𝗪𝗮𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲𝗿: "𝗠𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗹𝘆" 𝗯𝘆 𝗚𝗶𝗮𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗼 𝗣𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗶 & 𝗟𝘂𝗶𝗴𝗶 𝗜𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮 -

3-Word Review:

- Fateful
- Suffering
- Haunting

Frictional Posture:

- Which social critique in the opera is most impotent/time-worn?

#bookreview #bookrecommendations #readinglist #literature #books #book #reading #bookstagram #frictionalreading #3words #madamebutterfly #libretto #opera #giacomopuccini #puccini #luigiillica #italy

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#library #libraries #read #reading #book #books #librarylove #author #publiclibrary #literature #lit

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I feel like it's time for this book quote again:

"If you say that it is just business, I cannot guarantee the placidity of my reaction."

~~The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North

#books #reading #bookstodon #economics #business

📚 Where There Was Fire by: John Manuel Arias

Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, and her husband disappears, the future of Teresa’s family is changed forever.

Now, twenty-seven years later, Ter...

https://bookblabla.com/book/where-there-was-fire

@bookstodon

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

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Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, and her husband disappears, the future of Teresa’s family is changed forever. Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture. Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens, and the anthropomorphic forces of nature, John Manuel Arias weaves a brilliant tapestry of love, loss, secrets, and redemption in Where There Was Fire. A lush and atmospheric novel about three generations of a Costa Rican family wrestling with a deadly secret, from rising literary star John Manuel Arias “An exciting new voice with a prowess for lyricism.” ―Publishers Weekly NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A B&N DISCOVER PICK * A GMA BUZZ PICK * MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023: CrimeReads, Debutiful, Good Morning America, Library Journal, Zibby Mag, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more!

"it was a hot Argentina summer — except in Argentina, where, being southerly hemisphered, it was a cool Argentina winter"

- NYMAG

#reading #literature #ai #generativeAI #enshittification #noai #media #argentina

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Tweet from NYMAG with the braindead text above

𝗪𝗮𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲𝗿: "𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗪𝗮𝗿" 𝗯𝘆 𝗛𝗼𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗭𝗶𝗻𝗻 -

3-Word Review:

- Philosophical
- Political
- Personal

Frictional Posture:

- Which of Zinn's calls resonate to provoke changes of behavior?

#bookreview #bookrecommendations #readinglist #literature #books #book #reading #bookstagram #frictionalreading #3words #howardzinn #essays #nonfiction #art #writing #democracy #resistance #politics #philosophy #ideology

Your donation today helps us provide expert campaign support, train local advocates, develop voter education materials, respond quickly when libraries face political threats, and ensure that every community has the opportunity to fight for the library it deserves.

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#library #libraries #read #reading #book #books #librarianship #lit

What’s everyone #reading this weekend?
#books #BookSky

📚 I just finished reading Consider Phlebas: A Culture Novel
by Iain M. Banks

This series was recommend to me, because I was complaining about all Science Fiction nowadays seemed distinctly distopian. Well, this actually includes an utopian society. The book has a lot of humor and great world building. The action is constant, and there are no boring bits in it.

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5 stars)

https://hayobethlehem.nl/library/book/consider-phlebas-a-culture-novel

#BookReview #Books #Reading #Fiction #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera

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Book cover of Consider Phlebas: A Culture Novel

New #BookReview on my blog: 'Writing Timbuktu.'
https://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2026/08/book-review-writing-timbuktu.html

#review #ItinerantLibrarian #books #reading #Africa #WestAfrica #Bookstodon #history
💙📚

New #BookReview on my blog: 'Writing Timbuktu.'
https://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2026/08/book-review-writing-timbuktu.html

#review #ItinerantLibrarian #books #reading #Africa #WestAfrica #Bookstodon #history
💙📚

I'm going on a reading adventure. I just finished up with Shadows of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. As I started thinking about what to read next, I thought I might go back and finish series that I never completed. I try to only read book series whose story is concluded. But occasionally I can't resist like Dungeon Crawler Carl. But I'm so bad at waiting.

So thought this might be a good use case for my local AI. I downloaded by reading history from #BookWyrm and asked it to find all the series that had concluded, but I never finished. And it worked great.

So now I get to go back and jump into old worlds that I used to explore. Its going to be so much to visit old friends, old stories. Squee! First up, #Mistborn!
#bookstodon #books #reading @xavier@books.infosec.exchange

Show that Americans love their libraries!
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📚 Crocodilopolis by: John Manuel Arias

Once a powerful, cold-blooded politician in Costa Rica, Seth Oreamundo is now living in exile in Washington, DC – and his younger brother Osario is to blame. Born into a corrupt political dynasty and raised on a seemingly idyllic coffee estate, the Oreamundo brothers were des...

https://bookblabla.com/book/crocodilopolis

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #hispaniclatino #historicalfiction #general

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Once a powerful, cold-blooded politician in Costa Rica, Seth Oreamundo is now living in exile in Washington, DC – and his younger brother Osario is to blame. Born into a corrupt political dynasty and raised on a seemingly idyllic coffee estate, the Oreamundo brothers were destined for greatness. But a dark family secret and a scandalous double crossing sent their lives into a tailspin, changing the country forever. Osario must pay, and Seth decides the only way to do so is to return home to Costa Rica and feed his brother to the infamous river of crocodiles from their childhood. What follows is a spellbinding story of revenge alternating between Seth's murderous plans and memories of the brothers' upbringing. With the wisdom of biblical myth and the soapy wit of a telenovela, Crocodilopolis is a masterful interrogation of power, masculinity, destiny, and legacy from a literary star on the rise. "A darkly intoxicating novel, at once mythic and wickedly contemporary...Here is a writer in full command of his world, delivering a ferocious meditation on masculinity, legacy, and national myth through an audacious, unforgettable book." --Ocean Vuong, the New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of Gladness and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous From the author of national bestseller Where There Was Fire comes a gripping tale of sibling rivalry, family secrets, and the fate of a nation.

"Books can simulate traveling by “transporting” you to another destination of your choice.
Here’s why you should consider reading if you’ve been yearning for a vacation:" https://action.everylibrary.org/readers_travel_the_world_from_their_living_room_couch
#Library #Libraries #Services #Resources #Books #Reading #Vacation

📚️ 🇵🇱 🇩🇪

Conversations with an executioner by Kazimierz Moczarski and translated by Sean Gasper Bye

"Conversations with an Executioner is Moczarski’s first-hand account of these extraordinary exchanges, an insight into the mind of one of history’s most brutal war criminals, and one that unflinchingly examines some of humanity’s darkest moments."

🔗 https://www.duckworthbooks.co.uk/book/conversations-with-an-executioner/

#History #Histodons #C20th #20thCentury #Nazi #Poland #Germany #Europe #Reading #Nonfiction #Biography #Books #Bookstodon #Booksky

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Blog: I Went to Barnes & Noble. Say Hello to Witchcraft.

I haven’t been to Barnes & Noble in a while. Have I wanted to go? Yes. Have I found the time to? No. But that all changed last weekend. For the first time in two years or so, I had the opportunity to pay a visit to my local Barnes & Noble to see what they’re peddling in the Year of Our Lord 2026.

Holy crap, is it bad.

The last time I was at Barnes & Noble, while I wasn’t looking at a lot of stuff except the YA fiction section, I remember seeing quite a few books that were focused on LGBTQ+ outside of just the YA section. But fast forward two years and it seems that while LGBTQ+ is still popular, something else has largely usurped its place on the shelves. That something is witchcraft and New Age.

We are just running at a hundred miles an hour to Armageddon, aren’t we? As a society, we just cannot wait to get there.

Thrown in with the books on psychology, relationships, and philosophy are a ton of books all focused on witchcraft, the New Age, and the occult. Books in this category range from a book by National Geographic explaining what Wicca and the New Age are, the Wicca Bible (which is interesting since Wiccans basically wing everything), the “missing” books of the Bible (i.e. the Gnostic gospels and other apocryphal works), books about numerology, finding your angel name, etc. My mom and I even found a book that was being sold at a New Age expo by some people who were peddling power pyramids. Oh, and they also sold various tarot decks…because of course they did. (I also later found out that you can buy Ouija boards at Barnes & Noble, too.)

But besides the fact that Barnes & Noble is pushing New Age and the occult in the psychology, relationships, and philosophy section, I also need to say something about those sections besides the fact that they pretty much provide you with all the tools you need for a demon-summoning ritual. And that is the fact that, apparently, no one has class anymore. I saw several self-help and relationship books that had the F-word in the title and one book that, I’m not kidding, was called the P-pedia. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the word attached to -pedia. Sure, it does its job at catching your attention, but it just goes to show how we apparently have no class as a society.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

But, of course, you know me. I haven’t yet gotten to the main attraction – the godforsaken YA section and my thoughts on it.

Overall, I think this section might actually be worse now than it was back in 2024. Sure, two years ago it was mainly LGBTQ+ love stories being peddled to children, and while that influence is still definitely there, the occult and the dark romance genre have also made things worse. Not only did I see multiple books being sold there targeted toward young women where the main characters are actual witches and summon demons (I wish I was making this up), but I also came across a book that illustrates almost everything wrong with the publishing industry. That book is called Kingdom of the Feared – a book that was positioned to get people to buy it – and here’s the book’s description:

Emilia is reeling from the shocking discovery that her twin sister, Vittoria, is alive. But before she faces the demons of her past, Emilia yearns to claim her king, the seductive Prince of Wrath, in the flesh. Emilia doesn’t simply desire his body, she wants his heart and soul—but that’s something the enigmatic demon can’t promise her.

When a high-ranking member of House Greed is assassinated, Emilia and Wrath are drawn to the rival demon court. Damning evidence points to Vittoria as the murderer and she’s quickly declared an enemy of the Seven Circles. Despite her betrayal, Emilia will do anything to solve this new mystery and find out who her sister really is.

Together Emilia and Wrath play a sin-fueled game of deception as they work to stop the unrest that’s brewing between witches, demons, shape-shifters and the most treacherous foes of all: the Feared.

Emilia was warned that when it came to the Wicked nothing was as it seemed. But, have the true villains been much closer all along? When the truth is finally revealed, it just might end up costing Emilia her heart.

Two curses.
One prophecy.
A reckoning all have feared.

And a love more powerful than fate. All hail the king and queen of Hell.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stalking the Jack the Ripper series comes the steamy conclusion to Kingdom of the Wicked trilogy.

Already, from the description of the book, you can not only tell that this book is – I’m just gonna say it – demonic, promoting a sexual relationship in Hell between a girl and a literal demon, but you can tell this shouldn’t be in the YA Fiction section or categorized as YA. This should be in the adult fiction section right next to the Playboys since, according to one Goodreads review, this book includes…

Sexual Content-Mentions of groping, intimate touching, trying to take clothes off, two characters go swimming naked (guy and girl), mention of 0rgi3$, passionate kissing, thoughts of sex, innuendos, mentions of prostitution, mention of a threesome, sex, implications of m@$terb@tion, telling someone to m@$terb@te, LOTS of lust, thinking of characters naked, talking about bedding people, mentions of doing someone until they see stars, mentions of using chains during sex, talk about sucking and sucking…(I think you can fill in the blank) and witnessing very public displays of sex in a very derogatory way. (Hence why this was NA.)

Other Goodreads reviews also say that the book starts with smut, the plot also revolves around reincarnation and soulmates, the main character is a witch, and there’s more smut than plot. And according to another reviewer, you can find this book in the YA corner of public libraries. This should be nowhere near there.

As though that wasn’t bad enough, one of the most popular books in the YA section that was on a best-sellers table was a book called Bitten. Like Kingdom of the Feared, this too is a paranormal romance and is described on Goodreads as “Crescent City meets Fourth Wing.” Now, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros has become notorious online for being smutty, so such a comparison does not bode well for this book, and sure enough, according to the 1-star reviews Goodreads, it’s just as smutty.

Remember, both stories are marketed as being for young adults – 12-18 years old. This is stuff that no 12-18-year-old should ever be reading, period. The fact that it’s even targeted at this age range should make everyone want to burn the publishing companies to the ground because here’s the thing. Before a book is published, it has to go through several people who read it, edit it, and ultimately, give it the green light. For these authors to be writing smut in a book aimed at young teens and then for the agents, editors, and publishers to publish and promote it as YA is beyond disturbing. It’s straight up predatory. It is not only an attack on your child’s innocence, but is an attack on their souls, especially as these books continue to glorify the occult more and more.

At this rate, my advice to parents is if your child wants to buy a book, YA or not, check the 1-star Goodreads reviews to make sure you’re not accidentally handing your child a book full of porn.

Until next time,

M.J.

New on my blog: My e-reader made me a worse reader

https://sylvia.studio/my-e-reader-made-me-a-worse-reader
#Hittingthedigitalbrakes #Reading

📚️

Agrippa by Robert Harris

🔗 https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/463350/agrippa-by-harris-robert/.

#Reading #Fiction #HIstoricalFiction #RomanEmpire #Books #Bookstodon #Booksky

📚️️

On Time: The Physics That Makes the Universe Tick

"In this mind-altering book, Jim Al-Khalili tackles the enduring problems of time head-on, carefully examining them across the three central pillars of physics—quantum mechanics, general relativity, and thermodynamics."

🔗 https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691267036/on-time

#Reading #Universitypress Nonfiction #Science #Physics #Books #Bookstodon #Booksky

RE: https://newsie.social/@TheConversationUK/117131838157799531

My dear colleague and friend Lauren Warner-Treloar has some great reading suggestions to discover more about Ukraine, from the point of view of Ukrainians.

She also has a newsletter about art in Eastern and Central Europe:

https://lwarnertreloar.substack.com/

#reading #books #bookstodon #Ukraine #history

I teared up reading a picture book today...

https://www.florisbooks.co.uk/book/Pog/Mr+Crump%2C+the+Heartless+Grump/9781782509523

...remember: you never know the whole story of someone's life.

#Books #Reading

My new reading setup! I got a new mini ereader that has a magnet on the back. I have it stuck to a passport holder on the left and a field notes size journal on the right. I have taken up a reading journal to help me remember what I read!

#reading #book #ereader #journaling

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Photo of Joy's reading setup with the XTeink X4 ereader on the left and the right is a field notes sized notebook with shiny pinapples put in a purple marbled passport holder. Joy's cat sketch is the background of the reader.

𝗪𝗮𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲𝗿: "𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗝𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘆𝗳𝗶𝘀𝗵" 𝗯𝘆 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗮 𝗟𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲-𝗚𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘁 (𝗕𝗼𝘂𝗺) -

3-Word Review:

- Experiential
- Demonstrative
- Memoir

Frictional Posture:

- What does the graphic novel format accomplish that words absolutely could not?

#bookreview #bookrecommendations #readinglist #literature #books #book #reading #bookstagram #frictionalreading #3words #boum #thejellyfish #samanthalerichegionet #graphicnovel #disability #blindness

Like, follow, and share if you love libraries, literacy, and books!

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𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜’𝗺 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴: "𝗟𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗶𝘀𝘆" 𝗯𝘆 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗕𝘂𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗿 -

Prohibition era. Intrigue. Cats. Okay, we'll see what you've got!

#books #bookreviews #bookworm #readreadread #tbr #tbrpile #tbrlist #quotes #reading #graphicnovel #tracybutler #lackadaisy #prohibition

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