Geoff Ackbar @geoffackbar - Tumblr Blog

Book recommendation masterpost

As my list of rec posts grows, I figured it might be time to write a masterpost that I can continuously update and link back to.

Some notes on how I structure my lists: I generally try to stick to adult and young adult titles (with a mention in the synopsis if it's a YA), however on occasion I will include a middle grade if I need to fill out the list or if it’s a little known or especially good book I want to highlight. The lists are a mix of already pretty well-known titles (sometimes a book is famous for a reason, okay) and lesser known names, as long as they fit the theme and were an enjoyable read. I do try to make the lists diverse, but I will not include a book simply for diversity's sake - this is a subjective project, and if I didn’t enjoy a book it will get booted to honorary mentions even if the main character is gay.

Many books will appear on multiple lists as it covers multiple themes. In some cases, a title that got featured on one list might end up only on the honorary mentions of another. Honorary mentions books are generally titles I didn’t super care for personally, but sometimes I will feel they are still a good example of some particular theme and include them in the main list. I mark my favorite books and do try to mention when an included book had notable flaws, however, the lists are not reviews. I try to keep the synopses brief, and do not consistently include things like personal opinions or content warnings. If a title sounds interesting to you, I recommend still looking into it on your own if you need content warnings. I do sometimes write reviews on my Goodreads, but my rec lists are merely rec lists.

Without further ado, here is the list so far:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding

Really cool sci-fi worldbuilding

Dark sapphic romances

Mermaid books

Vampire books

Many worlds: portal fantasies

Many worlds: alternate timelines

Robots and artificial intelligences

Post- and transhumanism

Alien intelligences

Queer science fiction part 1, part 2, part 3

Possession/bodysnatching

Evil fungi

Black science fiction

Queer fantasy

Fairy books

Space books

Queer horror

Werewolf books

Angel books

Monster/creature friendships

Monster romance

Cosmic horror that would've appalled H.P. Lovecraft

Sapphic books for imodna fans

Aro/ace sff

Aro/ace books, vibes edition

Tier three queer sff

Magic schools

Queer sff classics

Favorites of 2024, 2025

homunculus-argument

A free-range group therapy called "get herded, idiot", where you and everyone in your group is set loose to run around on an open field while a highly trained shepherd dog tries to keep you all in one group. I am not sure what benefit this would have for anyone involved.

derinthescarletpescatarian

This would fix everyone involved including the dog

blueiscoool

Caligulas Ring

A 2,000-year-old sapphire ring, often attributed to Roman Emperor Caligula, features a delicate portrait engraved into the stone, widely believed to be his fourth and final wife, Caesonia. Crafting a ring from a single piece of sapphire was an immense technical feat in antiquity.

The Ring:

The Material: It is a hololith, meaning the entire ring (both the stone and the band) was carved out of a single piece of sky-blue sapphire.

The Engraving: The bezel features the profile of a woman, which historians and gem collectors associate with Caligula's empress, Milonia Caesonia.

Current Status: The ring is part of the legendary Marlborough Gems collection. It previously surfaced at an auction through the royal jewelers Wartski.

Provenience & Skepticism: While popular tradition links the ring to Caligula's extravagant reign (37–41 AD), many historians note that it is extremely difficult to verify ancient provenance. The earliest documented history of the ring traces back only to the 17th-century collection of Thomas Howard, the Earl of Arundel. Some art historians debate its ancient origins, suggesting it may have been crafted during the Renaissance.

mauveflxwrs

Jacob Lawrence - Harlem Street Scene (1942)

windows-in-art

Reading at home.

Ana Jarén

plaguedocboi

So every year, my aquarium does a captive lobster hatchery project (hence all the loblings). The reason we’re doing it is because in the wild, loblings only have a 1 in 25,000 chance of surviving their larval phase. They’re plankton as babies and everything eats them. Additionally, as the Gulf of Maine warms, they are having even lower survival rates because the blooms of copepods they feed on as babies are happening earlier in the year, and they’re missing it.

Obviously, the goal of this experiment is to grow the lobsters until they’re big enough to settle to the seabed and then release them, because they have a much higher likelihood of surviving to adulthood when they’re able to hide. Ideally, captive lobster hatcheries can boost the wild population and keep things stable, so we don’t have a major crash in a decade or two.

The first year we tried this was pretty bad. We had a lot of eggs, but very few babies. It turned out that the CO2 levels in the building spiked as more guests visited throughout the summer, and that settled into the water and threw off the pH and caused a chemical reaction that prevented a lot of the eggs from hatching. I think we ended up releasing three baby lobsters (which is still better than their wild survival rate but not great).

The second year was a little better. We added a de-gasser to the aquarium and got a ton of larval lobsters, but right as they were settling to the bottom we had a disease outbreak that killed most of them. We ended up releasing four babies at the end of the season.

But this year? Oh boy. We have so many lobsters that we had to release the first round early (usually we wait till September or October so guests can see them). We just released a total of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE baby lobsters, and we still have over a hundred who haven’t settled to the bottom yet. I genuinely don’t even have words to explain how cool this is. OVER FIVE HUNDRED. We just added hundreds of lobsters to the wild population that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

Conservation is so fucken sick

asteroidtroglodyte

Quick shout out to the Down syndrome kid from my after-school program back when I was in grade school. Like yea he had the usual issues but he was a sweetheart and quite funny; and one day both his parents showed up at the same time to pick him up and I had the experience of meeting a family of genetically disabled people that had jobs and a home and a kid in school and it was a profoundly normalizing experience for me like I couldn’t take eugenicists seriously after that because like “no they totally can have whole entire meaningful lives with marriage and children and work and hobbies have you not met Dennis??” Anyway quick shout out to Dennis you were a real one

certifiedeviandrinker

darkest timeline where data is chatgpt and therefore stupid and bad

ralfmaximus

Brent Spiner should record PSAs about ChatGPT as Data.

proudpoe

Howl?? From Howl’s Moving Castle??

emomemolemoemo

geekstudio

Pride Pokemon patterns from Star Salts

fillianore-moved

so metropolitan museum of art has a register of books they’ve published that are out of print and that you can download for free! they’re mostly books on art, archeology, architecture, fashion and history and i just think that’s super useful and interesting so i wanted to share! you can find all of the books available here!