Hi everyone! I’ve had my Kindle for about 10 years and lately I’ve really got back into reading. I’m thinking of upgrading to a newer e-reader, but I’m torn between sticking with Kindle or switching to Kobo. I’d love to hear your opinions and experiences. What do you use? What would you recommend?

I used to be very picky about reviews and ratings. I would try and only read books rated 4 and above on GR. But then I realized I was liking some books that were 3.6 and up.

Do you guys take into consideration the average star ratings? I have friends who don’t care about reviews at all and will pick up a book with a bad ratings if they like the plot.

If you do take into consideration the reviews, what number is your limit? Mine is anything lower than 3.6.

Edit: I love the PB community because I have reconsidered my whole stance on ratings. I am now going to disregard ratings and stop being so picky. This def makes a more open minded experience ❤️❤️❤️

Usually when I look at people's profiles and decide whether or not to follow them, I'm looking at our book overlap and the books they chose as "My Taste." Though, depending on the comment they made to lead me to their profile in the first place, those things don't make as much of a difference.

That said, when you chose the books for "My Taste," did you choose your all time favorites, or your current favorites, or books that stayed with you, or something else? My choices were a mix of those things, I suppose, but moreso books I thought clearly defined my preferences.

For example, I love found family, multi-POV stories, and I'll consume a heist in whatever medium it's presented. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo has all of those things, so it's on my taste board. Tamora Pierce is an author whose work helped define the reader I am today. Lady Knight isn't my favorite of her books, but it has a strong female character (big love for Kel!), the fulfilling of a prophecy, and a loveable dog, all things that I think define my taste as a reader.

So, how did you choose?

the year is almost over and i am nosy. what are your bookish regrets?

mine: i regret not getting into fantasy sooner. i kept thinking it would be too dense or confusing, and i missed out on so many great reads. the PB community nudged me in with patient recs, spoiler-light explanations, and vocab help, and now i actually look forward to new worlds and magic systems. thank you for the push y’all!

your turn! 😬

Does your library charge you for reserving physical books? Or is my library weird?

I'm in Derbyshire, England and my local library charges users 80p ($1 US) for physical book reserves.

But when I tell people this (around England and abroad), they tell me that's unhinged and have no idea that this is even a thing 🤣

I don't know either but I hate it. At least I can reserve ebooks at the library without a charge.

We're reading this with our two sons. I'm hoping to use it as a conversation for bigger ideas. We never got rid of our original HP books after Jo came out as a TERF, so we're not contributing to her wealth by buying anything of hers... But I certainly don't believe in completely separating the art from the artist. Thoughts?

Another quality of life update! You can now select which edition of a book you are reading, which will update the book info in your library. This is most relevant for changing which book cover shows up in your library, or changing the language edition. We get asked all the time about changing book covers, so I'm happy to report this is finally an option! The edition page will also show you additional data like publisher and page count.

This does require an app update if you are on the iOS/Android app.

We've been working with a few volunteer librarians to combine language editions on Pagebound and are making steady progress "deduping" popular authors. This is a necessary process to make sure we have one forum per book, and also ensures if you read a book in say Spanish, the English version is also marked "finished" and you get credit towards any Quests, Readalongs etc. Deduping will also make Search and navigating the author pages easier.

To change the language/edition of a book, click "View All Languages & Editions" on the book page (next to publish year above the book description). You'll see a list of all available editions, and can swap from that page. Your chosen edition will reflect in your Library.

Combining language editions is a monumental task, so we appreciate your patience as me, Lucy, and our volunteers work through it all!

Another fun update: we brought the "Featured Emoji" to the Discover Lists page!

We're still working on home feed updates and will be back soon with more updates :)

Happy Reading, Jennifer & Lucy

PS: if you're curious how deduping works: When language editions are combined, it just means that there is one Book/forum per listing, but the "deduped" editions are still available on the editions page. All reviews and forum posts that were on the deduped book will now show up on the main Book page.

i was wondering if anyone else has ever looked at frankenstein through a queer lens?

it’s been ages since i last read it (currently rereading it!) but every time i talk about how much i love the story, i end up thinking it could connect to queer coding or queer themes somehow.

i’ve never really dug deeper into that idea, but it always comes up when i think about it. has anyone else felt the same way? or read anything that discusses it? i’d love to know if you’ve already read essays or articles out about it.

i’ll come back once i finish the reread to share my own thoughts, but i’m really curious to hear what others think in the meantime!

I was wondering if anyone has pet peeves regarding how books are talked about in online spaces. Whether that's review styles, widespread opinions, marketing, etc. - do you have something that kinda annoys you a little bit? This isn't meant to be serious, just small lighthearted things that annoy you personally.

Mine is that people have no idea what plot- and character-driven mean. Time and time again, I'll go to log a book on StoryGraph that's COMPLETELY CLEARLY plot-driven only to see more users having it marked as character-driven than plot-driven and it drives me up the wall 😫 character-driven doesn't mean that the narrative is driven by a character doing something - THAT'S PLOT.

What are your pet peeves, if you have any?

I'm just a girl who likes to read multiple books at a time. What about you guys?

I’m from a small town and struggling to source books. Our county library uses BorrowBox, and I don’t read enough to justify Kindle Unlimited, I have access to Prime Reading, but really if I want to read a book I have to hope my library has it or it’s on BorrowBox and for the types of books I read, it’s rare I find something.

Of the 3 Dia de los Muertos books, my library only has 1 copy of cemetery boys shared amongst 11 libraries (and even then its usual home is a high school library) 🤣

Does anyone else have this problem and can commiserate over the difficulty that can be living in rural areas and getting access to affordable books or just books in general.

Side note, does anyone remember pre-Netflix order a dvd and get it delivered, post it back and get another one? Can we have that for books a country wide library, to sign up and order a book from anywhere and not just your county. 🤣