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36d

📚 Pick a Colour by: Souvankham Thammavongsa

Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect a...

Winner of the 2025 Giller Prize!

https://bookblabla.com/book/pick-a-colour

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #sports

Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound depth. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complicated power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.

As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities—as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances—will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.

Told over a single day, with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Colour confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER. FINALIST FOR THE 2025 GILLER PRIZE

From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labour, and class. An intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name.

One of the great

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35d

📚 Lucky Seed by: Justinian Huang

Succession meets Crazy Rich Asians in this chaotic, darkly funny romp about the lengths a wealthy family will take to ensure the birth of a male heir from the gay black sheep of their clan.

The billionaire Sun Clan of Greater Los Angeles is your typical American family, with power-struggling aunties,...

https://bookblabla.com/book/lucky-seed

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #familylife #generalfiction #humorous #romance

Succession meets Crazy Rich Asians in this chaotic, darkly funny romp about the lengths a wealthy family will take to ensure the birth of a male heir from the gay black sheep of their clan.

The billionaire Sun Clan of Greater Los Angeles is your typical American family, with power-struggling aunties, emasculated uncles, scheming cousins, scandalous secrets and a fortune teller on retainer. But at the end of each combative day, the Suns are chained together with golden handcuffs, whether they like it or not.

Yet strange storms are a-brewing. Their matriarch, Roses Sun, is grappling with an existential crisis: she must produce a male heir that bears the clan's surname. She fears that if her generation is the one in which their esteemed lineage ends, they will be punished as "hungry ghosts" in the afterlife—an ancient but very real Asian superstition.

Faced with this terrifying fate, Roses summons her favorite nephew, Wayward. Believing him to possess the "lucky seed," Roses presents Wayward with a mandatory suggestion: to father a baby boy who will inherit everything. When the other members of the Sun Clan catch wind of Roses's plot, all hells break loose. Wayward's family will now clash like never before in an epic war over the future of the Suns…if there is a future at all.

Yet through the chaos, Wayward sees opportunity. What if he can leverage all the conflict into a solution for his problematic family? What if he can reunite the Sun Clan by healing them? An

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35d

📚 The Paris Express by: Emma Donoghue

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Ru...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-paris-express

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #historical #generalfiction #literaryfiction #worldliterature

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

From an author whose 'writing is superb alchemy' (Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author), The Paris Express is an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the 19th century.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

From the bestselling and 'soul-stirring' (Oprah Daily) author of Room, a sweeping historical 'nail-biter' (People) of a novel about the infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station.

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35d

📚 The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by: Emma Knight

Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s—now a famous writer ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-life-cycle-of-the-common-octopus

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #friendshipfiction #familylife #marriagedivorce

Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s—now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox—lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, intriguing family, Pen begins to unravel her parents’ secret and to fall in love for the first time...

Her best friend, Alice, an aspiring actor, is starring in a university production and making the most of the feminine power she wields—until a tryst with her tutor threatens to spin out of control.

As Pen experiences the sharp shock of adulthood, she uncovers the truth about her own family and comes to rely on herself for the first time in her life. A rich and rewarding novel of campus life, of sexual awakening, and ultimately, of the many ways women can become mothers in this world, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus asks to what extent we need to look back in order to move forward.

INSTANT #1 BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 GILLER PRIZE

A witty, warm and brilliantly told debut that is at once a love story, a story of female friendship and motherhood, and an irresistible mystery surrounding an extraordinary British family.

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31d

📚 The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by: Charlie Mackesy

Charlie Mackesy offers inspiration and hope in uncertain times in this beautiful book, following the tale of a curious boy, a greedy mole, a wary fox and a wise horse who find themselves together in sometimes dif...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-boy-the-mole-the-fox-and-the-horse

#books #reading #libraries #socialselfhelp #personalgrowth #happinessselfhelp #selfesteemselfhelp #successselfhelp

Charlie Mackesy offers inspiration and hope in uncertain times in this beautiful book, following the tale of a curious boy, a greedy mole, a wary fox and a wise horse who find themselves together in sometimes difficult terrain, sharing their greatest fears and biggest discoveries about vulnerability, kindness, hope, friendship and love. The shared adventures and important conversations between the four friends are full of life lessons that have connected with readers of all ages.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse has been adapted into an Academy Award® winning animated short film, now available to stream on Apple TV+.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER · USA TODAY BESTSELLER
"The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is not only a thought-provoking, discussion-worthy story, the book itself is an object of art."- Elizabeth Egan, The New York Times

From British illustrator, artist, and author Charlie Mackesy comes a journey for all ages that explores life's universal lessons, featuring 100 color and black-and-white drawings.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" asked the mole.
"Kind," said the boy.

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10d

📚 Echo of Worlds (The Pandominion, 2) by: M. R. Carey

Two mighty empires are at war - and both will lose, with thousands of planets falling to the extinction event called the Scour. At least that's what the artificial intelligence known as Rupshe believes.

But somewhere in the multiverse there exists a force - the Mother Mass - that could end the war in an instant, ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/echo-of-worlds-the-pandominion-2

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Two mighty empires are at war - and both will lose, with thousands of planets falling to the extinction event called the Scour. At least that's what the artificial intelligence known as Rupshe believes.

But somewhere in the multiverse there exists a force - the Mother Mass - that could end the war in an instant, and Rupshe has assembled a team to find it. Essien Nkanika, a soldier trying desperately to atone for past sins; the cat-woman Moon, a conscienceless killer; the digitally recorded mind of physicist Hadiz Tambuwal; Paz, an idealistic child and the renegade robot spy Dulcimer Coronal.

Their mission will take them from the hellish prison world of Tsakom to the poisoned remains of a post-apocalyptic Earth, and finally bring them face to face with the Mother Mass itself. But can they persuade it to end eons of neutrality and help them? And is it too late to make a difference?

Because the Pandominion's doomsday machines are about to be unleashed - and not even their builders know how to control them.

From the author of the bestselling The Girl With All the Gifts comes the thrilling conclusion to the spectacular Pandominion duology, an exhilarating science fiction story perfect for fans of The Space Between Worlds, The Long Earth and Children of Time.

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32d

📚 Stranger in a Strange Land by: Robert A. Heinlein

Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teache...

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#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #literaryfiction #classics

Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teaches them about grokking and water-sharing, he also inspires a transformation that will alter Earth’s inhabitants forever...

Robert Heinlein's Hugo Award-winning all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a science fiction classic.

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34d

📚 Heart the Lover by: Lily King

You knew I'd write a book about you someday.
Our narrator understands good love stories, their secrets and subtext, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the simple rules.

In the fall of her senior year of college, she meets two star students from her 17th-Cent...

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#books #reading #libraries #fic019000fiction #familylife #general

You knew I'd write a book about you someday.
Our narrator understands good love stories, their secrets and subtext, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the simple rules.

In the fall of her senior year of college, she meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living off campus in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. But youthful passion is unpredictable, and soon she finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever.

Decades later, the vulnerable days of Jordan's youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news bring the past crashing into the present, she returns to a world she left behind and must confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self.

Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving love story that celebrates literature, forgiveness, and the transformative bonds that shape our lives. Wise, unforgettable, and with a delightful connective thread to Writers & Lovers, this is King at her very best, af

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34d

📚 The Dream Hotel: A Read with Jenna Pick by: Laila Lalami

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determin...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-dream-hotel-a-read-with-jenna-pick

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #dystopianfiction #political

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER, READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY, From Laila Lalami, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a maestra of literary fiction (NPR) comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman's fight

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32d

📚 Les Femmes du bout du monde by: Mélissa Da Costa

Si tu te demandes ce que nous faisons ainsi, loin des hommes, je vais te dire : nous veillons sur notre petit univers, nous veillons les unes sur les autres. C'est ce que font les femmes du bout du monde.

À la pointe sud de la Nouvelle-Zélande, dans la région isolée des Catlins, au coeur d'une nature sauvage, viven...

https://bookblabla.com/book/les-femmes-du-bout-du-monde

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Si tu te demandes ce que nous faisons ainsi, loin des hommes, je vais te dire : nous veillons sur notre petit univers, nous veillons les unes sur les autres. C'est ce que font les femmes du bout du monde.

À la pointe sud de la Nouvelle-Zélande, dans la région isolée des Catlins, au coeur d'une nature sauvage, vivent Autumn et sa fille Milly. Sur ce dernier bastion de terre avant l'océan Austral et le pôle Sud, elles gèrent le camping Mutunga o te ao, le bout du monde en maori. Autumn et Milly forment un duo inséparable, jusqu'au jour où débarque Flore, une jeune parisienne en quête de rédemption... Hantées par le passé mais bercées par les vents et les légendes maories, ces trois femmes apprendront à se connaître, se pardonner et s'aimer.

Mélissa Da Costa - autrice la plus lue en France en 2023 - nous offre un voyage inoubliable à travers des paysages d'une stupéfiante beauté, aux côtés de personnages inspirés et inspirants. Un nouveau roman magistral et une ode à la liberté.

Palmarès les 100 meilleurs livres de l'année 2023 du magazine Lire. Prix des lecteurs Babelio 2023 - Catégorie littérature française.

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33d

📚 Chocky by: John Wyndham

David Gore becomes concerned that his twelve-year-old son, Matthew, is too old to have an imaginary friend. His concerns deepen as Matthew becomes increasingly distressed and blames it on arguments with this unseen companion, whom he calls "Chocky".

As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the friend is far from imaginary, but i...

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#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #general

David Gore becomes concerned that his twelve-year-old son, Matthew, is too old to have an imaginary friend. His concerns deepen as Matthew becomes increasingly distressed and blames it on arguments with this unseen companion, whom he calls "Chocky".

As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the friend is far from imaginary, but is an alien consciousness communicating with Matthew's mind—a fact that is of interest to shadowy government forces.

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32d

📚 The Humans by: Matt Haig

When an extraterrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry back home to the utopian world of his own planet, where everyone enjoys immor...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-humans

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When an extraterrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry back home to the utopian world of his own planet, where everyone enjoys immortality and infinite knowledge. He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, and their capacity for murder and war, and he is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family.

But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this weird species than he has been led to believe. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, and develops an ear for rock music and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family, and in picking up the pieces of the professor’s shattered personal life, he begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfections and to question the mission that brought him here.

Praised by The New York Times as a “novelist of great seriousness and talent,” Matt Haig delivers an unlikely story about human nature and the joy found in the messiness of life on Earth. The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable tale that playfully and movingly explores the ultimate subject—ourselves.

The bestselling, award-winning author of The Radleys is back with what may be his best, funniest, and most devastating dark comedy yet.

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30d

📚 The Merge by: Grace Walker

Earth and its resources have been pushed to breaking point, giving rise to a revolutionary and highly controversial procedure in which two people’s consciousness can be combined to exist in one body.

How far would you go to never say goodbye?

Laurie is sixty-five and living with Alz...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-merge

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #sciencefiction #generalfiction #politicalfiction

Earth and its resources have been pushed to breaking point, giving rise to a revolutionary and highly controversial procedure in which two people’s consciousness can be combined to exist in one body.

How far would you go to never say goodbye?

Laurie is sixty-five and living with Alzheimer’s. Her daughter Amelia, a once fiery and strong-willed activist, can’t bear to see her mother’s mind fade. Faced with the reality of losing her forever, Amelia signs them up to take part in the world’s first experimental merging process for Alzheimer’s patients, in which Laurie’s ailing mind will be transferred into Amelia’s healthy body and their consciousness will be blended as one.

Soon Amelia and Laurie join the opaque and mysterious group of other merge participants: teenage Lucas, who plans to merge with his terminally ill brother Noah; Ben, who will merge with his pregnant fiancée Annie; and Jay, whose merging partner is his addict daughter Lara. As they prepare to move to The Village, a luxurious rehabilitation center for those who have merged, they quickly begin to question whether everything is really as it seems.

An exhilarating, immersive debut from an astonishing new voice, The Merge is a personal story of love, family, and sacrifice, as well as a thought-provoking examination of the limits of control, resistance, and freedom in our modern world.

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10d

📚 Brimstone by: Callie Hart

Duty. Blood. Honor. Power.
Saeris Fane doesn’t want power. The very last thing she needs is her name whispered on an entire court’s lips, but now that she’s been crowned queen of the Blood Court, she’s discovering that a queen’s life is not her own. A heavy weight rests upon her shoulders. Her...

https://bookblabla.com/book/brimstone

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #fantasy #romancefiction #romance #actionadventure

Duty. Blood. Honor. Power.
Saeris Fane doesn’t want power. The very last thing she needs is her name whispered on an entire court’s lips, but now that she’s been crowned queen of the Blood Court, she’s discovering that a queen’s life is not her own. A heavy weight rests upon her shoulders. Her ward—and her brother—need her back in her homeland…but the changes that have strengthened Saeris have also made her weak. Born under blazing suns, Saeris will surely die if she makes her way home through the Quicksilver. Which means that, once again, she must send someone else in her stead...

Keep your mouth shut. Stick to the shadows. And for the love of all seven Gods, do NOT crack any jokes.

Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate has defeated armies and survived all manner of horrors, but traveling back to Zilvaren with Carrion Swift might just be the death of him. The male just will not shut up. Hidden dangers await them down the narrow alleyways of the Silver City. Unfolding secrets pose impossible threats. Fisher must wrangle the smuggler and accomplish his goals quickly if he wants to see his mate again.

A darkness falls across Yvelia. The realm and their friends are in danger. Together, Saeris and Fisher will pass through fire and brimstone to save them.

The #1 New York Times bestselling romantasy series continues with more drama, higher stakes, and deadly consequences.

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29d

📚 Neuromancer by: William Gibson

Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead ma...

https://bookblabla.com/book/neuromancer

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #cyberpunkfiction #thrillers #technological

Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

Neuromancer was the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer is a science fiction masterpiece—a classic that ranks as one of the twentieth century’s most potent visions of the future.

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29d

📚 The Persians by: Sanam Mahloudji

The women of the Valiat family are in crisis. Elizabeth, the regal matriarch, remained in Tehran despite the revolution and only has Niaz, her Islamic law–breaking granddaughter for company. In America, Elizabeth’s daughters, the flamboyantly high-flying Shirin and frustrated h...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-persians

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #familylife #generalfiction #culturalheritage

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28d

📚 Infinity Gate (The Pandominion, 1) by: M. R. Carey

The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds. Except that they’re really just one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an AI threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they’ll eradicate it by whatever means necessary.

Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal i...

https://bookblabla.com/book/infinity-gate-the-pandominion-1

#books #reading #libraries

The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds. Except that they’re really just one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an AI threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they’ll eradicate it by whatever means necessary.

Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal is looking for a solution to her own Earth’s environmental collapse when she stumbles across the secret of inter-dimensional travel, a secret that could save everyone on her dying planet. It leads her into the middle of a war on a scale she never dreamed of. And she needs to choose a side before every reality pays the price.

An immense achievement, an impeccably crafted book without a single word out of place. The New York Times

From bestselling author M. R. Carey comes a brilliant genre-defying story of humanity's expansion across millions of dimensions—and the AI technology that might see it all come to an end. INFINITY IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

A fascinating window onto a dangerous and multifaceted universe. Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time

A genuine treat for SF fans: an epic multiverse tale that moves like a thriller. Kirkus (starred review)

Readers will be wowed. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Infinity Gate, with its in-depth science and rich characterization, is a must-read. Booklist (starred review)

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1y

New Digital Library: Prado Museum Offers Free Online Access to More Than 11,500 Publications From the Late 15th to Early 20th Centuries

The Prado Museum’s new Digital Library, developed with funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), offers free access to 5600 issues of magazines and 6000 books specialized in artistic literature and published between the late 15th and early 20th centuries.

by Gary Price @infodocket

https://www.infodocket.com/2024/09/20/new-digital-library-prado-museum-offers-free-online-access-to-more-than-11500-publications-from-the-late-15th-to-early-20th-centuries/

#books #libraries

La Biblioteca Digital es la puerta de acceso al fondo antiguo especializado en literatura artística que conserva la Biblioteca del Museo del Prado. Contiene los objetos digitales de unos 5600 números de revistas y 6000 libros publicados entre finales del siglo XV y principios del siglo XX.

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11d

In September, I put in a purchase request for Enshittification at the library. In October, I was notified that Aarhus library now has it in stock. I reserved the audiobook. I just got a notification that it's ready for me to borrow. In one click, I have borrowed it. The library's simple, free, reader-oriented process is like the opposite of enshittification.

#Books #Libraries
#Enshittification

Screenshot from Libby library app showing October 2025 (Danish-language) notification that I had requested eReolen (Danish library) stock Cory Doctorow's book Enshittification and now they have the ebook and audiobook. Audiobook cover: black with Poop emoji. Ebook cover: white with big text.

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28d

📚 You Like It Darker by: Stephen King

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, abou...

https://bookblabla.com/book/you-like-it-darker

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #horror #generalfiction #thrillers #suspensefiction

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,” and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids” explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,” a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man” asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

“King’s skills as a storyteller remain undimmed” (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. “T

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27d

📚 Earthlings by: Sayaka Murata

As a child, Natsuki doesn't fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin...

https://bookblabla.com/book/earthlings

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #magicalrealism

As a child, Natsuki doesn't fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin Yuu in her grandparents' ramshackle wooden house in the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki decides that she must be an alien, which would explain why she can't seem to fit in like everyone else. Later, as a grown woman, living a quiet life with her asexual husband, Natsuki is still pursued by dark shadows from her childhood, and decides to flee the "baby factory" of society for good, searching for answers about the vast and frightening mysteries of the universe--answers only Natsuki has the power to uncover.

Dreamlike, sometimes shocking, and always strange and wonderful, Earthlings asks what it means to be happy in a stifling world, and cements Sayaka Murata's status as a master chronicler of the outsider experience and our own uncanny universe.

From the beloved author of cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, which has now sold more than one million copies worldwide and has been translated into thirty-three languages, comes a spellbinding and otherworldly novel about a woman who believes she is an alien

Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman was one of the most unusual and refreshing bestsellers of recent years, depicting the life of a thirty-six-year-old

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26d

📚 Black-Owned by: Char Adams

Longtime NBC News reporter Char Adams writes a deeply compelling and rigorously reported history of Black political movements told through the lens of Black-owned bookstores, which have been centers for organizing from abolition to the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter.

In Black-Owned, Char Adams cel...

https://bookblabla.com/book/black-owned

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Longtime NBC News reporter Char Adams writes a deeply compelling and rigorously reported history of Black political movements told through the lens of Black-owned bookstores, which have been centers for organizing from abolition to the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter.

In Black-Owned, Char Adams celebrates the living history of Black bookstores. Packed with stories of activism, espionage, violence, community, and perseverance, Black-Owned starts with the first Black-owned bookstore, which an abolitionist opened in New York in 1834, and after the bookshop’s violent demise, Black book-lovers carried on its cause. In the twentieth century, civil rights and Black Power activists started a Black bookstore boom nationwide. Malcolm X gave speeches in front of the National Memorial African Book Store in Harlem—a place dubbed “Speakers’ Corner”—and later, Black bookstores became targets of FBI agents, police, and racist vigilantes. Still, stores continued to fuel Black political movements.

Amid these struggles, bookshops were also places of celebration: Eartha Kitt and Langston Hughes held autograph parties at their local Black-owned bookstores. Maya Angelou became the face of National Black Bookstore Week. And today a new generation of Black activists is joining the radical bookstore tradition, with rapper Noname opening her Radical Hood Library in Los Angeles and several stores making national headlines when they were overwhelmed with demand in the Black

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27d

📚 The Will of the Many by: James Islington

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilized soci...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-will-of-the-many

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I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilized society in allowing my strength, my drive, and my focus—what they call Will—to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them, and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this “brilliant and gut-churning masterpiece” (Library Journal, starred review) by the internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

The Catenan Republic—the Hierarchy—may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

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25d

📚 Helm by: Sarah Hall

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind — a subject of folklore and awe, part-elemental god, part-aerial demon blasting through the sublime landscape of Northern England since the dawn of time.

Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over Helm, an extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic t...

https://bookblabla.com/book/helm

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #historical #generalfiction #worldliterature

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind — a subject of folklore and awe, part-elemental god, part-aerial demon blasting through the sublime landscape of Northern England since the dawn of time.

Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over Helm, an extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm — and the farmer’s daughter who fiercely loved Helm. But now Dr. Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears human pollution is killing Helm.
Rich, wild, and vital, Helm is the story of a singular life force, and of the relationship between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.

Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself. She gets better with every word she writes. Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters and The Hotel

From the twice-Booker-nominated writer of Burntcoat, a bold and astonishing literary masterpiece that explores faith, connection, and our relationship to the natural world.

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26d

📚 Cursed Daughters: A Read with Jenna Pick by: Oyinkan Braithwaite

When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family,...

https://bookblabla.com/book/cursed-daughters-a-read-with-jenna-pick

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When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end.

There is also the matter of the family curse: “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace...” which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof.

When Eniiyi falls in love with the handsome boy she saves from drowning, she can no longer run from her family’s history. As several women in her family have done before, she ill-advisedly seeks answers in older, darker spiritual corners of Lagos, demanding solutions. Is she destined to live out the habitual story of love and heartbreak? Or can she break the pattern once and for all, not only avoiding the spiral that led Monife to her lonely death, but liberating herself from all the family secrets and unspoken traumas that have dogged her steps since before she could remember?

Cursed Daughters is a brilliant cocktail of modernity and superstition, vibrant humor and hard-won wisdom, romantic love and familial obligation. With it’s unforgettable cast of characters, it asks us what it means to be given a second chance and h

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