Just finished reading something and want to share some thoughts, but don't want to start a brand new thread? Feel free to post your mini-reviews here!

If you'd like to start a more dedicated discussion, you are still free to begin a stand-alone thread.

Please post any spoilers behind spoiler tags!

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Hey Beehaw (and friends)! What’re you reading?

Previously I had these thread labelled as monthly threads, but I have had an incredibly busy few months and had not been able to keep up with it. So this is now going to be a general sticky that will be replaced "every so often" when the previous thread gets overly full :)

Novels, nonfiction, ebooks, audiobooks, graphic novels, etc - everything counts!

archive.is link

Mine is Becky Chambers. I've just finished rereading all of her work, and it gave me the exact same feeling of hope I had the first time. Not groundbreaking, but soul-feeding.

Publishers are complaining that people prefer to read the novels in English instead of their native tongues.

Hey folks! I'm hoping that someone can recommend a book or two on herbalism - preferably ones where the author discussed the terpenes and secondary plant metabolites more than the magickal properties of the plants in question.

Currently I'm looking up plants through things like the NIH portal but would prefer to have some books I could reference as well; those studies are usually focused on one or two metabolites or compounds and it would be nicer to have that sort of information for each indicated use. For example: plantain (Plantago major) and comfrey (Comfrey officinale) are both used for skin conditions due to their production of allantoin; mountain mints (Pycnanthemum spp) are used in various ways for their production of carvacrol, menthone, isomenthone, β-elemene, limonene, piperitone, and germacrene D.

Thanks!

> Anthony Bourdain & The Balvenie head to San Francisco, California to meet with Andrew Hoyem, master typographer and printer of Arion Press. One of the last of its kind, Arion Press has only a handful of members on its staff, all fellow craftsmen dedicated to this age old process. Each works meticulously to create the books in multiple parts, from the typecasters, to the proofreaders, to the printers and the bookbinders. All of these hands build a work of art through a process that must be seen to be believed, and can only, truly, be described as magic. Episode directed by filmmaker Rob Meyer.

We wanted to invite other Lemmy readers to join us in a reading challenge, we have tried to structure this so it’s very flexible with regards to genre, and we don’t require you to join or post on !books@lemmy.world. We had just put in the work to make it and thought we could share the fun. (Admins/Mods please feel free to delete if inappropriate or unwelcome) cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/9497120

Want to read more, but need motivation or direction? Want to gamify or expand your reading? Try book bingo! Our hope with this challenge is to provide a fun way for you to keep up with your reading goals throughout the next 12 months.

How does it work?

The goal is to read something that fits the theme for each bingo square in any single row, column, or corner diagonal of your choice (one work per theme/square). If you would like to, you’re welcome to complete the entire card (or multiple cards). But to clarify, normal bingo rules apply, you only need 5 in a row for a bingo.

Since this is about helping you along in your reading journey, there’s no requirement to read any particular kind of work. Prefer a different format, like graphic novels or audio books? Go for it. Want to read in a different language? Cool. Only have time or energy for single short stories. That’s fine, too. You can read fiction of any genre, nonfiction of any topic, books of poetry, or whatever else interests you, as long as it works for the square. We wanted this to be as open and flexible as possible, to be welcoming to as many people as possible.

We hope you’ll participate in the community throughout the year by sharing how you’re doing with bingo, helping others with suggestions, and posting your feelings about what you’re reading in dedicated threads or the weekly "What are you reading?" thread.

In mid-April, 2025, we'll put up a turn-in post to collect what everyone's been reading; we'll be using that thread to put together a summary, once the bingo period ends. Additionally, if there's a way to provide community flair or some other recognition to participants, that's how we'll determine eligibility. So, if you want to be counted and/or recognized, please make sure to contribute to that post, even if you've made other bingo posts or comments during the year!

Rules

• You must read a different work for every square you complete, even across multiple cards. There is no conflict, however, with overlapping other reading challenges that aren't associated with c/Books.
• Repeating authors on the same card isn’t forbidden (especially for the “There Is Another…” and “Same Author, New Work” squares), but we encourage you to read as new to you or different authors for every square on a card.
• Likewise, we encourage you to primarily read things you haven’t read before.
• If you’re having trouble filling a certain square, we’ve provided a few alternates you can substitute in (see below). Please limit your substitutions to one per card.
• The 2024 Bingo period lasts May 1st, 2024 – April 30th, 2025. Anything you finish during that time period is eligible, as long as you were no more than halfway through on May 1st.

Upping the Difficulty

Want an additional challenge? Try one of these, or come up with a variation of your own (and share them!).

• Hard Mode: Each square description includes an optional extra restriction to the theme, which you can do or ignore on a square-by-square basis. It's up to you!
• Genre Mode: Read only one genre.
• Review Mode: Write a review (ratings alone don’t count) for the books you read for bingo, either here on c/Books, a personal blog, Bookwyrm, The Storygraph, Hardcover.app, or elsewhere.

The Card

!2024 Bingo Card

Link to a bigger copy

The Squares

Row 1

• 1A - Older Than You Are: Published before your birthdate. HARD MODE: Published before 1924.
• 1B - Water, Water Everywhere: The title refers to some form or body of water. HARD MODE: Not liquid water.
• 1C - What’s Yours Is Mine: Theft, piracy, fraud, or espionage is a major topic or plot point. HARD MODE: No MacGuffins.
• 1D - Family Drama: Family is important, but sometimes it's also the cause of problems. Family dynamics are fundamental to the narrative. HARD MODE: Involves three or more generations of family members.
• 1E - It Takes Two: Written by two or more authors. HARD MODE: Written by three or more authors.

Row 2

• 2A - New Release: New for 2024/2025 (no reprints or new editions). First translations into your language of choice are allowed. HARD MODE: This is the first work you've read by this author.
• 2B - Plays With Words: Written in a stylistically unconventional way. HARD MODE: Fits the definition of Experimental Literature.
• 2C - Independent Author: Self-published by the author. Works later published though a conventional publishing house don't count unless you are reading it before the switch, and it's republished before April 30th, 2025. HARD MODE: Not published via Amazon Kindle Direct.
• 2D - Bookception: Features a book-related aspect. HARD MODE: Something other than a book, like an author or library.
• 2E - Disability Representation: A main character has or gains a disability to which they must adapt. This disability must be grounded in reality: if a 4,000 year old Prince of the Shokan lost an arm, that would count; if he became a werewolf, it would not. HARD MODE: The piece is at least partially from their perspective.

Row 3

• 3A - Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie: A light, popcorn-worthy read that’s not real deep (see also “beach read” and “airport novel”). HARD MODE: You actually read it while on a vacation/staycation.
• 3B - Stranger in a Strange Land: The primary PoV is dropped into a completely unfamiliar situation or location. HARD MODE: Not portal fiction or isekai.
• 3C - One Less: A book that’s been on your TBR list for a long time. HARD MODE: Overlaps with at least one other bingo square theme.
• 3D - There Is Another…: Not the first in a series. HARD MODE: Series has 5 or more entries.
• 3E - LGBTQIA+ Lead: A main character identifies as LGBTQIA+. HARD MODE: Includes a significant romance between characters that identify as LGBTQIA+.

Row 4

• 4A - Now a Major Motion Picture: The work has been adapted into a show or single episode, movie, play, audio drama, or other format. HARD MODE: The adaptation is regarded as better than the original work.
• 4B - It’s About Time: The passage or manipulation of time is a major theme or plot driver. HARD MODE: Backward in time, not forward.
• 4C - Award Winner: Has won a significant literature award. HARD MODE: More than one award.
• 4D - Mashup: A combination of two or more genres or non-fiction topics. HARD MODE: Unusual combo, like fantasy thriller.
• 4E - Local to You: The author lives in or writes about a location local to you (city, state, province, territory, etc.). HARD MODE: The author has spent a significant amount of time there, but wasn't born there.

Row 5

• 5A - Debut Work: An author’s first work. HARD MODE: The author is widely regarded as having a profound impact on the genre/topic.
• 5B - It's a Holiday: Takes place during a specific holiday, which is significant to the plot. HARD MODE: Not Christmas, a fictional variation of Christmas, or other winter festival.
• 5C - Institutional: Set at a non-commercial institution or facility, like a school, science lab, or prison. HARD MODE: Not a school.
• 5D - Minority Author: Minority or LGBTQIA+ author. A minority can be any member of a generally underrepresented population where you live. HARD MODE: Minority and LGBTQIA+.
• 5E - Among the Stars: Features space, astronomy, or stardom. HARD MODE: The title references the theme, too.

Alternates

These are available as swaps if one of the categories is difficult for your chosen genre, or if it fits better with your reading preferences. There is no obligation to do these otherwise.

• Same Author, New Work: An author you’ve read before, but a series (or standalone) you haven’t. HARD MODE: Give an author you didn’t like a second chance.
• She Blinded Me With Science: The author has a background and degree in a hard science. HARD MODE: More than one post graduate degree.
• Pseudonymous Work: Published under a pen name. HARD MODE: The author generally never writes under their own name.
• Translated: Not originally in your native tongue. HARD MODE: Has been translated into at least ten other languages. This Wikipedia page is a good place to start for widely translated works.
• A Change in Perspective: Written in third-person perspective. HARD MODE: Second-person perspective.

Resources

If you make or find any bingo-related resources, ping or DM me so I can add them here. Thanks!

• 2024 Bingo Recommendations List
• The Storygraph Reading Challenge - You don’t need to use The Storygraph or any other reading tracker to do this challenge, this is just an additional support tool for those interested.

Appreciation

• This challenge is inspired by, but totally separate from, the one run by r/Fantasy on Reddit. We deeply appreciate the past organizers and the work they did that we are now benefitting from.
• Thank you for so much to misericordiae for the design and production of the card.
• 2024 bingo card font credits: Bungee Shade, by David Jonathan Ross; Roboto Condensed, by Christian Robertson.

Огляд коміксу «Одна весна в Чорнобилі» від Емманюеля Лепажа. Історія про Чорнобильську атомну катастрофу очима європейців. "Таємна кімната" - про комікси та мальописи українською.

Not sure I like the "Netflix of books" suggestion(libraries exist!), but I thought this was interesting.

[Dear Friends, before I post this somewhere, probably Medium, in the hopes of getting as many eyeballs as possible to look at this, would you be so kind as to look this over and offer some constructive criticism before I post it? And is there some way that the folks on BookWyrm have the option to see this?]

This is a hastily written, very brief, not particularly well-thought out response to the sudden disappearance of Small Press Distribution by one of the many people who relied on them to get their books before the eyes of the public. If you’re reading this, I suspect you probably already know about about what happened to SPD, and so in the interest of time, I’ll skip the background which can be read about on SPD’s Wikipedia page, and in the following Lithub article. I’ve thought it appropriate to post this on Medium, which is the same site where an employee of SPD first blew the whistle on some of their more unsavory practices several years ago.

As a user and fan of Bandcamp, I’ve often wondered if the same sort of business model, with some obvious and extensive modifications, might not also be a viable model for small presses or booksellers in general. Bandcamp is a site and platform where musicians can sell their music, whether in digital or physical form, and be fairly remunerated for their work (as opposed to sites like Spotify). Here, musicians’ songs can be listened to, in whole or in part, and then purchased digitally as DRM-Free mp3 or flac files. Bands can also sell physical media such as vinyl, CDs, cassettes, T-shirts, and all sorts of other merchandise while also having an opportunity to have more interaction with their fans.

I use Bandcamp to keep up with bands that I listen to by signing up for their mailing lists and for buying digital media; I have admittedly not yet purchased any physical media from anyone, and I get the idea that this is a site that is predominately dedicated to selling digital media.

Switching to this model would require, at least in part, a bit of a “paradigm shift,” for lack of a better term, that many publishers will potentially not like. As a reader, I am perfectly content to read high-quality ebooks, provided that they are one of the vanishingly small number in PDF or epub format that are not encumbered by digital rights management (DRM), but I realize that in this screen-oriented age of ours that many readers prefer to read books the old fashioned way, on paper. To my mind, this would not dispense with books as physical media; on the contrary I feel that books should be able to exist side by side with digital versions (and the reason they haven’t so far in the way that music and movies have been able to transcend their physical media to a degree is because too many people bought into the Amazon kindle ebook ecosystem of poorly-formatted, DRM-encumbered, and prone to disappearing ebooks, but that’s a whole other rant). Skipping over print on demand (POD), which as a publisher I have really had a less than spectacular experience with due to quality control issues, for which providers such as Ingram/Lightning Source already exists, I wonder if publishers might consider making their books available digitally on Presscamp as either PDFs, epubs, or whatever other format readers prefer, while having a limited print run of offset-printed books sell beside them as a sort of deluxe format, in the same way that I might have an entire hard drive full of music files, but sitting next to it a cabinet full of vinyl LPs for the albums I hold to be among my most favorite. Traditional offset print runs can be excessively expensive and prone to being left to sit around unsold, but if a smaller number were printed, the most ardent fans of those particular authors or presses would be alerted to their publication and sold to them, but when the physical media has been sold out (barring reprintings or reissuings), the work will still remain available to purchase and read. I realize that there will probably be a lot of objections to this way of doing things, and rightly so, but this is simply one possibility that I’ve considered that I thought make sense to other presses in the same boat.

Barring the investment of a suddenly-appearing, kindly, and free-spending millionaire, a setup like this would require some kind of crowdfunding to get off the ground, servers to host the ebooks, and warehouses to store the physical media (I actually don’t know if Bandcamp warehouses their artists’ physical media or if they themselves are responsible for sending them out). And some kind and honest folks to administer all this! In the same way that musicians give away their music as a means of advertsing for their live shows, ebooks could be provided, in whole or in part, as an advertisement and incentive to buy a physical copy (or perhaps even as an advertisment for an author reading, but that might be stretching things a bit . . .)

Putting something together like this is honestly far beyond my competence, ability, and resources; I’m simply writing this in the hopes of putting a bug in someone’s ear who has a higher degree of the aforementioned qualities not to mention the time (ha!), to assemble something like this. If this sounds like a good idea to anyone at all, please take it and run with it! The demise of SPD can be a blessing in disguise if we can get our act together and move on to something better!

[Ok, you made it all the way to the end, so tell me what you think!]

Please see also: https://beehaw.org/post/12924678

We've all got one. That pile of books waiting to be read, some of them surely doomed to linger for years as other more enticing novels are selected instead. What's in yours?

Hello! I would like to catalogue my library (I estimate in the low thousands but I am unsure of the precise number). I would like to keep tracks of several things, from the "obvious" like author, title, publisher, edition, to more personal like "when"/"where" did I get it. Was it a gift? Is a lucky find from that one trip to Paris, etc.

What's the best way to go about it? A physical collections of cards ? An app? I would like it to be selfhosted (maybe using sqlite as a backend?)

Any idea, suggestion or anything (including your experience doing something similar!) is welcome!

Does anyone know of a good (and hopefully also free) online forum where someone can ask questions related to the Chicago Manual of Style? Chicago Manual of Style's page has an online question form, but it seems like it's one of those "we'll answer your question if we get to it" type of things. I need to ask questions about things not specifically covered by the Manual where I have some hope of getting a timely response. Any suggestions?

EDIT: A very belated thank you to @renard_roux@beehaw.org, @edickinson@startrek.website, and @eveninghere@beehaw.org; I will definitely take a look at Discord, Evidence Explained, and Stack Exchange.

EDIT EDIT: A bonus gift for @edickinson@startrek.website (and also because I posted this earlier and I think it got lost): !

OK, y'all. I'm trying to find a book I read many moons ago. I feel like it was by Diana Wynne Jones, but it's not in her bibliography. Massive spoilers incoming, obviously, but I can't remember what the spoilers are for.

---

The book starts on an island nation in the south of the world, with a rigid code of conduct which one of the main characters is being disciplined for breaking. The main characters leave on a quest to the oppressive and powerful kingdom in the north, and its revealed that one of the other main characters is the crown prince of the evil kingdom in the north, and can use their magic. If I recall correctly, his use of that magic makes dark veins stand out under his skin, and he has to fight against it controlling him. There's some kind of time limit, I think if he uses the magic too much, it'll take him over and he'll become the new ruler.

To gain some advantage over the evil kingdom, they visit an abandoned city, break into some kind of temple, and have an encounter with some kind of deity, which might then take over one of the characters?

Later in the story they make it to the evil palace, and there's a plotline about multiple children of the evil king trying to kill this guy, so they can inherit the throne. I think the evil palace is embedded in a mountain somehow.

Anyone who can set me on the right track, it'd be much appreciated!

> Perelandra Bookshop’s reader-in-residence commits to reading at the store for two hours per week in exchange for a small coffee and book stipend

> I’m not saying that all self-help is bad. There’s always been an audience for short and snappy self-improvement books (there’s a reason why there are only 7 Habits, not 70), and that’s just fine. But I do worry about a larger phenomenon that I’ll call the bulletpointification of books and media. > > [...]The popularity of book summary services like Blinkist and Shortform is a perfect encapsulation of what gets lost (nuance) in the bulletpointification of books, in which every bit of information is served in digestible bite-sized portions that you can upload right to your brain. A recent Blinkist post titled “7 Blinks To Understand the Conflict Between Israel and Hamas,” may give you some idea of the scale of such bullet point derangement, as if a blink was a proper unit of measurement to use to understand a genocide happening before the world’s eyes. > > I have seen many VC-funded book startups come and go, usually led by well-intentioned people who think they have a good idea about how to “save” books. Remember all of the startups saying that they would be the Netflix of books? The latest bunch of startups that are for sure going to “fix” what’s wrong with books are focused on AI.

Something you thought you would love that turned out to be awful, or vice versa? A great plot twist that blew your mind?

What was the last book that surprised you in some way?

Archive link

I don't read many book reviews, but this one came on my RSS feed and was an interesting read.

newest to oldest

• White Hot Hate: A True Story of Domestic Terrorism in America’s Heartland
• The Storm Is Here: An American Crucible
• I'm Glad My Mom Died
• Depart, Depart!
• The World As We Knew It: Dispatches From a Changing Climate
• The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War
• The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
• Radicalism in the Mountain West, 1890-1920: Socialists, Populists, Miners, and Wobblies
• The Red Corner: The Rise and Fall of Communism in Northeastern Montana
• Zapatista Spring: Anatomy of a Rebel Water Project & the Lessons of International Solidarity
• The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
• Fire, Storm Flood: The Violence of Climate Change
• The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
• The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II
• Sea of Tranquility
• The Revivalists
• The Fated Sky
• The New Wilderness
• Project Hail Mary
• The Greatest Polar Expedition of All Time: The Arctic Mission to the Epicenter of Climate Change
• I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
• Denial (by Jon Raymond)
• America City
• The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming
• The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science
• The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
• Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
• Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame
• Modern Sudanese Poetry: An Anthology
• Columbine (by Dave Cullen)
• The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation
• California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--and What It Means for America's Power Grid
• I Hate You-Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality
• The Man Who Caught the Storm: The Life of Legendary Tornado Chaser Tim Samaras
• Sandy Hook (by Elizabeth Williamson)
• Roll Red Roll: Rape, Power, and Football in the American Heartland
• Fire and Flood (by Eugene Linden)
• Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World
• The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration
• Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution
• Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History
• The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption

Any format counts (audiobook, physical book, ebook, graphic novel, article, essay, etc).

I haven't had any luck in finding sci-fi books recently. I'm looking for a longer story that takes its time to establish the world/universe and the characters living in it. I like the idea of exploring space or futuristic cities/landscapes and being on a journey together with the protagonist. The story doesn't have to have a happy end or flawless characters, but I also don't like it when everything is hopeless/dystopic and all the characters stumble from one flawed decision to the next one. Some examples of what I enjoyed so far are:

• Dune
• Project Hail Mary
• The Expanse Series
• Hyperion Cantos Series
• Bobiverse Series
• The Murderbot Diaries Series
• Tuf Voyaging
• Night's Dawn Series (Might not be for everyone... contains excessive violence and some smut, but also some very interesting ideas)
• Vatta's War Series (I usually don't like military sci-fi, but this one wasn't bad)
• The Interdependency Series
• Falling Free

If you enjoyed some of these stories and have any similar suggestions, feel free to share them here. If not, maybe consider checking out the list above... I highly recommend each of these entries.