Dark Academia, Medieval England, Etc Etc

Creatively overambitious reader, writer, and librarian.

[the-bookish-deer]

"But people do say that history repeats itself - and not without reason."

-The Village of eight graves by Seishi Yokomizo

[scooplery]

you ever try to read a book and it's like. damn they really just let anybody write these.

[beweep]

via

[palaeolithics]

city streets in september

[ezra-the-librarian]

"These friends - and he laid his hand on some of the books - have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is."

Bram Stoker, Dracula

So happy I subscribed to Dracula Daily just in time to be emailed one of my all-time favorite quotes

[becauseliteraturethatswhy]

“In King Lear (III:vii) there is a man who is such a minor character that Shakespeare has not given him even a name: he is merely “First Servant.” All the characters around him – Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund – have fine long-term plans. They think they know how the story is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant has no such delusions. He has no notion of how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand it. His sword is out and pointed at his master’s breast in a moment: then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But if it were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted.”

— – C.S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night” (via sandovers)

[comphee-deactivated20221228]

every day i wake up and i yearn for my silly iced coffee in a cup

[inkbirds]

i know tumblr is the right place for me because not only did i discover a way to get the classic 1897 novel dracula emailed to me piece by piece, half the site is doing it too

[xiaoguiwang]

i cannot stress enough how you should consume and interact with more than just popular media and culture. and this isnt me saying "read some classics and watch obscure movies made in the 60s" i mean this as in read nonfiction! read articles about things youve never thought about! watch documentaries and educational shows and read up on the history of weaving or how trade systems worked in the 9th century byzantine empire and look into philosophical questions from cultures you're not a part of!

branch outside of your interests and comfort zone because not only will this widen your worldview, it also improves the way you conceptualize things and will help you think critically about whats happening in ur life and the media u consume normally. also, you might learn some fun things for trivia night :)

[geschiedenis-en-talen]

medieval people be like

and expect you to know what they mean

[geschiedenis-en-talen]

why do they keep doing this to me

[blankspace17]

seen a lot of these with your favorites, but reblog with the CURRENT book you are reading, show you are streaming, the last movie you watched, and any game/puzzle/crafts you’re working on 

[watsername]

do u guys listen to music in languages that aren’t your first language . and if so what languages

[bluebeardswiife]

it’s just me and my four hundred unread books against the world i guess

[galina]

At the moment I have to do a lot of writing and editing, so I have taken to leaving the office and coming to work down here in the library. It’s so serene and mostly empty. I love the way the light comes down between these shelves in the morning

[nemfrog]

A crow with a halo. One thousand gems of genius in poetry and art. 1889.

Internet Archive

[deviika]

Jonathan Safran Foer / John Steinbeck

[ezra-the-librarian]

Reading Recap: January 2022

So far this year, I’ve managed to read a book a week – we’ll see if this keeps up! – and even better, all four titles were ones I enjoyed. One of them especially so; you can imagine my surprise when, two weeks into January, I found myself sure I’d just read one of my favorite books of the year! But without further ado, here’s my January-2022-reads-in-review:

Bird Box / Josh Malerman

This short novel was the first book I picked up this year. I remember the Netflix film pretty well – I think I watched it three or four times when it was first released (not because I was so in love with it but because I just kept watching it with different people, haha)! But it’s been a few years since then, and the adaptation differed plenty from the source material, both character and plot-wise, so it was almost like reading a different story set in the same universe. It was just as fast-paced and exciting, though, too, so this was a great choice for an easy, beginning-of-the-year read.

The City Beautiful / Aden Polydoros

THIS BOOK! There’s just so much I could say about The City Beautiful, I think I’ll probably end up writing a post at some point dedicated to it. Set during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, it’s a new Jewish YA historical fantasy about a young man who finds himself possessed by the dybbuk of his close friend Yakov after his murder. I don’t remember where I first heard about the title (maybe a BookRiot newsletter?), but I put in a staff recommendation of purchase at the library for this title months ago (and to be honest, I think I submitted it twice), so I was the first one to get my hands on it when it was finally added to the collection at the beginning of the year. It’s just so well-written, and I loved the characters, the setting, and and and... You can definitely expect me to write another post about this book, there’s just so much I want to say about it! I loved it so much, I went out and bought myself a personal copy as soon as I finished reading the one I’d gotten from the library!

We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep / Andrew Kelly Stewart

This novella was my second post-apocalypse title of the year – a theme I didn’t intend on focusing on, but seeing as my hold arrived at the library on a day when I had a free afternoon…We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep is a distinctive story set in an alternate-timeline, post-nuclear-apocalypse version of the 1980s, and focuses on a group of doomsday cultists living on a submarine. The main character is a young girl who must pretend to be a boy to ensure her survival amidst the all-male cultists, an issue she must deal with in addition to planning her escape after discovering the new captain’s plan to release a decades-old nuke on what remains of Australia before sending their decrepit submarine to the depths of the ocean to die. Very niche novella, intriguing idea, and well-executed.

The Cat Who Saved Books / Sosuke Natsukawa

This one was my second favorite read of the month, behind The City Beautiful. Another quick, atmospheric novel, this one is about a high schooler in Japan who, after his grandfather’s death, faces the loss of the bookstore the two owned and called home for years - and the sudden appearance of a talking cat, who convinces him to follow along on journeys into mysterious worlds to save books in peril. It’s a fun work of magical realism, and I feel like I read it at the perfect time, as I’m currently playing through Persona5 again (a video game that shares some similarities with this book - talking cat and all!). In fact, I listened to this track off the Persona5 soundtrack the whole time I was reading, since it fit so well with the vibes of the story 🐈 Fun read for cat and book lovers alike!