PagesOfEmma

☀️🌸🐝 🍃Moss Girlie™ 🌿Botanist and cat lady🐈‍⬛ 📚Nature non-fic, climate fiction & sff 🙋‍♀️She/her, UK. Find me on IG @pages_of_emma

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My Taste

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

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Beauty of the Beasts: Rethinking Nature's Least Loved Animals

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15h

Camp Zero

Michelle Min Sterling

11 hours, 7 minutes In a near-future northern settlement, a handful of climate change survivors find their fates intertwined in this mesmerizing and transportive novel in the vein of Station Eleven and The Power. In the far north of Canada sits Camp Zero, an American building project hiding many secrets. Desperate to help her climate-displaced Korean immigrant mother, Rose agrees to travel to Camp Zero and spy on its architect in exchange for housing. She arrives at the same time as another newcomer, a college professor named Grant who is determined to flee his wealthy family’s dark legacy. Gradually, they realize that there is more to the architect than previously thought, and a disturbing mystery lurks beneath the surface of the camp. At the same time, rumors abound of an elite group of women soldiers living and working at a nearby Cold War-era climate research station. What are they doing there? And who is leading them? An electrifying page-turner where nothing is as it seems, Camp Zero cleverly explores how the intersection of gender, class, and migration will impact who and what will survive in a warming world.

PagesOfEmma commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

16h

p1ckash

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Quest worthy universes/authors

I wanna start off by saying im aware PageBound is focusing on genre specific quests rather than universe/author ones and that the existing ones are quite old. This is just for fun and im curious to see what others think 🤭

Hypothetically if you were able to create a universe/author specific quest right now, which would you choose and why? The more niche and unique, the better! And ofcourse as a bonus, what badge should such quest have? :0

Im honestly unsure myself, as some authors have books that are unconnected and won’t fit nicely in a quest and some universes are so small they’ll barely fill up a side quest 😩 looking forward to seeing yall’s ideas ✨

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Open Throat

Henry Hoke

A lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion narrates this star-making fever dream of a novel. A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting a nearby homeless encampment, observing hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call “ellay.” As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate Do they want to eat a person, or become one? Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world recounted by a lovable mountain lion. Feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings the mythic to life.

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Hum

Helen Phillips

From the National Book Award–longlisted author of The Need comes an extraordinary novel about a wife and mother who—after losing her job to AI—undergoes a procedure that renders her undetectable to surveillance…but at what cost? In a city addled by climate change and populated by intelligent robots called “hums,” May loses her job to artificial intelligence. In a desperate bid to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance. Seeking some reprieve from her recent hardships and from her family’s addiction to their devices, she splurges on passes that allow them three nights’ respite inside the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals flourish. But her insistence that her son, daughter, and husband leave their devices at home proves far more fraught than she anticipated, and the lush beauty of the Botanical Garden is not the balm she hoped it would be. When her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a hum of uncertain motives as she works to restore the life of her family. Written in taut, urgent prose, Hum is a work of speculative fiction that unflinchingly explores marriage, motherhood, and selfhood in a world compromised by global warming and dizzying technological advancement, a world of both dystopian and utopian possibilities. As New York Times bestselling author Jeff VanderMeer says, “Helen Phillips, in typical bravura fashion, has found a way to make visible uncomfortable truths about our present by interrogating the near-future.”

PagesOfEmma commented on sashareads's update

sashareads completed their yearly reading goal of 100 books!

sashareads's 2026 Reading Challenge

101 of 100 read

The Girl Who Fell Through Time (To Fall Through Time Book 1)

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PagesOfEmma commented on PagesOfEmma's review of The Other Valley

PagesOfEmma

Jun 29, 2026

The Other Valley

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

⏳

🎻

🌊

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard.

What if your town, in your valley was one of many? What if the next town east was exactly the same as yours, just 20 years in the future? And the town to the west? 20 years in the past. Odile lives in a town in this endless sequence of towns. The Conseil are the ones who determine who is allowed to enter and leave from the other valleys. When Odile, a Conseil prospect, sees a visitor she was never meant to, she realises that a friend of hers is no longer alive in their future town...

This is a book of two halves, and the line that separates them is stark. Odile is 16 when we meet her, vying for her seat on the Conseil, filled with hope for her future. The prose is elegant, filling the valley with magic and possibility. Yet it is not all sunshine and rainbows, as she must make a difficult decision: choosing her friend and risking unknowable damage to the future, or letting him go.

When we meet Odile as an adult, the shiny façade of the valley has been swept away and we are looking instead at a grimy reality. She regrets many things, yet is resigned to her fate, fallen from grace as a Conseil prospect. We see behind the curtain of the Conseil to the border patrols and the stark reality of the real consequences of time travel.

This is not an action-packed, fast-paced novel. It is slow and somewhat lyrical, which was an interesting contrast to all the time travel books I have read before. It is also good at lulling you into believing you have it figured out, and then it twists away at the last moment. It's less about time itself, and more about the ethics of what you should do with it.

If you can suspend your disbelief enough to get on board with the time travel, then you are in for a philosophical read that asks you, if you could change the future, should you? What cost would you be willing to pay?

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Rewitched

Lucy Jane Wood

Belladonna Blackthorn hasn’t lost her magical spark . . . but she hasn’t seen it in a while, either. Balancing work at her beloved Lunar Books with protecting it from her toxic boss, who’s running it into the ground, and all the while concealing her witchcraft from the non-wicches around her – Belle is burnt out. Perfecting the potential of her magic is the last thing on her mind. But when her 30th birthday brings a summons from her coven, and a trial that tests her worthiness as a witch, Belle risks losing her magic forever. With the month of October to fix things, and signs that dark forces may be working against her, Belle will need all the help she can get – from the women in her life, from an unlikely mentor figure, and even an (infuriatingly handsome) watchman who’s sworn to protect her . . . With found family, slow burn romance and an uplifting message about self-love, this is the cosy, autumnal read that you've been waiting for.

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Tales from the Inner City

Shaun Tan

Tales from the Inner City is a collection of incredibly original stories, rich with feeling, strangely moving, almost numinous. And when the reader comes to the artwork, it's like walking into an amazing room, and then throwing open a curtain to see a brilliant scene that makes you understand and appreciate everything you've encountered in a deeper way.

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Lucy Jane Wood

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Moss'd in Space (Moss'd in Space, 1)

Rebecca Thorne

USA Today Bestselling author Rebecca Thorne delights in a brand new cozy science-fiction series...for fans of Martha Wells and Olivia Waite! Features original inside art! Torian Razner finally bought a starship, and contrary to Amelia’s assessment, it was not “a meteoric sign of stupidity.” Sure, the alien starship may have been abandoned for a century, and it may be covered in moss now… but it’s Torian’s ticket to freedom, regardless of what her ex… ah, captain… said. Except Torian’s first flight reveals a surprise passenger: the moss is actually an organic computer with a snarky attitude and serious abandonment issues. The target of its loathing? The immortal alien who built it (and then parked the starship, with Moss inside, and forgot about it). The same alien who just found Torian and accused her of “stealing” the ship. It’s entirely possible that Amelia was right about this meteoric stupidity.

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Through the Eyes of Animals

Bronze: Finished 5 Main Quest books.

PagesOfEmma commented on a post

ehawley

Welcome to Meow-moirs: A Cat's Purrspective!

Welcome! I don't know about you all, but it's my cat Celine's world and I'm just living in it. For this quest, I focused on YA/Adult cat point of view (POV) books, where all or a lot of the story is told through a cat's perspective. There are so many purrfect cat books, so I included a variety of genres and types.

This is a Side Quest, which means no additional books can be added. Please feel free to share additional recommendations, but we intentionally have this bite-sized quest capped at 15 books. Hooked on the catnip that is animal POV? I highly recommend moski's Through the Eyes of Animals quest with even more cat and other animal POVs to sink your claws into!

I am so pleased to share my feline fancies with you all and hope you think this quest is the cat's meow! Thank you J&L as always. Meow! 🐈😺🐈‍⬛🐾

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moski

Edited

welcome welcome everyone! recommendations go here :)

hello all and welcome!!! i dedicate this quest to the animal kingdom! 🐈🐶🦥🐇🦔🐿️🦊🐻🐖🐃🦋🐐🐍🐝🦍🦅🐟🐢🐯🐓🐅🐙🐑🐘🦎🦌🐺🦉🐳🦇🐌🦒🦞🦘🐊🦫🪱

i’m so excited to share “through the eyes of animals” w/ you all!

if you’ve got recommendations i’m all ears!! please comment any suggestions you’ve got on this post, but first check to make sure it matches my criteria! i’d also love any further info or thoughts you have on the book you’re submitting for consideration!

some notes on my criteria:

books must (obviously) feature animal main characters whose thoughts and experiences guide the story + frame the world. this can be through first or third person narration as long as it’s clear that an animal or multiple animals are the lens through which we’re experiencing the story.
multiple povs / non-animal povs are okay! as long as the portion of the book told through an animal pov is significant! one or two chapters isn’t really enough - ideally i’d say like i’m looking for at least 30/40% animal pov or higher. if it’s less than that, the animal pov section would have to make quite an impact on the story to be considered!
talking animals ≠ animal pov. if the animals just talk to people but are not the protagonists or narrators the book won’t be a good fit!
while there are lots of awesome animal narrators in the realm of children’s literature, i am trying to steer clear of children’s lit and middle grade as much as possible + instead prioritize YA and adult. you’ll see i have a few books on here that are borderline children’s or middle grade, but i’ve included them bc they’ve got some more adult themes and are classics among adults as well!
i want to have a diverse array of animals represented here! right now, for example, i’ve got a lot of dogs and foxes, so i am more inclined towards adding books that feature other animal povs (feel free to still suggest titles ofc!). similarly, since there is a cat pov quest, i will probably only add one or two more cat books to this quest over time - and no more books from ehawley’s awesome quest will be considered to lessen the crossover!!

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