books

257d

I want a million-year picnic to Mars! - The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (Review)

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257d

It occurs to me that I haven't been talking up the audiobooks I've narrated in a while. Other more urgent projects are at the front of the queue at the moment and there are only so many hours in the day.

But! That said, if you ever have questions about the books I've narrated or you'd like a free review copy (I always need reviewers), ask away!

Also, if you're curious about my voice, there are free samples of all the books in their store listings, too.

https://adaraastin.ck.page/87de3a4c9f

@audiofiction @bookstodon

#Audiobook #Audiobooks #Audiofiction #Books #Bookstodon #Romance #Erotica

Edited 257d ago

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126d

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

Two soldiers on opposite sides, pixie Commander Stargazer Candleflash and human Sergeant Edwin Harris, find their fates forever entwined, first by revenge, but as they crash together in a dangerous rainforest, they’re forced to work together, just to survive. Will they make it or will their bickering get them killed?

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

(Left) The cover of Fey Fighters, by Owen Tyme.

The background is the stars of space, with nebula-like clouds, in blue. This has been divided into jigsaw puzzle pieces by dark lines marking the lines between pieces.

The foreground features an enormous, stylized phoenix, which is composed of fire. The phoenix looms over an Earth-like world heavily obscured by cloud cover.

(Right) The same world from the cover orbits a purple gas giant, with a stream of flame above it, which may be the phoenix, with the following text over the top:

“We’re in a human-made, goblin-enchanted spacecraft, powered by a dryad that’s under the mistaken impression she’s a nuclear reactor, half-piloted by a pixie and half-piloted by a human.”

“Is there anywhere we can go we won’t be shot on sight?”

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

Sample chapter from Fey Fighters.

Sample chapter from Fey Fighters.

Sample chapter from Fey Fighters.

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225d

Thousands of authors publish ‘empty’ book in protest over AI using their work

thousands-authors-publish-empty-book-protest-ai-work-copyright

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225d

It's time for the Trans Rights Readathon this month! I'm looking forward to my third time paticipating. It starts the 17th and ends the 31st. @bookstodon #bookstodon #books #transrightsreadathon https://transrightsreadathon.carrd.co/

Edited 225d ago

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235d

Eurocentrism : modernity, religion, and democracy : a critique of Eurocentrism and culturalism - Anna’s Archive

ccea5163ff3bc8ef38a837b6f05a5175

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1y

"Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way."

Quote in his Letter (no. 155), June 1880.

~Vincent van Gogh, born #OTD in 1856.

Van Gogh's letters are available online at:
https://vangoghletters.org/

Books by Van Gogh at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Vincent+van+Gogh&submit_search=Search

#books #art #literature

"Van Gogh painted this self-portrait in the winter of 1887–1888, when he had been living in Paris for nearly two years. Since his arrival in the city he had devoted much study to the dotted Pointillist technique, thereby learning how he might apply it in his own fashion. His use of brushstrokes running in a variety of directions created a self-portrait with a halo-like circle round his head. This variation and the dynamics it created were Van Gogh’s own contribution to the new style of painting." (Van Gogh Museum notice)

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256d

The death of the mass market paperback, the people’s books

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1y

"The name of the one was Obstinate and the name of the other Pliable."

#OTD in 1678.

The first part of English nonconformist John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, partly written while he was imprisoned for unlicensed preaching, is published in London.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrim%27s_Progress

The Pilgrim's Progress at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/131

#books #literature

Title page of Pilgrim's Progress Date: 1678 Author: John Bunyan (1628-1688).

The text on the page includes the full title, which describes the work as an allegory delivered "under the Similitude of a Dream." The book details the journey of a Christian pilgrim from "this world" to "that which is to come," emphasizing spiritual struggles and redemption.

The title page also includes a biblical reference (Hosea 12:10) and publication details, indicating that the book was printed in London for Nathaniel Ponder.

Additionally, there is a handwritten inscription at the top of the page with the name "Joseph Middleton" and the year "1784," likely indicating a former owner of this copy.

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1y

📚 **Are students reading less than we used to?**

David Wignall

_A few months ago, a professor told me that she had cut another book from her course’s assigned reading list. “When I started teaching at Williams,” she said, “I assigned a book per week. No way I could do that now.”_

🔗 https://williamsrecord.com/469974/opinions/are-students-reading-less-than-we-used-to/.

#Reading #Books #Bookstodon #Education #Learning @bookstodon

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1y

I send thanks to the buyer from Maryland who purchased an art print of

Light Reading -- https://2-steve-henderson.pixels.com/featured/light-reading-steve-henderson.html?product=art-print

May the image transport you to a perfect day, one in which you immerse yourself in a most wonderful story, a book that you want to read to the end, but at the same time, never shut the covers to permanently close.

#reading #read #book #books #art #artwork #drawing #mastoart #fediart #buyintoart #fedigiftshop #ayearforart #woman #home #peaceful #story

Art print of an original charcoal drawing depicting a woman reading a book.

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256d

Gen Z Arriving at College Unable to Read

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256d

📚 Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by: Stephen King

Red's a guy who can get you whatever you want here in Maine's corrupt and hard-edged Shawshank State Penitentiary (for a price, of course), but the one thing he doesn't count on is an unexpected friendship forged with fellow inmate Andy Dufr...

https://bookblabla.com/book/rita-hayworth-and-shawshank-redemption

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #horrorfiction #thrillers #suspensefiction #mediatiein

Red's a guy who can get you whatever you want here in Maine's corrupt and hard-edged Shawshank State Penitentiary (for a price, of course), but the one thing he doesn't count on is an unexpected friendship forged with fellow inmate Andy Dufresne—an inscrutable one-time banker perhaps falsely convicted of brutal, calculated murder who will go on to transform everyone’s lives within these prison walls.

Originally published in the 1982 collection Different Seasons, it was adapted into the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, this modern classic has become one of the most beloved films of all time. A mesmerizing work of unjust imprisonment and strangely satisfying revenge, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption remains one of Stephen King’s most beloved and iconic stories.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King's beloved novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption—the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award–nominee The Shawshank Redemption—about an unjustly imprisoned convict who seeks a strangely satisfying revenge, is available as a standalone book.

Suspenseful, mysterious, and heart-wrenching, Stephen King's extraordinary novella, populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, tells a powerful tale of crushing despair and liberating hope through the eyes of Ellis Red Redding.

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256d

The Hidden Women’s Labor behind Modern Literary Masterpieces

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256d

This week's #NewBooks at the library: I bought second-hand copies of Animal Anomalies: What Abnormal Anatomies Reveal about Normal Development and The Correspondence of #CharlesDarwin, Volume 14: 1866, both from Cambridge University Press. I also adopted a damaged copy of the large-format English/German Elefantenreich: Eine Fossilwelt in Europa from Verlag Beier & Beran, which features some amazing fold-out plates. I hear it is basically out of print now.

#Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon #Evolution #DevelopmentalBiology #EvoDevo #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Fossils #Mammoths #Paleontology #Palaeontology @bookstodon

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books and part of the beech-coloured laminate floor.

On the left, Animal Anomalies, showing a prepared specimen of a frog. The body has been soaked in chemicals that make the flesh translucent and have stained the skeleton red and yellow. This particular frog has a mutation, resulting in its right hind leg splitting into two legs.

In the middle, Elefantenreich, showing a colour illustration of a mammoth in a parched yellow grassland with a herd of mammoths in the background. The individual in the foreground is facing the viewer, dramatically throwing its trunk back over its forehead, and has its mouth open.

On the right, The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Volume 14: 1866, showing a hardback with a moss-green dust jacket with black and white lettering.

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1y

Joseph Conrad’s Travel Stories Weren’t Black and White

Conrad’s celebration of imperial exploration is accompanied by an acknowledgment that such feats often go hand-in-hand with oppression and exploitation.

By: H.M.A. Leow

https://daily.jstor.org/joseph-conrads-travel-stories-werent-black-and-white/

#books #literature

Caricature of Joseph Conrad by David Low in Lions and Lambs, 1928.

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255d

📚 The City and Its Uncertain Walls by: Haruki Murakami

Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change/movement. Isn't this the quintessential core of what stories are all about? Haruki Murakami, from the afterword to The City and Its Uncertain Walls

The long-awaited new novel from Haruki Murakami, his ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-city-and-its-uncertain-walls

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #fantasy #contemporary

Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change/movement. Isn't this the quintessential core of what stories are all about? Haruki Murakami, from the afterword to The City and Its Uncertain Walls

The long-awaited new novel from Haruki Murakami, his first in six years, revisits a Town his readers will remember, a place where a Dream Reader reviews dreams and where our shadows become untethered from our selves. A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for these strange post-pandemic times, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.

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1y

The Philosopher of Nature: Who Was Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling?

Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling was one of the key figures of German Idealism, who placed nature at the center of his work.

by Maysara Kamal

https://www.thecollector.com/friedrich-wilhelm-schelling-philosopher-of-nature/

Joseph von Schelling at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12888

#books #philosophy

F. W. J. von Schelling based on a painting by Joseph Karl Stieler taken from the book Det 19de Århundradet by O H Dumrath on page 157 of first volume.

Oscar Heinrich Dumrath - O. H. Dumrath: Det 19de Århundradet i Ord och Bild, Förra Delen, 1902.

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1y

“I Am Making the World My Confessor”: Mary MacLane, the Wild Woman from Butte

By Hunter Dukes

In 1902, a woman named Mary MacLane from Butte, Montana, became an international sensation after publishing a scandalous journal recording life at the age of 19. Rereading this often-forgotten debut, Hunter Dukes finds a voice that hungers for worldly experience, brims with bisexual longing, and rages against the injustices of youth.

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/i-am-making-the-world-my-confessor/?utm_source=newsletter

At PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/42291

1903 portrait of Mary MacLane.

Mary is seated, gazing directly at the camera with a confident, almost defiant expression.

She wears dark, modest attire typical of the early 20th century, likely a high-collared blouse or dress, which contrasts with her bold persona. The simplicity of her clothing draws more attention to her facial expression and eyes.

Her hair is pulled back in a neat and simple style, again emphasizing her face and expression rather than ornamentation.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Maclane_in_1903.jpg

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256d

📚 The Green Mile by: Stephen King

Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk 'the Green Mile', the lime-colored linoleum corridor leading to a final meeting with Old Sparky, Cold Mountain's electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-green-mile

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #fantasy #historicalfiction #horror #generalfiction

Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk 'the Green Mile', the lime-colored linoleum corridor leading to a final meeting with Old Sparky, Cold Mountain's electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities over the years working the Mile, but he's never seen anything like John Coffey a man with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, condemned for a crime terrifying in its violence and shocking in its depravity. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecombe is about to discover the terrible, wondrous truth about John Coffey—a truth that will challenge his most cherished beliefs...

Masterfully told and as suspenseful as it is haunting, The Green Mile is Stephen King's classic #1 New York Times bestselling dramatic serial novel and inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks.

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258d

Another one I hadn't planned to write a #blog on: John Scalzi's Interdependency series. I enjoyed it, but finished it with a sense that it had more potential than it managed to realise, so did a #review to work out what it was I thought was missing.

On reflection, I would've liked Scalzi to do more with his interesting political economy, but besides that, it's still a decent read. Full review, including choice Lenin quotes, below:

https://write.as/the-casual-critic/interdependency-the-highest-stage-of-capitalism

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1y

Didn't know Chesterton (Father Brown) had a novel set in the future (more alternative reality?), but @gutenberg_org has it here😍

https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/20058

#Books #GKChesterton #PublicDomain

@gutenberg_org https://mastodon.social/@gutenberg_org/114278804779051650

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1y

George Orwell Knew What Made Shakespeare Great

By Michael Lucchese

https://providencemag.com/2025/04/george-orwell-knew-what-made-shakespeare-great/

#books #literature

William Shakespeare by John Taylor, edited.

Shakespeare appears with a high forehead, arched eyebrows, and deep, contemplative eyes that suggest wit and introspection.

He wears an elegant black doublet with a white collar — modest yet refined, reflecting his status as a respected playwright and poet of the Elizabethan era. A gold earring in his left ear adds a touch of bohemian flair, hinting at his creative spirit.

His dark hair is shoulder-length, slightly tousled, and he sports a trimmed mustache and goatee — a fashionable look for a man of letters in the early 1600s.

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

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255d

Nancy Reddy on Researching Beyond the Archives

Reading sideways requires a willingness to re-read, to wander through a set of sources, to widen your gaze. Sometimes, though, the answers continue to elude us and the record remains incomplete.

https://lithub.com/nancy-reddy-on-researching-beyond-the-archives/

#books #literature

People working in Card Division in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Card Division, United States Library of Congress, 1910s or 1920s

The image shows librarians and staff working at long tables covered with catalog cards laid out in rows for sorting and processing. In the background, an enormous card catalog cabinet with thousands of drawers lines the wall. Multiple workers, mostly women dressed in white blouses typical of the era, are engaged in the meticulous work of organizing, filing, and maintaining the library's card catalog system - the primary method of cataloging and accessing library materials before computerization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_catalog#/media/File:Card_Division_of_the_Library_of_Congress_3c18631u_original.jpg

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184d

📚 Boost student engagement & get hesitant readers excited about reading with film-book pairings for National Library Month! Check out our suggestions for films to pair with Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story The Yellow Wallpaper and more!

https://journeysinfilm.org/boost-student-engagement-with-film-book-pairings/?utm_source=LinkedIn&utm_medium=Social+Media&utm_id=National+Library+Week&utm_content=link

#NationalLibraryMonth #NationalLibraryWeek #Bookstodon #Books #Reading #Libraries #Librarians #Education #Homeschooling #Parenting #Families

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