Eggplant.place

1y

75 Years Ago, The Martian Chronicles Legitimized Science Fiction

By Sam Weller

https://lithub.com/75-years-ago-the-martian-chronicles-legitimized-science-fiction/

Ray Bradbury at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/41269

#books #literature #sciencefiction

Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury is captured in mid-speech or thought, leaning slightly forward toward what appears to be a microphone.

The strong side-light highlights his aquiline nose, high cheekbone, and neatly combed hair, while his trademark horn-rimmed glasses rest firmly on his face.

He wears a dark jacket and collared shirt; the lapel and collar peek out just enough to suggest formal, mid-century attire.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ray_Bradbury#/media/File:Ray_Douglas_Bradbury.jpg

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253d

Pets Are Family, Too: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-pets-are-family-too/

#TopTenTuesday #Quotes #Books #Bookstodon

@bookstodon

Two baby bunnies eating a row of daisies that have been picked and placed in front of them. Behind the rabbits you see a large expanse of short grass.

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184d

U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs: The Arguments That Shaped America, Now Freely Available

Thanks to a generous gift of materials from the Wolf Law Library at the William & Mary Law School, and the Internet Archive’s mission to digitize and provide universal access to knowledge, we are pleased to share more than 125,000 U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs.

by Merrilee Proffitt via @internetarchive

https://blog.archive.org/2026/04/20/u-s-supreme-court-records-and-briefs-the-arguments-that-shaped-america-now-freely-available/

#books #publicdomain

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252d

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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184d

Today is Charlotte Brontë’s birthday.

Do you love her poetry, or know her only through Jane Eyre?

Her first novel was rejected, but the next changed #literature. She had to publish under a man’s name, Currer Bell, because in the 1840s a woman writer could be dismissed before anyone had even read the first page.

One of the most famous authentic portraits of Charlotte was drawn by George Richmond in 1850 👇

#books #writers #bookstodon #reading #janeeyre #bronte #charlottebronte @bookstodon

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1y

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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167d

I didn't like animal farm that much

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251d

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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1y

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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252d

📚 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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1y

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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1y

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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101d

Rereading the classics: Why John Steinbeck’s ‘East of Eden’ has always been controversial

The author openly advocates a need to ‘fight against any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual’.

by Paul Giles

https://scroll.in/article/1093975/rereading-the-classics-why-john-steinbecks-east-of-eden-has-always-been-controversial

#books #literature #literaryCriticism

First-edition dust jacket cover of East of Eden (1952) by the American author John Steinbeck.

The 1952 first edition dust jacket of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden," featuring bold purple serif type on a blue-to-cream gradient sky, with an illustrated Salinas Valley landscape of rolling hills, farmland, and a winding river at the bottom.

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254d

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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1y

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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252d

📚 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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225d

Author to revive Shakespeare club after 300 years

An author is relaunching a ladies club that once revived William Shakespeare's reputation 300 years ago.

by Alice Cunningham

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c17887r0nyyo

Shakespeare at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/65

#books #literature #drama

William Shakespeare by John Taylor, edited

An oil portrait of Shakespeare shown from the chest up against a deep red-brown background. He has a high, balding forehead with hair at the sides, a short beard and moustache, and dark eyes with a calm, direct gaze. He wears a black doublet with a plain white falling collar tied with a lace string, and a small gold hoop earring in his left ear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare#/media/File:William_Shakespeare_by_John_Taylor,_edited.jpg

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183d

Books With Rainy Titles: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-april-showers

#TopTenTuesday #Rain #Books

@bookstodon

Book cover for Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years With a Midwife in Mali by Kris Holloway. Image on cover shows Monique smiling. She’s wearing a blue dress that reveals her shoulders and a colourful head wrap.

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184d

Book Review: The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang
Linguistics science fiction that isn't just the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis redux...Hook it to my veins.
@chloroform_tea has our release-day review of the book at the NOAF blog
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2026/04/book-review-language-of-liars-by-s-l.html
#books #review #bookstodon @bookstodon

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225d

Seriuosly, #kidlit goes so hard...

"People try to create order. Discipline. Rules. It gives them peace. A sense of regulation. Of strength. It makes them feel in control. But life is chaos, reader. The sooner you learn this, the better."
― Cory Anderson, What Beauty There Is

#YA 📚💙📚 #Books @bookstodon @bookstodon@fedigroups.social #amreading

The cover of WHAT BEAUTY THERE IS by Cory Anderson, shows a couple of teens, sitting under the canopy of a forest in the night. A shining mot flies by.

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1y

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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1y

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 1y ago