#book recommandations

[charadreammer]

I bought the first two volumes of svss !!

Because I haven't read a physical book in so long I didn't have any bookmaker. So I made one ! It was actually really fun to design and paint.

It's suppose to represent things bingqiu do for each other. I tried to write "medicine" on the bottle but I'm not sure if it's right and my handwriting is not the best so please forgive any mistake

[erregiulydraws]

“Let’s go on and on together forever“

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Obviously I already knew the Count of Monte-Cristo was a great story because I still follow all the people who love les misérables and the circle is wide and encompassing, but having to buy two books to read the story had kept me from actually going for it so I didn't KNOW things, per say;

now i am a changed woman after this movie. Mostly i'm OBSESSED WITH THE KIDS, the tragedy that is the legacy of their parents, I know this movie was three hours long but I still wanted more of them.

Also: i'm a Tumblr girlie. So what I knew about the book, mostly, was that Eugénie liked kissing girls, and i'm so happy the movie properly acknowledged it.... <3. Again. Give me all the kids during the time Dantes is away in the South or whatever. I want more of them!

(although am i truly the sort to ignore past lovers still loving each other but not able to be back together because of circumstances and past wounds?? of course not. All those conversations aaah.)

[scalproie]

Imagine being so good at defending yourself and the facilities youre kept at that your associates are like "hoooly shit that was so scary we need to kill that guy"

[imanes]

Sorry for such a ridiculous question, but I think you’re incredibly knowledgeable, and would like to heard your opinion. Do you think Turkish people are considered POC?

when i first read your question i laughed because i was wondering if bait had gotten more elaborate but i feel like it was quite cynical of me lol. and just fyi I'm not incredibly knowledgeable either!

the long and the short of it to me, as a random person from the periphery of your life, is that for racism to exist, there is a process of racialization that happens first, and it creates social categories and hierarchies based on so-called "races". that's how the broad category of "person/people of colour" emerged as a counterpart to whiteness. by considering whether specific social groups as a whole or the individuals that compose them are from one category or the other, is focusing more on identity/identification than on the dynamics of domination that whiteness embodies.

now that we've set the foundation to think of race as a social and not a biological reality, rife with relations of domination that composes the architecture of society, i'd say that questioning whether turkish people (or others) are "people of colour" has to start from how we think about racial categories as a whole and how they are informed by power relations within socio-political structures. from that pov, i'd never consider turkish people white as far as I'm concerned. now i know that there may be turkish people, similarly to some north African people (as a reminder that the latter group is my people lol), who think they have transcended the boundaries of racialised social groups and now believe themselves to be white*. at the end of the day i always feel like if the world was titanic and it was whites first instead of women and children, turkish and north African people would stay on the damn boat and sink into the pits of the ocean because the ones who uphold whiteness as power and benefit from whiteness would not welcome the "pale" skinned ones as white. and again it's in relation to a structure and not to individuals. individuals may believe this or that but when you look at how power dynamics interact with racialised groups as a whole, the answer is clear.

(*) to be totally transparent i've noticed this identification with whiteness specifically from north africans who are anti-black first and foremost, and refuse to consider themselves African. like they 100% buy into the myth that imazighen are descended from European settlers which you know... honestly double L idk how to even describe this frame as anything but pathetic and stinky lol. this identification with whiteness is also a strategy to distance the self from "the uncivilized", which shows the extent of how colonisation and coloniality affect the mind as well. wish fanon was mandatory reading for everyone <3

[tessxblxckthorn]

i loved and i loved and i lost you.

i loved and i loved and i lost you.

i loved and i loved and i lost you.

and it hurts like hell.

SHADOW AND BONE | SEASON TWO

[dahi-wada]

PLEASE, recommend me romance book asap

[Icks] what i hate=>

Teacher student trope

Cheating

Too much violence

And Wattpad kind of cringe books

[15lehna]

This is going to be so fun. The only knowledge i have of Mortal Kombat is that one fanfiction that was read on 8-bit book club.

[adarkrainbow]

Due to the previous ask I ended up thinking back to a fairytale themed book I really liked, but never got to talk about here: Indexing, by Seanan McGuire.

Now, this novel is not a typical novel in format - it is an ebook that was selled as a serial, so chapter after chapter released during a given period of time to finally make a full book. Hopefully I got to read the whole thing all at once, and while I know the “serial placed in one” book format doesn’t please everybody, I actually didn’t mind. Of course being French and into literature I am used to the “serial turned one book”, it was THE big format at a time, and it also worked like those old fantasy anthologies a la “Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser” where individual stories are collected together. 

Anyway, what is “Indexing” about? We could say: SCP for fairytales. Or this cartoon for children, “Fairy Tale Police Department” turned into a dark adult urban fantasy. 

In the world of “Indexing” fairytales are real, but not in the sense that they happened in the past or that they exist somewhere in another world. Fairytales happen everywhere, live among us, and if we do not see them it is all thanks to the good work of the ATI Management Bureau, who protects us from them. Because fairytales are actually live viruses or plagues, they are abstract sentient forces that seek out to be played, reality-warping scenarios that only care about happening one way or another, and are ready to ANYTHING to do so... (If you have read Pratchett’s works, such as “Witches Abroad”, you’ll recognize a similar take on the “fairy tale” here).

And the ATI Management Bureau is a special, secret organization of the USA whose task is to identify the stories that seek to happen, and prevent them from happening - or solving them with as little people hurt as possible. Because as it turns out, when fairytales try to happen in real-life, lives get damaged and bloody consequences ensues... 

I do not want to talk more about it, because it is a short and simple concept that works really well in its simplicity. Discovering the life and identity of the characters is a key play of the pleasure here, and while the book starts with a “case by case anthology” format, clearly an over-arching story appears that blooms in the finale.

While it is a dark story, it is not a horror story. They do not shy away from the violent aspects of fairytales, and to feed into a dark urban fantasy style there are legitimate threats and darkness - it is a world where the wonders of fairytales make you shiver rather than smile. But it is not extremely harsh, and it doesn’t go into a really brutal form of horror. It is notably quite humoristic - but of course, it is dark humor. Morbid jokes, biting cynicism and creepy laughs are to be expected.

I however truly liked this book. I will not lie, I had a quite similar concept for a story of my own - and Seanan McGuire beat me to it X) But she did it in a very unique and personal style - a very clever style might I add - that truly made me enjoy this. For example one of the clever things I love about this world is how the ATI Management Bureau works - being “police officers” for fairytales they do refer to their potential cases by codes, as a policeman would use codes to refer to robberies, murders, assaults... But their codes are actually the ATU Index, which they use to try to identify which “case” they are in and what types of scenarios they are thrown into. It is a very fun element of worldbuilding, and it also allows to explore a story which is basically a guessing game.

It is another thing I really loved - it isn’t just “on-the-nose” about the world of fairytales. McGuire knows her stuff, and while the first cases are pretty straightforward “weird tales”, she then introduces us to an entire “guessing game” where the whole point is to understand which fairytale, or which type of fairytale, the characters find themselves in - with many misleading twists and turns, similar to a real-life investigation - and I just loved it. It plays so much with the codes and tropes of fairytales, and the study around them, I adored it.

(You also now probably understand why I called it “SCP for fairytales”)

The book got a sequel “Indexing: Reflections” which I read to and... didn’t like as much as the first one. Do not get me wrong, the first chapters and the first part of the sequel is really good - we explore more of the world of the first book, we have fascinating new additions, more twists... But the second part of the book becomes kind of “meh”. The great promises of the beginning are not fulfilled, the end is pretty formulaic, the explorations of the worldbuilding sometimes go nowhere, and also the “let’s explore more of this world” kind of turns against itself as the logic, rules and workings of the universe of the books gets stretched a lot sometimes, to the point I rolled my eyes a bit. A disappointing end to a good start - but the opening is still worth it I guess? But sequels are never better than the originals - we all know that.

So if you ever get a chance, don’t hesitate to take a peek at��“Indexing”. If you are a fairytale fan, you won’t be disappointed (or I hope).

[noahfromthesea]

« I´ll kill you and eat you and use your bones for soup »

Hummingbird Salamander, Jeff Vandermeer

[books-in-a-storm]

Book Of The Week

Title: But Did You Die? #1 Klutz: Phoenix Down

Author: Sedona Ashe

Pages: 206

Synopsis:

After my plane was sabotaged and crashed into the jungle, I rescued five male survivors from the wreckage.

I could have let them die, but no, I decided to pull their stupid carcasses from the wreckage. I’m immortal, not a monster.

Yes, they’re hot, now is not the time to do something about that.

The five sexy jaguar shifters are on a mission to locate someone, a rare phoenix shifter. Phoenix, the legendary creature, reborn every time it dies. Wait…

…Could they be looking for me?

It doesn’t matter since they walked away and left me to die in the Amazon rainforest. A place full of interesting new ways for a klutz like me to die. Surviving the jungle is harsh, but it’s nothing compared to how they have treated me.

And the worst part?

It turns out these bullies are my fated mates. Yep, I must be cursed.

I can’t wait to escape the jungle and leave these guys behind, but another part of me is begging to love them…

Was the Amazon always this hot?

[midnights-wish]

“Helen's never been one to think she was put here to look after me, it's against her nature to think a woman's in the least bit responsible for that, but all the same I'm not sure she likes it - that I don't need her in any practical way. I wish she knew the other ways I needed her. Invisible ways. Important ways.” 

Emma Stonex, 'The Lamplighters'.

[bookstufflala]

Any good ya fantasy books?( can be both standalone or series)

Currently reading The Winner’s Kiss

[rapha-reads]

To the person who recommended to me Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge as an amazing Beauty and the Beast retelling, thank you so much. I just finished it, an afternoon in the sun in the park, spring is here, and it was spellbinding and mesmerizing and absolutely marvelous.

For reminder these are the B&tB rewritings I've read and will work on for my thesis:

- The Beast's Heart, Leife Shallcross

- Beast: a Tale of Love and Revenge, Lisa Jensen

- A Curse So Dark And Lonely, Brigid Kemmerer

- Once Upon A Time: Belle, Cameron Dokey

- Uprooted, Naomi Novik

- Cruel Beauty, Rosamund Hodge.

[icharchivist]

Oh yeah, since Icha is really into Dragon Age, Dragon Age Inquisition is currently up for free in the Epic game store until Thursday next week

Just download the thing, make an account and receive game for free forever

To whom it may concern

oh true!

that's indeed helpful if the free aspect helps.

Here's the link!

I hate Epic Game Store personally (the lack of game overlay like on steam pissed me off with my ff7r copy and it kept telling me i had to be online to play a solo game), but free game is always good game.

tho as a disclaimer if you get interested in DA because of me, do start with Dragon Age: Origins (take the Ultimate Edition, so you also have the Awakening DLC, the in game DLCs, as well as the others post game DLC to play after Awakening, Golem of Amgarrak and then Witch Hunt), and then Dragon Age 2 (again with the In Game DLC, Especially Legacy and Mark of The Assassin to play when the Main Quest's Storyline "The Last Straw" is first unlocked/when Act 3 starts). And then DAI.

Like of course grabbing DAI as it's free is a good thing if you make plans for later, but yeah to me personally DA is the type of games you'd want to play in order.

(DA4 is supposed to come out this year too so. well. jsyk.)

o7 good luck everyone, and thanks anon for that!

[leseigneurdufeu]

my additions feat. a bunch of french books and a few others

Pov: you grew up reading weird fantasy in the early 2000s