Pentimenti

Pen, she/her. ✍️ 📚 Tolkienthusiast. Member of Donut's Princess Posse. Riding sandworms on Arrakis with Chani.

1514 points

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My Taste

My Brilliant Friend (The Neapolitan Novels, #1)

Reading...

Pentimenti finished a book

Gleanings (Arc of a Scythe, #3.5)

Neal Shusterman

The New York Times bestselling Arc of the Scythe series continues with “captivating…thrilling” (School Library Journal) stories that span the timeline. Storylines continue. Origin stories are revealed. And new Scythes emerge!There are still countless tales of the Scythedom to tell. Centuries passed between the Thunderhead cradling humanity and Scythe Goddard trying to turn it upside down. For years, humans lived in a world without hunger, disease, or death with Scythes as the living instruments of population control. Neal Shusterman—along with collaborators David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden, and Joelle Shusterman—returns to the world throughout the timeline of the Arc of a Scythe series. Discover secrets and histories of characters you’ve followed for three volumes and meet new heroes, new foes, and some figures in between. Gleanings shows just how expansive, terrifying, and thrilling the world that began with the Printz Honor–winning Scythe truly is.

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Level 5

1500 points

Pentimenti finished a book

Durarara!!, Vol. 10 (Durarara!! light novel, #10)

Ryohgo Narita

Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The Dollars and anyone associated with them have been disappearing one after the other. Is it because those who once called themselves comrades have decided to strike off on their own? Maybe it's because of a plot concocted by the adults of the Awakusu Group, the black market dealers, and the information brokers?

Pentimenti finished a book

The Earth Room

Dana Diehl

The Earth Room transports us from the forests of Appalachia to the Sonoran Desert to the glaciers of Iceland, all while exploring the mysteries of what it means to be alive. In one story, a woman transforms her boyfriend into a salamander. In another, a group of women are drawn together by a support group for the partners of vampires and werewolves. Inhabiting this haunting and fantastical collection are secret tunnels, magical doorways, modern witches, a mother who gives birth to a ghost, a town full of doubles, a sanctuary for potbelly pigs, and a daughter who never grows up. The Earth Room offers a thrilling, fabulist journey through the natural world, superstition, motherhood, and loss.

Pentimenti finished a book

Eye of the Monkey

Krisztina Tóth

A doctor-patient love affair goes awry in this near-future dystopian novel, the first by the award winning Hungarian writer to be translated into English.“Reading Eye of the Monkey is like peering into the abyss and finding your consciousness forever altered. You cannot escape this book, you already hear its thunder!” —Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in LiteratureEye of the Monkey begins in the wake of a devastating civil war that led to the formation of the United Regency, an autocracy in an unnamed European country. The ravages of war are sweeping, and the populace has been divided into segregated zones, where the well-off are under mass surveillance and the poor are phantom presences, confined and ghettoized.On the verge of a nervous breakdown after being followed by a young man for weeks, Giselle, a history professor at the New University, seeks the help of Dr. Mihály Kreutzer, a psychiatrist who is navigating divorce and the recent death of his mother. They soon begin a torrid love affair, but everything is not what it seems. As Giselle begins to unpack her family history and the possible root of her psychological crisis, Dr. Kreutzer, who has ties to some of the most powerful people in the country, possesses ulterior motives of his own.In Tóth’s deftly woven, dystopian, and polyphonic novel—full of twists, turns, and treachery—we plumb the depths of a fractured, disturbed, and isolated society, as well as the underbelly of social perversions such a society produces. In this intricate web, stories within stories reveal the complicated lives of women and men who struggle to negotiate the networks of power and poverty that have shaped their lives and their relationships to one another.

Pentimenti finished a book

Taylor's Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift

Stephanie Burt

A preeminent Harvard professor and poetry expert explains the artistry—and the celebrity—of Taylor Swift Taylor Swift has become a peerless superstar, ceaselessly productive and internationally beloved. From her teen country debut to her world tour as the chair of the tortured poets department, Swift’s career and her creations have captivated and bewitched us, opening up new ways to see both her life and our own. In Taylor’s Version, the poet and literary scholar Stephanie Burt offers an insightful and heartfelt critical appreciation of Taylor Swift, her body of work, and the community that her art has fostered. Drawing from her 2024 Harvard course, Taylor Swift and Her World, as well as from her years as a Swiftie, Burt examines the purposes, talents, and energies Swift brings to her music and to her persona. She highlights the ways Swift’s work remains at once intimate and relatable, portraying people we feel that we know and people we wish we could be, from the first loves and girlhoods on Fearless through the public and private angst of Midnights. How does she do it (with a broken heart)? Tracing a path through the Eras, Taylor’s Version shows what Swift has created, how it works, and what it means.

Pentimenti finished a book

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

T. Kingfisher

2021 LODESTAR AWARD for BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…

Pentimenti commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

bugiam08

Edited

Stephen King Novels

Hi, I’m new to horror and one of my goals of 2026 is to read a Stephen King novel

What would be a good beginner? My sister recommended The Shining but it would be nice to get a second opinion

Pentimenti commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

amanda_the_tangerine

Edited

Translations for Russian Books and Authors

Hello everyone! I figured this would be the perfect place to ask this. Last year, I finished Dostoevsky's The Idiot. It was my first Dostoevsky book and my first long Russian Lit book, and I don't mind admitting that there were definitely some things that must've gone over my head. I remember reading entire paragraphs where I couldn't for the life of me understand why characters were laughing, or angry, or sad. This is not something that has ever happened to me before with any other translated work from another language, but now I'm planing on reading Crime and Punishment this year, and also get to work on the Russian Lit quest, and I'm afraid the experience might happen again, since I'm not sure if the culprit was the translation, my general lack of knowledge about Russian customs and behavior, a bad reading on my part, or all of that combined.

So the questions I come here to ask are:

Are there specific translators or publishers that you prefer when it comes to translating Russian classics?
Does anyone know of specific translations that can be better suited for people who are not that experienced with Russian Lit in general? Specific editions that add more context and annotations to classic Russian books?
Does anyone have any good resources to help reading Russian Lit in general?
And lastly, for my Spanish speakers, would it be better to read Russian classics in Spanish? The familiarity of the language might help with my confusion, but I don't know if English or Spanish translations are better. Please let me know!

I mentioned The Idiot and Crime and Punishment here, but this questions are aimed at Russian Lit and Classics in general.

Thank you to anyone who can assist me with this 🙏.

Pentimenti DNF'd a book

The Last Rhee Witch (The Last Rhee Witch #1)

Jenna Lee-Yun

For fans of The Last Fallen Star, Witchlings, and Ghost Squad, a heartfelt middle grade debut where Korean folklore is all too real and summer camp includes a gwishin haunting. You couldn’t hold onto everything and everyone. You had to choose. And Ronnie only had two hands. Since her mother died when she was five years old, it’s always just been Ronnie Miller and her dad. Two Korean Americans who, thanks to Ronnie’s dad’s adoption by white parents, have never felt all that Korean. But Ronnie is okay with that—as long as she has her dad and her best friend Jack, Ronnie is 99% certain she can get through anything. But as much as she wants everything to stay the same, the world—and her dad—has other plans. Now, Ronnie and Jack are headed away to sleepaway camp for the first time ever. Camp Foster promises all of the outdoorsy activities that Ronnie has so far managed to avoid: ropes courses, scavenger hunts, kayaking on the lake. Ugh. But she can do this. As long as she has Jack. As it turns out, an old manor in the woods is the kind of place that’s crawling with secrets. Secrets like a mysterious gwishin haunting the grounds, a blood-red scarf wrapped too tightly around her ghostly neck. And a witch-hunting dokkaebi intent on finding and silencing the last Rhee witch. And the strange habit all the counselors have of rhyming when they speak . . . just like Ronnie has begun to do lately. For a girl who wants everything to stay the same, nothing is scarier than all the changes Camp Foster brings. New friends. New foes. Souls with unfinished business. And, possibly worst of all, revelations that disprove everything Ronnie knew to be true. Jenna Lee-Yun combines magic, mystery, suspense, and humor into a ghostly action-packed contemporary fantasy.

Pentimenti started reading...

Heretics of Dune (Dune, #5)

Frank Herbert

Book five in Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune Chronicles--one of the most significant sagas in the history of literary science fiction. Leto Atreides, the God Emperor of Dune, is dead. In the fifteen hundred years since his passing, the Empire has fallen into ruin. The great Scattering saw millions abandon the crumbling civilization and spread out beyond the reaches of known space. The planet Arrakis-now called Rakis-has reverted to its desert climate, and its great sandworms are dying. Now, the Lost Ones are returning home in pursuit of power. And as factions vie for control over the remnants of the Empire, a girl named Sheeana rises to prominence in the wastelands of Rakis, sending religious fervor throughout the galaxy. For she possesses the abilities of the Fremen sandriders-fulfilling a prophecy foretold by the late God Emperor... Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert

Pentimenti commented on a post

The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)

fairydust

Thoughts from 12% (ch 2, page 50)

I am in love with the magnificent prose as well as the depictions of hobbit history and ways of living! Now that Gandalf is outlining what could happen to the Shire if the Dark Powers would reign, it is clear to see that Frodo's world view is built around everyone being good intentioned and fair and the world being good at its heart. For Gandalf to have to tell him that "There is such a thing as malice and revenge." is heart breaking. The hobbits are going to encounter evil and their optimistic world view will get progressively more challenged 🥲💔

Pentimenti commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

amanda_the_tangerine

Edited

Translations for Russian Books and Authors

So the questions I come here to ask are:

Are there specific translators or publishers that you prefer when it comes to translating Russian classics?
Does anyone know of specific translations that can be better suited for people who are not that experienced with Russian Lit in general? Specific editions that add more context and annotations to classic Russian books?
Does anyone have any good resources to help reading Russian Lit in general?
And lastly, for my Spanish speakers, would it be better to read Russian classics in Spanish? The familiarity of the language might help with my confusion, but I don't know if English or Spanish translations are better. Please let me know!

I mentioned The Idiot and Crime and Punishment here, but this questions are aimed at Russian Lit and Classics in general.

Thank you to anyone who can assist me with this 🙏.

Pentimenti finished a book