#nonfic shit

[spacewives-in-spacetime]

Making OC's is the most amazing thing ever

I've got Nexus, a lesbian who's learning magic along with the knowledge of cracking codes. She has a sibling, Hellaya who's enby and aroace. They're the one teaching her magic bc they're fucking awesome.

[dreamalottie]

.

[adlibitur]

time to pick my monthly audiobooks 🫡

[yeyinde]

Hi! okay i would quite literally inject your writing into my veins if i could, but i wanted to ask you if you have book recommendations, because you just have this incredible way with words and metaphors and UGH. your writing is indescribable, its so visceral and reverent. I genuinely dont have the vocabulary to describe it, im so serious.

so, in that, i would love to know all of your books recommendations, because you seem like someone with incredible taste. (and i mean all, shit you loved, books you hated. anything and everything!)

thank you for gracing the world with your talent <3

ahhh, thanks!!! admittedly, i'm not as well-read as i'd like to be, but i've been trying to branch out since i gravitate more toward poetry, nonfic mythology, essays, and memoirs over novels most of the time. but these are some of the things i've read in the last few months/picked up recently or that stuck with me the most:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (cheating here because i've read this eight times now but ahhh i could not recommend Achebe more. poetry, essays, novels. read everything. read it all.) In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones The Reformatory by Tananarive Due Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice The Innocents by Michael Crummey Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner Banyan Moon by Thao Thai Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista i think every rec list includes the classics so i tried to avoid adding them, but i also suggest: Battle Royale (Koshun Takami), Half of a Yellow Sun (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), Kitchen (Banana Yoshimoto), the Xenogenesis Trilogy (Octavia E. Butler), No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai (among others).

[vspin]

uninstalled instagram last week because I found myself wasting precious free time doom scrolling instead of my hobbies and the algorithm was showing me the wackiest shit.

it's been kinda hard to detox which is shocking😳

on the plus side, I've read 2 books this week (including a nonfic) and got Skyrim modded and working.

[digital-chance]

so someone on tumblr was "calling me out" and saying that i was racist and anti-woman and other attacks of character, just for posting a plot diagram.

"you have to know the history and significance behind the plot diagrams tho! make sure to cite your sources!!! >:( "

come on. this isn't an academic thing and arranging a plot shouldn't need sources cited. (unless ofc its nonfic or historical fic).

and do i really need to cite stuff originally meant for me. i made the chart based on observation of others works (i could have cited this yes) and of personal preference.

but do i need to cite something like a plot diagram, which has events that are so commonplace?? beginning point, tension rising segments, climax, and resolution. most every good story has those elements.

its just a plot diagram. i dont know why they had to "correct" me on shit that's public domain and that doesnt honestly matter?? its just a fucking design and it was not up for that style of critique/historical analysis.

this pissed me off so bad. i blocked them and deleted my plot diagram post.

[atinylittlepain]

Ginnn any reading recommendations list?❤️❤️

HI non, thank you for asking :)

im not sure if you're talking fic or non fic so ill give you a little of both

in regards to fic, lemme just share a few authors on here who I've been really excited to read lately:

@macfrog is doing some really cool shit - their dog oneshot was brilliant, and their new series Sweet Child of Mine is already a delight

@chloeangelic is like, the patron saint of refreshingly not-boring smut and tension lol - highly recommend her ongoing series Seeking What is Desirable

@5oh5 has an ongoing series rn called From Eden that's an absolute treat and I can't wait to catch up on it

@dr-aculaaa is literally my favorite steve harrington writer - nobody is doing it like drac, I tell you, so good

@motherofagony is fucking brilliant, just all of their stuff, highly recommend

as for nonfic, here are some authors i'm really excited about rn:

Sam Sax - brilliant, visceral poetry, highly recommend Pig

Jeanette Winterson, but like, her early stuff lol - currently reading Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and thoroughly enjoying it

Sarah Rose Etter - the Book of X was amazing, and im looking forward to reading Ripe as well

Eimear McBride - a fascinating style, very challenging to read but it's worth it in my opinion

i will always always always recommend Max Porter - any of his work - I've read it all and I've loved it all and I aspire to write like he does

[discoidal]

tagged by @keytothevillage to post my fav reads of q2! i havent read much esp if we're not counting rereads</3 but these stand out a bit !

flowers in the attic: very engaging to the point where i just read it everywhere until i finished it. in line at like a cafe or smth reading about kids drinking blood and rotting and such.

some people need killing: nonfic abt the drug war in the philippines. started this in january, finished a month or two ago. a super difficult read, not because it's inelegant—v v elegant and accessible—but bc of the subject. def recommend it to everyone, even non-filipinos.

bukowski in a sundress: im on a mission to finish every kim addonizio book within the year, which includes her prose. honestly not that good of a book but i loved it! had fun, related super hard. kinda dont recommend bc i feel like u guys will judge me

penance by eliza clark: i dont remember if i finished this in q2 but def one of my fav reads of 2024. also engaging, fun, at times thought-provoking, esp since ive been known to be into true crime shit.

thanks for tagging me! i'll tag @liefdesbriefjes @schalotte @schmata @andromerot @carriedhatchet @milo-is-queer and anyone else! feel free to ignore or to join in

[felidaefatigue]

welp 9am and im done my work and am on "shuffle around books in carts in slightly more convoluted orders" duty again T_T

for reference. ive moved all of these books into and out of the same carts multiple times. between sorting nonfic/fic/lp/etc and then further sorting into genre/alphebetical.... i am many sneezes.

this is tehe dumb shit im paid 17$(ish) to do so librarians dont have to lmfao.

[i-will-not-be-caged]

hi Emmett! (I love your name btw) I saw your tags on the post about starting to read again and I thought I would ask you for some help with a couple things, if you don’t mind 💖 (you can reply to this publicly if you think it’ll help other ppl!)

First thing—recs. I am generally a nonfiction person, I LOVE history and pretty much anything across the humanities. I love micro-histories/micro-(humanities analyses??) on any given topic. I love anything about death, Stiff by Mary Roach and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty are two of my FAVES. Because Internet by Gretchen McCullough (linguistics) is also one of my favorite things ever written.

For fiction, I loved My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Some things I’ve been wanting to read are Bunny by Mona Awad and A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins. I love psychological/dark fiction but not super into thrillers/crime (dislike true crime especially). I also rly love poetry and I love lesbians generally long as they don’t die 😅 (although I’ll read some dark shit too)

Second, if you don’t mind giving some advice—how do you recommend getting into reading? I used to be a voracious reader but twelve years ago I developed chronic migraines along with other health problems, and it made it almost impossible. Now I find it so so hard to focus. How do you advise teenagers to read, especially those who maybe struggle with focus/adhd/etc?

Thank you so so so much for even taking the time to read all this 💖 I appreciate any help you can give!

(just pls no booktok 😉💖💖💖)

Haha, we must have been sending asks at the same time! I hope you got my other message with things to try. As for specific recs, it sounds like we have pretty different tastes - I’ve only read like two nonfiction books in the past few years, although both were excellent (Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz).

The good news is there’s been a huge boom in sapphic romances in the past few years. Romance was how I kept up my pleasure reading habit during grad school (I love a guaranteed HEA), although there’s a pretty wide variety of quality in the genre. I’m more of an mm reader, but check out Casey McQuiston and Ashley Herring Blake as a jumping off point. I also love Freya Marske’s Last Binding trilogy, the second of which is sapphic.

And I know you said no booktok, but that’s actually where I’ve gotten a lot of good recs; you’ve just got to find your niche. Here’s a couple people you might try:

-pagemelt has super thoughtful recs from a variety of genres and has never steered me wrong

-bookbinch reads tons of queer lit fic and poetry that it sounds like you might enjoy

-haleystewfart is hilarious and has some nonfic recs that make me actually want to pick some up

[batmanego]

nonfic book recs: if you like food writing, The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker is a fun one. Also really enjoyed Braiding Sweetgrass & Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer. on the more science side of social science, Garbology by Edward Humes and I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong are v interesting.

ohhh shit i read braiding sweetgrass but i should read gathering moss too! these other suggestions sound super cool. i’ll look into them :J thanks anon!!!

[manogirl]

My Year in Reading, 2023

For the first time since 2012, I didn't do a GR reading challenge. In every year between 2012 and 2021, I read over 150 books. Some years it was closer to 150, some years closer to 200. In 2022, I read 83 books. In 2023, 79 books.

See, in 2022, my world broke. My brain broke. The big bad burnout turned my brain inside-out and upside-down and I lost reading. In that same long first half of 2022, I realized I had to leave librarianship. Not just my job, but my fucking career. See, I was a fiction librarian. I had this ultra-rare position that was my dream job, and reading was a part of my job. When people tell you not to make the thing you love your job, I know. I know what they're saying.

I spent the second half of 2022 living in a state of nearly constant joy. And I wasn't reading for a lot of it. If you asked me three years ago, I couldn't possibly have foreseen this turn of events. And for some of 2022, I was stressed about how much I WASN'T reading. I am trying to figure out how to express this, because it didn't feel BAD to not be reading. It felt right and it felt like I didn't want to be reading. But it also felt wrong because reading was a huge part of my life, and then....it wasn't.

I decided 2023 had to be different, in terms of how I related to reading, so I jettisoned the reading challenge and just let myself...be. Here's what I found out:

I read a lot of BL manga. I'm not a huge graphic novel OR manga fan, so this was a new and unexpected joy. This probably isn't surprising to you if you know me on tumblr through BL, but it was surprising to me. I figured I would dip into queer romance novels, but nope, it was the manga that I loved.

Danmei isn't for me. No idea why, because it seems like it'd be just my cup of tea, but it isn't. I like it, I just don't LOVE it, and right now I want to love the books I'm reading, especially if it's fiction because...

I read SO MUCH NONFICTION IN 2023. It's what my brain asked for, so that's what I fed it. It also probably contributed to my lower numbers; dense nonfiction takes a LOT longer to read than fiction/manga. I think...I'm a person who feels passionate about learning; I love it so so so much. And when my consumption habits switched to mainly frothy TV shows about men falling in love with each other, my brain was like, uh, you better feed us some facts, lady. So I did.

I...like?...memoirs? In my book club, I'm the person who hates memoirs. Memoirs that everyone loved I scoffed at. Memoirs, yuck. Except...apparently no. Apparently I like a memoir now. I guess this is maybe an offshoot of the nonfic bias but nonetheless, my brain continues to shock me and the people who know me best.

Anyway, here is a short, lightly annotated (not in order at all) list of my fave reads this year:

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Fuck yeah she doesn't miss.

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein. Oh this is the real shit, and she also doesn't miss.

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Okay, a fiction book that I devoured. Sports + love + grief = a meditation on life.

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer. I sometimes go back and read my highlights from this, because it was so fucking powerful and spoke to me so powerfully.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. I loved this in a way I don't think I can explain. Simply stunning in all the right ways.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Video games + love + grief = a meditation on life. Fucking amazing.

Stay True by Hua Hsu. Oh jesus fuck this is sad but it is so so so so good.

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree. Cozy fantasy that isn't romance is something I need more of in my life. Yes to orcs opening bookstores and coffee shops and very little fighting.

Witch Hat Atelier, all existing volumes, by Kamome Shirohama. I've been sharing these with my 8 year-old niece and it's just the nicest little happy thing.

Vagina Obscura by Rachel Gross. Yes, please explain my fucked up innards to me. Endometriosis ftw!

Fat Talk by Virginia Sole-Smith. Real, solid advice and real, solid evidence, and real, solid writing. Two thumbs up.

Maybe someday I'll do a post about how I've been tracking my reading since November 11, 2004. I guess we're hitting the 20th anniversary this coming year, after all.

I guess I do know one thing: I'm never NOT going to read at times. I still do love it, even if my needs and wants around it have changed. Happy New Year, all!

[your-disobedient-servant]

man I wish tumblr would let you switch main blog and sideblog because I'm currently REALLY regretting my decision to be a hyperspecific freak on main and have a sideblog for a mix of other hyperspecific shit (currently Trigun and antelopes) plus random memes plus whatever else I wanna add to my trash pile

especially since my ability to read nonfic (hell I can barely even read light fiction atm) is off to war and I haven't practiced French in ages either so I can't really keep this blog up as I used to :/

but then again they say that you shouldn't trust yourself after 10 pm and it's currently 3 am so

[princeoftherunaways]

2023 book recs! (to read and to skip)

inspired by @deanmarywinchester's incredible rec list and general reading reviews!

RECOMMEND:

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells: I love you autistic androids. forever and ever. I'm pretending the adaptation is not happening bc I don’t think the screen can do it justice so I’m simply enjoying every single page of these books before there’s inevitable show Discourse. I love the plots and the dialogue and just like murderbot I too wish I could be left alone to watch my shows.

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel Lavery: this book has a couple excerpts on here that make the rounds and piqued my interest and holy shit. if you are trans and queer and probably autistic. read this book as fast as you can. I felt seen in every word and also. Absolutely read to filth.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (the masquerade series) by Seth Dickinson: I think I finally started this series because of my bestie @ofbowsandbooks (as is the case with so many things) but who's to say. either way I read this towards the beginning of the year and have not stopped thinking about it since. if you read it. please listen to so much (for) stardust by fob. I cannot recommend the specific kind of damage it does to you while rotating baru and tain hu in your mind. just. tailored to me in so many ways (fantasy story about imperialism and masks and lying and the terrible power of math) so I do admit bias there.

Settlers by J Sakai: If you can only read a book or two about understanding why colonialism/capitalism is at the root of all evil...read this book. It's at the top of my general list of political nonfic recs (next to capitalism & disability by marta russell and border & rule by Harsha Walia). I like to describe it as a leftist pov of us history that pulls apart some of the liberal/white "optimism" of People's History of the US.

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib: I think this was also based on an excerpt I saw on here. I finally started getting into memoirs/essay collections this year and WOW. I mean, even if that genre isn't your thing, you should still read this book. It's just so so good, and utilizes unique topics (particularly music, I love his FOB essay) to explore both small personal moments and larger existential issues.

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon: This is considered a staple of anticolonial movements & education for a reason. Definitely helpful for understanding the global decolonial revolutions of the 1960s.

Decarcerating Disability by Liat Ben-Moshe: An incredible study of abolition from a disability lens. Clear (if a bit repetitive at times) but overall an engaging read that definitely brings a much needed addition to larger abolition texts.

Chain-Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: I read this one after seeing @deanmarywinchester's posts about it. I read it in two days and it knocked me so hard on my ass. Especially as someone who was obsessed with the hunger games in middle/high school. Just. Wow. holy shit. we knew this already but abolish prisons police etc etc and also we have GOT to be done with tiktok. and alexas. and just being okay with casually reposting/consuming videos and images of violence against people of color and and and -

Exile & Pride by Eli Clare: transmasc disabled PNW crew rise up!!!! the trauma of growing up as all these things in a small rural town!!! I have very rarely felt so deeply seen and understood as when I was reading this book. It's heavy emotionally & topically, so warnings there. I did struggle a bit with it but only because of how deeply some of his story reflects my own.

Innocence & Corruption by Aiyana Goodfellow: This book and its author demand a fundamental shift from how we as a society view and treat children. If you are planning on having kids, have kids in your life, are a teacher, etc etc, cannot emphasize enough how important this book is to remind us that kids are people now, and they deserve autonomy, respect, and support.

Honorable Mentions:

he who drowned the world by shelley parker-chan : this was moved down a category only because the book before this one (she who became the sun) is literally just setup for this sneaky gut punch. So as a duology, could be stronger. this book as a standalone? Wow. There's some banger lines and concepts and characters in there. (Wang baoxiang. Just. Oh boy). Definitely fascinating in convo with baru cormorant, and I think a reason it's lower for me as well is because the lens of hwdtw is much more of an internal power turmoil than a study of imperalism, which I'm biased towards interest-wise. I read this purely because of @ash-and-starlight's incredible art, so please go check that out if you read the book - It is absolutely worth the read for their art.

the Black Jacobins by C L R James: I'm a french revolution bitch. it was a special interest of mine as a kid and got me invested in history. that said, we gotta talk about france's fuckery. which is to say, slavery/genocide/colonialism etc etc. This book is somewhat tricky to read at points, especially in keeping track of who's who, but a really incredible explanation of the beginning of Haiti's fight for independence. If you enjoy French or Caribbean history, anticolonial revolutions, and some of the nitty-gritty details of history textbooks, this is for you.

life under the jolly roger by Gabriel Kuhn: who here has seen black sails. (thee gay pirate show. Original edition.) strikes a good balance between an understanding of what pirates have/can/could represent, and absolutely clarity about their actual violence, legacy, and politics. Informative without being drawn in by the romanticism or dismissing its power completely.

the essential June Jordan: Politically relevant and also just lyrically beautiful poetry.

hell followed with us by Andrew Joseph White: trans horror fans w/ Christianity beef, this is for you. I am NOT a horror fan, but it was so well done and resonant with me that I stomached the gore for it and do absolutely recommend. if that’s your thing

DO NOT RECOMMEND:

the invisible life of addie larue by ve schwab: I love VE and am a bit of an apologist for her prose over plot bc her worldbuilding is always so cinematic to me, but this was such a frustrating waste of a brilliant concept. It was just...boring? Neither Addie nor Henry are particularly interesting (Henry's relatable, but again, not engaging as a character) and for someone who's been alive for a long time, I expected more unique flashbacks and worldbuilding. I expected the ten thousand doors of january, but this was not that, although I think at its soul it wanted to be.

the lies of locke lamora by scott lynch - Been meaning to read this forever since it was recommended a lot on here if you liked six of crows. I would say a similar setup (dickension fantasy) but that's about it. Characters aren't that likeable or clever, the action is slow, and I take issue with the ending.

unwieldy creatures by addie tsai - I so badly wanted this book to be good. It was not.

a day of fallen night by samantha shannon - It was fine, it's just such a long book I think time is better spent elsewhere, ya know?

provenance - second ann leckie book that i've finished unimpressed. despite murderbot being top of my list, this similar vibe of sci-fi did not strike me as one with such a unique clear voice. It just felt like a more inclusive version of many average space books.

[medievalfantasist]

In the spirit of @impishtubist's finish your shit December I have finished reading Star Wars: The High Republic: Convergence so now I can concentrate on getting through one more nonfic book before the end of the year.

[sharkneto]

For the ask game: Top 5 books?

I'm cleaning out my ask box! Slowly but surely! Let me respond to this from (checks notes) definitely not nine months ago!

It's also good I waited on answer this because I've read a bunch of books in the past nine months. So, top five books I've read this year, in no particular order:

Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir. Love this world, adore the characters, great little mystery going on. The usual tagline of "necromancer lesbians in space" does not do this series justice. It is way more nuanced than that, there is so much queer shit going on and none of it is like And Here Is Our Lesbian Character! This Character Is Trans! People are just people and sometimes (oftentimes) those people are queer. Also, the love and grief of this series is So Good. I listed Gideon here because it's my favorite of the series, but Harrow the Ninth has one of the best reveals in a book I've read in a long time and it makes me ache.

Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells. I'm counting the whole series as one long book. Loved, loved, loved reading these. Murderbot is the best, I love its friendship with ART and the humans, my favorite thing about it is how clearly its a person but it is absolutely not a human and that should never be forgotten.

The Goblin Emperor - Katherin Addison. My friend recommended this book to me because one of my favorite things in fiction is Just A Normal Guy up against not-normal circumstances, and this book is about A Really Normal Guy (goblin) suddenly thrust into being king thanks to all the successors ahead of him dying in a crash. It's a relatively simple premise but I love it for that. It doesn't try to be more than it is, I loved the main character and how he approached the problems of Suddenly Being King. I know there are more books in the series but I don't think they follow the King as the main character anymore and I loved him so much, I haven't had the heart to go try them yet.

Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson. I would be remiss to not include one of the Stormlight Archive books, as I'm working my way through them. Do I complain a lot about how Brando Sando could use an editor while I'm reading these books because they're too damn long? Yes. Do I still absolutely enjoy them? Yes. Brando is really good at taking 800 pages to set up all his details so that you can have the most satisfying 200 pages of your life as every single fucking piece slams into place, each conclusion you've been waiting for for the past 400 pages hitting and it's So Good. I was miffed about the very end of Words of Radiance, but Way of Kings was a triumph the whole time. I love Kaladin - who doesn't? - and the world building and positioning to get everyone primed for where they need to be in the other character POVs is masterful.

Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo. I fucking love heists, and Six of Crows has a fucking great heist. Kaz is also exactly my kind of character, so it's no shocker I loved this book. I didn't read any of the Shadow and Bone books, I have no plans to, but I did watch the TV series first so I knew the basics of the world and Grisha and whatnot. Idk how much of a learning curve there would be if I hadn't done that first, but I doubt it would be much worse than the usual learning curve of a new fantasy series - but it was nice to be able to just jump in and hit the ground running. I cannot emphasize enough how satisfying a heist this was to read, though, excellent and interesting characters aside.

I feel like honorable mention time to some of the nonfic books I read?

Pageboy - Elliot Page. Was very good, with the incredible added bonus of that I got to see one of his author talks in person. He was an absolute delight to listen to. The book was a very interesting and enjoyable read, but I think he could have made his time jumps back and forth more purposeful. It felt very much like he was trying to emulate:

Man Alive - Thomas Page Mcbee. I read this one and Amateur, and I liked Man Alive better, probably just because it reflected me a bit more in where I'm at in my transition. His jumping between time points worked really well as he described figuring himself out around different moments in his life. Both really great explorations of gender and just what does it mean to be a man.

Into Thin Air - John Krakauer. My twin and I went on a hard binge of mountaineering disasters, and you can't do that without including Into Thin Air. A really tragic and gripping true story about the climbing disaster on Everest in 1996. An as honest as possible look into what happened and what went wrong that cost eight people their lives, and the even wilder details on how some of them survived.

It's been really fun to get into books again, this year. I was one of those kids who constantly had his nose in a book growing up and fell out of that when college hit. I refound audiobooks this year which have been a godsend to listen to at work, and physical books have snuck their way in, too, for more books happening. It's fun to be thinking about plots and new characters again and having opinions on how x or y played out (I still think about my predicted ending to Gideon, I think that would have been fucking incredible, not that the actual ending wasn't fantastic - I had the big beats predicted correctly at least lol).

My current book I just started is The Lies of Locke Lamora, which I'm already enjoying immensely and all my friends who recced it to me were like "what do you mean you haven't read that yet? you'd love it".

Anyone got any good book recs, hmu.