#especially on the wee loom i've got

[meadowlarkx]

Explore my bookshelf!

Tagged by @searchingforserendipity25 @jouissants and @swanmaids! Thank you so much 💕💕

An estimate of how many physical books I own: I really have no idea especially because they're not all in one place right now. Maybe 200-300? Hmm. A lot (to me)

Favorite author: Tolkien right now? Ursula Le Guin? I really like Sarah Waters and as a wee lass I really adored Patrick Rothfuss. Umm. I realize I usually tend to pick stuff to read from individual authors based on their premise instead of going through an author's repertoire. Sorry, authors. But it's genuinely hard for me to pick a favorite since they all strike different notes! Fandom writers I've known past and present also loom large here for me.

A popular book I've never read and never intend to read: Hmm maybe The Locked Tomb? The vibes just seem too ironic for me. But I might still read it sometime, it just hasn't grabbed me yet. Probably also Discworld. Sorry to everyone.

A popular book I thought was just meh: The Song of Achilles... Whoops. Anyway, I found some aspects of the writing style lovely, but as a story and a retelling it majorly fell flat for me.

Longest book I own: Les Misérables probably, or one of the big compiled editions of Shakespeare or Austen

Longest series I own all the books to: Hmm, I think A Song of Ice and Fire from my fan days in high school—but kinda by accident (I'd already read the last books on ebook when I was gifted them). Still surprises me to think I do actually own all of those tomes in hard copy

Prettiest book I own: Mariana and the Merchild... yes it's a children's picture book. And you've almost certainly heard me bring it up sometime. Lesbian-coded child-rearing of my heart. Look at the pictures!

A book or series I wish more people knew about: As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann—imagine a fictional microhistory that's also a darkly painted yet tender and gripping gay romance that's also about utopian experiments and the English Civil War. When Fox is a Thousand by Larissa Lai—this book is a dream, a messy and confusing dream, but I recommend it to everyone ever! Chinese folklore and mythology, queer and sapphic-ness, through time and space from ancient China to modern-day immigrant communities in Canada—so touching and really beautiful. Many moments from this one still stick in my brain.

Series: The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud—OK, it's been a while since I read this in full, and I just said I don't always like irony and these books are crammed full of silly little jokes and targeted towards a younger audience, BUT just thinking about them makes me tear up with emotion. Ages-old wry shapeshifting djinni, snotty-kid-becomes-politician, and hardened girl from the underclass navigate an alternate magical-spirits-powered British imperialism. It's queer and incisive TO ME.

Nonfiction: A Biography of No Place by Kate Brown, about borderland villages in Soviet Ukraine and the drastic changes in structures/social organization and identities that occurred from 1920-1950. Poorly said but I just think the perspective this book takes is unique and insightful and empathic and everyone should read it.

Book I'm reading now: The Bandit Queens and Lays of Beleriand. In theory I'm reading them hell yeahhh

Book that's been on my TBR list for a while but I still haven't got around to it: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. I checked both of these out to read over the summer and renewed them like 3 times and did I read them... no I did not. Also a bunch more are on the TBR but you know how it is

Do you have any books in a language other than English: La Reine Margot in French is the one I tried seriously to read in recent times, but I have some others in French and Spanish, mostly from high school. 1 in Czech (a copy of With Fire and Sword I have from @sparklingdali for the pictures ❤️). Polish With Fire and Sword & The Deluge pdfs & a couple of physical books ambitiously in Polish, emphasis on the ambition part.

Paperback, hardcover, or ebook? Ideally I check out whatever version the library has. I prefer physical copies and I guess paperbacks, but I'll do ebooks if I have to! At this point I try to only actually buy (hopefully secondhand) books I think I'm really going to want to keep, because I already have too many to move with

Tagging @themelodyofsilence @nibi-nix @tuulikki @sparklingdali @bachaboska if you'd like to do this, and anyone else who hasn't done it yet!

[theladyragnell]

If it makes you feel any better about your weaving potential, that really cool piece you rb’d was done on an electronic jacquard loom- one of those punchcard looms that allows for an incredible range of shed positions and subsequent weaving patterns. They’re super cool! And that design would be impossible to weave on a standard loom.

That is very fair and good to know, anon, thank you for the reality check! I mean, I have not even started weaving yet, just dug the old equipment out of storage, so I certainly have no great expectations of my early work, but I certainly will not be expecting to do intense Medusa jacquards!