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Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

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I looked it up, out of awful curiosity, and the dude playing Murderbot in the new series is 6'4" which somehow makes me feel better.

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"The problem is people don't read classics anymore"

No I think the problem is people don't read WIDELY. The ONLY ya and/or fantasy romance crowd is just as insufferable as the ONLY classics crowd or the ONLY litfic crowd or the ONLY nonfiction crowd and vice versa.

You gotta get some variety in there my guys

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This is how it feels to read a classic that everyone in the world has already read and loves

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Bookwyrm :3

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On this episode of Cracked Spines, we discuss A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland, a book that—among other things—has a beautiful cover that Cyrus and I end up arguing about anyway. Not THAT much makes it into the actual episode. But know that it was passionate.

Behind the scenes, there was a somewhat in-depth discussion off-mic about how the knowledge that the author was in tumblr and thus pretty easy to tag might influence our honest discussion of the book. We basically settled on if we like the book, we'll tag em, and if we don't like the book then yknow why put in information in the post that we don't strictly need to. Anyway, hi @ariaste ! We really liked the book! Cyrus basically twisted my arm until I moved in up my TBR list because they knew I'd like it, and damn if that son of a gun doesn't know me. I’m such a sucker for fantasy macroeconomics.

We discuss duty, fealty, the public performance of politics, and the literary art of truly conveying how awkward a moment can be. Enjoy listening to me get so insanely in my head about how a character's name is pronounced that it derails my ability to speak. I’m beginning to get legitimately concerned about the stress Proper Nouns induce in me.

SPOTIFY | BUZZSPROUT | APPLE PODCASTS

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Just watched this Mina Le video (9 months after she posted it) and it’s a bit of a mess. She herself admits she just wanted to explore the topic. But it made me think about my own reading history, habits and preferences.

5 things about how I read (trying to limit my runaway thoughts with a list)

1. Brain doesn’t listen so I try a lot of books and see which ones catch my interest. I’m constantly reading but not necessarily finishing. I used to devour so much books. I’ve forgotten most of them. Now attention span is kind of broken. So I’m much pickier. I also sometimes read a book backwards or skip scenes until I’m ready or just never finish something. Life’s too short to worry about rules.

2. Because of 1, I tend to be eclectic about my reading. My genres of choice: mysteries, romance, fantasy, but I have times where I enjoy poetry and space opera and I read self-help and other non-fiction. I tend to avoid horror but it sneaks in sometimes. I avoid memoirs but enjoy graphic memoirs and essays. (Weird distinction)

3. I do collect Filipiniana books but it’s a migrant thing. Someday I might be able to get rid of some of them, but not yet. I tend to read more essays and poetry and comics/graphic novels.

4. Fanfic became my comfort reading for a time but these days I read danmei for that purpose. (Chinese mlm webnovels) They’re not usually that well-written/translated but still pings my brain’s dopamine button very well. Some of them are very long and I read thousands of pages just fine but couldn’t make it thru a boring novella. Lol. I also read Japanese light novels and Korean webnovels but they have their distinct features and I tend to go for the Chinese first. (But Korean webtoons and Japanese dramas…)

5. My cousin had gorgeous classics and chick lit books growing up. My older sister was into buying classics and Newbery winners so I did read a few of those growing up. My other cousin shared his comics with me. We’re readers who kind of get into each other’s shelves. I borrowed a lot from other relatives and lent some too. This is one of those things I feel grateful about since public libraries weren’t a thing in my country at that time.

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When I return a library book, I make sure to walk there holding it in my hands instead of in my bag. This is enrichment before it gets returned to the cold limbo of the stacks

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Song for Cantalagua - The Solarpunk Webcomic No-One seems to know about!

There is a Solarpunk webcomic, that nobody seems to know about. Which seems so very strange to me, given that everyone seems to look for Solarpunky media. Admittedly, part of the reason might well be, that the comic does not advertise itself as Solarpunk, even though it very clearly is in so many regards.

So, please, let me introduce you to Song for Cantalagua.

In a small town surrounded by two rivers called Cantalagua, which used to be famous for its summer festival, lives Nila a 13-year-old girl who works as a delivery girl and helps her mother out at The Lighthouse –the most popular guesthouse in town. One day, the slow life of Cantalagua stirs up when strange debris appears and the rivers start rising. Nila and her friends Otto, a chronically tired videoblogger, and Clara, a sweet girl who seems more interested in someone than the mystery itself, team up to investigate the cause. Cantalaguan life, which seemed to be so uneventful, fills with mysterious plants and suspicious people that begin to change the way Nila sees her hometown.

As you can see, the aesthetic of the comic is very, very Solarpunk. And while there are fantasy aspects to it, it mostly is Science Fiction. It also deals with several LGBTQ* topics and coming of age. And while it also still features a somewhat capitalist society, there are topics such as mutual aid within it.

While the comic has a very simplistic artstyle for the human characters, the backgrounds are simply beautiful. And yes, it deals with topics of living together with nature.

It is just a really nice story - and I am still so very surprised that nobody seems to know it.

Admittedly, the main website of the comic is currently (once again) broken. But you can also read the comic on Tapas and Webtoons. Or on their Patreon.

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i need to get off the computer and get around to my

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reading the collected letters of shirley jackson and this is from a letter to her agent while she was working on the haunting of hill house

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have you read the great gatsby?

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Kerouac’s list on how to live like a poet

Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

Submissive to everything, open, listening

Try never get drunk outside yr own house

Be in love with yr life

Something that you feel will find its own form

Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

Blow as deep as you want to blow

Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

The unspeakable visions of the individual

No time for poetry but exactly what is

Visionary tics shivering in the chest

In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

Like Proust be an old teahead of time

Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

Accept loss forever

Believe in the holy contour of life

Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better

Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

You’re a Genius all the time

Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

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Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:

Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.

The actual difference is

when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names

when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names

hope this helps!

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Peach Flower House danmei is officially closing down. Known for licensing danmei to the west, with titles including Golden Terrace, Little Mushroom, In the Dark, Peach Blossom Debt and The Imperial Uncle, PFH will continue to be holding a sale up until site closure on the 30th of November. So if you live in the United States or Canada, I highly suggest grabbing whatever copies are left while you still can!

Once this stocks gone these books will likely go out of print, meaning that the only way to purchase them will be second hand. For those outside the USA, check with other online retailers for danmei, as these titles have been released through other stores also. Go and grab those novels so you can continue to enjoy and share them in the future!

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Tower Records, Tacoma Washington, 1978