Been meaning to start a reading thread, to log & celebrate the books I read. I can't forget to maintain it until I start, so...
Listened to Redemption's Blade by @aptshadow - another interesting rework of classic fantasy tropes from the mind that brought you the underappreciated Spiderlight. This story comes alive thanks to its interesting ensemble, my favourite being the shifty artefact hunters Cat & Fisher. Read if you want classic fantasy adventure with a thoughtful twist.
The Tyrant's Law by Daniel Abraham, as recommended by @glenatron , book 3 of The Dagger & the Coin. Secondary world fantasy full of tense politics & intrigue, spiced with bits of action & adventure. Has a whole thread built around money as power, & a horribly convincing authoritarian driven by his own weaknesses. Read if you like Game of Thrones, convincing fantasy economics, or well-written villains, but go back & start with book 1.
Fedipals, could you suggest any good books on the following topics? :boost_requested:
Geology (ideally stuff focusing on minerals/rocks) 💎
Plants (trees/herbs/flowers) 🌿
I'm looking for some general primer literature that would help me broaden my knowledge within these areas - I feel like I know very little, and been wanting to learn more for a while :blobcat: 💗
@rysiek drew my attention to an inflamatory tone in some of my last posts in yesterday's m.s crypto-spam hellthread. My apologies to all for my failure to stay calm and friendly, and for any offence it may have caused.
I appreciate the passion and creativity all of you brought to the discussion, even where I disagreed with the particulars of your posts.
YES! Penguin Random House, authors, parents & students filed a federal lawsuit in FL challenging removals & restrictions of #books from school libraries that violate free speech & equal protection under the law.
"Ensuring that students have access to books on a wide range of topics & express a diversity of viewpoints is a core function of public education — preparing students to be thoughtful & engaged citizens." https://pen.org/pen-america-v-escambia-county/
“All the trends that McVeigh embodied—the political #extremism, the obsession with gun rights, the search for like-minded allies, and above all the embrace of violence—came together under the forty-fifth president.”
Picked up a "new" book at a supermarket swap the other day: "Hints and Tips for Lancashire Weavers" dated 1923. It's a fascinating insight into the inner workings and calculations of the Dark Satanic Mills and I'm still trying to get my head around it. I had a suspicion that the author's written much of it in local dialect, /in order to make it indecipherable for Yorkshire weavers/ ! Check out these sample pages!
Salman Rushdie warns free expression under threat in first public address after attack.
"Now I am sitting here in the U.S., I have to look at the extraordinary attack on libraries, and books for children in schools," the author said. "The attack on the idea of libraries themselves. It is quite remarkably alarming, and we need to be very aware of it, and to fight against it very hard.”
My #bookreview is brief/won't spoil, to spread good, great, & spectacular #horror#books far & wide.
Zachary Rosenberg won me over with this frontier "creature feature" featuring feisty women at its center. HUNGERS AS OLD AS THE LAND brings to vivid life shades & perspectives one doesn't typically get from a "Western" - plus it has action, gore, a sinister villain, & monsters galore!
Bran Reece is a dependable Welsh DCI & this book shines a light on how it all started 30 years ago. The story hits the ground running with a vagrant , Arvel Baines, being put away for a killing he is adamant he didn’t do. Even then, young Bran had his doubts but now Arvel is free. What is he going to do having had 30 years to plot his revenge?
Buckle up readers, you’re in for a gritty & fast paced ride ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Looking for a writing friend. Someone I can chat with about writing, projects, and stuff like that. I write horror and weird fiction, but I'll talk to anyone from any genre. Let me know if you're interested. #fiction#writing#horror#weird#WritingCommunity#Writers#books
A friend of mine is looking for a #fantasy series, probably from the #90s.
The most distinctive and easily communicated thing about it is the main character's mage marks.
Magic-users in the setting get molten silver tattoos that both represent their magical achievements and specialization, and also enhance their ability to do magic.
In the book, she gives herself the final set of mage marks (which one is absolutely not supposed to do) and it nearly kills her.
📚 Having just read the first novel in the Six of Crows duology, I enjoyed it so much that I'll immediately be reading the second book in the series: Crooked Kingdom.
If its anywhere near as good as the first book, this should be awesome!
Some people date the recent decline of England to 2016 but imo it began on 12 March 2015. I've been re-reading Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, and Night Watch, which all seem as relevant now as when written over 20 years ago. Here's Vimes thinking about processions staged by the powers that be.
"There was nothing like the massed ranks of wizardry walking sedately through the city in a spirit of civic amicability to subtly remind the more thoughtful kind of person that it hadn’t always been this way. Look at us, the wizards seemed to be saying. We used to rule this city. Look at our big staffs with the knobs on the end. Any one of these could do some very serious damage in the wrong hands so it’s a good thing, isn’t it, that they’re in the right hands at the moment? Isn’t it nice that we all get along so well?" - Jingo by Terry Pratchett, by jingo
Today in Labor History May 16, 1912: Studs Terkel was born, New York City. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for his book The Good War, a collection of oral histories from World War II. He was born to Russian-Jewish parents. He joined the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project. This provided him work in radio. He best known for his program, The Studs Terkel Program, which aired on WFMT, Chicago, from 1952-1997. Some of the people he interviewed on this show included: Bob Dylan, Big Bill Broonzy, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernstein, Martin Luther King and Tennessee Williams.