more Lymond audiobook appreciation, doubling as cellar scene appreciation. Really exceptional stuff, thank you Dorothy Dunnett and David Monteath.

"I may be said VAGUELY to be aware of that!!"

(contents: "Teaching you to speechify..." through "Oh, your father, of course!")

On the Perilous Gard;

I was hunting for a good Tam lin retelling then. Just recently finished Lymond's for the first time. But I've heard of this one even before Lymond and it was so hard to find a copy to read then. They were always in another country's library and never in mine. Finally found one epub in some dubious website. And also found it in Audible which I use the promotion one free audiobook to get and then escaped lol. So I decided to read it the first time via Audiobook and it was just the right experience. Listening to it deep into the night, just as the story went from the light of day into the Lady's cave. Love it very much. The setting, 16th century England just a little bit later than the end of Lymond's. The heroine, Kate, so reminiscent of Philippa in her younger years. The Tam lin aspect that I always love is how the heroine save her love ,was done beautifully.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett Rating: Mature Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Characters: Francis Crawford, Christian Stewart, Philippa Somerville, Joleta Reid Malett, Margaret Douglas Additional Tags: Lymond's Experiences with Sex: A History of Trauma, Lymond's relationship with his body is an interesting thing, Self-Destruction, Self-Loathing, Philippa is awesome Summary:

Lymond had always known exactly how much his body was worth.

hi! I really enjoyed your last ask about the things that bother you in historical fiction. do you have any particular recs for books that do material culture and/or engagement with realities of history well? my personal favorites are the wolf hall series, I absolutely love those books for that reason.

ugh i really have nothing particularly obscure here! I also liked those aspects of Wolf Hall, and was going to suggest it before i saw it in the second half of the ask :)

i like Mary Renault's Greek stuff a lot (though her Alexander the Great trilogy a little less than the others) - the plague winter in Athens in The Last of the Wine is really harrowing in a good way.

Eco is the obvious suggestion here, but The Name of the Rose has overshadowed Baudolino and The Island of the Day Before - I adore Baudolino, a picaresque journey across a 13th century Europe where historical reality and folk belief overlap and coexist, and Island of the Day Before took me two reads to get into, but it was worth it.

There were parts of Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter (Macbeth, but more historically real) that didn't quite work for me, mostly her characterization of Lady Macbeth, but I really loved the way she treats the world of the early middle ages. (I haven't read her Lymond series, but I have the first one, and I'm pretty excited for it).

i'm sure there are others but my brain turns off when I'm asked for recs!

i just finished book one of the lymond chronicles on your recommendation (or rec slash extreme warning with glowing sign posts) and i wanted to say a) i have never loved a reading experience as much as this and b) you really weren't lying about how hard it is. the man is all the worst tendencies of peter wimsey mixed with the punchable-ness of laurent, and i adore it and him and also christian stewart and poor will scott in his year long homoerotic crisis of morals

oh my god, anon, thank you for this message. please continue to update me on your travels though the lymond chronicles. trust me, the homoerotic crises that lymond inflicts upon those around him have BARELY BEGUN.

Hi there!

Ive recently stumbled across your works, and I just wanted to say that I enjoy your writing soso much!! Each time i read any of ur pieces, i feel ever so blessed that i can read them for freee,,, ??like wow!! I absolutely love your characterization of arthur, and any piece of banter you write never fails to make me laugh!

Your writing style is so addictive, ive honestly found myself missing it when I read anything else. Because of this, id like to ask if you have any book recs? hehee anything that inspired that brain and writing of yours seems like it would be a worthwile read!! From ur alltime favs, or recent favs, comfort books, or books that gave u personal epiphanies, pls feel free to not hold back !! (If its not too much trouble)

And once again, thank you soso much for all your lovely works!! 💗

I LOVE talking about books, so thank you so much for this ask. This is a very truncated list of some of my favourite authors and books because if I wanted to talk about all of them, that would be a post as long as one of my fics.

First up is Terry Pratchett, who I came to rather late; I just started reading Discworld in 2020, despite @clonemaster-general and @jinxedwood telling me years earlier I should read him, so they should feel free to be smug about the fact that I ignored their sound advice for a long time and then went, "Ok, where do I sign up for the cult" after reading approximately one (1) Pratchett novel.

Discworld is a fantasy satire series that's over 40 books long, but those 40+ books simply take place in the same world and do not have to be read in order, although I would recommend reading any subseries featuring the same characters in order (the City Watch books starting with 'Guards! Guards', the Witches starting with ''Wyrd Sisters' etc.) Pratchett did write some non-Discworld books, although the bulk of his very large body of work is that series. He was a very gifted writer who was able to present the stupidity and injustices of humanity in a way that made you laugh and feel that it's bearable to live alongside these things. No other author has made me laugh so much at dumb little puns or dick jokes and then suddenly slapped me with a banger of a line about human nature.

'The Once and Future King' by T.H. White. A retelling of Malory's 'Le Morte d'Arthur'. It's silly, it's touching, it asks why humans go to war. If you're tired of relentless grimdark, this book shows you that a novel can explore serious themes and ask serious questions of its readers while also being a bit silly and stupid, because like suffering, silliness and stupidity is an intrinsic part of the human experience.

'The Left Hand of Darkness' by Ursula Le Guin. I could really just say, "All of Ursula Le Guin's stuff" because I've read several novels, a ton of her short stories, plus most of her essay collections and I've loved them all, but I wanted to mention this one particularly because Le Guin was examining our ideas of gender and society in the fucking 60s and I'm tired of hearing right-wing nutjobs bang on about trans people like they're some alien species newly landed on our planet to kidnap our children. Also, what I love about Le Guin's sci-fi is that she was concerned primarily with the culture of alien societies, not laser guns, and her world building is incredibly deep in that regard. Her father was an anthropologist, and you can see how his studies shaped her writing.

'The Lymond Chronicles' by Dorothy Dunnett. I love me a good swashbuckler, and these are some good swashbucklers. There's also some really beautiful prose that really evokes the landscapes of 15th century Europe, and her action/battle scenes are some of the most gripping I've read. The caveat with this one is that I actually don't like the main character all that much; he's a real special guy who speaks all the languages, is good at all the things, is a master strategist at 20, and is hot to boot. But the story is told mostly through the POVs of other characters that get caught up in his exploits so you're not stuck in his insufferable perspective, and I found the books overall (there are six in the series) very hard to put down.

'The Count of Monte Cristo' by Alexandre Dumas. The OG swashbuckler, really. Shipwrecks! Duels! Poison! Revenge! People just don't do dramatic adventure novels like Dumas anymore.

'War and Peace' by Tolstoy. I can't not mention this; I've read it twice so far in English and once in Russian. Tolstoy was an amazing observer of human nature. Also, he clearly thought Napoleon was a little bitch and reading about him from the perspective of a Russian novelist is quite entertaining after reading about him from Victor Hugo's perspective.

'Les Miserables' by Victor Hugo. I also have to mention this one. Yes, there are very lengthy asides on the Parisian sewer system. In the middle of a chase scene. But tbh, Hugo was curious about everything and while maybe he talked about every single one of those things a bit too long, it still endears him to me. Also, he was known more as a poet than a novelist by contemporary readers, and even in translation I think the fact that he was a poet really comes through in the prose.

Also, really anything by Patricia McKillip if you want dreamy, poetic fantasy that feels like being dropped right into the middle of a fairytale where magic has no hard rules and is something a bit wild and dangerous and beautiful.

I also read a lot of non-fiction, so I'll just list a few of my faves: 'Survival in Auschwitz' by Primo Levi; 'The Gulag Archipelago' by Alexandre Solzhenitsyn; James Herriott's 'All Creatures Great and Small' series; 'Landmarks' by Robert Macfarlane (but really any of his nature writing; this one I liked particularly because it's about the power of language to evoke a sense of place and how our vocabulary for the natural world is slowly being subsumed by our increasingly technologically-driven world). 'The Demon-Haunted World' by Carl Sagan, which was written in the 90s but if anything is even more relevant today as we struggle with parsing the mythology of pseudoscience and the real-world harm it perpetuates.

And I read a fuck ton of poetry, so I'll just rattle off a list of some of my favourite poets: Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooks, Edward Thomas (I also love his nature writing), Alexandre Blok, Pushkin, Ursula Le Guin (she's primarily known as a novelist, but she has some very good poetry as well), Mikhail Lermontov, Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Pope, Tennyson (particularly Idylls of the King), Seamus Heaney, and Yeats.

Anyway, this is a small sampler of books I've read and loved.

Until now, have you found any couple (canon or non canon) from any media (books, tv series, movies, anime/manga, etc) that the dynamics remind you of Neil/Andrew and Damen/Laurent?

if you're looking for dynamics specifically (as opposed to a full romance arc) the lymond chronicles, the queen's thief and empire of the vampire will scratch that damen/laurent itch.

it's common knowledge, at least in my niche circles, that cs pacat is a big fan of dorothy dunnett's work, that laurent is based on lymond and that his relationship with damen (down to specific scenes) was inspired by lymond's numerous boytoys. so reading the lymond chronicles after captive prince is constantly going aha! *leonardo dicaprio pointing meme*. what these books however don't have is a full romance arc with any of those men which is why you could say capri is, in a sense, a slash fic of the lymond chronicles. it's my favorite series of all time and i can't recommend it enough but it's also rather inaccessible in the beginning and has a steep learning curve - quite a commintment of your time and brain energy but so SO worth it!

the queen's thief is another series heavily inspired by the lymond chronicles and it has multiple ships that reminded me of damen/laurent: gen's love interest is very much a cast iron bitch and they do engage in an intense enemies to lovers romance, with some casualties. costis and kamet's story in thick as thieves is basically if the side quests laurent and damen went on were a whole separate book. and while not a canon romance like the previous two, whatever gen and costis have going on in the king of attolia is very reminiscent of the laurent/damen dynamic in book one (minus the slavery). two things to keep in mind if you decide to pick up the queen's thief: it's sort of ya (??) so the brutality and sexiness, while present, will not be on the same level as capri. and book one doesn't feature any of the above ships so, again, you gotta commit to the whole thing :)

now, while these two recs seem like no-brainers to me, i'm very excited to take this opportunity to yell about empire of the vampire from the rooftops AGAIN!! eotv is basically a story about epic quests and valiant deeds told by a jaded captive vampire hunter to his cunty vampire captor (who is blonde bc yes). jean françois is definitely inspired by anne rice's lestat (as the narrative format as a whole is inspired by interview with the vampire) but his dynamic with gabriel is just Peak Laurent/Damen Banter. "i speak your language better than you speak mine, sweetheart" and "hello, lover" galore! in fact, after i found out that pacat and jay kristoff know each other personally i became convinced that he had either read capri and borrowed the vibe OR *starts rambling about her conspiracy theory about how all australian fantasy authors drink secret australian magic juice that makes them write fun depraved sff, gets smacked on the head, passes out* where was i... ah yes, nasty gay vampires. eotv is very fun and very tropey, also very queer and sexy (esp book two) and it had my toxic yaoi needs covered however comma. jean françois/gabriel is basically them sitting in a room in the frame narrative and exchanging homoerotic barbs, while the story itself is about gabriel's past adventures (also very interesting but less homoerotic). it's unlikely that they're gonna have any sort of romance arc - unless someone reads the books and writes a fic of them. please.

alas, i still can't rec anything that comes close to what nora achieved with andreil. to me, the defining characteristics of their dynamic are two feral cats circling and sniffing each other, intricate rituals, overdramatic dialogue, aspec attraction (on neil's part). while one can attempt to find some of these elements in other stories, you cannot find all of them at once (aspec pov on relationships being particularly rare in fiction). there's just no other couple that manages to strike a perfect balance between the anime levels of drama and chaos on the one hand and the serious themes of trauma, acceptance, consent etc on the other hand. sorry, anon, ig we'll have to keep re-reading aftg until one of the aspiring authors i bet this fandom has a lot of writes their own book inspired by andreil🤷‍♀️

gradually deleting hundreds of years-old questions from my askbox (sorry to you all...) and thought i should answer a few FAQs:

1. if you want to know if we've covered a movie on Overinvested, all public eps can be found on the podcast website and should be available on all major podcast networks. (we will get round to posting a list of the Patreon-only eps as well, which includes several standard reviews and listener Q&As, plus watch-along audio commentary tracks for Avatar, the Star Wars prequels and the LOTR trilogy.)

2. if you sent me a message to say you discovered Black Sails or the Lymond Chronicles or Yuri on Ice thru my blog... i'm so glad you enjoyed them!! and i can only hope to have a similar effect proselytizing victoria goddard's epic cosy fantasy novel The Hands of the Emperor (and its incredibly satisfying new sequel).

2.5. if you're concerned about depictions of sexual violence in Black Sails S1, you can find a list of trigger warnings/timestamps here.

3. if you want to recommend a fanfic in the Rec Center, use the submission form here.

4. i have no plans to watch the Clone Wars animated show - i'm aware of the general canon (thanks to reading dozens of codywan fanfics lmao) but the few eps i watched didn't really grab me. not sure why so many people asked me about this but there ya go.

p.s. my askbox remains open.

aloha lise! i've been following you for years and i realize we somehow always end up in the same fandoms or i enjoy most of the stuff you "promote" on your tumblr! so because of your impeccable taste, i would like to ask if you have any recommendations for books and shows?

(i very much enjoyed mcu (mostly loki and stoki thanks to you HAHA), mdzs, cql, tgcf, svsss, lymond chronicles, doctrine of labyrinth...many of the same fandoms that you are in and i got to know and like many of them thanks to you!)

hello and thank you! I certainly have well-defined tastes at the very least. I have fun and that's what matters

as far as recommendations go...oh lord anon, I read...a lot, and watch somewhat less but have still watched a lot of things, and mostly the things I do fandom for are a smaller subset of the things I like. so I almost don't know where to start with this? I guess right off the bat I'm presently rewatching The X-Files which I'm very much enjoying, and if you haven't Kinnporsched yet you might give it a try. outside of that...I wrote a recs list a long time ago that was basically "my personal 'essential fantasy/scifi' list" and favorite books/favorite books of the decade posts. You can also check my #book recs tag or my #book starter kits tag.

if you haven't read The Silmarillion I'll throw The Silmarillion on here too even though it has next to nothing in common with the other things on the list you gave. I recently finished reading the Green Bone Saga by Jane Fonda and definitely recommend that. if you hang around this blog on a regular basis I've started doing monthly reading recaps going over everything I read in the prior month and a snapshot of my thoughts on it, so there might be some recs in there for you, too.

if you enjoyed MXTX's works I will recommend trying out some other danmei, of which there are...very many. I'm a big fan of 2HA or Husky and his White Cat Shizun, which is...being published officially, though slowly, and unfortunately never had a complete alternate (human) translation online. I'm really enjoying QJJ which is basically a historical epic of war and political intrigue in the classical style that happens to have gay main characters.

I'm reading LHJC and have been enjoying it but the translation has gone quiet for a while and is incomplete. :(

this is all fiction and also reading material...I read a lot of nonfiction as well. I do watch things once in a while but really I'm very bad at it. several things on my list that I'm sure I'll enjoy when I eventually get to them but just. haven't yet. of course right now I am forgetting everything I have ever watched in my entire life. Princess Mononoke and The Last Unicorn are foundational movies that shaped my personality. Le Chevalier d'Eon is the weirdest anime nobody else I know has ever seen. I've really enjoyed what I've seen of Kingdom and My Country: The New Age but haven't yet finished either.

lord, what other shows/movies have I even watched

10 characters and 10 fandoms

rules: name 10 of your favourite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people to do the same

 @bloody-wonder thanks for tagging me! I love these kinds of lists ✨

Wei Wuxian (MDZS/CQL). I'd die for him.

2. Francis Crawford (Lymond Chronicles). He makes my heart ache.

3. Ronan Lynch (TRC). My first little tsundere.

4. Nico di Angelo (Percy Jackson). My other beloved tsundere.

5. Marisa Coulter (HDM). I can't think of another female character who is allowed to be so awful and complex.

6. Yuri Plisetsky (YOI). Look I have a type, OK?

7. Draco Malfoy (HP). I've spent thousands of hours of my life thinking about him.

8. Prince Jing (NiF). My sad angry prince <33333

9. Laurent de Vere (CaPri) aka Lymond-light.

10. Hua Cheng (TGCF). Just *gestures* everything about him.

Bonus:

Margo from The Magicians (TV series only). She's an ICON. I really want to rewatch this series just for her.

Tagging: @julcheninred @lettersbyelise @lqtraintracks @wolfpants @sitp-recs @coriesocks @laudh8 @potteresque-ire @shealwaysreads @hogwartsfirebolt @writcraft @decaflondonfog

Is the lymond chronicles something I can get into if I know little of history and do not speak many romance languages?

Yes! I mean, it depends on your reading preferences and how you feel about being confused, but I certainly did!

That's my short answer! If you give them a try, I hope you find the series worth it, and I believe that what you like in a story will matter more than what you do or don't know going in.

My much longer answer, about my reading experience, is ....

In my case, I knew the names of monarchs and had a vague familiarity with the setting of the first book (Tudor/1540s Scotland and England). I speak a useful amount of French and a tiny bit of Spanish. Comparing experiences with friends, French was an especially helpful language to have, but I feel confident saying that I would have loved these books without it.

The thing about The Game of Kings (book 1) is that it’s just confusing. Dorothy Dunnett wastes no time in throwing political intrigue, multilingual references, and many characters at you. But even if you’re an expert in the history and in (modern and archaic) English, French, Latin, Spanish, Scots, and a little bit of Italian and German, you are faced with a protagonist who’s running back and forth across the border and interfering with that history … while guarding his goals and motives, explaining nothing about his past, and constantly quoting poetry from the personal library of a mind he doesn’t want to let anyone inside. Most of the people he meets don’t understand him, either.

For me, it was so rewarding when I finally started to learn what was happening and who he is, and after that the ride truly began…

I did not look up many references or translations and just kinda went with it. I was enjoying myself enough that I didn’t mind that so much was going over my head (especially if it was coming out of Lymond’s mouth), and within a few chapters I’d gotten invested in one of the characters (Christian!) and was entranced by a recurring joke/element. By the second section (let’s say … 175 pages in …), I was hooked, obsessed with a second character (Will!), interested in most of the rest, and having a great time.

There’s a character list in non-audio editions (the David Monteath audiobooks are very good, though), and companion books exist with translations/sources for many of the references. There are also various online recaps and chapter-by-chapter discussions. Looking things up yourself as you go along can reduce confusion, but be warned that many of the characters are versions of real people, so you may learn more than you want to know, such as when they die. 470-year-old spoilers, but still.

For me, the characters (complexity, parallels, relationships) and writing (playfulness, beauty, INCREDIBLE use of perspective and unreliable narration) are what make the books so good. They reward rereading, so, when/if you return, you’ll have another chance to go down some reference rabbit holes, and even if you don’t, you will understand much more.

The second book is generally agreed to be easier to understand! Also, there are elephants.

Perhaps more important than knowledge of history and languages is the reader's tolerance for …

angst. pain. agony. devastating reminders of prior angst and pain and agony

on the flipside, truly ridiculous antics, hijinks, and capers

many, many kinds of traumatic/potentially triggering content

bias/bigotry that shows up in characters’ perspectives and in general (not that newer media is free of this, but these books are from the 1960s and 70s, for context)

occasional elements that stretch the definition of historical fiction

revelations about your favorite authors’ influences (this was fun)

excessive reference to and description of Lymond’s beauty

half? a third? a large amount of the cast being in love with Lymond. This made for way more queer text than I knew to expect, which was great, but also … oh my god everyone is in love with him

the most bantering banter to ever banter, mostly, but certainly not entirely, courtesy of Lymond

Thanks for asking! If any of this raises more questions, ask again!

related: my lymond recs tag. There are mild and out-of-context spoilers, but these posts all sum up something about the series. :)

I am in book-seeking despair. This may not be your area of expertise, but do you have any recommendations for a historical (or pseudo historical) novel with court intrigue and, possibly, a smidgen of swashbuckling, great escapes, high stakes, etc.? Sort of the three musketeers but if the court intrigue were at the center of the plot rather than the musketeers' (admittedly great) adventures? I need some backstabbing & equivocating courtiers on the page right now. Any recs appreciated!

Oh no, despair! As it happens, I do indeed have recs. And I suppressed the impish impulse to suggest A Game of Kings (friends don't let friends reread Lymond without emotional support.)

Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint, is historically-inspired fantasy which, if I'm remembering correctly, gets very close to what you're looking for. For my own tastes, it had not enough swashbuckling, too much drawing room drama, but the protagonist is great. And there is so much equivocation! Equivocation is, in fact, a survival skill.

Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel is a book with swords and court intrigue that I loved so much when I was 12 that I have not dared to revisit it since. I do remember that it involved both swords and the language of flowers.

Have you read Sabatini's Bellarion the Fortunate? Maybe not quite enough court intrigue for you, but there are a lot of intrigues. It's just that they sometimes happen in back rooms, and over chess games, and in military tents, and in half-painted cupolas, and around long tables with titled noblemen. Also, the romance between a steely, scheming princess and a nameless ex-scholar who decides 5 minutes after meeting her that he's going to save her life or die trying makes me want to scream. It's amazing this book didn't cause a conscious bi awakening when I was 15, but anyway.

I presume that, from my extended flailing over Prince of Foxes, you have a pretty good idea of whether or not that would be enough court intrigue for you or not.

I don't know if you've read Laurent Binet's Civilizations yet but I am about 2/3 of the way through and loving it, and I think it might fit the bill! There is a lot of discussion of 16th-century European politics, and the more you already know about e.g. Erasmus and More, and the dissolution of the monasteries, and the Schmalkaldic League, and the Edict of Nantes, the funnier and more interesting it is.

There's also a historical (fantasy, I think?) epistolary novel set in Napoleonic Europe and co-authored. It might be called something like... Blood and Ink? Steel and Ink? Noun and Noun. If anyone reading this post can remember what this is and why I think this might be a good recommendation for this, please chime in.

@loveisworry tagged me eons ago to list nine books that I like/would recommend. I'm finally reading again so here we go, vaguely sorted fiction -> non-fiction:

The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner: I think it's best to go into The Thief knowing as little as possible so I won't say much about the plot, instead I'll say that MWT is truly a master at using structure and form to convey character and narrative ideas! THE heist novel of all time. Also these books make you insane so there's that

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke: Honestly one of the books of the decade. Extremely different from Jonathan Strange if you've only read that one; it drops you in the deep end from the first word which I always admire (try not to know too much about this one going in either. In fact I'd mistaken it for a completely different book at first and kept wondering when the House was going to turn into the magical school I thought the book was about). Features many topics that interest me: the self as an idea and the mutability thereof, buildings that are maybe alive and maybe love you, loving and caring about people even when things suck so bad

Watchmaker of Filigree Street/Lost Future of Pepperharrow: Natasha Pulley I love you. Do you want to learn a lot about clocks while also losing it as everything goes in the wrong direction. You should. I'd recommend all of Pulley's books (still trying to get my hands on an ARC of the new one!), but Pepperharrow is my favorite of the bunch; I felt every available human emotion reading it and potentially a few others. They're all also SO funny to me while also making me cry multiple times. (originally read these after they appeared on many @lotstradamus rec lists, truly thank you)

Lives of the Monster Dogs, Kirsten Bakis: I don't know that I've ever read anything quite like this book and I have a tough time explaining it. I wrote in my rec to a friend that it's about being nostalgic for something that was painful for everyone involved, but at the same time held so much genuine wonder. Also about trying to understand your place in a world that has no place for you. I don't know what else to say; I loved it.

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel: I love a SCHEMER I love INTRIGUE I love to feel a creeping sense of inevitable dread spread out over three books! Hilary Mantel was simply a genius

The Multitude, Hannah Faith Notess: I debated what (if any) poetry to put on this list and in the end I went with The Multitude simply because I think many people haven't heard of it and Yoshi: A Pastoral is one of my favorite ever poems. beloved i will wait for you / always in the roadless shade

H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald: I came to this a few years after it was popular so maybe everyone has read it already, but I think it's a lovely meditation of grief and nature and how sometimes you just have to pick a (very specific and maybe odd) thing and do it to get through life

Fighting at Sea in the Eighteenth Century, Sam Willis: I love an extremely niche book and I LOVE boats, particularly tall ships. This book was basically made specifically for me, in that it's clearly a labor of love by someone very knowledgeable on a topic that I'm already interested in. If anyone has recs in this vein (about ships or not) please send them my way!!

On the Death and Life of Languages, Claude Hagège (Tr. Jody Gladding): Another of the niche topic books, this time about how and why languages die out and the ramifications of their loss. I haven't read the original French so I can't comment on the faithfulness, but the translation is wonderfully done imo. Some turns of phrase I'm still thinking about

Honorary Mentions: The Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett (only read if you're willing to be in over your head but if you are!!!! they are a masterpiece) The Locked Tomb series, Tamsyn Muir (very polarizing books, I'm obsessed), the Temeraire series, Naomi Novik (dragons fighting in the Napoleonic wars largely featuring the Navy, tailored exactly to my interests)

tagging if you want @valentinetexass @veryspecificfantasies @unrealcities !

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny/Graham Reid Malett Characters: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, Graham Reid Malett, Jerott Blyth Additional Tags: Dubious Consent, Voyeurism, Enemies to Still Enemies, Seduction, Unreliable Narrator, POV Outsider, lying liars who lie, Religion, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, dubious theology, Emotional Torture Through Poetry, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Emotional Manipulation Summary:

"Don't worry," said Alec Guthrie comfortably. "Don't worry. Of all men Graham Malett knows how to exercise patience and tact." —The Disorderly Knights, III, V

thea have you heard of a book series called the lymond chronicles. it will ruin your life in the worst way and features one of the Most Characters of all time

No but it looks like something I’d enjoy. Thanks for the rec!

you have such good taste in books it’s fr gotten to the point where if u post about something more than like once or twice i pretty much immediately go open libby and put it on hold

Wow well that’s very flattering and also intimidating! If you’re thinking of picking up Lymond, just remember I’ve spent half of my live-blog yelling angrily- I think I still recommend the series, though, just for the sheer wild insanity of the experience.

Thinking about it, I don’t read a lot of books these days, and the ones I get into fannishly are exclusively those that fit a certain criteria of loyalty kink + queerness + problematic poor little meow meows + unreliable narration… congrats on having similar good taste 😘 you should rec me some of your favorites!