@standardebooks The Horned Helmet by Henry Treece

I loved it so much my grade 4 teacher let me keep one of the books from the class set (they were all falling apart anyway)

This is that same copy she gave me, i've had this book almost 50 years

#bookstodon #literature #books #reading #culture

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Image of the cover of a torn and batter old childrens' book with the lower part of an illustration of a viking

Book 7 was Stealing Sunshine by Hannah Cowan (narrated by Andi Arndt & Kristen DiMercurio).

She’s grumpy but she can’t stand up to her parents 🤬
She’s sunshine but with a core of steel 💪
Set in Alberta 🇨🇦 🗻
Same relationship … or is it? 💕

Get it in #KoboPlus: https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/stealing-sunshine-1

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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Stealing Sunshine by Hannah Cowan (narrated by Andi Arndt & Kristen DiMercurio).

I was a member of Verso's digital book club for a year, and it was fantastic. So many good books. I highly recommend joining if you can swing it. And now there's a sale until July 16!

#books #bookstodon

https://www.versobooks.com/collections/book-club

We need more Library defenders 😊

@libraries@literature.cafe @Libraries@fedigroups.social @library @books @bookstodon

#Library #LibraryMemes #Meme #Memes #Libraries #Librarians
#Bookstodon

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Post by writing natali My 6yr old got her glasses last week and she needs to wear them at all times. They're pink andcute and she looks adorable. She also loves to wear fun cardigans with her outfits, she calls them her "comfort cardi's". Today the librarian told her she looks like the cutest librarian she'd eveer seen. Her reply? With the most serious face she could muster. "I would never have let anything happen to the Library of Alexandria. Never."

Good article on how the decline of reading can reduce people’s imaginations and ability to think, and on how our society is impacted.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/08/reading-crisis-postliterate-age/687618/
#books #bookstodon

Still better than our current timeline.

#books #reading #bookstodon

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A cartoon by Tom Gauld with a single illustration split into four contiguous panels. We first see a person running away from a giant mechanical claw. The caption says: "2050 AD: Society has collapsed and the book festivals have gone rogue." The next panel reveals the claw is attached to a giant dystopian-looking truck, moving on a post-apocalyptic desert landscape. The caption continues: "Their terrifying motorised venues patrol the wastelands, hunting for audience members." The third panel shows more of the truck, with a person reading a book in front of a live audience, watched over by a horned figure with a spear. The caption explains: "Programmer-warlords brutally preside over a relentless series of interviews, discussions and poetry readings." The last panel shows the rear part of the truck, lifting a cloud of dust that enshrouds a person walking away with a tote bag. The caption concludes: "Occasionally, dazed survivors are found wandering with a signed hardback book in a cotton tote bag."

#bookstodon #booksky #books #library #writingcommunity

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Support your radical militant librarian. Read or die.

Bought another book on seeing. Didn’t intend to: while waiting for bus I went into the Waterstones over the road to take advantage of their cool air, and idly picked this up.

Read a bit here and there and the decision was made for me. I don’t think I’ve read any Lavinia Greenlaw before, but I know a bit about her.

The tone of her writing suits me, so far.

The quality of the full-colour reproductions inside is much better, more useful, than the Berger’s black and white reproductions, which is one of the issues that has made reading the Berger hard.

#bookstodon #books

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A photo of the cover of a paperback copy of ‘The Vast Extent: On Seeing and Not Seeing Further’ by Lavinia Greenlaw. Most of the cover is an artwork of a sky at night, full of bright shooting stars or perhaps fireworks, with a desert-ish landscape along the bottom. The colours are all in the dark green towards brownish black (I’m not good at the intersection of colours and words). Three blurbs at the bottom read ‘Remarkable, visionary’ (Celia Paul), ‘Kaleidoscopic’ (Guardian) and ‘Indescribably brilliant’ (Daily Telegraph).

Book 6 Undermined: A Gay Mystery by Ripley Hayes (narrated by Elliot Fitzpatrick).

Strangers to dislikers to lovers to colleagues to lovers 🤷
Murder mystery in rural Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Very short review: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/bb62969e-f22e-49fe-a8e2-a5b7b02039fe

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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Undermined: A Gay Mystery by Ripley Hayes (narrated by Elliot Fitzpatrick).

"There is a sense of mourning in the air; it is thin still, but it is there. It is as if we are mourning not for what we have already lost, but for what we know we eventually will. For the first time in history, humanity is mourning in the future tense. But for a while now, it is as if a layer has been added to our retinas, an overlay of melancholy. Our eyes already sense it. Everything that is beautiful has its future loss imprinted on them."

#Politics #EndTimes #Bookstodon

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Cover of Nation of Strangers by Ece Temelkuran.

Book 5 was Legends & Lattes, written and read by Travis Baldree.

The OG cosy fantasy 🧸
Coffee shop setting ☕️
Sapphic romance 💕
Fresh start in life 🥒

Very short review: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/8363ef12-2b4a-4090-950f-b95d4508d7ed

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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Legends & Lattes, written and read by Travis Baldree.

"'Do you know something?' said Moomintroll. 'If you fly hundreds and hundreds of miles up into the sky you come to where it isn't blue any more. It's quite black. In the day time too.'

'Why's that?' asked Sniff.

'It just is,' answered Moomintroll. 'And up there in the dark are great sky-monsters, such as scorpions, bears and rams.'

'Are they dangerous?' asked Sniff.

'Not to us,' replied Moomintroll. 'They only snap up a few stars now and again.'"

#MoominMonday #BeMoreMoomin #Bookstodon

Showing my age perhaps. Regardless, can’t believe I’ve still got these kicking about!
#worldcup #bookstodon

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World Cup publications from Spain 1982 and Mexico 1986. I recognise Bryan Robson on the cover of the 1986 one…

Book 4 was A Beginner's Guide to Death, Demons, and Other Afterlife Disasters by Shannon Mae (narrated by Kirt Graves & Cooper North).

Bad news: Adam’s dead 💀
Good news: sexy demon 👺
Yah and Luce giving off Aziraphael/Crowley vibes 😇👿
Insta-love 💕

Get it in #KoboPlus: https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/a-beginner-s-guide-to-death-demons-and-other-afterlife-disasters

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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A Beginner's Guide to Death, Demons, and Other Afterlife Disasters by Shannon Mae (narrated by Kirt Graves & Cooper North).

Here's your weekly reminder that if you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my Wingback Workshop newsletter. That includes the email-only Sawdust dispatch, my little literary diary.

A minor change: All my newsletters are still free for subscribers, but Sawdust newsletters go behind a paywall on the website after a week. It's a workshop, not a showroom, so I'm trying things.

Sign up here: https://wingbackworkshop.com/

#bookstodon #literature #books

"I have perceived non existence
The silence of eternal dark,
and the infinity.
I went beyond the time,
time poured into me
and we became
immovable.
I lost my body in the waves
Perceiving vacuum
and quiet,
Becoming like its blue abyss
And touching the oceanic secret
I am going inwards
recollecting
What I am
I am made of light
I peer intensely
The depths reveal a breath
I merge with it
And into the world emerge"

'The Depths', Natalia Molchanova

#Poetry #Bookstodon #Oceans

So far I've finished 19 books for fun so far this year, which is a lower number than in previous years after the end of June. But grateful to still be able to read anything at all, albeit with difficulty. My reading also slumped as I dealt with the initial shock of a cancer scare (ongoing). #Books #Bookstodon #Reading #Cancer

Book 3 was Game Plan by Amy Aislin.

You broke my heart but I can’t get over you 💔
Mental health 🧠
Sportsball 🏒
Canadian 🇨🇦

Whatever you do, don’t google the narrator.

Available in #KoboPlus: https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/game-plan-44

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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Game Plan by Amy Aislin.

'Kati Thanda/Lake Eyre' by Rachael Mead

#Poetry #Bookstodon #Nature

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There’s nothing there, no horizon water and sky melded, seamless. From solidity the ground begins to give and we crack through crust, our steps leaden with mud holding us to the earth. The shallow sea has frozen into salt ripples like fossils of its final tide drying into tiny tectonic continents, rims grinding with crystalline crepitus. Water oozes up until our steps float and then we are ankle deep in sky there is no up, no down, the air no longer a ceiling our arms flap for balance, we are flying in the lake, swimming in sky, there is no edge, just here.

Book 2 was Catnip by Vyria Durav with Talia Carver.

Oh no! I’m a cat girl! 🙀
Help! I think I like it! 😳

Talia Carver’s narration is excellent.

But it direct: https://vyriadurav.itch.io/catnip-audiobook-edition

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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Catnip by Vyria Durav with Talia Carver.

The Little Book of Running - Inspirational Words

My daughter bought this for me a few years back, just found it during a clean up. How the f*** is this an ‘inspirational quote’? 😂

#bookstodon #runnersofmastodon #running

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Quote from Neil Armstrong claiming he doesn’t want to waste heartbeats doing exercises

New month, new book thread. My first read of the month was Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, written and read by Yanis Varoufakis.

Capitalism is broken. We’re no longer buying and selling products; we are the products. 🛒🛍️💰🏧

Review: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/d949a6f2-587c-423d-a47a-07ee166a3847

#bookstodon

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Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, written and read by Yanis Varoufakis. My listening supports The Portal Bookshop Libro.fm

In the chapter headers of Her Borrowed Grave, I'm showing the police investigation, that runs in the background of the novel. It shows the confusion of the police when their forensic science is picking up indications of impossible magic.
Want to know more? Check my website

https://vanessajknipe.wixsite.com/vanessa-knipe/my-new-book
#bookstodon

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A general examination form for a fictional forensic laboratory. It describes the collection of three rusted swords and they are contained in a heavy-duty cardboard box. The examination results describe the rust as showing pattern of aperiodic chaotic behaviour. Below that is the title Chapter Twenty-Eight. The stone walls reflected the heat of the day as Don strolled along the ramparts.

Book 28 (and my final for June) was The Falcon and the Foe by A.J. Truman (narrated by Nick J. Russo).

Two gay single dads 👨‍❤️‍👨
They hate each other … or do they? 🤛

But it was published in 2023; there’s zero excuse for multiple uncritical Harry Potter references.

Review: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/ba731994-71e9-4125-9382-1bff6140b85b

#bookstodon

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The Falcon and the Foe by A.J. Truman

Book 27 was Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (narrated by Tony Robinson).

Death or gainful employment 📮
Words are magic ✨
Walking gingerbread people 🧡

Very short review: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/dd3512e9-67bb-486d-9cad-0f27636d0970

#bookstodon

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Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (narrated by Tony Robinson).

Pabu is working hard as my marketing assistant. Do you think he's earned an extra Churu today?

#Cats
#CatsOfMastodon
#Books
#Bookstodon

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An orange tabby cat looks at the camera with a zoomie expression while hiding behind a copy of Our of the Fire Into the Furnace

"We on the surface are sun-bound, creatures of light."

Thomas Halliday, Otherworlds

#Bookstodon

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Artwork showing a tree on the floor of a cathedral-like building with a vaulted ceiling. An aperture in the ceiling has shafts of sunlight coming through it, which fall on the canopy of the tree. Artist: Jay Mahjad Title: NATURE - Hope

I really can't recommend Thomas Halliday's book Otherlands highly enough.

#ClimateChange #Bookstodon

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Gatherings of species in time and space may give the illusion of stability, but these communities can ony last as long as the conditions that help to create them persist. Thomas Halliday

Book 26 was Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains, written and read by John Grindrod.

Little glimpses into dozens of suburban queer lives over the last hundred years from all over the UK. Absolutely fascinating. 🏳️‍🌈

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/ed66d2be-7d59-48be-a437-45b37c94c659

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains, written and read by John Grindrod.

Reading a review of a new collection from Palestine and this line absolutely floored me:

“don’t let your dreams drop into the mire of this night’s terrors”

Othman Hussein, My Share of Dreams

https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/paperback-of-the-week-you-must-live-new-poetry-from-palestine

#FreePalestine #Bookstodon #Poetry

An easy entertaining read #bookstodon

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The image features the book cover for "Sisters," a novel by Joyce Lionarons and part of her Matthew Cordwainer series

😂 Ad for Kameron Hurley book to be published next year #scifi #bookstodon

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KILLING EVE MEETS DIE HARD. IN SPACE HURLEY RETURNS MARCH 2027 MORE LESBIANS! MORE SPACE! KAMERON HURLEY THESE SAVAGE STARS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW

Finished reading "Dungeon Crawler Carl" by Matt Dinniman.

Earth's surface is demolished overnight and survivors are funneled into a televised alien dungeon crawl. Carl and his ex's cat, Princess Donut, have to play a rigged game — or die trying.

I was tepid on LitRPG as a genre, but I really enjoyed this one. First book in a long series, but I finished wanting more.

4.5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211721806-dungeon-crawler-carl

#bookstodon

If you want to round out your ⚽️ watching with some reading, I finished the other day “The Age of Football: Soccer in the 21st Century” by David Goldblatt. It’s a massive work delving into the beautiful game and the often not beautiful things around it.

https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/books/the-age-of-football/

#bookstodon #worldcup #soccer

Book 25 was Betting on the Bird, written and read by Cassandra Medcalf.

First Christmas as a couple 🎄💕
All families are psychotic 🤬
Oopsie 🤕

Get it in #KoboPlus: https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/betting-on-the-bird-1

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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Betting on the Bird, written and read by Cassandra Medcalf.

Book 24 was Icarus Economics: Why Rich Economies Are Struggling - and How to Fix Them by John Rapley (narrated by Adam Khedheri).

It seems obvious that poor countries will fare the worst in climate change and pandemics. But maybe the truth is way more complicated.

Review: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/9e2933fc-e6bd-4d0c-8b99-4a402d62ba64

#bookstodon

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Icarus Economics: Why Rich Economies Are Struggling - and How to Fix Them by John Rapley (narrated by Adam Khedheri).

Book 23 was Jack of Thorns by A.K. Faulkner (narrated by R.J. Bayley).

The Earl of Banbury is an American fever-dream of a clichéd stereotype of a British person 💂
Except the author is British, apparently??? 🇬🇧
A very demanding god 🐍
Cheesy but good fun 🧀

Buy it direct from the author: https://shop.ravenswordpress.com/products/knight-of-flames

#bookstodon #queerbooks

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Jack of Thorns by A.K. Faulkner (narrated by R.J. Bayley).