Nor Earth, Nor Boundless Sea

“Whether destiny looms dear or dark, what can a man do but seek?” Meredith | twenties | mostly bookblr I used to read books for school, now I take care of books for a living (this is a sideblog- I follow from my main: @merequines)

[theinquisitxor]

Here is a working masterlist of my book recommendations and book lists. They're here below, so take a look at any that interest you

Favorite Tropes Book Recs:

Portals to Other Worlds

The North

Journeys

Dark, Magical Forest

Mentors

The Underworld/Death Magic

Why you should read...

Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Hostage of Empire series by SC Emmett

I will be updating and adding as I continue to create these lists of book recs, so there will be more to come!

[aroaessidhe]

books & bookmarks

sorrowland: fungi & ghosts

what moves the dead: mycology & spooky haunting creatures

the last tale of the flower bride: fairytales, keys, birds & bugs

mexican gothic: mycology & horror

[microraptorhours]

i love you archival work. i love you alphabetizing. i love you sorting. i love you reshelving. i love you document restoration. i love you shelf reading. i love you inventorying. i love you analysis. i love you archival work.

[mamawasatesttube]

the thing about media literacy is that understanding why the author chose to specify that the curtains are blue is the same skill set as understanding that the way the author characterizes all black characters as angry or all chinese characters as meek and silent is racist. it is the same skill set as being able to identify when a news source is biased or when someone is feeding you propaganda. the ability to ask "why did this person choose to present this premise in this specific way?" is a critical skill in a world full of misinformation. why are the curtains blue? maybe it's a characterization detail. maybe it's extraneous worldbuilding. why is this character written as being right all the time? maybe you're intended to disagree with them. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe you should still ask why.

[pansyfemme]

close your eyes and imagine freshly roasted root vegetables perfectly seasoned and crispy as far as the eye can see

[nighttimepatrons]

Sam trying to get Frodo to take one more step

[nighttimepatrons]

Sam psychologically tormenting Gollum

[hippiedippieblondie]

Male loneliness this, male loneliness that. Have they tried lobotomies? Tranquilizers? Being fingered by medical professionals? Tearing the yellow wallpaper off the walls of the attic room where your husband keeps you locked up?

[awesomebutunpractical]

You can have any animal for a pet. Any complications such as “keeping the animal healthy and happy” and “the time and effort it would take to keep happy and healthy pet” and “keeping yourself uneaten” and “the pet I want is kind of extinct” have all been solved perfectly. You don’t have to think of that.

What is your pet?

[havingapoemwithyou]

After many springs by Langston Hughes

[pansyfemme]

close your eyes and imagine freshly roasted root vegetables perfectly seasoned and crispy as far as the eye can see

[nighttimepatrons]

Sam trying to get Frodo to take one more step

[nighttimepatrons]

Sam psychologically tormenting Gollum

[succumbing-song]

[fostershyperfixator]

My local library had a days since James Patterson last published counter.

[manicpixiedckgirl]

[theaudientvoid]

There are multiple chapters that are set in hospitals where the characters are attempting to recover from injuries that never fully heal. I must once again stress that my experience in WWI was perfectly normal.

[aro-ace-from-outer-space22]

There is a giant horrible mudplain full of unrecoverable and perfectly preserved dead bodies that the characters have to walk through in a land where the air is poisoned gas, and on a compLETELY UNRELATED NOTE: WWI WAS TOTALLY FINE AND NORMAL!!

[fancysmudges]

peak dynamic

[nzbookwyrm]

January 2027

Nonsense and candy and the families we choose in the origin story of a beloved character in the latest installment of the Hugo Award-winning Wayward Children series.

Before there was Sumi, Promised Savior of Confection, there was Onishi Sumiko, a girl with no idea where she belonged.

Onishi Sumiko was born to be an invisible girl. The second child of immigrant parents, overshadowed by her brother, she seemed destined for a life of quiet obedience, never breaking free of the path that had been chosen for her.

Until a chance encounter with an impossible door sends her tumbling into a world of peppermint dreams and sugary nightmares, leaving her trapped in a candy-coated heart of darkness.

Forced to adapt to the world of Confection, where the rules are as unpredictable as they are nonsensical, Sumiko must decide whether she’s going to be a meek, logical victim of her own fate—or whether she’s going to stand up and become the illogical, impossible hero she was always meant to be.

Not all sweet dreams are safe ones, as Sumi will quickly discover for herself.

[depsidase]

[yipyipallyall]

[ID: Tweet thread by Boze the Library Owl (@SketchesbyBoze): "'Why are folks getting dumber?' Because they don't read. 'Why aren't men as romantic & poetic as they used to be?' Because they don't read. 'Why are people so vulnerable to propaganda?' 'Why is everyone a conspiracy theorist?' Because they don't read. Because they don't read. As the literacy rate declines, you'll ask yourself why the quality of life continues to deteriorate in ways large and small, and in almost every instance the answer will be: because people stopped reading." End ID.]

[museum-of-artifacts]

More: https://thetravelbible.com/top-artifacts-from-the-medieval-period/

An Illustration of a longsword technique from the Codex Wallerstein, a 16th-century convolution of three 15th-century fechtbuch (combat manual) manuscripts, with a total of 221 pages. The codex is now housed at the Augsburg University library in Germany

[torpublishinggroup]

@carterkeane’s Morsel is a folk horror debut about learning to bite back when the world is determined to eat you alive. Here’s what it’s about:

Lou did what the children of parents with backbreaking, poorly paying jobs are supposed to do: pulled up her bootstraps, went to college, and got an office gig with coworkers who won’t stop talking about their multilevel marketing scheme disguised as self-betterment. When Lou accepts a property appraisal assignment in the rural hills of Ohio, she knows it's her last chance to save her job and keep making rent. But she quickly finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere with a sabotaged truck, her dog, and someone—or something—stalking her through the ancient Appalachian woods. If she can’t escape the woods in time, she’ll see firsthand that her job isn’t the only thing that wants to eat her alive.

Cover art by Emerald Barkley; design by Jess Kiley.