I’ve been reading The School for Good and Evil recently, and it got me thinking: what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale? I’ve read a few fairy tale retellings and liked them, but do they count as fairy tales in their own right, or are they just a spin-off? Also, does having magic make it a fairy tale, or is there something else that really sets fairy tales apart? The Google definition is “a children's story about magical and imaginary beings and lands.” But I'm curious whether people agree with this definition or have different criteria.

I was in this discord book server and to say the least it was........ questionable. I'm not going to say any names or anything like that for privacy obviously, I'm only going to say my experience that I had in there.

I joined the book server and started to chat normally. And I said two things.

"I could never get into it because in my opinion it was so weird, it has like a lot of anti-irish stereotypes in it" (Talking about ACOTAR) and ""For me I don't really care if they add more from the books or not. I mean the Harry Potter books have so any racist things in them like the name Cho Chang, or the bank goblins. I really hope the whole new Harry potter show gets canceled. JK Rowling has enough money as it is which she already donates to places that harms people." (Talking about the upcoming Harry Potter TV show)

And I got a warning for these things. ""Hi there! I just wanted to throw a gentle reminder in here that we don’t allow any sort of chat that borders on bashing authors or yucking someone else’s yum. I understand and appreciate we all have different opinions on books and authors but let’s be mindful of how we’re speaking about them here please. We aim to keep this a positive place and don’t allow discussions on hot topics such as this to keep it that way! Thank you for understanding! "

Now if you ask me, I was not being rude. I stated my opinion; I didn't say that everyone else had to share these opinions with me, I didn't say that if they liked ACOTAR or whatever they're a bad person. Nor do I think I was bashing an author. I was calling out the racist things written within Harry Potter (like the name Cho chang) along with what JK Rowling does, which there are plenty of articles about, that's not bashing an author to call them out on bigotry, where there is proof of said bigotry.

There's more, but that's all I will share. I don't want to give out too many details in case someone recognizes it or anything like. I just thought it was a bit insane. Especially for a book server. A place where you're meant to discuss books at, which at times will include the author.

Another thing that I will say is that me along with someone else in the Server were talking about Media literacy, the crisis that's going on, Project Hail Mary and how the author in an interview said that his works don't hold any social commentary and how that's insane, and one of the mods replied with "I guess that would depend on what you mean by media literacy I suppose. If you mean the analysis of books, not necessarily. It just depends on the themes you’re pulling out of the books. If it deals with any sort of political or social issues that cause controversy, then no we don’t allow it. Any other analysis and discussion is absolutely allowed. You can discuss any books you’d like in our ⁠unknown channel or any of our genre chats." (The person I was chatting with asked about a warning why they got after talking about Media literacy and the others stuff said above, and this was the reply)

I just find it hard to think about a book server that doesn't allow the discussion of social issues presented within the book. That makes it extremely difficult to analyze, critique and discuss the book because social issues and commentary is what makes up so much of books at times.

Anyways, I just wanted to share this experience, because I thought it was just a little bit insane. There was more that happened, but as I said, I don't want to give more information than I already have in case someone might recognize it. I already feel like I shared a lot of information as is. I just think when talking about books, there are things that will always be discussed be it the author or the social themes and commentary within the book. Books do not exist within a vacuum.

Pagebounders! Do you have a particular genre/theme you greatly dislike or refuse to touch? And on the flip-side, do you have a favourite genre? Feel free to also add in particular details or plot beats you enjoy or don't as well!

I'll go first: I don't have any particular genres I dislike, but for themes, I've recently decided that I'm no longer touching negative nihilistic books with a ten foot pole. Not for me... I just disagreed with a lot of the theses of past ones I've read and didn't have much fun with them because of that. I usually don't mind or even enjoy reading books that hold different views than me, but the whole "nothing matters so why bother" thing can get tiring fast. Maybe some day I'll find one that I enjoy, but until something catches my eye, I'll be staying away.

As for my favourites, I really enjoy historical fiction! Especially as a way to learn about cultures and time periods I didn't know much about previously. As for themes, I have a lot of fun with books that focus on love and human relationships. The power of friendship, baby, let's go! As such, I also really like books that have a lot of character interactions!

This post is obviously inspired by this recent post in the movie quest forum, but it's a small problem that I don't have a solution for yet.

So I work at a biiiiig bookshop as a help, and sadly we have a medium-to-big sized Harry Potter section with books, merch and candy. I can't do anything about that.

About my circumstances, I'm handling the customers at the cash register. Usually there's the option to check with the online shop and adjust the price of an item (downwards), which is something I haven't done so far for HP books/merch unless asked. I didn't want to encourage people to buy more stuff, but it also means a bigger win for the company 🫠 I don't feel like I'm in a position to say anything about the customer's purchase, either.

So how are you, if you're also working in the field, dealing with this situation? What are some of your (realistic, please, I like my job) suggestions? And please tell me I'm not the only one conflicted about this* 😭

*I couldn't care less about HP, there are much better wizard books out there (like Sorcery and Small Magics, if you're asking for a queer recommendation)

Edit: spelling mistake

Happy Tuesday PBs! It's time once again to share something you've learned from your reading in the past week. Whether it's a cool fact about the world from a niche non-fiction read or some insight into yourself from what your latest novel made you feel, or a random internet rabbit hole you went down, we want to hear it!

My non-fiction has not been giving me a lot of facts this week, sadly! Spouse and I DNFed one fact-filled book because the audio narrator was so bad, and I spent many hours listening to a collection of media criticism essays while I was driving around all weekend. Just started The Light Eaters last night so I am excited to add to my store of plant facts and will hopefully have something fun to share next week.

So this week is inspired by fiction. Thanks to The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy, I learned that I really, truly cannot stand a sad little meow meow in a romance book.

What have you learned this week?

(As always, love to acidicchaos for starting this tradition and giving me the opportunity to take it over so we can keep the facts flowing!)

I absolutely adore reading Greek and Roman myths (other mythologies are amazing as well, but I'm most familiar with the Greek)! I love them to the point that I used to randomly sit in on Greek myths and heroes lectures in my first and second years of university.

However, sometimes I find that my previous knowledge of some of these myths kinda hinders my experience of reading retellings of popular myths and legends. Whether it's the fact that I already know the important plot points, or getting annoyed when little details aren't quite accurate, I often find myself unable to fully get into most retellings of Greek myths! But I really want to enjoy more retellings of myths and legends!!!!

Does anyone else feel this way about classic retellings, and how do y'all deal with it?

I've just been thinking that it would be very practical to be able to write down the fanfics I'm reading within pagebound too. Of course adding them as library entries would result in infinite entries so that would be chaos, but I've just been thinking about like... what if there were private entries you could make for yourself you could track too or something? EDIT: I'm not talking about having them as entries with ratings and clubs, moreso the idea of adding them for your own tracking.

I would love to see like a reading timer to see how long each day you read. Like you start it when you start reading your book and you end it when you are done and it keeps track of your hours for you

Hi! This is going to be a bit long post sorry about that, if you don't want to read it all just drop a recommendation of a book taking about the importance of aquariums and/or zoos in conservation. Recently in my feed of social media, there have been many post talking about releasing dolphins, other animals (in zoos or aquariums) into the wild because they don't belong in cages, without even knowing most of those were hurt rescues or were born there. As someone aspiring to be a marine biologist this is making me sad. People don't make any more separation of good zoos and aquariums to bad ones. I (and my mom) have connections to people working at an aquarium park (parks that have animals "perfom" in healthy ways and have animal spaces to visit). I know that these animals are being well cared for because of my and my mother's connections. But somehow uneducated people are falling for some lies that they are being mistreated. This is why I wanted to ask about non fiction books and articles that talk about the importance of those places, in conservation and care of hurt animals. If you have any that also talk about cetaceans I would love to check them!

Hi Boundlings! Can you please help me think of a manga-related gift for my husband’s birthday? He’s a huge fan of One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Naruto, and Dandadan.

Right now he doesn’t own any complete sets, but I never actually buy manga so idk if there are any particularly special editions to look out for.

I would greatly appreciate if you could share suggestions that have varying price ranges! Thank you all so much!!

For my first post on Pagebound, I thought I'd ask about one of the most important parts of reading: the actual process of choosing what to read in the first place! So I ask: when you're deciding on something, what information do you look for before picking it up? Are you someone who can go in blindly without even reading the synopsis? Or do you spend some time checking out the reviews, the author and their other works, similarities between past books you've read, etc.? I'm interested to see where other people land on this!

Hello my fellow Boundlings! 💜

It’s been a (hot) minute since my last IBW post, so here we go! 🤩

Drop a micro win you’re proud of and would love to share! These are the wins that probably go unnoticed by others, but to you they mean the world 🌎

Hello PB Friends!

It is TUESDAY, when we share trivia and tidbits from our reading in the past week or so. Whether you learned something cool about the world from a non-fiction book, or something insightful about yourself from a novel, now's your chance to share.

This week I learned that if a non-fiction book only has one review on PB, and that review is about how boring it is, maybe I should listen, LOL.

My apologies for getting this up late, I had a jam-packed day and was sitting here relaxing with my boring audiobook when I was like "CRAP, IT'S TUESDAY!"

So what did you learn?

(Hat tip as always to the lovely acidicchaos for starting this tradition and trusting me to continue it)

How do other people interact with epigraphs? I always read them and think “hmm I wonder how that’s going to relate to the book” and then immediately forget about them.

Does anyone remember them or remember to look back? Do other people have the same issue as me? I’m trying to do a better job bc I know authors put a lot of thought into choosing them!