i have a confession to make

i’ve been reading kazuo ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and i’m 1/3 of the way through and really struggling because it’s so fucking boring 😶 none of the characters are interesting enough for me to care about and i think i’ve already guessed the plot but don’t want to look up spoilers because then i 100% won’t finish it

i guess i should just dnf or abandon it for a while and read something else 😮‍💨 #bookstodon

The owl & the pussycat went to sea, in a beautiful, peaceful green boat.

They took some money, & plenty of honey, but this was entirely insufficient provisions for a sea crossing, so they died, & their bodies washed up near the Mumbles.

A cautionary tale for children, to always prepare thoroughly for an ocean expedition, & to learn basic seamanship.

#books #livres #bookstodon

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A classic black and white illustration fir The Owl and the Pussycat

A WALL IS ALSO A ROAD comes out next week, 10/6! What you'll get: Slime molds who are grad students! Galactic-scale civilizations! Meticulously researched representations of ancient Pompeii!

Join me on book tour, starting in San Francisco with a banger of an event at Green Apple Books on the Park with M.M. Olivas. Next: Chicago, NYC, Boston, Burlington VT, and Ottawa! See you soon! #bookstodon #scifi #books

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Annalee Newitz A Wall Is Also a Road San Francisco Book Launch Green Apple Books on the Park October 6, 7 PM In conversation with M.M. Olivas

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Book Tour October 6 – San Francisco Book Launch Green apple books, with M.M. Olivas October 7&8 – Chicago 7th: Barnes & Noble @ West Diversey Parkway with Michi Trota October 9 – New York New York City Comic-Con October 14 – Boston Brookline Booksmith with Cecilia Tan October 15 – Burlington, VT Phoenix Books with Andrew Liptak October 16-18 – Ottawa Can*Con

The last few Moomin extracts I've posted have all been from the same story: The Fir Tree.

You can listen to Tove's niece Sophia read it here, if you like:

https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/listen-the-fir-tree/

Alternatively (or as well as, I'm not the boss of you), here she is reading The Invisible Child. Both stories form chapters in Tales From Moominvalley.

#MoominMonday #Bookstodon

"They looked at the sky, black and distant but unbelievably full of stars, a thousand times more than in summer. And the biggest one was hanging exactly above their fir tree.

'I'm sleepy,' Moominmamma said. 'I'm really too tired to wonder about the meaning of all this. It seems to have come out all right.'

'At least I'm not scared of Christmas any more,' said Moomintroll.

Then they went back to the drawing room to sleep some more and wait for the spring."

#MoominMonday #Bookstodon

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Colour illustration of the Moomin family, peaking out from under a table. Moominmamma is knitting and there's a lamp glowing in front of them.

TZAG fedi, today's my stop on the Street Sweeper blog tour. Read my review of this realistic and touching story of unexpected connections: https://www.draliceviolett.com/blog-tour-street-sweeper/ #BookMastodon #bookstodon

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Part cover of Street Sweeper by Bren Gosling, featuring the book's title in off-white over the black semi-circle of an illustrated character's beanie hat

@nixCraft Important to know ⬆️ for #bookstodon #authors #writers #writersCommunity #authorsRights #copyright #intellectualProperty

Book 23 was Hate You to Love You by Joshua Hortinela (narrated by Tomas Parrish).

They broke up because of work 📚
Now they’re working together 💼
Travelling the world ✈️
While ignoring their friends back home 🫷

On sale at #LibroFM: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781761637803

#bookstodon

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Hate You to Love You by Joshua Hortinela (narrated by Tomas Parrish). My listening supports The Portal Bookshop Libro.fm

The Golden Hours by Louisa Young, continuation of The Cazalet Chronicles written by her aunt EJH and based on her own family. I was so excited for this as I loved every word of TCC and by and large it lived up to my expectations. I could take an entire spin-off series about Polly & co in Fakenham, one about creative Clary in Hollywood and Rupert in France. So many believable characters, this time negotiating the 1960s. The only area I wondered about... cont'd

🧵34 #books #bookstodon

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Pop art style hardback cover showing three women of different 50s-60s styles against three vertical stripes of colour, blue, yellow and orange.

Civil to Strangers by Barbara Pym, a collection of writings left when BP died. This is everything from working sketches to a spy novel to a talk for radio, covering 50 years. I loved the introduction to sections explaining BP's inspiration for each piece, such as someone she knew. The writing is sublime (okay, maybe not the daft spy novel, the exception that proves the rule), and the pieces expertly curated. Recommended for a #BarbaraPym fan.

🧵35 #books #bookstodon

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A library paperback showing a stylised and close-cropped image of a well-dressed woman in 1930sesque clothes, pulling a small pinky-red case on wheels and with the suggestion of more luggage behind her. We see the woman from waist to elegantly shod feet, wearing a yellow dress, brown fur coat and black shoes; her nails are red. She's cropped down the middle so we see her from the spine edge of the cover. Title and author are in a white box bottom right, author in black, title in 1930s green.

Book 22 was Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding a True Faith, written and read by April Ajoy.

Christian nationalism is a cult.
But it is possible to escape.

#bookstodon

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Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding a True Faith, written and read by April Ajoy.

🌁 San Francisco gets tangled in murder, deception, and a missing statuette in this LibriVox recording of Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 public domain classic, THE MALTESE FALCON. 🕵️‍♂️

📚 It’s one of tens of thousands of free public domain audiobooks in the LibriVox Audio Collection on the Internet Archive. From mysteries and adventures to poetry, history, science fiction, and children’s classics, there’s always something new to hear. 🎧

Follow the trail 👇
https://archive.org/details/librivoxaudio

#Bookstodon

Another interesting thing that will be coming to #Derby, this time on the 7th November, is an Arts & #Crafts day, again in the Market Hall.

It will also have a stall promoting the Derby #BookFestival which is on from the 12th to the 15th November, at various locations around the city.
Check out the full schedule here: https://www.derbybookfestival.co.uk/

There is a downloadable PDF with more details.

#Bookstodon #BookLovers #ArtsAndCraft

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Front page of the Derby Book Festival PDF leaflet 12-15th November Top-down drawing showing a table with hands holding on to open books, a flower arrangement in the centre, and various mugs of hot beverages and a plate of biscuits

RE: https://bookstodon.com/@ododopress/117324471061537506

So here is my third collection, and unlike the first two where the publishers largely picked the stories, I selected these, opting for a horror theme as I have a large stockpile of stories in that genre waiting to see the light of day. A lot are my earliest works so it will be exciting to revisit those ideas.

There is a sample story that will open the book, on this page, where you can also pre-order.

https://www.ododopress.com/short-story-collection/eater-of-happiness/

#amwriting #AmWritingSFF #books #bookstodon #sff #horror #art

Book 21 was The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk (narrated by Moira Quirk).

Alt-historical Georgian England … with magic ✨
Magic is men’s business; securing a husband is women’s business 💍
Way more cis-heteronormative than I expected from this author 😒

#bookstodon

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The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk (narrated by Moira Quirk).

Book 20 was Ready to Score by Jodie Slaughter (narrated by Esme Ramos).

Two coaches competing for the same job 🏈
But not really 🤷🏻‍♀️
Sapphic rivals to lovers 🏳️‍🌈
Women of colour 👩🏾‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏻

#LibroFM: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781666695991-ready-to-score

#bookstodon #QueerBooks

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Ready to Score by Jodie Slaughter (narrated by Esme Ramos). My listening supports The Portal Bookshop Libro.fm

Oh, hey. It’s bi visibility day.

Free Indeed features opposites attract, a bi man, a woman discovering her inner strength, a second chance at love, found family, nineties vibes, and Canadianisms 🇨🇦.

This novelette is a prequel to the forthcoming Queering Edmonton series: cosy(ish), spicy(ish) tales of queer people finding love after deconstructing from evangelicalism and purity culture.

Guaranteed 100% alpha-male free.

https://whitehartfiction.co.uk/products/free-ebook #bookstodon

@clacksee has a new pen name, and has released a short book under that name.

I've reviewed it on my blog:
https://robin.phillipsuk.org/book-review-free-indeed-tim-and-darlene/

#bookstodon

Unsung villains

Frankly Stefansson seems to have been a real life Flashman - simply not as engaging.

‘Vilhjalmur Stefansson was the epitome of the turn-of-the-century gentleman adventurer — dashing, charismatic and determined to find corners of the Arctic that other explorers couldn’t reach. The Canadian was also a loathsome, lying, vindictive narcissist responsible for the deaths of 21 people and destroyed the lives of many more.‘

On order.

#Bookstodon #Review #Book #AltTxt

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Vilhjalmur Stefansson was the epitome of the turn-of-the-century gentleman adventurer — dashing, charismatic and determined to find corners of the Arctic that other explorers couldn’t reach. The Canadian was also a loathsome, lying, vindictive narcissist who was responsible for the deaths of 21 people and destroyed the lives of many more, remaining totally unrepentant and profiting immensely from his disasters. This extraordinary portrait of Stefansson by the historian Giles Milton is a tale of bravery (more often other people’s), hardship (ditto) and heartlessness (all Stefansson’s). Born in 1879 in Manitoba to Icelandic parents, he first found fame for his discovery in 1910 of blond, blue-eyed Inuit people on Victoria Island in northern Canada whom he claimed were descended from a lost tribe of Greenland vikings. While 11 of the crew died from starvation, disease and asphyxiation after being trapped under snow drifts, Stefansson was found on Banks Island, hale and hearty, after 17 months in which he and his two companions had survived blizzards, moving ice packs and bear attacks before chancing on a support ship sent by the Canadian government and passing the winter in relative comfort. He had been assumed dead and delightedly read his glowing obituaries, apparently uninterested in those who had actually died. Stefansson had presided over a catastrophe, with six more people dying in his service on top of the 11 who perished in the Karluk disaster, but he emerged with his reputation enhanced. He wasted no time in trashing his former colleagues, writing press articles that portrayed Bartlett’s lifesaving slog to Siberia as glory-hunting. Just when you think Stefansson has sunk to his lowest he writes a book, The Friendly Arctic, that paints the region as a utopia, ripe for human habitation (“The Arctic Ocean is in effect a giant Mediterranean”). So convincing was the spiel that it persuaded four idealistic and largely untrained young men to join his second expedition to Wrangel Island to colonise the godforsaken place. Stefansson, sadly, was unable to accompany them on this jolly quest. Are you spotting a pattern here?

Care work is often invisible and undervalued, leaving an important part of our history at risk of disappearing. Amanda Gray Rendón examines how social media can preserve caregiving work and the communities that support it. 🏛️

📚 Read 'Archiving Community Care Work Online' in VANISHING CULTURE from the Internet Archive
📖 Download & read, FREE: https://archive.org/details/vanishing-culture-2026/page/136/

#Bookstodon #VanishingCulture #DigitalMemory #InternetArchive

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Quote tile with an orange background and greenish-black text. Headline reads: "Can we archive a history that is designed to be hidden?" Quote below reads: "The invisible, and at times isolating, nature of care work contributes to the precarity of archiving women's care labor history." Attributed to Amanda Gray Rendon, Researcher. Vanishing Culture logo in the corner.

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Quote tile with a greenish-black background and light grey text. Quote reads: "In U.S. culture, women have historically been thought of as 'natural' caregivers or predisposed to caring for others, so little to no concern has been given to assigning monetary value to the labor that women are expected to perform." Attributed to Amanda Gray Rendon, Researcher. Vanishing Culture logo in the corner.

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Quote tile with a light grey background and greenish-black text. Quote reads: "The Internet Archive serves as a record that women's care communities exist, have always existed, and will continue to exist." Attributed to Amanda Gray Rendon, Researcher. Vanishing Culture logo in the corner.

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Book cover titled “Vanishing Culture” on a teal background. Pixel-art style graphics show a VHS tape, open book, film reel, chain link, and vinyl record dissolving into digital fragments. At the bottom, a cursor icon points to the word “SAVE,” alongside an archive-style building icon, evoking digital preservation.

Just backed The Arc Fall by @odpomery.bsky.social , coming from the fine @averyhill.bsky.social mob https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/averyhillpublishing/the-arc-fall-by-owen-d-pomery

Loved Owen's previous #comics works, looking forward to this!

#BandeDessinee #GraphicNovels #books #livres #Bookstodon #OwenDPomery #AveryHill #UKComics #BritishComics #Kickstarter

I know these lists are subjective, but if you're producing a "must read" sci-fi list which has only two women on it and neither of them is Ursula Le Guin, 80% of them weren't written this century, and some are so very famous they hardly need any more publicity then really, what's the point?

Not sure I'd include Orson Scott Card or Robert Heinlein these days either 😬

I could go on forever about all the must read sci-fi that isn't on here.

https://www.edrith.co.uk/p/the-25-science-fiction-books-you

#Bookstodon #SciFi

Bon j'accroche pas du tout la série wayfarer de Becky Chambers.
IMO le côté "tout le monde respecte l'autre, son espèce, son genre, ses opinions" sonne creux et rend l'histoire irréaliste.

#bookstodon

Book 19 was System Collapse (narrated by David Cui Cui with a full cast).

Everyone’s favourite SecUnit is back … now with unexpected memories 🦿
Murderbot creates an educational video 🎬
Back with ART for all that sass 🍿

#KoboPlus: https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/system-collapse-dramatized-adaptation

#bookstodon #QueerBooks

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System Collapse (narrated by David Cui Cui with a full cast).

Oh, I learned the other day of the passing of Wendell Berry at the grand age of 92.

Until around 2017 I'd never heard of him. But I read one of Nick Offerman's books where he gushed of the beauty of Berry's writing, with particular regard to his Port William series.

At this point I've read most of that series, I think. They're all beautiful, but I particularly fell in love with The Memory of Old Jack.

https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/the-memory-of-old-jack/

If you're outside the States, they can be a bit of a bugger to find, but they're worth the search. They're not about the big things; they're about people. Regular people, living regular lives at various points over the past 150 years, and the trials and tribulations that go with that.

#RIPWendellBerry #Bookstodon

Book 18 was Out for Delivery by Leigh Landry.

Help! There’s a dead body in my delivery van 🚚
Exes solve a mystery 💔
Cute dog 🐶
Sapphic second-chance romance 💕

Get it direct from the author: https://leighlandryauthor.com/out-for-delivery/

#bookstodon #QueerBooks

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Out for Delivery by Leigh Landry.

I mostly mention the art gallery, because I really wanted to post this, which has left me with SO MANY questions.

#Bookstodon

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Black and white photo of a gravestone. The carving on it reads "DANIEL DE FOE AUTHOR OF ROBINSON CRUSOE WHO DIED APRIL 24 1731 IN HIS 70TH YEAR"

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Information card that was below the photo. It reads: "'Tombstone of Daniel Defoe, died April 173(1) in his (70th?) year in the garden of No.' This is the actual gravestone of Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe, which, through a series of unfortunate events, ended up in the garden of 56 Portswood Road, Southampton. In 1958, it was returned to Stoke Newington, where Defoe wrote most of his books."

Book 17 was Rules for Aging and Larceny by Julia London (narrated by Christina Moore).

Older women doing crimes 🥷💰🔫
Second chance … but make it friendship
One last hurrah
Diverse and inclusive rep

#LibroFM: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9798899741661-rules-for-aging-and-larceny

#bookstodon #QueerBooks

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Rules for Aging and Larceny by Julia London (narrated by Christina Moore). My listening supports The Portal Bookshop Libro.fm

give me all your favourite #bookrecs! looking in particular for:

- romance
- fantasy
- queer
- magical realism
- sci-fi
- horror
- any combination of the above
- subgenres are also fine
- no ai covers or i'll blast you into the sun

#books #bookstodon

Book 16 was The Tartan Thesis by Scott K Good (narrated by Stewart Crank).

An American in Scotland 🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Overly competitive PhD students 📑
Quick to love … glacial to act on it 🧊

#KoboPlus: https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/tartan-thesis-the

#bookstodon #QueerBooks

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The Tartan Thesis by Scott K Good (narrated by Stewart Crank).

I'd love to know from book fans on Fedi, who are the really hot *contemporary* noir novel writers who you love? Especially noir thrillers (vs mysteries), and extra especially from Ireland?

- noir writers, expec. thrillers
- Irish noir writers
- novel writers (vs other media)
- contemporary (publishing within last 5 years)
- popular and successful

*Based on specs for a particular project. Ta.

@bookstodon

#Bookstodon #AskFedi #IrishWriters #Noir #FictionNoir

"Look, I don't mind summoning some demon and asking it," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'That's normal. But building some mechanical contrivance to do your thinking for you, that's ... against nature."

#Books
#Bookstodon
#Fredagsbog

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Short version: Audiobook Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett. Fuller description: Screenshot of Penguin Random House 2002 English-language audiobook performance of Interesting Times, read by Colin Morgan. E-Reolen Danish library loan via Libby library app. Cover: yellow butterflies flying through hellfire-ish flame-like red and orange tones. Author name in grey, slightly larger than book title in deep purple. A single young figure in a pointy wizard hat and a cape sits in the middle of it all, looking bored or possibly disconsolate or possibly just not arsed. Am on chapter 9, 31 minutes in, over 10 hours to go. I've read the print book several times, but never the Talking Book. This edition is wonderful. New to the library yesterday and - thank Odin for library notifications - I nabbed it immediately and first.

Just finished Justin Currie's The Tremolo Diaries. Reading this straight after Atul Gawande's Being Mortal was, on reflection, not a wise choice. But nevertheless, I enjoyed JC'S melancholic, curmudgeonly account of life on tour with Del Amitri, and of his Parkinsons diagnosis, the death of his mother, and the suffering of his partner following a stroke. Definitely one for Del Amitri fans, but also for anyone who's finding old age is catching up with them. #Bookstodon #AmReading

I have finished reading:
45: Martha Wells - Artificial Condition.

I am now reading:
46: Martha Wells - Rogue Protocol.

#Books
#Reading
#Bookstodon

I have finished reading:
46: Martha Wells - Rogue Protocol.

I am now reading:
47: Martha Wells- Exit Strategy.

#Books #Reading #Bookstodon

I have finished reading:
47: Martha Wells- Exit Strategy.

I am now reading:
48: Martha Wells - Fugitive Telemetry.

#Books #Reading #Bookstodon

I have finished reading:
48: Martha Wells - Fugitive Telemetry.

I am now reading:
49: Martha Wells - Network Effect.

#Books
#Reading
#Bookstodon

I have finished reading:
49: Martha Wells - Network Effect.

I am now reading:
50: Martha Wells - System Collapse.
#Books #Reading #Bookstodon

Book 15 was The Build-a-Boyfriend Project by Mason Deaver (narrated by Logan Rozos).

After a frustrating day at work and an even more frustrating date, Eli decides to fake-date an anxious man in order to improve his standing at work while teaching the other man how to be a good boyfriend.

#bookstodon #QueerBooks

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The Build-a-Boyfriend Project by Mason Deaver (narrated by Logan Rozos).

Book 14 was How Queer Bookshops Changed the World, written and read by A.J. West.

Queer bookshops have been at the forefront of the battle for better rights for all. This book tells the stories of a few of them.

Get it on #LibroFM: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9798349162398

#bookstodon

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How Queer Bookshops Changed the World, written and read by A.J. West. My listening supports The Portal Bookshop Libro.fm

So clever.
I love the shapes it’s making.

#upcycle #chairs #bookstodon #design #interiorDesign #DIY

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4 plain light wood chairs upcycled to make softly curved shelving unit. Two chairs at top facing inward (front legs cut down resting on a row of books on a long wood shelf, though the books seem impractical and maybe the books replacing the legs are fake & made of wood blocks covered with book covers), two chairs on the bottom are facing outward holding plants. As well as another shelf resting in the seat through openings on the backrest.