reading

354d

"The Worm In The Apple" by John Cheever (1958) wasn't published in the New Yorker. Instead it was written as an introductory story to his first collection of short stories, The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories published by Harper and Brothers in 1958. It is also included in The Stories of John Cheever published in 1978, which is where I read it.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_09/worm_in_the_apple.html

#bookstodon #reading #ShortStories @bookstodon

An altered cover of The Housebreaker of Shady Hills and Other Stories to say The Worm in the Apple.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Terry Pratchett's Pyramids is a magical book which explores the preposterousness, and cost, of following ancient traditions for the sake of it.

https://rdmp.org/dale-mellor/bookblog/?review=pyramids

#terrypratchett #gnuterrypratchett @bookstodon #reading #scifi #pyramids

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

356d

📚 Billion-Dollar Ransom by: James Patterson, Duane Swierczynski

Five members of a billionaire’s family. In different locations. All kidnapped at the same moment.

Two children taken from a private-school bus. A film producer and a movie star grabbed at a hideaway resort. A beautiful wife whisked off the stre...

https://bookblabla.com/book/billion-dollar-ransom

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #thrillers #suspensefiction #crimefiction #psychological

Five members of a billionaire’s family. In different locations. All kidnapped at the same moment.

Two children taken from a private-school bus. A film producer and a movie star grabbed at a hideaway resort. A beautiful wife whisked off the streets of Beverly Hills.

A patriarch wants his family back. The cash, gold, jewels, and crypto are all ready.
There’s only one problem: a brilliant, very stubborn FBI agent. Special Agent Nicky Gordon doesn’t want to pay the kidnappers.
Not a dime.

Instant New York Times Bestseller!

From bestselling author James Patterson, six kidnappers pursue a whopping ten-figure payout in this thrilling novel featuring “breakneck pacing and loop-the-loop plotting” (Publishers Weekly).

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

355d

Four stars:

Patterns in the Sand by Sally Goldenbaum and Julie McKay (Narrator) is the second book in the Seaside Knitters mystery series. The book opens with Willow Adams letting herself into knitting studio and being found there, sleeping under the store's cat.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_09/patterns_in_the_sand.html

@bookstodon #bookstodon #reading #mystery #audiobook

Cover art

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

355d

New on my #blog: "My 20 Books that influenced me list."
https://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2025/09/my-20-books-that-influenced-me-list.html

Instead of doing the #SocialMedia #20Books or #20BooksIn20Days one at a time, I just put them all on a list in one place. Feel free to check them out.

#books #reading #ItinerantLibrarian #bookstodon 💙📚

@bookstodon@a.gup.pe
@bookstodon

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

355d

📚 Exiles by: Mason Coile

The human crew sent to prepare the first colony on Mars arrives to find the new base half-destroyed and the three robots sent to set it up in disarray—the machines have formed alliances, chosen their own names, and picked up some disturbing beliefs. Each must be interrogated. But one of them is...

https://bookblabla.com/book/exiles

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #horrorfiction #thrillers #psychologicalfiction #sciencefiction

The human crew sent to prepare the first colony on Mars arrives to find the new base half-destroyed and the three robots sent to set it up in disarray—the machines have formed alliances, chosen their own names, and picked up some disturbing beliefs. Each must be interrogated. But one of them is missing.

In this barren, hostile landscape where even machines have nightmares, the astronauts will need to examine all the stories--especially their own--to get to the truth.

Exiles is a terrifying, taut, one-sitting read, and Mason Coile once again blends science fiction and psychological horror to engage some of humanity’s deepest questions.

A terrifying locked-room mystery from the author of William--this time set on a remote outpost on Mars.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

331d

📚 The Long Walk by: Stephen King

In a dystopian near-future, America has fallen on hard times. Sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual grueling match of stamina and wits known as the Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour day and night, without ever stopping.

...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-long-walk

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #horrorfiction #sciencefiction #generalfiction #thrillers

In a dystopian near-future, America has fallen on hard times. Sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual grueling match of stamina and wits known as the Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour day and night, without ever stopping.

The winner gets “The Prize”—anything he wants for the rest of his life. But the rules of the Long Walk are harsh and the stakes could not be higher. There is no finish line—the winner is the last man standing.

Contestants cannot receive any outside aid whatsoever. Slow down under the speed limit and you’re given a warning. Three warnings and you’re out of the game—forever.

Written by King when he was a college student and published in 1979 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Long Walk is an unforgettable and timeless masterpiece that showcases King’s genius for character building and his visionary storytelling.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

The brilliant and chilling first novel Stephen King ever wrote tells the tale of the contestants of a diabolically cruel competition where 100 boys start the “long walk” and there is only one winner—the one that survives.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

330d

📚 Betting on You by: Lynn Painter

When seventeen-year-old Bailey starts a new job at a hotel waterpark, she is less than thrilled to see an old acquaintance is one of her coworkers. Bailey met Charlie a year ago on the long flight to Omaha, where she moved after her parents’ divorce. Charlie’s cynicism didn’t mix well with Bailey’s carefully ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/betting-on-you

#books #reading #libraries #romance #socialthemes #friendship

When seventeen-year-old Bailey starts a new job at a hotel waterpark, she is less than thrilled to see an old acquaintance is one of her coworkers. Bailey met Charlie a year ago on the long flight to Omaha, where she moved after her parents’ divorce. Charlie’s cynicism didn’t mix well with Bailey’s carefully well-behaved temperament, and his endless commentary was the irritating cherry on top of an already emotionally fraught trip.

Now, Bailey and Charlie are still polar opposites, but instead of everything about him rubbing Bailey the wrong way, she starts to look forward to hanging out and gossiping about the waterpark guests and their coworkers—particularly two who keep flirting with each other. Bailey and Charlie make a bet on whether or not the cozy pair will actually get together. Charlie insists that members of the opposite sex can’t just be friends, and Bailey is determined to prove him wrong.

Bailey and Charlie keep close track of the romantic progress of others while Charlie works to deflect the growing feelings he’s developed for Bailey. Terrified to lose her if his crush becomes known, what doesn’t help his agenda is Bailey and Charlie “fake dating” in order to disrupt the annoying pleasantries between Bailey’s mom and her mom’s new boyfriend. Soon, what Charlie was hoping to avoid becomes a reality as Bailey starts to see him as not only a friend she can rely on in the midst of family drama—but someone who makes her hands shake and

1 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

353d

📚 Beartown by: Fredrik Backman

By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage bo...

https://bookblabla.com/book/beartown

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #sportsfiction

By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Under that heavy burden, the match becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown.

This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

Now an HBO Original Series

“You’ll love this engrossing novel.” —People

Named a Best Book of the Year by LibraryReads, BookBrowse, and Goodreads

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People, a dazzling and profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

86d

Louis Braille invented the tactile #reading and #writing system for #blind people when he was just 15 years old.

#Braille #LouisBraille #bookstodon @bookstodon

Louis Braille

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

278d

📚 The West Passage by: Jared Pechaček

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer, foretelling the coming of th...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-west-passage

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #fantasy #actionadventure

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer, foretelling the coming of the Beast. The too-young Mother of Grey House and the Guardian's unnamed squire set out to save their people.

Their narrow shoulders bear a heavy burden. Before them lies the West Passage, home to horrors and delights that defy imagining. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for sure: the world is about to change.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

THE LADIES REIGN. THE PALACE ROTS. THE BEAST RISES.

Five starred reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, BookPage, Library Journal, and Shelf Awareness.

The West Passage is a dangerous book of secrets. Travis Baldree, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Legends & Lattes

A weird and wonderful tale, rich with imagination and utterly unique. Sunyi Dean, author of The Book Eaters

One of the finest fantasies of this decade, a sweeping swarm of fiercely human creativity. Indrapramit Das, author of The Devourers

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

353d

Five stars:

Murder at Cape Costumers by Maddie Day and Rachel Delude (Narrator) (2025) is the seventh book in the Cozy Capers Book Group mystery series. There's a murder during Halloween that involves a newly opened costume shop. But in all honesty, the murder is the least important part of this book. Instead, this one is all about family stepping up when things fall apart.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_09/murder_at_cape_costumers.html

#reading #mystery #bookstodon
@bookstodon

Cover art

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

353d

"If you leave a bookmark in a book and fully intend to go back to it, how many years later can you still claim you’re reading it?" — M. M. De Voe
#reading
https://mmdevoe.substack.com/p/brains-v-brawn

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

352d

📚 Lights Out by: Navessa Allen

I want someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it.

Trauma nurse Aly Cappellucci doesn't need any more kinks. She likes the one she's landed on just fine. To her, nothing could top the masked men she follows online. ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/lights-out

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #romance #suspensefiction #humorous #blackhumor

I want someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it.

Trauma nurse Aly Cappellucci doesn't need any more kinks. She likes the one she's landed on just fine. To her, nothing could top the masked men she follows online. Unless one of those men was shirtless, heavily tattooed, and waiting for her in her bedroom. She dreams about being hunted by one in particular, of him chasing her down and doing deliciously dark things to her willing body. She never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become her new reality.

I want things most people don't, craving darkness and depravity instead of light and love.

Josh Hammond has spent his life avoiding the limelight, but his online persona is another story. At night, he posts masked thirst traps for his millions of fans to drool over, but one follower has caught his eye: Aly. After reading a comment begging him to break into her house wearing a mask, he decides to take her up on her offer.

Together, Aly and Josh live out their darkest fantasies, unaware that Aly has captured the attention of someone else. Someone with far more sinister intentions than a little light stalking. As Josh turns from predator to protector and the stakes heighten, he must ask himself how far he's willing to go for the woman he's obsessed with.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally gray male lead. Some themes and scen

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

355d

Here are a few thoughts on Stamboul Train, 1932, by Graham Greene, an early novel set on the Orient Express #bookstodon #BookReview #Storygraph #Braille #reading @bookstodon
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/85c568b6-642e-4087-bd2e-9c9eb71579ed

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

353d

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

350d

📚 Artemis by: Andy Weir

Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.

Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich eno...

https://bookblabla.com/book/artemis

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #thrillers #suspense

Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.

Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.

So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. But engineering the perfect crime is just the start of her problems—because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis herself.

Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, she’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city.

Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal.

That’ll have to do.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the renowned author of Project Hail Mary and The Martian comes a “propulsive” (NPR) tale of science, suspense, and humor—a heist story set on the moon.

“An action-packed techno-thriller of the first order.”—USA Today

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

349d

📚 Clown Town by: Mick Herron

Jackson Lamb and the bad spies of Slough House are caught in a deadly battle between MI5's secret past and its murky future in this gripping, hilarious, and heartbreaking thriller by Mick Herron, “the le Carré of the future” (BBC).

“Old spies grow ridiculous, River. Old spies aren’t...

https://bookblabla.com/book/clown-town

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #thrillers #espionagefiction #mysterydetective #traditional

Jackson Lamb and the bad spies of Slough House are caught in a deadly battle between MI5's secret past and its murky future in this gripping, hilarious, and heartbreaking thriller by Mick Herron, “the le Carré of the future” (BBC).

“Old spies grow ridiculous, River. Old spies aren’t much better than clowns.” Or so David Cartwright, the late retired head of MI5, used to tell his grandson. He forgot to add that old spies can be dangerous, too, especially if they’ve fallen on hard times—as River Cartwright is about to learn the hard way.

David Cartwright, long buried, has left his library to the Spooks’ College in Oxford, and now one of the books is missing. Or perhaps it never existed. River, once a “slow horse” of Slough House, MI5’s outpost for demoted and disgraced spies, has some time to kill while awaiting medical clearance to return to work, and starts investigating the secrets of his grandfather’s library.

Over at the Park, MI5 First Desk Diana Taverner is in a pickle. An operation carried out during the height of the Troubles laid bare the ugly side of state security, and those involved are threatening to expose details. But every threat hides an opportunity, and Taverner has come up with a scheme. All she needs is the right dupe to get caught holding the bag.

Jackson Lamb, the enigmatic and odiferous head of Slough House, has no plans to send in the clowns. On the other hand, if the clowns ignore his instructions, any harm that befa

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

330d

📚 The Shattering Peace by: John Scalzi

For a decade, peace has reigned in interstellar space. A tripartite agreement between the Colonial Union, the Earth, and the alien Conclave has kept the forces of war at bay, even when some would have preferred to return to the fighting and struggle of former times. For now, more sensible ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-shattering-peace

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #militaryfiction #humorous

For a decade, peace has reigned in interstellar space. A tripartite agreement between the Colonial Union, the Earth, and the alien Conclave has kept the forces of war at bay, even when some would have preferred to return to the fighting and struggle of former times. For now, more sensible heads have prevailed – and have even championed unity.

But now, there is a new force that threatens the hard-maintained peace: The Consu, the most advanced intelligent species humans have ever met, are on the cusp of a species-defining civil war. This war is between Consu factions... but nothing the Consu ever do is just about them. The Colonial Union, the Earth and the Conclave have been unwillingly dragged into the conflict, in the most surprising of ways.

Gretchen Trujillo is a mid-level diplomat, working in an unimportant part of the Colonial Union bureaucracy. But when she is called to take part in a secret mission involving representatives from every powerful faction in space, what she finds there has the chance to redefine the destinies of humans and aliens alike... or destroy them forever.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

After a decade, acclaimed science fiction master John Scalzi returns to the galaxy of the Old Man's War series with the long awaited seventh book, The Shattering Peace

THE PEACE IS SHATTERING

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

352d

📚 After Atlas by: Emma Newman

Gov-corp detective Carlos Moreno was only a baby when Atlas left Earth to seek truth among the stars. But in that moment, the course of Carlos’s entire life changed. Atlas is what took his mother away; what made his father lose hope; what led Alejandro Casales, leader of the religious cult known ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/after-atlas

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #mysterydetective #policeprocedural

Gov-corp detective Carlos Moreno was only a baby when Atlas left Earth to seek truth among the stars. But in that moment, the course of Carlos’s entire life changed. Atlas is what took his mother away; what made his father lose hope; what led Alejandro Casales, leader of the religious cult known as the Circle, to his door. And now, on the eve of the fortieth anniversary of Atlas’s departure, it’s got something to do why Casales was found dead in his hotel room—and why Carlos is the man in charge of the investigation.

To figure out who killed one of the most powerful men on Earth, Carlos is supposed to put aside his personal history. But the deeper he delves into the case, the more he realizes that escaping the past is not so easy. There’s more to Casales’s death than meets the eye, and something much more sinister to the legacy of Atlas than anyone realizes...

Acclaimed author Emma Newman returns to the captivating universe she created in Planetfall with a stunning science fiction mystery where one man’s murder is much more than it seems—an Arthur C. Clarke Award Nominee.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

351d

Five stars:

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst (2024) is set on a remote island during a revolution. Kiela had been a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium but was forced to flee when revolutionaries set fire to the building. Now she and Caz, her spider plant assistant, are on her home island with crates of books rescued from the library.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_09/spellshop.html

#bookstodon
@bookstodon #reading #romance #fantasy

Cover art

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

349d

Five stars:

Favourite Daughter by Morgan Dick (2025) ended up being the perfect follow up to Unearthing by Kyo Maclear (2023). Here is a fictional account of two half sisters coming to terms with their lives and the influence their father had on them.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_09/favourite_daughter.html

#reading #fiction #CanadianFiction
#bookstodon
@bookstodon

Cover art

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

329d

📚 The Killer Question by: Janice Hallett

Sue and Mal Eastwood run an isolated rural pub called The Case is Altered where a weekly trivia game has revived its flagging fortunes—that is, until a body is found in the nearby river. Soon after, a mysterious new team arrives and shakes up the diverse field of regulars by s...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-killer-question

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #mysterydetective #thrillers #suspensefiction #crime

Sue and Mal Eastwood run an isolated rural pub called The Case is Altered where a weekly trivia game has revived its flagging fortunes—that is, until a body is found in the nearby river. Soon after, a mysterious new team arrives and shakes up the diverse field of regulars by scoring top marks in every round...every week.

Meanwhile, Sue and Mal have a secret of their own. Before arriving here, they were caught up in a secret police operation which meant they had to leave town—and whatever happened back then seems to have finally caught up with them.

Five years later, the pub lies derelict, and their nephew Dominic is determined to make a documentary about their story. What happened at this unassuming pub? And can a single question really kill?

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

Named a Most Anticipated Book of Fall by The New York Times, LitHub, BookBub, Goodreads, and many more!

Janice Hallett, “the new queen of crime” (Electric Literature), returns with a fresh, edge-of-your-seat mystery that takes place at a pub’s weekly trivia night, revealed through quiz categories, phone messages, and email correspondence.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

351d

I hate both of these things, who knew I'd have so much in common with #JaneAusten 😂

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

#ReadingMemes #Memes #ReadAllTheBooks #Humor #Humour
#Reading #Readers #ReadersOfMastodon #ReadingCommunity
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Fiction
#Recommendation #Bookrecommendation
#Bookwyrm #Bookworm #Bookstodon #BookLove #BoostingIsSharing

Text above what I assume is a painted picture of Jane Austen..

Jane Austen's works are timeless classics because she knew the real
horrors in life are having to listen to men who think they're better than
you and receiving unannounced visitors.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

249d

📚 An Echo in Time by: Boo Walker

Unable to catch a break in life or love as she approaches thirty, Charli Thurman sees red lights at every crossroads. And given the Thurman family's tumultuous history, she knows things will only get worse, unless she can break the cycle and figure out where and when it all went wrong.

Charl...

https://bookblabla.com/book/an-echo-in-time

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #romance #historical #generalfiction #womenfiction

Unable to catch a break in life or love as she approaches thirty, Charli Thurman sees red lights at every crossroads. And given the Thurman family's tumultuous history, she knows things will only get worse, unless she can break the cycle and figure out where and when it all went wrong.

Charli is skeptical when her best friend introduces her to a "soul reader" who specializes in generational trauma. But during family constellation therapy with the guru, Charli experiences an inexplicable memory of terrible violence. Whatever happened in the past, it created an imbalance that's still in the Thurman blood.

When Charli's research leads her to Winchester, England, she meets a charming pub owner named Noah, whose own family history is similarly twisted. As the mystery deepens around a damaged inheritance and a tragic death, Charli is resolved to find the truth--and create the fresh start she has been hoping for her whole life.

- A woman delves into a centuries-old murder to find the truth behind her self-destructive behavior in a powerful novel about love, loss, and healing by the bestselling author of An Unfinished Story and The Stars Don't Lie -

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

Previous Page Next Page