reading

53d

Another #MurderEveryMonday , another plug for Dean Street Press. This week's theme is "Crime fiction with the word ‘clue’ in the title." and of the hundreds I own, only one qualified. I'd never even heard of E.R. Punshon before DSP introduced me to him, and I love the series now.
#Mystery #Reading #bookstodon
@bookstodon

Cover of the book "Ten Star Clues" by E.R. Punshon

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

233d

All in favour of changing Library to Book hoard, and Librarian to Book Dragon? 😁

P.S Book Dragon is obviously the best kind of dragon 😊

@libraries @Libraries@fedigroups.social @library @books @bookstodon @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop @joinin
@reading

#ReadingMemes #Meme #Memes #ReadAllTheBooks #Reading #Readers #ReadersOfMastodon #ReadingCommunity
#Library #LibraryMemes #Meme #Memes #Libraries #Librarians #Humor #Humour #Funny
#Bookstodon #Bookworm #Bookwyrm #BookLove

Post by dolohkov:

An Old English word for library was “bochord”, which literally means “book hoard”, and honestly I really think we should go back to saying that because not only does it sound really cool, but it also sort of implies that librarians are dragons.

11 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

76d

#ReadingJournal This is a remarkable novel about four friends coming of age in Tbilisi, Georgia, during the last stagnation years of the crumbling Soviet Union, and as Georgia declares independence.

Three of the four live around one of the many courtyards that dot their neighborhood of Sololaki and the courtyard and surrounding families feel very immediate as if you could walk in and be right at home.

As the four finish up school they look forward to a future of freedom and promise, but the time and place they were born into make that much more difficult.

In Brussels in 2019, three of the friends are reunited at a retrospective of photographs by the fourth; memories rush back and resentments resurface, but so does their closeness, support, and love for each other.

Reaching the end I was nearly in tears, not because of the ending, but because of all the pent-up emotion I was feeling from the book as a whole and I'm not crier over books. Speaking of the ending, I thought it close to perfect, unlike some longer books where the author seems to lose momentum and the ending is a damp squib.

Nino Haratischwili's writing is compelling and her raw grief over over what happened to Georgians during the 1990s, especially for the women and girls when the traditional patriarchal attitudes become ever more poisonous and twisted, makes the book even more compelling. An unforgettable book.
(Translated by Charlotte Collins, Ruth Martin)

#books #reading @bookstodon

Photo of the cover of Nino Haratischwili's novel The Lack of Light' translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

76d

📚 Exit Party by: Emily St. John Mandel

Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted. Ari Waker and her roommate pass the gauntlet of bomb-sniffing dogs, the shanty towns, and the Red Cross...

https://bookblabla.com/book/exit-party

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #psychologicalfiction #actionadventure

$Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted. Ari Waker and her roommate pass the gauntlet of bomb-sniffing dogs, the shanty towns, and the Red Cross tents as they walk across Silverlake to a party. The mood is ecstatic inside the apartment, people drink and dance, a woman wears a silver dress, pleated like tinfoil. And then: A shift. A bewildered twin, an uncanny doppelganger stumbles through the crowd and out into the night, and Kareem, the party’s host, vanishes into thin air. As Ari Waker unravels the mystery of this inexplicable night, Emily St. John Mandel unfurls a story that takes us from a future America splintered by civil war to the seaside cliffs of Greece where weapons dealers hide in an elegant resort, and from the domed city of Paris to a colony on the moon. An unforgettable literary feat, Exit Party is a novel about the price of safety, the perils of the surveillance state, a requiem for a world not unlike our own, and a breathtaking story of resilience in the face of cataclysmic change. The award-winning, bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility returns with a breathtaking novel of doubles, shadow worlds, and fractured timelines as a man disappears from a glittering Los Angeles party, and a woman—a gunrunner, an art collector, an operative of the State—searches for answers.$

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Reposting this since the groups went down, some Of this is available in #Braille, or in audio, on #BookShare and/ #NLSBard

https://www.goodreads.com/dhamlinmusic

@bookstodon @main @mastoblind #Blind #Reading #VisuallyImpaired

Edited 1y ago

1 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

22d

📚 Monsters of Ohio by: John Scalzi

Richland, Ohio is a sleepy rural community. But it’s now facing ruin after a predatory private equity firm defrauds the local factory. Now, Richland is primed to explode. Just not in the way anyone expected. Because when corporate greed threatens this town, its citizens don’t just...

https://bookblabla.com/book/monsters-of-ohio

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #humorousfiction #fantasy #urbanfiction

Richland, Ohio is a sleepy rural community. But it’s now facing ruin after a predatory private equity firm defrauds the local factory. Now, Richland is primed to explode. Just not in the way anyone expected. Because when corporate greed threatens this town, its citizens don’t just take it silently – they make a change. A big one. Which might involve a few unexpected tentacles.

Mike Boyd left Richland decades ago to find his way in the world. But when he's called back to tie up loose ends, he finds far more than he bargained for. Teaming up with the overwhelmed Police Chief, Mike becomes entangled in a wild sequence of events that will bring this tiny village to global attention, change humanity forever . . . and, perhaps, spell its doom.

Might becoming a monster make you a better human?

From John Sclazi, the blockbuster author of The Kaiju Preservation Society, comes Monsters of Ohio – a thrilling speculative adventure with tentacles, hope amidst hardship and the (potential) end of the world.

* * *

Praise for John Scalzi:

'Enormously entertaining'
– Adrian Tchaikovsky

‘I haven’t enjoyed science fiction this much in years’
– Christopher Paolini

‘Hugely enjoyable, intelligent and good-humoured fun’
– The Guardian

‘Clever dialogue, fast-paced story and strong characters’
– The Times

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

52d

📚 Termination Shock by: Neal Stephenson

One man, a visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as "elemental." But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humani...

https://bookblabla.com/book/termination-shock

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

One man, a visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as "elemental." But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?
Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming. Ultimately, it asks the question: Might the cure be worse than the disease?

Epic in scope while heartbreakingly human in perspective, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.

New York Times Bestseller
From Neal Stephenson--who coined the term "metaverse" in his 1992 novel Snow Crash--comes a sweeping, prescient new thriller that transports readers to a near-future world in which the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics.
"Stephenson is one of speculative fiction's most meticulous architects. . . . Termination Shock manages to pull off a rare trick, at once wildly imaginative and gr

1 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

73d

📚 Never Let Me Go by: Kazuo Ishiguro

As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for t...

https://bookblabla.com/book/never-let-me-go

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

As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed–even comforted–by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now.

From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.

A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance–and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro’s finest work.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

51d

"East of Eden" by John Steinbeck. My rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Published in 2002, originally published in 1952.

Book description: Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness. Mesmerizing characters and enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence.

I absolutely loved the descriptions of land, culture, people and emotions in this book, though it challenged me to continue, reading, at times.

#fiction #Good/Evil #familySaga #California #books @bookstodon #reading

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

51d

Here are a few thoughts on High Rising by Angela Thirkel, 1933, where a spinster is accused of trying to marry her boss, I really enjoyed this one #bookstodon #BookReview #reading #Storygraph #SpinsterSeptember @bookstodon
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/c8269f77-78e9-4e93-b38d-329d9fa4fa27

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

22d

"Sally Rooney has said she is being forced to withdraw her books from sale in the UK because of her support for the banned organisation Palestine Action."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/oct/14/sally-rooney-says-she-can-no-longer-sell-books-in-the-uk-because-of-palestine-action-support

#Palestine #Israel #PalestineAction #UK #books #reading @bookstodon

sally-rooney-says-she-can-no-longer-sell-books-in-the-uk-because-of-palestine-action-support

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

21d

"Daughters of the Wreckage: A gripping dual-timeline historical novel inspired by the true story of the Batavia shipwreck and the women who survived it" by Stefanie Koens. My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars. Published in 2026.

Book description: "Two women. One shipwreck. And four centuries of secrets combine in this historical novel.

I nearly set this book aside, but now am glad I finished reading it. Both of the women, in this book, in the end, turned out to be interesting characters.

#HistoricalFiction #mystery #shipwreck #books #reading @bookstodon

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

22d

Time I add Sally Rooney to the list of authors I want to experience. #books #reading @bookstodon

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

86d

Fun with edu-fuckin-cation, am I doing it right? 😂

@linguistics @humor @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

#Rules
#LinguisticMemes #Meme #Linguistics
#Language #Words #Humor #Humour #Funny
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity
#Novel #Books #Fiction #Bookstodon

Post by @matchatia
This was the most valuable information I learned at UCLA:

Photo of a presentation:
All Spoken Language has Rules!
fanTAstic -> fan fuckin tastic
Rule: 'fucking can be inserted only before a stressed syllable

4 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

23d

That's the last of my pledges sent off! Backers should be getting everything over the next couple of weeks, and the book will be available from November 1st. On to the next one! This is the final book in the series, so jump on in:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dharrigon/desolation-rings-of-heaven

#Books #reading #AmReading #AmWriting #SciFi #Adventure #bookstodon

Desolation: Rings of Heaven Kickstarter splash. Green imagery and writing on a start, black background.

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

51d

I haven't been posting on the public timeline much, until recently, so I just wanted to say thank you to members of the reading community and book lovers, everywhere, for all of the interaction and reading ideas you give me.

#books #reading @bookstodon

1 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

71d

Have you given your books some attention lately? 😁

@reading @joinin @bookstodon @books @webcomics

#BookMemes #Meme #Humor #Humour #Funny
#ReadingMemes #Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity
#Books #Bookstodon

Four panel webcomic with a sad book.

1: As a book, I have so much to tell. But nobody ever reads me. No one is interested in my stories...
2: It seems I am not worth the paper I am printed on! I'd be much more useful if I were a pack of tissues.
3-4: A girl comes alomg and picks up the book, and the book is happy.

1 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

71d

Transcription. Ben Lerner.

You are interviewing your famous and very aged philosopher-mentor, who’s showing signs of dementia, for what might be his last interview, but the recording gets messed up, and suddenly what might be an okay approach, philosophically, to solve this is not as okay in the real world.

3 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈 🐈.

@bookstodon #bookstodon #books #reading #philosophy #writing #truth #memory

Book cover dominated by a phone shaped object covered in a brown wrapping.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

71d

📚 Life of Pi by: Yann Martel

After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, there are five survivors stranded on a lifeboat - a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, a Royal Bengal tiger, and a sixteen year-old boy named Pi. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?

Based on one of the most extraordinar...

https://bookblabla.com/book/life-of-pi

#books #reading #libraries #performingarts #theater #playwritingdrama #european #drama

After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, there are five survivors stranded on a lifeboat - a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, a Royal Bengal tiger, and a sixteen year-old boy named Pi. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?

Based on one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction - winner of the Man Booker Prize, selling over fifteen million copies worldwide - and featuring breath-taking puppetry and state-of-the-art visuals, Life of Pi is a universally acclaimed, smash hit adaptation of an epic journey of endurance and hope.

Adapted by acclaimed playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, this edition was published to coincide with the West End premiere in November 2021.

Winner of the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Play

"Life of Pi will make you believe in the power of theatre" (Times).

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

163d

Finished Dungeon Crawler Carl.

I was really excited for this one, but it sadly didn't quite live up to the excitement I had in my head.

It was a bit tonally all over the place in the first half, and seemed to care more about being a videogame in book form than telling an emotionally impactful book.

It's a shame, because it definitely has some beats and moments where it really shines well.

#book #books #bookstodon #booksky #reading #readingCommunity

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

69d

Spoilers ahead!

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

69d

📚 Switzy by: Emma Cline

A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his ow...

https://bookblabla.com/book/switzy

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #psychologicalfiction

A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting.

A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable.

This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades.

His final destination is Zurich.

David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.

As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE AND NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF FALL

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

72d

That's it, that's the story 🤔
No one can tell me Dune isn't realistic 😂

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

#Realistic #Dune
#GeekMemes #Geek #Meme #Humor #Humour #Funny
#Epic #Scifi
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity #Bookstodon

Post by dunemovie
Explain Dune in one sentence.

Reply by August J. Pollak
In a move so unsurprising there is literally an eons-old galactic prophecy about it, powerful, horny men are unable to peacefully share a planet made of cocaine.

4 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

68d

After reading one too many cosy/whimsical novels by Japanese authors I’m looking for some Japanese classic crime or thrillers for a change! Recs welcome #bookstodon #reading @bookstodon

2 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

68d

📚 Taipei Story by: R. F. Kuang

College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are...

https://bookblabla.com/book/taipei-story

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #familylife #multigenerationalfiction #literaryfiction #womenfiction

College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home.

Then shocking news arrives: Lily’s grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she’s drawn into a journey of self-discovery—piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.

Taipei Story asks: What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can’t bring you any closer to the people you’re trying to reach? What if you search for your family’s history, but your family doesn’t want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding—of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

From R.F. Kuang, the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author of Katabasis and Yellowface, comes a wryly humorous and profoundly moving coming-of-age novel that grapples with

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

Previous Page Next Page