#Currently reading

[princessofbookaholics]

borrowed from the library 🔍

[crystalexhibition]

Truth

buying books & reading books..two different hobbies.

[dearlyjess]

hello 2025 🪻

[bookocreativity]

April TBR

[gatheringbones]

[“Medieval theory intended that the lord or ruler should respond to charges of oppression by investigating and ordering the necessary reform to ensure that taxes fell equally on rich and poor. But this theory corresponded to reality no more than other medieval ideals, and because of this, wrote Philippe de Beaumanoir in 1280–83, “there have been acts of violence because the poor will not suffer this but know not how to obtain their right except by rising and seizing it themselves.” They formed associations, he reported, to refuse to work for “so low a price as formerly but they will raise the price by their own authority” and take “certain pains and punishments” against those who do not join them. This seemed to Beaumanoir a terrible act against the common good, “for the common interest cannot suffer that work should stop.” He advocated that such persons should be arrested and kept long in prison and afterward fined 60 sous each, the traditional fine for rupture of the “public peace.”

The most persistent ferment was among the weavers and cloth-workers of Flanders, where economic expansion had been most intense. The textile industry was the automobile industry of the Middle Ages, and Flanders was a hothouse of the tensions and antagonisms brewed in urban society by capitalist development. Once united by a common craft, the guild of masters, journeymen, and apprentices had spread apart into entrepreneurs and hired hands divided by class hatred. The guild was now a corporation run by the employers in which the workers had no voice. The magnates, who married into the nobility and bought country estates in addition to their city real estate, developed into a patrician class that controlled the government of the towns and managed it in their own interest. They founded churches and hospitals, built the great Cloth Halls, paved the streets, and created the canal system. But they made up the greater part of municipal expenses from sales taxes on wine, beer, peat, and grain, which fell most heavily on the poor. They favored each other in governing groups like the Thirty-nine of Ghent, named for life and serving in annual rotation of three parties of thirteen, or the twelve magistrates of Arras, who rotated among themselves every four months, or the oligarchy of the Hundred Peers of Rouen, which appointed the mayor and town councillors each year. The lower bourgeois who made fortunes and pressed upward could frequently penetrate the monopoly, but the artisans, despised as “blue nails” and vulnerable to unemployment, had no political rights. “]

barbara w. tuchman, from a distant mirror: the calamitous 14th century, 1987

[bookstackxyz]

Check out books by order

[literarymood]

Louise Glück, excerpt from Lament

[raanee]

You don’t have to keep burning yourself to keep others warm.

~ Words I wish I could heed.

[alextbphotography]

"In March the earth remembers its own name. Everywhere the plates of snow are cracking. The rivers begin to sing." –Mary Oliver 🌿 // all photos are mine 🌙

[bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue]

Thanks for the tag, @somanywords! I will happily sit down with you and a nice hot cup of tea or hot chocolate (I'm still fighting off a cold, so a hot drink actually would be very appreciated!), and I hope you broke a leg on the musical and finally did get some sleep!

Favorite color: Anything in the pink-purple-red range!

Last song: Hand in Glove by The Smiths

Last book: In a New York Minute by Kate Spencer

Last movie: Vertigo (1958), for my film class. The last movie I saw parts of was Huapango (2004), a Mexican retelling of Othello taking place within the huapongo musical/dance tradition, for my Shakespeare class—my professor showed parts of it during class.

Last TV show: Bob's Burgers. Pretty much the only thing I've been capable of doing while sick is bingeing entire seasons of that show; it's excellent "turn-off-your-brain" material.

Sweet/savory/spicy: Sweet and savory. Sorry, I know this makes me a failure of an Indian (and sorry I make that joke every single time this question is asked!)

Relationship status: Single as a Pringle (and sorry I make that joke every single time this question is asked!)

Last thing I googled: "huapango dance," preceded by "huapango movie 2004," to answer the question above.

Looking forward to: In order of most long-term to most short-term: finally moving for grad school (!!!!!! /pos but also !!!!!! /terrified); finally graduating from college; finally getting results on the really competitive fellowship I applied to forever ago, which will determine most of my grad school funding; finally getting over this stupid cold.

Current obsession: Besides the normal answers (Cowboy Bebop, Six of Crows), which actually do feel like they're fading a little bit(???), my answer would be the quote from this Vulture article (a link to which I've reblogged before here):

On being exiled from his father’s love and hot-rod heaven: I stood exiled from my father’s love AND hot rod heaven!

I've just been repeating that quote to myself over and over again. He stood exiled from his father's love AND hot-rod heaven! On being exiled from his father's love and hot-rod heaven: "I stood exiled from my father's love AND hot rod heaven!" I know you're annoyed at having to go to class when you're still sick, but just remember...Bruce Springsteen stood exiled from his father's love AND hot-rod heaven!!!! New echolalia unlocked, I guess???

Tagging (with no pressure!): @calicocalliope @dweebpheles @jaysbraindump @pieniebootekent @puppyduckster @she-was-a-psychedelic-messss @smithasandwich @the-book-fan @wewringmagicfromtheordinary and anyone else who would like to sit down for a delicious drink! I'm happy to sit and share that nice time with you...as long as we can stay socially-distanced so I don't give you my cold!

Catch up tag

Thank you so much for these tags @musette22 and @partofthefandom!! Let's sit down for tea and coffee and catch up :)

Favorite color: Yellow 💛

Last song: Barney Kessel cd in my car was playing this morning...

Last book: Rereading RWRB still! It's slow going since I'm sooo busy with tech week and opening weekend right now. I'm so sleepy guys.

Last movie: I think it was Moana2 with my little sisters...meh movie unfortunately but not surprisingly :( loved that little coconut guy tho

Last TV show: I was excitedly diving my way through 911 Lone Star but that too has paused thanks to the whims of theatre. Can't wait to resume soon!

Sweet/Savoury/Spicy: Savory or spicy

Relationship status: I've made some new friends working on this show and two of them are a married couple a few months older than me and I am studying them under a microscope in gentle bewilderment, if that tells you anything right there

Last thing I googled: "how to fold a bill into a heart" which I did do successfully afterwards :D

Looking forward to: So much! A good show to close out this weekend, lots of laughs with my friends, finally having a BREAK this week and maybe being able to start writing again, the Thai takeout waiting for me in the fridge, taking a nap this afternoon, catching up on the latest hour of my sister's work drama ;)

Current obsessions: Definitely this musical -- it sure is consuming. Also with sleeping! God, I didn't appreciate her enough and now I'm paying the price. Zzz...

And gentle tags to anyone who sees this and wants to sit down for a drink, and also @unoffical-marvel @blurglesmurfklaine @dharmasharks @booksandabeer @bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue @moodymelanist @tessabennet @thankssaragorn @xoxobuckybarnes and @bromcommie <3

[theaftersundown]

*writes two paragraphs after months of literally nothing and it took three hours*

[lou-wilham]

Just a quick note from your friendly neighborhood bookworm/indie author

if you use kindle for the majority of your library, they will be shutting down the function that allows you to download your files and transfer them via USB on the 26th of February. Which doesn't sound like a huge deal, but this also means that if a book is taken off Amazon for any reason—like it being banned—they can scrape it off your kindle as well. So maybe backup your library?

Edit: as an indie author I feel like I should make a small note that this is not an excuse to say “fuck Amazon I’ll just pirate my books”. Please don’t do that. No one’s reaction so far has been that but I’m begging you not to react that way. That doesn’t hurt Amazon it hurts authors.

Some alternatives are

- check and see if the author sells their books on other marketplaces. Hint: any not enlisted on Ku are probably wide

- check your library. If they’re not at your library request them.

- if all else fails, reach out to the author. I have 100% hunted down a way for my book to be available to a reader that couldn’t access it for whatever reason. And I’d do it again.

Just for the love of 🧀 don’t pirate them.

[writtenroses1813]

I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…

Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?

[catbrarian]

cats and libraries ۫ ꣑ৎ

[landsccape]