Beaux livres, bibliothèques inspirantes et citations littéraires.
Ever since I got back into reading I've pretty much only read fantasy but I've been making a concerted effort to branch out.
Funnily enough, two of the four books that have had the most impact on me were not fantasy...though I wouldn't say they were especially "fun" to read.
I am currently reading Eragon for my book club, and Dracula for myself.
This is the most I’ve read in my entire life. Already met my original goal of 12 books lol, going for 52. Now
Really enjoyed 5 & 6 from the DCC series!
The Slow Horses TV show is great, so it was fun to read directly from the source. I was pleasantly surprised by how faithful of an adaptation the show is of the book.
And 1984 was uncomfortable and scary (in a necessary way), I had to take a few days to process all my associated emotions and thoughts.
Currently reading Children of Dune :)
I’m looking for something I read back around 2003-4, though the art looked like something from the 80s or 90s.
It was in black and white and printed in the short, wide, floppy format that newspaper strips are typically collected in.
The story was about a teen girl who was drawn to look unattractive, and a lot of the characters were just on this side of grotesque. I remember it starting out pretty normal, but eventually delving into drugs and sex in later books as her life and self esteem spiral.
If anyone knows what this is, I would be appreciative! I’ve been looking for it for years.
HI , please recommend your favorite book where protagonists go through strong moral dilemmas. Open to all genres except romance.
Thanks in advance
It’s so incredibly close to home and so touching my heart just breaks for Ross. Everything in this book is very bizarre but it’s such an interesting point of view we have Ross and his diary, but also his doctors and they write about things that he went through as well.
Wow.
What a tremendous novel. This is in I believe my top 5 of the year.
Akbar is a published poet, and this is his first novel. I would make a comparison to Queen, who was an opera singer. Now, I don’t like opera and I really don’t like poetry. But I do think Freddie Mercury was able to bring something to Queen that others without his training really couldn’t. Same with Akbar here. A novel written by a poet carries additional weight in the language. I found it such a pleasure to read, even though parts were heartbreaking.
The writing is beyond good. The main character is so deeply troubled and sad, but the way Akbar writes him, I mean this is a wrenching novel. It explores his family in Iran, being an immigrant, family tragedy, relationships, martyrdom (obviously).
There’s so many great one-liners. It’s surpassingly funny at points with some great irreverent takes on religion and death. There’s some hilarious and beautiful dream sequences. But it’s above all a very moving story. I know it’s a few years old but if you haven’t had the chance treat yourself and read this book.
You can download ShelfLife here - my husband and I built it together as a passion project and it's completely free. The community has contributed over 1600 spines so far so you can use those or add your own. We're making improvements every day so we'd love any feedback!
It's been a great year for reading so far. My favorites were The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, Crossroads by Franzen, and I just finished The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt which I can't recommend enough - it's a genius book about education and parenthood, and structurally different to anything I've read before. Y/N was also a great work of experimental lit; it's about fandom and identity and a surprisingly smart, thought provoking book.
Hurricane Season and Virgin Suicides were rereads that I enjoyed over 5 years ago and both held up. Hurricane Season is one of the most gruesome books I've read but the writing is just so atmospheric and engrossing.
The Expendable Man was a fun old-school crime thriller that had an early twist that knocked the wind out of me. Its also a time capsule of 1960s western America that pulled me in.
The Director is a great work of historical fiction that explores timely questions around the complicity of the arts in the rise of fascism. I loved learning more about early cinema as well - it captures the sense of creativity and experimentation that accompanies any new medium of art.
Spent 3 months living in Osaka with a friend and wrote every day while I was there. I really wanted to honor that moment but I didn't want to subject those poems and stories to publishing house critiques or some manufactured pay to print instagram photo book. So I learned paper making, and then | learned bookbinding, and then I created my own path. This is the result.
Typeset and full leather binding of Agatha Christie's The Murder At The Vicarage I made for a friend. Text taken from the internet archive with typeset modeled off an early edition and printed on cream 120gsm paper. Self marbled endpapers in Stormont and Shell patterns with copper veining. I used silk buttonhole twist for the headbands, and leather inlay for the covers. Labels custom printed by Asterisk Books and Labels.
Overall I'm very pleased with the project and how cohesive the final look is. This was my first time doing a full leather binding and the turn-ins gave me some difficulty, I've definitely learned a lot about what not to do for the future. Cutting the inlays was quite challenging and you can see that on the back cover I cut one of them too small and had to shim a second piece in. I also skived my label overly aggressively and nicked a small hole in it.
This cookbook belongs to my mum and was her grandmothers. It has been well loved and well used. I will be making a new cover and attaching this, but the bit I am stuck on is the text block itself. I am undecided whether to:
Some individual sheets have come out but the signatures are all sewn together. The thread has become loose but has not broken.
I have only rebound paperbacks and printed my own books, so unsure on a repair.
Any help or advice much appreciated!
Thanks 🙏🏼
So I am working on making a journal with a genuine leather softcover. From what I’ve been told, it’s not a good idea to glue the signatures directly to the leather. So I looked up how others have attached them and it looks like a lot of them sew their signatures directly into the spine of the leather? But I do not like how it looks when they have these long lines of thread exposed on the outside. I guess a lot of people like it… I don’t. The less exposed thread, the better, and if it’s cross crossed, I don’t mind it exposed as much as long as it’s not these long lines of thread.
But I have no idea how to do this! I do know just sewing my signatures, I was going to use the French stitch.
currently reading -
Maurice by EM Forster
Monkey King Makes Havoc in Heaven by Wu Cheng En (translated by Julia Lovell)
I just started Maurice, it's really interesting. Monkey King is super fun and a short read.
As the title says I’m finding myself less and less interested in this book. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, very good, but I’m finding myself skimming more than I should. I’m probably almost 3/4s of the way through >!Aliena and Jack just reunited!< so please no spoilers past that.
I find that most of the characters lack nuance particularly William, he’s most certainly hate-able but it feels like he exists solely to be the bad guy. Even Phillip who is fun to root for feels pretty one dimensional as well. Sometimes character motives just feel unbelievable.
I also feel like I’ve started to see behind the curtain a bit in that the story is a bit of a perpetual pendulum swing: things go better and better for Kingsbridge and when things are really looking good some form of tragic setback occurs, rinse and repeat.
Maybe the last few hundred pages will change my mind but I find myself being drawn to my next reads. I’m currently taking a break from pillars to read Neuromancer (talk about a change of pace). I would like to see how the story ends but as a father of a two year old I only have so much time to read and the last thing I want to do is force read something that’s not really doing it for me.
Change my mind, or reinforce what’s got me losing interest, I’m just interested in what folks think on this.
Love y’all
Everything I've read so far this year, ranked.
Tried to have a kind of dark page in my book, but it got printed weird. The first one is really grat and bad quality(looks worse irl). The second unasked the print shop guy to get it better and now its selectively better quality around the image and worse at the edges. You can see the blocky effect it has.
The last image is how the page supposed to look