#booksphere

[abookwormguidetoread]

Hi bookworm, Here is my monthly wrap up. I read 8 books and I didn't talk about most of them. Tell me know if you want me to talk about any of these books. And about the ratings I think they have limitations and kind of vary in perspective. It's not like i don't rate..(i rate it very exclusively in my Goodreads review) Also how many books you have read in Feb? May your heart filled with love and days with books. Happy reading!!! #thebookishdreamers #booknerdigans #bookishlovegroup #bookstagramuk #ukbookstagram #readersofinstagram #bookcommunity #booksphere #booksconnectus #bookclubcommunity #currentlyreading #monthlywrap #currentread #amreading #readalong #weekendreads #whatimreading https://www.instagram.com/p/CpVAEGgvdiI/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ryin-silverfish]

So You Want to Read More about Chinese Mythos: a rough list of primary sources

"How/Where can I learn more about Chinese mythology?" is a question I saw a lot on other sites, back when I was venturing outside of Shenmo novel booksphere and into IRL folk religions + general mythos, but had rarely found satisfying answers.

As such, this is my attempt at writing something past me will find useful.

(Built into it is the assumption that you can read Chinese, which I only realized after writing the post. I try to amend for it by adding links to existing translations, as well as links to digitalized Chinese versions when there doesn't seem to be one.)

The thing about all mythologies and legends is that they are 1) complicated, and 2) are products of their times. As such, it is very important to specify the "when" and "wheres" and "what are you looking for" when answering a question as broad as this.

-Do you want one or more "books with an overarching story"?

In that case, Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi) serve as good starting points, made more accessible for general readers by the fact that they both had English translations——Anthony C. Yu's JTTW translation is very good, Gu Zhizhong's FSYY one, not so much.

Crucially, they are both Ming vernacular novels. Though they are fictional works that are not on the same level of "seriousness" as actual religious scriptures, these books still took inspiration from the popular religion of their times, at a point where the blending of the Three Teachings (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism) had become truly mainstream.

And for FSYY specifically, the book had a huge influence on subsequent popular worship because of its "pantheon-building" aspect, to the point of some Daoists actually putting characters from the novel into their temples.

(Vernacular novels + operas being a medium for the spread of popular worship and popular fictional characters eventually being worshipped IRL is a thing in Ming-Qing China. Meir Shahar has a paper that goes into detail about the relationship between the two.)

After that, if you want to read other Shenmo novels, works that are much less well-written but may be more reflective of Ming folk religions at the time, check out Journey to the North/South/East (named as such bc of what basically amounted to a Ming print house marketing strategy) too.

-Do you want to know about the priestly Daoist side of things, the "how the deities are organized and worshipped in a somewhat more formal setting" vs "how the stories are told"?

Though I won't recommend diving straight into the entire Daozang or Yunji Qiqian or some other books compiled in the Daoist text collections, I can think of a few "list of gods/immortals" type works, like Liexian Zhuan and Zhenling Weiye Tu.

Also, though it is much closer to the folk religion side than the organized Daoist side, the Yuan-Ming era Grand Compendium of the Three Religions' Deities, aka Sanjiao Soushen Daquan, is invaluable in understanding the origins and evolutions of certain popular deities.

(A quirk of historical Daoist scriptures is that they often come up with giant lists of gods that have never appeared in other prior texts, or enjoy any actual worship in temples.)

(The "organized/folk" divide is itself a dubious one, seeing how both state religion and "priestly" Daoism had channels to incorporate popular deities and practices into their systems. But if you are just looking at written materials, I feel like there is still a noticeable difference.)

Lastly, if you want to know more about Daoist immortal-hood and how to attain it: Ge Hong's Baopuzi (N & S. dynasty) and Zhonglv Chuandao Ji (late Tang/Five Dynasties) are both texts about external and internal alchemy with English translations.

-Do you want something older, more ancient, from Warring States and Qin-Han Era China?

Classics of Mountains and Seas, aka Shanhai Jing, is the way to go. It also reads like a bestiary-slash-fantastical cookbook, full of strange beasts, plants, kingdoms of unusual humanoids, and the occasional half-man, half-beast gods.

A later work, the Han-dynasty Huai Nan Zi, is an even denser read, being a collection of essays, but it's also where a lot of ancient legends like "Nvwa patches the sky" and "Chang'e steals the elixir of immortality" can be first found in bits and pieces.

Shenyi Jing might or might not be a Northern-Southern dynasties work masquerading as a Han one. It was written in a style that emulated the Classics of Mountains and Seas, and had some neat fantastic beasts and additional descriptions of gods/beasts mentioned in the previous 2 works.

-Do you have too much time on your hands, a willingness to get through lot of classical Chinese, and an obsession over yaoguais and ghosts?

Then it's time to flip open the encyclopedic folklore compendiums——Soushen Ji (N/S dynasty), You Yang Za Zu (Tang), Taiping Guangji (early Song), Yijian Zhi (Southern Song)...

Okay, to be honest, you probably can't read all of them from start to finish. I can't either. These aren't purely folklore compendiums, but giant encyclopedias collecting matters ranging from history and biography to medicine and geography, with specific sections on yaoguais, ghosts and "strange things that happened to someone".

As such, I recommend you only check the relevant sections and use the Full Text Search function well.

Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studios, aka Liaozhai Zhiyi, is in a similar vein, but a lot more entertaining and readable. Together with Yuewei Caotang Biji and Zi Buyu, they formed the "Big Three" of Qing dynasty folktale compendiums, all of which featured a lot of stories about fox spirits and ghosts.

Lastly...

The Yuan-Ming Zajus (a sort of folk opera) get an honorable mention. Apart from JTTW Zaju, an early, pre-novel version of the story that has very different characterization of SWK, there are also a few plays centered around Erlang (specifically, Zhao Erlang) and Nezha, such as "Erlang Drunkenly Shot the Demon-locking Mirror". Sadly, none of these had an English translation.

Because of the fragmented nature of Chinese mythos, you can always find some tidbits scattered inside history books like Zuo Zhuan or poetry collections like Qu Yuan's Chuci. Since they aren't really about mythology overall and are too numerous to cite, I do not include them in this post, but if you wanna go down even deeper in this already gigantic rabbit hole, it's a good thing to keep in mind.

[geryone]

hey so your blog is an oasis of comfort for me. im at a point in my life where I'm gaslighting my algorithm that i don't actually enjoy movies or books or any of my hobbies, because the takes I see online are so inherently reductive and based on engagement bait that it sucks the joy out of anything. the current online booksphere is very pro-censorship and moralism in a way that reminds me of religious fascism, with a bit of aestheticisation of classics without delving into the subject matter while still upholding a facade of elitism. i just want to feel im not alone in being alienated from my hobbies by social media.

sorry if this was too much of a vent, or if I come off as snotty while trying to be earnest in my disappointment.

i want people to engage with the art they consume, i want them to actually emotionally and mentally communicate with the author, and not just close off the parts they have been conditioned to dislike by the benign entertainment fed to us by capitalism breed of art. they don't have to like it, but i want them to fall in love with life and friendship and art and community. i want them to know that there is a world outside of optics and themselves.

thank you for being part of my journey. once again sorry if it's too long, i wanted to have a bit of communication. hope you're doing well!

You’re definitely not alone in feeling alienated from your hobbies bc of social media!! You won’t catch me on YouTube/instagram/tiktok because to some extent talking about books on those platforms feels performative rather than personal. If I was a stronger person I would limit my time on tumblr as well lmao. What I appreciate about this space is that I can share what I’m reading but know that my own thoughts and opinions are not informed by what other people think!! Not to dunk on booktok romances too much (bc I absolutely read them from time to time) but if all you read is easy and comfortable for you then what are you gaining from it?? Push yourself a little!!! Force yourself to read about different beliefs & perspectives!! Read something that is hard to understand!! Work for it!!! I’ve read so much I disagree with and dislike but I have never regretted better understanding the world around me

[whisperingspinesliterary]

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the library.

As far as wrap-ups go - I'm a little late. And as far as intro posts go, well - I'm not quite sure this is the best way to start. But here we are. You may call me Whisper; I'm 28, a life-long reader, self-taught writer, an avid gamer, and a movie enthusiast. I've been in a years-long reading slump, and finally managed to crawl my way out of it in early 2024. Trust me when I say, my love of reading is something I never want to forget about myself again. So here I am!

I had a blog years ago, but I couldn't even tell you what I used to write about. I decided, in order to keep in my rediscovered booksphere, why not start a blog to log my adventures in reading and maybe even talk about my own books that I'm crafting and movies that I love? A catch all place for story lovers. I'm also starting a YouTube channel, which you can watch HERE. It has some new videos, as well as some old writing videos from last year when I originally started posting on it.

I'm so excited to be diving into this endeavor!

As a whole, 2024 was a hell of a ride. Both in life and in books. I spent most of 2024 unemployed, which hasn't happened since I was a teenager. (I still am unemployed; it is a rough market out there...) But I also found some new favorites and read books that I will gladly never touch again. I started tracking my progress on StoryGraph (you can follow HERE). It's an app and website that was created and is owned by a black woman. I find it much more intuitive and user friendly than GoodReads. It also gives more in-depth breakdowns of your reads up to the current! Honestly, I can hardly navigate the GoodReads app.

Last year, I tracked 12 novels, 29 manga, 1 audiobook, 2 novellas, roughly 17 short stories, and only DNF'd 2 books. Pretty solid for just rewetting my feet. My goals this year are to read 25 novels (about 2 a month), 3 complete manga series, and double the amount of short stories I read. I think they're pretty reasonable goals, and I'm looking forward to challenging myself!

I have a bad habit of judging books based off their covers. My very first read of last year caught my attention because of its stunning cover. It was the whole reason I bought it. A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poison is a detective novel set in 1920s London. It follows 23-year-old Saffron Everleigh as she struggles with being a woman botanist working at University College London in a time when women in the sciences weren't respected. She finds herself wrapped up in a mystery when a department head's wife is poisoned at a party she's attending, and the professor she works under is the main suspect.

A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons is Kate Khavari's debut mystery novel. Honestly, you can tell a bit in the writing, and especially in the way that Saffron handles certain aspects of her mystery. But overall, I really enjoyed the book. I found Saffron delightful to follow and her seedling romance with Alexander Ashton to be adorable. I liked it so much that I bought and read the subsequent sequels - A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality and A Botanist's Guide to Society and Secrets. I'm looking forward to A Botanist's Guide to Rituals and Revenge, which is releasing later this year.

I'm a huge fan of Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, and Franklin W. Dixon’s Hardy Boys. So these books absolutely tickled my fancy. Each mystery gets more intriguing, and the world around Saffron keeps growing and getting richer. My only issue is that in Flowers and Fatality and Society and Secrets Saffron just seems to get angry for no reason. Everything irritates her, and her character is slightly changed from her original personality in Parties and Poisons. As a whole, I give the series a 3/5 and definitely would recommend giving it a read!

I followed Up A Botanist's Guide with a complete genre leap. I dove head long into My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. It was her debut book, which may be why it falls a bit flat. Just as the title suggests, we follow Korede as she cleans up after her sister, Ayoola, who has a tendency to kill her boyfriends. As a massive horror fan, I was so disappointed in this book. I really, really wanted to like it. It was such a good premise, and the beginning was so strong. But that's all it has going for it in my eyes.

Ayoola decides to go after the man that Korede has a crush on at work. We're supposed to follow Korede's moral push and pull in the wake of another of her sister's murders while keeping the man she loves from being killed. However, it's never really felt. It's just a bit of wishy-washy back and forth inner dialogue. The climax didn't really hit a screaming pitch. It just kind of...comes and goes and then the book is over. Leaving us with an unsatisfying ending. You end up right back at square one, where the novel began. This is one book I would say not to waste your time on.

Luckily, I wasn't disappointed for long. I discovered a new favorite completed series. It was advertised comparing it to Howl's Moving Castle - which is my all-time favorite book and movie. I didn't think twice before I bought the first book. The Lord of Stariel is a gaslamp fantasy series. It has a historical type of fantasy setting, where magicians, enchanters, and illusionists practice true magic. Fae are still creatures of myth, but it doesn't stay that way for long.

The series follows Hetta Valstar, the estranged daughter of the Lord of Stariel. When he dies, she has to go back home to the estate of Stariel - a sentient Fae land that bonds with a person. The first book suffered similar to A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons - when the climax came, they talked it out instead of it actually being climactic. But each subsequent book in the series gets better.

It has dangerous magic, a swoon worthy suitor, and an utterly whimsical world to get lost in. It even has a spin off book, A Rake of His Own, which follows Hetta's brother, Marius. I devoured all five books in about two months. I simply could not get enough. As a series, it's a 5 out of 5 and I can't recommend it enough if you like fantasy.

Sometimes, in the middle of reading a long series, you need a bit of a pallet cleanser. I broke up my reading with a book set in our own world. My Roommate Is a Vampire by Jenna Levine is a monster romcom, a genre I didn't even think existed outside of comics and manga. The book follows Cassie Greenberg, who's an artist struggling to make a living. She finds an advertisement for an apartment and quickly learns that her roommate is a bit of a weirdo. It definitely gave me a chuckle and had a bit of unexpected spicy. There are parts where the story gets serious, and the tone shift can make it a little muddy. But it's one of those books I'd recommend for anyone looking for a light read. The companion novel, My Vampire Plus-One, recently came out and I can't wait to sink my teeth into that one!

In real life, I don't have ton of friends who read books and most of those who do don't read the same books. So, I was surprised when my friend's wife let me borrow her copy of The House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. And even more surprised by how much I loved it. It's a cozy, enchanting story about a man named Linus Baker, who works at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He goes and evaluates orphanages that home magical youth. Every day he trudges through a never ending, grey storm. But one day he's summoned by Extremely Upper Management and sent to a house on an island, where he must decide if the children there are too dangerous.

I cannot put into words how charming this story is. I love all the characters, how warm the world feels, and the soft, subtle way that Linus and the head of the orphanage, Arthur Parnassus, fall in love. This was another book that I absolutely devoured. I can't sing its praises high enough. It's just a fun, feel good read. I loved it so much that I bought the recently released sequel - Somewhere Beyond the Sea. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my TBR. I can only hope that it lives up to the same standards as the first one.

Right at the end of December, I managed to squeeze one last book. I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones was my final read of 2024. It's a memoir written by adult 30-something-year-old Tolly Driver as he reminisces about 1989 - the year he became a slasher. I liked the idea; seeing everything from the killer's point of view, finding out what was going through their mind. However, I was sorely let down.

Tolly's narration is a stream of consciousness. Apparently, the whole thing is supposed to be type out on receipt paper. He bounces around from 1989, to previous years, to his present adult self and back. There were spots I had to read three or four times before I released which time period everything was taking place in. There were spots where the sequence of events or the actions of the character were unclear.

As a whole, I found the whole thing a bit ridiculous. It's supposed to be a horror thriller, a serious story about a serious character. But reads like a parody/comedy horror that's taking itself way too seriously. There were supernatural elements that could've been interesting. Tolly's transformation into a slasher was like an infection and the "powers" it gave him just pulled me out of it. I just found that the whole story fell flat. I read the whole book because I was too curious what ludicrous thing was going to happen next.

I'm normally a huge fan of horror comedies, but not when I go in expecting it to be a real, solid horror story. Anybody looking to read a decent horror book, I'd say pass this one over. But if you're looking for a horror parody, then you came to the right place. I'm disappointed since I've heard such good things about Stephan Graham Jones as a horror novelist. However, this was just not the book for me and ended up with a 2/5 on my StoryGraph.

As you can see, 2024 was definitely a wild year for my reading list. I found new series that I absolutely love and some books I will happily never read again. I'm looking forward to many more adventures this year, and I can't wait to see where those books take me. I especially can't wait to bring you all along for the ride!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you again soon!

- Whisper

Let Me Know: Have you read any of the books in my wrap-up? If you did, what did you think? What books did you read in 2024?

____________________

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~

[definitely-not-iorveth]

Okay so for the books you shouldn't read: The book me and my friend have an irrational dislike for. As I said, you have to be a little hater sometimes and this is my area, my expertise, my indulgent little treat. Its called "A Little Life" and our journey started out because everyone and their grandma was recommending it to us, and at the same time YouTube fed us a bunch of videos on why its the best book ever and you should NEVER read it. Curiosity piqued, right? Because apparently its both so well written and emotionally devastating (source: lots of people on yt are bawling their eyes out over it) that it exists in a quantum of "read but don't". Many have positioned themselves on the "read" side, evident by how much they wanted to convert us at the time. We both have not read it. And you're going to be like "How can you un-recommend a book you haven't even read" but at this point its part of the principle and also the joke. Because we looked up excerpts, summaries, interviews with the author, We did everything with this book you could do before actually caving in and reading it. So why didn't we? Real talk: Yes, it is actually well written. The reason we decided against giving in to the hype is the truly, marvelously terrifying summary and list of content warnings. The book deals with the life of a friend group but specifically this one man, whose life is just one trauma after another and involves some truly horrific abuse of all kinds. especially the end is supposed to be a gut punch. Its a personal thing. I won't be reading it because I know I'm not going to like it, but I only know that because of research, which I did because I see that book every time I enter a book store. This may be cathartic if you enjoy a good cry and reading about these things, but for me it seemed kind of.. voyeuristic? In the way it seems to love senseless misery after misery without point to it and I am simply not an enjoyer of that. You need to chew your blorbos but please spit 'em out, eventually. Also this entire thing is a while back so I may have forgotten some facets but this is long enough already.

Conclusion: If you enjoy emotional pain, this ACTUALLY IS a book rec. Heed the content warnings though. If not, and I urge you to look up videos of the collective booksphere despairing over "A Little Life" to see how bad this will be for your feels, do not read this. I do dislike the cover though Cheers.

i enjoy emotional paint but NOT TO THIS DEGREE

there's only so much character abuse i can take, and i like my endings happy kthx

definitely will not be picking this one up

[lesbianpiracy]

on all levels except physical i am a 2013 tumblrina militantly defending the concept of fanfiction against 'real books'

[agnesmontague]

to sort of piggyback off the earlier post—i don't mean to sound elitist or snobby at all, but i think the reason i shy away from most genre books that fall into the YA category or get breathlessly recced by online bookspheres is this... strange juvenile way most of them are pitched to the audience, even for adults?

like, just telling me the stuff contained in the book in a few keywords tells me surprisingly little; in fact, many of my favorite books have very boring pitches if you tried to lay them out in the punchy made-for-twitter way: the bell jar, for example, is just "girl goes to new york and has a mental breakdown". sounds kind of depressing and not terribly exciting, but the instant exciting appeal isn't the point, and not why so many people like it. contrariwise, i don't like having books recommended to me with just "it's got vampires! it has sword fights! it has sexy dresses!"—sure, it's got nice things, but what does the book actually, yknow, do with them? i'm not an 8-y/o where the mere promise of monsters or sword fights is enough to entice me into giving my time and attention, and it can feel kind of insulting to both myself and the book to be treated like that on both ends.

maybe SFF as a whole isn't really for me in that regard, but i don't think it's a genre-wide problem so much as it is more of a social media problem or the way a lot of book fandom tends to work. idk. but less buzzwords and more thoughtful recs would help everyone imo.

[booknerdstudies]

08/11/19

after a long book buying ban, I finally purchased where the crawdads sing. I’m super excited to dive into this one soon cause it seems to be all over the online booksphere—so I cant wait to see what the hype is about!

insta // booknerd_reads

[the-knights-who-say-book]

do you ever watch booktubers? if so, do you have any favorites? i'm looking for more people to follow in the whole booksphere...

i do, though not as much anymore! here are all the ones i like (disclaimer: i don’t have the same taste in books as all of these people and don’t take recs from all of them, i watch different booktubers for different types of videos)

ProblemsofaBookNerd

LilyCReads

polandbananasBOOKS

Katytastic

xreadingsolacex

A Clockwork Reader

Hailey in Bookland

PeruseProject

paperbackdreams

sapphicauthor

Books with Brandie Shanae

nosaferplace

sarawithoutanH

LovingDemBooks

The Princess and the Scrivener isn’t strictly booktube but they do plenty of book stuff and i love their channel

[abookwormguidetoread]

Hi bookworm, How have you been? Been a while after finishing it but definitely has touched my heart and soul. It's such cute adorable book that you definitely want to cuddle at night. I recommend to everyone who felt ever left lonely because I know you will find your home one day somewhere. I think i deserve more hype because it is truly worth it. May your heart filled with love and days with books. #thebookishdreamers #booknerdigans #bookishlovegroup #bookstagramuk #ukbookstagram #readersofinstagram #bookcommunity #booksphere #booksconnectus #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksofinstagram #bookish #bookphotography #bibliophile #bookaesthetic #readstagram #bookishpost #bookworld #ilovebooks #bookishlyengaged #bookstagramit #readreadread #readingislife #allthebooks #featuremybooks #literaturelover #booktography #bibliofeature #bookcollage https://www.instagram.com/p/Co99nZxuBQP/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ryin-silverfish]

Chapter 27-28: Spooky Scary Skellington

(Finally getting back to the book club after a few busy months...)

Chapter 27:

-The White Bone Spirit is one of the most iconic demoness of JTTW, and, as JTTW Research's post on her origin suggests, is likely inspired by the White Tiger Spirit + the giant skeleton nearby in 大唐三藏取经诗话.

-However, when Tripitaka asked about the origin of said giant skeleton at the bottom of a fiery pit, the Monkey Pilgrim gave the strange answer that "This is the place where the Heir Apparent, Ming Huang, changed his bones."(此是明皇太子换骨之处)

-What does that even mean?

-Well, at first, I thought it was just referring to "Corpse Release"(尸解), where Daoists attain immortality by leaving behind a fake corpse——usually a transformed object such as cane, clothes or shoes——to literally trick death.

-Then I finally got to read "Birth of JTTW"(西游记的诞生) by Cai Tieying, in which he traces the "changing of bones" to a legend in the Song dynasty record, 默记.

-Summary: an assassin was sent to kill Tang Minghuang (after he basically abdicated due to the An Shi Rebellion), hit him with a hammer in his sleep, and the hammer just bounced off his head with a clang.

-Minghuang woke up and was like "Yep, I've been expecting this"; ever since he had consumed jade and a golden elixir of immortality under the advice of the famous Daoist Ye Fashan, his bones were transformed into literal jade.

-So if the assassin wanted to kill him for good, he gotta split open Minghuang's skull and take out the elixir——an advice the assassin promptly followed.

-That peculiar little trivia aside, there is a theory about SWK's ability to see through demonic disguises in the Chinese JTTW booksphere, which might explain why Tripitaka never seems to trust him on that regard.

-Unlike in TV adaptations, the "Fiery Eyes and Golden Vision" doesn't work like an X-Ray; rather, it's more like an infrared thermal camera.

-This means SWK can't literally see through a demon or immortal's disguise and perceive their true form, just the general "aura" around them in the form of demonic or auspicious Qi.

-Thus, when this aura is hidden by ambience Qi, altered to fit one's general appearance or less on-the-nose(as later chapters would show), SWK's magical vision also takes a dive in accuracy.

-Furthermore, prior to WBS, none of the demons they encountered had used a human disguise in order to capture Tripitaka.

-So even if SWK said "Hey master, I can totally see through demonic disguises" after he killed the demoness(which he didn't), without precedents, it's gonna sound like he pulled the ability right out of his ass, as a shoddy excuse to justify murdering humans——something Tripitaka did witness before.

Chapter 28:

-Fun fact: during the Qing dynasty, there's a big-budget opera adaptation of JTTW called 升平宝筏, exclusively performed in the royal palace. In this version, the White Bone Spirit and Yellow-robed Demon are actually sworn siblings!

-After Yellow-robed Demon kidnapped the princess, she was the one who helped talk her into accepting the marriage. So when she was killed by SWK, Yellow-robed Demon was furious, and, as revenge, kidnapped Tripitaka + turned him into a tiger later.

-Combining different arcs, much like adding unnecessary romantic subplots, is actually quite common in Qing opera adaptations of JTTW. This change, however, makes more sense than the others.

-First, it explains the "family" that WBS offhandedly mentioned, secondly, the two arcs are already sequential, so making the two demons related doesn't seem like that far of a stretch.

-The burning of FFM is heartwenchingly described, and arguably where most villainous characterizations of Erlang come from. However, hear me out——I don't think he actually did it.

-At the end of Chapter 6, after Erlang caught SWK, his brothers was like "Enough talk, let's take him to the celestial realm." To which Erlang replied that sorry, they were not recognized as part of the celestial bureaucracy and literally not allowed to meet the Jade Emperor.

"But don't worry, I'll go report to the Jade Emperor together with the devarajas, you six stay behind on FFM to do a thorough search of the mountain(搜山). Once you are done, return to Guankou, and right after I get the rewards, I'm heading straight back to share it with y'all."

-Indeed, in the next chapter, after the Jade Emperor gave him a lot of gifts, he said his thanks and returned to Guanjiangkou, where his temple was at.

-My theory is, Erlang did not lead the burning personally, or give a direct order to——he was still in the Celestial Realm, making reports while FFM burned.

-And his six sworn brothers, being hunters and martial men, interpreted "search the mountain" rather liberally in his absence and left out the details once he returned with their reward.

-Just as usual, another job well done, let's get the victory party started.

-Of course, whether Erlang was personally there, leading the burning, makes little difference to the monkeys of FFM; it wasn't him, but he sure as hell wasn't NOT involved either.

@journeythroughjourneytothewest

[natalhea]

🌊🌊🌊 Bonjour amis lecteurs, Grande nouvelle aujourd’hui : INTO THE DEEP fait partie des 80 romans sélectionnés pour @leplib2023 !! 🥳 🌊🌊🌊 Le PLIB (Prix Littéraire de l’Imaginaire Booksphere) est un prix organisé sur internet depuis plusieurs années et qui rassemble plus d’une centaine de #bookstagrammers, #booktubers et autres critiques littéraires en ligne ! Cette sélection de 80 romans marque la 1ère étape du concours : la 2nde aura lieu du 1er au 20 novembre : tous les jurés devront alors voter pour 25 romans qui accèderont à la 2e étape du concours ! 🌊🌊🌊 Cette année, pour la 1ère fois, le PLIB est scindé en 2 catégories : Adulte et Jeunesse/Young Adult. Seule la littérature de genre peut concourir, que ce soit en science-fiction, en fantastique ou en fantasy. INTO THE DEEP est classé dans la catégorie Young Adult / Science-Fiction (même s’il s’agit en réalité d’un roman fantastique qui s’adresse plutôt à un public adulte 😅). 🌊🌊🌊 Je tenais avant tout à faire ce post pour marquer l’événement, pour remercier les jurés qui ont voté pour INTO THE DEEP au 1er tour, mais surtout, pour inciter ceux qui ne connaissent pas encore mon roman à le découvrir ! Dans ce petit post, j’ai donc réuni une compilation de toutes les publications que j’ai déjà consacrées à mon roman sur ce compte : toutes sont garanties sans spoilers, et elles permettront à ceux qui le souhaitent d’explorer l’univers, la mythologie et les personnages de mon roman, avant de, qui sait, oser plonger dans l’aventure ? 😇🧜‍♀️ 🌊🌊🌊 À tous ceux qui ont déjà lu et aimé mon roman, j’adresse donc, une fois de plus, un grand merci ❤️ Et aux petits nouveaux, vous êtes plus que bienvenus : découvrez, parcourez, lisez, et succombez aux abysses 😊 🌊🌊🌊 PS : j’ai une grande, très grande nouvelle à vous annoncer 😉 Rdv ce week-end pour en savoir plus 🤫 🌊🌊🌊 @snagfiction #intothedeep #intothedeepbook #snagfiction #plib2023 #plib2023jya #sfff #scifi #sciencefiction #fantastic #fantastique #bookstagram #bookstagramfrance #livrestagram #sirene #sirène #mermaid #writersofinstagram #writers #merci #thankyou (à Mariana Trench, Pacific Ocean) https://www.instagram.com/p/CkIvcRiqJRX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mccleans]

It deserved SO much more hype than it got omg .... I felt it was reasonably popular in Ireland? But on the online ya booksphere it was unheard of. Probably for the best tbh so as little people as possible were exposed to preteen me woobifying caine <3

agreed!!! i think it was too gorey and not sexy enough in comparison to the mortal instruments and all those types of books. still annoyed that the society netflix show got a chance and fucked it up bc now we'll probably never get a gone show

[swampthingfromhell]

Realtalk tho, Crowley is 100% team edward (their devotion to each other and the forbidden romance get to him) Aziraphale is team jacob (the friends to lovers appeal). Aziraphale originally picked the first one up because he’d heard in the booksphere that it dealt with the theme of immortality. They went to the midnight release of breaking dawn and everyone there loved crowleys whole look.

It’s 2008, and Aziraphale has something to say.

[hardbackednooks]

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

Click here to view the Goodreads page and read the book description.

1/5

I honestly don’t know how The Blade Itselfcame to be so highly recommended in the Reddit and Twitter bookspheres. It’s often described as “gritty, grimdark fantasy with biting humor and a tinge of hope,” but honestly, the only gritty thing about this was the sand-in-your-mouth feeling I got from the inconsistent…

[paperprincessinspo]

Interesting Articles from the Booksphere

Interesting Articles from the Booksphere

9 New Books Editors Have on Their Reading Lists

Do you have a million books on your to-be-read list, but are unsure where to start? Let us make it easy (or at least easier) for you. Three of our BookBub editors — Zan, Hannah, and Diana — shared recent releases they’re excited about, from nail-biting bestsellers to humorous book club suggestions. Check out our list of editor recommendations…