Eggplant.place

16d

Forget flowers: lovers in 18th- and 19th-century Ireland exchanged hair

by Leanne Calvert

https://theconversation.com/forget-flowers-lovers-in-18th-and-19th-century-ireland-exchanged-hair-275356

Saint Valentine at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=saint+valentine

#books #history #ireland

Only a Lock of Hair by John Everett Millais

The portrait shows a young woman in a dress russet-coloured fabric with areas of blue (possibly a shot silk, giving an iridescent effect) with lace at the collar and cuffs, in the process of cutting off a lock of her hair with a small pair of silver scissors, while she gazes off to her left.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_a_Lock_of_Hair#/media/File:Only_a_Lock_of_Hair,_by_John_Everett_Millais.jpg

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300d

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever."

'Lost, Two Golden Hours' in Common School Journal November 1844

~Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 – August 2, 1859)

Horace Mann at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70681

#books #literature

Original daguerreotype of Rep. Mann (Mass.) from Mathew Brady's a studio, c. 1849

Mathew Benjamin Brady - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3g07396. This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing.

Horace Mann, head-and-shoulders portrait, three-quarters to right. Whig and Free Soil Congressman from Massachusetts, 1848-1853; President of Antioch College.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Mann#/media/File:HMann.jpg

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298d

The Voynich Manuscript revealed: five things you probably did not know about the Medieval masterpiece

Scholars have speculated for centuries about the meaning behind the 15th-century codex and its peculiar illustrations

By Garry Shaw

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/05/05/the-voynich-manuscript-revealed-five-things-you-probably-did-not-know-about-the-medieval-masterpiece

More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

#books #oldmanuscript

A page from the mysterious Voynich manuscript, which is undeciphered to this day.

Page 175; f99r, of the pharmaceutical section

Unknown author - Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.

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17d

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

Zechariah Jacobs has angered a vast empire that spans a third of the galaxy, which is far too much for his planet to stand against, but in a clash of wizards and magic versus technology, it’s hard to say which will win.

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

(Left) The cover of Wrath of the Sky, by Owen Tyme.

On a black background, a planet much like earth burns, set aflame. The flames are on the top and sides, but haven't yet reached the bottom.

(Right) An ogre stands on a rocky cliffside path, clearly quite upset, with both his head and arms raised as he cries out! The background is blue sky with white clouds. The following quote is laid over the top of the scene:

Winzon grinned evilly. With great slowness and ceremony, he undid the draw-string of his sack and up-ended it, dropping an ogre skull at the brute’s feet!

The massive ogre’s entire demeanor changed in an instant! He backed away, carefully stepping out of reach of Winzon’s ax, even though it was still strapped to his back!

The brute whispered, “Ogre-slayer!”

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

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16d

A Review of Love Bug: https://lydiaschoch.com/a-review-of-love-bug/

#ValentinesDay #YoungAdult #Books #Bookstodon #BookReview #Fantasy

@bookstodon

ook cover for Love Bug by Zoe Tasia. Image on cover is a drawing of three light brown envelopes that have been dropped in a snowbank and have a few red hearts floating out of them.

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303d

4 Must-Read Works by Edgar Allan Poe (& Why You Should Read Them)

Edgar Allan Poe was a master of Gothic literature. Although his stories are filled with gloom and mystery, they also contain universal truths.

by Andrew Olsen

https://www.thecollector.com/edgar-allan-poe-works-must-read/

Edgar Allan Poe at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/481

#books #literature

An illustration from Jules Verne’s essay “Edgard Poë et ses oeuvres” (Edgar Poe and his Works), by Frederic Lix or Yan’ Dargent, 1862.

Looming above the scene is a massive, spectral figure cloaked in flowing robes, wielding a giant scythe—a clear personification of Death. The ghostly figure seems to emerge from the vertical torrent of rain or water, merging with the storm itself.

The engraving is dense with vertical lines, conveying the relentless downward motion of rain or divine force. The sense of movement and chaos is heightened by the wind-swept garments, crashing waves, and circling seabirds.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Edgard_Po%C3%AB_et_ses_oeuvres%27_by_Lix_and_Dargent_6.jpg

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17d

📚 I Who Have Never Known Men (B&N Exclusive Edition) by: Jacqueline Harpman

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl--the fortieth prisoner--sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others...

https://bookblabla.com/book/i-who-have-never-known-men-bn-exclusive-edition

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #generalfiction #literaryfiction #dystopianfiction #feminist

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl--the fortieth prisoner--sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.

Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation.

Now available in a collectible hardcover edition, featuring an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, Harpman's modern classic is an essential addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

THE RUNAWAY BESTSELLER, NOW AVAILABLE IN A SPECIAL COLLECTOR'S EDITION.
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.

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16d

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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300d

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is a dark parable about coercive control

By Katy Mullin and Hannah Roche

https://theconversation.com/emily-brontes-wuthering-heights-is-a-dark-parable-about-coercive-control-253866?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%201%202025%20-%203359834264&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%201%202025%20-%203359834264+CID_13448bac8f25132d36fbf0c25b322159&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Emily%20Bronts%20Wuthering%20Heights%20is%20a%20dark%20parable%20about%20coercive%20control

Wuthering Heights at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/768

#books #movie #literature

Photo of Sir Laurence Olivier knighted 1947-page 144 and Merle Oberon from the 1939 film Wuthering Heights.

Olivier, in rustic clothing and seated on a rocky outcrop, gazes into the distance with a pensive, determined expression. Oberon, draped in a shawl, looks upward beside him with a soft, luminous gaze, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder, symbolizing both connection and tragic yearning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights#/media/File:Laurence_Olivier_Merle_Oberon_Wuthering_Heights.jpg

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321d

Today's Distributed Proofreader's blog celebrates the 49,000th unique title Distributed Proofreaders has posted to Project Gutenberg: The Trail of the Serpent, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

https://blog.pgdp.net/2025/04/12/celebrating-49000-titles/

The Trail of the Serpent at PG
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75840

Distributed Proofreaders

https://www.pgdp.net/c/

#books #dp #dpblog

Cover of the book "The Trail of the Serpent" by M. E. Braddon.

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303d

Today's DP Blog shines a spotlight on the Noël Coward play, "Hay Fever"

https://blog.pgdp.net/2025/05/01/hay-fever/

#dp #dpblog #books #plays

Cover of Hay Fever: A Play in Three Acts by Noel Coward

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303d

Why Are There So Many Folk Songs About Maypoles?

Happy May 1st!

https://wordsmarts.com/folk-song-maypole/

Books by Nathaniel Hawthorne by PG

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/28

#books #music

Img. 2501 Schools, Maypole activity at Parks School ca. 1924. School girls around a Maypole in a classroom. - from the Internet Archive

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16d

Inside Switzerland's extraordinary medieval library

By Mike MacEacheran

The Abbey Library of St Gallen is a Baroque hall of globes, manuscripts and curiosities that has survived, improbably, for 1,300 years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/travel/article/20260202-inside-switzerlands-extraordinary-medieval-library

Medieval library at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=medieval+library

#books #literature #library

PLATE XXV
DUKE HUMFREY’S LIBRARY, OXFORD

The image captures the historic reading room with its magnificent barrel-vaulted wooden ceiling with decorative coffers, tall windows providing natural light at the far end, and rows of bookshelves lining both sides. Reading desks are positioned along the central aisle. Duke Humfrey's Library, the oldest reading room of the Bodleian, dates to the 15th century and was named after Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester (1390-1447), younger brother of Henry V, who donated his collection of manuscripts to Oxford University.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1615/pg1615-images.html

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300d

This Plaintive Song Is From a Land Without Lullabies

A rare tribe lacks music for dancing or soothing their young ones

By Kristen French

https://nautil.us/this-plaintive-song-is-from-a-land-without-lullabies-1207655/

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/16

#books #literature #music

Lullaby by François Nicholas Riss .

The composition centers on a young mother seated beside a cradle suspended from the ceiling by ropes. She delicately dangles a lullaby above her infant, who lies nestled beneath a patterned cloth canopy, one tiny hand reaching upward. Her expression is gentle and attentive, conveying maternal affection and calm. In her lap, she holds knitting needles, suggesting the multitasking rhythm of caregiving.

To her left, a barefoot young boy leans against the window, absorbed in his own quiet activity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lullaby#/media/File:Fran%C3%A7ois_Riss_Lullaby.jpg

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16d

📚 Behind These Four Walls by: Yasmin Angoe

Isla Thorne had a rough start in life. Orphaned young, she spent her formative years in a group home where she met her best friend, Eden Galloway. At sixteen, they decide to run away to LA...but Eden never makes it.

It's been ten years since Eden vanished. And Isla...

https://bookblabla.com/book/behind-these-four-walls

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #thrillers #suspensefiction #psychologicalfiction #domestic

Isla Thorne had a rough start in life. Orphaned young, she spent her formative years in a group home where she met her best friend, Eden Galloway. At sixteen, they decide to run away to LA...but Eden never makes it.

It's been ten years since Eden vanished. And Isla's determined to find her.

She begins at the last place Eden visited: the Corrigan mansion in Virginia. Eden claimed to have unfinished business there. Posing as an aspiring journalist, Isla insinuates herself into the wealthy family's home and begins searching for the truth.

The more she digs, the more Isla discovers Eden isn't who she thought she was. Was she even a victim, or did Eden plan this all along? Desperate for answers and to keep her identity hidden, Isla finds an ally in one of the Corrigan sons. But as she wades deeper into this power-hungry family's secrets and lies, she finds herself in the crosshairs of a bloodline that's more lethal than loyal.

From the author of Not What She Seems, Yasmin Angoe's thriller explores revenge, morality, corruption, and wealth as a woman sets out to uncover the truth behind her friend's disappearance and expose the powerful family behind it.

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18d

What a Renaissance plate reveals about a woman who shaped literary history

The expression is, ‘handed to you on a silver plate’; but a recent breakthrough came to me on a painted ceramic one.

by Maria Clotilde Camboni

https://theconversation.com/what-a-renaissance-plate-reveals-about-a-woman-who-shaped-literary-history-273654?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20February%209%202026%20-%203669637496&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20February%209%202026%20-%203669637496+CID_9bdfd4637bcdfe2ba7a398ba27e13331&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=What%20a%20Renaissance%20plate%20reveals%20about%20a%20woman%20who%20shaped%20literary%20history

Renaissance art at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/3037

#books #history #art

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289d

finished reading Mind of My Mind 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
by Octavia Butler.

The god-like mutant Doro finally breeds his race of super-powered telepaths. Can they hold it together, and can he tolerate them? Not much narrative tension or interesting characters, and not a lot happens.

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #SFF #OctaviaButler

@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de

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17d

📚 The Flightless Birds of New Hope by: Farah Naz Rishi

Upon the sudden deaths of their bird-obsessed parents, the three Shah siblings reunite.

Aliza has spent years holding their crumbling family together, caring for their younger brother, Sammy. And Aden, named executor of the estate, finds himself resentfully fa...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-flightless-birds-of-new-hope

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #familylife #siblingsfiction #muslimfiction

Upon the sudden deaths of their bird-obsessed parents, the three Shah siblings reunite.

Aliza has spent years holding their crumbling family together, caring for their younger brother, Sammy. And Aden, named executor of the estate, finds himself resentfully facing the one member of the family who always got their parents' undivided love: their famous Bollywood-bopping cockatoo, Coco.

One reckless night, Aden opens Coco's cage, letting her do what he did a decade ago--fly away from home.
In a panic, the siblings set off to recover her, armed with only Coco's tracking chip and the fragile hope they might set things right. What they think will be a quick search and rescue becomes a two-week cross-country road trip, where old grudges resurface, relationships are tested, and long-buried dreams stir awake.

As Coco, meanwhile, forges her own path to the past, Aden, Aliza, and Sammy follow--not just the bird, but the possibility of something more: a way back to each other.

Three estranged siblings--and a high-maintenance cockatoo--reunite in a luminous novel about forgiveness, connection, and the complexities of family by the author of Sorry for the Inconvenience.

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19d

I finally finished Star Wars - Path of Destruction, the first book of Darth Bane’s Trilogy. If you want to read my review, here it is:

https://hardcover.app/books/darth-bane-path-of-destruction/reviews/@factolvictor?referrer_id=7506

#starwars #expandeduniverse #eu #books #reading #bookstodon @bookstodon

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16d

"Several recent #books paint a stark portrait of the uniquely expansive regime of #USpolicing and punishment, revealing what conventional wisdom gets wrong about its origins and scale and clarifying the obstacles to changing it."

Marie Gottschalk reviews #TheMigrantsJail, #TheHighestLawInTheLand, #TheMinneapolisReckoning, & #Copaganda

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-making-of-the-deportation-machine/

#USpol #USpolitics #stateRepression #ICE #police #immigration #migrants #deportations #massDeportations #carceralIndustry @bookstodon

[rubrics] LAW, POLITICS

The Making of the Deportation Machine
The pillars aren’t new. They were built over decades, with bipartisan consensus.

Marie Gottschalk

image (photo, at left): Outside New Mexico’s Torrance County Detention Facility in March 2025. Image: courtesy of Daniel J. Chacón / Sante Fe New Mexican

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302d

One great short story to read today: Franz Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”

By Emily Temple

https://lithub.com/one-great-short-story-to-read-today-franz-kafkas-in-the-penal-colony/

In der Strafkolonie at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25791

#books #literature #translation

Kafka as a Doctor of Law, around 1906.

A young Franz Kafka is shown posed with composed seriousness, wearing formal academic attire. His hair is neatly combed, and his face bears the thoughtful, introspective expression often associated with his later literary persona.

Kafka is dressed in a dark academic robe or formal suit, possibly accompanied by a white collar or shirt, denoting his recent graduation. The formal wear and subdued tone of the image mark the ceremonial significance of the occasion.

Atelier Jacobi: Sigismund Jacobi (1860–1935) - http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/news/2008_july_02 Franz Kafka: Pictures of a Life by Klaus Wagenbach (1984), p. 58; sourced to Klaus Wagenbach Archiv, Berlin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#/media/File:Kafka1906.jpg

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320d

finished reading Anxious People 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
by Fredrik Backman.

A bunch of charming idiots (i.e. everyday people) get thrown together and muddle their way through a crisis in the only way humans can: messily, and hilariously. Occasionally heavy-handed but the portrayal of people and their idiosyncrasies is a joy.

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon

@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de

Edited 320d ago