I've just been reading about how in the ancient Greek and Roman world, well read papyrus scrolls had a lifespan of less than 100–125 years, much less if you factor in the losses from 🪲, 🔥, and 🌊. So, the works we still read today (e.g. Homer, Plato) survived only because someone, somewhere, decided a text was worth the painstaking labor of copying it out by hand, letter by letter. Some of those copying projects took nearly a FULL YEAR of work. And yet, people did it! Because someone felt the text was just too important, or loved it too much, to let it die. It's romantic in a way, I think.

So here's my question for you boundlings: If YOU had to spend months...maybe even a year, hand-copying a single book, word for word, to ensure it survived for future generations...which book would you choose?

It doesn't have to be your all-time favorite. Maybe it's a book you think humanity genuinely cannot afford to lose. A story that says something irreplaceable about what it means for us to be human. Because who knows, maybe AI will replace us in the not so distant future 😅

What book would be worth the horrendous hand cramping and eye strain induced migraines of rewriting page after page.

I'd love to know your picks and hear why. 👇

(I personally I have been thinking about my choice, and I am not quite sure of my answer yet, but I'll post mine in the comments when I think of it)

I'm pondering something this morning (and admittedly probably have had too much caffeine this morning) but in most non fiction, and really specifically "self help" type books, there's no plotline, no big twists or surprises, just an author's take on various concepts really. Is it considered a spoiler to take one of the author's concepts and expand on it?

I feel like there's no such thing as a "spoiler" in books such as this. But I'm curious about others' thoughts on the matter?

Sharing in case people haven’t seen this news: The CEO of Barnes & Noble said he would support stores selling AI-written books.

“Yes, I have actually no problem selling any book, as long as it doesn’t masquerade or pretend to be something that it isn’t, and that it has an essential quality to it, and that the customer, the reader, wants it.

So as long as an AI-written book says it’s an AI-written book and doesn’t pretend to be something else and isn’t ripping off somebody else, as long as that’s clearly stated and the customer wants to buy it, then we will stock them.

We have 300,000 titles across all of our stores. Do we think that some of those may be AI? The chances are that they are, but we’re not really conscious of them.

At the moment, it seems unlikely to us that these AI-generated books are going to get much commercial traction. So I think it’s something that one should treat with common sense and acceptance, but not allow anything to masquerade (as).”

Source

the pizza hut book it program is a core memory of my childhood, and i think it would be really fun to do something like that but instead of getting a personal pan pizza every time i meet my reading goal i'll get like a cute charm to put on my reading journal. or maybe pagebound merch? just a little treat or something to celebrate me meeting my goal. and maybe that will motivate me to meet that goal multiple times! any other ideas for a fun little treat to reward yourself for meeting your reading goal?

update after some brainstorming:

welcome to maomi's bookit program!

where i, an adult, give myself little treats for little accomplishments! i'm putting this here so if anyone else wants to join me in this little venture you can! also feel free to riff on this if you want!

personally, i'm not going to be deviating too much from the original pizza hut formula. i'm going to have a set goal, and every time i meet that goal this year, i'm going to give myself a little reward.

my reading goal for 2026 is 15 books. each time i meet that goal, i'm going to make/get myself a little charm or a stamp for my reading journal. if i manage to meet this goal 4 times (60 books) i'll be getting myself either a big midori stamp or a sock yarn from my local yarn store.

rules (to de-incentivize myself from gaming the system):

1. i need to read books at my level (thank you meggirl94 for bringing this up).
2. short stories and novellas count, but i need to read more of them to equal one book. so 3 short stories = 1 book, and 2 novellas = 1 book.
3. unfinished books from the previous year don't count (so if i start a book end of 2025 and finish early 2026, it doesn't count). books need to be read entirely in the year of 2026.
4. no repeats. i can reread books from before 2026, but the same book will not count twice within the year.

tracking: to keep things kind of simple i'll be making a punch card (thank you for the idea thedimpledteacher) and using the pagebound counter to help me keep track of things. if i read a short story or novella, i'll mark it in my journal and punch once i hit 3 or 2 of them respectively.

if anyone has any other suggestions please feel free to drop them below!

What's the most diabolical thing a character has done from a book you've read or your current read?

"No one has considered that you can make a country overgrow just as the Pentagon has concluded that you can 'over-kill' any possible enemy if you keep on producing hydrogen bombs beyond any rational need."

IS THIS THE ETYMOLOGY OF "OVERKILL"??!?!???!! Jésus christ