recently, i’ve been thinking a lot about jacob wysocki’s motivational speech “You are a Regular Guy, you can enter a space; You are a regular guy, you can make that phone call, etc etc” he did for Make Some Noise on Dropout (if anyone can link it please do lmao). i feel like ben, the MC in Board to Death which i’m currently reading would really benefit from this silly speech especially because he always second guesses & scrutinizes everything he chooses to do.

what other characters do you think would benefit from this speech? it could either be characters who are naturally anxious or even characters struggling to come to a pivotal decision.

To anyone who made it to the protests, YOU ARE THE REAL HEROES!!!!!!

Share your NO WAR, ICE OUT, NO KINGS inspired book recs ✊

Hello! I want to create a list of books with named swords. I am a huge fan of when this is included in a story. An example is Quicksilver by Callie Hart which features Solace 🗡️ Nimerelle 🗡️ and Simon 🗡️. Or GoT’s Oathkeeper 🗡️ . All suggestions appreciated!!

Update: Yall are the best! This list is so badass.

i realized i like books where i hate the characters so much but the plot is so good that i power through. whether it’s to see their demise, root for a redemption arc, or just see the book end with them being stagnantly horrible.

i want to know if there are any books that have made you feel that way.

they don't have to be books similar to my taste profile, but rather books that were able to invoke those feelings in you--where you hate them so much, you read the entire thing in one go.

(antihero, villain protagonist, unreliable narrator, etc.)

Saturday morning musings. A couple of things brought this to mind:

-1. I've met, a few times now, a very nice Icelandic author who wrote a horror novella that involved the death of cats (good book, btw...deals with issues of how women are treated by the medical system, among other things). The author herself is a dog and cat lover, and she mentioned in a talk that she likes to include things that horrify her in her horror fiction and that these deaths certainly qualified. The book was out in Iceland for a few years. People liked it and there was no controversy about it, no one worked up over the animal death (again, horror), and that's in a country where people I've met seem to love cats and cats walk the neighborhoods in relative safety (one of my favorite things to do there is to find cats I've met on previous trips). So...the book comes out in the U.S. and people are review-bombing over this issue. There was some discourse on social media where people came a bit unglued as well. It always seemed to be Americans.* The author commented that it wasn't until the U.S. release that there was any issue and it seemed to come out of the blue.

-2. I follow a lot of bookish accounts on Threads. There is always drama, which I mostly try to skip over, though I do like to interact with authors and other readers there. Irrespective of what the issue is (could be anything they deem 'problematic'), whenever I see people start to really get worked up about the contents of a book, to the point they want it taken down, they're generally Americans (and, I should note, they span the entire political spectrum, so this isn't a political matter but a sociological one and probably not limited to books, though that is my focus here).

This isn't to slam Americans. I'm one. Nor is it to cast a wide net--these are, I'm sure, a minority of readers, but they tend to be loud.

So, especially for those of you outside of the U.S. who interact with U.S. readers online, does it seem to you that Americans are more likely to get really worked up over such things than people in your own country? Or is it simply that my social media intake is biased (certainly it is heavily weighted toward Americans)? Do other cultures have a different relationship with fiction that allows a different perspective on the contents of a novel vis a vis real world harms? If so, why do you think that is?

Having talked to a number of authors from outside of the U.S. over the past few years I've concluded that many of us in the U.S. have quite a different relationship with fiction and I'm curious as to the sociology behind it (if it really exists and isn't a figment of my imagination).

*I'm using "Americans" colloquially to refer to people in the U.S.

ETA: I'm keeping up with the comments but am heading out to see my mother. I wasn't expecting so many responses and I will catch up with them when I return!

Iiiiii am on a search for books about or with side characters that are at least explored a little, that are clergy (nuns or priests preferably). I PREFER Catholic ones but I am open to other kinds also including fantasy equivalents that borrow from the imagery and any genre is fine, fiction or nonfiction. Though I’m not really looking for smut, I WILL read romance - I just need there to be plot, you know? (I’ll also add if it’s romance I prefer it to be gay or sapphic but I’ll give decent het ones a chance if people think they’re well written) Thank yoouuuu.

After I finish a book, I immediately go to look up if it has a movie or show adaptation. I love, love, love cinema. I'd be a professional if they payed me. What's the best movie or show adaptation of a book you've seen? I really enjoyed the show The Decameron even though I haven't read the book yet. Adaptations always seem to be lacking something, an important character or plotline, and in the end they always turn out worse than I expected them to be! Do you have any recommendations of books that were good and their movie or TV show adaptations that were spot on or just really fulfilling and satisfying? I'd love to hear!

Does anyone else struggle to find the balance between wanting to keep up with forum posts but also wanting to like… actually read the book? 😭

One of my favourite things about pagebound is getting to engage with the forum for books I’m currently reading. However, as someone with the attention span of a goldfish, I sometimes find myself pausing mid-read to check the forum for posts on specific passages/sections and getting distracted away from the actual book… for the entirety of my allocated reading time 🫣

If you’re a regular poster/commenter, how do you manage to stay engaged with book forums while also prioritising reading?