Janamb
Fantasy & anything with dragons in it :) Obsessed with these shiny badges Let's be moots! š§”šš¤š©µš | chainmail | archery & HEMA | metalhead | compsci student | knows too many random (odd) facts
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Janamb TBR'd a book
5h
We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People
Nemonte Nenquimo
From a fearless, internationally acclaimed activist, We Will Be Jaguars is an impassioned memoir about an indigenous childhood, a clash of cultures, and the fight to save the Amazon rainforest and protect her people.
Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuadorās Amazon rainforestāone of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950sāNemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing. She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. She played barefoot in the forest and didnāt walk on pavement, or see a car, until she was a teenager and left to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. But after Nemonteās ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture, she listened.
Nemonte returned to the forest and traditional ways of life and became one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. She spearheaded an alliance of Indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest.
We Will Be Jaguars is an astonishing memoir by an equally astonishing woman. Nemonte digs into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, and hacking away at racist notions of Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, she reveals a life story as rich, harsh, and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself.
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5h
Poison Study (Study, #1)
Maria V. Snyder
Choose: A quick deathā¦ or slow poison...
About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palaceāand risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.
And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dustāand only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.
As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear...
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5h
Heartless Hunter (The Crimson Moth, #1)
Kristen Ciccarelli
Enemies-to-lovers doesn't get more high stakes than a witch and a witch hunter falling in love in bestselling author Kristen Ciccarelli's latest romantic fantasy.
On the night Runeās life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is.
Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe ā a notorious and unforgiving witch hunter loyal to the revolution ā who she can't help but find herself falling for.
Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Runeās merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. He soon realizes that beneath her beauty and shallow faƧade, is someone fiercely intelligent and tender who feels like his perfect match. Except, what if sheās the very villain heās been hunting?
Kristen Ciccarelliās The Crimson Moth is the thrilling start to a romantic fantasy duology where the only thing more treacherous than being a witchā¦is falling in love.
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Janamb TBR'd a book
5h
The Helm of Midnight (The Five Penalties, #1)
Marina J. Lostetter
A legendary serial killer stalks the streets of a fantastical city in The Helm of Midnight, the stunning first novel in a new trilogy from acclaimed author Marina Lostetter.In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power--the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city with a series of gruesome murders.
Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. But these murders are different from before, not simply random but the work of a deliberate mind probing for answers to a sinister question.
It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake.
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5h
My Thorns For Your Roses
Kristen Argyres
True love takes many forms.
As one of the few survivors of her generation, Lark wants to live a quiet, peaceful life. All she needs is a tolerable husband. On her 24th birthday, Lark offends the local faerie lord, the shapeshifter Tamlin, who punishes her with a rose rooted in her flesh.
In her efforts to convince Tamlin to undo his handiwork, Lark visits the forest daily and discovers the breathtaking and terrifying wonders of his realm. Despite her pragmatic nature tugging her toward a mortal huntsman, Lark falls for Tamlin.
After a near-fatal accident exposes Tamlinās cruel deception, Lark moves to the capital to accept a marriage of convenience. Yet when she learns of Tamlinās capture, Lark must choose whether to secure her future or risk it all to save the love of her life from his cannibal ex.
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MY THORNS FOR YOUR ROSES is a "Tam Lin" retelling written in the spirit of the Scottish faerie tale and folksong - for readers who enjoyed the fae in Heather Fawcett's EMILY WILDE series, retellings like Naomi Novik's SPINNING SILVER, and the complicated family dynamics of Kell Woods' AFTER THE FOREST and UPON A STARLIT TIDE.
Book cover artist: Yinan Sun (Grey)
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1d
A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories
Terry Pratchett
Far away and long ago, when dragons still existed and the only arcade game was ping-pong in black and white, a wizard cautiously entered a smoky tavern in the evil, ancient, foggy city of Morpork...
A truly unmissable, beautifully illustrated collection of unearthed stories from the pen of Sir Terry Pratchett: award-winning and bestselling author, and creator of the phenomenally successful Discworld series.
Twenty early short stories by one of the world's best loved authors, each accompanied by exquisite original woodcut illustrations.
These are rediscovered tales that Pratchett wrote under a pseudonym for newspapers during the 1970s and 1980s. Whilst none are set in the Discworld, they hint towards the world he would go on to create, containing all of his trademark wit, satirical wisdom and fantastic imagination.
Meet Og the inventor, the first caveman to cultivate fire, as he discovers the highs and lows of progress; haunt the Ministry of Nuisances with the defiant evicted ghosts of Pilgarlic Towers; visit Blackbury, a small market town with weird weather and an otherworldly visitor; and go on a dangerous quest through time and space with hero Kron, which begins in the ancient city of Morpork...
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Janamb made progress on...
2d
The Bear and the Nightingale (The Winternight Trilogy, #1)
Katherine Arden
100%
8
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2d
Janamb is interested in reading...
2d
The Undocumented Americans
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation.
Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants--and to find the hidden key to her own.
Looking beyond the flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMers, Cornejo Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented--and the mysteries of her own life. She finds the nation of singular, effervescent characters often reduced in the media to political pawns or nameless laborers. The stories she tells are not deferential or naively inspirational but show the love, magic, heartbreak, insanity, and vulgarity that infuse the day-to-day lives of her subjects.
In New York, we meet the undocumented workers who were recruited into the federally funded Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11. In Miami, we enter the ubiquitous botanicas, which offer medicinal herbs and potions to those whose status blocks them from any other healthcare options. In Flint, Michigan, we learn of demands for state ID in order to receive life-saving clean water. In Connecticut, Cornejo Villavicencio, childless by choice, finds family in two teenage girls whose father is in sanctuary. And through it all we see the author grappling with the biggest questions of love, duty, family, and survival.
In her incandescent, relentlessly probing voice, Cornejo Villavicencio combines sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. Through these stories we come to understand what it truly means to be a stray. An expendable. A hero. An American.
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2d
The Light of All That Falls (The Licanius Trilogy, #3)
James Islington
The Light of All That Falls concludes the epic adventure that began in The Shadow of What Was Lost, the acclaimed fantasy blockbuster from James Islington.
The Boundary is whole once again, but it may be too late.
Banes now stalk Andarra, while in Ilin Illan, the political machinations of a generation come to a head as Wirr's newfound ability forces his family's old enemies into action.
Imprisoned and alone in a strange land, Davian is pitted against the remaining Venerate as they work tirelessly to undo Asha's sacrifice - even as he struggles with what he has learned about the friend he chose to set free.
And Caeden, now facing the consequences of his centuries-old plan, must finally confront its reality - heartbroken at how it began, and devastated by how it must end.
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2d
Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)
Brandon Sanderson
Words of Radiance, Book Two of the Stormlight Archive, continues the immersive fantasy epic that The Way of Kings began.
Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status "darkeyes." Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl.
The Assassin, Szeth, is active again, murdering rulers all over the world of Roshar, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin's master has much deeper motives.
Brilliant but troubled Shallan strives along a parallel path. Despite being broken in ways she refuses to acknowledge, she bears a terrible burden: to somehow prevent the return of the legendary Voidbringers and the civilization-ending Desolation that will follow. The secrets she needs can be found at the Shattered Plains, but just arriving there proves more difficult than she could have imagined.
Meanwhile, at the heart of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi are making an epochal decision. Hard pressed by years of Alethi attacks, their numbers ever shrinking, they are convinced by their war leader, Eshonai, to risk everything on a desperate gamble with the very supernatural forces they once fled. The possible consequences for Parshendi and humans alike, indeed, for Roshar itself, are as dangerous as they are incalculable.
6
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Janamb is interested in reading...
2d
The Undocumented Americans
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation.
Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants--and to find the hidden key to her own.
Looking beyond the flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMers, Cornejo Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented--and the mysteries of her own life. She finds the nation of singular, effervescent characters often reduced in the media to political pawns or nameless laborers. The stories she tells are not deferential or naively inspirational but show the love, magic, heartbreak, insanity, and vulgarity that infuse the day-to-day lives of her subjects.
In New York, we meet the undocumented workers who were recruited into the federally funded Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11. In Miami, we enter the ubiquitous botanicas, which offer medicinal herbs and potions to those whose status blocks them from any other healthcare options. In Flint, Michigan, we learn of demands for state ID in order to receive life-saving clean water. In Connecticut, Cornejo Villavicencio, childless by choice, finds family in two teenage girls whose father is in sanctuary. And through it all we see the author grappling with the biggest questions of love, duty, family, and survival.
In her incandescent, relentlessly probing voice, Cornejo Villavicencio combines sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. Through these stories we come to understand what it truly means to be a stray. An expendable. A hero. An American.
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2Reply
Janamb is interested in reading...
2d
White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color
Ruby Hamad
This explosive book of history and cultural criticism argues that white feminism has been a weapon of white supremacy and patriarchy deployed against Black and Indigenous women and all colonized women. It offers a long-overdue validation of the experiences of women of color. Taking us from the slave eraāwhen white women fought in court to keep "ownership" of their slavesāthrough the centuries of colonialismāwhen they offered a soft face for brutal tacticsāto the modern workplace, White Tears/Brown Scars</i< tells the story of white women's active participation in campaigns of oppression.
Examining subjects as varied as The Hunger Games, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the viral BBQ Becky video, and nineteenth-century lynchings of Mexicans in the American Southwest, Ruby Hamad builds a powerful argument about the entrenched systems of white supremacy that we are socialized within, a reality that we must apprehend in order to fight.
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2d
Stealing From Wizards Volume 2: Burglary (Stealing from Wizards #2)
R.A. Consell
Returning for his second year at the Avalon Academy school of magic, all Kuro wants is to leave his past behind and be like any other young wizard. But life as a thief was poor preparation for the trials of friendship and schoolwork, and his hopes are frustrated by a deluge of inconvenient mysteries, unprovoked attacks, and unexplained burglaries.
Aided only by his fellow Autumn Lodge misfits, who are as much hindrance as help, can Kuro avoid expulsion and arrest long enough to prove his innocence, protect his friends, and maybe even pass some classes?
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Janamb made progress on...
2d
The Bear and the Nightingale (The Winternight Trilogy, #1)
Katherine Arden
15%
5
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Janamb started reading...
2d
The Bear and the Nightingale (The Winternight Trilogy, #1)
Katherine Arden
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn't mindāshe spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse's fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.
And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.
As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealedāthis, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales.
The Bear and the Nightingale is a magical debut novel from a gifted and gorgeous voice. It spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent.
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5d
A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables, #1)
Alix E. Harrow
It's Zinnia Gray's twenty-first birthday, which is extra-special because it's the last birthday she'll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no one has lived past twenty-one.
Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.
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Janamb TBR'd a book
6d
Hijab Butch Blues
Lamya H.
A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.
When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher--her female teacher--she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can't yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don't matter, and it's easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?
From that moment on, Lamya makes sense of her struggles and triumphs by comparing her experiences with some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own--ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant.
This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya's childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one's own life.
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6d
The Fall of Arthur
J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fall of Arthur recounts in verse the last campaign of King Arthur, who, even as he stands at the threshold of Mirkwood, is summoned back to Britain by news of the treachery of Mordred. Already weakened in spirit by Guinevereās infidelity with the now-exiled Lancelot, Arthur must rouse his knights to battle one last time against Mordredās rebels and foreign mercenaries. Powerful, passionate, and filled with vivid imagery, this unfinished poem reveals Tolkienās gift for storytelling at its brilliant best.
Christopher Tolkien, editor, contributes three illuminating essays that explore the literary world of King Arthur, reveal the deeper meaning of the verses and the painstaking work his father applied to bring the poem to a finished form, and investigate the intriguing links between The Fall of Arthur and Tolkienās Middle-earth.
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