One thing I would encourage any reader to do is to be vocal about the works of any author that they enjoy.

We exist (in most cases just barely) in arguably one of the most challenging and competitive professions out there, and that requires positive word of mouth among readers.

#bookstodon #booktodon #readers #reading #books #readingcommunity

Neu auf dem Blog:
"Der andere Arthur" von Liz Moore. Bekannt geworden mit Krimi- und Gesellschaftsromanen verblüfft die Autorin mit diesem Frühwerk - es ist ein berührendes Buch zum Thema Einsamkeit.

#reading #literature #books #rezension #lizmoore
https://birgit-boellinger.com/2026/08/16/liz-moore/

🇬🇷 📖

The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East

"This bold reappraisal of Greece as a Near Eastern nation uncovers its Byzantine and Ottoman past as a key to survival in today’s chaotic, shrinking world."

🔗 https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-new-byzantines/

#Reading #Nonfiction #Book #Books #Bookstodon #Booksky #Greece #Geopolitics #Politics #InternationalRelations

Like, follow, share to help support libraries!

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

Dropped off #books at a #littlefreelibrary today. #reading #bookstodon

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A green little free library sits beside the river near a dam. The library box is light green with a darker green vine painted on it. The banner in front of thr library reads "little free library. Take a book. Leave a book. Love a book. Keep a book." This one located in Sutton, WV.

Greg Olear's Prevail newsletter this morning is a wonderful word picture of Stephen Crane's life, touching on his works, and quoting in full his short poem that ends with,

""Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”"

The whole newsletter is a delight. Here is a link.

https://gregolear.substack.com/p/prevail-review-sunday

#StephenCrane
#GregOlear
#PrevailWithGregOlear
#Books
#Reading

@kigelia If you perform a cursory online search there are many articles written about it, they can provide more details for you.

#Reading #UsedBooks #Book #Books #Bookstodon #Booksky #AI #Artificialintelligence #Technology #Tech

"The Nod/Wells Timelines - The Official Compendium" is coming in March of 2027. Prepare yourself by catching up on any of the nine books set in the universe you might have missed, or begin your journey today with "The Nod/Wells Timelines - A Primer," now at a 4.25 on Goodreads!

https://michaelshotter.com

#specfic #scifi #horror #thriller #book #books #read #reads #reading #readingcommunity #booksofmastodon #readersofmastodon #speculativefiction #sciencefiction #booksof2026 #bookstodon #booktodon

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"The Nod/Wells Timelines" omnibus editions by Michael Shotter

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"The Nod/Wells Timelines - A Primer" by Michael Shotter on Goodreads

"Did the characters on television talk the way they did because that was how people naturally thought and talked? Or was it, he wondered, the other way round? Did flesh-and-blood people come to resemble fictional characters, imitating what they heard on the TV or cinema screen or read in fiction?"

-Mr. Golightly's Holiday by Salley Vickers

#Books #Bookstodon #Reading #Fiction

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Cover for the hardcover edition of the novel Mr. Golightly's Holiday by Salley Vickers

“Preston, you lost your pants.”
“But Eleanor, we’re playing Bridge.”
“Pants. Now.”

— “The New American Etiquette”, 1941 First Edition

Editor-in-Chief Lily Haxworth Wallace
Consultant on Social Arts and Home Making
Instructor and Lecturer
The Ballard School, New York City

Assisted by The American Etiquette Group
Experts on Procedure for Every Modern Social Occassion

Endorsed by the National Institute

#vintage #books #reading #etiquette #manners

𝗪𝗮𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲𝗿: "𝗘𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗼𝘀" 𝗯𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 -

3-Word Review:

- Dreamlike
- Untranslatable
- Curiosities

Frictional Posture:

- Find 2+ translations: Where might all fail to capture Gautier's aesthetic?

#bookreview #bookrecommendations #readinglist #literature #books #book #reading #bookstagram #frictionalreading #3words #theophilegautier #poetry #enamelsandcameos #frenchliterature

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

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

As a big fan of both Trek and Discworld, I support the flawless logic of this crossover 😜😂

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

#GeekMemes #Geek #Meme
#Discworld #StarTrek #Spock #GreatAtuin
#Humor #Humour #Funny
#Fantasy #SciFi
#Reading #Readers #TV #Books #ReadingCommunity #Bookstodon #FantasyBooks

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A meme from the bridge of Star Trek the original series, with Great A'Tuin showing on the viewscreen Caption: "GET SPOCK UP HERE! I can't wait to see his face!"

I procured two of the books from my list.

One from the library.
One from the local indie bookstore.

I feel good about these.

#books #reading

Book update: I’ve settled on N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season.

Hopefully this will be the one that breaks this years book slump. So far, so good. 😊

Thanks so much to everyone who reached out to help me find some books. I’ve added lots to my list!

#books #reading #bookstodon

Book of the Month: Silence by Shūsaku Endō

Following on from our review of Martin Scorsese’s film Silence (2016), here we’re covering the 1966 novel of the same name by Japanese Catholic author Shūsaku Endō (1923-1996).

Silence is a fine historical novel, but it does cover difficult subject matter. Also, its unusual structure, written partly as a letter by its main character, makes it an unusual read. It’s also very sombre and has a major focus on religious suffering, which has made it appeal to the pious over the last 60 years since its publication.

Much Suffering in Endō’s Classic Silence

“No matter what the circumstances, no man can completely escape from vanity.”

The story is based on the anti-Christian purges of 17th-century Japan. The real life Jesuit missionary Cristóvão Ferreira (1580-1650) is used as the basis for the plot.

In Portugal, the young priest Sebastião Rodrigues learns that Ferreira has apostatised and heads out to Japan to find out what’s happened. Rodrigues is based on the real life figure Giuseppe Chiara (1602-1685).

When Rodrigues reaches Japan, he discovers a nation battling to maintain its identity. The government takes a violent stance against Christian ideology and seeks to eradicate it, often by brutally forcing Christians to commit apostasy.

Endō’s narrative structure was to use significant portions of Rodrigues’ journal to detail his journey. The rest of Silence then uses a standard third-person tone of voice. But then there are other segments focus on letters sent by other notable characters. This is probably the most confusing narrative approach we’ve had since reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Reprive (1945).

In Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation, it’s notable the journal elements are removed entirely (we guess it would be boring to see Rodrigues there onscreen writing in his diary).

For the book, it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you’re along with it then the full force of the story kicks in. And as with the film, this is a brutal time of it. The core themes are:

• Death
• Suffering
• Punishment
• Omnipotent silence

And on that final point, it’s the focus on God’s silence in the face of immense human suffering. Prayers are unanswered and people are left to die. Rodrigues battles with these issues, his faith tested to the limit, until psychological torture by the Japanese leads to apostasy.

Endō forces Rodrigues through a hellish time of it.

“Man is a strange being. He always has a feeling somewhere in his heart that whatever the danger he will pull through. It’s just like when on a rainy day you imagine the faint rays of the sun shining on a distant hill.”

Rather than being allowed to enjoy a glorious martyrdom, Rodrigues is left to watch as Christian converted Japanese peasants (kakure kirishitan) are put to death.

Rodrigues is warned the suffering ends if he renounces his faith and, within his personal dilemma, is the core of the book. The tension between ideology and human empathy:

“I, too, stood on the sacred image. For a moment this foot was on his face. It was on the face of the man who has been ever in my thoughts, on the face that was before me on the mountains, in my wanderings, in prison, on the best and most beautiful face that any man can ever know, on the face of him whom I have always longed to love. Even now that face is looking at me with eyes of pity from the plaque rubbed flat by many feet. Trample! said those compassionate eyes. Trample! Your foot suffers in pain; it must suffer like all the feet that have stepped on this plaque. But that pain alone is enough. I understand your pain and your suffering. It is for that reason that I am here.

‘Lord, I resented your silence.’ – ‘I was not silent. I suffered beside you.'”

The second line is, supposedly, God speaking to Rodrigues to highlight joint suffering. The American Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh noted that in Silence the deity:

“Has chosen not to eliminate suffering, but to suffer with humanity.”

This brings us back to a point we raised in our film review, where we noted all these people had to do was not go to Japan and force their ideology on the country.

Historically, it’s nothing new. Alongside religious wars such as the Crusades (between 1095 and 1291), there’s the likes of Over the Edge of the World (2003) about Ferdinand Magellan. Europeans heading out on boats to convince other nations their religion is the only one was fairly common behaviour.

And that’s what was fascinating to us here in reading this book. The clinical, detached focus on incompatible cultural paradigms set alongside state survival and foreign encroachment.

It’s quite a slight work as just under 300 pages, so Endō doesn’t linger on his themes extensively. We should imagine some people could struggle with the book, but if you’re intrigued by its concept then it explores some alarming issues with human nature.

Help spread the word!
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#library #libraries #read #reading #book #books #librarylove #author #publiclibrary #literature #lit

Making my way through this amazing collection. The stories take so many shapes, it feels like all of life is in here

#reading #ShortStories #ClariceLispector #literature #books #BookCovers

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Clarice Lispector, Complete Stories. Penguin Modern Classics paperback edition, whose cover features a portrait of Lispector painted by Giorgio de Chirico. It shows the author looking out, eyebrows slightly raised, her hair light orange and curling on her shoulders. A quote from Colm Tóibín: "One of the hidden geniuses of the twentieth century".

Gaps, spaces, missing pieces – Robin Munby explains on the @fictionable #podcast why his fiction is full of holes:

https://www.fictionable.world/podcasts/robin-munby-of-all-who-sorrow-joy-story-language

#books #reading #fiction #comics #ShortStories #translation #blog #bookstodon

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A portrait of the writer Robin Munby, with a quote from his podcast interview: 'It's amazing the things that the brain can do'

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

𝗪𝗮𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲𝗿: "𝗠𝗲𝗻 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻" 𝗯𝘆 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝘂𝗸𝗶 𝗠𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗸𝗮𝗺𝗶 -

3-Word Review:

- Quiet
- Self-Deluded
- Poignant

Frictional Posture:

- Across the stories, to what degree are Murakami's narrators blame-worthy for their alienation?

#bookreview #bookrecommendations #readinglist #literature #books #book #reading #bookstagram #frictionalreading #3words #harukimurakami #menwithoutwomen #shortstories #japaneseliterature

More library funding measures, local campaigns, and critical elections are ahead. EveryLibrary is already preparing libraries and local advocates for the next challenges, because successful campaigns begin months before voters ever receive a ballot.

Join us today at everylibrary.org/donate

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

"Hatred is like alcohol or cigarettes. We don't know how dependent we are on it till we try to give it up."

-Mr. Golightly's Holiday by Salley Vickers

#Books #Bookstodon #Reading #Fiction

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Cover of the hardcover edition of the 2003 Salley Vickers novel Mr. Golightly's Holiday

Finished #reading this #mystery. This author has received high praise but having read only one of her #books, I'm left wondering why? This book is a light, easy read and totally forgettable.

#bookstodon #fiction #crime

Last night I finished The Door by Magda Szabó (translated by Len Rix).

It was masterfully written, edited, and translated with that calm and regular pacing that we can pleasantly expect from many books written in the 20th century (publication date of this one was 1987)

I read it as a story about two people who care about each other but are unable to appropriately show it because they don't have the emotional and relational skills necessary. Compassion comes in bursts and then recedes again. The secrets shared are betrayed. Power and authority are in flux -- is it a housekeeper/employer relationship or a mother/daughter relationship? Neither the reader nor the characters can get a good grasp on who these two are to each other.

#Reading #Books

Seven books I keep close because I love them

https://blog.plover.com/2026/08/02/

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49299675

#HackerNews #books #love #reading #recommendations #literature #bookcommunity

Show that Americans love their libraries!
👉 Like
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#library #libraries #read #reading #book #books #librarylove #author #publiclibrary #literature #l

📚 Elsewhere by: Gabrielle Zevin

Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are beautiful. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick, and you can't get older. In Elsewhere, death is only the beginning...

Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she is killed in a hit-and-run accident. It is a place so like E...

https://bookblabla.com/book/elsewhere

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #socialtopics #family #fantasy #general

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Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are beautiful. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick, and you can't get older. In Elsewhere, death is only the beginning... Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she is killed in a hit-and-run accident. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver's license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward? Full of the most ingenious detail and woven around the most touching and charming relationships, this is a novel of hope, of redemption and rebirth. It is a novel that tells of sadness with heartbreaking honesty, and of love and happiness with uplifting brilliance. From the acclaimed author of Sunday Times bestseller Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. A novel of hope, love and redemption in Liz's life after life. _______________ ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME _______________ “Every so often a book comes along with a premise so fresh and

📚 My book review of Children of Memory

A little frustrating to read, as seems to be the standard for this series. I liked the lost colony idea, but the presentation is very fragmented. I guess that's on purpose, but it doesn't work for me. I wont be getting part 4 of the series, I'm done.

⭐⭐⭐

https://hayobethlehem.nl/library/book/children-of-memory

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

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Book cover of Children of Memory

What's on your reading list, dorks?

Until I can find a copy of "This book is better than first, second, and quite possibly even third base", I have been reading #Kagurabachi and #Wool (the book that inspired the #Silo TV show).

#Booksky #Books #Reading

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a low quality jpg of a book titled "this book is better than 1st, 2nd, and quite possibly even third base" from a homestar runner cartoon

Today in Labor History August 14, 1791: Dutty Boukman led a Vodou ceremony with enslaved people from Saint Domingue plantations that led to the start of the Haitian Revolution, the largest slave uprising since the Spartacist revolt against the Roman empire. Boukman was born in Senegambia. His name, Boukman, came from the English “Book Man,” because he not only knew how to read, but taught other enslaved people how to read. He, and priestess Cécile Fatiman, had led a series of meetings with enslaved people prior to August 14 to organized and plan for the uprising. Boukman was killed by French troops a few months into the revolution. Trinidadian Marxist writer C. L. R. James wrote the best book on the Haitian Revolution: “The Black Jacobins,” (1938). Also, be sure to check out the wonderful music of the Haitian pop group, Boukman Eksperyans, named for the Haitian revolutionary, Dutty Boukman. A fictionalized version of Boukman plays the title character in Guy Endore's novel “Babouk,” an anti-capitalist parable about the Haitian Revolution.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #boukman #haiti #Revolution #uprising #revolt #slavery #reading #books #fiction #novel #nonfiction #writer #author #BlackMastodon @bookstadon

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Grainy, black and white image of a man portraying Dutty Boukman.

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

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