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Wanna read my book for free? I’m looking for ARC Readers!

ARC Applications are open for The Fall Before Flight!

An Advance Reader Copy is a free copy of an upcoming book that the author provides to the reader in exchange for an honest review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

Looking for fantasy readers who like or would be interested in:

Old school epic fantasies by authors like David Eddings and Robert Jordan.

Characters with disabilities, where the disabilities have an impact on the story.

Ride-or-Die Friendships that are so ride-or-die that it causes Problems (tm).

Immersive world-building and fantasy languages.

Non-spicy *SLOW* burn romances and unrequited love.

Strong female, LGBT+, and POC characters everywhere.

"War" in stories that is more about how characters are affected by the war than about the war itself.

A unique take on dragons/dragon folk.

Magic systems with consequences.

See the application for the blurb and content warnings!

If you're interested, please fill out the application below and I will get back to you soon! I’m taking ARC readers on an ongoing basis throughout June.

ARC Application

(Even if you don’t want to be a reader, please share if you have any fantasy-book-loving followers!)

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Some observations on book covers

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Started using phone time to read library ebooks instead of scrolling and it’s made me back into the crazy voracious reader I was at age 12. i’ve been averaging a book a day this week. everyone delete your social media and get your ass on libby

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gnc/butch woman literature masterpost

the op of this post was a terf so i’m reposting it because i think these resources are important and useful!! i have not read all of these resources myself, so let me know if there’s an issue with any of them and i’ll remove it!

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LESBIAN FICTION-

Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg [pdf]

Crybaby Butch - Judith Frank

Far from Xanadu - Julie Anne Peters

Persistent Desire - Joan Nestle

Annie on my mind- Nancy Garden

Keeping you a secret- Julie Anne Peters

Leaving L.A.- Kate Christie

Me and you and daisies- Lily R. Mason

The world unseen- Shamim Sarif

Wildthorn- Jane England

Tipping the velvet- Sarah Waters

Dare truth or promise- Paula Boock

And Playing the role of herself- K.E. Lane

Hunter’s Way- Gerri Hill

Ash- Malinda Lo

The price of Salt- Patricia Highsmith

Patience & Sarah- Isabel Miller

The Gravity between us- Kristen Zimmer

Her name in the sky- Kelly Quindlen

Taking the long way- Lily R. Mason

Fingersmith- Sarah Waters

Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour

She’s My Ride Home - Jackie Bushore

NONFICTION-

Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book by Ginny Vida

Lesbian/Woman by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon

Family Values: Two Moms and Their Son by Phyllis Burke

Inseparable: Desire between Women in Literature by Emma Donoghue, (Knopf)

My Lesbian Husband: Landscape of a Marriage by Barrie Jean Borich

Butch is a Noun, by S. Bear Bergman.- a collection of essays written by the author exploring what it means to be butch

Dagger: On Butch Women, edited by Lily Burana and Roxxie Linea Due.

The Persistent Desire, A Femme-Butch Reader, edited by Joan Nestle.

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme, edited by Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, by Lillian Faderman

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold- Elizabeth Kennedy & Madeline Davis

COOL WEBSITES:

Lesbian Herstory Archives - this is the coolest website ever for browsing stuff about lesbians in history

(and Here’s a link for the Lesbian Herstory Archives’ audio tapes collection, its really cool check it out! Great for finding interesting stuff if u dont know what to read/listen to and would like to kill some time :D !)

The Lesbrary - super cool blog dedicated to lesbian literature

Good Lesbian Books-  cool website. Heres a link to their list of Free Stuff :)

Books to watch out for - lesbian book reviews and literary news

Lesbian Fiction Review

Lesbian Science Fiction

Sistahs on the Shelf - Cool site dedicated to Black Lesbian fiction. Reviews, News, Recommendations, Authors n more

Canadian Lesbian Book Blog

Biblioteca Feminista - Books/ book recommendations in Spanish, English, French, Portuguese and Italian

List of Lesbian Authors’ sites

Lesbian full-text works on the web - list of lesbian content available for free on the web. Mostly older works

LGBT books for teens

UK Lesbian Fiction

Women and Words - site devoted to bringing news, interviews, writing tips, giveaways and more

The Book Dyke blog

LGBT Romance Novels

Lesbian History Bibliography

Bella Books

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“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin

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The extent of any cuts at the agency, and potential legal challenges to them, remain unclear. But Paula Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association, the largest association of teachers and researchers in the humanities, said the move was part of the administration’s “larger attack on education,” including an executive order aimed at shuttering the Department of Education.

Museums and libraries, Ms. Krebs said, are the main places where members of the public engage in lifelong learning, outside of any formal school.

“I worry this is an attack on the idea that you should have an educated electorate,” she said. “It’s just terrifying.”

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🔥 The beacons are lit; the library calls for aid

The Trump administration has issued an executive order aimed at dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services - the ONLY federal agency for America's libraries.

Using just 0.003% of the federal budget, the IMLS funds services at libraries across the country; services like Braille and talking books for the visually impaired, high-speed internet access, and early literacy programs.

Libraries are known for doing more with less, but even we can't work with nothing.

How You Can Help:

🔥 Call your congressperson!

Use the app of your choice or look 'em up here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

Pro tip: If your phone anxiety is high, call at night and leave a voicemail. You can even write yourself a script in advance and read it off. Heck, read them this post if you want to.

Phones a total no-go? The American Library Association has a form for you: https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=23577

🔥Tell your friends!

Tell strangers, for that matter. People in line at the check out, your elderly neighbor, the mail carrier - no one is safe from your library advocacy. Libraries are for everyone and we need all the help we can get.

...Wait, why do we need this IMLS thing again?

The ALA says it best in their official statement and lists some ways libraries across the country use IMLS funding:

But if you want a really specific answer, here at LCPL we use IMLS funding to provide our amazing interlibrary loan service. If we can't purchase an item you request (out of print books, for example) this service lets us borrow it from another library and check it out to you.

IMLS also funds the statewide Indiana Digital Library and Evergreen Indiana, which gives patrons of smaller Indiana libraries access to collections just as large and varied as the big libraries' collections.

As usual, cutting this funding will hurt rural communities the most - but every library user will feel it one way or another. Let's let Congress know that's unacceptable.

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aro & ace books: asian authors (YA)

this is about the author's identity, not necessarily the characters!

Dear Wendy - contemporary - Chinese American - 2 aroace MCs

Summer Bird Blue - contemporary - Japanese American - aro/ace questioning MC

Everyone Hates Kelsie Miller - contemporary/romance - Korean-American - demi MC

Meet Cute Diary - contemporary/romance - mixed-race Japanese American - ace LI

Two Can Play That Game - contemporary/romance - Malaysian/Singaporean Australian - demi-coded MC

Foul Lady Fortune - historical/sff - Chinese New Zealander - 1/2 demi MC, aroace SC

The Spider And Her Demons - paranormal - Malaysian Chinese Australian - aroacespec-coded MC

Not Your Backup - superhero/dystopia - Chinese-Vietnamese American - aroacespec MC (book 3, Latine character)

The Siren The Song and the Spy - fantasy - Japnese American - two of the many MCs are aroace

Tell Me How It Ends - fantasy - Chinese Australian - arospec ace secondary MC

Stuck In Her Head - contemporary - Taiwan, Hong Kong - 1/2 aroace MC

Scavenge The Stars - fantasy - Indian American - demi-coded MC, aroace SC

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

info included here is brief! please see my database for full details of the books

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Image from Dark Horse. Text in image reads:

"Effective February 24th, 2025, we have closed Dark Horse Digital. Sales are no longer offered on the DHD website. But, you can still log in and read the comics in your bookshelf. Support for the Dark Horse Comics and Plants vs. Zombies Comics apps for iOS will end March 31st, 2025. We encourage app users to download the books in their bookshelves by March 30th, 2025. The ability to download to your device cannot be guaranteed after that date. For access through the website, users without DHD accounts should create one and sync it to the app by March 30th, 2025. We appreciate our fans and regret the inconvenience and disappointment caused by this news. We know you have questions so please go to our Frequently Asked Questions page for more information. -- The Dark Horse Digital Team"

[source] [link to FAQ]

Some further info from the FAQ (there is more in the FAQ, the below are just some quoted portions of it):

"Users can continue to log in to the website and read the comics in their bookshelves. We plan for online access to the DHD website to be available at least through summer, 2025." --- "Q. Did I lose access to my comics collection? A. You can continue to log in to the DHD website and read the comics in your bookshelf. We plan for online access to be available at least through summer, 2025. When the website is eventually retired, online access will end." --- "Q. Do I own the comics in my bookshelf? A. Technically, you do not. As with Kindle, Nook, and other e-book companies, you license the right to read the book on supported and authorized devices." --- "Q. Can I download comics from the website? Can you send me PDFs? A. Unfortunately, we are unable to allow downloads to your computer or provide PDFs." --- "Q. Can I get a refund? A. We are able to offer refunds for 2025 transactions made on the website. The deadline to request a refund is April 30, 2025." --- "If you don’t’ have a DHD account, you can create one using this LINK. Note: The ability to create a new DHD account will end on March 31, 2025."

[source]

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A declassified World War II-era government guide to “simple sabotage” is currently one of the most popular open source books on the internet. The book, called “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” was declassified in 2008 by the CIA and “describes ways to train normal people to be purposefully annoying telephone operators, dysfunctional train conductors, befuddling middle managers, blundering factory workers, unruly movie theater patrons, and so on. In other words, teaching people to do their jobs badly.”  Over the last week, the guide has surged to become the 5th-most-accessed book on Project Gutenberg, an open source repository of free and public domain ebooks. It is also the fifth most popular ebook on the site over the last 30 days, having been accessed nearly 60,000 times over the last month (just behind Romeo and Juliet). 

Link to the Guide at Project Gutenberg can be found here

A Wikisource entry can be found here.

Mirrors can be found here, here, here, here and here.

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Fascism thrives on ignorance and anti-intellectualism. Here are some ways you can combat it:

There is an ongoing literacy crisis. Teach kids how to read phonetically (other methods produce poor literacy) and introduce them to fun books, both fiction and educational non-fiction.

Teach kids about critical thinking and the scientific method.

You can also introduce kids to edutainment like Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, The Magic Schoolbus, Bill Nye The Science Guy, Beakman's World, etc.

Help kids develop media literacy skills by asking them literary analysis questions about the media they engage with. Even very young children can begin learning literary analysis if the questions are phrased in words they can understand.

Learn and help other people learn information literacy, ie, how to locate and evaluate information.

Learn the red flags of pseudoscience, and educate other people about them.

Educate people and share media on real science and real history, because fascist narratives are full of pseudoscience and pseudohistory. (Miniminuteman, Gutsick Gibbon and Bart D. Ehrman's YouTube channel are great, by the way!)

Make learning a joyful experience, and show people the beauty and wonder of what's real. Being a discouraging killjoy will spoil your efforts.

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Exciting news - Common Bonds is getting a sequel anthology! more aromantic & platonic stories!

The kickstarter will launch February 16 for #AroWeek. if you're interested in helping promote, sign up here!

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« If you have to ask yourself where you will find the time to read, it means the desire isn’t there. Because no one has the time to read. Children don’t, teenagers don’t, adults don’t. Life is a perpetual obstacle to reading.

“Reading, I’d love to, but what with my job, the kids, the housework, I don’t have the time.” “You have so much time to read—I envy you!”

How is it that Ms X, who works, runs errands, raises kids, drives her car, loves three men, goes to her dentist appointment, is moving next week—how is it that she finds the time to read […]?

Time spent reading is always time stolen. Like time spent writing, for that matter, or time spent loving. Stolen from what? Let’s say, from the duty of living. Which is probably why the subway—this stinking symbol of the duty of living—is the world’s largest reading room.

Time spent reading, like time spent loving, increases our lifetime.

If we were to consider love from the point of view of our schedule, who would bother? Who among us has time to fall in love? Yet have you ever seen someone in love not take the time to love?  I’ve never had the time to read. Yet nothing has ever stopped me from finishing a novel I loved. 

Reading doesn’t belong to the societal organisation of time. Like love, it is a way of being. The issue is not whether or not I have the time to read (no one will ever give me that time) but whether or not I will gift myself the happiness of being a reader. »

— Daniel Pennac, Better Than Life

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apropos of nothing, here are some gay historical fiction novels that engage with historical queerness in thoughtful, complex, and interesting ways (organized chronologically)

hild by nicola griffith ↪ early 7th century england

a tip for the hangman by alison epstein ↪ 1585-1593 england

confessions of the fox by jordy rosenberg ↪ 1702-1724* england

the confessions of frannie langton by sara collins ↪ 1812-1826 jamaica to england

patience and sarah by isabel miller ↪ 1816 america

devotion by hannah kent ↪ 1830s prussia to australia

the sweetness of water by nathan harris ↪ 1865 america

whiskey when we're dry by john larison ↪ 1885 america

the city of palaces by michael nava ↪ 1897-1913 mexico

tipping the velvet by sarah waters ↪ 1890s england

at swim, two boys by jamie o'neill ↪ 1915-1916 ireland

the gods of tango by caro de robertis ↪ 1913-1920s argentina

uncommon charm by emily bergslien and kat weaver ↪ 1920s america

the book of salt by monique truong ↪ 1930s vietnam to paris

the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay by michael chabon ↪ 1939-1954 america and beyond

the flight portfolio by julie orringer ↪ 1940 france

the savage kind by john copenhaver ↪ 1940s america

a thin bright line by lucy jane bledsoe ↪ 1950s america

*this one has a framing device and footnotes from the present day but the bulk of the story is set in the early 1700s

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The Stones Stay Silent by Danny Ride

Leiander is an asexual trans man in a world ruled by strict religious doctrine that dictates even stricter gender roles. When a plague breaks out across the land, the priestesses of his village blame him - and his gender non-conformity - for bringing it upon them. With the help of a friendly demon, Kevv'ach, Lei is able to escape their attempts at conversion therapy and flee his village. He determines to make a pilgrimage to the great stone lith in Horizon, said to be a conduit of the gods' power, with the hope that has the power to change his body to match his gender. 

The story follow's Lei's journey from his small village, to a larger town where he spends a winter working for a very nice couple who run a less nice inn. All the while he is confronted with the effects of the plague, and the drastic measures the Church is going to to halt its spread (with little success). When at last he reaches Horizon things there are only worse. And it turns out that the Church may be keeping secrets of its own which, if revealed, could alter the course of history.

This is very much a character-driven story rather than a plot-driven one. It is entirely focused on Leiander and his journey, both physical and emotional. It is meandering and slow, but I never felt like it dragged. The world is so well realized that I simply enjoyed learning about it alongside Lei and Kevv. There are moments of action and excitement, scenes that are tense or frightening, but these are few and far between. Lei's journey is long and sometimes monotonous, as real life often is. I personally enjoyed the slow pace of the novel, the gradual exploration of the world, meeting the diversity of people in it, and the lingering suspicions that lead up to a reveal. If that is the sort of book you enjoy, then I think you would enjoy this one, but if you're looking for an action-packed adventure with a huge climax, this is not the story for you.

Also there are recipes at the end! I wanna make them.