abookishidentity

[abookishidentity]

Little poll today because I'm curious:

[abookishidentity]

The only card you should be maxing is your library card. Get literate bro

[abookishidentity]

i think it's nice that people write books and it's possible to read them. often through the public library system

[abookishidentity]

Happy National Library Week!! A great time to ask everyone you know if they have a library card.

[abookishidentity]

YOOOOOO I JUST GOT MY FIRST LIBRARY CARD SINCE LIKE 2007 IT WAS SO EASY???

Like they literally just needed any photo ID with an address, I thought they needed like unopened mail and paperwork and crap, it took 5 goddamn minutes, I did it on my way home from work

And was NOBODY gonna tell me libraries have websites now with ebooks and audiobooks and documentaries and British TV and shit???

Why the FUCK have I been paying Netflix

GO GET A LIBRARY CARD

[abookishidentity]

Books I recently checked out of the library

My Funny Demon Valentine by Aurora Ascher- I thought the plot of demons escaping hell was an interesting one. I should have done more research as I did not know this was romantic fantasy. It had a lot more sex in it than I thought. I already finished it. It was not for me. Lesson learned.

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett - I read the other two Emily Wilde books and so naturally I have to read this one. I am about half way. I appreciate it a lot more since I read the previous book first.

Toto by A.J Hackwith- I saw this book in the next section at the library I work at and thought it sounded fun. However, there is only so much a dog can do so I wonder if that will become tedious. I have read another book by A.J Hackwith so hopefully I like this one.

An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka- This books just seems interesting to me. I think it's urban fantasy? Its written by the same guy who writes the Fated book series which I'm pretty sure is urban fantasy. I want to read that series but this is at the library I work at so I'm reading it. The plot seems fun.

[abookishidentity]

British slang

Sometimes I will read a book by an author who is not American and a word will come up (or phrase) and I will be like "huh?"

Like a few days ago I was reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde and I read the phrase "Flutter on the gee gees."

I had to look that one up. I had never heard of that phrase. The person was asking the main character if she bets on horse racing.

Usually its just a word but a whole phrase was quite something.

It just proves that I need to read more books that aren't written by Americans.

[abookishidentity]

hello fellow non-Black tumblr users. welcome to my saw trap. if you'd like to leave, please name one (1) Black woman author who is not Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, or N.K. Jemisin. bonus points if she's published a book in the last five years.

[abookishidentity]

Books read and finished in March 2025

-The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman- 4/5 stars. So dragons are the order and the fae are chaotic. I say it's pretty chaotic that each time a dragon gets pissy they end up affecting the world they are in and end up damaging it. 

Someone: You will be given a fae representative 

Me: It’s going to be silver. 

Irene: It’s going to be Lord Silver. 

Lord Silver: Hello there everyone! It’s me! 

Me: Of course 

Irene: Fucking of course! It’s not like I have other bullshit to worry about! 

-The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman- 3/5 stars. This one didn’t hit as much for me. Maybe I don’t really care for the heist trope? This one felt like a James Bond movie mixed with a heist movie. Perhaps I don’t heists because nothing goes to plan and I like plans sticking tight. I didn’t like that Irene woke up in Mr Nemo’s lair again in a bikini and a fucking collar. Fucking gross. It was badass of her that she could only use written language so she carved her arm up to get blood so she can write commands in the library language on the collar. Another thing that I didn’t like was that Indigo was portrayed as bad. Her motivations were justified to me. Dragons shouldn’t rule everything and shouldn’t control everything. 

-The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman- 5/5 stars. I loved this one. Best one in the series so far. I have a separate post for this one so I’m not going to go into detail here. 

-Machinehood by S.B Divya- 3/5 stars. Sometimes science fiction books feel very modern when you read them. The science fiction elements were interesting; they just felt like something we are currently seeing. This is the point of science fiction but I want to read things that I never read about. I know terrorism and terrorist groups aren’t supposed to make much sense with their ideals and such but the one in this book didn’t make sense to me. Also, I feel like the leader gave up too easily. I don’t know. At least it didn’t end with complete genocide. 

-Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow- 3/5 stars. This was a short read. It’s always interesting when death doesn’t really exist anymore in the world. People can die, it's just they make backups of themselves and then that backup goes into a new body. People can essentially live forever that way but are they really themselves at that point? It really has a ship of theseus vibe to it. Anyway, the main character gets a little caught up in something and is essentially losing it. I wonder what would have happened if he just fucked his best friend named Dan and called it a day. It’s clear that these two men care for each other. It’s weird that when you essentially can live out several lifetimes, the age difference between people can become worse. Sure they may look the same age but one person could be a century older but in a different body. It’s fucking weird. Main character leaves Disney world with Dan at the end so at least there’s that. I wish we got more of the world aside from Disney World. I’m not sure if it was open like it is now and they were trying to make the park more tech heavy? 

-The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman- 5/5 stars. This book was pretty good as well. I can respect a series for ending. Pretty decent ending. Or at least, a stopping point. I wouldn’t know where it would go from here as she has found out her parents, and how who was really controlling the library. Three powerful entities controlling everything through their library brands. I was quite shocked when Irene’s was burned off. But I guess it came back at the end? If she could say things in the language then I guess it was back? Anyway, I was convinced that Brandamant was her birth mother. I was wrong. I thought her being at the heart of the library was pretty cool. Like I said, a pretty good stopping point. A good series to read. I am really glad I read it. I love the relationship between Irene, Kai and Vale. They make a pretty good team. And they all care about each other. My last remaining thoughts are that its always entertaining when the chapter takes place in Kai’s perspective. He doesn’t have as much experience as Irene so his solving problem skills are different. It’s quite amusing to read when he is in charge. He is so broody and angsty with Irene. It’s quite nice when he is with different people. Hilarity ensues. Also another remaining thought is this: Do all the people who live in the worlds, who are not part of the fae or dragons, know there are many different worlds? I’m going to say no.I don’t really remember Vale’s introduction to all of it is.  

-Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman- 4/5 stars. This book is pretty good. There are a few lines here and there that made me think the book was written in 2016 or something. It makes Carl/the author sound homophobic or something. There are some problematic lines in this book but it’s not as prominent as other books I have read. This book reminds me of some aspects of The Hunger Games. The tv show aspect was not as annoying as I thought. It was Hunger Games like. This book is quite dark and haunting if you stop and think about it. Thinking about all the people who died, thinking about all the disenfranchised people who might have wandered into the dungeon by mistake, and thinking about all the people who lost their families in the dungeon. I would imagine it would not go easy on you if you were a small child or the elderly or disabled in any way. The book is quite detailed and it makes me think how long it took the author to come up with each thing. I didn’t realize this was a series until I hit half way through the book and they completed the first level. I am intrigued enough to keep going but the local libraries around me don’t have the whole series and I am not going to buy books unless I have to. Donut is amazing and the fact she was given the power of speech is great. Donut and Carl make a good team. Carl is going to have so much PTSD. The utter bullshit is real. 

-CyberMage by Saad Z. Hossain- 3/5 stars. This book had some cool story building. The stuff with the nanotech and AI gods running shit was cool. The main character was a 15-16 year old boy who was a hacker, was clearly spoiled by his parents, and hardly spent time outside of virtual reality. So naturally he is a bit insufferable and feels like he could be an incel. But I can’t completely hate him as he is 15-16 and he has time to grow. Besides I’m sure the events that happened to him in this book humbled him. Something that is weird is that he is emancipated from his parents and yet he still lived with them? He had a pygmy elephant which I found endearing. I hope it survived at the end. The only reason he started going to public school was because of a girl who didn’t even like him. And naturally the boy she had something with was a bully who would beat the main character up. It’s all fucked. The fat shaming of the main character was terribly annoying.  I’m just glad we also followed a different character who was a golem and chopped people’s heads off. That was much more interesting. 

-The Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin- 4/5 stars. Ahh another urban fantasy series I want to read and yet the rest of the books aren’t at the library. Oh well. This is a pretty great book. Kind of long though. Should have been like 100 pages less. Anyway, Matthew Swift is an interesting urban fantasy protagonist. For a good while I had no idea what he was and the book wasn’t exactly giving me the answers. He is a sorcerer but he has the “blue electric angels” living inside him. That’s pretty damn interesting. First book plus a resurrection means we don’t know for sure if he is acting like himself or it was the angels. He sometimes says “We” and sometimes he says “I” I guess it really depends on who’s talking. The electric angels make him sound quite innocent and naive about the world. Almost childish in a way. Anyway, this book is about revenge and he gets his revenge. Although I hate that a woman is mentioned throughout the book, we get some backstory of her and the main character and then she is fucking killed. I feel there might be hypocrisy in this book. Matthew is like “how dare you want to call the electric angels” and yet he called them when he was dying? Also did it take them two years for resurrect him or did the woman who died live for two years, decided that everything is bullshit and then resurrected him? He seems pretty pissed that he was resurrected. Anyway, despite all that, the book was pretty damn great. It was quite descriptive and flowery with its language which I was actually into. 

-The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso- 4.5/5 stars. This book was pretty damn great. I love the time loop aspect of it all. It must be pretty traumatizing to see people die in every loop and then seeing them again alive in the next one. The main character is pretty cool and so is her love interest. The main character can side step which is pretty fucking neat. It’s basically going into an in between place while everything else is frozen and popping up where she needs to go. I think I read something like that in an urban fantasy book. The main reason she learned side stepped is that she was constantly trying to find her childhood friend. That whole thing is amazing especially when there is a reveal about it. Interesting first book of a series. Her life before this book sounded quite interesting. But it’s pretty fascinating how much she takes her life seriously because she has a baby. This book has an interesting world and interesting characters. Sort of reminds me of The Invisible Library world. Overall a pretty great book.

[abookishidentity]

When I check out 8 books at once

[abookishidentity]

Something that is a distraction for me

Sometimes whenever I'm reading a book an author will use the word "tickle" multiple times. It throws me every time. I'm currently reading A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffins and the word has been used multiple times now. In a descriptive way to build up the senses the main character is feeling.

Some authors use the word multiple times when words like "brush or scratch" would work.

I personally think it shouldn't be used unless there's a tickle scene or something.

[abookishidentity]

Knowledge Wins - Public Library Books are Free, American Library Association (1918)

[abookishidentity]

Libraries are wonderful. Like, what do you mean, "there is a place where you can get free books if you give them 40 bucks a year and return them on time" i read way more than 40 books a year, that's a great deal!

(i did the math based on the total amount of books i read last year it's like 40 cents a book even if we don't count books i didn't borrow that's still loads cheaper than if i actually bought all of them, at around 80 cents a book)

Libraries are great for both your community and your bank account 🫶

[abookishidentity]

Books I recently checked out of the library

The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso- This book looks like it's about time or different realities. It's relatively new and so when you find a newer book at a library then that's truly special. This book is also sapphic and that makes it quite interesting.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde- I want to read more book series and so when I saw this book plus the series I decided to check it out.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey- The plot of this book sounded quite intriguing to me. I like the idea of queer librarian spies on horseback. Anything to do with libraries catches my attention. This book is relatively short so thats cool.

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde- This isn't part of the same series as the other book by Fforde. It sounded like something I would read.

Money saved: $68.98

[abookishidentity]

Thinking about Urban Fantasy

Every time I read a new urban fantasy book, I hope its like the Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey.

I don't know why this series I read in 2023 has stuck with me. Perhaps its because its one of the first urban fantasy series I read.

I just liked picking up a book and being like "Alright, what is Stark up to in this book?"

I'm currently reading A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffins and the beginning sort of reminds me how the first Sandman Slim book started.

Both coming back to life essentially.

It's always nice to have a book series stick with you.

[abookishidentity]

Guys, queers. Specifically my fellow queers.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.