International Bat Night has been going on for 30 years, highlighting the importance of bats in the ecosystem and educating people about them. We have a lot of bats around here at night and when I lived in the midwest U.S., people sometimes put up bat houses to attract the creatures as a way of keeping mosquito populations down.

While not nearly as popular in arts like TV and literature as cats, there are a few:

The Silverwing series Stellaluna the fruit bat Bartok from the animated film Anastasia

Are there any bat characters from literature that you know of? Are there any you really like?

Inspired by the "Books with No Romance" request in the club earlier and the tumblr post that says something like "yeah yeah 'I'd kill or die for you' is overdone in a romance story. what about 'I'd kill or die for you' when it's a boss to their employee? exquisite dynamic." What books do you have where there is an unshakable, mountain-moving bond between management and their subordinates (extremely extremely platonic yet so compelling)???

The two I have right now are Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots (supervillain saves woman's life, she becomes a devoted henchwoman, moves heaven and earth for him and then he does the same and that goes back and forth a couple times) and The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard (your divinely-ordained emperor-turned-king, like, really needs a week off. this WILL cause problems. you WILL take care of them). Any favorites from y'all?

I love reading romantasy and epic fantasy with romance. However, I do not wish to read or watch or hear anything related to romance for a while, as I am currently convinced love is purely fictional and I won't be able to experience it ever. (Today I got dumped via an AI-generated text. AI-GENERATED TEXT. Now I know that when someone is not ashamed of telling you the last time they willingly picked up a book was in middle school, that is a huge red flag. Such people lack not only the empathy to try to understand what the other person is feeling, but also the reading comprehension skills required to come up with a proper answer on their own. I dont feel even a little sad, it just feels like I just parted ways with ChatGPT. Good riddance I guess... I hope I am the first and last person to experience this, but I also know I wont be. I hate AI a bit more each day.)

It feels good to put my anger into words, but back to the purpose of this post: It is kind of hard to find books with absolutely no romance, especially in fantasy. If it won't be too specific to find, I would also very much like books that would make me laugh. I feel a reading slump approaching, so I would appreciate any help 😊

EDIT: I want to thank each and every one of you for all your recs and especially for your support! Your comments mean the world to me :) I realised once more just how much I like being a part of this community. Love you all 💙

I’d love to hear more perspectives on:

1. why you follow someone else on PB and
2. what types of interactions you typically have

I tend to follow people who have similar taste in books and/or a library that I can yoink from! I also pretty much 100% follow back anyone who follows me. I absolutely love following others that reciprocate likes/upvotes/comments.

For interactions, I ♥️ most of my friends’ updates and tend to comment on bigger milestones (leveling up, badges, etc.) unless they do not interact with me in that way. I don’t want to be a bother if someone else doesn’t find value in likes or upvotes, or doesn’t comment on others’ posts.

But then I sometimes get sad when I see users who follow me interacting a lot with others, but not me. If not friend, why friend-shaped?

So, what about you? Are you more of a yapper and not a liker? Does it hurt your feelings if someone follows you and doesn’t interact? And then what do you do - nothing, block them, or unfollow?

Anyway, I realized hearing perspectives and experiences from others could help give me insight into how we each utilize the “friend” portion of PB. As of right now, I’m only limited to my personal experience! Thanks for your thoughts. 💗✨

As someone from Utah, Mormons would def make an insanely large and expensive ship in the hopes of taking it 100 years away