Finished The Bezzle (Cory Doctorow) it was very good
Next options:
* someone you can build a nest in
* how to lose a goblin in 10 days
* a wizard of earthsea
* dragonfruit

shark vs the universe
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

Misplaced Lens Cap
I'd rather be in outer space šø

blake kathryn
NASA
Sade Olutola
art blog(derogatory)
we're not kids anymore.

Discoholic šŖ©

trying on a metaphor

oozey mess

#extradirty
Claire Keane

@theartofmadeline
Peter Solarz
DEAR READER

Product Placement
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia

seen from United States
seen from Malaysia

seen from France

seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Germany
seen from Netherlands
seen from Türkiye

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Singapore
@reddy-reads
Finished The Bezzle (Cory Doctorow) it was very good
Next options:
* someone you can build a nest in
* how to lose a goblin in 10 days
* a wizard of earthsea
* dragonfruit

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Books that I own that I havent read (yet)
Dont worry I have wayyyYYYY more than this š„² a whole shelf on my bookshelf is just books i havent read yet
I finished the baby dragon cafe!
Just got back from the library. Borrowed 11 more books. Spent half the money in my bank account on groceries ouch. Bless the library. Went with fantasy this time since the mysteries arent quite hitting. Looked for some Hugo winners but then ended up just browsing
state of the bookshelf 2026.6.12
You have to understand, I'm a person who normally has 13 alarms set over the course of the day in order to keep on track. My work days are very structured. Without my work structure (which extends before and after the workday to stuff like meal prepping), it's a dice roll whether I'll even take a shower
So I went to the library and borrowed 12 books. (Okay, I borrowed 16 books, fine). here are my thoughts so far
The Baby Dragon Cafe, AT Quireshi - I own this one; it's not a library book. I've been trying to finish it since January and I'm 40 pages out. It was a gift, and what's worse it was a gift I picked out for myself. I am a prisoner of my own greed
The Bezzle, Cory Doctorow - another gift I picked out, but more recently so the guilt isn't as thick on the tome
The Clocks, Agatha Christie - just finished this one. That was SOME BULLSHIT, I gotta say. The idea of the simple crime that is done up to look more elaborate is good. The spy stuff and long-lost secret parent thing? What???
The Big Four, Agatha Christie - just DNF'ed one. As much as I love a book with Hastings, this one isn't for me. Based on an n of 2, Agatha Christie's spy books aren't for me. Also, and I'm not expecting Agatha Christie to be escaping the historical moment in which she lived, I'm not into the whole... thing the characters have going on with Chinese people. It ain't for me.
Hooking for Trouble, Betty Hechtman - nonsense, but the kind I can go along with. It's fun to read a mystery where there's no actual body so there may not have been an actual murder. It's also nice that the main character's response was kind of proportional? At least compared to the 3rd Murder Pie book where the MC was prepared to set herself on fire over a suspected murder with no body. The MC of Hooking for Trouble instead was like "well I'm going to keep snooping but not destroy my own life about it yet"
Pouncing on Murder, Laurie Cass - honestly? Really enjoying it so far. I'm enjoying the way the characters are introduced and given color without getting bogged down in a thousand names of interchangeable white people
My library has a summer reading challenge and the big finish line is 8 books and I've got 3 so far. It's been hard to sit down and make my squirrel brain concentrate long enough to read ANYTHING but I want to try. I miss Book :(

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Ended up with 12 books from the library let's see if I grabbed some winners
Cedar Waxwings by jocelynefeizo1 http://ift.tt/1RM3Kk0
#do cedar waxwings ever eat anything besides photogenic red berries#do cedar waxwings ever do anything besides eating photogenic red berries#is there any way this child can get its parent to stop feeding it photogenic red berries
watch how many berries I can cram into this other bird
Tbh germ theory DOES sound crazy. Like if you told a regency-era nobleman that tiny creatures lived on the surface of everything and THATāS what causes consumption, theyād be like āah, I see you are a lunatic. Would you reside in my hermitage? Rantings and ravings do so amuse my guestsā
But if you told a Medieval person this they would probably go "Ah, so when the miasma settles on surfaces it gains evil life. I understand."
Yeah, actually, it would probably be pretty easy to explain germ theory to a Medieval person as tiny evil spirits that live on everything, but they can be purified by soap and water, or by alcohol, because that is why God has granted us those things. And because they can float in the air, if you cough or sneeze after they have infested you, that can cause them to infest others. And when you are sick, the angels God has deputized to defend the bodies of His beloved children are at war with the evil spirits, and, sadly, sometimes they lose, but the best way to help your angels win their battle is to rest, drink plenty (this would probably be small beer in this time period, not water, because the water was also infested), stay clean, and for the sake of God do not allow anyone to let your blood, for the angels need that blood in their war against the evil spirits. Bloodletting is good for some types of illnesses but not the kinds caused by the tiny evil spirits.
boiling as a sterilization measure is also easy to explain. water returns to the air when heated and it rises as steam back up to the floodgates of heaven; we know God created the world in seven days, He's not up there making more water every time it rains. it circulates. the returning of water to heaven also purifies the water of unclean and malign influences. you know wormy water from a muddy puddle will kill your kid. you know you wouldn't wade into a bog and have a slurp. water that remains in the low places of earth absorbs all that is unclean from our waste and it may also sponge up new diseases from hell, we're not totally sure about that one, but it seems likely. God set up the heavenly water cycle so that the earth's waters wouldn't totally fill up with gunk.
what does this have to do with boiling your surgical tools? well look, the boiling water releases bubbles of steam which carries the malign influences up to heaven. you boil a knife, you send all the miasmic particles off with the steam to heaven. if you rinse the knife off in a bucket the water isn't hot enough, the particles go into the water and then right back on to the knife. you gotta boil it to get the particles all the way away. how can a tool or rag or a bed have miasmic particles on it when you can't smell them? humans have a lousy sense of smell. look at your dog on the hunt. are there no rabbits in the woods just because you can't smell them? we know that miasma is carried on the air, and is what makes stench so dangerous, and we know that humans can't smell worth a damn compared to dogs cats horses etc. a dog can smell if a rat died in a corner of the room last week. you can't. do you think licking the spot where the rat died is going to go well for you? luckily, what humans lack in snout we make up for in brains. we have extra brains where our sniffers should have been. God set that up for a reason.
and why does a rinse with wine spirits work? man, look how fast alcohol evaporates. my guess is that because wine contains a lot more vice than water, it evaporates a whole lot faster, in sort of an equal and opposite way that a rock falls faster than a feather. if you want the miasmic particles to get off there FAST, you dunk it in something that's going back to heaven at a gallop.
what's up with honey? it just preserves things against corruption. doesn't clean them off. honey doesn't evaporate at all. probably because bees don't sin. it's not good for ridding a tool of particles-- it's sticky-- but fine for preserving anything you don't want to go to heaven OR hell. this is why you wash the wound with wine spirits or purified water FIRST, to sluice the miasma out, then slap the honey on AFTER. and boil the damn bandage, too. you wouldn't put a rotten door in a sound doorframe and expect it to keep out bandits, would you? cmon.
Medieval people also already knew that putting things out in the sun helped to keep them clean (UV radiation killing bacteria). So everyone knows that after you use a butter churn, you rinse it out, give it a scrub, and set it out in the sun to dry, or else it will go sour and everything you make with it will go bad fast. Likewise with when you want to get sheets and clothes really clean and fresh, you boil them with lye soap and then lay them out in the sun to dry.
Medieval paesant: yes, yes, makes total sense
JFK Jr: I take my grandkids to swim in a sewer and dig roadkill
This kind of process is called "headology" in Discworld and is the foundation for an entire branch of witchcraft in the series.
Reading a new cozy whodunnit and I gotta say
Stop! Dating! Cops!
Like damn girl there has to be someone else in town. Especially the grumpy protective controlling angry cops. Ew.
The Emperor and His Dragon: Spring Sale!
In celebration of finishing the series, the first four books of the series are on sale for $1.99 a piece if you buy the e-book directly from Lulu!
Book One: The Emperorās Mirror
A valuable artifact has been stolen from an isolated monastery, and Tallis will have trouble finding it when the temple elder wonāt tell him what it is. The monks have good reason to be secretive, given the centuries of religious persecution after the fall of the Emperor who represented their gods. Thatās to say nothing of the cult leader enchanting disciples in the next town over, or of the boy they keep hidden underground while they prepare him to be the new Emperor. Tallis, an orphan himself, feels an instant connection with Brannon, the young boy who can channel the power of the gods but is deeply resentful of the monks who have imprisoned him to keep him safe. Tallis soon finds himself struggling to unravel not only a theft, but the murder of the last Emperor, which fractured the world a thousand years before.
Book Two: The Warderās Oath
Upon graduating from the Warder Academy, Brannonās first assignment is to stop someone from systematically destroying the monasteries where he grew up. Although still bitter about his treatment at the hands of the monks, Brannon is determined to prove himself as a Warder. Unfortunately for him, heās not the only one holding a grudge about what happened. With Tallis at his side, Brannon struggles not only to apprehend the criminal, but to fight the men who are determined to make him the Emperor and control his life.
Book Three: The Cityās Secrets
As Brannonās nineteenth birthday approaches, the priests in charge of the old religion are more determined than ever to force him to accept his mantle as Emperor. With Tallisā assistance, Brannon researches his history and learns more about the machinations of the men who would put him on the throne. Then one of the few people who could reveal the truth to him is murdered, and everyone in the sacred city is a suspect⦠including Brannon himself.
Book Four: The Oracle's Answer
In the year and a half since Brannon regained the memories of the last Emperor, the world has spiraled into chaos. Civil war is all but certain in multiple Nation-States, and both he and Tallis are being worked to the bone, leaving Brannon no time to search for the Divine Right that will allow him to assume the throne. As if that werenāt bad enough, the cases he and Tallis are being assigned seem hand-picked to prevent him from doing just that. The case assignments are done by the Oracle, one of the three most powerful Warders in the world. If heās been corrupted, there may be no way to stop him, and the Warders may be torn apart from the inside.
Book Five - and final!: The Dragon's Fate
As Brannon and Tallis search for the Divine Right, strange things are happening in the Nation-States closest to Kan Shou. With their enemies plotting an attack against the Warders, things go from bad to worse when Petrus suddenly disappears. Brannon is caught between his duty as a Warder, his love for the only father he ever knew, and his fate as the Emperor ⦠and time is running out.
These books have it all! Dragons! Magic! Mystery! Romance (of the M/M variety)! Adventure! Found family!
Sale lasts until April 30th - try the first one out today!

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
making my way (š¶) thru Hemlock and Silver
This audiobook edition of Jingo is really pushing me towards the homoerotic reading of vimes and vetinari
absolutely flabbergasting to see people who have so enthusiastically succumbed to despair. like okay denethor, but some of us are gonna actually face the armies of mordor in battle nonetheless.
The thing about Denethor is that he not only succumbed to despair, he wanted to ensure that Faramir succumbed with him. Similarly, a lot of people now are not only succumbing to despair, they're actively proselytizing despair, trying to convince others to join them in their hopelessness. Despair is apparently lonely and they want company in their self-immolation.
btw denethor succumbed to despair bc he was doomscrolling on the palantir. Sauron tweaked his algorithm so he only saw bad news, and he fell into the trap of thinking the world couldn't be saved.
obsessed with mass market paperbacks. their pleasing rectangular proportions. how they fit badly in a hoodie pocket so you can drag them around everywhere with you like a temporary little buddy. the way they fit in your hand because they're MADE for human hands and not as bookshelf decoration. the way the pages feel when you riffle them gently with your thumb. How pristine and crisp they look when you get them and how creased and folded they look when you're done, even if you try to be nice to them. how that wear is okay, how that's correct actually, because they're made with the philosophy that books aren't meant to be PRETTY, they're meant to be read. that little ripple new ones get on the left side from where you hold them when you're reading, the way the ripple only goes as far as you've read, because u change stories by reading as they are changing you. how you can find thousands of these creased and folded and loved little dudes in every thrift store and used book shop and neighborhood library and you can instantly see the ones that someone carried around in a backpack for weeks or read to pieces or gave up on halfway through because they wear being read like fresh snow wears footprints. I love these poorly made, subpar little rectangles so much. truly the people's books.

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Teachers have tried this and are amazed when their classes donāt go feral like in the book.Ā Itās almost as if the book was supposed to be satire and not a treaty on the nature of humanity.
thereās a timeskip
THEREāS A TIMESKIP
THEREāS A TIMESKIP
THEREāS A TIMESKIP
after losing control of the signal fire thereās a FUCKING TIMESKIP and when the next chapter starts everyoneās hair is several inches longer and their clothes have rotted to shreds and theyāre still just kind of chilling!!!!
IT TAKES THE TERRIBLE IMPERIALISM MIND-POISONED EXCESSIVELY BRITISH BOYS IN THE ACTUAL BOOK SEVERAL MONTHS TO COMMIT A SINGLE ACT OF INTENTIONAL VIOLENCE, EVEN THE ONE (1) CHILD WRITTEN AS AN ACTUAL SOCIOPATH
AND then when they DO turn on each other it is because
THEREāS AN UNSPECIFIED WORLD WAR HAPPENING
AND A PILOTāS CORPSE CRASH LANDS ON THE ISLAND POST-DOGFIGHT AND THE CHILDREN MISTAKE THE PARACHUTE FOR A MONSTER AND SPIRAL INTO PARANOIA
BECAUSE CHILDREN INHERIT THE LEGACY AND TRAUMA OF VIOLENCE FROM THE ADULTS WAGING WAR AROUND THEM
HURR DURR IN THE REAL WORLD IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN LIKE IN LORD OF THE FLIES -
IT DIDNāT HAPPEN THAT WAY IN LORD OF THE FLIES EITHER YOU JUST HAVENāT READ IT SINCE HIGH SCHOOL IF EVER AND DONāT REMEMBER WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THE GODDAMN BOOK
#tbf the dude wrote it to be a dick
yes. yes he did. iām also gonna direct you to the real life ālord of the fliesā which occured in the 1960s, when six tongan schoolboys got stranded on a desert island for over a year before being rescued by an australian fisherman (who, it should be noted, later took on all six as crewmembers because the reason they were out in the first place was because they wanted to see the world, and named his ship the Ata after the island they were stranded on). nobody died. the only injuries that occurred were accidental, and when one of the boys broke his leg falling down a cliff, the others braced it and looked after him so well that it healed perfectly. if they argued, then they would literally go to opposite sides of the island until theyād cooled off. after leaving the island, they remained friends for the rest of their lives. hereās a photo of them as adults, with their rescuer (who is third from the left) and other members of his crew.
i read about this in rutger bregmanās human kind, a book i cannot recommend highly enough, but if you donāt want to go and read a whole book about the inherent goodness of humanity (which again, you really should) then the relevant excerpt can be found here.
Hey @phillipfancypants I am intrigued, go ahead and lay out your argument
@lizluvscupcakes @hallsofdarkness @shitposting-hobbits-to-gallifrey
the results are in
Okay so basically this all started in 10th grade when my English teacher (idk if this context is needed but she grew up in Yugoslavia in the ā80s before moving to the US as a teen and she has a VERY thick accent. Sheās about 6ā4ā and has huge black hair that sticks out all around her head. Sheās the human embodiment of a corvid bird. Truly such a fascinating person) anyway she was talking about Lord of the Flies in class and mentioned that a few years ago some students of hers tried to convince her that the book couldnāt have taken place during WWII and that she didnāt believe them because āthere have been no atomic bombs except during World War Twoā and an atomic bomb is referenced as the inciting factor for why the boys were flying over a deserted island in the first place.
But the thing is, if you actually look at all the throwaway historical context details in the book, there is no logical way that it could have taken place in WWII. I realized that all clues point towards an alternate timeline where the Cold War turned hot. About halfway through the book I started bookmarking any scrap of information related the time period and it was getting to the point where each chapter took me twice as long to read because I would continually need to check various articles and Wikipedia pages to cross reference.
Eventually, I ended up writing a 5 -page paper picking the book apart for details which you can read here but Iāll also give you the individual points (a mixture of historical details and borderline headcanon):
Early on in the book, the boys mention that there are probably maps in āthe Queenās libraryā that show where they areāthis was one of the first things that stuck out to me, as Elizabeth II didnāt become Queen until 1952, and WWII ended in 1945
Ralph mentions watching something on television at home. His dad, although a naval officer, would almost certainly not be able to afford a TV in 1945, BUT televisions were already popularized around the time of Lizzy 2ās coronation (or at the very earliest the 1948 London Olympics) and itās believable that Ralph could have had one at home. Thereās also some mentions around space travel/putting a man on Mars that would make more sense during the Cold War
I found Piggyās character to be very interesting. For one thing, heās introduced Ā as being fat due to his Aunt owning a candy store (his parents are both dead). If you know anything about the sugar ration during WWII, youād know that candy stores would have been non-operational and Piggy would probably not have had access to an excess of sweets.
Continuing with Piggy, Iād place his distinctive accent as either London Cockney or London Estuary. If Piggy was from London, he would have been evacuated to the British countryside via train (the same evacuations in which the Pevensies stay with their uncle in Narnia) long before the dropping of the atomic bombs. Hereās where the headcanon comes in: Iād be willing to bet that Piggy was evacuated to the countryside as a baby during WWII and both his parents were among the 27,000 killed in the London Blitz, hence why he now lives with his aunt. By assuming the years leading up to the book are peacetime instead of wartime, thereās no issue around the candy store.
And finally, the most compelling argument imoā¦WHY WOULD BRITISH BOYS BE EVACUATED AFTER VE DAY??? In the book, itās very clear that the LOTF boys are being evacuated from their boarding school after an atomic bomb was dropped. Victory in Europe was May 8th, 1945. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. In what world would British boys be evacuated by a plane traveling over tropical airspace (historically child evacuations in the UK were domestic and carried out by train) to protect them from a bomb dropped in Japan four months after the end of the war in Europe?? The only plausible explanation would be that the USSR dropped a bomb on an Allied power and the boys are being evacuated from Briton all together to avoid nuclear fallout and/or future bombings.
Final note, at one point the boys consider building a new plane and decide against the idea because they āmight get shot down by the Redsā even though the soviets were literally allies with Britain during WWII. Do you know when they most certainly werenāt allies? The Cold War.
Anyway, I end up giving her this essay which she reads and then promptly says āthese are all very interesting points, but there was STILL no nuclear bomb besides the ones dropped on Japan in World War 2ā and Iām like āYes!! I know this!! And Iām saying itās an alternate future!!ā But she never really seemed to understand what I was saying.
Anyway a few weeks ago I was at my job (Iāve been working IT some summers at my high school after I graduated) and I ran into her and she says āI was going through my desk and I found that essay you wrote on LOTF! I read it again and it was a really good argument piece, especially for a 10th grader.ā
So of course I ask her āoh really? Well, were you finally convinced?ā
And she basically says āit was goodā¦but no :)Ā <3ā
And I have simply not known peace since.
@inkyrainstorms
Ok I got the ARC letās fucking goooooo (Iāll post this again with results once the bookās been released for a week lol)