Eggplant.place

146d

Flickering Enlightenment

Attacked by the Left and Right, the Enlightenment can only be saved through use of its greatest legacy: permanent critique

by Eliane Glaser

https://aeon.co/essays/lets-save-the-enlightenment-baby-from-its-muddied-bathwater?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a4dfd7cb72-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_05_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4ef8a26106-72664972

Books in Philosophy at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/57

#Books #Literature

Frontispiece of *Elements of Newton's Philosophy*, Voltaire, 1738.

The seated philosopher is translating Newton’s work. His manuscript appears to be illuminated by an almost divine light emanating from Newton himself; this light is reflected by the mirror held by a muse, who is in fact Émilie du Châtelet, the writer’s mistress, translator of Newton’s work, and collaborator of Voltaire.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si%C3%A8cle_des_Lumi%C3%A8res#/media/Fichier:Voltaire_Philosophy_of_Newton_frontispiece.jpg

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122d

An appreciation: Roland Jackson’s Scientific Advice to the Nineteenth-Century British State

by William Thomas

https://www.aip.org/history/jackson-scientific-advice

Books about Science at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/51

#Books #Science #Technology

Portrait of Michael Faraday by Thomas Phillips, 1842.

Faraday is shown in dark formal attire with his hands clasped, beside what appears to be an electrical apparatus on the table.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday#/media/File:Portait_of_Michael_Faraday2.png

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146d

The Private Worlds of Charlotte Brontë and Octavia E. Butler

Behind The Huntington Library’s glass cases, the layers of motherhood, career, friendship, family, and loss are revealed in personal objects.

by Hannah Benson

https://hyperallergic.com/the-private-worlds-of-charlotte-bronte-and-octavia-e-butler/?ref=weekly-newsletter

Books by Charlotte Brontë at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/408

#Books #Literature #WomenInArt

A delicate pencil or chalk portrait of a pale, serious-faced Charlotte Brontë with centre-parted hair drawn back, wearing a lace-collared dress. The caption reads "Charlotte Brontë (Mrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls)", noted as being from the portrait by George Richmond, in the possession of Mr. A. B. Nicholls. The heliogravure is credited to F. Jenkins, Paris.

Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle

by Clement K. Shorter

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19011/19011-h/19011-h.htm

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185d

AI paranoia is a symptom of a larger problem: a corporate culture that values quantity over quality.

https://lithub.com/its-getting-harder-to-spot-ai-in-contemporary-publishing-and-thats-very-very-bad/

#books #edition #ai #llm #lithub #litterature #writing

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204d

🧠🇸🇪 Swedish #education officials are scaling back digital device usage in schools after reports indicated a decline in basic #literacy skills.

The new strategy prioritizes printed #books and handwriting to support cognitive focus and deep #reading. #Research suggests that physical materials enhance memory retention and reading comprehension compared to digital screens.

👉 https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/sweden-goes-back-to-basics-swapping-screens-for-books-in-the-classroom/

#sweden #neuroscience #technology #tech #learning #teaching #psychology

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218d

What's stronger than "Strongly Agree" 😜😂

@reading @bookstodon @books @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop @joinin

#Book #Books #BookMemes #Meme #Memes
#ReadingMemes #Meme #Memes #ReadAllTheBooks #Humor #Humour #Funny
#Reading #Readers #ReadersOfMastodon #ReadingCommunity
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Fiction
#Bookwyrm #Bookworm #Bookstodon #BookLove

The original image looked slightly diffrent: https://medium.com/@GuillemBruix/f-ck-social-media-read-books-242b54f1c250

Photo of a sign in a bookshop window. In large white letters on a black background it says:
FUCK SOCIAL MEDIA.
MARRY BOOKS.
KILL AI.

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122d

Books on My Summer 2026 To-Read List: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-books-on-my-summer-2026-to-read-list/

#TopTenTuesday #Books #TBR #AmReading #LGBTQ

@bookstodon

Book cover for My Name Was Baby: An Intersex Memoir by Chris M. Arnone. Image on cover shows a drawing of two newborn human footprints against an off-white background. The last word of the title is written in a blue cursive font that looks like it could a name.

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Book cover for Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt by Ben Reeves. Image on cover shows the sun rising over a night sky that has a sliver of moon in it. Below, three large flowers grow and a cat prowls in the night.

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253d

Completly misunderstanding how society works is what tech bros do best! 😂

@bookstodon @books @joinin
@worldbuilding @humor @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

#Tech #Bro #Dystopian
#SpeculativeFiction #FantasyBooks
#FantasyMemes #SciFiMemes #Fantasy #SciFi #Meme #Memes #Humor #Humour #Funny
#Low #High #Epic #Science #Opera #Hard #CottageCore #SolarPunk #Comedic #Whatever #GiveMeAllYouveGot
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Bookstodon #Bookworm #Bookwyrm #BookLove

Drawing of a tech bro being interviewed by the standard tech bro sychophant.

Tech bro: “Philip K. Dick. Ray Bradbury. Like so many others in tech, I draw inspiration from completely misunderstanding those authors.”

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301d

But if I have a choice I prefer in the bath, the massage chair, the couch, and the bed in that order... 😁

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

#Book #Books #BookMemes #Memes #Humor #Humour
#ReadingMemes #Memes #ReadAllTheBooks #Reading #Readers #ReadersOfMastodon #ReadingCommunity
#Litterature #Novel #Novels #Bookshelf #Mastobooks #BooksofMastodon #Bookstodon #Bookworm #Bookwyrm #Bookstodon #BookLove #FantasyBooks

I WILL READ BOOKS ON A BOAT.
I WILL READ BOOKS WITH A GOAT.
I WILL READ BOOKS ON THE TRAIN.
I WILL READ BOOKS IN THE RAIN.
I WILL READ BOOKS WITH A FOX.
I WILL READ BOOKS IN A BOX
I WILL READ BOOKS WITH A MOUSE.
I WILL READ BOOKS IN A HOUSE.
I WILL READ BOOKS HERE AND THERE.
I WILL READ BOOKS EVERYWHERE.

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279d

So, it's either keep buying more books or become a librarian? 🤔
It's a rare thing indeed to have life present us with two excellent choices 😊

@libraries @Libraries@fedigroups.social @library @books @bookstodon @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop @joinin

#Library #LibraryMemes #Meme #Memes #Libraries #Librarians #Humor #Humour #Funny
#ReadingMemes #Memes #ReadAllTheBooks
#Reading #Readers #ReadersOfMastodon #ReadingCommunity
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Fiction
#Bookwyrm #Bookworm #Bookstodon #BookLove #FantasyBooks

Post by Tara Wine-Queen

It's not that I *can't* read all of the books I already have, it's that once a reader finishes all the books in their possession, they transcend into their final form and I'm just not ready to become a librarian yet.

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208d

When we're busy worldbuilding it's easy to forget that stories are supposed to have a story 😂

@bookstodon @books @joinin
@worldbuilding @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop
@galacticwriters @fantasy
@writingbooks @keepwriting

#SpeculativeFiction #FantasyBooks
#FantasyMemes #SciFiMemes #Fantasy #SciFi #Meme #Memes #Humor #Humour #Funny
#Low #High #Epic #Science #Opera #Hard #CottageCore #SolarPunk #Comedic #Whatever #GiveMeAllYouveGot
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Bookstodon #Bookworm #Bookwyrm #BookLove

Four panel comic meme with two people in an office, one pitching something to the others from whiteboard.

Guy: "So, what do you guys think?"
Whiteboard: 500+ pages of lore and worldbuilding
Others: "It's good, how much is important to the story?"
Guy: "STORY?"

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222d

I feel like the dystopian techbros and super-rich aren't getting enough credit in this meme 🤔😁

@galacticwriters @writers @books @fantasy @bookstodon @joinin
@writingbooks @keepwriting @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

#WritingMemes #Meme #Memes #Humor #Humour
#Author #Authors #IndieAuthor #IndieBooks #AmWriting #Writerdons #Writers #Writer #Writing #WritingCommunity #Writinglife #WritersOfMastodon #Bookstodon #Books

Four panel meme of Mr. Bean cheating on a test.

Then: Government (Mr. Bean) looking at dystopian scifi books and movies (his neighbours test)
Now: Dystopian fiction writers (Mr. Bean) looking at government (his neighbours test)

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122d

#OTD in 1819.

Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” is Published

By one "Geoffrey Crayon"

https://lithub.com/this-week-in-literary-history-washington-irvings-rip-van-winkle-is-published/

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60976

#books #literature

Illustration of Rip van Winkle from "Uncle Sam's panorama of Rip van Winkle and Yankee Doodle," toy (moveable book), published by McLoughlin Bros., Inc. "Eight scenes from the story of Rip van Winkle and six scenes from the story of Yankee Doodle are pasted together side by side to form a long panoramic strip. The strip is mounted on two rollers within a one-sided box; exterior cranks turn the strip." General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle#/media/File:Rip_van_Winkle_from_Uncle_Sam's_panorama_of_Rip_van_Winkle_and_Yankee_Doodle.jpg

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122d

"While #Musk was looking to the stars, the people of Belfast were still reeling from several days of racist violence. The Belfast pogrom drew strength from the #farRight ecosystem that Musk has nurtured with the money from #SpaceX, #Tesla and other companies."

Long Reads talks w/ #BenTarnoff and #QuinnSlobodian, authors of #Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed

Pt 1 of 2
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/long-reads-trillion-dollar-baby-w-quinn-slobodian-and/id791564318?i=1000773249464

#ElonMusk #tech #BigTech #techCriticism #techOligarchs #SiliconValleyRight #books @bookstodon

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76d

Dancer From The Dance. Andrew Holleran.

It’s 1970’s post-Stonewall NYC, and you are the most beautiful of the beautiful A-gays, and your life is an endless stream of parties, bathhouses, Fire Island summers, public parks, restrooms, drugs, and disco after disco; everyone thinks you must be the happiest queen, but of course…

4 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈
CW: racial fetishization

@bookstodon #bookstodon #books #reading #gay #lgbtq #nyc #1970s

Book cover with sepia photo of 2 men dancing

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145d

Don Quixote in the Study by Gustave Doré (1862)
The scene where Don Quixote, a ‘book madman’, falls into a knight saga and loses his sense of reality. It is humorous yet fantastically portrayed.

#DonQuixote #books #literature #reading #painting #art #illustration #GustaveDore #fiction #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #bookstagram

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145d

10 Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci You Should Know

Each surviving painting by Leonardo da Vinci contains complex symbolism and almost always an equally complex controversy.

by Anastasiia Kirpalov (from the archives)

https://www.thecollector.com/leonardo-da-vinci-paintings/

An interesting book on Leonardo's psychology and artistic work written by Sigmund Freud is available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34300

Translator: A. A. Brill
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1629

#Books #Art #Culture

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1501-1519.

An older woman sits serenely at the top, smiling gently downward. A younger woman, seated on her lap and reaching forward, gazes tenderly at a chubby infant below who wrestles playfully with a lamb.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virgin_and_Child_with_Saint_Anne_(Leonardo)#/media/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_-_Virgin_and_Child_with_St_Anne_C2RMF_retouched.jpg

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118d

A new @skiffyandfanty.com review from @Reading1KLives
Book Review: DEVILS KILL DEVILS by Johnny Compton

https://skiffyandfanty.com/blog/book-review-devils-kill-devils-by-johnny-compton/

#books #review @bookstodon

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146d

My take on The Brothers Karamazov

Consider one of your senses, not even the most important one— vision, but a minor one like smell, gone! Imagine a world of smell barred from you. Not reading Dostoevsky is just like that, not developing a sense.

And, his final novel, his magnum opus— The Brothers Karamazov, branches out new senses and intellectual capacities like an energetic sprout in your mind.

This book is deeply philosophical. But, like novels of the later period, like Proust did in Remembrance of Things Past, the author is not living the philosophy (existentialism in the aforementioned case), but explains it in detail in the author’s voice. Let me enumerate the ideas being covered: Christianity and related concepts of sins, soul, free will, and kindness, psychology, law and jurisprudence, and life through his infinite lenses.

He is, in a sense, the sincerest novelist I have encountered. Ivan is one of the most powerful atheist characters I have ever read of, that too, in a novel about Christianity.

The first part is deeply about Christianity, or, to be specific, Dostoevsky’s interpretation of Eastern Orthodoxy. In his mind, suffering and joy are intertwined, as if one joyfully suffers in a feast of suffering.

Spoiler perhaps

In the chapter The Grand Inquisitor, we see a battle between absolute submission and relative comfort (championed by the Grand Inquisitor) vs free will and suffering (by Jesus). Only to see that Jesus’ silence wins over the argument (not in the mind of Ivan, though), by the very act of coming back silently to suffer in his free will.

While The Grand Inquisitor remains the most intense of all chapters in the novel, the ultimate and deeper question posed at the end of the book is the nature of crime.

Spoiler

Dimitri didn’t kill his father. He merely wanted to kill him, for very real reasons, but never attempted it. Ivan wanted to get rid of his father, deep down, without making his hands dirty, of course, being an intelligent man. But all brothers, including Alyosha, never really liked their father, and if not killing him directly, would’ve found the world a better place without him.If you accuse Ivan of his deadly despise, well… all the brothers are guilty of that. Yet, none was guilty enough, not because of the lack of action, not because of how they were brought up, leaving them less guilty, but because they never really wanted to profit from the murder. Yet, they bear guilt too, in their soul, for the flick of moments they despised their father.But, Smerdyakov, the vile and the crook, and the veritable villain to the core of his heart, is really a complete villain. He has every reason to despise the old man, and probably more than the legitimate children. Cannot his bright future really be traded against the person who is not only the reason for his sufferings, but is also completely oblivious to that and bears no regrets and three thousand roubles?This whole courtroom drama poses a serious battle between the modern jurisprudence that was being slowly established instead of the old legal codes,1 in Russia. He questioned the very basics of what is a crime, and to what degree, the fine lines between intentions, impulses, and actions. He questioned why we should be punished or not.

Like a true philosopher, who is aware of the insignificance of our knowledge by far, Dostoevsky never gave any solution, but asked such really important questions, and asked how! As if, just like Socrates, he also wants an unassuming general reader to slowly work out the answer in the depths of his mind.

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153d

As my days are absorbed in edits, now’s a great time to read my first book ahead of the next release!

#CrownOfHorns is a political fantasy (think 1984 meets The Witcher). Art and ingenuity are all that stand in the way as a nation descends into tyranny.

Inspired by history and myth of Ukraine, every sale means a donation to the Canada-Ukraine foundation, with $2000 raised last year.

Check out https://www.crownofhorns.com
Available through most booksellers in paper, ebook, and audiobook.
#books

A stack of books. The book in question? Crown of Horns written by F. David Schultz and illustrated by Audra Balion. The cover features a sharp, goat-eyed woman glowering at the reader, with bright red paint streaked across her face.

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183d

#books #cartoon #freedom #reading #ideas #humor

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181d

I just learned that the last saturday of April celebrates Indie Bookstore Day.

So, please buy your books from Indie stores.
Yes, even if they don't have dragons 😜😁

#Indie #Bookstore #IndependentBookstoreDay #Bookstodon #Reading #Books

My book is available here: https://books2read.com/b/m0pJYA

Post by oooh_books

I work at a bookstore and this was an actual conversation I had at work last night:

5 year old boy: *brings me a romance book* what's this?
me: a story about two people falling in love!
b: ....is there a dragon in it?
me: No..
b: then why do you even have it

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185d

That sounds made up, but I'm not a doctor so I'll allow it 😁
But I'm wondering if anyone knows what this disease is called? 🤔
My genetic disorder just makes me want to pee all the time 😂

@reading @joinin @bookstodon @books @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

#BookMemes #Meme #Memes #Humor #Humour #Funny
#ReadingMemes #Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity
#Litterature #Novel #Novels #Books #Bookstodon #FantasyBooks

Post by Louise Jensen Duffy

So, a lot of people ask me why I buy so many books. The truth is, I have a genetic disorder where my body doesn’t produce enough books of its own, so I have to supplement.

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193d

Your Kindle's not obsolete, it just needs a jailbreak - and I'll show you how it's done
https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-kindles-not-obsolete-it-needs-a-jailbreak-ill-show-you-how-its-done/ 📚 #Amazon #Kindle #eBooks #eReader #Books #Reading #Tech #Jailbreak

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219d

anyone have a preferred version of the count of monte cristo in english? went looking for my copy and can't find it, and looks there are about a bazillion different annotated versions out there, but also that the original might be like 1800 pages long?! def not the copy i had, and now i'm curious! #books #bookstodon

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