Help! I have a boatload of marking to do (high school teacher life; why did I schedule all my assessments at once?) but my books are staring at me like "why reader shaped if no reading?"

Tell me: how do you convince your brain to do the actual to do rather than allow yourself to be pulled towards the books like the slow but inevitable spiral into a black hole?

Guilty pleasures are typically seen as harmless and silly things. Like enjoying a publicly disliked book or having a treat that goes against your usual diet. However, what about those guilty pleasures that aren't so harmless (of not meaning anything like causing physical harm or anything illegal), more like can be a little mean.

Like I'm normally a pretty decent human being. I don't really like going out of my way to being cruel to people, especially people that I don't know. Though, I have a guilty pleasure that can be not so nice. When there is a book I really hate, I take pleasure in reading the lowest rating reviews on those books. Especially when I'm upset and need a pick me up boost.

What is your guilty pleasure(s), nice and mean welcome? Lol

At the moment, I'm using Storygraph just for the stats, but I won't lie, having to remember to keep up with multiple bookish platforms is annoying as hell. So, in 2026, I'm really hoping to tackle Google Sheets and be able to form a reading tracker over there... I just have no clue where to start. So, if anyone has any Google Sheets info or advice, I would really appreciate it! Or, if you use a different platform to track your stats, I'd be interested to hear that too, as an alternative if I end up disliking Sheets.

We're almost two thirds of the way through the fall readalong, which means we'll get to see the Winter Readalong picks soon, if I understand correctly.

So I'd love to pick your brains - I was wondering, both for the Fall Readalong and for the Dias de los Muertos readalong (or just one of them if you prefer, I don't make the rules)...

• how did you like the selections overall?

• which books, if any, turned out to be sleeper hits for you that you enjoyed better than you thought you would?

• which books, if any, were perhaps sleeper "fails" for you, in that you enjoyed them less than expected?

• if you didn't read all the book options: what made you choose the one(s) you ended up reading?

• if you read all of them: how would you rank them and how did you enjoy the full package overall?

• for those who have been here for a year and more: how did the Fall 2025 readalong compare to the Fall 2024 readalong in your opinion?

• any other fun thoughts, questions, observations, tributes to my black cat, hopes, dreams, plans for world domination?

Let's chat 🥰

is anyone else still using their storygraph account? i feel funny going back and forth between the two but i love the charts and data that storygraph presents you (guess i'm a nerd)

if you're not still using it, what are you using instead?

Today is NOT my freaking day oml. Made plans to go to the library today but then found out 1, that I'm all out of one of my meds and 2, that I had to do a task that took up half the day and so got home much later than I anticipated. So as soon as I got home I was like Okay the library closes in 3 hours so I'm going to stop by the store really quick to get meds and then stay at the library til they close. WELL!!!!! For one, as soon as I make my intentions known I get handed a shopping list of things to get while I'm out, a list that continued to grow until the moment I finally stepped out the door, but then got in my car and realized the tank was almost empty. So I was like, already annoyed and even moreso now that I know I have to go to the gas station, which is in the complete opposite direction from where I need to go and will add another 15 minutes to my trip. But then, I get there at the pump, and as soon as I get the nozzle in the car and turn it on I notice that the part where it screws in is dripping all over my hand. And then the gas starts to lock up - which is normal for my car, there's something wrong with the way the tank is set up so you have to really work it otherwise the nozzle is gonna think the tank is full - but then it's like locking up every 5 seconds even though I wasn't doing anything wrong. And then next thing I know, I suddenly have gasoline spraying ALL OVER ME. I turned my body away so it only got on my right side, but it got in my hair, in my shirt, my jacket, my pants, EVERYWHERE. So I was absolutely livid at this point I called home to tell them what happened and that I'm changing my clothes, NOT going to the store, and am just going to the library. I get home, trailing the gas smell everywhere, use my strongest exfoliating body wash and roughest wash cloth to vigorously rub the smell off, and change clothes and finally I smell mostly clean. I take a different car, get to the library, and as soon as I sit down and get my kindle out all I can think about is my gnarly headache - because apparently I missed a spot in my hair that was right next to my nose and it kept wafting and making me lightheaded. But it's not all bad, cause while I was there I found a book that I had actually been thinking about buying before so I checked it out. But I also stood at the help desk and asked the guy to transfer a book for me and while I was standing there I started to be able to smell the gasoline again and then from the other side of the room I hear somebody whisper "what is that smell??" So as soon as I was finished at the help desk I had to high-tail it out of there before I stunk up the place 😭 Anywho, I get home and my family washed my clothes two times while I was gone to no avail, they still stink, and the moment I open my bedroom door I'm hit with the gas fumes cause I forgot to open a window to air it out/spray the area where I had sat my clothes before I left. SIGHHHH. I've gotta take an ibuprofen now cause this headache is showing no signs of going away and the vision in my right eye is starting to get hazy 🫩

Hopefully tomorrow after getting the shopping trip done that I was supposed to do today I can try getting a do-over of the 'relaxing' library trip I was hoping to have today 🫠

There's only about 2 months left until 2025 is over (WHAT?!). I'll give you a moment to cry.

Moment over.

I'm wondering what everyone's plan is? For those that do reading challenges are we focused on finishing those up? Is anyone focused on finishing some quests maybe? Are you randomly picking out of a jar? Or are we just vibing until the end of the year? (relatable really)

I have a couple quests that's I'm 1-2 books away from gold so I was considering working on those but I still have to work on reading at least one of the seasonal books. I guess I'm just struggling to decide what I want to do! The seasonal readalongs are timely so it makes sense to get some of those done but finishing quests also makes me happy 😂 I'm a bit of a completionist!

What about you guys? Tell me all your plans, the more chaotic the better!

I am bouncing off of the post holly_bookbanter made about looking for recommendations for an alphabet challenge. But the letters I am looking for are Q and X. They just have to be included somewhere in the title.

Hi everyone! I've been wondering how you guys manage your tbr-list. I personally only put books I've bought in my tbr-list, books that I can choose to read like right now, just take it on my physical shelf (or Kobo shelf, which is very new haha), I don't add books that I want to read but haven't bought yet. I can't really explain why I do this, probably because it helps me have an overall look at every book I have when I'm thinking about which one I'm gonna start lol.

How do you guys do? And why?

What three words would you use to describe the overall "vibe" and "feel" of your current read?

MINE- Confusion, Mystery and Adrenaline

That's what you feel when you're reading thriller🫨

I take Advanced English as an extra subject. The exam consists of three essays, one of which requires us to reference 3-4 books from our own reading.

However, most of the books I’ve read this year haven’t really been essay-acceptable (fun easy YA reads, Romantasy books, etc).

Soo if anyone has any books that are interesting and deep enough to use for an essay, that are preferably not too difficult to read I’d love to know :) bonus points for fantasy and sci-if, so long as it’s not anACOTAR or Fourth wing kind of fantasy.

Trying to branch out into reading more nonfiction books. Any suggestions for exciting nonfiction reads that are written creatively?

I don't hate a textbook approach especially if I want to do research into a topic but I appreciate a writer that can inform their audience while being exciting and engaging.

Hi everyone - excited to announce that Pagebound finally has merch! You can view the selection at https://store.pagebound.co/

We know this has been highly requested, and we wanted to get out a first release in time for the holidays, so what we have now is a limited run of a few items. We do have plans in the future for an expanded store with more product types (stickers of avatars & badges, mugs, etc) and more t-shirt / sweatshirt / hat designs. Let us know your other requests in the comments 😊

This was very fun to create, and we can’t wait to see everyone repping Pagebound--it’s about to be my daily uniform 🙂‍↕️

I just found out that I could read gothic and classics for free on Apple Books so I was trying to find the editions that I was going to read for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it has 104 pages and was published by Libri House. And for Carmilla, it has 160 pages and is published by Pushkin Press. Is there a way to search for certain editions or add them myself if I can’t find them. Or are they there and I’m just blind.