@elysegrasso@historians.social
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

elysegrasso

@[email protected]

Retired. Fiber arts. Books. Spec Fic. Colorado Header Mountains are view from site. She/her. ace/aro/NB Survived the Marshall Fire. The view didn't burn

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Likewise, to bookstodon
@Likewise@beige.party avatar

As a reader, do you prefer when people give you random books as gifts, or do you prefer getting a gift card to a bookstore (so you can pick the book)? Just curious.

Unless I’m asked about a specific book, I prefer the bookstore card 📚
@bookstodon

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@Likewise @bookstodon The best book-related gift I ever received was a bookcase.

passenger, to bookstodon
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@bookstodon

I need to buy a gift for a family-of-friend. I am informed that they really like mystery stories, especially in historical settings, but are not fond of SFF.

I assume this means they have already read the obvious candidates, the Cadfaels and the like, or if they haven't then that's a conscious choice on their part which means I shouldn't buy them one of those.

What's a non-SFF mystery story you've enjoyed recently? Recommend me a book please!

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@Yuki @bookstodon @passenger @shark_hat Can't speak for anyone else, but one of the advantages of a book at the holidays was that I could enjoy it WITHOUT needing to interact with my whole family for a few hours. That's why not a murder mystery game: it lacks a key feature of a book for those who are easily peopled-out.

BonnettsBooks, to bookstodon
@BonnettsBooks@mastodonbooks.net avatar

12/4/23 Open 6-9p. No open containers, please.

Today's feature is Doc Savage paperbacks of the 1960s and '70s from Bantam Books. They're reprints from Doc Savage magazine, a pulp from the '30s and '40s published by Street and Smith. Nearly 90 percent of the initial Doc Savage stories were written by author Lester Dent. Kenneth Robeson was a house-name owned by Street and Smith.
Adventure awaits!


@bookstodon

A composite image of six photos of Doc Savage vintage paperbacks, as follows: 1. Quest of Qui. 2. Land of Always-Night. 3. Murder Melody. 4. The Spook Legion. 5. The Red Skull 6. The Secret in the Sky
A composite image of six photos of Doc Savage vintage paperbacks, as follows: 1. The Deadly Dwarf. 2. Red Snow. 3. Merchants of Disaster. 4. The Gold Ogre. 5. The Submarine Mystery. 6. Mad Mesa.

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@DanJ @BonnettsBooks @bookstodon I read a few of them back in the day. I'm not sure they held up in the 70s

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@DanJ @BonnettsBooks @bookstodon If you are interested,, I'd suggest checking to see if there is a fan group online (there is always a fan group somewhere online, it's a corollary of rule 34) and see what the fans think are the good ones. I do not recommend starting with vol 1 and working your way down the list. There were some real duds, and the stories are formulaic enough that no one needs to read all of them. Unless it turns out that you really like them.

sandralindsey, to romancelandia
@sandralindsey@toot.wales avatar

I have a confession.

Today I finished reading my very first Georgette Heyer novel.

I know! How can I possibly write Regency Romance without having inhaled all her works years ago...
...tbh, they always sounded a bit too het for me, is why I've not read until now.

But anyway! I really enjoyed it - The Corinthian - so if anyone would like to recommend me their fave novel to read next, please do!

@romancelandia

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@sandralindsey @romancelandia My favorite is one that is set earlier than the Regency, called The Masqueraders. Set just after Bonnie Prince Charlie. Lots of cross dressing, so possibly less het?

LincolnRamirez, to bookstodon
@LincolnRamirez@mstdn.social avatar

I loved A Wizard of Earthsea, will the second in the series - The Tombs of Atuan live up to expectations?

#Books #Reading #BookReview #Bookstodon @bookstodon

https://conversationsaboutbooks5.wordpress.com/2023/10/27/the-tombs-of-atuan-ursula-k-le-guin/

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@cturnbow @LincolnRamirez @bookstodon I read in the same order, and share the fondness for "Tombs of Atuan".
I found the first book a little disappointing when I read it for the first time.

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@cturnbow @LincolnRamirez @bookstodon Whereas, when I first met him (in Volume 2 due to the vagaries of library holdings), he had already grown, so the first book felt like a regression.

pretensesoup, to mmromance
@pretensesoup@romancelandia.club avatar

Pleased to announce this is up for preorder. It's set in 1970, there's magic and gods and drugs and queer romance, and I did actually write a couple of songs for the Macbeth musical. It's a direct sequel to Dionysus in Wisconsin, so if you haven't read that weird fever dream yet, now is a good time to check it out.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5XX9BH3

(There will be a paperback too. Just no preorder)

@bookstodon @romancelandia #books #urbanFantasy #indieAuthors #romancelandia @mmromance @lgbtqbookstodon

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@pretensesoup @bookstodon @romancelandia @mmromance @lgbtqbookstodon It has not hit B&N yet... I'll grab it when it does.

mori, to bookstodon
@mori@mastodon.au avatar

@derpoltergeist @Grizzlysgrowls @ukaunz @bookstodon @philip_cardella @wordstitcher @hawksquill Yep, same here. Being an Aussie, I’ve only ever heard the phrase mother-in-law, as the mother of your significant other. Never as dwelling. But it’s always great learning a new phrase, and sometimes the potential mischief inherent in its usage.😉

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@diazona @mori @derpoltergeist @Grizzlysgrowls @ukaunz @bookstodon @philip_cardella @wordstitcher @hawksquill
I have never seen or heard mother-in-law used as a noun except in reference to a person until this discussion. When used about property it has always been an adjective. Usage in contexts that are heavily dominated by real estate agents may be different.

SimonRoyHughes, to folklorethursday

Hespetre = spinner’s weasel: a machine to create skeins of yarn from spinner’s reels. once the skein is at length, the wheel makes a popping sound. (Pop goes the weasel, innit?)
Hespetre = yarnwinder: the simplest form of weasel, consisting of a shaft and crossbars at each end, as seen in Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna of the Yarnwinder (image 1), as seen in Otto Sinding’s illustration of East of the Sun (image 2), and as seen in the Oseberg ship (from the year 834 - image 3 is a close approximation).

Garnvinde = yarnswift: a machine to hold the skein while it is wound into balls (the opposite operation from that of the hespetre.

It has literally taken me years to come to this understanding.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go and edit the bloody folktales one more time for luck.

@folklore @folklorethursday @textilearts @knitting @histodons

Otto Sinding’s illustration of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, in which a hooded woman sits holding a long yarnwinder with yarn hanging off the top.
A modern yarnwinder. A short shaft has a crosspiece at each end. Both crosspieces are bowed. This kind of yarnwinder matches the description of the two found in the Oseberg ship (from 834).

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @folklore @folklorethursday @textilearts @knitting @histodons Are you sure the East of the Sun illo is a yarnwinder (used post spinning)and not a distaff (holds fiber pre-spinning)?

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @folklore @folklorethursday @textilearts @knitting @histodons It could be that artist was not well acquainted with fiber arts. A dressed yarn winder would show yarn going from one end to the other. That illo looks more like a mass of fiber on one end...

dickrubin716, to bookstodon
@dickrubin716@mastodonbooks.net avatar

I find that I get just as much enjoyment out of reading shorter books as I do from longer. What about you? #writingcommunity @bookstodon

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@dickrubin716 @bookstodon Not really, for books in the same genre. I like books where there has been attention paid to worldbuilding and how things fit together, and those usually need room to breathe. A shortish mystery set in its own present may work, historicals or SFF generally won't unless they are structured as novellas instead of novels.

KaraLG84, to bookstodon
@KaraLG84@dragonscave.space avatar

I wonder if any of you lovely people can help me remember the title and author of a sci-fi book I read when I was a teenager.
It was a novel about a bloke who I think had a life threatening accident and ends up waking up years in the future. He had someone helping him acclimatise to it all, and one of the things they showed him was these wings you could strap to your back and fly with. I remember wishing I could do that. They also had tiny chips that could hold a terabyte of data, which blew my mind in the late 90s/early 00s when I read it.
There was some evil plan he had to thwart because of course there was.
Other things I can remember is that there was a part were he was floating through Jupiter, which had sheep-like lifeforms swimming through it. Also he was on Europa for some reason, probably because it was where the evil plan was to take place.
I can't remember much else, but I'd love to read it again to see if it's held up. it probably hasn't.
@bookstodon

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@KaraLG84 @bookstodon It might help to know when you were a teenager

ChrisMayLA6, to bookstodon
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

As an avid reader I find research suggesting over 50% of 8-18yr olds do not 'enjoy reading' in their spare time particularly depressing!

Part of this is a Q. of them having a quiet space to read, but in part must also be related to sucking up their time & also (possibly) to the way that reading is framed as instrumental (not enjoyable) for ?

As someone who has benefitted immeasurably from , I so hope this can be reversed

@bookstodon
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/04/half-of-uk-children-do-not-read-in-spare-time

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon If disadvantaged children read least, is the problem partly one of supply? Have government cuts reduced library hours and availability?

kimlockhartga, to bookstodon
@kimlockhartga@beige.party avatar

@bookstodon have Y'all taken the Bookfinity Quiz? It's illuminating. My results were: Serial Reader, Bookworm, and Leading Lady (strong female leads). https://bookfinity.com

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@kimlockhartga @bookstodon Subject Matter Expert, Serial Reader, Lifelong Learner..
But the results are very questionable: there were a couple of categories where I wanted to enter none of the above, but that was not an option and I could not proceed without choosing something

azforeman, to linguistics
@azforeman@mastodon.social avatar

How long has "energy" been used in the sense "vibe"?

@linguistics

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@azforeman @linguistics I think energy was used before vibe became common, but I'm old enough that things get blurry looking backward. It may also be a regional or dialectal thing.
For me, things have had X energy for a long time. Things having a vibe is this millennium, possibly this decade.

lunalein, to bookstodon
@lunalein@federatedfandom.net avatar

@bookstodon folks, what’s a book you read once and then revisited many years later? did it hold up? or age like milk?

brought to you by my reread of The Sparrow, which made me feel bonkers.

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@REEL @tw @lunalein @bookstodon Error in the Alt text: the man's name was Roland according to the inscription.

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@CuriousMagpie @lunalein @bookstodon Cool! I was just thinking about that book a few days ago. I should probably hunt down a copy as well. Glad to hear it held up.

Private
elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@tishkova @bookstodon 'literary' is 'none of the above' compared to what are usually referred to as the genres (romance, mystery, sff, horror, etc.) it is popular with college writing departments and used to disproportionately include stories about college professors lusting after coeds.

Private
elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@Omom4075 @MaryAustinBooks @owlislost @bookstodon If you are talking about Daggerspell, check which version you have. I think there is a revised version that is the author's preferred one.

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@MaryAustinBooks @Omom4075 @owlislost @bookstodon 1993 is a surprisingly long time ago, but if I remember correctly, I believe some of the changes involved rolling back some editor-requested changes to the handling of the LGBT+ characters and plotlines.

AimeeMaroux, (edited ) to bookstodon
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.social avatar

, where do you usually buy steamy ?

Is it the 'Zon, is it another big retailer or do you ?

What links are most useful for us authors to share with our audience here?

Boosts are very much appreciated ❤️

@bookstodon @smutstodon

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@AimeeMaroux @bookstodon @smutstodon I don't read a lot of steamy, however... the vast majority of what I read is ebooks. And the vast majority of those are from B&N, with much smaller numbers from Kobo, kickstarter, storybundle etc. author sites small publisher sites and smashwords. I buy physical books from Amazon occasionally, and very rarely buy a Kindle book if it is something I very much want to read and I absolutely cannot find it anywhere else.

Gargron, to random
@Gargron@mastodon.social avatar

I'm curious, do you recognize which events from #Mastodon's history this sticker pack references? ☺️

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@Gargron no clue

Private
elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@weebdeluxe @bookstodon (Not a Hugo voter this year) Kaiju Preservation Society made the Hugo short list because it is 'a fine and very entertaining book' that people preferred to some of the options with more purported depth. I personally have been avoiding anything advertised as grimdark or deeply dystopian since roughly 2016: I don't have the spoons, and I disagree with the psychopathic opinions of human nature in many of them. See Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell, forex, for an alternative

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@weebdeluxe @bookstodon Since no specific alternatives to KPS were proposed in the original, I can't comment validly. I described things I avoided in favor of light-spirited books. If there are specific books published during the appropriate time period that you think should be on the ballot instead, either people did not encounter them, or the voters disagreed.

NickEast, to bookstadon
@NickEast@geekdom.social avatar

I'm usually chaotic neutral in alignment charts, but this time I'm chaotic evil all the way 😈

@bookstodon @reading @bookbubble @bookstadon @books

#Book #Books
#AlignmentChart #ChaoticEvil #Bookmark
#Bookworm #Bookwyrm #Bookstodon #BookLove #BoostingIsSharing

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@CodexArcanum @NickEast @bookstodon @reading @bookbubble @bookstadon @books There is also the bookworm special: shove a book into another book to mark your place

Private
elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@johnrakestraw @bookstodon If I make a reading plan, the odds are about 2:1 that it will guarantee that other things in my TBR list (things not in the reading plan) will get read instead, unless some items on the reading list happen to coincide with a research rathole.

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@Hippasus500 @johnrakestraw @bookstodon @bibliolater Being able to concentrate on one thing at a time is the privilege of people who don't need to tend small children or other dependents along with whatever else they are doing. Not needing to learn proper task switching does leave them somewhat limited.

magpiemarket, to random
@magpiemarket@fosstodon.org avatar

Just saw that has had three articles about how they mistreat their sellers in as many days. As an independent myself, I've been struggling to find purchase (and purchasers) on the platform, which is why I started building - a Etsy-alternative. These articles just go to show how much we need a new space that helps rather than uses them. Please this to help us spread the word.

BBC article headline titled "Etsy U-turn in row over withholding seller's money". Posted 19 hours ago when the screenshot was taken (August third, 2023).
BBC article headline titled "Etsy accused of 'destroying' sellers by withholding money". Posted 3 days ago when the screenshot was taken (August third, 2023).

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@magpiemarket I have seen reports in the past couple of days of Stripe arbitrarily closing the accounts of people who sell things they don't like, such as Tarot cards, and even some community charities. I used to sell Tarot cards at SF conventions, so I took notice of the warnings even though that business has been closed for many years.

Private
elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@jmadelman @contingent_mag @histodons Oddly, I have never found a translation of the Bhagavad Gita that uses that phrasing for that line... and I have looked. I would be interested to know what translation Oppenheimer was using. It may be one that fell out of favor after the middle of the 20th century.

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@jmadelman @contingent_mag @histodons I have encountered that phrase in other places, but the context has always suggested that they were quoting Oppenheimer, not drawing directly from a full text of the Gita.

bibliolater, to bookstodon
@bibliolater@qoto.org avatar

When you need to understand and retain important #information that you have #read, do you use an #electronic #book or a traditional paper #book for the purpose?

#Books #Ebook #Ebooks #Bookstodon #Reading #AmReading #Question @bookstodon

elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@bibliolater @bookstodon I use whatever is available that contains the information I need. Lately, that is usually an ebook

Private
elysegrasso,
@elysegrasso@historians.social avatar

@SDZ @bookstodon Nope. I prefer Miss Marple to any Poirot story

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • KamenRider
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • KbinCafe
  • Socialism
  • oklahoma
  • SuperSentai
  • feritale
  • All magazines
    •