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Lovable Loudmouths

I love a snarky character. Did they put their foot in their mouth again? I eat that up. I humbly present my top 5 chaos muppets. Here’s to the ones who never know when to stop talking.

Remy from Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco

Remy has a habit of babbling during epic battles. A hoard of vampires out for death won’t stop him from running his mouth. He is, at least, self aware. “Take it from someone who talks to much—” *kills the guy currently monologuing* “—you talk too much.”

Riley from Strictly No Heroics by B.L. Radley

This book is chocked full of snarky one liners. Riley has a very distinct voice, and I love her for it. She’s just a queer normie trying to make her way in the world and she’s fed up with all the ways in which the world is shitty.

Tracker from Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Tracker has the ability to follow a scent across anywhere. If he catches your scent, he can find you anywhere. This ability is well known. Tracker is also one snarky guy. The ongoing refrain in this book when he meets potential business partners and sticks his foot in his mouth is for them to say “I had heard you had a nose. No one told me you had a mouth.”

Nate from The Alpha’s Warlock (Mismatched Mates #1) by Eliot Grayson

Nate escapes halfway through a curse that leaves his magic seeping out to nowhere and threatening his life. To save his life, he ends up bonded to a werewolf who he’s pretty sure hates him. And this is not at all helped by the fact that Nate can’t stop himself from saying all the wrong things at all the worst times. These enemies do eventually become lovers, but Nate never outgrows his habit of expressing his disdain through strongly worded messages inked onto coffee mugs in permanent marker.

Gideon from Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Listen… If you’re partner is so worried about you saying the wrong thing that she makes to take a fake vow of silence… you’ve put your foot in your mouth one too many times. Never fear, however, Gideon finds plenty of ways to become a problem for Harrow even if she never opens her mouth. And she can back up her non-verbal communication with her sword.

#snarky #favorite book characters #loveable loudmouths #alyx the bookdragon #book recommendations #book recs #books #fantasy books #scifi books #silver under nightfall #gideon the ninth #mismatched mates #alpha's warlock #strictly no heroics #black leopard red wolf

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Saw a wild take on the clock app. So... from a independent bookstore who has signed up.... Please support bookshop.org.

They are registered as a B Corp. So they are for profit, but they share profits with local bookstores. The store must be signed up with the ABA to become an affiliate, but once they get that set up they get 30% off the list price of the book when we're you're chosen bookstore. This is damn near comparable to what we'd get if we bought the book wholesale and sold it in the store, but we don't have to fuss with shipping costs or man hours. It's literally saving our bacon as an new bookstore. They do a lot of advertising that is anti-amazon. But like... Amazon is literally killing off indie bookstores, and to be successful, you have to compete with them. Bookshop.org is the best way for indie shops to band together and fight off a massive opp like Amazon. It's the collective power babes.

#independent bookstore #queer bookshop #thistle & nightshade #bookshop #online booksales #support independent stores

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How to Support Indie Bookstores w/o Leaving your House

Bookshop.org is amazing! If you select your bookstore on the site, they will get 30% off the list price of anything you buy. If you don't select a store, that profit goes into a profit sharing pool that gets split between all the bookstores who have signed up.

Libro.fm offers a similar situation for audio books. You have to choose a bookstore to be able to listen on Libro, but a portion of your purchases and subscriptions goes to that store.

Kobo for ebooks - this one you need to find the bookstore's affiliate link first. Kobo only gives stores credits for new sign ups with their affiliate link.

#independent bookstores #queer bookshop

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Initiatives we love

Trans Rights Readathon

MARCH 22-29, 2024 “The Trans Rights Readathon is an annual call to action to readers and book lovers in support of Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV) on March 31st. We are calling on the reader community to read and uplift books written by and/or featuring trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and 2Spirit authors and characters.”

Sign Up Here

Kraken Collective

"The Kraken Collective is an alliance of indie authors who have pooled resources to publish high-quality fiction while retaining complete creative control over our stories. We aim to provide a wide variety of science fiction and fantasy stories, all starring LGBTQIAP+ characters. From alien hunting lesbians to complex political fantasy, The Kraken Collective publishes queer SFF that will blow your mind away and leave you craving more. Although it begins as a simple cooperative between authors, we aim to grow into an unique publishing model capable of supporting queer indie voices everywhere in SFF. We are committed to building a publishing space that is inclusive, positive, and brings fascinating stories to readers. Cephalopods are fascinating and deeply intelligent creatures: masters of camouflage, brilliant escape artists, and underwater innovators–from the millimeters-long cuties to the kraken-like giants, they’ve impressed us with their constant ingenuity and creativity. In short, they are awesome. Just like us. We hope to create a kraken-sized cloud of ink through our stories and that, like an octopus hiding in its ink, you too can find refuge and solace in our worlds.”

See the Website

DYB Publishing

Decolonize Your Bookshelf is a publishing initiative run by Dominique(also the owner of Paperbacks & Frybread) and Michael LaBorn. They are dedicated to celebrating and uplifting voices of Black, Indigenous and other marginalized communities. They aim to increase representation and accountability in publishing by highlighting books by underrepresented authors and helping authors write better representation in their stories. The first book they published is Alfajiri by Michael Laborn. This is a great book for anyone who wants to dip their toes into fantasy. It has a lot of great fantasy themes while being short and easy to digest. It was so popular that Laborn wrote and extended edition of the story.

Alfajiri on DYB Publishing

Aro and Ace Database

“Enter a few keywords in the search bar of the database to find an aromantic or asexual character! These can be orientations (demisexual, grayromantic, etc.), story genres (fantasy, contemporary), or many more—and you can use more than one.”

View the Database

Queer Liberation Library

“Queer Liberation Library (QLL) is fighting to build a vibrant, flourishing queer future by connecting LGBTQ+ people with literature, information, and resources that celebrate the unique and empowering diversity of our community.” Apply for a membership to browse books on Libby.

Memberships

Everywhere is Queer

“This is a public resource (and ever-growing searchable map!) created for the LGBTQIA2S+ and ally community to find welcoming, queer-owned spaces to shop, connect, eat, learn, and grow all over the world… even in your own neighborhood!”

See the Map

#lgbt #queer #alphabet mafia #books #reading #queer businesses #indie publishing #small publishing house #dyb publishing

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#nonfiction #books #bookrecs #bookblr #reading #tbr #booklists

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#bookshop #queer booksellers #book box

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my favorite thing about people recommending Terry Prachett to me is they go "oh check out these books of his!" and you think, oh huh that sounds like a seperate series!

no it discworld, its always discworld

and everyone always suggest somewhere different to start except for the BEGINNING

theres a million discworld books and so many different series within the series from the knowledge i have

how on earth do you start reading these, it seems like you just have to get lucky as a child and pick up the first book with no preconceived notions and just keep going

do you skip some, do you read them in a different order, do you have to read all of them?? how do you read these books

someone give me a specific order i have no idea where to start

and i thought trying to figure out what order to watch the star wars movies in was hard

#books #fantasy #fiction #terry pratchett #discworld

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What to Read for the Trans Rights Readathon 2024

NonFiction:

I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom

Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby

Safe and Sound by Mercury Stardust

Spectrums: Autistic Transgender People in Their Own Words (Various)

Fantasy:

The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Lark and Kasim Start a Revolution by Kacen Callendar

Our Bloody Pearl by DN Bryn

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Venom & Vow by Elliot McLemore and Anna-Marie McLemore

Sci-Fi:

Mazarin Blues by Al Hess

Winters Orbit by Everina Maxwell

Strictly No Heroics by BL Radley

Horror:

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

Your Body is Not Your Body (Various)

General Fiction:

The Free People's Village by Sim Kern

Future Feeling by Joss Lake

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

Romance:

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

The Stars and the Stage by DN Bryn

#trans right #readathon #trans rights readathon 2024 #book lists #book recommendations

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furious that i am not a playable character in this game

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okay langblr, have ya'll read The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi? I'm dying to know your thoughts on a secret society that can learn languages in 10 days.

#langblr #polyglot character

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And if you played a DND character that used the pronouns you later took for yourself, that’s transmutation.

#trans #trans jokes #dnd character

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Spoilers Rule

“But I don’t want you to fret, so let me just spoil your journey now, before you even get your foot on the first step, by giving away the ending…”

—Hannah Gadsby, Ten Steps to Nanette

I am an incredibly anxious bean. I can’t tell you how many movies, tv shows, and books I’ve put down and never returned to because I can’t take the catastrophic feeling of the unknown. I don’t know how it will end and my brain is certain I won’t survive the journey to get there. These are stories I know I would enjoy if I could just power through, but I’ve got a serious mental block preventing me from experiencing any more of it.

This is, often, an annoyance to my friends who recommend quality media to me. It may take me months or years to get around to watching or reading something new. I may never get to it at all. And it isn’t because they aren’t great recommendations. I go to watch it and I just CAN’T.

The best way to get me to read or watch something is to spoil everything. I understand this is hard. Especially if you are someone who enjoys experiencing plot twists for the first time, if you like having your mind blown by a story. For you it is a kindness to preserve that sacred space of the unknown so that someone else can experience the story unspoiled.

But I want none of your excitement! None of your mystery! I want the comfort of a overdone trope, the repose of a story I’ve already experienced. By telling me what I can expect, it allows me past the mental block. It gives me the ability to enjoy the story at all. And I can often appreciate the craftsmanship more deeply when I’m not deep in my feels of doom.

So if you’ve got an anxious bean in your life, ask them if they want you to spoil everything.

#i love spoilers #spoil everything #alyx the book dragon #annie the book wyrm #thistle & nightshade

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When Women Were Dragons

When Women Were Dragons speaks of silence around women’s issues. That pseudo-peace that people are terrified of breaking. The white wash that keeps people trapped in their own pain. The space where shame flourishes.

Kelly Barnhill mentions the inspiration for this book in her acknowledgement section. Christine Blasey Ford testified in 2018 that the nominee for the Supreme Court had assaulted her while they were in high school. Despite her testimony, and that of two other women, the Senate approved their nominee.

“This book is not based on Chrisitne Blasey Ford or her testimony, but it would not have existed without that woman’s bravery… Her actions didn’t work, but they still mattered. And maybe that’s enough, in our fervent hope that the next generation gets it right.” - K. Barnhill

I liked the sentiment behind this book, but I didn’t find much catharsis while reading it.

“I thought I was writing a story about rage. I wasn’t… this is a story about memory and trauma. It’s about the damage we do to ourselves and our community when we refuse to talk about the past.” -K. Barnhill

Barnhill is partly right. This peace that we cling to is a mirage, a white wash, a falsity. Who among us is experiencing peace? Post pandemic, when finances are hell and mental health issues are rising, when the world is on fire around us, when we are witnessing a genocide live streamed to our phones, when exhaustion seeps out of every pore. Where is the peace? It’s time to talk about difficult things. It’s time to acknowledge them, name them, voice them. How else can we ever parse through the sins of our past, heal, and build something better?

The thing is, this isn't news. And I found the representation of the repressed to be incredibly narrow with no concept for intersectionality. This book is about white women and women who are perceived to be gay. But they are not the only group suffering. There is so much more nuance needed when discussing liberation, and frankly this book takes a pretty offensive stab at it.

This book was also fairly triggering for me because I lived in a similar silence, drowning in my own self-hatred, for years. And I’m sick of it.

For my part, I want no more time in the silence. I’d rather read about the dragons who broke free from it, because I want to know what we do after the silence. I want to read the stories of those who ripped the silence away with their claws, those who are building something beyond the shame.

#book review #hate reads

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Tech Mage by Chris Fox 4/5 Stars

 Science-fiction and magic mix in this fascinating space drama. It’s got spaceships that cast counterspells, slightly sentient swords, and weapons that level up when exposed to wells of energy. There’s space battles and reanimated corpses and void wyrms hell bent on human’s destruction. I greatly enjoyed Chris Fox’s worldbuilding.

Mages gain access to eight different types of magics (fire, void, dream, air, life, water, spirit, earth) by visiting catalysts, powerful places that arise when gods die. The magic is mixed with technology that allows the mage to harness and control the forces of whatever magic type they are using. Hence the term, Tech Mage.

These magical tools are absolutely necessary against the void wyrms who are hell bent on human’s destruction. These things don’t go down easy, and it takes everything you’ve got when you battle against them. This book contains a lot of death, some amnesia, and even a tiny bit of trauma bonded family. At the end of it, I’m ready for the next book, and eager to see what else Fox has in store in terms of lore.

#science fiction #fantasy #magical tech #battles #space dragons #space battles #space magic #magical spaceships #book recommendations #book recs

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If the call to read diverse books gets you hot under the collar, I need you to lean into that discomfort a little and ask yourself the question: What would happen if I did?

First and foremost, let’s make sure we are on the same page about the diverse books effort. When someone says “Read more diversely,” what they are asking is for you to take the author into consideration when you are choosing your next read. It’s unfortunate that we live in a world where current prejudice and a long history of prejudice impact the day to day lives of minority groups, but the publishing industry is largely white, heteronormative, able bodied, and cis. We can uplift authors of color, disabled authors, and queer authors by purposefully looking for their books, especially when the publishing industry fails them time and time again.

This does not mean that you can’t read books by white, cis, straight authors. A focus is not an exclusion. All that is being asked is that alongside your normal reads, you intentionally branch out into more diverse writers.

Creating space for more diverse authors is important because people deserve to tell their own stories. Have you ever read something in your area of expertise and the author just got it so incredibly wrong? This happens with identity, too. Not only is it cringe worthy when someone outside the community gets the essence wrong, it can also be incredibly harmful by spreading destructive stereotypes. Allowing community members to tell stories about their community empowers them and helps to establish good representation in mainstream media.

Representation matters because every person deserves to see themselves well represented in a book they love. It’s so easy to feel alone, especially if you are part of a minority community. Books open up a window for us to feel more connected and to understand our identities. It’s no wonder that having positive representation has been shown to increase self-esteem.

Even if the representation isn’t your identity, it’s still incredibly important. Diversity is a teacher. We live in an age of echo chambers. It’s so easy to get sequestered into our own personalized bubble on the internet. Putting yourself in a place to listen to the stories of people different from yourself is vital for connecting with others, for understanding their struggles, and for building solidarity in our communities. It will stretch you in the best of ways.

And finally, if that wasn’t enough, we should read diverse because we deserve to read excellent stories. Diverse books are brilliant. They challenge the industry, inject new life blood into publishing, keep thing fresh and exciting. Diverse books are stunning. They are well written, and fun, and capture the imagination. Diverse books keep the humanity in publishing, because humanity is millions of unique facets joined together into a whole. Why would you limit yourself to just one?

#diverse books #read diversely #books #bookblr #thistle & nightshade #alyx the book dragon #annie the book wyrm

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If you’re craving some magic, we’ve got three recs for you.

#books #fantasy #science fiction #magic systems #magic #book dragon #bookblr #book recommendations #queer bookshop #fiction #alyx the book dragon