quotes. quirks. books.

Rosa. 31. They/them pronouns. Mostly I post quotes from books I'm reading or have read. (A side blog for tiernanhunter.tumblr.com. If I follow you back it'll be with that url.)

[bookexploreralyssa]

What a peaceful night.

[gatoraid]

Happy two year anniversary to the book that altered lives forever

[teaboot]

YOOOOOO I JUST GOT MY FIRST LIBRARY CARD SINCE LIKE 2007 IT WAS SO EASY???

Like they literally just needed any photo ID with an address, I thought they needed like unopened mail and paperwork and crap, it took 5 goddamn minutes, I did it on my way home from work

And was NOBODY gonna tell me libraries have websites now with ebooks and audiobooks and documentaries and British TV and shit???

Why the FUCK have I been paying Netflix

GO GET A LIBRARY CARD

[book-lore]

And because the Library Goblin in me has been summoned again, I will not only second the great wisdom of the original post, but also add the following:

Can't speak for outside systems to my own, but most libraries only really need a proof of address to get you that card and the access to all the goodies. You can even get the process started without any of that with the promise that they will work with you to get access before you've settled if you've just moved.

Don't have an address? You can still get a card! Again, this is subject to the library in your area, but you can indeed be of no fixed address, between homes or just straight up having a hard time and with no prospect of getting a permanent address and you can still get a library card or at least access to the collection. The library is indeed for everyone and it doesn't matter if you are couch surfing or if you are in a shelter for whatever reason, you too can still come there and use the collection.

And you should because the books are wonderful, and we have a lot of them, but we also have ways for you to access ebooks and audio books. There's Hoopla and Kanopy for your streaming needs and the former even has an insanely large music collection so you can stream a bunch of artists, including brand new albums. For gamers, you can access brand new games and play through them before you commit to buying them. I know that we all love the convenience of things like your streaming service providers but you can find others for free. You don't need a lot of those subscriptions because there is a resource that your tax dollars is already funding ready for you to access.

There are a lot of libraries out there and some can afford to offer more and others less but the more you use those resources, the better the services will get. And you would be shocked at how much you can get through your local library. Yes, even one you might think is small and with a garbage selection. You don't know how much the library can offer you until you go there and the more you use it, the more you value it and the more value it has, the better the argument to fund it. There are libraries out there that have full on Makerspaces where you can learn to sew and rent a machine. There are libraries where you can even take out kitchen materials for baking. There are seed libraries out there where you can get your garden started. This is a third space that people have slept on for years and the possibilities are endless.

I'll cap my ranting off by saying that right now, more than ever, you need to show your library how much you love it and how important a resource it is. There are lots of things you can do but the first and most important thing is getting the card. Having an active library card shows that the community cares and considers the services vital. Libraries have to fight for a lot of the funding that they receive and in recent times, people who would prefer you have nothing have attacked that funding in horrible ways. People who grow complacent when their libraries are under fire like this will end up losing them. And that loss will take decades to recover, if the community can even do it. Starting up a new library takes a lot of money and years to replace everything from books to space to programming. Keep those doors open and show up for the library and they won't be able to take it away from you. Start by getting that card!

[quillnote]

Book hauls by @nicsbookshelf_

[vamplire]

me: this book stole a part of my soul, ripped my heart from my chest & left me curled up in a weeping mess of tears

also me: u should read it!

[raakhti]

what is HAPPENING

[moonglade-poetess]

Hey guys, with so much love, and as someone with an actual English degree:

Please just use Sparknotes if you're going to do this. I get it. I do. But chatgpt or other genAI shit doesn't actually know what's important for you to know, and in some cases it might fully make shit up. Use sparknotes. Failing that, talk to someone who did read it. I'm begging.

[the-barefoot-hatter]

oh my god, there's whole books series that ALREADY do that. Have they never heard of the No Fear series published by Sparknotes? It puts a plain everyday english translation on the opposite page from the original text, plus character lists with descriptions and helpful commentary.

stop using AI for things that already exist!

[do-angels-dream-of-starry-seas]

ALSO also - you do not have to do it everytime, but please try reading books in plain text, as well. Can even be in audio

You will be developing language, critical thinking, and so much more, and these WILL be important if you want to talk about historical context and nuance in art

[may-shepard]

https://librivox.org/

^free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers

[sarahthecoat]

librivox is wonderful!

[arahir]

libby app guide

aka how to support libraries and get books and audiobooks for free without pirating them.

disclaimer: this is so easy. it is also really fun.

one: download the libby app. you'll open it and it'll ask you to add a library.

two: get a library card. don't have one? good news, it's really easy and i am saying this as the laziest person on earth. it varies what you need to have to get a card library to library but almost all libraries will let you get one online. i have a card for my home town and for the town i moved to. sometimes you only need an email address, sometimes you need an area code. to get mine it took me about 5 minutes of lying on the couch aimlessly tapping on my phone. follow your heart. you can get cards for places you don't currently live. i will leave the ethics of that up to you but it's probably better than pirating and either way you're creating traffic for libraries which is what they need to exist.

three: add your card. you can add multiple cards for multiple libraries. you need the number. i have never had libby fail to recognize a valid account.

four: search for your book! some will be ready to borrow right away. others have an estimated delivery time. libby will always pick the one that's the fastest from the options available at all the libraries you have cards at. you can borrow audiobooks and ebooks. libby will send you a notification when you're book is ready to borrow. in my experience it's a lot faster than the estimate. if you aren't ready to read it, you can ask to be skipped over in line so you keep your place at the front but let someone else read it first.

five: read it!!! kindle is the most common way to do this. you can go to your loan and click read with kindle. it'll download it to all your devices where you have kindle. as long as you have the loan, it'll act like your book. when the loan ends, if the device is connected to the internet, it'll automatically be returned. it will save all your notes and highlights. (if you disconnect your device from the internet, it won't return the book. weewoo.)

anyway in case anyone else has been wondering about it, i really love it. is a nice surprise to see what i'm going to get and it's cut my reading costs down big time! it's also neat because i get to synch my books between devices unlike downloading books through cough cough other means. good luck!

[theroseunblown]

Reblogging again to say that you do not need Kindle, the app or the device, to read ebooks on Libby!! You can read any book you borrow WITHIN the Libby app, and you can change the font and dark/light mode for accessibility too.

[arahir]

please be aware the libby app does NOT let you read or listen offline so the app itself is unusable for me for actual reading unfortunately! you guys who have access to the internet steadily can use it but be aware. you can't use it on a plane, for example, but if you download to kindle you can.

[cntarella]

You should actually be able to use libby app offline (for those allergic to kindle like I am lmao). You just have to change your download permissions in settings. The web browser version of libby is online only though.

Go to Settings > Change Download Rules > toggle to “Everything” (and recommended to “Download only on Wi-fi” if you are worried about your data)

Then Settings > Read Books With… > Libby, so that it downloads to the correct app. You should be able to change your preferences on the main page by clicking the cloud icon to see where you’ve downloaded it too.

[shesegwin]

ALL OF THIS IS FUCKING AMAZING!!!!

[fangirld]

If you have a (newer) Kobo ereader your Libby books can be downloaded directly thru wifi onto it too! (Overdrive is the older app for Libby)

[only-need-the-silence]

How I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me. It’s like a book elegantly bound, but in a language that you can’t read just yet.

✨ Patreon

[kaelio]

Marius not only made up his name on the spot, but because he was nervous talking to Botticelli

[kaelio]

If you've never read this part it's great. "It's so cringe he met bottecelli". no no. Amateur hour. Anne rice had him meet bottecelli and he whiffs this entire thing so bad. he doesn't just meet bottecelli he whiffs it. It's not cringe that he meets bottecelli because it's totally overwhelmed by how cringe it was , like, for the character. In text. horrible

[kaelio]

[ashcremated]

motivational words from the yuan ming dinasty blorbos to brighten your day <3

[sharry-arry-odd]

He found himself uttering a series of "excuse mes" that he did not mean. A truly magnificent thing about the way the brain was coded, Sam thought, was that it could say "Excuse me" while meaning "Screw you." Unless they were unreliable or clearly established as lunatics or scoundrels, characters in novels, movies, and games were meant to be taken at face value–the totality of what they did or what they said. But people–the ordinary, the decent and basically honest–couldn't get through the day without that one indispensable bit of programming that allowed you to say one thing and mean, feel, even do, another.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

[sharry-arry-odd]

"Someone on the internet probably knows the truth," Sam said. "Wow, that is amazingly naive," Sadie said. "The belief that someone on the internet knows the truth about anything."

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

[sharry-arry-odd]

For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I love you. It was superior, he believed, to show love to those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn't you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

[sharry-arry-odd]

Sam went back and forth. The fact that Dong Hyun had not died a video game death meant that Sam had been able to spend time with him before the end. The length of time it had taken Dong Hyun to die also meant he had said everything he wanted to say to Sam, his cousins, and his grandmother. Was this trade worth his suffering? Sam didn't know.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

[sharry-arry-odd]

Sadie did not feel that Naomi was altogether a person yet, which was another thing that one could not admit. So many of the mothers she knew said that their children were exactly themselves from the moment they appeared in the world. But Sadie disagreed. What person was a person without language? Tastes? Preferences? Experiences? And on the other side of childhood, what grown-up wanted to believe that they had emerged from their parents fully formed? Sadie knew that she herself had not become a person until recently. It was unreasonable to expect a child to emerge whole cloth. Naomi was a pencil sketch of a person who, at some point, would be a fully 3D character.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

[sharry-arry-odd]

"Also, I'm getting divorced." "I'm sorry to hear that," Sadie said. "Inevitable," Dov said. "I'm fucking awful. I would never be in a relationship with me."

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

[sharry-arry-odd]

"We still aren't speaking." "You aren't speaking to him, you mean." "I suppose that is what I mean. "Sadie, for God's sake, why?" "Because he tricked me." But, of course, there was more to it than that. "Oh, to have the standards of Sadie Green." "Said the man who handcuffed me to his bed." "To my point, I did that, and you still have brunch with me whenever I'm in L.A.," Dov said."

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin