Libraries with a sense of humour.

@thequeerlibrarian

lovers of hardbacks, unite (or, more likely, divide)!

dear reader! hello! do you enjoy hardback books? do you love having opinions and pressing buttons on tumblr dot com?? then oh, boy, do i have just the poll for you!!

say you're reading a hardback book that comes with a dust jacket--a book you own, perhaps, or have borrowed from a loved one or lifelong rival or sworn enemy, or anywhere else besides the library (for the purposes of this poll, we must both Have and Be Able To Remove The Dust Jacket, i'm sorry, it's very important for Science™).

please answer for your IDEAL/MOST COMMON COURSE OF ACTION--weird exceptions need not apply (unless you want them to, or you want to holler about said exceptions in the tags/replies/reblogs. i don't know your lifestyle, but i DO want to know your polarizing opinions on the care and keeping of dust jackets) (you can also holler about why you chose what you did in general, even without weird exceptions. in fact, i look forward to reading this Discourse).

***this is SPECIFICALLY ABOUT HARDBACKS, please don't skew my science with paperback propaganda :( i myself tend toward a paperback way of being, but right now Inquiring Minds Need To Know About Dust Jackets and Dust Jackets Alone***

THEY DO NOT NEED TO BE NAKEY!!!!!!!!!!!

NAKEY RIGHTS

BETRAYAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but they wanna be nakey so bad... they try so hard..

they get cold :((((

Separating my unread books from the books I've read

Adventures of Pip and Merry. Meeting Treebeard of the Ents.

Because folks liked my latest pigeon comic so much, here's another pigeon piece!

I made this a couple years ago for a sadly now defunct publication called Pipe Wrench. I hope this piece helps spread more pigeon love.

Psych 3x10

Just finished To Shape a Dragon's Breath (just in time, it's due back to the library) and I really liked it! While reading I found myself contrasting it with Babel. Now obviously they're different books (and differently complete, as TSaDB is first in a series) but they are both books about (among other things) colonialism and academia so I think some comparison is warranted.

A conclusion I came to is that R. F. Kuang really wanted to say some things with Babel, and so she made certain that those things came across! To the point of footnotes that were like "in case you missed it..." Meanwhile in To Shape a Dragon's Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose definitely had things to say, but she doesn't hammer those things home. Her main character is an indigenous young woman in a colonized society, and she has things that she wants for herself and her family (and other things she's still grappling with) and Blackgoose makes sure that those are clear, but the rest of the larger societal implications are kind of, well, implied.

I did like Babel and I think it's skillfully written (not always the same thing) but I think I like To Shape a Dragon's Breath more. Looking forward to a sequel.

absolutely no one:

Madeline L’Engle, writing a wrinkle in time at some point in the early 1960s: what are kids into these days? comparative religious studies and theoretical physics, right? Yeah?

Southwestern Ohio Wetlands, May 2024.

I judged it on the summary on the back and the first page or two. I bought it for its cover.

Update: now I actually read the book, and it wasn't bad! It does appear that it has sequels, and I won't be seeking them out any time soon, but part of that is because the plot wrapped up nicely within the one book - I had kind of figured it was a stand-alone until I went on StoryGraph.

Amusing stereotypical-fantasy-with-a-twist sort of mechanics that remind me a little of Patricia Wrede, or some of DWJ's fantasy worlds (e.g. Derkholm). Not quite as well written (to my tastes) as either of those authors, but still fun! The fact that Christianity remained just...Christianity and not a re-named religion in this apparently not-earth world felt a little odd, but the concept of supernatural powers from demons and saints was plot important, as was the concept of this world's wizards and clerics usually being kind of at odds with each other.

Are we not going to talk about how

?!?!?

As-tu vu le vert ver allant vers le verre en verre vert?

Ce ver vert sévère sait verser ses verres verts.

Le ver vert va vers le verre vert. Les vers verts levèrent le verre vert vers le ver vert.

two prints. chickens made last month and an osprey made back in March.

i know they're really messy but like whatever

omg

Here are two poems by Maksym Kryvtsov, a Ukrainian poet, who was killed defending Ukraine back in January. One of the poems is dedicated to a ginger cat that followed him around faithfully and later died with him. Please read his words, don't let them die too.