For those of you who like to write (or have to do a lot of it even if you don't like it), or like to annotate books, what are your favorite writing instruments?

For general writing, I like fountain pens (and my dozens of bottles of ink). Day to day, I use the Lamy Safari, but I have a handful of cheap Japanese "Preppy" fountain pens that write well and I have some other fountain pens of various quality/price.

I also recently got a brass pen with a Japanese made felt tip that also takes fountain pen ink and writes wonderfully. I have a dip pen and some acrylic inks somewhere but I rarely use that one.

All of the above require paper that will take the ink, so they're not ideal for annotating. I typically use a mechanical pencil when annotating, rather than ink. Unless I am annotating in my Kobo Libra Colour.

But for general writing I do lik pens and I try to pick up a variety of different or unusual pens when I can!

i'm intrigued - does anyone else have a classic (or just super popular) book that they think is sort of underrated? like a book that is well-known and well-respected, but isn't getting its due for the right reasons? or a book with a reputation that makes people less likely to read it?

for me, i think the handmaid's tale gets the right amount of credit for worldbuilding/speculative work, but i've never seen much appreciation for atwood's narration itself, especially her depiction of re-living trauma. also, i was taught othello in school as important for its discussion of gender and race. all true, but i've seen lots of people go in thinking it's quite serious, and totally missing all of the jokes (which is half the point)

would love to hear new perspectives on old favourites!

I need fantasy trilogy (or more) books recommendations without romance or the romance is in the background and didn’t bother! I like the poppy war trilogy by R. F Kuang, the bloodsworn saga by J. Gwynne, the empyrean (first book) by R. Yarros. Thank you! 😇

This is my first time reading Virginia Woolf and I am shocked by how silly the writing is. She does so many little bits and takes them to the absurd, nearly every page. I didn’t expect it to be as light-hearted and comedic as it yet I notice I am constantly smirking. It’s different from modern comedy, of course, but there’s a lot of personality here. If anyone is a Woolf fan, is all of her writing this playful? I’m sure I’ll finish this soon so let me know what to try next.

For me it’s a seltzer, my warm light lamp, and a pile of my TBR books 📕

I was thinking about this this morning when I woke up (thanks to my brain for always waking me up in such an interesting way 😅), but what do people think about ghostwriters? In my mind, an author is someone who creates a world and characters, creates a story, but also writes the novel. I know (from supposed ghostwriters on social media) that several authors we love don't actually write their books... Do we like it? Don't we? What are your opinions? I'm not sure I like the idea…

And yes, I can already see the argument for using AI as a ghostwriter... no. Just no. AI will never replace a human. Thank uuu.

Edit: I'm not talking about celebrities who use ghostwriters, because I don't get the impression that celebrities market themselves as authors. I'm talking more about authors for whom it's their job to sell their "writings" and don't disclaim that they uses a ghostwriter, aka takes credit for the writing 🤭

Why are there a lot of fantasy books with titles that sound like Sarah J Maas' books?? 😭 They all sound like spin offs from ACOTAR. Daughter of smoke and bone, The girl of fire and thorns, Children of blood and bone, The Serpent and the wings of night, From blood and ash, The Kingdom of flesh and fire, King of battle and blood, The wrath and the dawn, A fate of wrath and flame, Heart of blood and ashes, A court of honey and ash, The courts of fate and fear etc etc

I have read none of these books, nor have I read SJM's books and THIS IS SO CONFUSING 😭

Hey everyone ^^

As someone that likes reading, and writing, in multiple povs how do we, as a collective, think about multiple povs in the same chapter?

It's a part of the story in a sequence, not completely different characters in different locations and situations. Just, looking at bits of the scene happening through different eyes.

I actually like it and definitely don't mind it, but what do you all feel about reading it?

My conspiracy theory is that Gwynne invented thought-cage while he was at the last part of the book and he was like damn I ate with this and then he did Ctrl+H on that shit and replaced all instances of mind with thought-cage, not realising how often it is used.

Hey I cant find one but it might be cool if there was a quest for banned books. I can’t speak for anyone else but I think it would be a nice one to have with books like Anne Frank’s Diary, Animal Farm, 1984, and other books like that. What do you guys think?

hi everyone! i hope you all are staying safe and warm this weekend with the snow storm that's coming our way. my question is, what books are you planning on reading this weekend and into the week while being snowed in? i just finished the raven scholar which was SO good and am now moving onto the bodyguard affair for a book club i'm apart of. if you aren't planning on just reading, what other activities are you planning on getting up to? 😊