kanelknute
She/her šMasters student in archive, library and information science š Love reading, gaming and cinnamon buns š
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kanelknute TBR'd a book
1h
Sea of Charms (Spellshop, #3)
Sarah Beth Durst
Marin is a supply runner with her own boat that she sails from island to island, delivering whatever anyone will pay her to deliver: letters, flour, even the occasional enchanted lemur. Itās a lonely life, but itās hers, and she wouldnāt trade the freedom of the sea for anything. Her only companion is a sea serpent, Perri, whom she saved from a fisherfolkās net.
One day, she sails to Alyssium and discovers the city is on fire. Thereās been a revolution, and the empire has fallen. Marin, with Perri, begins transporting refugees, finding them new homes where they can start over. One such refugee is Dax, a composer who refuses to leave behind his instruments, no matter how much she tries to emphasize the gravity of the situation. Intrigued by his stubbornness, his passion for stories, and his charming smile, Marin discovers perhaps she isnāt saving him ā maybe itās the other way around.
From the acclaimed author of The Spellshop, Sea of Charms is a delightful cosy fantasy for fans of Travis Baldree and TJ Klune.
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Post from the Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife forum
20h
Thoughts from 27% (page 79)
I'm still not 100% sold on this book, but I have a feeling that I've still not entered the main part of the book yet. Also the chapters are a little too long for me
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kanelknute TBR'd a book
1d
The Brides of High Hill (The Singing Hills Cycle, #5)
Nghi Vo
The Hugo Award-Winning Series returns with its newest standalone entry: a gothic mystery involving a crumbling estate, a mysterious bride, and an extremely murderous teapot.
The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to an aging lord at a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. But theyāre forgetting things they ought to remember, and the lordās mad young son wanders the grounds at night like a hanged ghost.
The Singing Hills Cycle has been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award, the Ignyte Award, and has won the Hugo Award and the Crawford Award.
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kanelknute TBR'd a book
1d
Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)
Robin Hobb
In a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young boy will become a walking enigma.
Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal bastard, cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals - the old art known as the Wit - gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.
So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and embrace a new life of weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin.
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kanelknute is interested in reading...
2d
Wellness
Nathan Hill
When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the '90s, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in Chicagoās thriving underground art scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter cults disguised as mindfulness support groups, polyamorous would-be suitors, Facebook wars, and something called Love Potion Number Nine.
For the first time Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize each other, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to painful childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, they must undertake separate, personal excavations or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.
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kanelknute is interested in reading...
2d
My Friends
Fredrik Backman
#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete strangerās life twenty-five years later.
Most people donāt even notice themāthree tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think itās just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.
Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisaās care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the paintingās birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what sheāll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings donāt always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.
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kanelknute joined a quest
2d
Quiet Novels š”šš¤«
š // 2056 joined
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Contemporary Literary Fiction where nothing out of the ordinary happens but the charactersā inner lives are rich, complicated, and layered.
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kanelknute is interested in reading...
2d
Yellowface
R.F. Kuang
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang's novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
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kanelknute is interested in reading...
2d
The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park
Michiko Aoyama
The enchanting new novel by the multimillion-copy bestselling author of What You Are Looking For Is in the Library, about five strangers who each seek comfort from a healing hippo ride.
Nestled at the bottom of a five-story apartment block in the community of Advance Hill is the children's playground in Hinode Park, where you will find a very special age-old hippo ride named Kabahiko. According to urban legend, if you touch the exact part of the hippo where you have an ailment or wound, you will see swift signs of recovery. They call it "Healing Hippo."
In The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park, the apartment residents each find their way to Kabahiko, confessing their troubles and drawing upon the hippo's rumored abilities. From a struggling student who pets the hippo's head to reverse his poor academic performance to the lonely new mother who hopes that touching the hippo's mouth will allow her to better express herself, this heartwarming, eclectic cast of characters will all come to Kabahiko for healing in their livesāthough they may not always find it in the ways they expect.
With Aoyama's classic charm and emotional power, The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park is a deeply moving celebration of kindness, community and understanding.
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kanelknute started reading...
3d
Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife
Deston J. Munden
An undead orc knight leaves battle behind for a new kind of afterlifeāone with good food, good friends, and maybe even fatherhood.Ā Ā
Rottgor is worn out. Literally. Barely held together by dark magic, he has protected the necropolis for centuries. When heās forced into retirement, heās faced with a new to forge a future guided not by obligation, but by passion.Ā Ā
Following his heart (and stomach), he decides to open a restaurant where the cityās undead and living residents can share food and community. Heās helped in his quest by an unlikely assortment of neighbors, including elves, skeletons, vampiresāand a young orphan girl named Astra, whose ancestry, if discovered, could put her and the entire necropolis in danger. To protect Astra and the life heās building, Rottgor must face his past and form new alliances built on friendship, loyalty, and love. As comforting as warm pumpkin bread, this gentle fantasy traces how even a dark history can rise into a bright future.Ā
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kanelknute TBR'd a book
5d
The Cat Who Saved Books
SÅsuke Natsukawa
The Cat Who Saved Books is a heart-warming story about finding courage, caring for others ā and the tremendous power of books.
Grandpa used to say it all the time: 'books have tremendous power'. But what is that power really?
Natsuki Books was a tiny second-hand bookshop on the edge of town. Inside, towering shelves reached the ceiling, every one crammed full of wonderful books. Rintaro Natsuki loved this space that his grandfather had created. He spent many happy hours there, reading whatever he liked. It was the perfect refuge for a boy who tended to be something of a recluse.
After the death of his grandfather, Rintaro is devastated and alone. It seems he will have to close the shop. Then, a talking tabby cat called Tiger appears and asks Rintaro for help. The cat needs a book lover to join him on a mission. This odd couple will go on three magical adventures to save books from people who have imprisoned, mistreated and betrayed them. Finally, there is one last rescue that Rintaro must attempt alone . . .
Sosuke Natsukawa's international bestseller, translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai, is a story for those for whom books are so much more than words on paper.
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kanelknute is interested in reading...
5d
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
āI got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.ā
They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.
While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.
A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.
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kanelknute commented on a post
5d
kanelknute wrote a review...
5d
Oh wow, what a wild and crazy ride. The only words I have to describe this book is: very cool, very confusing, very strange.
As I mentioned, it got very confusing at a lot of points. There are a LOT of different names remember, and a lot of the characters are people of the past (so you never really meet them, making it even harder for me to remember who is who). I had to get out my notebook to keep track of everything and everyone. The ending is really confusing too, but it gave me an opportunity to dive DEEP into a rabbit hole and read a bunch of theories on Reddit, which was a lot of fun.
I'm giving this book 3 stars. I liked it, it was strange and I liked the weird mystery, but idk the reveal felt a little bit disappointing to me. Also there were SO MANY names that I could hardly keep up. But all in all, the book was very entertaining and I would definitely recommend it for lovers of strange and weird mysteries.
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kanelknute finished a book
5d
Strange Houses
Uketsu
A spiritual companion to Strange Pictures and a bestselling horror phenomenon in Japan āmysterious spaces, trap doors, windowless children's rooms . . . something is wrong with this house. Can you solve the "mystery" of its floor plan?
A writer fascinated by the macabre is approached by an acquaintance who is considering purchasing a second-hand house in Tokyo. With its bright and spacious interior, the home seems perfect. But looking closer, the buildingās floor plan reveals a mysterious "dead spaceā hidden between the walls. Seeking a second opinion, the writer shares the floor plan with an architect friend only to discover more āstrange spacesā dotted across the house.
What are these mysterious āstrange spacesā and why do they existāare they really there, or is there something off with the floor plan? Who is the homeās former resident who suddenly disappeared?
The freelance writer and his architect friend canāt resist the challenge of solving the riddle of these puzzling floor plans . . . and the terrifying plot behind it all.
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Post from the Strange Houses forum
5d
Post from the Strange Houses forum
6d
kanelknute wrote a review...
6d
Not gonna lie, this book messed me up.
Being a HUGE fan of Lonely Castle in the Mirror, I knew I had to read this book at some point. I was hesitant to read it at first, thinking it would be too similar to Before the Coffee Gets Cold, but I'm happy to say that I was wrong.
The book starts of a little meh, but when it hits it hits HARD. Some parts were brutal to read and I had to put the book down a few times just to reflect.
If you are a fan of Lonely Castle in the Mirror, you will probably like this book too. And if you're a fan of this book and have not read Lonely Castle in the Mirror, then what are you doing? Read it right now! /lh
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kanelknute finished a book
6d
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (The Go-Between, #1)
Mizuki Tsujimura
Is there anyone you wish to see?
When Hirase, a young woman from Tokyo, arranges an appointment with the Go-Between, she doesn't expect a teenager to show up. Dressed preppily in a duffel coat and carrying a scuffed notebook, he arranges for the dead to meet the living. At least, this is what Hirase has been told.
He ushers his clients into a chilly hospital courtyard where he lays down the rules: the reunion is at full moon; the deceased can be summoned only once; they can refuse; the service is entirely free.
- Hirase asks to see the TV star who once helped her;
- A stubborn family man asks his deceased mother where the deeds are to some land;
- A young woman gets a horrible shock when she receives a message from the best friend whose death she caused;
- A weary salary man explores why his girlfriend went missing days after he proposed.
With each heartbreaking reunion, clues are scattered for readers to piece together the mindblowing truth behind the boy in the duffel coat, as Tsujimura shows with astonishing empathy and insight how the power of memory can give our lives meaning.
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