.place

6d

What book(s) are you currently reading or listening to? February 24

202d

I could write that, but it would be called:
"Suck it, I do what I want! And other stories about the time I f*cked around and found out." 😜😂
An instant peguin classic!

@bookstodon @fantasybookstodon @bookbubble @humour @reading
#Penguin #Classic
#Book #Books #BookMemes #Memes #Humor #Humour
#Novel #Novels #Bookshelf
#Mastobooks #BooksofMastodon #Bookstodon #Bookworm #Bookwyrm #Bookstodon #BookLove #BoostingIsSharing

Picture of a satirical penguin classic:
PENGUIN BOOKS
Suck It: A Defense of my Life Choices
J. M. Howard
COMPLETE UNABRIDGED

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

202d

#OTD in 1880 Radclyffe Hall was born. She was the author of the pioneering lesbian novel "The Well of Loneliness" and was also a poet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hall

Books by Hall at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Radclyffe+Hall

#books #literature #lgbtq

Painting of Radclyffe Hall by Charles Buchel

ALT

Edited 202d ago

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. One of the favorite books from my childhood Takahe has limited support for this type: See Original Page

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

202d

To celebrate Jane Austen's 250th, Austen Connection is hosting an Austen read-along during 2025. They are currently in the midst of “Mansfield Park!” For the full schedule, go to https://austenconnection.substack.com/p/the-great-jane-austen-read-along.

#AmReading #AmWriting @bookstodon #books #Bookstodon #WritingCommunity #ReadingCommunity #Regency #Georgian #JaneAusten @romancelandia

Image of a stack of books. At the top it says "Happy 250th." Below it says, "The Great Austen Read-Along." Each book in the stack has a title of an Austen book with the final book has a link to the website.

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TheThirdWish

Spies, aliens, trolls, wizards and a disowned prince use a time machine, to improve their place in history, but Levi Jacobs stands in their way, despite having just lost his parents in war. Will he stop them or will the time travelers kill his father at a pivotal moment, on which the fate of the galaxy hangs?

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books

(Left) The cover of The Third Wish, by Owen Tyme, illustrated by Ryan Johnson.

A wizard in a black robe that glitters with hints of gold stands on a mountain and looks down at a city of sky scrapers covered in greenery. In his shadow lurks a creature with glowing red eyes.

In the background, the sun is setting and stars are becoming visible.

(Right Background) Four images separated by black lines, with the silhouette of a woman wielding two swords laid over them. She's outlined in black and her interior is yellow clock-based imagery that spirals outward from the center.

The upper left quarter is a queen in a red, furred robe, wearing a gold and diamond crown. She has dark eyebrows and blond hair.

Upper right is a planet seen from orbit.

Lower left is a symbolic wire frame representation of the view inside a wormhole, in green and yellow.

Lower right is dandelions among grass.

The angle of the planet, one of the woman's swords, the yellow highlights of the wormhole and some of the dandelions form a line that draws the eye along a sweeping curve.

(Right Foreground) The following quote:

He admired the flawless beauty of the insane swordswoman’s fluid movements as Ida took desperate step after step, backwards!

He felt waves of mental energy pour off the panic-stricken troll, but the energy bounced right off of Nicole’s mind, as though she’d shut herself inside a solid, red-hot, steel box of rage!

(Bottom) https://books2read.com/TheThirdWish

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

I found my ideal reading app - Anx Reader [Review]

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/43549159

A feature-complete and elegant app

Until now, every reading app I’ve found has been a compromise. There are closed source apps like Moon+ Reader with plenty of features and beautiful design. Some people don’t mind the one-time purchase. There are beautiful apps like Book’s Story with a clean, modern design and simple library management, but with little beyond the core features. There are apps like KOReader designed for e-readers with little design consideration for tablets or phones, and a somewhat cluttered design. Each of these apps are beloved by their users for different reasons.

Then there’s Anx Reader. It’s FOSS. It’s beautiful on a phone or ereader. It’s chock full of thoughtful features and customizations.

Design

It opens to a perfectly pleasing and intuitive library screen. You can import books easily, supporting most common formats including PDF. The library features smart categories of finished, reading, and not started. You can sort titles by recently read, progress, alphebetical, and more. You can also add personalized tags to keep your library organized. Group titles together by pressing and dragging into a collection.

Each book has a detail screen that shows a basic overview including tags and statistics. You can also view your overall reading statistics in a nice layout that shows things like your reading time, daily streak, etc. These are shown on cards that can be rearranged or removed as you wish.

Reading

The full screen reader can be customized in all sorts of ways according to your preference. I like to read books in a continuous scroll. That’s an option in addition to a couple page turning modes. It comes with fairly limited fonts, but they are easy to download and add if you have a preference.

Adjust the line spacing, letter spacing, paragraph spacing. Adjust the Intents and all margins. Of course you can adjust the font size, but also the weight. Choose the color scheme and image background (with a couple sensible options built in). Even use custom CSS if you have particular preferences.

You can read in uninterrupted full screen, or add tasteful headers and footers with your progress or chapter title, etc. Choose exactly how you want page turning to work, with screen areas.

Reading is seamlessly smooth as expected. Oh, and the whole app has an e-reader mode.

Library management

Anx uses a syncronizing method I haven’t seen before. No OPDS, KOReader, or the like, but you can sync over WebDAV between devices. Has anyone else ever come across this? Is it a feature shared by other apps or devices? I don’t know. Maybe more options will be developed in the future.

It works perfectly between devices running Anx in any case.

You can save, search, and share notes and highlights (in colors or underline).

Other things

Anx Reader has a number of helpful intelligent features. It is very AI forward, which is not a selling point for me at all. Shortcuts to AI options can be switched off in some places, but not everywhere. In any case, if you want you can connect it to an LLM of your choice to summarize previous passages or chat interactively about the book. If you choose not to connect one, it doesn’t do anything without your permission.

Some of the features that come built in are useful and may interest users who want a smarter reader. It can read aloud (using your on-device reader), or automatically translate. I haven’t tested these features as I don’t have any interest, but I can appreciate their usefulness to others.

I’ve noticed that while menus and reading are incredibly snappy, opening a book sometimes takes a few seconds, especially if you haven’t opened it in a while. It’s enough to be noticed but not quite enough to bother, especially since everything else works so seamlessly.

Conclusions

Anx Reader has a fantastic design that is a joy to use. It has piles of features, no matter what kind of reader you are. The interface gets out of your way and lets you just read and enjoy. Everything is intuitive and designed with care and intention. For me, it’s the one.

Anx Reader is available on Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, and Harmony OS.

Website

F-Droid

GitHub

Takahe has limited support for this type: See Original Page

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

202d

What book(s) are you currently reading or listening to? August 12

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

📚 Cross and Sampson by: James Patterson, Brian Sitts

Metro PD detective John Sampson stands in a crater in the middle of a DC street, calling in the bomb squad. Dispatch, this is Sampson. Contact the FBI and the ATF. We've got a suspected terrorist attack here.

In Chapel Hill, NC...

Alex Cross searches the ap...

https://bookblabla.com/book/cross-and-sampson

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #thrillers #crimefiction #psychologicalfiction #suspense

Metro PD detective John Sampson stands in a crater in the middle of a DC street, calling in the bomb squad. Dispatch, this is Sampson. Contact the FBI and the ATF. We've got a suspected terrorist attack here.

In Chapel Hill, NC...

Alex Cross searches the apartment of a missing psychology grad student his own son Damon. Has following in his famous father’s footsteps made Damon a target?

From FBI headquarters, in police stations, on airplanes, and at murder scenes, the detectives track crimes committed hundreds of miles apart. It will take more than distance to weaken the partnership of Sampson & Cross.

Instant New York Times Bestseller!

In latest thriller from the world's most popular storyteller, detective partners Alex Cross and John Sampson are called to separate locations to investigate a pair of serious crimes.

Stream Season 2 of the #1-rated Cross in February 2026!

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

#OTD in In 1830, Victor Hugo‘s play Hernani premieres in Paris, eliciting protests from the audience for its attack on Classicism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernani_(drama)

"Hernani" (in French) at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9976

#books #literature #drama

Caricature by J. J. Grandville of the audience fighting at the premiere of Hernani. The audience is yelling at the stage. In the foreground two men are attacking a third man.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

I really like the Readest app for syncing DRM-free ebooks between my phone, tablet, and computer (and if I ever manage to save up for a Boox ereader, I’ll use it there too). It’s super customizable and syncs up to 500 MB of data for free, which is a LOT of ebooks (as long as they aren’t image-heavy). Open-source and has versions for Mac, Linux, Windows, iOS, Android, and web. #Reading #Books @bookstodon

https://readest.com/

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

Another older review, and I have to say I agree, what's better than "some good old cynicism and humour." 😁

Free eBook in comments.

@reading @books @fantasy @bookstodon @worldbuilding @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

#WIPWednesday #AmWriting #IndieAuthor #eBook #eBooks
#SpecualtiveFiction #FantasyBooks #Fantasy #WorldBuilding #SciFi #Satire #Cynicism #Humor #Humour #Comedy
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Bookstodon #Bookwyrm #FantasyBooks
#Review #Bookreview #Recommendation

The Last Philosopher, an epic fantasy has mastered all of the essentials of the genre. The worldbuilding is incredible. And might I say I was very excited to see maps included in the chapters. Our world is important as it shapes not only the plot but the characters as well. I get the sense that in this first installment we are getting the tip of the massive iceberg behind the world of Huom.

Something that you did incredibly well with was your characterization. Your characterization in this story was absolutely incredible. You showed us stellar characterization through actions and the inner thoughts of the characters themselves.

Overall, this was a refreshing unique take on fantasy! A very engaging read. The pacing is a little slow but the pay-off and reward is so worth it in the end. And the plot has so much potential going forward. There is so much clever wit in this story as well which | thoroughly enjoyed!

Nothing like some good old cynicism and humor!

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel – and never aspired to be a painter to begin with

by Anna Swartwood House

https://theconversation.com/michelangelo-hated-painting-the-sistine-chapel-and-never-aspired-to-be-a-painter-to-begin-with-275788

Michelangelo at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/3463

#books #art #history

ALT

3 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

Guide to the classics: 18th century novel Fantomina has a sexually curious, identity-switching heroine

Eliza Haywood was a bestselling 18th century author closely associated with the then-emerging genre of the novel. Little is known of her life beyond her writing.

by Nicola Parsons

https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-18th-century-novel-fantomina-has-a-sexually-curious-identity-switching-heroine-253949

Elisa Haywood at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/3687

#books #literature

Title page for the first publication of Fantomina in 1725

Eliza Haywood - Haywood, Eliza Fowler. Secret histories, novels and poems. In four volumes. Written by Mrs. Eliza Haywood. Vol. 3.The second edition. London, 1725. Eighteenth Century Collections Online

A title page from an 18th-century printed book, with text in varying typefaces and sizes within a plain ruled border. It reads:
FANTOMINA: OR, Love in a Maze. BEING A Secret History OF AN AMOUR Between Two Persons of Condition. By Mrs. ELIZA HAYWOOD.
Below that, an italic epigraph attributed to Waller: "In Love the Victors from the Vanquish'd fly, They fly that wound, and they pursue that dye."
At the bottom, the publication details: LONDON: Printed for D. Browne jun. at the Black-Swan without Temple-Bar, and S. Chapman, at the Angel in Pallmall. M.DCC.XXV.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Fantomina.png

ALT

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

5d

Favourite books: Irish authors and stars name their best reads Takahe has limited support for this type: See Original Page

0 0 2 View Post & Replies See Original

3d

📚 Starter Villain by: John Scalzi

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with isl...

https://bookblabla.com/book/starter-villain

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #superheroesfiction #humorous

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

Now a New York Times bestseller!

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

2d

The scandal that engulfed the last Brontë sister's death

When Charlotte Brontë died—the last of her massively talented family to succumb to an early death—the press entered a feeding frenzy. A friend and equally famous writer aimed to set the record straight and nearly destroyed her career doing so.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/bronte-sisters-charlotte-bronte-elizabeth-gaskell

Books by Charlotte Bronte at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/408

Books by Elizabeth Gaskell at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/220

#books #literature

Drawing of Charlotte Bronte. She standing and holding her bonnet by the strings in her right hand.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

2d

📚 Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by: Alison Espach

For much of her life, Sally Holt has been mystified by the things her older sister, Kathy, seems to have been born knowing. Kathy has answers for all of Sally’s questions about life, about love, and about Billy Barnes, a rising senior and local basketball...

https://bookblabla.com/book/notes-on-your-sudden-disappearance

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #familylife #siblingsfiction

For much of her life, Sally Holt has been mystified by the things her older sister, Kathy, seems to have been born knowing. Kathy has answers for all of Sally’s questions about life, about love, and about Billy Barnes, a rising senior and local basketball star who mans the concession stand at the town pool.

The girls have been fascinated by Billy ever since he jumped off the roof in elementary school, but Billy has never shown much interest in them until the summer before Sally begins eighth grade. By then, their mutual infatuation with Billy is one of the few things the increasingly different sisters have in common. Sally spends much of that summer at the pool, watching in confusion and excitement as her sister falls deeper in love with Billy—until a tragedy leaves Sally’s life forever intertwined with his.

Opening in the early nineties and charting almost two decades of shared history and missed connections, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is both a breathtaking love story about two broken people who are unexplainably, inconveniently drawn to each other and a wryly astute coming-of-age tale brimming with unexpected moments of joy.

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The Chicago Tribune

Heartbreaking and funny, often in the same sentence—a deeply felt, finely wrought, and highly satisfying novel. Alison Espach has created a family whose every sorrow, joy, and idiosyncrasy is utterly, vibrantly real. New York Times bestselling author Claire Lombar

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

1d

Out of the 23 #tech #books I have, all of them are old. Many of them still have relevance like O'Reilly's "DNS and BIND 5th Edition" which I bought in 2014 or so. But out of all of them, I was only able to purge these two.

O'Reilly's "Active Directory 5th Edition" which unfortunately was used maybe a handful of times. It's still in mint condition.

ALT

The RHEL 6 certification book, which was invaluable to me when I switched careers *again* from EMS back to IT.

ALT

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1d

A Scholar Recognized the Inscriptions in the Margins of This Manuscript. The Scribbles Turned Out to Be Galileo’s Handwritten Notes

Found in a 16th-century copy of an ancient astronomy treatise, the annotations suggest that the trailblazing scientist studied Earth-centric models before lending his support to heliocentrism

by Christian Thorsberg

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scholar-recognized-the-inscriptions-in-the-margins-of-this-manuscript-the-scribbles-turned-out-to-be-galileos-handwritten-notes-180988269/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=93133550

Galileo at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/6741

#books #astronomy

Galileo's sketches of the moon from en:Sidereus Nuncius, published in March 1610.

Five circular engraved illustrations arranged on a white page — one at the top centre, two in the middle row, and two in the bottom row — each depicting the Moon at a different phase.

The images are rendered in fine crosshatching and stippling, with dense black ink filling the shadowed portions and detailed textural work in the illuminated zones.

Along the terminator — the boundary between light and dark — rugged, jagged edges suggest mountains, craters, and uneven terrain, with small circular formations visible that read clearly as craters.

The uppermost image shows the Moon mostly in shadow with only a crescent of illuminated surface visible at right.

The middle and lower pairs show progressively more of the lit surface, with the terminator cutting diagonally across each disk.

The overall effect is observational and scientific rather than decorative, conveying a three-dimensional, geologically complex surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereus_Nuncius#/media/File:Galileo's_sketches_of_the_moon.png

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1d

While in Glasgow yesterday, I couldn’t resist a visit to Good Press in St. Andrew’s Street. It’s probably for the best that this amazing shop crammed full of books, zines, music and other treasures isn’t on my doorstep, because I’d be there every other day…They have things I’d never find anywhere else!

Picked up a couple of interesting titles (it would have been rude not to!).

https://goodpress.co.uk/

#GoodPress #GoodPressGlasgow #Books #Zines #IndependentBookshop #UrsulaKLeGuin #UrsulaLeGuin #ALargerReality #WinterTexts #WithABird #AvianKinship #Onomatopee #OnomatopeeBooks #Bookstodon @bookstodon

Two books on a wooden floor.

On the left is A Larger Reality by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Winter Texts. The book is described as “A Compilation of Poems, Stories, Essays, Talks, and Illustrations”. The cover shows a black and white watercolour of a solitary figure in an ambiguous landscape, perhaps a shoreline with mountains in the distance.

On the right is With a Bird, A Reader on Avian Kinship published by Onomatopee. The cover shows a stylised symmetrical drawing of talons emerging from a central point. The book “invites readers into an expansive, cross-disciplinary conversation about how we live with and think alongside birds. In a time of climate breakdown and ecological grief, this book offers birds not as metaphors or curiosities, but as kin-creatures with their own histories, desires, and forms of knowing. Spanning speculative fiction, ancestral memory, critical ornithology, personal essay, and visual art, its contributions explore the fragile, often overlooked relationships between humans and birds across myth, science, migration, and dream.”

ALT

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

3h

Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory is NOT the kind of book I like to read, but the man can't half tell a story. The denouement waits for the final pages, and is jaw-dropping; the only doubt left in the reader's mind is the plausibility, as the story is so strange.

WARNING: this review in particular has big spoilers; don't read it if you think you will one day read the book yourself, as it WILL spoil your reading pleasure.

https://khleedril.org/dale-mellor/bookblog/?review=the-wasp-factory

@bookstodon @books #reading #books #iainbanks

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

2h

📚 What Happened Next by: Edwin Hill

A young man investigating his father's crimes is determined to uncover the truth in a gripping novel of suspense about family secrets, betrayal, and the weight of the past.
What do I remember about the murder on the lake?

Charlie Kilgore was too young to remember anythin...

https://bookblabla.com/book/what-happened-next

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #mysterydetective #traditionalfiction #thrillers #suspensefiction