#booknet

[arylleth]

There is something ineffably poignant about the quiet ritual of sliding open an old library book, only to find—tucked within its tender spine—a library card, yellowed with age, edges feathered by time. That little rectangle of paper, a seemingly insignificant ledger of dates and names, holds in its simplicity an entire cosmos of imagined lives. It is a palimpsest of anonymous intimacy. Yes, show me who read you before me—reveal the silent procession of hands that cradled your weight, eyes that consumed your ink, hearts that perhaps broke at your sentences.

This card is not merely a tool for logistics; it is, as Walter Benjamin might muse, an “aura” preserved—not of the book itself, but of its passage through the world. In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin spoke of the uniqueness of a thing, its presence in time and space. And here, in this battered card, we are given not just a book, but its biography. It is not the author alone who breathes through these pages—it is the reader, too, the transient soul who left behind no annotation but a name, a date, and our own capacity to wonder.

Who was “M. Langston,” who borrowed The Bell Jar in June 1984? Did they read it beneath a flickering dormitory light, a fan spinning lazily above, dreaming of escape, of silence, of Sylvia’s fatal clarity? Did someone, one autumn afternoon, return Crime and Punishment just minutes before a rainstorm, with a strange new empathy burning behind their eyes?

Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote of life as performance, of the roles we play and the scripts we adopt. And yet, in the margins of these cards, we glimpse the actor offstage—raw, anonymous, unguarded. These names, dates, these borrowed moments—are they not the footprints of unknown fellow travelers? It is in the simple signature of “J. Ortega – 17/11/1971” that we are forced to confront the porous border between solitude and community.

A library card within a book is a reliquary of shared solitude. We never meet the other pilgrims, and yet, we walk the same path. We read the same words. We pause at the same sentences. It is as though each reader has been engaged in a centuries-long relay, passing the torch of thought, of story, of ache and joy, from one to another across the hush of time.

To hold such a card is to be entrusted with a secret—that reading is never truly solitary. As Simone Weil once said, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” And all those names on that card—unseen, unheard—were generous with their attention. With their time. With their imaginations.

So I keep these cards like holy things. They are rosaries of the mind. In their starkness lies poetry. In their routine lies mystery.

Each name a ghost.

Each date a whisper.

Each return a quiet farewell.

( Thanks to the author for this food for thought. I love used books for the life lived that oozes from the notes, annotations, dedications. )

There is something so intriguing, so fascinating about library cards, the ones that are kept inside the books, with the list of people who issued it and the return dates. Like yes, show me who read you before me and let my mind imagine unrealistic scenarios for them.

[remusjohnslupin]

LITERATURE SERIES: Dystopia

“Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever… And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon." ― George Orwell (1984)

[durrandons]

The children of Mace Tyrell and Alerie Hightower

Gentle, pious, good-hearted Willas Tyrell. Garlan often trains against three men, or even four. In battle it is seldom one against one, he says, so he likes to be prepared. Ser Loras was still half a boy, arrogant and vain, but he had it in him to be great, to perform deeds worthy of the White Book. Margaery was sweet and gentle, yet there was a little of her grandmother in her, too.

[viillette]

Men do the work of devils, do they not? It has always been so.

[ivashkovadrian]

Please. A sword, that's all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek. (insp)

[parhelias]

It began to snow. The low clouds made a grey ceiling for the city; the snow muffled the noise of the cars until it became almost rhythmical; a steady, shushing noise, like the sound of tides beating endlessly on marble walls.

[edwardslovelyelizabeth]

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

«Life, after all, has not slipped free of its netting. There is no such life, slipping free: life is itself the netting, holding people in place, making sense of things. It is not possible to tear away the constraints and simply carry on a senseless existence. People, other people, make it impossible. But without other people, there would be no life at all. Judgement, reproval, disappointment, conflict: these are the means by which people remain connected to one another.»

[dallaswinstons]

THE OUTSIDERS; S.E. HINTON

sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. but all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. but all the wrong sights, not the things you want to see.

[permanentreverie]

literature moodboards: all for the game trilogy by nora sakavic

"remember this feeling. this is the moment you stop being the rabbit."

[gemmascouts]

happy birthday, @enviies !

you think, as you walk away from le cirque des rêves and into the creeping dawn, that you felt more awake within the confines of the circus. you are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream.

[valyriansource]

top 20 favourite book-only asoiaf characters (as voted by our followers) ⤷ #7. Jeyne Westerling

She did not look dangerous. Jeyne was a willowy girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, more awkward than graceful. She had narrow hips, breasts the size of apples, a mop of chestnut curls, and the soft brown eyes of a doe. Pretty enough for a child (...), but not a girl to lose a kingdom for.

[remusjohnslupin]

LITERATURE SERIES: Edgar Allan Poe

“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?" ― Edgar Allan Poe

[durrandons]

HIGHTOWER, Oldtown, the Reach

The Hightower or High Tower is the seat of House Hightower one of the most powerful families of the Reach. The castle and lighthouse is located in the port of Oldtown atop Battle Isles where the Honeywine widens into Whispering Sound.

[victor-v]

the atlas complex - olivie blake

[ivashkovadrian]

Lady Ashara Dayne. It's an old tale, that one.

[lunaathorne]

every sapphic book i love → she who became the sun by shelley parker-chan

"you have a lot of feelings in you, ma xiuying." "don't mistake it for caring about your life or death, monk." but it was too late; she already cared.