Eggplant.place

13h

Frankenstein, The Vampyre, and the Spirit of the Humanities

How one ghost story competition continues to haunt the humanities—just in time for Halloween.

By: Maria Papadouris

https://daily.jstor.org/frankenstein-the-vampyre-and-the-spirit-of-the-humanities/?utm_source=mcae&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jstordaily_10212026&utm_content=readmore

Books in Gothic Fiction at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/39

#books #literature #halloween #horror

Henry Louis Stephens (American, 1824–1882). Vampyre from The Comic Natural History of the Human Race (1851).

A hand-colored lithograph titled “Vampyre” showing a bat-bodied creature with a grotesque, tufted-eared human face and a red cravat, wings fully spread. A pale mask hangs from its chest. Credited to Rosenthal & Kraemer.

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2d

Question, would anyone be interested in an Audiobook version of The Last Philosopher read by me? 😁

I'm trying to decide what to work on next...

#Audio #Audiobook #Audiobooks #Indie #IndieAuthor #IndieFantasy
#Humor #Humour #Funny #Geek
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity #AmReading
#Novel #Books #Fiction #Bookstodon

Options: (choose one)

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57d

Remembering that this poll led to The Last Philosopher with illustrations being available at my shop: https://payhip.com/NickEastIndieWriter 😁

As I was editing The Last Philosopher I realised I can add images to #ebooks 😁

I've added some examples of #drawings from my world. The question is, should I put them in the story? 🤔 And if yes how?

#FanArtFriday #DiscoverArtists #DiscoverIndieEbooks
#AmWriting #IndieAuthor #Indie
#Fantasy #Satire
#Novel #Books #Bookstodon
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity

Options: (choose one or more)

67% Add as scene/chapter headers
24% Add as appendix
2% Don't bother adding any images
7% Other, tell me how in the comments

Sign in to vote

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Mashup theme of diffrent characters and maps from The Last Philosopher.

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10h

"I Will Be Good: A Dublin tenement girl's journey to freedom, by Peig McManus. My rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Published in 2023.

Book description: 'Peig McManus was born into the last of Dublin's tenements before moving to one of Ireland's first social housing estates in Cabra. Her father believed that children should earn their keep and learn to face reality as soon as possible. That reality was poverty, class prejudice and strict Catholicism. This book is the story of a girl who rebelled against societal expectations and dreamed of further education. It tells of a young woman whose hopes of marriage to a Scottish sailor ended in the heartbreak of a daughter given up for adoption; of a mother who needed something more than her 'place at home'; and of a pioneering citizen who became one of Ireland's foremost campaigners for educational reform.

#nonfiction #memoir #books #reading @bookstodon

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27d

As an opening line this is hard to beat 😂

#DouglasAdams
#ReadingMemes #Meme #Humor #Humour #Funny #Geek #Quote
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity #AmReading
#Novel #Books #Fiction #Bookstodon

Photo of the Chapter 1 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Post by Dunwall:
this is my favourite quote ever

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8h

In 19th-century Dublin, a disillusioned doctor and a fallen woman cross paths, sparking a forbidden love that defies society's judgments.

Amazon - https://mybook.to/ascarletwoman
Other Retailers - https://lornapeel.com/fitzgeralds/a-scarlet-woman

#BooksByLornaPeel #Books #Ireland #HistoricalRomance #BookSeries #HistoricalFiction #KindleUnlimited #Bookstodon #Romance @bookstodon

Promotional graphic for A Scarlet Woman, an Irish historical fiction novel, and book one in The Fitzgeralds of Dublin series, an Irish family saga by Lorna Peel. Headline reads: “Begin The Fitzgeralds of Dublin series with A Scarlet Woman.” An image of the A Scarlet Woman Kindle cover is displayed on a tablet. Text reads: “Escape to 19th-century Ireland for a story of scandal, sacrifice, and a love that changes everything.” Bottom text reads: “Kindle | Kindle Unlimited | Paperback” followed by the link: mybook.to/ascarletwoman

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27d

The secret to reading more classics? Don’t treat them like homework.

Classics editor Henry Eliot shares his strategies for getting started, staying motivated, and finding joy in literature’s great books.

by Kevin Dickinson

https://bigthink.com/books/reading-the-classics/

Classics of Literature at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/649

#books #literature

Title: Pride and Prejudice

Author: Jane Austen

Ornate gilt-decorated cover of "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, illustrated by Hugh Thomson. Features an elaborate peacock design with fanned tail feathers in gold on dark green cloth—a well-known "Peacock Edition" binding, published by George Allen (1894).

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27d

An Irish family saga beginning with a chance meeting in 19th-century Dublin.

Dr Will Fitzgerald has walked away from a respectable future to treat the poor in Dublin's Liberties. Isobel Stevens has been cast out by the society she was raised to enter. When their paths cross, neither expects the consequences.

Start the series with A Scarlet Woman - https://mybook.to/ascarletwoman

#Books #BooksByLornaPeel #Ireland #HistoricalFiction #KindleUnlimited #HistoricalRomance #Romance @bookstodon

Promotional image for the Irish historical fiction novel A Scarlet Woman by Lorna Peel, book one in The Fitzgeralds of Dublin series, an Irish family saga. The image features the book cover, which shows a late 19th-century woman with dark hair and a pink flower on her white dress, looking down pensively. Text on the left reads: “A Scarlet Woman. In 19th-century Dublin, a disillusioned doctor and a fallen woman cross paths, sparking a forbidden love that defies society's judgments.” Below is a red text banner: “Kindle | Paperback | Kindle Unlimited.” The background is a faded image of Georgian townhouses on Merrion Square in Dublin, Ireland.

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27d

📚 The Glass Hotel by: Emily St. John Mandel

Vincent is the beautiful bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it's the beginning of their li...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-glass-hotel

@bookstodon

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

Vincent is the beautiful bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it's the beginning of their life together. That same day, a hooded figure scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: 'Why don't you swallow broken glass.' Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core. Thirteen years later Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship.

Weaving together the lives of these characters, Emily St. John Mandel's The Glass Hotel moves between the ship, the towers of Manhattan, and the wilderness of remote British Columbia, painting a breathtaking picture of greed and guilt, fantasy and delusion, art and the ghosts of our pasts.

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2020

PRAISE FOR THE GLASS HOTEL

'A lovely, beautifully written and constructed novel that I couldn't put down, full of memorable, unusual characters... Mandel's agility with time in this story was a marvel.' Kristin Hannah, author of The Nightingale

'Elegant . . . beguiling . . . the joys of The Glass Hotel are participatory: piecing together the connections and intersections of Mandel's human cartography, a treasure map ripped to pieces' Guardian

'Though its characters were inspired by Bernie Madoff, his victims, and

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32d

Several of you recommended The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. I am 100 pages in, and completely invested! I love the story, the characters, the science, the way it unfolds in alternating time periods, the way details are slowly revealed, all of it. Magnificent storytelling. From the first few pages, I have been bracing to be torn apart and profoundly disturbed, but the suspense keeps me firmly in place.

Excellent rec!

#books #bookstodon #IAmReading #SciFi @bookstodon

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2h

New prize launches for books co-written with AI cross-posted from: piefed.world/…/new-prize-launches-for-books-co-wr… cross-posted from: piefed.world/…/new-prize-launches-for-books-co-wr… Page · lemmy.dbzer0.com

cross-posted from: piefed.world/…/new-prize-launches-for-books-co-wr…

cross-posted from: piefed.world/…/new-prize-launches-for-books-co-wr…

New prize launches for books co-written with AI

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/77463853

new-prize-launches-books-co-written-with-ai-france

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16d

For anyone who's been waiting...

I now have three chapters or ten scenes left to edit before The Last Philosopher: Part Two will be available 😁

Progress is slow, but I'm getting there... 😊

Here's some fanart of Lyeasrakardsul to reward your patience.

@reading @books @fantasy @bookstodon

#AmWriting #IndieAuthor #Indie
#FantasyBooks #Fantasy #Satire #Humor #Humour #Comedy
#Novel #Books #Bookstodon
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity

Fanart of Lyeasrakardsul reading by candlelight in his penthouse apartment.

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29d

Ruby and the Land of Birds is an exciting adventure novel for middle grade (8-12+) readers from Wellington author Latika Vasil. I really enjoyed it - check out my review!

https://www.timjonesbooks.co.nz/2026/09/25/bool-review-ruby-and-the-land-of-birds-by-latika-vasil/

In Wellington, the book is available from Unity Books Wellington, the Children's Bookshop, Marsden Books and Aurelia Books - you can also buy it from Latika's website, which is linked in my review.

#books #nzbooks #middlegrade @bookstodon

Front cover of Ruby and the Land of Birds, by Latika Vasil. Image shows a schoolgirl with backpack pointing at a kākā in a tree against a background of dense New Zealand bush.

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26d

Was just shown a new app for ranking books you like against each other using an Elo system, BookSorted. Had some fun playing around with it tonight. You don’t need an account, and can just add books manually if you want. Page · lemmy.ca

Had some fun playing around with it tonight. You don’t need an account, and can just add books manually if you want.

Was just shown a new app for ranking books you like against each other using an Elo system, BookSorted.

https://lemmy.ca/post/71544430

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5d

The fact that marketing more than quality influences what becomes popular is proof that we live in an inherently unjust universe 😜😁

#WritingMemes #Meme #Humor #Humour #Geek
#Author #IndieAuthor #Indie #Writers #Writing #WritingCommunity #WritersOfMastodon
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity
#Novel #Books #Fiction
#Recommendation #Bookrecommendation
#Bookstodon #FantasyBooks
#Marketing #Popular

A meme captioned: When god makes indie authors
1: A spoonful of determination
2: Some wit and courage
3: An extra dose of natural writing talent
4: But they can't have everything. I'll add just a dash of poor marketing skills
5: *Whoops* As he spills the entire dose...

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7d

#QuestionOfTheDay favourite "femme fatale" or "bad girl" in a fictional work you like?

#fiction #music #anime #manga #musicals #books #scifi #fantasy #TV #television #movies #film #comics #webcomics #ttrpg #ccgs

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10h

The Best Shakespeare Comedies
recommended by Heather Hirschfeld

For Shakespeare, comedy was not simply about laughter, but about conflict and confusion giving way to resolution and a happy ending — at least by the standards of the Elizabethan era.

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/shakespeare-comedies-heather-hirschfeld/

Shakespeare at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/65

#books #literature

This image of William Shakespeare is the 17th-century engraving by Martin Droeshout.

“Made originally to embellish the title page of the First Folio (1623), the image portrays Shakespeare with a prominent forehead, long hair covering his ears, a mustache and mouche (patch of hair below his lower lip). He wears a starched white collar, and a doublet adorned with lace or braid and fastened with covered buttons. Since the original image was approved by actor friends of Shakespeare, who edited the 1623 publication, and accompanied by a laudatory verse written another contemporary, Ben Jonson, it is considered a good likeness.” - metmuseum.org

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27d

On “Derek,” Captain Ahab’s Evil Half Brother

“Your worst enemy ain’t Moby Dick, it’s your half brother, Derek.”

by John Hay

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/09/21/on-derek-captain-ahabs-evil-half-brother/?utm_source=The+Paris+Review+Newsletter&utm_campaign=63fed159f9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_WEEKLY_2026_01_09_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_35491ea532-63fed159f9-55433165&mc_cid=63fed159f9&mc_eid=1ab9ba5038

Moby Dick at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701

#books #literature #movies

Still from The Sea Beast (1926), Grosset & Dunlap photoplay edition. Public domain, courtesy of John Hay.

Film still from "The Sea Beast" (1926), a Warner Bros. adaptation of Moby Dick. Caption reads: "His brother—'a treacherous, kindless villain' deceives the unfortunate, trusting Ahab." Two men sit at a table in a tavern-like interior, one leaning in conspiratorially.

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6d

How to be a (Roman) man

Cicero’s ideal of manly virtue stressed the performance of self-control and bravery, not boastful egotism and domination

by Catharine Edwards

https://aeon.co/essays/the-politics-of-masculinity-at-the-end-of-the-roman-republic?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b29fddaff0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_10_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4ef8a26106-72664972

Books by Cicero at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/128

#books #literature

The following morning Cicero made another speech against Catiline.

Title: The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus, Told to Boys and Girls

Author: Mary Macgregor

Illustrator: Dudley Heath

W. Rainey

Paul Woodroffe

A color illustration of an ancient Roman forum scene: a tall orator (Cicero) in a cream toga and white headband, scroll in hand, leans from a platform to address a crowd of raised hands and spears. A laurel wreath lies at his feet.

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7h

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

Shime Yasu, a New York homicide cop, once impressed a group of monster hunters, known as the Ashen Blades, and one of them gave her their card, for the day she might be ready to see the real truth of the world. Unable to sleep and tired of being blind to the real world, Yasu calls the number and she’s brought in for training.

@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #actionadventure #fiction #books

The cover of Scarlet Eye: She Consumes Poison, by Owen Tyme.

The perspective is from the darkness within a mouth with long fangs, the teeth appearing as a dark silhouette along the top and bottom. The background is a scene centering on a factory polluting the environment, putting out smoke and dumping chemicals into water. The water includes fish skeletons, to demonstrate how deadly the chemicals are. There are also some dead trees in frame, further hinting at the deadliness.

The foreground is a rather good looking and shiny red apple, which has the black silhouette of a spider on it, an indication of its hidden, toxic nature.

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6h

📚 We Radiant Things by: Franny Choi

Blending lyric memoir and cultural criticism, acclaimed poet Franny Choi's debut essay collection explores our obsession with cyborgs and what sci-fi representations of Asian femmes reveal about race, gender, sexuality, disability, labor, technology, and language.

In the 2014 film Ex-Machina, a J...

https://bookblabla.com/book/we-radiant-things

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #biographyautobiography #american #subjectsthemes

Blending lyric memoir and cultural criticism, acclaimed poet Franny Choi's debut essay collection explores our obsession with cyborgs and what sci-fi representations of Asian femmes reveal about race, gender, sexuality, disability, labor, technology, and language.

In the 2014 film Ex-Machina, a Japanese maid named Kyoko--beautiful, obedient, unspeaking--peels back the skin on her face to reveal glimmering circuitry. The white man who has been trying to understand her inscrutable behavior looks on in horror. When Franny Choi first watches this scene, their own face awash in the screen's eerie glow, they feel a familiar mix of revulsion and self-recognition. Yes, Choi thinks, that's what I've been trying to say.

In this luminous essay collection, Choi descends into the uncanny valley to encounter notable cyborgs and robots from across American culture and asks why so many of them bear the faces of East Asian women. Just why is it that whenever artificial intelligence is represented, a sexy but unfeeling Asian woman enters the frame? What does the literal objectification of Asian femmes say about how the West imagines--and dreads--an increasingly automated future?

Choi draws from their own experiences along with queer, feminist, and critical race theory to answer these questions. Refusing the detached safety of critical distance, they write instead "at stabbing range"--a risky intimacy that collapses the space between human and machine, critic and subject. We Radiant Th

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5h

This week's #NewBooks at the library: some books I hope to review soon!
- I received a review copy of Jessica Riskin's The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste #Lamarck, published by Riverhead Books. This will be the finale of an upcoming Lamarck-review-extravaganza.
- I received my preorder of Cody Dahler's The State of This! A Thicky Thicky Dumb Dumb's Guide to #BritishPolitics, published by Bonnier Books. This was supposed to be, but through some miscommunications ended up not being, a signed copy. Cody, let us know if you're ever in Devon on a speaking engagement, and I'll make an effort to come out and remedy that! :)
- Lastly, happy publication day to @parismarx Hyperscale: Ambition, Power and the Relentless Rise of Data Empires, published by Profile Books!

#Books #Bookstodon #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #EvolutionaryBiology #Evolution #Lamarckism #Politics #AI #NoToAi #ArtificialIntelligence #DataCenters #Scicomm @bookstodon

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books.

On the left, The Power of Life, showing a cream-coloured hardback with the left-hand side showing a column of colourful period illustrations of animal heads and torsos, as well as flowers, grasses, ferns, and coral, all facing to the right. From top to bottom, there is a giraffe, a black bird with an iridescent bib (identity unknown, a howler monkey, a tiger, a fish (likely a salmon), and a caterpillar.

In the middle, The State of This!, showing a yellow hardback with a photo collage. A man with a buzzcut and a white T-shirt is seated at a table with a plate and cutlery in front of him. The plate contains a miniature of part of the Palace of Westminster in London. He is pulling a face that expresses a mix of disgust and consternation. Behind him, a photo collage of various famous British politicians is all looking at him. From left to right, we have Margaret Thatcher, Nigel Farage, Tony Blair, and Andy Burnham.

On the right, Hyperscale, showing a black hardback with a tangle of fibre optic cables fanning out from a narrow bunch at the bottom to a splayed-out bunch towards the top of the cover.

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27d

Just finished Welcome to the Kokoro Cat Clinc, by Syou Ishida. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars

It started out cozy, but then each successive story took on a sharper edge than the one before it. There's more emotional depth than I had anticipated, and the last story really got to me. The author does a good job of allowing the characters to see what changes they need to make, based on the lessons they learn from the mysterious Kokoro Clinic for the Soul. There's plenty of social commentary here. #books #bookstodon @bookstodon