sunflower & next read

Thank you so much @therefugeofbooks for the tag! I had to really scroll through my photo gallery and it was nice to be reminded of all the things that have happened this year. Here are my favorite bookish photos from 2023:

I’m tagging anyone who sees this and wants to do the tag but hasn’t been tagged yet. Consider yourself tagged!

Hello, my dearest. I'm come here humbly seeking a new year kiss. Would you give me the honor? 🥺 also, happy new year!!

But of course dearest betrothed, here

A very happy new year to you too, may it bring you health and happiness 💜

Happy Ferdie Friday. Did you need a gif of a video of Ferdinand Kingsley saying "I love you?

Release Roundup - 10.3.23

it's tuesday, and that means NEW BOOKS

we're running down everything releasing new from us today, right here 😎

👇title info below👇

Tor Books

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

After the Forest by Kell Woods

Princess of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

TorDotCom Publishing

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu

Nightfire

The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson

Forge

Valley of Refuge by John Teschner

The Murder of Andrew Johnson by Burt Solomon

What’s the feeling when you walk into your local library branch? The one you’ve been welcome in for thirty five years? Even as a sweaty kid with a cheap backpack with no parent home to care for them? Even as loitering vagabond teenager with nowhere else to go?

And you can walk in without a bank card or an id or an address and without sharing your data with Facebook or Amazon?

And there are water fountains and bathrooms and outlets and internet and computers and no one hassles you or charges you for using any of them?

(There are two men in here who are unhoused and one is telling the other “no one cares as long as you don’t hassle anyone” and the staff member at the front gives them the same cheery goodbye when they leave that she gives everyone else)

And there are BOOKS? The smell and feel and presence of BOOKS?

That’s right. I know the feeling. Gratitude. Home.

The LORD Is My Salvation

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— whom shall I dread?

2 When the wicked came upon me to devour my flesh, my enemies and foes stumbled and fell.

3 Though an army encamps around me, my heart will not fear; though a war breaks out against me, I will keep my trust.

4 One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple.

5 For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will set me high upon a rock.

6 Then my head will be held high above my enemies around me. At His tabernacle I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD.

7 Hear, O LORD, my voice when I call; be merciful and answer me.

8 My heart said, “Seek His face.” Your face, O LORD, I will seek.

9 Hide not Your face from me, nor turn away Your servant in anger. You have been my helper; do not leave me or forsake me, O God of my salvation.

10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.

11 Teach me Your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path,

because of my oppressors.

12 Do not hand me over to the will of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence.

13 Still I am certain to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

14 Wait patiently for the LORD; be strong and courageous. Wait patiently for the LORD! — Psalm 27 | Majority Standard Bible (MSB) The Majority Standard Bible is in the public domain. Cross References: Exodus 15:2; Exodus 33:13; Exodus 33:21; Judges 5:3; 1 Samuel 17:48; 1 Samuel 23:17; 1 Samuel 30:6; 1 Kings 8:36; Job 28:13; Psalm 3:3; Psalm 4:3; Psalm 6:1; Psalm 9:3; Psalm 13:3; Psalm 14:4; Psalm 15:1; Psalm 16:8; Psalm 18:6; Psalm 18:28; Psalm 22:24; Psalm 24:6; Psalm 37:34; Isaiah 40:11; Isaiah 49:15; Jeremiah 11:19; Matthew 26:60; Luke 10:42; Acts 9:1

If only I had enough words to describe how good God is to me —

i have thoughts about dalv's parents if you even care............

you know what im just putting it in a separate post. this is my own ulixes backstory - content warning for parental+familial abuse/neglect.

Another stupid mistake.

Ulixes had forgotten to wash and put away the dishes. This had the immediate effect of enraging his father - who was hitherto consumed in a bad mood - and the expulsion of Ulixes from the family home for the night. Moronic of himself, Ulixes thought, to provoke him so thoughtlessly. Muffled in the kitchen and its yellowing white tiles with that awful, guttural shout, until Ulixes turned and ran - ran out the back door, to where his father would not follow under the siren call of another pyrholidon from the fridge. 

And so he sat, looking up at the house and the pale sky above it. An entire wooden thing slumping dauntless before him. It rotted and shook and groaned through stormy nights, as if aware of its absurd and depressing existence. Embarrassed by the silence of its residents. Apathetic to the omen of another hard winter. On the little porch around the back that nobody ever used - where it wouldn’t dampen his trousers - Ulixes wondered into the thrice-unread pages of his book: why doesn’t it just fall? 

Yet, the clocks kept turning, and the mice wouldn’t stop running through the pantry. Little scampering-scratching in the walls beside his bed. The pigeons that nested in the chimney each Summer. Ulixes Bücher, tucked away where no-one would try to find him. Empty pantries. Cold bed. Crumbling chimney. Ulixes, tucking himself away. That was the way of things. That was how nature was slowly reclaiming the Bücher household. Day by day. Night by night. 

Especially those long, long nights which were as black as pitch and twice as humid. Where he as a little boy would toss and turn and dream of the entire wretched house collapsing. In those dreams, he would wake up in the morning, surrounded by and buried in rubble - the mounted deer head, the ripped clothes, the four-poster bed in his parent’s room, the fine china that was never used - and Ulixes, sole survivor, a tiny dot in the wreckage, emerging. Fifteen tumbling steps to the left, and he would happen upon the remains of the family jewels. In this childish fantasy, Ulixes would sell the jewels and move far, far away. It didn’t matter where. The house just needed to fall. So why didn’t it? 

In a fit of frustration, he snapped his book shut. Wind tousled his hair as he meandered through the overgrown garden: through the long furs of grass - the deadnettle, which his older brothers would pick the flowers off to jokingly whip at him - past the old pine trees, all the way to the back. Here, a shed almost as old as the house itself stands vigil against the elements. A slightly brighter shade of wood, still dulled by years of use and disuse. A musky hint of rainy evenings past, warping the walls. Windowless. 

And no lock, of course - nobody would just let themselves into here, not in the East. Not where you were picked off the street and sent back across the canal for the most minor of public infractions. Except, nobody in the Bücher household has repeatedly accessed this little hovel either. Perhaps since his grandfather, as far as Ulixes knows. He did woodwork, or something to that effect, in his spare time. Back when they employed house-servants, this place could possibly have gone over the rusting equipment with a dust-rag. Now, all the erstwhile sawdust has simply blown away; a blessing for the jacket on Ulixes’ back which is quickly going to become a mattress under the dented, discoloured workbench - one of the only things nailed to the floor. 

He doesn’t know how many hours his grandfather spent here. By all accounts, he was a silent old man, praised by Ulixes’ siblings for scoring a once-in-a-lifetime engineering commission from a previously blossoming city. In fact, the Bücher household seem to have a thing for dying before Ulixes ever meets them. Apart from those who still remain in the house, he knows of one cousin who moved away to Jamrock, never to be heard of again. Every other member is locked in an eternal, poisonous game of one-upmanship over dinner, concerning wage brackets and managerial positions. Quoting the spiteful rants of his oldest brother - there used to be openings. And now there aren’t. Honest, skilled workers like he are forced back across the canal for work, where the jobs are cheap and the turnover is cheaper. His Aunt, spitting into a wine glass about mingling with the lower people, how the trickle-down up-swing has faded, how stagnancy has strangled her aspiration of a nice car and the subsequent respect that would blossom on everyone’s faces when she turns up in that. 

They have made it abundantly clear that whatever blessed the Bücher family three generations ago is never doubling back. The repairs the home direly needs will never be happening. Even if they did, the resounding result would simply be putting a plaster on a stab-wound. It doesn’t matter how much junk his father sells to put him through a return-on-investment education. So, why doesn’t the house fall? 

He breathes the afternoon light, perched in the doorframe; leaning. In contrast to the opulence of his grandparents’ tailor-made mansion, the shed is a utilitarian thing. Cuboid and sturdy, with its thick walls and insulated door - telling the tale of a person who would be complained away from the porch by neighbours or would not be dissuaded from partaking in outdoor hobbies in Winter. A floor softened by work boots. Flecks of paint and glue and oil staining in intervals. The whisper of pine needles reverberating around. So much wood, he thinks, like a little hole in a tree. A bird’s nest, from which he is watching the grey bulb of the sky grow dimmer and dimmer. Until the trees and the too-tall fence and the grasses turn into a shadow-puppet show. Until all Ulixes can hear is the wind. Until Ulixes can no longer read his book - only able to see a vague outline of his hands, and the stars still somehow shining through the city smog. Until he whistles, and the air stops whistling that jaunty little tune back into his ears, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. That is when he shuts the door to the shed. 

It is warm, Ulixes’ little nest. Thrumming with that insulation, that warp-curved geometry. It does something comforting to your brain, such like a reinforcing example does for a belief you already hold. He parts his chapped lips, and pushes his tongue to the back of his throat. A little click of sound is released. A pushing of a particularly satisfying button - or the trigger pulled on an empty gun-barrel? 

The click bounces off the walls. It is an instantaneous cacophony, finished in less than a second. But it reels back his mind from wandering back to earlier, where the dishes were stacked and dirty and his father’s face was… 

Click. Click. Click. 

Echo. Echo. It never fails. Nothing is used against him, here - where no one will look for him. 

Ulixes opens his book to the middle before resting his head on it. He knows by experience the floor will mercifully not hurt his body come morning. A jacket, brown, coming apart at the seams, slung over his thin frame. 

Tonight, he dreams again of the house falling down. The wind; terrible and exacting, will extricate the foundations from the tumour of Revachol East and tumble it in a chef-swirl across the street. Miraculously, it would ignore The Shed, just as Ulixes would awake the next day to ruins, only to completely disregard its contents in favour of walking into the encroaching Pale. As if there was something in there for him. In there, where the air whistles back at him. 

Me, surrounded by unread books, “I have nothing to read!”

Hello! I hope you're well! What's your top 5 romances you read this year? 💖

Hi Cath!!! I’m doing really well, we’re still getting settled into our new house but it’s going really well. How are you? I hope you’re doing well too!

I’ve read so many great ones this year that it’s hard to choose just five. But these are the ones that stand out for me this year:

1. Psycho by Onley James

2. Cherry Picked by May Archer

3. Bite Me! By Fae Quin

4. Two-Man Team by Amy Aislin

5. Legends And Lattes by Travis Baldree

And a couple honorable mentions:

Charisma Check by Charlie Novak

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

Shelter In Garnet Run by Roan Parrish

What were some of your favorites this year? 😊

Page 43! The wonderful graphic designer assigned to my book (shout out to Chris!) thought to use this page in the place of a traditional book summary on the back of the hardcover addition! What a great idea! I feel like this page really captures the conflict between Aster (the white bunny) and Carlin (the red-orange-brown bunny) without giving too much away. I also like that the wind makes an appearance, since the wind holds a lot of spiritual significance for these characters.

Month 11, day 19

Did a little bit of translation work tonight because I'm struggling to read Athian again and I wanted to practice it :)

I was not expecting information on pilgrims on papers that look like diagrams for something lol. Anyway, these are papers pinned to the boards inside of the Cognoscent's Guilds. My kingdom for rips of these texture/image files so I can have cleaner, clearer text to work with. Alas, these will have to do

last, current and next read ✨️

Tagged by @therefugeofbooks thank you <3

& tagging @stefito0o @a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit @readingaway @brightreads @storytime-writings @lizziethereader @myonetruebook

i think some people want to write about something specific in a sickos: hahaha yes... yes!! type of way and they dont really give a shit about making the worldbuilding justify what theyre writing about.

whether or not this is a good way to do things depends entirely on ones own preference. i would say that expecting everything to be explained without any loopholes is a very cinemasins-y approach, ie bad faith, but there is also such a thing as lazy worldbuilding that doesnt even pass the sniff test. and those two things are probably opposite points on a spectrum, and it would depend on the individual how much they want to suspend their disbelief on any given day.