#listen i dont care if you dont like the books

[queenerdloser]

i just finished dark heir

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

I'm piggybacking a bit off of the last ask of asking for writing tips but I have an odd question... Am I the only person that struggles actually PICKING a book? It's the absolute bane of my existence because I feel like I can be so picky... Don't get me wrong, I love being a bookworm, and I'm trying to get back into reading physical books but it's so difficult to find a real taste of what the book is like without being completely spoiled or something... I miss when backs of books had an actual summary and not just NO.1 NEW YORK BESTSELLER!!!! It's so frustrating... I've been trying to get back into it by re-reading fond chapter childhood books read to me (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane & A Wrinkle In Time). But at the same time I'm also trying to get into more "adult" books that isn't... Well, you try googling "adult books" and see how that goes, I didn't think too hard about what a poor decision THAT was. But I'm working up the courage to read Cat's Cradle right now to start with "Classic Authors" I guess!

Anyway I'm rambling here, I guess my question is... How do you pick out the books you read? I don't really have friends that read many books to recommend to me :')

Thank you in advance, Bog! I hope you get a callback from that interview soon!

no ok actually you've mentioned something that's been bothering me for a while - What The Hell Do Y'all Mea, Books Don't Have Summaries Anymore???? i have not once in my life found a book that didn't have a summary. i was in barnes & noble recently and everything i looked at had a summary. i have literally never seen a book without one in my life of reading & looking at new books on a regular basis

softcovers have theirs on the back. hardcovers are on the inside of the sleeve - lift the cover and it should be printed right there on the inside flap! summaries aren't legally required but both the author and Especially the publisher(s) know that no one's gonna buy a book without a summary. trust me, all books worth reading have a summary. if a book doesn't have one, it's probably not worth your time anyway. you just gotta know where to look!

so my answer to how i choose books... i read the summary lmao. if it seems interesting, ill either write it down to get later or ill get it there and then.

Before the summary though, i look for any titles that jump out at me from the shelf. then i look at the thickness. i like a bit of meat in my literature, so i tend to shy away from thinner books. thicker ones grab my attention more easily. then i look at the cover - if it interests me, then ill read the summary. i don't have specific tastes in title or cover. as long as it makes my brain "hm" thoughtfully, ill take a gander!

and really, if you have access to a bookstore (chain or not, ive found plenty of bangers in tiny used bookshops) or library, the best way to find a book is to physically browse. even if you dont buy anything, you can take pictures of books / write them down to buy online. but going to the store lets you search them out, examine the length, cover, title, summary - and easily put it back on the shelf or keep it. i hate shopping online bc there's ads, you can't examine the product, nothing really stands out since it's all portrayed similarly, there's limited pictures instead of the physical thing, and photos can lie.

plus, everything is (typically) meticulously sorted by genre & age range. when you go into a section with literature aimed at adults, you'll find exactly that instead of smut novels lmao. real life bookstores can be more accurate than online searches. & there's just something so good about walking through shelves, searching for that one book before you know it exists, smelling the paper... yeah...

[gibbearish]

idk, its just. like. a person comes up to you with their heart cradled in their hands. says it is broken, says it hurts. places it in your hands, asks you to please make it stop and trusts you to fix it. wouldnt you be scared, too? wouldn't you be haunted by visions of you tripping and shattering it beyond repair, of driving the thing thats hurting them even further down so that maybe no one can ever get it out, of someone in their deepest darkest moment trusting you with their life and you fucking it up? how could that ever feel like anything but defusing a bomb? trust is such a valuable thing, a powerful thing, a delicate thing, and the more you have the more you get given and the more careful you have to be with it because what if someday you drop it and break it and it turns out you never should have been given it in the first place. wouldnt you be scared?

[faaun]

a while ago i accidentally bent a g.pangolin electrode (those things are made of gold) the world was covered in conductive gel time is passing unreal lvls of quick they know my heart is yours

[hella1975]

i need to know your thoughts on the sunshine court coming out this month. i am personally unhealthily obsessed w denim jean moreau and i’m gnawing at the bars of my enclosure to finally get real jeremy knox/jean moreau content (it’ll also get rid of those weirdos that ship jean w renee like sir that is a lesbian)

i am being so so so brave about new content i am not scared fear is the mind killer

[lilyharvord]

I started reading EragonxRed QueenxFrom Blood and Ashx--oh, shit sorry.... 4th Wing today, because everyone in my reading group said I had to, and... I'm 7% of the way through and I'm already so tired. Did no one edit this book? Did no one... read this book out loud?

Me currently finishing chapter 1 and going through the 5 stages of grief because I know this whole experience is going to RUIN my reading for 2024.

Anyway, I'm writing a whole ass review that is pretty much line by line my thoughts XD If I make a google doc of it I'll let people read it. Might be more entertain than the book. 🤷🏼‍♀️ plus I'll only put like 0.1%-1/4 of it on Goodreads so think about what you might miss out on (me being upset and cranky and rutheless (((: ) Updating that doc might actually help me get through reading it faster.

[xinea]

Hey hey, what’s this about it being okay to make a life altering decision about JC’s body because he “wasn’t in a state of sound mind to make that decision”, um yeah, his state was being medically forced into a coma?!

[timetravellingkitty]

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[bunnihearted]

‧₊˚🕷‧₊˚

[guinevereslancelot]

how do i stop feeling like i'm in trouble all the time fr. sitting here on my lunch break like everyone's gonna be soooo mad when u get back...from lunch...which you are allowed to have.....(?)

[ratbastarddotfuck]

Today I said to my doctor "yeah I've had like a dangerous mental health crisis any time I've been in long-term employment, and also my physical health seems to suffer quite a bit due to all the Conditions I Have, and both of these things make each other worse," and she really did turn around and say "hmm, we have a long way to go to make you healthy so you can work".

🙃

[lesenbyan]

There are few things worse, I think, than reading a call to action memoir that is so close to right but really should have been shelved for at least 5yrs before going to print so the author has time to learn enough to see all the false equivalencies that really hinder the point

[hyumjim]

since i was thinking on this subject i read a few articles about audiobooks vs reading print and somehow ended up reading a kind of advice column from a "spirituality expert" which despite my reservations i didn't think was too bad until the author was like "actually the reason reading books is hard is because books are mostly bad." and ive been grinding my teeth ever since then

[curseofbreadbear]

thinking abt lore at ... (checks watch) ... 4 in the morning

[comradecowplant]

so things are not going well with my new elderly socdem friend unfortunately.

[nazumichi]

not exaggerating not blowing the situation out of proportion prommy but I think I’d rather do literally anything else before that chemistry group project. put me in the furnace or something. mountain. exam?? ?