MerBooks

back then i made a bunch of these but by now i lost the pic and dont know how to find the original post anymore

so anyway here is the diagram for anyone else who is interested!!

this requires pretty big carboard pieces, if you have a really big box or something you can make it from one piece, but if you don't, you can also just make each of the pieces individually and then tape them together

and then in the end you put it together like this!!

and then when you make a bunch you can put them all next to each other and stack your books like crazy

A Metis, queer author, Harper-Hugo has been balancing both fiction and nonfiction professionally since 2015. They live with their wife and three cats in Edmonton, Their heart belongs to horror, fiction, gory details, and queer as a verb.

They are the founder and head writer of Making Queer History, and their work has been featured in And/Both, Bustle, Hungry Zine, and Daily Xtra. It has also been mentioned in Vice, Slate, and Harper's Bazaar.

And that this is actually a really fun, low cost way to not only access news and larger cultural magazines, but also to get free patterns for many different crafts that you can screenshot if need be and that lower the financial barriers to entry for trying new things

From my experience working in both academic and public libraries, many libraries are use it or lose it funding-- I have to say this because a lot of patrons feel guilty for how much they use the library and how often they're using it funny enough, but the worst thing you can do for libraries is not try out new features and not use what's already given to you as much as possible.

> it's good

> it's bad

Lately, I’ve seen more people trying to “read diversely.” Which is great! But too often, that just means reading authors of color from the US or UK — and calling it a day.

👉 Yes, even if you include James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, or Zadie Smith.

👉 Yes, even if you’re reading “diaspora” voices.

And don’t get me wrong, those books matter.

But that’s not decolonial reading. That’s still Western reading.

Same publishing houses, same literary gatekeepers, same market logic — just with more melanin.

Real diverse reading means stepping outside of that Western framework altogether.

It means reading stories written in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Japanese, Arabic, Swahili, Turkish, Tagalog — whether in translation or in the original. It means reading authors who aren’t writing for a New York Times audience.

And let’s be honest: many of us (myself included) grew up reading American bestsellers far more than books from our own regions. In India (my origin country), many readers know Colleen Hoover but haven’t read Ismat Chughtai. In France and Belgium (where I live), fantasy shelves are dominated by American titles. Even in the global South, publishing is still largely shaped by Western market forces.

Reading diversely also means decolonizing what we consider “literature.”

That includes:

Reading more books written outside of Western publishing circuits,

Engaging with translated works that aren’t already international hits,

And questioning why some stories get more global attention than others.

I’m not saying this to guilt anyone — I’m saying it because I also want to do better.

It’s not about being morally superior. It’s about being curious in multiple directions.

Reading outside the Western lens expands your imagination. It’s part of decolonization. It’s part of unlearning.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

📚 These are authors I personally recommend — not because I claim to know “world literature,” but because I’m grounded in my own heritage. I’m still learning to read more globally, and I try to follow recommendations from people rooted in their own cultures.

Here are a few books and authors from the Indian and Pakistani literary landscape that I love or find important:

Saadat Hasan Manto – Kingdom’s End and Other Stories or Bombay Stories (partition, sexuality, violence, social critique)

Ismat Chughtai – The Quilt and Other Stories or A Life in Words (feminism, class, taboo, women’s interiority)

Arundhati Roy – The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (queerness, caste, Kashmir, grief and resistance)

Raza Mir – Murder at the Mushaira (historical fiction, Urdu poetry, colonial politics)

Rabindranath Tagore – Gitanjali, The Home and the World (poetry, anti-colonial thought, mysticism, women and politics)

Nimra Ahmed – Jannat Kay Pattay (Leaves of Paradise) (faith, espionage, love, identity)