I ran across this article on BBC yesterday: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260618-the-weird-and-wonderful-libraries-of-finland

This sounds so wonderful and I am so impressed I had to share! Are there any Finnish people here who can confirm Finland really is a library utopia? 😉

I'm lucky enough to live in a city with a good library network and they really do amazing work with events, promoting reading, yearly challenges, book clubs etc, but it's all obviously focused on literature. Being able to use a sowing machine or a 3d printer at a local library sounds like a dream!

i don't read romance of any kind. i'm not going to explain why, but i just don't! i'm slowly but surely losing my love for reading because anything that sounds remotely interesting to me has a romance plot (or is extremely sex focused). i read a lot of middle grade to get away from this but i'd like to be able to read across age genres. i love horror, magical realism and weird fiction in general but i'm open to anything.

i'd really appreciate any and all recommendations, thank you

• bug

Got a curious question to everyone who reads classics or studied them for their English literature degree.

Did you ever read a classic that turns out to be "bad" (you can define for yourself what "bad" can mean: outdated commentary, politically incorrect takes, horrible writing, unreadability, dislike, etc.)? Or when do you decide that the classic you are reading is "bad"? (Is it even possible to find a "bad" classic as opinions are subjective?)

I guess to narrow the term "classic" down, I'm figuring that this mainly covers the literary works you're analysing in schools or in the majority of university courses. And they mainly consist of works that are older than those published in the later half of the 20th century (but I also don't mind discussing more "modern classics").

Feel free to rant ahead with the takes you have! There are only three classics (well one of them is a required school reading) which I did not enjoy at all:

• A Separate Peace by John Knowles (my class was tricked into believing that it'll be about soldiers surviving World War 2, but the war is just a backdrop for two male students safe in the US)
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - the heavy racist language and stereotypical depiction of the native people in Congo turned me off real quick
• All My Sons by Arthur Miller - the themes are very surfaced-level and obvious, plus it's super boring and tedious - a complete opposite of The Crucible which I adore