NotACoolNerd

(she/they) bi nb. Reading to cope with reality. Sci-fi, fantasy, modern classics, literary fiction... just nothing too scary so I can still sleep at night

2197 points

0% overlap

My Taste

The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers, #2)

Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)

Reading...

80%

NotACoolNerd made progress on...

The Lord of Stariel (Stariel, #1)

A.J. Lancaster

80%

NotACoolNerd TBR'd a book

Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence

Avril Horner

The extraordinary twentieth-century writer Barbara Comyns led a life as captivating as the narratives she spun. This pioneering biography reveals the journey of a woman who experienced hardship and single-motherhood before the age of thirty but went on to publish a sequence of novels that are unique in the English language. Comyns turned her hand to many jobs in order to survive, from artist’s model to restoring pianos. Hundreds of unpublished letters reveal an occasionally desperate but resourceful and witty woman whose complicated life ranged from enduring poverty when young to mixing with spivs, spies and high society. While working as a housekeeper in her mid-thirties, Comyns began transforming the bleak episodes of her life into compelling fictions streaked with surrealism and deadpan humour. The Vet’s Daughter (1959), championed by Graham Greene, brought her fame, although her use of the gothic and macabre divided readers and reviewers. This biography not only excavates Comyns’s life but also reclaims her fiction, providing a timely reassessment of her literary contribution. It sheds new light on a remarkable author who deftly captured the complexities of human life.

NotACoolNerd TBR'd a book

God's Own Gentlewoman: The Life of Margaret Paston

Diane Watt

The remarkable story of Margaret Paston, whose letters form the most extensive collection of personal writings by a medieval English woman. Drawing on what is the largest archive of medieval correspondence relating to a single family in the UK, God's Own Gentlewoman explores what everyday life was like during the turbulent decades at the height of the Wars of the Roses. From political conflicts and familial in-fighting; forbidden love affairs and clandestine marriages; bloody battles and sieges; fear of plague and sudden death; friendships and animosity; childbirth and child mortality, Margaret's letters provide us with unparalleled insight into all aspects of life in late medieval England. Diane Watt is a world expert on medieval women's writing, and God's Own Gentlewoman explores how Margaret's personal archive provides an insight into her activities, experiences, emotions and relationships and the life of a medieval woman who was at times absorbed by the mundane and domestic, but who also found herself caught up in the most extraordinary situations and events.

NotACoolNerd TBR'd a book

Heresy: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God

Catherine Nixey

‘In the beginning was the Word,’ says the Gospel of John. This sentence – and the words of all four gospels – are central to the teachings of the Christian church and have shaped Western art, literature and language, and the Western mind. Yet in the years after the death of Christ there was not merely one word, nor any consensus as to who Jesus was or why he had mattered. There were many different Jesuses, among them the aggressive Jesus who scorned his parents and crippled those who opposed him, the Jesus who sold his twin into slavery and the Jesus who had someone crucified in his stead. Moreover, in the early years of the first millennium there were many other saviours, many sons of gods who healed the sick and cured the lame. But as Christianity spread, they were pronounced unacceptable – even heretical – and they faded from view. Now, in Heretic, Catherine Nixey tells their extraordinary story, one of contingency, chance and plurality. It is a story about what might have been.

NotACoolNerd created a list

A Community of Interconnected Short Stories

by NotACoolNerd

7 books

Interconnected short stories tell us about a community. Big or small.

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NotACoolNerd commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

BookDemon369

Alternate Book [Read This, Not That] Recommendations

There have been a couple times in my life I've read a book and it just didn't hit right. Then I would happen to pick up a different book and it would just be everything I wanted but didn't get from the first book.

Assuming other people have had similar experiences, what are the books you were excited to read that left you disappointed because they weren't what you expected and what are the books you picked up that just happened to be everything you wanted from the books that were disappoints???

I'll put mine in a pinned comment, but I'm interested to see other people's alternate suggestions.

[Note: this isn't meant to spread negativity about books we didn't like but to share alternatives for when the vibes just weren't there for us.]

NotACoolNerd commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

Ollie

Kobo, Kindle and other E-reader people! I need opinions and experiences

I have a six month old Kobo Clara that I have taken out of the house strictly only in cases that have a cover to protect the screen. The thing is, I hate folio cases with all my heart. The cover flipping and flopping everywhere (i need something to grab kobo better aka popsocket) and the urge to rip the cover off is huge.

I just got a e-book strap on Vinted and ofcrs it doesn't fit the case, only the naked Kobo. Does anyone keep their Kobo or other e-readers without any protection and how has it been?

I have a bad experience with Storytel e-reader years back, the screen broke while in my backpack, luckily I did get a replacement.

NotACoolNerd TBR'd a book

23h

Half-Bads in White Regalia: A Memoir

Cody Caetano

*LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2023* NATIONAL BESTSELLERA family tries to learn from the mistakes of past generations in this whirlwind memoir from a wholly original new voice.The Caetanos move into a doomed house in the highway village of Happyland before an inevitable divorce pulls Cody's parents in separate directions. His mom, Mindimooye, having discovered her Anishinaabe birth family and Sixties Scoop origin story, embarks on a series of fraught relationships and fresh starts. His dad, O Touro, a Portuguese immigrant and drifter, falls back into "big do, little think" behaviour, despite his best intentions.Left alone at the house in Happyland, Cody and his siblings must fend for themselves, even as the pipes burst and the lights go out. His protective big sister, Kris, finds inventive ways to put food on the table, and his stoic big brother, Julian, facilitates his regular escapes into the world of video games. As life yanks them from one temporary solution to the next, they steal moments of joy and resist buckling under "baddie" temptations aplenty.Capturing the chaos and wonder of a precarious childhood, Cody Caetano delivers a fever dream coming-of-age garnished with a slang all his own. Half-Bads in White Regalia is an unforgettable debut that unspools a tangled family history with warmth, humour, and deep generosity.

Post from the The Lord of Stariel (Stariel, #1) forum

NotACoolNerd

Thoughts from 51%

spoilers

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NotACoolNerd made progress on...

The Lord of Stariel (Stariel, #1)

A.J. Lancaster

48%

Post from the The Lord of Stariel (Stariel, #1) forum

NotACoolNerd

Thoughts from 20%

spoilers

View spoiler

NotACoolNerd made progress on...

The Lord of Stariel (Stariel, #1)

A.J. Lancaster

18%

NotACoolNerd commented on SpookyLucy's update

SpookyLucy made progress on...

Mere

Danielle Giles

80%

NotACoolNerd made progress on...

The Lord of Stariel (Stariel, #1)

A.J. Lancaster

12%

NotACoolNerd started reading...

The Lord of Stariel (Stariel, #1)

A.J. Lancaster

The Lord of Stariel is dead. Long live the Lord of Stariel. Whoever that is.Everyone knows who the magical estate will choose for its next ruler. Or do they?Will it be the lord’s eldest son, who he despised?His favourite nephew, with the strongest magical land-sense?His scandalous daughter, who ran away from home years ago to study illusion?Hetta knows it won’t be her, and she’s glad of it. Returning home for her father’s funeral, all Hetta has to do is survive the family drama and avoid entanglements with irritatingly attractive local men until the Choosing. Then she can leave.But whoever Stariel chooses will have bigger problems than eccentric relatives to deal with. Winged, beautifully deadly problems. For the first time in centuries, the fae are returning to the Mortal Realm, and only the Lord of Stariel can keep the estate safe.The Lord of Stariel is the first book in the Stariel quartet, a romantic cozy fantasy series about fae, magical estates, and complicated families.

NotACoolNerd commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

ShieldMaiden

Books on gender

Hi everyone!

I’m looking for books on trans history / trans perspectives as I want to educate myself more. Also books about gender in general, and some specifically about women’s perspectives.

So non-fiction but preferably something more ‘simple’ to read than ‘academic’ (if that makes sense🤣 I understand that gender is a very complex topic) Ty in advance 🩷

NotACoolNerd TBR'd a book

The Cybernetic Tea Shop

Meredith Katz

Clara Gutierrez is a highly-skilled technician specializing in the popular 'Raise' AI companions. Her childhood in a migrant worker family has left her uncomfortable with lingering in any one place, so she sticks around just long enough to replenish her funds before she moves on, her only constant companion Joanie, a fierce, energetic Raise hummingbird.Sal is a fully autonomous robot, the creation of which was declared illegal ages earlier due to ethical concerns. She is older than the law, however, at best out of place in society and at worst hated. Her old master is long dead, but she continues to run the tea shop her master had owned, lost in memories of the past, slowly breaking down, and aiming to fulfill her master's dream for the shop.When Clara stops by Sal's shop for lunch, she doesn't expect to find a real robot there, let alone one who might need her help. But as they begin to spend time together and learn more about each other, they both start to wrestle with the concept of moving on...

NotACoolNerd TBR'd a book

The Lord of Stariel (Stariel, #1)

A.J. Lancaster

NotACoolNerd finished a book

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo is the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and the first black woman to receive this highest literary honor in the English language. Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain’s colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean. The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her Black lesbian identity; her old friend Shirley is a teacher, jaded after decades of work in London’s funding-deprived schools; Carole, one of Shirley’s former students, is a successful investment banker; Carole’s mother Bummi works as a cleaner and worries about her daughter’s lack of rootedness despite her obvious achievements. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class. Sparklingly witty and filled with emotion, centering voices we often see othered, and written in an innovative fast-moving form that borrows technique from poetry, Girl, Woman, Other is a polyphonic and richly textured social novel that shows a side of Britain we rarely see, one that reminds us of all that connects us to our neighbors, even in times when we are encouraged to be split apart.

NotACoolNerd commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

animalese

favourite non-home place to read?

hi friends, where is your favourite place to read outside of your home and why? i always feel like bringing a book out or going somewhere just to read makes it a whole different experience!

my number one spot has to be on the plane, especially a long-haul flight. the silence, isolation and my inability to sleep seem to be the perfect recipe for devouring three books in a row.

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