bookstodon

Book Review #1 for 2016 is Edmund Morris' Colonel Roosevelt. This is the third volume in a 3 volume set on President Theodore Roosevelt. I read the first two several years ago and listened to this volume. It covers his life after his Presidency. I think Morris provides an honest look at what TR accomplished in the final 6 years of his life. ☕☕☕☕☕ review. #bookstodon #POTUS @bookstodon #books #bookreview #biography @histodons

New on my #blog: "Holiday Post 2025: Books and reading." https://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2025/12/holiday-post-2025-books-and-reading.html

Third post in my holiday series, and today we at some of those book lists out this time of year.

#books #reading #ItinerantLibrarian #Christmas #holidays #writing #bookstodon 💙📚

@bookstodon

I've finished: Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove

I was a bit worried about the premise of this novel, I don't usually like when cliche historical monsters are recycled into a new setting. Many times it is just name dropping.

I was pleasantly surprised by Of Monsters and Mainframes. The monsters are characters in their own right and are more than a place marker for evil antagonist.

The AIs are the traditional kind, expert systems rather than the LLM type, finding human interaction difficult rather than built to simulate human interaction. For this is essentially a found family story, and the AI is coded autistic.

It is fun and funny, but also dark, there are cozy elements but I hesitate to categorize it as cozy.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/df12836a-b0dd-416c-b75f-32f0d6f390db

@bookstodon @audiobooks
#ScienceFiction #humor #dark #bookstodon #amReading #AudioBooks

Too many novels is definitely how I want to go, but I'm probably more likely to suffer from a stong bout of drawing-room anguish 😜😂

#NotAllBooksAreCreatedEqual

@bookstodon @books @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

#Litterature
#Book #Books #BookMemes #Memes #Humor #Humour
#Novel #Novels #Bookshelf #Mastobooks #BooksofMastodon #Bookstodon #Bookworm #Bookwyrm #Bookstodon #BookLove #FantasyBooks

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Five stars:

Bad Badger: A Love Story by Maryrose Wood and Guilia Ghingini (2025) is about the unlikely friendship between a badger and a sea gull. Septimus worries he's not good at being a badger: he has spots instead of stripes, he lives by the sea instead of in the woods, and he rides a bicycle.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_12/bad_badger_a_love_story.html

#bookstodon
@bookstodon

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Book Review: The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman
Second person present tense is the sexiest way to tell a story.
A long and meaty review at the blog from @chloroform_tea today:
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2025/12/book-review-wolf-and-his-king-by-finn.html

#books #fantasy #review #bookreview #bookstodon @bookstodon

Do you all actually follow people on #bookwyrm ?
Who then? Friends? Critics?

I read mostly children and teenager #books. Who would you advice me to follow?

@reading @bookstodon
@book
#bookstodon #book #bookworm

I've finished: The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa

When I purchased a novel translated from Arabic I was expecting something more local. What I got is a universal appeal to the power of imagination and the role of stories in our humanity.

I learned about Zorba the Greek, Pinocchio and Alice in Wonderland as they struggle to survive in the grip of 1984.

I watched a man and his daughter struggle to retain their humanity in the face of a totalitarian regime.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/8b7e9b13-a81e-44c4-9bc7-e46b5142e1ae

@bookstodon @audiobooks #SFF #dystopia #books #amReading #bookstodon #AudioBook

Hmm, there may be some new additions to my #TBR list here.

> https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3922838/the-best-horror-books-of-2025/
https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3922838/the-best-horror-books-of-2025/

On side note, some of the books also have some really good cover art.

#books #reading #horror #bookstodon

@bookstodon

Christmas book haul! #Bookstodon @bookstodon

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Five stars:

Guilty as Cinnamon by Leslie Budewitz and Dara Rosenberg (Narrator) (2016) is the second book in the Spice Shop Mystery series set in Seattle's Pike Place Market. Tamara Langston, a new client of the Pepper's is murdered inside her new restaurant before renovations can even begin. The only clue is the lingering aroma of cinnamon.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_12/guilty_as_cinnamon.html

#bookstodon
@bookstodon

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Sabed que acabo de leer Piranesi y soy una persona 200% más feliz que cuando la empecé. Qué maravilla, qué gozo de libro

Finished Piranesi. What a joy of reading @bookstodon #bookstodon #libros

https://lectura.social/user/berniethewordsmith/reviewrating/141516

All language is weird, but I sometimes wonder if English isn't the weirdest 🤔

Also, does that technically make liguistics a Weird Science 😁

P.S Never spell how it sounds 😜

@linguistics @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop @writingcommunity @writingbooks @joinin

#LinguisticMemes #Meme #Memes #Linguistics
#Language #Words #Humor #Humour #Funny
#Reading #Readers #ReadersOfMastodon #ReadingCommunity
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Fiction #Bookstodon

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New #BookReview on my #blog: "The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition."
https://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2025/12/book-review-ferengi-rules-of-acquisition.html

#books #reading #ItinerantLibrarian #reviews #StarTrek #DeepSpaceNine #bookstodon
💙📚
🪐📚

@bookstodon

New #BookReview on my #blog: "Alchemy and Mysticism: the Hermetic Museum."
https://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2025/12/book-review-alchemy-and-mysticism.html

#books #reading #ItinerantLibrarian #reviews #art #hermeticism #mysticism #occult #esoterica #bookstodon
💙📚

@bookstodon

This week's #NewBooks at the library (the last one for 2025!): Three second-hand copies of Atlas of the Galilean Satellites from Cambridge University Press; the absolutely massive Fire and Mud: Eruptions and Lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines from the University of Washington Press; and #CharlesDarwin, Geologist from Cornell University Press which I might well review sometime soon in the new year in light of an upcoming Darwin biography...

#Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon #Astronomy #Cosmology #Volcanoes #Volcanology #Geology #EarthSciences #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci @bookstodon

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House of Mirth. By Edith Wharton.

It’s late 19th century NYC, and you’re a youngish beautiful woman with few $ assets, and you’ve managed to live off higher society while avoiding getting married, but this arrangement starts to come to a sudden end; you are confident you can save yourself, but you’d somehow missed how powerless you’d be if others had other uses for you.

4 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈
CW: antisemitism

@bookstodon #books #reading #women #nyc #bookstodon

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Ello sweet and lovely (gaming) Friendos

Howdy! I've not been around much, sorry. Not on this account, at least...
I've not been gaming. And I've not been trying to get further with my puzzle, although it's still open on my table. I've just needed a pause I guess. 😊

Yesterday, well, still today for less than 30 minutes, I did manage to finish the last book by Dan Brown, "The Secret of Secrets". I think it was the biggest book by mister Brown so far! It was a long read... But! If you enjoyed his previously released books, you may also like this one. 😊 It's a bit different from his previous books, but then, so was Origin... Even though it took me longer to get through the pages (there were 899 on my Kobo with my settings), it was worth the read! 😁

More info 🔗 https://danbrown.com/books/novels/the-secret-of-secrets/

I have now started a re-read of an older book, the first one of the "Women's Murder Club", by James Patterson (1st to die). (🔗 https://www.jamespatterson.com/series/james-patterson/womens-murder-club/). There are many books in the series now. I read the first few a long time ago, so it may be fun to re-read a few and then make progress with some I haven't read yet. 😊

Although I also want to read the two "not Robert Langdon" books by Dan Brown. I've read them before, but it would be nice to re-read those as well.

Anywhoo... Maybe soon, I'll try some more on the puzzle. But for now, with the colder days, I've been snuggling under my blanket with my Kobo eReader. 😊

Happy reading

#Reading #Bookstodon #Kobo #DanBrown #JamesPatterson

@bookstodon

Five stars:

"A Vision of the World" by John Cheever (1962) follows a man as he is tormented by a phrase he doesn't understand but features in all of his dreams over the course of a few weeks.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2026/comments_01/vision_of_the_world.html

#bookstodon
@bookstodon

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I just stared reading #AutisticMenopause, and I LOVE how they describe Autistic people as Autistic experts. #bookstodon #ActuallyAutistic

I write, erase, rewrite

Erase again, and then

A poppy blooms.

Katsushika Hokusai

#books #poetry #haiku #haikuday
#bookstodon @bookstodon

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finished reading Blackout 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
by Connie Willis.

The Oxford time travellers are back, back to the London Blitz in WW2. But they are having trouble returning home, and getting caught up in all sorts of trouble in the meantime. Slow moving and overly detailed, but the near slapstick humour saves it. Only the first half of the story, so unfulfilling.

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #SFF

@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de

I've finished: The Ragpicker by Joel Dane

It is not easy to do something innovative in the post-apocalyptic sub genre.

Humans surviving in enclaves, hunted by robots inhabited by broken uploaded minds is nothing new. But Joel Dane manages to explore these themes in a very humanizing manner.

As Ysmany partners with the ragpicker, to save a baby from the military twitch that dominates her enclave, they go on a journey that will form a new partnership that will change the relationship between the remaining humans and the remnants of the uploaded.

For this is a found family novel, though it is in no way cozy. Filled with danger, pain and trauma, while there is a healing process, and the new partnership builds a safer community, it is an incremental improvement.

I like it when the authors don't forget that life is hard when they write about a healing journey.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/2f165f4f-d323-4ed4-beee-d0d1ccd945d1

@bookstodon @audiobooks #ScienceFiction #postApocalyptic #FoundFamily #amReading #bookstodon #AudioBook

I've finished: Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

Lucky Day dresses a well worn fantasy trope: you can't cheat lady luck, and dresses it in science fiction clothes.

It is interesting to see a statistician have to deal with probability defying events on the personal, philosophical and investigative levels.

However this novel must come with a body horror content warning. Tingle absolutely delights in graphic descriptions of injury and death.

If you want a more family friendly novel that deals with the implications of impossible phenomena manifesting in our world, try When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/7690dede-bb83-45a7-98cf-28dd75493055

@bookstodon @audiobooks #ScienceFiction #BodyHorror #bookstodon #AudioBooks #amReading