#brown man of the muirs

[moneteres]

Alien Infeysion 10: Brown Man of the Muirs x Atmospheric Jellyfish

11/03/22 - Two witnesses were hunting birds in the moors when Witness A caught a glimpse of the entity, appearing first as a red star twisting through the clouds like a ball of fire. As the entity moved closer Witness A reports it appearing more like a jellyfish with arms of withered bracken and wild eyes. The entity howled like wind, Witness A speculated this was in disapproval of the hunt. Hundreds of wild berries and nuts rained on the area, seemingly coming from the entity. The entity extended a tentacle to Witness A, but she was quickly pulled back by Witness B and the entity disappeared. Witness B reports the entity salivating through hidden teeth underneath it’s “hood”. Within the year, Witness A has disappeared, and Witness B reports catching “light pulses” in the corner of her eye. 

[legend-collection]

Brown Man of the Muirs

In the folklore on the Anglo-Scottish border, the Brown Man of the Muirs is a dwarf who serves as a guardian spirit of wild animals.

Also is a Folklore story, called "Brown Man of the Moor" in the Richardson's Table Book in the 19 century according to Publications of the Folklore Society of North England, where appear the creatures: boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins and brown men.

Pic by Brian Froud

William Henderson provides an account of the Brown Man and a pair of hunters in Folklore of the Northern Counties (1879), taken from a letter sent by the historian Robert Surtees to Sir Walter Scott:

In the year before the Great Rebellion two young men from Newcastle were sporting on the high moors above Elsdon, and at last sat down to refresh themselves in a green glen near a mountain stream. The younger lad went to drink at the brook, and raising his head again saw the "Brown man of the Muirs", a dwarf very strong and stoutly built, his dress brown like withered bracken, his head covered with frizzled red hair, his countenance ferocious, and his eyes glowing like those of a bull. After some parley, in which the stranger reproved the hunter for trespassing on his demesnes and slaying the creatures who were his subjects, and informed him how he himself lived only on whortleberries, nuts, and apples, he invited him home. The youth was on the point of accepting the invitation and springing across the brook, when he was arrested by the voice of his companion, who thought he had tarried long, and looking round again "the wee brown man was fled." It was thought that had the young man crossed the water the dwarf would have torn him to pieces. As it was he died within the year, in consequence, it was supposed, of his slighting the dwarf's admonition, and continuing his sport on the way home.

Walter Scott in a return letter to Surtees suggested that the Brown Man may be related to the duergar (dwarfs) of Northumberland.

In folklore the Brown Man appears as a solitary fairy, but in fairy tale literature he is a member of a tribe of similar beings. They once lived all over England and Scotland, but in the wake of human progress they dwindled in number and now live in a cave in Cumberland. Known as the Brown Men of the Moors and Mountains, they have great strength that allows them to hurl small boulders. By day they mine the mountains for gold and diamonds, and by night they feast in their underground hall or dance on the moors. They kidnap human children and kill any man they catch alone in the wilderness. However, they can be made subservient by repeating the incantation, "Munko tiggle snobart tolwol dixy crambo".

[trefoilwombat]

Insta: bardoleather

[pinkipecac]

365 Days of Drawing: Year 9

Day 342- Jun 6th, 2024

© Ethan H Hutchinson

[paladinbaby]

running home

tamsyn muir / plainwater: essays and poetry, anne carson / camp damascus, @drchucktingle / @grasslandgirl / temporary job, minnie bruce pratt / the stream of life, clarice lispector / mirror traps, hera lindsay bird / our curious position, charles bukowski / @heavensghost / @toli-a

[Image Description: Ten images of text.

1: Cream text on a dark brown background. “You were so afraid she might touch you. You were so afraid anyone might touch you. You had always been afraid of anyone touching you, and had not known your longing flinch was so obvious to those who tried it.”

2: “”I suppose you do love me, in your way,” I said to him one night close to dawn when we lay on the narrow bed. “And how else should I love you-in your way?” he asked. I am still thinking about that.”

3: A photo of a page of a book. “I’ve been plodding about through this journey like a disembodied spirit: no family, friends or community left to remind me I actually exist. I was starting to think that I might’ve just disappeared completely, a phantom in some endless loop of unfinished business.

But I’m not a ghost, and someone who knows that has finally caught sight of me. Whether or not I fully recognise him is inconsequential.”

4: “people notice and people care and they’ll help if you let them. (will you let them? will they try to help, next time? what id, one day, they don’t try?)”

5: “Leaving again. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be / grieving. The particulars of place lodged in me, / like this room I lived in for eleven days, / how I learned the way the sun laid its palm / over the side window in the morning, heavy / light, how I’ll never be held in that hand again.”

6: “I’m restless and harsh and / despairing. Although I do have / love inside me. I just don’t know / how to use love. Sometimes it / tears at my flesh, like barbs.”

7: “there is something wrong with you / there is something wrong with you that is also wrong with me” There is a lot of space between the two lines and they’re both highlighted in blue.

8: Black text on a pale green background. “I think of myself forever sitting upon the edge of the bed”

9: A photo of bright green bushes in the woods. A white subtitle at the bottom reads “You still have time to change”

10: “What’s that quote? There are only two kinds of stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.” End ID.]

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Writeblr Re(rere)intro that's a year late!

Hi! I'm Pax, and I write Big Books that keep getting darker and darker in subject matter 🎉🎉

Basics about me:

he/him or they/them, Mid 20s

Favorite genres: Fantasy, SciFi, Horror, Mystery

Favorite authors: N. K. Jemisin, Tamsyn Muir, Brandon Sanderson, Pierce Brown, Samantha Shannon

Other things I do: Digital art (including commissions!), Twitch streams (usually art or writing sprints, occasionally video games), digital art assets and fonts (PWYW on Ko-Fi!)

Basics about my WIPs:

THE MILLENNIUM SAGA

High fantasy/Steampunk epic, 8 books planned. Book one: Firebreathers (160k words; ~700 pages) Book two: Echoseers (148k words; ~600 pages) Book three: Goddess-Touched (15k as of posting; 3rd attempt at drafting) First person, Multi POV What starts as a simple rebellion against their local Citylord becomes a flight - and fight - for their lives, as Ember Timber, their family, and their newfound friends are forced to flee overseas from the vengeful general who will stop at nothing to earn her Eternal King's favor, and will in fact relish hunting her own son and grandchildren for sport. But along the way, the crew learns that the Eternal King's immortality was not granted in return for his success as the Chosen One long ago, as they have always been told - and the sacrifice for such a thing is not only paid dearly in blood, but on its way to being repeated.

WHISPERS

Dark fantasy Noir. Currently with beta readers. 172k words; ~750 pages. First person, Dual POV. Set in the same world as Millennium Saga, ~5 years after the series concludes. Marika Swiftfoot owes her life to the Shadow of Fowden, the sorceress leader of a terroristic crime syndicate based in the north pole. When the man she once loved finally comes to collect on that life debt ten years later, she plans to kill him the moment it's safe. Too soon, after all, and everyone else she's ever loved will join him beyond the Veil. But hate isn't the only feeling that lingers between them, and when they're offered another way out of their debts, the lives of a few innocents looks like a bargain compared to the life of cruelty ahead of them. Lorelei has been hunting the Shadow for twenty years, and looking for the sister who disappeared for thirty. And here, names are legacies: she wants to earn Hopebringer before her legs give out for good, to erase the stain her father's name has left with Vowbreaker. And for that, she sees one way forward: she must never break her vows, no matter how small. The Shadow must die, and the Whispers with her. Her sister must be found, even if all that's left to find is a story. She must find answers for every case she takes on, even if she doesn't know so much as the name of the man who's gone missing.

THE LOST

Space opera webcomic. First scene fully illustrated; will release once the first chapter is complete, a week after Patrons receive the final scene. In the far reaches of space, the term "Media Empire" is quite literal; the Watchers have extended their influence throughout their galaxy filament with the help of their beloved Coliseum, and the Champion therein. After all, having a shapeshifter capable of replicating anything leads to some gruesome, spectacular fights, made all the more heartrending when they are the last of their kind, trapped in the ship molded from their kin's corpse. But while the Watchers have total control over what happens in the pit, they cannot predict the audience. And they certainly cannot predict the malfunctioning psychic implant of an assassin in the front row, and the loss of both opponents and a long-time prisoner of war to the escape.

I also post art of all of these semi-regularly, including in-progress stuff, as well as excerpts and rambling braindumps!! I'm also a huge worldbuilding nerd, so if you ever want to learn more about the worlds I'm writing, don't be afraid to ask!! I love talking about them :D

Boosts are appreciated <3 tell me about your own WIPs in the tags/replies/wherever!! I love learning about what people are working on!

[nocnitsa]

Brian Froud & Alan Lee, "Brown Man of the Muirs," Faeries, Watercolor, pencil, gouache, 1978.

[feraldogbites]

(   go  min  si,  cis  woman,  she/her  )     PARK  YEJI   :   the  thirty  year  old  resident  that's  been  around  the  MUIR WOODS   for  two  months.  when  the  infected  swarmed  the  streets  the  first  night,  YEJI  really  proved  how  resourceful  +  courageous  they  were.  however,  many  would  argue  that  they  can  also  be  quite  obsessive  +  unpredictable.  five  years  has  passed  since  their  old  life  ended  and  the  new  one  began,  developing  skills  that  have  helped  them  become  THE PROPHET within  their  group.  it  makes  sense  to  see  them  thriving  at  the  job  because  of  their  vast  knowledge  of  drugs  + prophetic dreams + manipulative nature.

𝙗𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙨 …

name. park yeji. nicknames. yeji, crayji (behind her back ), the prophet. age. thirty. gender, pronouns. cis woman, she / her. dob.  6th of june. pob.  jeju island, south korea. sexuality. pan romantic + sexual. role. medical / nursing student. weapon of choice.  sweet words, brainwashing:) but otherwise glock 17 with three bullets left.

𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙨 …

height. 165 cm ( 5'4 ). hair style. black, pint - straight hair. length depends on arc ! eyes. brown, appear black in certain light. tattoos. none. piercings. standard lobes, doesn’t wear them. fc. go minsi.

𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 …

mother.  hwayoung ( presumed dead ). father. unknown. siblings. only - child.

𝘣𝘪𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘺 … tw cult, toxic relationships, torture, murder, ask to tag !

yeji was born to a single mother in jeju island, south korea. her mother has always been a mess and yeji’s birth didn’t evoke any kind of a change in character.

when she was three, they moved to busan with her mother’s new boyfriend  — a leech of a man who liked to drink and gamble and cheat, yet hwayoung’s low self - esteem made her stay & endure whatever he came up with. to be fair, they matched each other’s crazy just the right amount and became the sample of a perfect relationship for yeji.

their turbulent relationship lasted for eight years until one fateful night their apartment’s front door was kicked down by masked men who trashed & stole their things and dragged her mother’s boyfriend away. yeji has never seen him again, and later learnt that he has been mercilessly tortured and murdered for owing a lot of money to a lot of very dangerous people.

anyway, life went on. it certainly did for yeji, always a quiet child, the observer, the outsider — never inside, always outside — she had a hard time making friends anywhere they moved to. too weird, too peculiar, too creepy — the kids said, pointing and whispering. she, hurt and angry, in turn dreamt of their demise that never came. instead bitterness nestled into her insides.

she runs away from home at 17, but is it really running away when no one’s looking for you? yet, she finally finds her people — a group she fits in. they’re weird and eccentric and peculiar just like her, but in a cool way, in a way that other ordinary people look up to and follow. the whole ordeal is cult-y, though no one ever says it outloud. 

they teach her things she wouldn’t learn elsewhere, or so they say, about medicine and drugs and their effects on human’s body and under their orders, she sells them on the shadow market. though, she also learns other languages, like english and mandarin, which she masters in no time.

yeji returns home a day after her 26th birthday. she goes back to school, gets her high school diploma and either by sheer luck, or other powerful force, gets accepted into university majoring in nursing. her goal is to work in a nursing home -  being the one in charge, people needing her more than she needs them for once.

she’s on an internship in san francisco the day the world ends. she join a group after group, but they always crumble, always perish. then she becomes a loner, wandering and wondering if this doom is not a sign of something else, something otherworldly. yeji gets absorbed by these thoughts, delusional.

she eventually created a cult in the muir woods, declaring herself a prophet ( or the followers do after some time ), claiming she can talk to and control the infected. the cult is it's diapers, but slowly and surely want to overtake the rest of the settlements.

tld; yeji is a disturbed individual who believes in her own greatness and immortality, the whisperer of the undead, if you will. she leads a cult small in number, but ( mostly ) devoted to the cause. aims to create the perfect society in this new world, the infected used as a cattle, tools for the humanity rather than something feared. those who resist will be sacrificed to contribute to the new eco-system <3

visuals. musings. headcanons. threads. connections.

[praesxdium]

a dream within a dream ,

( kyle gallner, cis male, he/him ) GUNNER BOONE : the thirty-four year old resident that's been around the MUIR WOODS for two months. when the infected swarmed the streets the first night, Boone really proved how bold + creative they were. however, many would argue that they can also be quite reckless + obsessive. five years has passed since their old life ended and the new one began, developing skills that have helped them become a DISCIPLE within their group. it makes sense to see them thriving at the job because of their devotion and sacrificial ways.

tw: addiction, cult talk, very questionable mental health

BASICS:

NAME : gunner joe boone  ALIAS: boone GENDER: cis man ORIENTATION: yes AGE :  34 DATE  OF  BIRTH : march 19, 1990 PLACE OF BIRTH :  lambert, mississippi  EDUCATION :  dropped out of high school beginning of sophomore year OCCUPATION : disciple of yeji in the cult FACECLAIM :  kyle gallner

PHYSICAL:

HAIR COLOR :  medium brown EYE  COLOR :  blue HEIGHT :  5'10 WEIGHT :  170 lbs  BUILD :   average build with decently formed muscles from hard labor jobs SCENT :  sweat, dirt, tobacco on good days CLOTHING :  baggy pants, flannels, and whatever he can find. HAIR STYLE :  long and shaggy, often worn partially pulled back

INTERNAL:

MENTAL HEALTH : addiction to drugs, nicotine, and alcohol. struggling greatly given the climate. obsessive tendencies. EMOTIONAL STABILITY : very unstable  POSITIVE  TRAITS : adaptive, resourceful, devoted, bold, creative NEGATIVE TRAITS :  manipulative, impulsive, violent, reckless   

FAMILY:

FATHER :  gary boone ( deceased ) MOTHER :  louanne boone ( deceased ) SIBLINGS :  three younger siblings, whereabouts/status unknown  PARTNERS :  only yeji on the mind right now ( not a thing, but in his head, he's hers ) , but past partners are a plenty

HEADCANONS:

1) After dropping out of high school, Boone was kicked out of his parents' house after a brutal fight with his father. As a result, the young man couch hopped at various friends' houses before decided to hit the road. He hitchhiked around the US, working odd jobs, getting in trouble for all sorts of crimes, but never staying in one place too long. Home had become a foreign concept: Until he found the Cult. 2) He was homeless in San Francisco when the outbreak started. Having been knowledgeable about living on the streets, Boone did surprisingly well for himself. He knew how to sneak into places without getting caught, resulting in him finding some pretty dope places to hunker down in for long periods of time. 3) Eventually, Boone would find himself joining the Cult after Yeji, the Prophet, spoke to him in a dream. Or so he claimed. He claimed dreams of this woman for weeks until he found her in the forest. It was the start of his complete devotion to her--and the start of his obsession. Vowing to do anything and everything the Prophet asks of him, Boone is a dangerous man who would give his life, and the lives of others, if Yeji only asks. They are the Chosen Ones, and he will help to see to it that the world knows.

"MY LIFE FOR YOU."

[mothfishing]

i never read tlt myself but i have a bunch of friends who have and have been begging me to read it to and so i’m super confused ??? i have never heard about the racism…

anonymous asked: can u tell me about the racist elements of tlt... id never heard this before and i follow a lot of people who talk about the series a lot

anonymous asked: I hope this isn't rude but what even is the deal w the locked tomb. I remember vaguely hearing abt it being like "the best shit ever" and then that it had some really intense scenes/Themes then learning the creator was a grade A creep and then like nothing. What is even going on in the book???

yeah ofc! lumping all three of you's questions together since it's essentially the same one (also at #3 it's not rude)

oh god where do i start...so i read the first book and hated it pretty early on, but my intention had been to read the entire series so i could more completely express what was so grimy about it, since this book gets a lot of praise. despite my best efforts it was too rancid and i stopped partway through book 2.

thus i'll focus on book 1 criticisms first cause that's the book i finished, but i do have some series-wide criticisms as well. warnings for racism, pedophilia, ableism:

the author has this absolute obsession with physical features, and in particular she frequently praises features associated with whiteness while denigrating features associated with people of color. like constantly constantly constantly you see blue, purple, and hazel eyes given loving descriptions like amethyst, violet, while brown eyes are almost exclusively compared to dirt whenever they're mentioned.

only two characters in the first book are described as brown-skinned, jeannemary and colum. jeannemary is a "brown, bricklike thing", and colum is a yellow-brown lump. gideon's own personality is stupid horny idiot who's only good for her strength, which uh...A Choice given that, while she isn't described as brown in the first book, the cover art does still depict her with brown skin and harrow with light skin.

i'll also note that colum and one other character, silas, are both from the eighth house. outside of the book muir said they were both white, but in-book they're quite frankly associated with caricatures of east asian people to the extent that best case scenario is she used said caricatures to prop up her depiction of white people you weren't meant to like. like........in particular i wanna note silas constantly reciting religious mantras, as well as their description as "violently servile", which is so strongly associated w caricatures of east asian people. and once again she literally describes colum as yellow,

the post didn't mention it bc i wrote it in 2 seconds out of frustration, but it's also astonishingly ableist to the point where, while reading, i got frustrated and made a list of every time a symptom came up so gideon could insult whoever had it................arthritis, osteoporosis, blindness, hyperthyroidism, all of these came up as insults. "oh but the first three are because they're old" do you have to bring up conditions associated with elderly people???

plus cytherea is a character with a romantic terminal illness, constantly described as beautiful because of her frail (and white, blond, blue-eyed) body...im disabled myself i'm not saying disabled people can't be described as beautiful/hot/etc, but it felt fetishistic here and like the focus was less on her personhood and more on how she was weak and "rescuable" basically.

i'll also note the age gap between palamedes and dulcinea, people who literally met when they were 8 and 15, which was romanticized as "oh dulcinea took his feelings seriously because she's used to not being taken seriously because of her illness :)"

now series-wide...i didn't get to this myself so i don't have a whole lot to elaborate here, but the whole thing is a christian imperial empire run by a māori man and i just don't trust a white kiwi with that sorry.

also-also i'm not a lesbian/wlw at all myself, but friends of mine who are read the book with me and we noted gideon was. not even butch. both her presentation and protector role had been foisted upon her by someone who did not let her forget she owned her. everyone talking abt lesbian rep and then the main couple is a master and servant whose culminating arc in the first book is gideon becoming the perfect servant...also once again, harrow is light skinned and gideon is brown skinned.

finally, tamsyn muir has written even more explicit creep shit so i just genuinely don't know why it is she got popular in the first place. you don't need to know this to despise her work, but wow! (sorry to the person whose reblog this is, op deleted)

[ignitesthestxrs]

are you a kiwi? I'm american myself, but honestly feel like I haven't seen enough kiwis talk about the locked tomb (though i think im partly just missing most of the discourse anyway somehow??)..

if you ever feel like layin out some more thoughts ab tlt id love to read em! <3

i am a kiwi! there is a small but thriving kiwi sf/f community, but overall people are not...terribly online, or terribly into fiction lol. i definitely know there are kiwi fans of the series out there but in general i can imagine most of them simply not wanting to get into it. i don't really want to get into it! i just saw a reply on a post i reblogged and lost my mind about it for a couple of seconds.

as a pākehā/white kiwi i am like, both protective of these books, critical of them, and kind of ill-equipped to be the person criticising how māori characters and māoritanga/māori culture is depicted in them.

tamsyn muir is a pākehā author writing māori characters that she didn't initially identify as such getting like,,,increasingly more māori in depiction as the books go on and she learns more about the general consensus on how white people should write characters of colour. and those māori characters are involved in instituting, recreating, participating in a uh....very roman? sort of societal structure? and in the latest book there's this further māorification of Jod while also depicting him as a radical under fire from the government in a compound, and act which has both deep historical and very recent (2007!!)roots in aotearoa nz culture.

this māorification of gideon too with the prince kiriona stuff is also: something. what is it? i don't know. i don't think it's Cancellable Offense Bad, or even bad at all. but there's an overall freedom of mishmashing aspects of kiwi and māori culture into a broader sf/f context that muir has kind of taken it upon herself to perform, when ultimately it's not her who should have been the person who got to do it, you know? the structural racism of the global publishing industry means that a pākehā writer can step up onto that stage with an ease and popularity that a māori writer is going to have institutional difficulty accessing in the same way. do i think carl tor editor picks up these books if they're written by a brown author? idk man

and then on the flip side - this is a part of her lived experience too. as a pākehā writer, choosing to write, do you include your pākehā-ness? your kiwi-ness? choosing to do that, do you include your knowledge and understanding of te ao māori/the māori world? are you stealing or are you sharing? what is yours to share in the first place?

these are questions that i think every pākehā writer should ask themselves as they're writing and they're also questions that i don't think have a Correct Answer, or even an answer full stop. they're things that i think muir started asking around book 3 lol which is a very better late than never kind of thing, but it's also clear as the books go on that she's laying down her road as she runs on it, so to speak.

i think muir is Trying In Public, which is a deeply vulnerable thing to do, but also, she is right now a very popular pākehā writer introducing māori character and culture to a broader audience, many who have not encountered any of this before, in an environment where very few māori writers have an opportunity to do the same.

so when that broader american audience comes and picks up what muir has put down and then unthinkingly applies their own american cultural lens to what they have in their hands - it's weird, right? it's weird in ways that many (i generalise - not all, obviously, there are also many americans who do have global context) americans can't understand, because those americans don't live in a world where they are outsiders on the global stage. even americans who understand that the rest of the world is not america have not necessarily experienced that in a way that is intrinsic, intuitive.

the world is shaped by america, either by its presence or by its absence. so when a pākehā writer creates māori characters and uses te reo māori/the māori language in her work, which then gets read and used and consumed by an american audience as though it is a creation that belongs in their worldview - it becomes disconnected entirely from the source muir borrowed, or stole from, or grew up with. it forces the conversation into this place of whether or not the americans playing with this particular doll know what they're doing or where the doll came from or why it's a doll anyway, instead of like, why has muir made this doll and should she have and are there other people making dolls, or are other people making different things entirely.

links to some sf/f by māori writers:

THE DAWNHOUNDS by Sascha Stronach

LEGACY by Whiti Hereaka

WATCHED by Tihema Baker

PŪRAKAU, ed. Witi Ihimaera and Whiti Hereka

GUARDIAN MAIA

[nellie-elizabeth]

Book Tracking Check-In 7.30.24

GOAL 1 BOOKS: OWNED & NOT READ (9 as of 7.30.24, 1 is preordered)

Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson

Dawnshard - Brandon Sanderson

The Sunlit Man - Brandon Sanderson

The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett

Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir

Mammoths at the Gates - Nghi Vo

Morning Star - Pierce Brown

The Adventure Zone - Suffering Game

[What Doesn’t Break (Bells Hells)] - preordered

GOAL 2 BOOKS: BOOK CLUBS! (2 as of 7.30.24)

The One - Julia Argy

Greta & Valdin - Rebecca K. Reilly

GOAL 3 BOOKS: RE-READ OLD BOOKS (27 as of 7.30.24)

Peter and the Starcatchers

Peter and the Shadow Thieves

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon

In Cold Blood

The Wish List

Walk Two Moons

Bud, Not Buddy

The BFG

Adam Bede

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The Princess Bride

Olive’s Ocean

Our Only May Amelia

The Valley of Secrets

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Gathering Blue

The Host

Beloved - Toni Morrison

Mama Day - Gloria Naylor

The Accursed - Joyce Carol Oates

Ivanhoe - Walter Scott

The Cricket in Times Square

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Slaughterhouse-Five

Charlotte’s Web

The People in the Trees

GOAL 4 BOOKS: CONTINUING SERIES/AUTHORS [32]

Paladin's Grace

Discworld [11]

The Locked Tomb [1]

Gods of Blood and Powder [3]

The Singing Hills Cycle [1]

Red Rising [4]

Brandon Sanderson [8]

Kate Alice Marshall [1]

Critical Role [2]

---------------------------

My Reading Stats in 2024 So Far: 55 TOTAL

GOAL 1 BOOKS: OWNED & NOT READ [24]

Promise of Blood

The Mighty Nein Origins - Fjord Stone

Words of Radiance

The Last Hero

Harrow the Ninth

The Narrow

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings

Edgedancer

Red Rising

The Crimson Campaign

Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land

Mistborn: Secret History

Night Watch

Arcanum Unbounded

Golden Son

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

How Long 'Til Black Future Month

The Mighty Nein Origins - Beauregard Lionett

Into the Riverlands

The Autumn Republic

Apostles of Mercy

The Mighty Nein Origins - Caduceus Clay

No One Can Know

The Dispossessed

GOAL 2 BOOKS: BOOK CLUBS! [12]

The Robber Bride

The Glass Hotel

Wylding Hall

The Unsettled

Babel-17

When We Were Orphans

Trust

The Riddle-Master of Hed

The Emperor and the Endless Palace

Prep

Parasol Against the Axe

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

GOAL 3 BOOKS: RE-READ OLD BOOKS [14]

The Magicians Nephew

The Hobbit

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Cages

The Horse and His Boy

Prince Caspian

Crime and Punishment

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Blithedale Romance

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Silver Chair

The Last Battle

The Left Hand of Darkness

The School Story

GOAL 4 BOOKS: CONTINUING SERIES/AUTHORS [5] (Most included in Goal 1)

The Rise of Kyoshi

The Shadow of Kyoshi

Dark One

Dark One: Forgotten

Ninefox Gambit

[chaosslibrarian]

It’s pretty funny how “slow readers” are always ~defending themselves~ against fast readers who don’t give a damn, but the slow readers find any opportunity to insult fast readers. Fast readers are focusing on their own reading, and slow readers have an imagined beef with them because something makes them feel inferior when it’s just… a preference??

I’ve read 32-36 books this year (the range is because I haven’t counted some books for various reasons) and and DNF’d like 40 books lol. In 2023 I read 119 books, in 2022 I read 135, and in 2021 I tracked from May and read 85 books.

So I’ve read 371 books in 3 years. Want me to tell you the books that transformed me? SURE! Because reading fast doesn’t mean I don’t get anything out of it!

List:

Kim Jiyoung born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

Everything I never told you by Celeste Ng

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

Prosper’s Demon by KJ Parker

The People We Keep by Allison Larkin

Convenience store woman by Sayaka Murata

Piranesi by Suanna Clarke

The Fifth Season by N.K Jemisin

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequioa Nagamatsu

Autisterna by Clara Törnvall

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McChonaghy

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Assembly by Natasha Brown

The Harpy by Megan Hunter

Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes

I’m Glad by Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy

The End of Everything by Katie Mack

Act Your Age Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert

The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Blood Feast by Malika Moustadraf

The Once and Future Sex by Eleanor Janega

Bride of the Sea by Eman Quotah

Walking Practice by Dolki Min

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

Batten by Sara Gordan

The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet

To Be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

Small Details by Adania Shibli

A woman is no man by Etaf Rum

The Blueprint by Rae Giana Rashad

The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

💜 Books for Women's Day 2024 💜

🦇 Welcome to March, my beloved bookish bats. It's Women's History Month AND Women's Day! To celebrate, here are a few books that highlight powerful, courageous women -- both throughout history and across our favorite fictional realms. These women have contributed to our history, shaping contemporary society with bold, outspoken, badass moves. Let's celebrate and champion these voices by adding more female-focused stories to our TBRs!

❓QOTD Who is your favorite female fictional character AND real-life heroine?

❤️ Fiction ❤️ 💜 The Power - Naomi Alderman 💜 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood 💜 The Vibrant Years - Sonali Dev 💜 Red Clocks - Leni Zumas 💜 Conjure Women - Afia Atakora 💜 City of Girls - Elizabeth Gilbert 💜 A Woman is No Man - Etaf Rum 💜 Of Women and Salt - Gabriela Garcia 💜 Circe - Madeline Miller 💜 Song of a Captive Bird - Jasmin Darznik 💜 The Women - Kristin Hannah 💜 The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois - Honorée Fanonne Jeffers 💜 The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison 💜 Women Talking - Miriam Toews 💜 Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly 💜 The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

💜 Young/New Adult 💜 ❤️ Loveboat Reunion - Abigail Hing Wen ❤️ Realm Breaker - Victoria Aveyard ❤️ Only a Monster - Vanessa Len ❤️ This Woven Kingdom - Tahereh Mafi ❤️ Serpent & Dove - Shelby Mahurin ❤️ I’ll Be The One - Lyla Lee ❤️ Squad - Maggie Tokuda-Hall and illustrated by Lisa Sterle ❤️ These Violent Delights - Chloe Gong ❤️ The Box in the Woods - Maureen Johnson ❤️ The Wrath & the Dawn - Renee Ahdieh ❤️ You Should See Me in a Crown - Leah Johnson ❤️ A Sky Beyond the Storm - Sabaa Tahir ❤️ Nimona - N.D. Stevenson ❤️ Legendborn - Tracy Deonn ❤️ Blood Scion - Deborah Falaye ❤️ Not Here to Be Liked - Michelle Quach

❤️ Queer ❤️ 💜 Imogen, Obviously - Becky Albertalli 💜 The Fiancée Farce - Alexandria Bellefleur 💜 One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston 💜 The Henna Wars - Adiba Jaigirdar 💜 Girls of Paper and Fire - Natasha Ngan 💜 Delilah Green Doesn't Care - Ashley Herring Blake 💜 A Guide to the Dark - Meriam Metoui 💜 She Who Became the Sun - Shelley Parker-Chan 💜 Written in the Stars- Alexandria Bellefleur 💜 Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir 💜 Gearbreakers - Zoe Hana Mikuta 💜 You Exist Too Much - Zaina Arafat 💜 Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker 💜 The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon 💜 She Gets the Girl - Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick 💜 The Jasmine Throne - Tasha Suri

💜 Non-Fiction 💜 ❤️ The Secret History of Wonder Woman - Jill Lepore ❤️ Girlhood - Melissa Febos ❤️ Our Bodies, Their Battlefields - Christina Lamb ❤️ The Radium Girls - Kate Moore ❤️ Twice As Hard - Jasmine Brown ❤️ Women of Myth - Jenny Williamson and Genn McMenemy ❤️ Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls - Lisa Robinson ❤️ Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship - Kayleen Schaefer ❤️ The Book of Gutsy Women - Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton ❤️ The Underground Girls of Kabul - Jenny Nordberg ❤️ Feminism Is for Everybody - Bell Hooks ❤️ Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez ❤️ The Women of NOW - Katherine Turk ❤️ Eve - Cat Bohannon ❤️ We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ❤️ Bad Feminist - Roxane Gay

❤️ Memoirs ❤️ 💜 Mom & Me & Mom - Maya Angelou 💜 Crazy Brave - Joy Harjo 💜 Reading Lolita in Theran - Azar Nafisi 💜 I'm Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy 💜 Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner 💜 The Soul of a Woman - Isabel Allende 💜 See No Stranger - Valarie Kaur 💜 They Call Me a Lioness - Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri 💜 Becoming - Michelle Obama 💜 Bossypants - Tina Fey 💜 My Own Words - Ruth Bader Ginsburg 💜 I Am Malala Malala Yousafzai 💜 Finding Me - Viola Davis 💜 Return - Ghada Karmi 💜 Good for a Girl - Lauren Fleshman 💜 The Woman in Me - Britney Spears

[letthebookbegin]

2, 3, and 13 for the book asks!

2. Did you reread anything? What?

yes! i reread The Hunger Games which i hadn't read in yeeeeaaaaars and it absolutely held up, and i also read The Locked Tomb series for the first time this year then reread it immediately after because it's the kind of book series that needs that hahaha

3. What were your top five books of the year?

oooh okay, so here's my list pending change bc i'm not done reading yet:

1. Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) by Tamsyn Muir

2. Network Effect (The Muderbot Diaries #5) by Martha Wells

3. An Oresteia translated by Anne Carson

4. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

5. The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

(Honorable mention to Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler, an amazing book but didn't make it onto my top 5 just due to personal preference)

13. What were your least favorite books of the year?

The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie really disappointed me, it's the first of her books i haven't liked :// part of it was the 1920s racism lol, but i also didn't like the grand plot that tried to be bigger than it was.

end of year book asks

[literarilylost]

2023 reading thread

A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie (★★★★★)

Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie (★★★★☆)

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto (★★★☆☆)

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (★★★☆☆)

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie (★★★★☆)

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins (★★★★★)*

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins (★★★★★)*

Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) by Tamsyn Muir (★★★★★)

Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #2) by Tamsyn Muir (★★★★★)

Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #3) by Tamsyn Muir (★★★☆☆)

The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex (The Locked Tomb #0.5) by Tamsyn Muir (★★★☆☆)

As Yet Unsent (The Locked Tomb #2.5) by Tamsyn Muir (★★★☆☆)

Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) by Tamsyn Muir (★★★★★)*

Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #2) by Tamsyn Muir (★★★★★)*

Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #3) by Tamsyn Muir (★★★☆☆)*

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells (★★★★☆)

Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells (★★★★☆)

Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells (★★★★☆)

Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries #4) by Martha Wells (★★★★☆)

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (The Murderbot Diaries #4.5) by Martha Wells (★★★★☆)

Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries #5) by Martha Wells (★★★★★)

Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries #6) by Martha Wells (★★★★☆)

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (★★★★★)*

Sylvia Plath Poems chosen by Carol Anne Duffy (★★★★☆)

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun (Volume #15) by Izumi Tsubaki (★★★★☆)

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun (Volume #16) by Izumi Tsubaki (★★★★☆)

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler (★★★★☆)

Adelaide by Genivieve Wheeler (★★★★☆)

A MuslimMatters.org publication (★★★☆☆)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (★★★★☆)

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (★★★☆☆)

The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson (★★★★★)

An Oresteia trans. Anne Carson (★★★★★)

Dracula (Daily) by Bram Stoker (★★★★☆)*

The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (★★☆☆☆)

The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss (★★☆☆☆)

Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation edited by Cate Malek & Mateo Hoke (★★★★☆)

System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) by Martha Wells (★★★★☆)

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli trans. Elisabeth Jacquette (★★★★★)

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (★★★★★)*

*reread