books

<p>Congratulations, and thank you for participating in the 2^nd^ Annual Book Bingo for c/Books@Lemmy.World!</p><p>If the existence of this bingo is a surprise to you, or you want to revisit the guide, <a href="https://lemmy.world/post/28953205" rel="nofollow">see this link</a>.</p><p>If you would like to join us for 2026 bingo, we’ll be posting information on the morning of May 1^st^, US Central Time (UTC -5)!</p><p>There are 2 official ways to submit your card and be recognized:</p><p>Fill out <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the web form we made using Tally</a>, which will organize the data for us. Completing the form will also give you a Markdown-friendly list to copy and post in this thread if you would like.<br>Or, if you would prefer, comment in this thread with your list of completed squares, including the titles/authors you read. Here is a list of squares for reference/copypaste:<br>Please provide information ao all squares you completed a work for, even if it didn;t result in a completed bingo for that line.</p>2025 Bingo Squares (click to expand)<p>* 1A: Number in the Title - * 1B: Author from a Different Continent - * 1C: Featured Creature - * 1D: Minority Author - * 1E: Now a Major Motion Picture - * 2A: Independent Author - * 2B: Set in War - * 2C: Orange Crush - * 2D: Short and Sweet - * 2E: Banned Book - * 3A: Mythology or Legend as Important to Plot - * 3B: Title: [X] of [Y] - * 3C: FREE SPACE - Off Your TBR Pile - * 3D: LGBTQIA+ Lead - * 3E: Saddle Up - * 4A: New Release - * 4B: Alliterative Title - * 4C: Judge a Book by Its Cover - * 4D: Award Winner - * 4E: Gamble, Game, or Contest - * 5A: Steppin’ Up! - * 5B: Political - * 5C: Late to the Party - * 5D: Cozy Read - * 5E: Jerk with a Heart of Gold - </p><p>ADDITIONAL POINTS TO READ BEFORE TURNING IN YOUR CARDS!</p><p>Questions? Please ask!</p><p>Turn-in Guidance</p><p>Please make an effort to spell titles and author names correctly! For titles with more than one author, please separate author names with a comma. This will help with data compilation for a bingo stats thread coming later!<br>If you didn’t do a square, don’t list it. Please leave incomplete squares completely blank on <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the Tally form</a>.<br>If you did complete a square, even if that one didn;t directly result in a completed bingo, please fill it in. This will help with the bingo statistics page coming soon.<br>You can substitute any square, but please remember: only one substitution per card. On <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the form</a>, there’s a substitution checklist for each square that will trigger a place to fill in the substitution information. If you accidentally choose a substitution for the wrong square, please de-select the substitution to clear it.<br>Please make a note if you did a square on hard mode. On <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the form</a>, there is a hard mode checkbox for each square.<br>Only turn in your card(s) once you have finished with bingo; do not submit a card still in progress. If you’re using <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the Tally form</a>, there is a review page before submission; please make sure that you click submit after double-checking your entries! You cannot edit your card once submitted, so if you realize you’ve made a mistake, please post in this thread to notify us. You can also copy and pase the submission review page to place it in the thread to share with other participants.<br>The feedback questions at the end aren’t required, but will help us with improving Bingo for all of you in the future.</p><p>More than one card?</p><p>If you did more than one card, and are submitting <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">via Tally</a>, please differentiate your username for each additional card. For example, I would list my first card under “JaymesRS@literature.cafe” and my second under “JaymesRS@literature.cafe - 2”.</p><p>Timeline</p><p>Submit your finished card(s) by May 1st, 2025! This thread and <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the Tally submission form</a> will remain open until 12 noon, US Central Time (UTC -5) on May 1^st^ as a courtesy, so please make sure your cards are turned in by then, so they can be counted.</p><p>Reward</p><p>Any five in a row is considered a win! Your only reward this year (as of the time of posting) is the warm glow of satisfaction and bragging rights. However, our ultimate plan is to recognize bingo participation with a flair-like system in the future, so we plan to calculate completion retroactively whenever that’s available.</p><p>In Closing</p><p>Again… <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">HERE IS THE LINK TO THE TALLY FORM TO TURN IN YOUR CARD</a> (or you can comment in this thread). The form goes live on April 17^th^, 2025, and both it and this thread close around noon on May 1^st^, US Central Time (UTC -5). Be sure to get your card(s) in before then!</p><p>Thanks to everyone that participated this year! This was a fun challenge to put together for us. If you are interested in helping to coordinate the bingo challenge or related resources, please reach out to the moderators of !books@lemmy.world and let us know!</p> <small class="notice" x-post-type-data="None"> Takahe has limited support for this type: <a href="https://lemmy.world/post/45679392">See Original Page</a> </small>

<p>The English Republic is a military organization from the novel** Metro 2033: Britain.**</p><p>It is a quasi-democratic state that practices slavery. It controls parts of the London Underground stations, including the main city terminals, and about thirty surface outposts across various corners of Britain. It possesses a large army, powerful weaponry, and armored vehicles.</p><p>The idea of creating a new state from the ruins of a once-great empire belonged to a former British Army general named Handel. In the very first years following the Third World War, he formed a new parliament from the residents of nearby metro stations, promising them resources from declassified military depots—of which the capital of the former United Kingdom had enough to create a semblance of civilization in a short time.</p><p>The Republic expanded so rapidly that no one, not even the parliament, knew exactly where their territory ended. Furthermore, due to the complicated post-war situation, an accurate census could not be conducted. According to Colonel Mayers, the Republic includes all stations north of St Pancras, several stations in the south, and about thirty outposts across the country.</p><p>Starting in 2030, the strengthened Republic began dispatching well-equipped scout detachments to various parts of England, sometimes venturing as far as the Scottish border. By raiding unprepared settlements, slavers captured men, women, and children, subsequently transporting them via trucks to a transfer base in Sheffield, where they were later loaded onto trains and taken to London via the restored railway.</p><p>The official emblem of the Republic is the image of the red Cross of Saint George on a black background, framed in white. This suggests that the English Republic sees itself as the successor to pre-war England, which used the same cross as its national flag.</p><p>POLITICSThe Republic owes its prosperity mainly to prisoners from other cities, specifically captured by slavers across the entire territory of post-nuclear Britain. The government of the English Republic considers slavery a necessary and temporary measure.</p><p>Despite the English attempt to make their state more democratic, in terms of governance, the Republic more closely resembles the regime of Benito Mussolini. Moreover, the state itself exists only as an idea, and all that remains of the former English Republic is just the name.</p> <small class="notice" x-post-type-data="None"> Takahe has limited support for this type: <a href="https://lemmy.world/post/45681349">See Original Page</a> </small>

<p>I love bad books. Popular bad books. Non-fiction bad books. Any bad book is worth a read every once in a while.</p><p>Bad books aren’t objectively bad in my opinion just books that might not be for me or I even disagree with. The best bad books are the books that I want to enjoy because they’re popular or because the premise is fun. And what makes them bad is equally fluid and often just my own bias.</p><p>Why Bad Over Good?</p><p>Good books are good books. What is there to talk about? What do we even do in a Tolkein book club? Make sure everyone has read Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Then divide the room into people who preferred the Hobbit or thought LOTR was too long but still good. Then we share the same fun facts about the extended edition of the movies?</p><p>Boring. We get it. Essential reading for the book lover.</p><p>Now a shlocky Romantasy that very clearly ripped scene from other Young Adult novels and then put the “Fuck” word or act in there (with adults of course). Now we’re talking! How many different books do you recognize? Is this transformative? Are we out of original ideas? Does the sex add anything? Is she a good writer because I felt the intended emotion even if the scene is stupid? Can I do better than this? I should try!</p><p>A proper bad book where the flaws are glaring enough that I, a simpleton, can see them and talk about them is so much fun. There’s a discussion, there’s room for disagreement, there are no stakes! There may even be diamonds in the rough….</p><p>Finding Good ideas in Bad Books</p><p>It’s no secret that I love Slavoj Zizek and his writings, but not because they’re good.</p><p>Zizek is a load of fun to read because it really is a cacaphony of references and jokes interspersed with “And now to contradict myself!” that makes it feel profound. If I was smarter I think I’d call any Zizek book the philosophy equivalent of “Finnegans Wake”. The books are non-sense but there is a hidden idea that you, the reader, must decode. Maybe you disagree with the meaning, maybe you found a different meaning than what was intended, maybe the referenced book sounds interesting so you start reading Judith Butler instead (a good author).</p><p>Bad philosophy books are stimulating in that they triggered the part of your brain that wants to “philosophize” in that you want to express why you feel the way you feel. Be it the author made a good point in a bad way or maybe they made a bad point and you want to really think out a rebuttle they will never read.</p><p>Allowing a transgressive thought to make you reflect and expound upon is the correct way to use offensive content. There are obviously exceptions to this idea in that some people write books explicitly to be useless propaganda.</p><p>Bad Books verses Unreadable Books</p><p>I think the defining feature of a bad book is that it is genuine in it’s attempt to do whatever it is trying to do.</p><p>I love Rebecca Yarros “Fourth Wing” not because it’s good fantasy (or even exceptional porn) but because it feels like she’s trying to write an entertaining book. It feels like a genuine attempt at decent world building. It’s a flawed story and the world doesn’t make any sense when you think about it trying to be anything other than an explanation for why everyone is so horny.</p><p>Zizek is living far too modestly for someone who is simply a political grifter leveraging memes and podcast interviews to sell suplaments to a guilable audience. He’s even said he’d rather write the occastional Ambrocrombe and Fitch ad if it means he’s not married to a publisher or Patreon account. And that makes his work feel more genuine. I am convinced this is how he really feels and thinks.</p><p>Now, on the other end, I’ve read a lot of political writings from people I hard disagree with. I’ve read theological works from people who seemingly just like that they are a “published author”.</p><p>I used to worry that I was easily influenced and that I would just agree with or enjoy any book because I invested the eight-ish hours it takes to read one. Then I read a book I thought was interesting, and the point was one I agreed with, but it was so painfully obvious that this author had nothing new or interesting to add. It read as if they were a high schooler who had Chat GPT write a paper on something controversial, but it was pre-LLMs and I think ChatGPT would have been more interesting.</p><p>This was the first time I found a Liberal leaning grifter since I did find their podcast and heavily pushed merch store. It was embarrassing to see.</p><p>I’ve since given a lot of people I would disagree with a chance. I read Charlie Kirk’s ghost written slog feast, Ben Shapiro’s argument-less book on “Bullies”, and a book by Glenn Beck? I guess he was a Proto-Stephen Crowder.</p><p>“Authors” like that really helped me solidify the difference in my mind between “Transgressive” and “insubstantial but I’m triggered.” They’re so hard to talk about because there is very little to pull from. I was hoping to find a real argument to look into. I was giving them a fair shot and not just be angry monologues and accusatory language without any reflection.</p><p>Every arguments seems to have been “The Libs accuse us of being classist, homophobic, racist, sexists who use slurs and dedicate all our time to making life worse for minorities, poor people, and the Libs. But by calling US fascists, they show that they are the REAL FASCISTS!” And then just a bunch of examples of times someone got punched for saying a slur in public and crying “See, free speech haters!”</p><p>I don’t want to hang on this too long. It’s just the most egregious example of “Unreadable books”.</p><p>Books are Easy to Make</p><p>Yes I know it’s not that easy, especially if you want a good publisher, but book writing is so accessible these days that anyone can be a published author in hours with an Amazon Kindle account and a ChatGPT subscription. Maybe not a Good author or even a defendable Bad Author. You’d be an awful author but an author in the technical sense.</p><p>However, it is this accessibility of writing that I think allows for a diverse range of written works to exist. We no longer have the traditional filters that ensure only good or readable books are available. And I worry that the awful authors have soured the world of reading.</p><p>It is so easy to say any book that even begins to offend is trash and should be abandoned as a “Did Not Finish”. And with authors like the ones mentioned and the AI slop farms poisoning our book supply, I can’t really blame someone for not wasting their precious time on this earth with a Bad Book.</p><p>Yet, even with my bad experiences, I love the things I’ve learned about myself and the world at large because of bad books. I will continue committing way too much time to authors who probably don’t deserve the fame or my money.</p> <small class="notice" x-post-type-data="None"> Takahe has limited support for this type: <a href="https://startrek.website/post/32350533">See Original Page</a> </small>

<p>Still reading <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/11269424" rel="nofollow">Cold Days</a> by Jim Butcher, the 14th book in Dresden Files series.</p><p>Yet another busy week but things have started to settle down, got back to reading properly yesterday and have reached the point where we get some interesting reveals. Very excited about where it goes from here.</p><p>What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?</p><p>For details on the c/Books bingo challenge that just restarted for the year, you can checkout the initial <a href="https://threadiverse.link/lemmy.world/post/28953205" rel="nofollow">Book Bingo</a>, and its <a href="https://threadiverse.link/lemmy.world/post/28953205" rel="nofollow">Recommendation Post</a>. Links are also present in our community sidebar.</p> <small class="notice" x-post-type-data="None"> Takahe has limited support for this type: <a href="https://discuss.online/post/31481794">See Original Page</a> </small>