A while ago, I had the pleasure and privilege of reading One Night Only, a Doctor Who novella featuring Fela Kuti, written by Tade Thompson.
You can now read my spoiler-free review over on the blog.
https://www.julietemckenna.com/one-night-only-a-doctor-who-novella-from-tade-thompson/
How Close Did We Come to Losing Beowulf Forever?
Robert Bartlett on a Vital Work of the Western Canon That Barely Survived Multiple Disasters
Beowulf at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=Beowulf
The Nation’s First Black Female Doctor Blazed a Path for Women in Medicine. But She Was Left Out of the Story for Decades
After earning a medical degree in 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler died in obscurity and was buried without a headstone
By Ella Jeffries
Rebecca Lee Crumpler at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Rebecca+Lee+Crumpler&submit_search=Search
The only question is would I rahter be this book club's bouncer or the book club's owner? Or is it like a fight club scenario where I'm both! 🤔😂
@reading @bookstodon @bookbubble @humour
#The #First #Rule #Of #Bookclub #Is #TheBook #IsAlways #Better
#ReadingMemes #Memes #ReadAllTheBooks #Humor #Humour
#Reading #Readers #ReadersOfMastodon #ReadingCommunity
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Fiction
#Bookwyrm #Bookworm #Bookstodon #BookLove #BoostingIsSharing
How Ancient Receipts Ushered in the Dawn of the Written Word
Moudhy Al-Rashid on the Earliest Forms of Writing
Aye Write 2025
6–16 November, Glasgow
Tickets are now on sale for Aye Write, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year with a packed programme featuring 180 writers from Scotland & around the world
https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/whats-on/aye-write
#Scottish #literature #books #bookfestival #Glasgow #AyeWrite
That's our Emily! Cheerful as always.
#AmReading #AmWriting @bookstodon #books #Bookstodon
#WritingCommunity #ReadingCommunity #EmilyBronte #Victorian @romancelandia
Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine is a Hindu mandala
Balzac’s realism is not merely descriptive but architectural: a literary mandala of modern society
By Harsh Trivedi
La Comédie Humaine at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=La+Com%C3%A9die+humaine
📚 
**find a book you actually like in under 3 minutes**
#Video length: two minutes and forty-nine seconds.
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjickmuG0vU.
#Advice #Tips #Reading #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon
A little reminder that the paperback editions of all eight books set along The Nod/Wells Timelines are available via Bookshop(dot)org. That means just about any book store can order and benefit from their sale!
https://bookshop.org/lists/the-nod-wells-timelines
@bookstodon @specfic @scifi @horrorbooks
#specfic #scifi #horror #thriller #book #books #bookshop #bookstodon #booktodon #reading #amazonalternative
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring #books
The First Angsty Telepath: George Eliot’s “The Lifted Veil”
The double-whammy curse of clairvoyance and telepathy may be too much for a sensitive Victorian soul...
By Ruthanna Emrys and Anne M. Pillsworth
The Lifted Veil at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2165
American artist, author, translator, and illustrator Wanda Gág was born #OTD in 1893.
"Millions of Cats" (1928), tells the story of an old man and an old woman who decide to get a cat. The book's unique illustrations, which Gág created using lithographic crayon, made it a classic of children's literature. Gág wrote and illustrated several other children's books, including "The Funny Thing" and "Snippy and Snappy."
"Millions of cats" will be available at PG pretty soon.
I mean, would it kill you to let Cathy tell you about her ferrets?
#library #libraries #reader #readers #books #book #writingcommunity #ferrets #humor #humour
Lost in Translation: What the West Misunderstands About Byzantium
By Zoe Tsiami
Byzantium often feels like a forgotten chapter in history, drifting between the grandeur of Rome and the vibrant Renaissance. For a long time, the Byzantine Empire has been misunderstood, and it’s time we explored why that might be and what the West might be missing.
https://www.medievalists.net/2025/08/what-the-west-misunderstands-about-byzantium/
Byzantine art at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/36878
#Denmark abolishes VAT on #books in order to address the #ReadingCrisis.
I think that's a great idea! While crap is generally free to read, see #X etc., why would we want make quality content less accessible by imposing taxes!?
Well ok, while certainly not every book is great, there is still a tendency that longer formats allow for a higher quality in information, education or entertainment.
Four Famous American Women Who Were Also Prolific Letter Writers
In a long and storied tradition, these bold women recorded history—and shaped it—through their correspondence
By Sonja Anderson
The trailer for Season 2 of the 5AM StoryTalk Podcast has dropped! I’m ridiculously proud of the guest list I’ve curated for us to try to make sense of the 21st century together – where we’ve been, where we’ve ended up, and where we’re going – all through the lens of art. Find out who’s joining me next and hear about the upgrades coming to this podcast. I'd love to have you as a listener!
#culture #art #writing #screenwriting #film #movies #books #writinglife
Emily Wilson Explores The Aeneid ’s Influence on the Contemporary Western World
“This ancient epic raises profound, provocative questions that are now more pressing than ever.”
https://lithub.com/emily-wilson-explores-the-aeneid-s-influence-on-the-contemporary-western-world/
Aeneid at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Aeneid
#OTD in 1781. The planet Uranus was discovered.
English astronomer William Herschel observed the seventh planet from the Sun, Uranus—first described by him as “a curious either nebulous star or perhaps a comet” and named for the father of the god Saturn. With a homemade 6.2-inch reflecting telescope, Herschel "engaged in a series of observations on the parallax of the fixed stars."
Books about Herschel at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=William+Herschel&submit_search=Go%21
![The first folio of the heroic epic poem Beowulf, written primarily in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. Part of the Cotton MS Vitellius A XV manuscript currently located within the British Library. This is a digital photographic copy of the folio. Text shown according to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43521/beowulf-old-english-version:
WE GARDE na in geardagum, þeodcyninga, [129] þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Then the feast was found, he asked for it, grew under the clouds, the gods, until each of those sitting around him heard the sound of the horn, gomban gyldan. That was a good king. After that, he was remembered, walking in the fields, the good one sent to the king; the fire on the king who had long been dead. His life, the ruler of the people, the lord of the world, was taken away; Beowulf was quick to spring forth, Scyld's son, into the lands of the dead. Thus shall men go forth to good deeds, from pious gifts to their fathers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf#/media/File:Beowulf_Cotton_MS_Vitellius_A_XV_f._132r.jpg](/proxy/post_attachment/877668/0a09586373.jpg "The first folio of the heroic epic poem Beowulf, written primarily in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. Part of the Cotton MS Vitellius A XV manuscript currently located within the British Library. This is a digital photographic copy of the folio. Text shown according to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43521/beowulf-old-english-version:
WE GARDE na in geardagum, þeodcyninga, [129] þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Then the feast was found, he asked for it, grew under the clouds, the gods, until each of those sitting around him heard the sound of the horn, gomban gyldan. That was a good king. After that, he was remembered, walking in the fields, the good one sent to the king; the fire on the king who had long been dead. His life, the ruler of the people, the lord of the world, was taken away; Beowulf was quick to spring forth, Scyld's son, into the lands of the dead. Thus shall men go forth to good deeds, from pious gifts to their fathers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf#/media/File:Beowulf_Cotton_MS_Vitellius_A_XV_f._132r.jpg")
![Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia,[52] by Jean-Joseph Taillasson, 1787, an early neoclassical painting (National Gallery, London).
The painting illustrates an episode described by the ancient writer Suetonius. The poet Virgil is shown reading aloud from the Aeneid to Emperor Augustus, his sister Octavia, and members of the imperial household.
Virgil is seated at the left, in a pale robe, holding a scroll, his body inclined forward as he reads. The central focus shifts immediately to Octavia, who is collapsing, overcome with emotion. She is dressed in white and supported by attendants, her faint dramatizing the deep pathos of the scene. To the right, Augustus sits in a position of authority,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid#/media/File:VirgilAeneidVI.jpg](/proxy/post_attachment/845623/07a195a316.jpg "Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia,[52] by Jean-Joseph Taillasson, 1787, an early neoclassical painting (National Gallery, London).
The painting illustrates an episode described by the ancient writer Suetonius. The poet Virgil is shown reading aloud from the Aeneid to Emperor Augustus, his sister Octavia, and members of the imperial household.
Virgil is seated at the left, in a pale robe, holding a scroll, his body inclined forward as he reads. The central focus shifts immediately to Octavia, who is collapsing, overcome with emotion. She is dressed in white and supported by attendants, her faint dramatizing the deep pathos of the scene. To the right, Augustus sits in a position of authority,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid#/media/File:VirgilAeneidVI.jpg")
