#ASKING for book reccomendations

[crossthread]

Okay but where are the actual published BOOKS with parent-child relationships??? Like there's so many fics written and fandoms for this trope but where are the BOOKS????? Like they gotta exist right?? It's just I obviously don't know them??? SO WHERE ARE THEY SOMEONE HIT ME PLES I BEG OF YOU THERAPY IS TOO EXPEN-

[anniflamma]

have you read (or did you enjoy) madeline miller's song of achilles? your post about the shitty book made me think to ask, cause i've been wanting to get into retelling/modern writing, but don't know where to start lol

So I don’t think I’m the right person to ask whether you should read The Song of Achilles or not. XD

I have read the book… buuut… I kinda didn’t finish it. Thing is, the book is good, no, really! Even though I dropped it, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad book per se, it’s just that I realized it wasn’t really written for me, and I lost interest in continuing.

There are a lot of good things in the book that I makes me genuinely recommend it. Miller has a fantastic way of describing emotions in a poetic, almost abstract manner. She paints scenes and moments beautifully, and I think that’s true the highlight of The Song of Achilles. So my verdict is you should give it a try! If not, then I'll could recommend you The Prince’s Psalm by Eric Shaw Quinn. Simply due to it's one of my favorites.

If you looking for something shorter, then Medusa by Jessie Burton.

Here’s the "nag section" (in case anyone’s curious why I dropped The Song of Achilles):

So the downside? The way Miller writes the queer relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is… very… very… heteronormative. It’s extremely clear that Patroclus is the "woman" and Achilles is the "man" in their dynamic. When they’re intimate, Achilles is the one doing and spurting, while Patroclus experiences "floral feelings" in his nether regions. The book isn’t explicit, but the text often accidentally describes them having straight sex. XD

There were so many moments while reading where I’d pause and think, "Oh, I can tell this is written by a straight woman who really likes the idea of a housewife." That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just the vibe I got. For comparison, when I read The Prince’s Psalm by Eric Shaw Quinn, I kept thinking, "This is written by a gay man who really loves tall, broad-shouldered, masculine men who make him feel small." It’s oddly similar to each other, Patroclus and David share the same character traits. Both are small insecure men, it’s just that the authors take different approaches to how they depict it.

The reason I dropped The Song of Achilles was that I just wasn’t interested in Patroclus being portrayed as this sweet, insecure, self-hating boy who sits in the tent all day and gets happy when Achilles comes back after a hard earnd work in the battlefield. I expected something more fluid in their dynamic. Don’t get me wrong, insecure protagonists are fine! For example, in The Prince’s Psalm, David is insecure too, but he also resents being seen as fragile by other men around him. The book explores that tension in David and Jonathan’s relationship. David kills Goliath not out of honor or duty, but because he wants to prove Jonathan wrong, even spite him, he did it out of anger. David is insecure, which also makes him envious. He gets angry easily but also quick to forgive. He is an romantic person, who loves the idea of Jonathan proposing to him and being swept up but he also wants to be seen as a "manly" man. He is faithful but when he have the conversation with Jonathan about their bounderies, they come to the conclution together who they can sleep with, no men and only women if you are married to them. David changes and the irony with it is that his change is also a cause why Jonathan died.

For Patroclus, I think he is very flat. He is incesure and he is a good boy. And sadly I really don't remember if there was anything else than that. Most of his reaction is based on Achilles actions. The reason why he is good with fighting is cuz gods are helping him. The reason why Achilles like Patroclus so much is... I don't know really, the text only describes how pretty Achilles is, it very superficial. Patroclus likes Achilles becasue Achilles isnt Patroclus.

Here’s the funny thing…

After all that, I still recommend The Song of Achilles! There's a reason why there are so many retelling books now. I genuinely believe The Prince's Psalm wouldn't have been published if The Song of Achilles hadn't existed. The book is a romanticization, and it was written around 2008 or so. That explains why Miller wrote them like that. I see the heteronormative dynamic between Achilles and Patroclus as simply a product of its time.

[queer-ragnelle]

Do you have a guide/a recommended reading list for getting into Arthurian legends? I’ve been really getting into it in the past few months but I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of the foundations of it. (If you don’t and this is too big of an ask totally feel free to ignore this lol)

EDIT: Beginner’s Guide to Medieval Arthuriana

hello, anon.

i don't currently although i have plans to add another page to my blog listing medieval texts as well as links to download pdfs of them. i have english translations of texts originating in belarussian, dutch, french, german, hebrew, italian, latin, middle english, and last but not least, welsh.

in the mean time, i've collected for you some key texts that are readily available to read for free online!

le morte d'arthur by sir thomas malory [part 1] [part 2]

the history of the britons by nennius [here]

the mabinogion translated by lady charlotte guest [here]

four romances by chrétien de troyes [here]

parzival by wolfram von eschenbach [part 1] [part 2]

the wedding of sir gawain and dame ragnelle translated by thomas hahn [here]

sir gawain and the green knight translated by j. r. r. tolkien [here]

better translations/formatting forthcoming! enjoy. :^)

[polyamzeal]

Hi, can you recommend books or articles or any reading material really that's been written by actual poly people. I think polyamory maybe something im interested in and I want to know more about how this relationship dynamic works before discussing it with my partner.

I am not sure how I have not done it yet but someday I need to make a master post of my review of every polyamory book. Until then, my personal favorite is The Smart Girl's Guide To Polyamory by Decker Winston. If not that then I would next recommend Ready For Polyamory by Laura Boyle.

[lavendarneverlands]

Favorite book palette cleansers?

What are your go to reads?

Like example: I finished a series & don’t yet want to get into a new fandom but need something to read. Or I read something that triggered me, grossed me out, or creeped me out & now I need something else to fill my brain with.

[reclusiarch-orm]

Is it rude to ask what you search to find references? You inspire me to draw beautiful men but I need terrible amounts of practice first

It isn't rude but I don't have an answer for you. I don't use references outside of like 80* (not 8 lol typo) anatomical diagrams and one old book of nude male photography (The Male Nude, David Leddick, Taschen). I check those if i forget exactly where the muscles are, never to draw the images themselves. Almost all my figures are "invented", nothing's referenced from a model. My studies might be referenced but i almost never post those and even then, i will only draw one study from an actual reference photo, and do the rest based on what i learn in the first one, to cement the absorbed information. Google images is good enough for that.

I can advise you to try to build that skillset yourself but again i can't point to any place with references because i don't know any. Google is polluted with AI. Best I got is to watch boxing and wrestling and other scantily clad combat sports, and pause the video. I watch these to see how muscles move and where they anchor etc. Drawing from reference is NOT a skill i would advise you cultivate, better that you learn how to remember and understand what the body looks like so you don't need them.

I know artists who can't draw something if they can't find a photo of the exact pose and that's a terrible limitation. I did nothing except study anatomy for 15 months as a teenager, to avoid that. It's definitely a skill that decays though, i have to flip through my anatomical diagrams a lot to keep it fresh. I think you can sort of see which pictures were made when i hadn't done that in a while lol.

you do need terrible amounts of practice. 15 months is what i did, anatomy and nothing else. build that base now. even with my 6 year hiatus i retain enough of that and it's a very worthwhile investment.

[artistic-arteries]

In a reading slump rn, anyone got some good uh.... Queer romance novel recommendations? Or should I just listen to One Last Stop again

[rjalker]

Do you have any recommendations as alternatives for TMBD? For me this has been my comfort series, one of which’s protagonist, setting and narrations I related to on so many levels and made me feel seen, especially the non-human and rejecting being human aspect, but after seeing your post and realizing the problems with the books (and author)’s attitude towards racism and ableism, as well as eugenics, it’s become clear to me this might not be something I want to emotionally invest in too deeply. I’m trying to look for something new but I don’t know how to find books with similar themes or focuses

It mostly depends, what are the specific parts of The Murderbot Diaries do you like best?

___

If you like the style of the narration, you may like this Public Domain story from 1960: The Lost Kafoozalum, by Pauline Ashwell. You will probably be astonished.

It's funny, it's got action, drama, and only one easily fixed flaw right at the very end. (you'll know it when you see it, and see why it's so easily fixed it may as well be a joke)

It is public domain, meaning it has no more copyright, so it's free to read at all times, and you can even publish it yourself or create continuations and publish those. Think of Dracula, Frankenstein, and most recently and famously, Mickey Mouse.

(Edit: You can now read The Lost Kafoozalum on the Internet Archive as well. It will probably take 30 minutes or so to load, but when it does you'll be able to listen to an automatically-generated audiobook too. I'm adding this link in when this post is 40 minutes old for the record, so it should be ready when this post is 2h old)

And I found that there's also more stories in this series, the first of which, Unwillingly to School, can be found in this book that you can borrow from the Internet Archive)

___

For one of the things Martha Wells read and was inspired by to create The Murderbot Diaries, there's The Imperial Radch series, by Ann Leckie, which is free to borrow from the Internet Archive.

It's everything The Murderbot Diaries wants to be but isn't because of Martha Wells' bigotry.

It's about many things. Gender. slavery. the right to self-determination. imperialism. and more.

It is much more...linguistically? complex than The Murderbot Diaries, though. TMBD is very light reading, and this actually requires paying strict attention. This mostly applies to the first three books, the two standalone novels are more relaxed.

Book 1: Ancillary Justice: https://archive.org/details/ancillaryjustice0000leck

Book 2: Ancillary Sword: https://archive.org/details/ancillarysword0000leck

Book 3: Ancillary Mercy: https://archive.org/details/ancillarymercy0000leck

Book 4 (standalone): Provenance: https://archive.org/details/provenance0000leck

Book 5 (standalone): Translation State: https://archive.org/details/translationstate0000leck

___

Also my twin @walks-the-ages says that "everything I ever wanted from The Murderbot Diaries is actually in Transformers fanfiction and has been for decades". So they recommend literally just looking for Transformers fanfiction even if you haven't watched any Transformers.

If there's specific genres you like, I can try to think of other recommendations.

In general I just highly recommend checking out Project Gutenberg , Standardebooks, The Internet Archive, and Librivox.

Free books, audiobooks, and books you can borrow. Everything on Project Gutenberg, Standardebooks, and Librivox is public domain, aka no copyright, which means you can share and download as many times as you want and publish your own versions or sequels.

The Internet Archive also has a ton of public domain stuff, but also lets you digitally borrow books from their library.

[acourtofquestions]

I don’t wanna read TOD honestly I just wanna skip to KOA. Would you say TOD is really worth it?

Thanks for the ask lovely😊

Unfortunately, I haven’t actually read ToD yet, so I have no idea. I’m just now on Part 2 of EoS… and will probably be starting ToD after… or in tandem depending on my library.😂

I can say some of my lovely mutual tumblr buddies have talked me through series orders and the majority of them have said ToD needs to be read (however there are a few that have said they skipped it). — Hopefully some of them can hop on this post and comment for ya :-)

Wishing you the best of luck & hope you enjoy! Looking forward to chatting more as I catch up! And congrats on finishing EoS btw!! 😄🫶

[penguicorns-are-cool]

So a lot of YA books don't reflect actual teenage/young adult lives and issues which I think is a big issue. A LOT of YA books have a heavy focus on romance, which is fine, but that means it can be hard to find books about literally anything else that happens in an adolescent's life like mental illness, friendships, college choices, hardships with school, any of these things but as a marginalized person. The YA books I read when I first started reading YA were not great and led me to develop not so great ideas about what I should be and do and what the world around me would be like and was all over not great for 8th grade me. So I want to start a thread listing good YA books.

If you see this, please please reblog with your recommendations.

Solitaire by Alice Oseman

Born This Way by Alice Oseman

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman (really anything by Alice Oseman)

Not so Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

Fat Angie by E.E. Charlton-Trujillo

The Summer of Impossibilities by Rachael Allen

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (yes it's good YA, fight me)

any riordanverse book

[sl-vega]

🐕: a sentence you read/wrote that stuck with you

"This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible."

(-from an upcoming sticking to the script chapter)

@cocomi, @uuyuomi, Y'ALL WANTED STTS UPDATES SO I'M GIVING YOU THOSE UPDATES

[anniflamma]

HEY ! okay so this is rlly random but i was wondering if u had any book .. well really any piece of media that has to do with ur interests and the ships you like? ik u get stuff from the bible and etc but i need more content of Jonathan and David , you have me invested.  😭

Heheh! You have come to the right place!

First of all, the book that truly put me in a chokehold is The Prince's Psalm by Eric Shaw Quinn.

I was hooked and read it in less than a week. I think it's really well written in both storytelling and character development.

Then we have Beloved King: A Queer Bible Musical by J. Sylvan. Right now, there is only a demo with 6 songs. But I'm really eager for it to get a full release one day.

Then we have the opera David et Jonathas by Charpentier! I know it's an opera, but seriously, it's really good, and I'm gonna be honest, the song when Jonathan dies made me ugly cry. It's an opera, so they play heavily on the tropes. Jonathan plays the almost feminine damsel and David is the hero. Saul is the over protective/paranoid father role.

I do have a much detailed review of these 3 adaptations from my Rating the most gayest King David adaptions. The other movies - adaptations there are for the memes.

Then we have books that I haven't read but want to: The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks and How Are the Mighty Fallen by Thomas Burnett Swann. I know that How Are the Mighty Fallen portrays David and Jonathan's relationship as romantic, but I'm not so sure about The Secret Chord. In case you are interested, you could take a look?

I also recommend non-fiction works such as Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel by Theodore W. Jennings Jr. This book focuses on ancient Canaanite culture and narrative storytelling, explaining why David and Jonathan would be considered queer in that time. It's really interesting and provides some key details. The author mostly talks about the dynamics between David/Jonathan, Samuel/Saul, and Elisha/Elijah. But he also discusses Joseph and his gender nonconformity, as well as Ruth/Naomi.

And this is kind of non-David/Jonathan related, but I do really recommend the podcast It's in the Book: A Queer Bible Podcast. It's by the same person who's making the Beloved King musical. It has only 2 seasons and covers only Genesis, but gosh… I learned so much about queer themes in the Bible that, well, nobody really talks about. Like God having a womb, or Rebecca being called a twink 20 times, or the idea that Joseph and Dinah's souls were switched in the womb, explaining why Joseph is very feminine presenting. It's genuinely a really good podcast.

[time-judged-all]

(pokes my head in) silver if you could what are some toku seasons youd reccomend (• •

!! Donbros most definitely but aside from that ex-aid and den-o I think you might enjoy as well :]

[crwbannwen]

I need to learn how to read again

Like there are so many books I've started reading and put down not because they were bad but because I've been conditioned to the idea that readining for pleasure is unproductive and now sitting to read gives me anxiety and the feeling like I'm not good enough and I'm wasting my life and I'm a waste of potential and everyone whose ever believed in me is going to be super disappointed in what I've become and now I can only listen to podcasts because I listen and crochet or something and that's at least somewhat productive and like why can't I just read again? How did I read when I was younger? oh yeah. Hour long bus rides to school. Maybe I need to get a job with a really long commute or something but my joints hurt too much for that and ahhhhhhhdkjfhisadfhadskjhfgiuwqguhifewkjdsnxc

Yeah I broke sorry

I'm torn between finding increasingly longer stories to read, just sitting in my library on Monday and not leaving until either it's 6pm or I finish a book or finding a new book that just grips me so hard I don't feel guilty. If it's good weather tomorrow I might try and read in my local druid circle

[delumineight]

heyyy after 10+ years of literally not thinking of HP at all I’ve accidentally reactivated my romione heart… I found you and you read fic! so I thought I’d shoot my shot on what I’m looking for specifically- just good, devastating post-battle fic, the “we’re both traumatized, but I love you so desperately��� type of fic- I’ve found (refound) some of the more iconic longer fics, but wondering what’s new out there in the last few years?

i… i reactivated your romione heart? shut up i’m going to cry omg??? i am trying my BESTEST to find this but i also have two of these in my drafts… no clue when they’ll be finished… do you want a one-hot, a few chapters, or a longggg multi-chap? i can tell you rn mine will only be one-shots because i cannot carry a plot oops ! hopefully these should occupy you for a moment while i find more one-shots and/or finish writing my own (you people need to write more angsty post-war one shots please i beg).

waking up by @hillnerd, 15/? chapters, nearly 170k words, also an australia fic but it is unfinished and i personally haven’t read all of it yet but if hillnerd wrote it, i’m sure it’s great.

what winning looks like series by chanel19, there’s four works in here and they’re all multi-chapter and insanely long, combined 405k words, i haven’t read anything except the first one but i trust that the rest is just as good i promise i’d never rec something that i had any doubts about

waves by sm_jl, one-shot, 1.4k words, listen the first part has the angst you asked for and the second part has the post-war you asked for !!!, i’ll never make a rec list without a shell cottage fic and i am soooooo not sorry about that

[lesbianp1lled]

Do you have more books you can recommend?

last night at the telegraph is my favourite lesbian book. i also liked delilah green doesn’t care, one of the characters is a lesbian and the other is bi. i wish it was les4les but alas not many books are. but delilah green doesn’t care does give a bit of a millennial feel to it which annoyed me however i still liked it