Been wanting to read The Laundry Files by @cstross for quite some time and finally started The Atrocity Archives. So good! I’m going to be burning through this series!
bookstodon
Look What You Made Me Do by John Lancaster. It's one achievement I guess was to make me feel brief sympathy for two characters that deserved none. It's clever I guess. Very inside North London/Oxford middle classes who will love it. You have to suspend belief to believe it. I couldn't. #bookstodon @bookstodon #KeefsReads
2025 Nobel Prize winner, Laszlo Krasznahorkai writes about collapse, fear, absurdity, and the strange comedy of human behavior when the world feels close to breaking apart.
His novels are famous for their long hypnotic sentences.
A perfect place to start is Satantango or The Melancholy of Resistance.
#books #writers #reading #Krasznahorkai #nobelprize #literature #book #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #BookTok #booklovers #bookish #absurdity #novel #satantango #melancholy
Books may do more than entertain us.
A large study using Health and Retirement Study data found that people who read #books had a survival advantage compared with non-book #readers, even after adjusting for factors like age, #education, health, and wealth.
Strong evidence that #reading is associated with living better and longer.
Source: A chapter a day: Association of book reading with #longevity.
#book #bookstodon #booksky #BookTok #booklover #bookstagram
@bookstodon
My #bookreview is brief/won't spoil, to spread good, great, and spectacular #horror #books far and wide.
Illuminating, concise, and chock-full of fascinating details— with images of pages and ephemera pulled from King's personal archives— this book provides a truly unique and one-of-a-kind window into the Writing World and Words of Stephen King. An absolute joy for any Constant Reader. (Hogarth)
#book #review #bookstodon #StephenKing
@bookstodon #mothersuspiriareview #MSReview @bookstodon@toot.community
Finished up GOOD AND EVIL AND OTHER STORIES, by Samanta Schweblin. I've rated it 4 out of 5 stars. MOUTHFUL OF BIRDS is still my favorite collection, that turned me on to her unique approach to horror stories.
The thing she does that is so different is that she makes the reader hyperaware of what *could* have happened, in addition to what actually happened. It adds a layer of unease. The characters feal real, and so does their panic.
Edited 203d ago
The Bloodhounds of Zirth by Lloyd Palmer
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64527
#books #reading #bookstodon #scifi #sciencefiction #scifiart #sciencefictionart #retro #retrofuturism #pulpfiction #pulp #bookart #bookcovers #coverart
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64527
#books #reading #bookstodon #scifi #sciencefiction #scifiart #sciencefictionart #retro #retrofuturism #pulpfiction #pulp #bookart #bookcovers #coverart
My thoughts on PYTHON'S KISS: Stories, by Louise Erdrich. 4 out of 5 stars.
I first learned of Erdrich by reading the Pulitzter Prize winning THE NIGHT WATCHMAN, a novel about the fight against Native American dispossession. Erdrich is an Indigenous author who crafts purposeful storytelling. I was hooked. But then, I could not connect with her next novel. So, I figured I'd try again with PYTHON'S KISS, and Wow! These are some very inventive stories. I was mesmerized by nearly all of them. Only two seemed to lack the punch of the others. I can certainly live with that.
Erdrich knows how to create a setting that draws you in, with quirky characters whom you can care about, so their eventual anguish really resonates. The themes are dark, but they also feel real, even when the circumstances may feel utterly unfamiliar. A worthwhile read.
This week's #NewBooks at the library: A toss-up of three different titles
- Having reviewed a biography about Edgar Allan Poe, I determined that Thomas Olive Mabbott's version, originally published by Belknap Press, is probably one of the more authoritative collections of Poe's work. I managed to find a 1979 hardback original of the first volume via eBay.
- I found a very affordable second-hand version of Cambridge University Press's Meteoroids: Sources of Meteors on Earth and Beyond in their Cambridge Planetary Science series.
- One more book from my employer's January clearance sale is Muhammad H. Zaman's Biography of Resistance: The Epic Battle Between People and Pathogens, published by Harper Wave.
#Books #Bookstodon #Scicomm #Gothic #Poetry #Astronomy #Astrodon #Microbiology #Disease @bookstodon
Cover Reveal! Here is our next book, which opens for pre-orders soon, and it is a reprint of what some scholars say is a landmark publication, the first single-author collection of speculative stories from an African author (based on the continent and in contemporary times, we believe). First published in 2014, it went out of print when the original publisher folded. We are proud to bring it back to life!
https://www.ododopress.com/blog/cover-reveal-a-killing-in-the-sun/
#books #bookstodon #sff #sciFi #writing #writingcommunity #blog
Today is the birthday of John Fowles, and it feels like a good moment to return to a writer who made novels feel intimate, troubling, and alive.
His books do not leave the reader untouched. They linger. They raise questions about love, freedom, illusion, loneliness, and the stories people tell themselves just to keep going.
If you have read him, which book stays with you most?
#books #reading #literature #writers
#bookstodon
@bookstodon
I've heard some hype around #SarahJMaas 's horny romantic fantasies, but found this a mixed bag. On the bad side, the prose is in places excruciatingly poor, piling up adjectives unnecessarily. A typical, but particularly funny, example is when one of the protagonists is severely wounded by a demon, but Maas can't help telling us in the moment that the medic that rushes to save him is "curvy"! All her characters, except the minor character Lebadah, speak their dialogue in the precise same snarky, sweary, hostile register. On the other hand, the plot rattles along very entertainingly with plenty of twists and set pieces keeping the 800 pages lively. So despite seriously considering an early DNF, I had fun in the end. @bookstodon #Bookstodon
#Reading can support mental health too.
A systematic review of randomized clinical trials found that #bibliotherapy (structured reading used in treatment) can reduce depressive symptoms and may have lasting benefits.
#Books are not a replacement for care when someone needs help, but they can be a real part of healing.
#mentalhealth #literature #readingcommunity #book #booksky #BookTok #booklovers #bookstagram #bookstodon @bookstodon
#lispyGopherClimate #technology #podcast #live https://toobnix.org/w/5QbQiLw7zrFiETgbv32kJk first half missing?
- One week from today is #LambdaMOO's annual festival, April Fool's.
- Let's have a text based #MUD #bonkwave pool party / concert
Notably /after/ submitting my #ELS2026 #commonLisp #deepLearning article https://european-lisp-symposium.org/2026
we just had this great thread: https://gamerplus.org/@screwlisp/116286095082069619 I will read #bookstodon and #programming suggestions by @riley and others. #ai #DL #ML
Edited 234d ago
Five stars:
Asteroid Hunters by Carrie Nugent (2017) is a TED Talk but in book form. It's a quick, easy, and fun introduction to the history an current state of astroid science. It ended up being my book to read during meals for about a week.
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2026/comments_03/asteroid_hunters.html
I've finished: Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett
Foundryside is a cyberpunk technothriller transformed onto a fantasy setting.
It has Robert Jackson Bennett's hallmarks, a few capable but scarred individuals team up to try and make thins better in a corrupt and unjust world.
The problem is that this novel is aimed at a YA audience, things are simplified to a cringe inducing level. There is no subtlety and the bad-guys are cartoon level villains.
Arriving at Foundryside after reading Robert Jackson Bennett's excellent Leviathan and Divine Cities books is a bit of a letdown.
The concept is good, it is still RJB, but simplified to a lower level than necessary even for a younger audience.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/d7afc27e-c8d9-4408-bfc1-9ac1a8002c86
@bookstodon @audiobooks #SFF #fantasy #amReading #bookstodon #AudioBookds
A grim tale of domestic violence in remote New Zealand sheep country, narrated by the couple's pet magpie(!). Very much outside my comfort zone, as I had to keep forcing myself to pick it up given the upsetting themes, but at it's best it was brilliantly executed. Some of the most inventive and excellent prose to bring the bird's worldview to life. The subplot involving animal rights activists didn't work for me. @bookstodon #bookstodon #CatherineChidgey
This is the ultra-prolific #AdrianTchaivovsky in throwaway, goof-off mode, built around a pastiche of a D&D adventure, complete with anachronistic dialogue and lore ripped straight out of Tolkien and not much disguised in the process. Of course Tchaivovsky doesn't play things straight, and the adventurers have to confront the realisation that even when the Dark Lord of the day genuinely deserves to be defeated, moral lines are not always so easy to draw beyond that. Not the book you'd recommend to convince someone that Tchaivovsky is capable of greatness, but very fun. @bookstodon #Bookstodon
Five stars:
Magic and Mischief at the Wayside Hotel by Elizabeth Everett and Ellen Archer (Narrator) (2026) is an urban romansy set in an undisclosed modern city. Pax Nomen, a former paladin, the caretaker of Number Five Wayside Inn, os now facing the troubling reality that the magic that makes the inn capable of traveling between worlds has run dry. The inn is stuck on Earth until he can find a suitable human to recharge the tank before his tenants kill them.
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2026/comments_04/magic_and_mischief_at_the_wayside_hotel.html
If you have never listened to my audiobooks before and don't know where to start, allow me to recommend The Giantess Slave by Amber Collins.
A female mad scientist kidnaps two party girls to create the ultimate instrument of her revenge: a 200-foot tall woman!
It's a scifi story with a light sapphic vibe that's the lowest heat of all my books -- it's far more suggestive than explicit and barely registers as PG-13.
*Friends sometimes say they'd like to check out my work but feel uncomfortable at the thought of listening to me narrate spicy sex scenes. I respect that! This might fit the bill.
It's also as campy as a 1950's drive-in movie.
And I had more fun than I know how to tell you doing the sexy mad scientist voice!
Bonus: for reasons I absolutely do not understand, several listeners have told me that they love to listen to this book to fall asleep to. Maybe my MILF-y Mad Scientist voice is soporific?
It's available through Amazon, Audible and Apple Books. You can hear a quick free sample in any of the listings!
#Audiobook #Audiobooks #Bookstodon #LGBTQbookstodon #Scifi #SizeFantasy #Macrophilia #SapphicLit
After less than a month on Threads, I finally got banned.
Permanently, with no right to appeal.
I genuinely don’t understand what for - just occasional posts about books and writers, same as here and across nine other social networks.
Their AI could not even explain the exact reason, only vague generic wording… so I can only assume my IQ was slightly above what the platform is built to tolerate.
#threads #books #reading #bookstodon #booksky #socialmedia
@bookstodon
Space Dragons: Cosmic Survivors by @vicorva is a great book! I enjoyed returning to the imaginative setting and the lovable characters. Also, the representation of queer and other marginalized identities is really good.
Also: dragons in space! 🐉
Earlier: "I entered this profession just as the storm clouds of the current book-banning push were starting to gather, but I enrolled in a librarian certification program hoping it would pass over me as if lamb’s blood were painted on my doorframe." https://www.texasobserver.org/abilene-isd-librarian-book-ban/
Five stars:
March 12th was the eleventh anniversary of Terry Pratchett's death and that had me thinking of Going Postal (2004). I have seen the two part mini series adaptation of the book many times but wanted to listen again to Stephen Brigg's reading of it.
#bookstodon
@bookstodon #fantasy #audioBook
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2026/comments_04/going_postal.html
