Eggplant.place

15d

📚 I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for $200 by: Robert Brockway

To bright and anxious eight-year-old Kay Washington, the worst thing in the world is being alone with the quiet. That's why Eddie Video makes the perfect imaginary friend: He's smart, he's loud, he loves pulling pranks, and he's always there...

https://bookblabla.com/book/i-will-kill-your-imaginary-friend-for-200

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #horror #generalfiction #humorous #darkhumor

To bright and anxious eight-year-old Kay Washington, the worst thing in the world is being alone with the quiet. That's why Eddie Video makes the perfect imaginary friend: He's smart, he's loud, he loves pulling pranks, and he's always there to chase away the silence.

To mid-forties, down-on-his-luck Ivan, the worst thing in the world happened when he lost his imaginary friend. Now cursed with the ability to see everyone else's, Ivan makes a living by killing the imaginary friends of adults who couldn't let go. But when one of Eddie Video's 'pranks' goes too far, Ivan agrees to make an exception and help Kay.

Only Ivan will soon learn that Eddie Video is nothing like the talking ostriches, star bears, and goblin princesses he's encountered in the past, and it’s going to take a lot more than clumsy haymakers and steak knives to bring him down. A balance of comedy and catharsis, this dual-narrative tackles both the fear of growing up and the scars our childhood leaves behind.

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16d

📚 Black AF History by: Michael Harriot

From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of untold American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.

America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology im...

https://bookblabla.com/book/black-af-history

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #history #american #discriminationhistory #unitedstates

From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of untold American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.

America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is George Washington’s cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln's log cabin. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story.

It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie.

In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history. Combining unapologetically provocative storytelling with meticulous research based on primary sources as well as the work of pioneering Black historians, scholars, and journalists, Harriot removes the white sugarcoating from the American story, placing Black people squarely at the center. With incisive wit, Harriot speaks hilarious truth to oppressive power, subverting conventional historical narratives with the hid

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22d

💕 I Love Free Software Day 2026 💕

For this year’s I Love Free Software Day I am co-organising two special events, and I am super excited about them!

🧶 Knitting Our Internet at Snackbar Frieda, Rotterdam, on Friday Feb 13th at 18:00. All information here.
🛹 A reading of @kirschner’s Ada & Zangemann in English and in Dutch. After that, a conversation about Free Software maintenance as care work, together with @mayel from @Bonfire ❤️‍🔥 at the @internetarchiveeurope, Oudeschans 16, Amsterdam on Saturday Feb 14th at 14:00. All information here. Info about the super cool poster in the post below.

#FreeSoftware #SoftwareFreedom #ILoveFS #ILoveFreeSoftware #ILoveFS #IloveFS26 #ournet #KnittingOurInternet #SnackbarFrieda #Rotterdam #Amsterdam #InternetArchive #InternetArchiveEurope #AZbook #Ada #AdaZangemann #reading #event #decentralizaion #InternetHistory #Internet

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15d

📚 Women of a Promiscuous Nature by: Donna Everhart

On a brisk February morning while walking to the diner where she works, 24 year-old Ruth Foster is stopped by the local sheriff. He insists she accompany him to a health clinic, threatening to arrest her if she doesn't undergo testing in order to preserv...

https://bookblabla.com/book/women-of-a-promiscuous-nature

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #historical #20thcentury #generalfiction #southernfiction

On a brisk February morning while walking to the diner where she works, 24 year-old Ruth Foster is stopped by the local sheriff. He insists she accompany him to a health clinic, threatening to arrest her if she doesn't undergo testing in order to preserve decency and prevent the spread of sexual disease.

Though Ruth has never shared more than a chaste kiss with a man, by day's end she is one of dozens of women held at the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women. Some are there because they were reported for promiscuity by neighbors, husbands, strangers. Some were accused of prostitution. Others were just pretty and unmarried. Or poor and suspicious. One was eating dinner alone in a restaurant. Another spoke to a soldier.

Josephine's sin was running a business as a single woman. Maude's was trying to drown her sorrows. Frances had lost her mind. Opal married a man with a mean streak. Some, like 15-year-old Stella, are brought in because they're victims of assault. She's too naive and broken to understand how unjust this imprisonment is.

Superintendent Dorothy Baker, convinced that she's transforming degenerate souls into upstanding members of society, oversees the women's medical treatment and “training" until they're deemed ready for parole. Sooner or later, everyone at the Colony learns to abide by Mrs. Baker's rule book or face the consequences—solitary confinement, grueling work assignments, and worse.

But some refuse to be cowed. Some find ways to fight

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16d

The perfect job doesn't exi-

#books #reading

A four-panel comic strip set in a park, by Tom Gauld. Panel 1: "It's my perfect job, really! Their owners are busy people who love them but don't have time to give them the attention they need." There's a person walking a dog in the background. In subsequent panels, the view slowly pans to the right. Panel 2: "Nobody likes to think of them just lying around in the house alone." Panel 3: "So I pick them up bright and early and we spend the whole day in the park." Panel 4 reveals that the person saying all this is actually sitting on a bench reading a book, with a pile of more books next to her. She concludes: "I read a few chapters of each and drop them home with a short precis of what happened. Everyone's happy!"

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14d

An older but very nice review of my story The Last Philosopher 😊

Free eBook version of Part One:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tynp5wgkwr0dkvmf3dzp3/The-Last-Philosopher-Part-One.epub?rlkey=n61zknkz05eakr809gcs19kzd&dl=0

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

#WIPWednesday #Short #Excerpt #AmWriting #IndieAuthor
#SpecualtiveFiction #FantasyBooks #High #Fantasy #SciFi #Satire #Humor #Humour #Comedy
#Book #Books #Novel #Novels #Bookstodon #Bookwyrm #FantasyBooks
#Reading #Readers #ReadersOfMastodon #ReadingCommunity
#Review #Bookreview #BookRecommendation

Chapter 1:
The first thing I noticed here was how much this first chapter reminds
me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You have a really similar
style and I'm not complaining at all!
I also really appreciated how you used dashes instead of commas, most
people choose to be boring.
I loved the personification and the attention to detail, the way you write
things really makes me feel as if | am there myself.

Final Impression:
I was really hooked on reading this story and youdefinitely did not disappoint! I love your books so, so much and Ihonestly couldn't find much to nitpick at. I hoped this helped at least a tiny bit <3

Rating:
10 out of 10

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14d

📚 I Who Have Never Known Men (B&N Exclusive Edition) by: Jacqueline Harpman

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl--the fortieth prisoner--sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others...

https://bookblabla.com/book/i-who-have-never-known-men-bn-exclusive-edition

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #generalfiction #literaryfiction #dystopianfiction #feminist

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl--the fortieth prisoner--sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.

Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation.

Now available in a collectible hardcover edition, featuring an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, Harpman's modern classic is an essential addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

THE RUNAWAY BESTSELLER, NOW AVAILABLE IN A SPECIAL COLLECTOR'S EDITION.
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.

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13d

📚 Behind These Four Walls by: Yasmin Angoe

Isla Thorne had a rough start in life. Orphaned young, she spent her formative years in a group home where she met her best friend, Eden Galloway. At sixteen, they decide to run away to LA...but Eden never makes it.

It's been ten years since Eden vanished. And Isla...

https://bookblabla.com/book/behind-these-four-walls

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #thrillers #suspensefiction #psychologicalfiction #domestic

Isla Thorne had a rough start in life. Orphaned young, she spent her formative years in a group home where she met her best friend, Eden Galloway. At sixteen, they decide to run away to LA...but Eden never makes it.

It's been ten years since Eden vanished. And Isla's determined to find her.

She begins at the last place Eden visited: the Corrigan mansion in Virginia. Eden claimed to have unfinished business there. Posing as an aspiring journalist, Isla insinuates herself into the wealthy family's home and begins searching for the truth.

The more she digs, the more Isla discovers Eden isn't who she thought she was. Was she even a victim, or did Eden plan this all along? Desperate for answers and to keep her identity hidden, Isla finds an ally in one of the Corrigan sons. But as she wades deeper into this power-hungry family's secrets and lies, she finds herself in the crosshairs of a bloodline that's more lethal than loyal.

From the author of Not What She Seems, Yasmin Angoe's thriller explores revenge, morality, corruption, and wealth as a woman sets out to uncover the truth behind her friend's disappearance and expose the powerful family behind it.

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14d

📚 The Flightless Birds of New Hope by: Farah Naz Rishi

Upon the sudden deaths of their bird-obsessed parents, the three Shah siblings reunite.

Aliza has spent years holding their crumbling family together, caring for their younger brother, Sammy. And Aden, named executor of the estate, finds himself resentfully fa...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-flightless-birds-of-new-hope

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #familylife #siblingsfiction #muslimfiction

Upon the sudden deaths of their bird-obsessed parents, the three Shah siblings reunite.

Aliza has spent years holding their crumbling family together, caring for their younger brother, Sammy. And Aden, named executor of the estate, finds himself resentfully facing the one member of the family who always got their parents' undivided love: their famous Bollywood-bopping cockatoo, Coco.

One reckless night, Aden opens Coco's cage, letting her do what he did a decade ago--fly away from home.
In a panic, the siblings set off to recover her, armed with only Coco's tracking chip and the fragile hope they might set things right. What they think will be a quick search and rescue becomes a two-week cross-country road trip, where old grudges resurface, relationships are tested, and long-buried dreams stir awake.

As Coco, meanwhile, forges her own path to the past, Aden, Aliza, and Sammy follow--not just the bird, but the possibility of something more: a way back to each other.

Three estranged siblings--and a high-maintenance cockatoo--reunite in a luminous novel about forgiveness, connection, and the complexities of family by the author of Sorry for the Inconvenience.

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16d

I finally finished Star Wars - Path of Destruction, the first book of Darth Bane’s Trilogy. If you want to read my review, here it is:

https://hardcover.app/books/darth-bane-path-of-destruction/reviews/@factolvictor?referrer_id=7506

#starwars #expandeduniverse #eu #books #reading #bookstodon @bookstodon

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319d

I want to give #Mastodon a proper go this time, but it's hard to connect with people when no-one follows you, and hashtags only get you so far. 😞

So, if you like one of the hashtags below, please consider following me, and if you do, I'll follow you back! Thank you. 💗

#retrocomputing #msdos #windows #vintagecomputing #ai #lego #scifi #amiga #linux #doctorwho #drwho #startrek #starwars #space #uk #lgbtq #3dprinting #woodworking #discworld #reading

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13d

I’ve just finished reading a fascinating book about 3 women who rose to the top of the fashion retail business in the U.S., my favourite being Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel’s who brought the store back to life as a place for exclusive fashion in the 1960s #bookstodon #BookReview #reading #Storygraph #audiobook #NonFiction @bookstodon
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/51547c6d-601e-4d56-af35-7f9e9c567326

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13d

📚 The Heart of Everything by: Marc Levy

There's nothing too unusual about a father asking his son for a favor unless, of course, the father in question has been dead for five years.

Thomas, a young virtuoso pianist living a quiet, carefully structured life in France, is stunned when his late father, Raymond, s...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-heart-of-everything

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #ghostfiction #romance #internationalfiction #familylife

There's nothing too unusual about a father asking his son for a favor unless, of course, the father in question has been dead for five years.

Thomas, a young virtuoso pianist living a quiet, carefully structured life in France, is stunned when his late father, Raymond, suddenly appears in his home. He's not a ghost in the traditional sense--he's real enough to ask for help. His request? That Thomas travel with him to San Francisco to find Camille, the long-lost love of his life.

For Thomas, it's as surreal as it sounds. And yet... it might be his last-in-a-lifetime chance to know his father as a man and to square the regrets of the past. Together they embark on a five-thousand-mile journey that questions the very nature of existence, proves that love never fades, and rekindles the curious, heart-tugging bond between a parent and child that somehow endures beyond death.

Even death can't break the bond between father and son in an uncannily funny and poignant novel about love, loss, memory, and family by Marc Levy, the bestselling author of P.S. from Paris.

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12d

📚 Twist by: Colum McCann

Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at an unfath...

https://bookblabla.com/book/twist

@bookstodon

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

$Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at an unfathomable depth. Fennell's journey brings him to the west coast of Africa, where he uncovers a story about the raw human labor behind the dazzling veneer of the technological world. He meets a fellow Irishman, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship. The mysterious Conway is a skilled engineer and a freediver capable of reaching extraordinary depths. He is also in love with a South African actress, Zanele, who must leave to go on her own literary adventure to London. When the ship is sent up the coast to repair a series of major underwater breaks, both men learn that the very cables they seek to fix carry the news that may cause their lives to unravel. At sea, they are forced to confront the most elemental questions of life, love, absence, belonging, and the perils of our severed connections. Can we, in our fractured world, reweave ourselves out of the thin, broken threads of our pasts? Can the ruptured things awaken us from our despair? Resoundingly simple and turbulent at the same time, Twist is a meditation on the nature of narrative and truth from one of the great storytellers of our times. INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. An urgent and ingenious (The New Y$

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11d

Suck it linguists I'll make my own grammar rolls 😜😂

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

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

Post by keva
Here's my first attempt at synonym rolls, with attached picture of cinnamon rolls.

Reply by BrazilFlair
Just like grammar used to make.

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11d

Some excellent books here! Of Barbara Pym: ‘I see in her characters spinsters of the type I aspire to be: incisive, busy, and fine with or without a partner. Pym was ahead of her time…So ahead, in fact, that we haven’t yet caught up to her’ | Eight Booker Prize-nominated books that celebrate ‘spinster lit’ | The Booker Prizes

https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/eight-booker-prize-nominated-books-that-celebrate-spinster-lit?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_content=ap_z4nscnz4ja

#bookstodon #reading @bookstodon

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11d

📚 Skirting Danger by: Kay Keppler

Suspended for a hunch gone wrong, CIA language analyst Phoebe Renfrew is desperate to get her job back. But when she uncovers a terrorist plot at a Las Vegas start-up car company owned by famed ex-quarterback Chase Bonaventure, no one listens to her.

The CIA doesn't care, the FBI is too busy, and th...

https://bookblabla.com/book/skirting-danger

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #generalfiction #romance #romanticcomedy

Suspended for a hunch gone wrong, CIA language analyst Phoebe Renfrew is desperate to get her job back. But when she uncovers a terrorist plot at a Las Vegas start-up car company owned by famed ex-quarterback Chase Bonaventure, no one listens to her.

The CIA doesn't care, the FBI is too busy, and the cops are too tired. Even Chase rejects her wild story about Korean gun runners infiltrating his company to harm the secretary of state.

Besides, he's expecting Swedish investors at any minute...Swedish investors who speak only Korean. Chase hires Phoebe to translate at his investor meetings and tries every game plan he knows to keep her from ruining his deal. But Phoebe fears the worst. With time running out, she must nail down the bad guys, her job, and her relationship with Chase. Can she do it all and save Madam Secretary before the Las Vegas All-Elvis Revue belts out the last chorus of "Jailhouse Rock"?

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10d

"Then she opens the book like she’s raising the lid of a treasure chest. Each illuminated psalm is vibrant as a sunrise. She pictures the monk who copied the verse and decorated the margins, but instead of ink, she imagines him dipping his quill in the colors of bluebirds and holly berries and bright spring moss." ~~ from 'Canticle' by Janet Rich Edwards

#BookQuote #books #reading @bookstodon

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290d

Just in case, like me, you're in need of something wholesome to start a new week: Betty's Reading Room by the dock in Tingwall, Orkney.

Apparently set up by a couple in memory of their late friend Betty Prictor - a place for folk to hang out while waiting for the Rousay ferry and really just the loveliest memorial I can imagine.

#reading #books #travel

The exterior of a small single-storey stone cottage with a metal sign by the door 'Betty's Reading Room' . An old metal mangle and various random bits and bobs outside, a small patch of grass speckled with daisies, a low slate roof.

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The interior of the space, lined with books. There's a comfy old sofa, a low beamed roof, and some fresh flowers in a vase. Out of sight, there's a small fire and yet more books. An old stone floor, little coffee tables laden with things to read, squished cushions and a sense of a much-loved space.

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11d

📚 The Road to Roswell: A Novel by: Connie Willis

When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate's UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one.

Odder still, he...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-road-to-roswell-a-novel

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries

When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate's UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one.

Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien's abduction spree. Before long, he has acquired a charming con man named Wade, a sweet little old lady with a casino addiction, a retiree with a huge RV and a love for old Westerns, and a UFO-chasing nutjob who is thoroughly convinced the alien intends to probe them and/or take over the planet.

But the more Francie gets to know the alien, the more convinced she becomes that he’s not an invader. That he's in trouble and she has to help him. Only she doesn't know how—or even what the trouble is.

Part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy, The Road to Roswell is packed full of Men in Black, Elvis impersonators, tourist traps, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind. Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world—and still make it back for the wedding?

A delightful novel about alien invasions, conspiracies, and the incredibly silly things people are willing to belie

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11d

On the Calculation of Volume, III. By Solvege Balle (trans by S Smith and J Russell)

part 3 of 7 - spoilers if you haven’t read prior ones!

You are still trapped repeating the same day in November, now for three plus years, and you can’t bear to interact with your unaware loved ones and friends; when suddenly you meet another entrapped person, you are joyful, but then it gets complicated.

4 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈

#reading @bookstodon #time #books #scifi

Book cover with an irregular multi colored oval shape

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311d

There were two fantastic things about that day.

The first was that she stumbled upon a new author she had never read before, and loved what was written.

The second was that she had an entire day to immerse herself in reading.

Afternoon with a Book art print -- https://2-steve-henderson.pixels.com/featured/afternoon-with-a-book-steve-henderson.html

#reading #book #art #artwork #drawing #mastoart #fediart #buyintoart #relaxing #woman #beauty #decor #artist

Art print of an original charcoal drawing depicting a young woman lying on the ground, reading a book.

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287d

Breakfast time: I am reading the book "The Last Goddess" by Kateřina Tučková.
(Translated from Czech by Andrew Oakland)
And it touches me because the book begins with themes that have also influenced my life - women, health care and intelligence service. I won't say any more so as not to spoil anything ;)

#TheLastGoddess #Books #IAmReading #Reading #Literature

@lesekreis
@boeken
@bookstodon