Dear fellow Leopard People, a new journey has begun! Welcome to the first discussion of the second book of the Nsibidi Scripts, Akata Warrior! 

🐆 Check the dates of the discussions in the Schedule

🌊 Find the Marginalia here

As usual, there will be questions in the comments, but feel free to bring your own prompts! We will see each other next week, when we will read chapters 9-14!

Are you ready to cross the bridge to Leopard Knocks?

We will continue this journey on Saturdays, starting in October and finishing right on Halloween! 🔮

Schedule

• Oct 3: Beginning - Chapter 8 (u/IraelMrad)
• Oct 10: Chapter 9 - Chapter 14 (u/maolette)
• Oct 17: Chapter 15 - Chapter 21 (u/maolette)
• Oct 24: Chapter 22 - Chapter 27 (u/thebowedbookshelf)
• Oct 31: Chapter 28 - End (u/fixtheblue)

Find the series Marginalia here!

Will you join us?

We have officially finished the book! If you’ve made it this far, congratulations on having dealt with Marius’ ramblings for all these pages. 

What was it that kept you hooked? The constant searching for his lost love? The Botticelli paintings? The questionable comments made about Armand and his agency? Let us know in the comments!

🩸Check the dates of the discussions in the Schedule

🎨Find the Marginalia for the whole series here

⚠️ An important reminder about our spoiler policy: we ask you to mark anything not related to this book as a spoiler. Any reference to other books in the Vampire Chronicles, even vague ones (such as “you’ll see how things change later on”) must be enveloped in a spoiler tag such as this one . From your phone, you need to write`>! type spoiler here !<`. Anything that a first-time reader would not know is a spoiler. While it is true that we have already read some of these books in r/bookclub, the books are enjoyable as standalones so we don’t want to ruin the experience for anyone!

SUMMARY

30.

Marius goes looking for Raymond, who is now in his 80s. Raymond updates him on Pandora, who apparently is leaving her name written on walls and goes to Dresden every 20 years. They briefly discuss Amadeo's (now Armand) situation, and then Raymond asks Marius if he could do an AMA for the Talamasca. I don't know why I find this so funny.

31.

Marius finally dares to go looking for Amadeo/Armand. He can find him in Paris, but realises with horror that there's nothing of the boy he once loved in him anymore. 60 years of brainwashing and torture do that to a person, Marius. In a very compassionate and mature manner, Marius decides that he is not his problem anymore because hey, if Amadeo really wanted to free himself from The Children of Satan he would have done it, right?

He tells this to Bianca and she tells him she would like him to change his mind, but realistically there's not much she can do. She tries telling him that Amadeo is still a child, but according to Marius he is "so mature for his age" or whatever.

Then Marius tells her that he has acquired a castle in Saxony for them, for nooo reason at all. It was just a spontaneous impulse buy for them to have their happy family home together.

Bianca also manages to drink from Akasha, and Marius is happy because it means it will be one less fledgling to worry about when he'll get tired of her.

Marius learns from the Talamasca that apparently Santino has abandoned his coven. He travels to Rome, and finds from the vampires left there that apparently it was thanks to Pandora and another woman that the coven ended. He leaves a message for her.

32.

Bianca declares to Marius that she saw Pandora in Dresden! He runs to her and meets her companion, Arjun, who allows him to see her. The meeting doesn't go exactly as planned. She confesses that she was the one who made Arjun to have someone to keep her anchored to life. She is scared of Those Who Must Be Kept, and begs Marius to leave her alone.

Things get even worse, since immediately after this Bianca breaks up with Marius. It was well deserved, I might add.

33. 

Marius decides to get a new life and moves to the island where we met him in The Vampire Lestat (summaries here). Among his luggage, he finds an old letter from Pandora that he missed, begging him to come and save her.

34. 

Marius recounts the events of The Vampire Lestat and how Akasha awoke, again you can find a summary here.

35. 

In the present day, Marius finishes telling his story to Thorne, which I assume is as tired as I am. In the final scene of the book, Thorne witnesses Marius asking Maharet permission to kill Santino, in front of Pandora and Armand. Maharet refuses, so Thorne decides to do it instead, and as a punishment accepts giving his eyes to Maharet.

This is the penultimate discussion of Blood and Gold! Hang it in there, we’ve almost reached the end!

You’ll find a summary below, and some discussion prompts in the comments.

Remember that next week we’re gonna finish the book!

🩸Check the dates of the discussions in the Schedule

🎨Find the Marginalia for the whole series here

⚠️ An important reminder about our spoiler policy: we ask you to mark anything not related to this book as a spoiler. Any reference to other books in the Vampire Chronicles, even vague ones (such as “you’ll see how things change later on”) must be enveloped in a spoiler tag such as this one . From your phone, you need to write`>! type spoiler here !<`. Anything that a first-time reader would not know is a spoiler. While it is true that we have already read some of these books in r/bookclub, the books are enjoyable as standalones so we don’t want to ruin the experience for anyone!

SUMMARY

Bianca finds Marius and brings him some clothes. At first, Marius does not want to reveal himself to her, but then chooses to let her see him. She confesses that she always knew that he somehow fed on people, and that he made Amadeo like him.

Looking for a way to help Marius, Bianca asks him to make her a vampire. Marius' attempt almost kills her, given how much blood he needs from her, but they succeed.

They go hunting and Marius tries using the Cloud Gift, as he needs to reach Akasha ASAP and needs to bring Bianca with him.

Despite the hurry, he still has the time to tell this poor girl the story of his turning twice, tell her his whole life story, and ramble about how cool Pandora is. 

Thankfully, they reach the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept and he shuts up, but Marius finds himself too weak to be able to open the door. Well, it opens by itself like in a damn horror movie, but Marius seems to find this beautiful. 

He drinks from Akasha again to heal his wounds and has a vision of a garden, but this time Pandora is there. Marius decides to go and look for her, because fuck Amadeo, right? So he decides he will ask the Talamasca for help. Not immediately, though, as he is too weak.

Marius spends years recovering, drinking from Akasha multiple times, but never allowing Bianca to do it as well. 

Time passes, and he contacts a monk to send a letter to Raymond, asking about Pandora's whereabouts. We learn that she has been travelling Europe in a black carriage in pure badass gothic fashion, and that a coven of the Children of Satan has appeared in Paris, with Amadeo their leader!!! Incredible plot twist.

It takes Marius time to show the letter to Bianca. Learning about the fate of Amadeo makes her angry, and she has a fight with Marius, as she believes this would have been prevented if he had shared the secret of Those Who Must Be Kept with the world.

Benvenuti to the sixth discussion of Blood and Gold! This week we had at least 10 mentions of Botticelli, lots of dubious consensual relationships, 30 mentions of Pandora, and a few nice descriptions of Kyiv and Venice.

You’ll find a summary below, and some discussion prompts in the comments.

Remember that next week we’re gonna read chapters 25-29!

🩸Check the dates of the discussions in the Schedule

🎨Find the Marginalia for the whole series here

⚠️ An important reminder about our spoiler policy: we ask you to mark anything not related to this book as a spoiler. Any reference to other books in the Vampire Chronicles, even vague ones (such as “you’ll see how things change later on”) must be enveloped in a spoiler tag such as this one . From your phone, you need to write`>! type spoiler here !<`. Anything that a first-time reader would not know is a spoiler. While it is true that we have already read some of these books in r/bookclub, the books are enjoyable as standalones so we don’t want to ruin the experience for anyone!

Chapter 20

Marius, who comes from a strike of bad decisions, decides to make another one and to reveal his nature to Amadeo. Since Amadeo never knew what a healthy relationship looks like, he pushes Marius to make him a vampire. Marius, full of anger, brings him to Bianca and accuses her in front of him of the murders he saw her committing. She admits that she is being held hostage by some money launderers, and Marius decides to kill them all in front of Amadeo.

Chapter 21

Amadeo gets mortally wounded by a man in love with him, forcing Marius to make a decision. Amadeo gets turned, and remembers some details about his life before Venice.

Chapter 22

Amadeo and Marius visit Bianca. This is an Anne Rice book, so as it was to be expected they have some kind of threesome. Amadeo has to come to terms with the fact that becoming a vampire brings issues and implies having to stay away from certain human affairs. When discussing the difficulties this life brings and the motivations behind Amadeo’s turning, the latter expresses his desire to visit Russia.

Chapter 23 

Amadeo visits the monastery and is able to get some closure with his family. I am lazy so I am just gonna refer you to The Vampire Armand discussions for this. 

Marius gets to see Amadeo’s reunion with his father and has completely normal feelings about it, as he realises the man comes before him in Amadeo’s heart.

Time passes, and Marius realises he is being watched by a scholar from the Talamasca. The man speaks Latin, so that’s all Marius needs to become friends with him. He is worried that humans came so close to him, and asks him to leave Venice, but before that he asks about Pandora. The Talamasca knows her to be alive, with a new companion.

Marius also asks the scholar how he compares to Botticcelli, because of course he does.

Chapter 24

Satan worshippers storm Marius’ palace. Marius tries to fight them, but he is severely wounded by the fire. He manages to survive by jumping into the canal, but is unable to help the other boys or Amadeo. He mentally calls Bianca to help him.

Hello everyone!

r/bookclub will read The Aeneid starting in August, you are all welcome to join! The official schedule with the discussion dates can be found here, but I'll also share it in this post. We'll read two books every week, and then discuss them together in a dedicated post.

Schedule

• Aug 3 - Books 1&2  
• Aug 10 - Books 3&4
• Aug 17 - Books 5&6
• Aug 24 - Books 7&8
• Aug 31 - Books 9&10
• Sep 7 - Books 11&12

I hope I'll see you there!

Hello travelers, welcome to the first step of our journey in this new country! I already learned so much about Togo and its customs (both the good and the bad ones). This is also an extremely important reflection on women's oppression and on the way perpetrators enforce it, so I’m really curious to know what you all think of it.

If you need them, here you can find the Schedule and the Marginalia.

Next week we will read from Chapter 12 to Chapter 18, and the discussion will be led by u/bluebelle236.

• Data on female genital mutilation today
• These stories are still happening nowadays

Another adventure, another incredible twist, magical realms and divine artifacts await us this week! Welcome everybody to the penultimate discussion of The Bright Sword. Will our heroes succeed in their journey? Will Constantine bring Lancelot back? Will Collum finally find a good dad figure? Will somebody punch Merlin? Let’s find out!

⛪Find the schedule with the links to the other discussions here

🧚‍♀️Write down your thoughts in the Marginalia here

🗡️Summary

Our heroes reach the Holy Lance and Saint Longinus, who is ready to give it to them to finally crown the new king of Britain. They are however attacked by Morgan and her fairy army, because nothing good ever happens in this book. A violent fight starts, and angels arrive. Palamede is fighting for the other side, and in an attempt to help him, Dagonet gets killed by an angel.

The Lance gets broken during the fight, after which an angel tells Collum that there will never be a king graced by God again. Damn!

The story then moves to Scipio's past. He was an officer stationed in Britain towards the end of the Roman Empire. One day, he found a tomb with a red-haired woman inside, who made him her servant for three weeks. After he went back to his normal life and gradually saw the decline of the Roman presence in Britannia, he went looking for her again. She made him his servant for 100 years, which passed without him noticing. After he got out, he became a knight, but could never fully swear his loyalty to Arthur.

On their return to Camelot, Collum and the others pass the tomb of the knight Collum killed when he first arrived. He finds out the knight was Ser Bleoberis.

When they arrive back home, they are greeted by Lancelot, now king of Britain. The reunion doesn’t last long because Lancelot attacks them, killing Melehan in the fight and admitting he also killed Constantine. Our heroes manage to escape on a flying boat (you read that correctly) driven by Guinevere! She claims that Lancilotto was the one who planned the fall of Arthur by entering her chambers.

Guinevere brings them to Avalon, where Morgan shows them Arthur, in a coma. She doesn't think he will ever wake up. 

During the night, Collum finally gets his girl as he and Nimue share an intimate moment together.

The day after, Bedivere asks to visit Arthur in the land of the dreams, where he, Guinever, and Collum are taken after a pagan ritual. Here they see Arthur, who tells them that his time has gone. When they wake up, Collum feels like he is finally able to let the king go.

ḿmáḿmá!

We will discuss together Akata Witch, the first installment of The Nsibidi Scripts on Saturdays, find a link to the full schedule here. While you wait for the discussion to begin, you may find this marginalia useful!

In case you don’t know, the marginalia is meant to be a place where you can write down any comment, note, share other materials or a quote you particularly enjoyed – think of it like scribbling on the margin of your book!

You can post your comments whenever you want, without waiting for the weekly discussion. Any observation is welcome, we would love to hear your thoughts on the book!

Just please be mindful of spoilers, enclose them in the > ! *sentence that contains a spoiler* ! < tag (just remove the spaces!) - it would be great if you did it even if talking about other media. In case you are uncertain, please still mark it as a spoiler. It would also be helpful for other readers if you could always start by indicating where you are in your reading (for example “early in chapter 5” or “at the end of chapter 2”).

See you soon and enjoy your reading!

We have already read some stuff about him last year, when we read the Iliad. But aren't you excited to find out more about his story?

We will be reading The Aeneid starting in August as a continuation of our journey in classic epic poems! So get your copy ready, spend a few weeks worrying about finding the perfect translation (unless you want to give it a try in Latin!) and stay tuned for a Schedule which will appear soon!

Will you join us in this literally epic journey?

If you want to check out the other discussions

• The Iliad
• The Odyssey

Hello everyone, and welcome to the last Friday of the month! This isn't leaving me shocked that time is flying so fast at all, I'm fine I swear. Thank you to all of you who joined to leave a comment this month, I'm leaving you in the good hands of u/tomesandtea for the next one! Apparently today is World Refrigeration Day, which I consider pretty appropriate given the heatwave that is happening in Europe and given that the AC in my office is not working!

What is Free Chat Friday? This is a place for us to get to know each other a bit better, so feel free to talk about whatever you want! How did your week go? Any plans for the weekend? Which books are you reading?

Be always mindful of our RULES:

• No unmarked spoilers
• No self-promo
• No piracy
• Thoughtful personal conduct

Have a beautiful weekend everyone!

Happy Friday everyone! We are in the second half of June now, so how's the summer going for you? Are you indulging in any fun outdoor activity? If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, has the cold arrived? Are you spending your days wrapped in a cozy and warm blanket?

What is Free Chat Friday? This is a place for us to get to know each other a bit better, so feel free to talk about whatever you want! How did your week go? Any plans for the weekend? Which books are you reading?

Be always mindful of our RULES:

• No unmarked spoilers
• No self-promo
• No piracy
• Thoughtful personal conduct

Have a beautiful weekend everyone!