to love a half-built garden;

in the lighthouse along on the forgotten coast

[birdofpages]

Things every reader should know:

1. You don’t have to finish a book you're not enjoying — no matter the price.

2. A beautiful cover doesn’t mean it’s a great book. Many gems are poorly packaged.

3. Reading isn’t a competition. Speed doesn’t matter — impact does.

4. You won’t remember every detail, but the feeling a book leaves behind is what truly matters.

[dandelion-network]

I'm currently on volume 9 of Witch Hat Atelier and I'm experiencing a simmering anxiety whenever I pick it up. The ending of volume 8 was a shock and I fear the ramifications already.

Shirahama is an incredible storyteller and I'm enjoying the way she interrogates the complex and dangerous nature of magic existing in the world. It's perhaps the best story with magic in it that I've come across that really tries to think about all the ways magic can have positive and negative effects just by existing at all. (Master Olly's false flame spell).

Even moreso when the lens is turned toward disabilities. There's the ableist belief that all disabled people must be 'fixed' in society and I'm curious if Shirahama will engage with that, with how in the story among the non-witches magic is seen as the great fix to everything.

We have one character who is disabled via injury and wants to be healed. Another disabled character who never talks about altering his body at all and instead is exploring alternatives to make the world more accessible. And a different disabled character is neutral on his disability. So, so far we haven't come across a character that is downright against magic being a cure-all for their disability not because it's against the rules but because their disability is what makes them who they are. (Also would be dope to have a character not identify as disabled; I've known Deaf folk who only ID as Deaf and not disabled.)

maybe this happens later in volumes currently out, idk don't tell if it does

also majority spoiler that i have to talk about because it's about a disabled character

I know Beldaruit is now the Wise in Teaching but he was just a regular witch when he took Qifrey on as an apprentice so I was surprised that he was able to get away with making Qifrey a witch even with him missing an eye. Tho Beldaruit was also in a sealchair too so it seems like not all disabilities block someone from becoming a witch I guess.

Can't believe I thought Beldaruit was Qifrey's brother due to the hair and Olly's response, of course he was his master lol

And the non-witch doctors not noticing Qifrey's missing eye is interesting to say the least

[hollycircling]

⏾

[dandelion-network]

a patron at my job couldn't understand why her son enjoyed graphic novels so i used a witch hat atelier volume to explain how the art acts similarly to a movie in how the visuals assist in telling the story and showed her some of the art. that helped her understand better. she asked the artwork was a factor to whether or not i read a graphic novel and i was like YES lol

[psychic-waffles]

We're at the "JK Rowling is personally funding litigation to try and destroy AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL" stage of rabid UK terf brain.

Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky

Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*

You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.

*Not so friendly reminder there is no way to engage in the wizard books without enabling this shit.

[quillnqueer]

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: International Book Covers

[alphacrone]

i don't really want to weight in on the "using big words in your writing is ableist" discourse happening on tiktok because i'm like 90% certain it's an anti-intellectual psyop to stir up drama in online circles to promote the use of ai to summarize literally everything and thus feeding the LLMs and lowering the populace's mistrust of such tools but i also have to say: dictionaries and thesauruses are the most accessible they've ever been. if you use an e-reader of any kind you can look up a word without leaving the page. there's a plethora of online dictionaries and if you just type a word + "meaning" into google it'll usually give you a definition. we used to have pocket dictionaries we used when reading in class. i have two on my shelf right now that i used in high school. stop letting the fascists purposefully misuse anti-ableism rhetoric to trick you into never thinking again.

[dandelion-network]

three out of the four Hellsing volumes i got from the library sale have stickers from Borders still on them, the bookstore that raised me. the bookstore who felt more welcoming than the fancy ass barnes and noble. real talk i had genuinely felt like b&n was more fancy, more expensive, and alienating than borders. there was also a small borders in our mall that i would read in when my mom shopped at other stores.

and most importantly, neither borders locations ever complained about me sitting in the aisles to read manga. b&n on the other hand....

[logarithmicpanda]

To celebrate the final volume coming out, I reread the entirety of Heartstopper 💜 it's incredible to see how much is packed in those 6 volumes, from the romance to mental health issues... I will miss Nick and Charlie 🥲

[dandelion-network]

Continuing the childhood manga collection conversation, do yall wanna see the one of the first manga volumes I ever bought?

It's one of the first because the first time I bought manga, I bought 3 volumes. I bought this, the 2nd volume and the first volume of Inuyasha (no longer have it).

This volume is 23 years old. TWENTY. THREE.

[elumish]

My honest advice if you are reading something (especially something academic or non-fiction) that you don't understand is to read it again. And again, if you need to. And again.

I read the same three or four pages of the new network analysis paper probably six times yesterday, and at some point I had the math notation page on Wikipedia open for reference, and I don't have a subject matter expert's understanding but I do get more of it than I did when I started. And the next time I read it I'll understand it more.

Literally work it out sentence by sentence if you have to. You can learn how to understand things, even if it takes a lot of iterations.

[call-me-moby-dick]

[dandelion-network]

All caught up on The Summer Hikaru Died manga. Volume 8 is on order for my library and I'm 13th in line.

I think the adaptation has done a great job in not only adhering to the story but also rearranging some events to make it more cohesive. There's little things like bonus chapters or facts in the manga that I would've liked to see in the show but theyre so small that it doesn't affect the anime that much.

10 out of 10, would recommend both manga and anime.

[dandelion-network]

I currently have Berserk, Sailor Moon, and Yu Yu Hakusho as my current og watch list. Berserk and YYH I've already watched as a kid but I never finished Sailor Moon because whatever reason, maybe it never fully aired and I forgot.

For other og anime, I gotta say....I thought Naruto was more than 220 and apparently 90 episodes are filler. YYH was 112 and finishing that was like nothing. So really, Naruto is *a lot* shorter than I remember. Shippuden on the other hand is 500 with 205 filler episodes. I'm truly debating once I'm done wit the other 3 of picking Naruto back up bc of these numbers, we'll see. Though there's Bleach too that I'm thinking of rewatching too. Bleach without filler is 229 episodes (392 total). Might rewatch this before Naruto. I started at the beginning of the pandemic but never finished.

Don't ask me where this sudden interest in getting back to reading manga/watching anime came from, I just live here.

[dandelion-network]

Somehow past-me decided to donate 20 volumes of One Piece a few months ago to my local used book store and I cannot fathom why I never thought to just give them to my diehard One Piece fan friend instead. I had those volumes since high school too, for at least 15 years! In great condition! My friend has done so much for me, I'm upset I didn't think of him at the time. But also why the fuck did I donate my childhood memories like that in the first place?!

Anyways I just bought 46 volumes of OP off of eBay to give to my friend lmao. I was in a spiral last night over my mistake and the math of that purchase comes out to be about 5.50 a volume so how could I say no.

For now I'm never donating a single thing from my childhood, space saving be damned. If I got no room for a new book then I guess I gotta get a new shelf then because no more.

[logarithmicpanda]

Mid Year Book Freak Out

I was tagged by @thereadingchallengechallenge @books-are-portals @dandelion-network and @asexualbookbird ... sorry it took a while xD look, I'm doing it!

Number of books you’ve read so far: 67 if you don't count graphic novels and mangas (if you do it goes up to 260. Whoops.)

Best book you’ve read so far in 2026: The Works of Vermin now owns my entire heart. Honorary mentions to The Starving Saints, The Incandescent, and The Everlasting

Best sequel you’ve read so far in 2026: I've read a few solid ones! The Strength of the Few, Advocate, and Platform Decay were the best

New release you haven’t read yet but want to: Everybody's Perfect, The Feywild Job, The Unicorn Hunters, Radiant Star, The Last COntract of Isako, Tolls and Rivalry, The Fox and The Devil... most of them i have on hold at the library and I'm just waiting for them to come in

Most anticipated release for the second half of the year: As You Wake, Break the Shell!!! Also Milkteeth, I'm sooo curioius to see more of the Starving Saints' world. The Thice-Bound Fool is also high on my list but I still need to read The Daughter's War first lol

Biggest surprise favorite new author (debut or new to you): I don't think I have one? tbh it always takes me a couple books to decide an author is an instant buy

Newest fictional crush: Petition to change that to new hyperfixation, though sadly, none

Book that made you cry: Gravity Lost made me tear up! Nothing made me outright weep though :(

Most beautiful book you’ve bought so far this year (or received): The Everlasting, for sure. I'm glad I got a hardcopy

Book that made you happy: Any good book makes me happy even when it's technically a sad book tbh haha

What books do you need to read by the end of the year? So. Many. Aside from the already cited ones, I want to make progress on A Chorus of Dragons, finish Thousand Autumns, reread Witch King to move on to Demon Queen, read The Malevolent Seven that has been on by pile forever, and get to The Quantum Magician. Just to start with.

Tagging @psychofullmoonwerewolf @bookcub @nerdishfeels @the-forest-library @aroaessidhe and @agardenandlibrary if you haven't done it yet/feel like doing it :D

[dandelion-network]

i should've known better than letting my instagram algorithm feed me anime fan content. i dont understand why im being fed so many "one piece isn't long, you guys just have no discipline" and "which show is the best/worst anime and why" and "death note actually isn't that good" and "attack on titan is the best anime ever written and if you disagree you have zero reading comprehension" ass takes. Straight ragebait. Sure I'll get a cute fancam of the shows i like but free me from the bullshit lol