literaryted

trying to read more than I have been lately! 🐝

666 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Reading...

12%

literaryted made progress on...

The Works of Vermin

Hiron Ennes

12%

literaryted started reading...

The Works of Vermin

Hiron Ennes

He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster. Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, a metropolis carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty. In this complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple goal: keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he'll take on any job, no matter how vile. As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny creatures that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a centipede the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice. Guy doesn't have a choice.

literaryted is interested in reading...

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

Colin Dickey

An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places — and deep into the dark side of our history. Colin Dickey is on the trail of America's ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes," Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as "the most haunted mansion in America," or "the most haunted prison"; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget. With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living — how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made — and why those changes are made — Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.

literaryted is interested in reading...

A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

literaryted joined a quest

From Bookshelf to TV 📺🍿🔁

🏆 // 7893 joined

Not Joined

Books that have been adapted into TV series.

literaryted earned a badge

From Bookshelf to TV

Bronze: Finished 5 Main Quest books.

literaryted is interested in reading...

Helm

Sarah Hall

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and awe, who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time. Through the stories of those who've obsessed over this phenomenon, Helm's extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm - and the farmer's daughter who loved Helm. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears human pollution is killing Helm. Rich, wild and vital, Helm is the story of a unique life force, and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.

literaryted TBR'd a book

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Stephen Greenblatt

One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.The copying and translation of this ancient book—the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age—fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.

literaryted is interested in reading...

Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History

Bill Schutt

For centuries scientists have written off cannibalism as a bizarre phenomenon with little biological significance. Its presence in nature was dismissed as a desperate response to starvation or other life-threatening circumstances, and few spent time studying it. A taboo subject in our culture, the behavior was portrayed mostly through horror movies or tabloids sensationalizing the crimes of real-life flesh-eaters. But the true nature of cannibalism--the role it plays in evolution as well as human history--is even more intriguing (and more normal) than the misconceptions we've come to accept as fact. In Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, zoologist Bill Schutt sets the record straight, debunking common myths and investigating our new understanding of cannibalism's role in biology, anthropology, and history in the most fascinating account yet written on this complex topic. Schutt takes readers from Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains, where he wades through ponds full of tadpoles devouring their siblings, to the Sierra Nevadas, where he joins researchers who are shedding new light on what happened to the Donner Party--the most infamous episode of cannibalism in American history. He even meets with an expert on the preparation and consumption of human placenta (and, yes, it goes well with Chianti). Bringing together the latest cutting-edge science, Schutt answers questions such as why some amphibians consume their mother's skin; why certain insects bite the heads off their partners after sex; why, up until the end of the twentieth century, Europeans regularly ate human body parts as medical curatives; and how cannibalism might be linked to the extinction of the Neanderthals. He takes us into the future as well, investigating whether, as climate change causes famine, disease, and overcrowding, we may see more outbreaks of cannibalism in many more species--including our own.Cannibalism places a perfectly natural occurrence into a vital new context and invites us to explore why it both enthralls and repels us.

literaryted is interested in reading...

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Deborah Blum

Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of the very best mystery fiction, shares the untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. In The Poisoner's Handbook Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Drama unfolds case by case as the heroes of The Poisoner's Handbook—chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler—investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, Barnum and Bailey's Famous Blue Man, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and Norris and Gettler work with a creativity that rivals that of the most imaginative murderer, creating revolutionary experiments to tease out even the wiliest compounds from human tissue. Yet in the tricky game of toxins, even science can't always be trusted, as proven when one of Gettler's experiments erroneously sets free a suburban housewife later nicknamed "America's Lucretia Borgia" to continue her nefarious work. From the vantage of Norris and Gettler's laboratory in the infamous Bellevue Hospital it becomes clear that killers aren't the only toxic threat to New Yorkers. Modern life has created a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every corner. Automobiles choke the city streets with carbon monoxide; potent compounds, such as morphine, can be found on store shelves in products ranging from pesticides to cosmetics. Prohibition incites a chemist's war between bootleggers and government chemists while in Gotham's crowded speakeasies each round of cocktails becomes a game of Russian roulette. Norris and Gettler triumph over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice during a remarkably deadly time. A beguiling concoction that is equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, The Poisoner's Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten New York.

literaryted is interested in reading...

The Manuscripts Club: The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts

Christopher de Hamel

* A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice *The acclaimed author of Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts introduces us to the extraordinary keepers and companions of medieval manuscripts over a thousand years of historyThe illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages are among the greatest works of European art and literature. We are dazzled by them and recognize their crucial role in the transmission of knowledge. However, we generally think much less about the countless men and women who made, collected and preserved them through the centuries, and to whom they owe their existence.This entrancing book describes some of the extraordinary people who have spent their lives among illuminated manuscripts over the last thousand a monk in Normandy, a prince of France, a Florentine bookseller, an English antiquary, a rabbi from central Europe, a French priest, a Keeper at the British Museum, a Greek forger, a German polymath, a British connoisseur and the woman who created the most spectacular library in America—all of them members of what Christopher de Hamel calls the Manuscripts Club.This exhilarating fraternity, and the fellow enthusiasts who come with it, throw new light on how manuscripts have survived and been used by very different kinds of people in many different circumstances. Christopher de Hamel’s unexpected connections and discoveries reveal a passion that crosses the boundaries of time. We understand the manuscripts themselves better by knowing who their keepers and companions have been.In 1850 (or thereabouts) John Ruskin bought his first manuscript “at a bookseller’s in a back alley.” This was his “The new worlds which every leaf of this book opened to me, and the joy I had in counting their letters and unravelling their arabesques as if they had all been of beaten gold—as many of them were—cannot be told.” The members of de Hamel’s club share many such wonders, which he brings to us with scholarship, style and a lifetime’s experience.

literaryted is interested in reading...

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome

Emma Southon

An entertaining and informative look at the unique culture of crime, punishment, and killing in Ancient Rome In Ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common—murder. Romulus killed Remus to found the city, Caesar was assassinated to save the Republic. Caligula was butchered in the theater, Claudius was poisoned at dinner, and Galba was beheaded in the Forum. In one 50-year period, 26 emperors were murdered. But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? In A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon examines a trove of real-life homicides from Roman history to explore Roman culture, including how perpetrator, victim, and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside Ancient Rome's darkly fascinating history, we see how the Romans viewed life, death, and what it means to be human.

literaryted commented on a post

Khaleesi

Edited

Thoughts from 15%

i think its the first time i ever imagine a book character as a real actor, but im totally imagining una as gwendoline christie. what about you?

i imagine owen as idk, someone like patrick from the movie the perks of being a wallflower

literaryted commented on mmyth's review of Moonflow

mmyth

Aug 19, 2026

Moonflow

0.5

Enjoyment: 0.5Quality: 0.5Characters: 0.5Plot: 0.5

📱 This was not horror but it was a horrific read. I'm truly confused about what the goal of this book is. The prose makes me feel like the target audience is YA but the content is definitely too inappropriate making it sound condescending to listen to and me feel dumb for reading it. I'm not saying, "you're dumb if you read YA books," I'm saying this book made me feel stupid. Everyone has a nickname that is ridiculous. Skillet? Hell Slut? The characters are all horny, high, and fully dependent on each other. Drugs, sex, and religion are all that are talked about in this book and not in interesting ways. I'm talking about the first stoner 🍄 you met who couldn't believe you wouldn't try pot 😱! Or the boy who found out you were still a virgin! 🥺 "You don't do drugs and you don't want to have sex? What do you even do with your life?" Oh and a goddess with HUUUGE tits. 🫪🫨 A god with a MASSIVE COCK! 😵 It was so difficult to read. @saturnia's review is exactly how I felt! There is a lot of fetish content in this book and it is just not for me.

literaryted joined a quest

Made for the Movies 🎥⭐😎

🏆 // 11025 joined

Not Joined

Books that made it on the big screen

literaryted earned a badge

Made for the Movies

Platinum: Finished 20 Main Quest books.

literaryted joined a quest

Poetic Stories 🕊️🪶📜

🏆 // 996 joined

Not Joined

From wine-dark seas to sun-filled cities, these stories explore complex experiences, mythologies, and emotions through narrative poetry and epic verse.

literaryted commented on displacedcactus's review of The Works of Vermin

displacedcactus

Feb 04, 2026

The Works of Vermin

5.0

Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 5.0Plot: 5.0

🐛

👩‍🎨

🎭

Honestly, if this is not in my top five of 2026, it will mean that this is an incredible year in books, because I have a hard time imagining what would unseat this book.

Reading The Works of Vermin was like reading Perdido Street Station or The Fifth Season for the first time. Pretty much from the first couple of pages, you realize that you have stepped into a setting unlike anything you've read before, and you know you are in for a ride. Nothing here is cookie cutter or vibes-based. Everything feels intentional.

This is one of those books where the setting, characters, and plot are so intertwined, and yet at the same time, it feels like they all continue past the page. There is both a history and a future here. There is a world beyond the edge of the map. Many more exciting things could happen in this place.

I'm also impressed by all the elements and influences Ennes has brought into this work. There's elements of entomology, botany, visual arts, performance art, pathology, class dynamics, and probably other things we didn't yet dive into over in the forum.

Unfortunately, this isn't a book I can recommend to everyone. It is definitely a horror-fantasy novel. There's lots of creepy bugs and body horror and gore and violence, and it's a medium-long book, so you're going to be spending a while in a pretty unpleasant place. But if you are a horror fan, you owe it to yourself to give this a read.

literaryted paused reading...

The Summer that Melted Everything

Tiffany McDaniel

Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: the year a heatwave scorched the small town of Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil. When local prosecutor Autopsy Bliss publishes an invitation to the devil to come to the country town of Breathed, Ohio, nobody quite expected that he would turn up. They especially didn't expect him to turn up a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy. Fielding, the son of Autopsy, finds the boy outside the courthouse and brings him home, and he is welcomed into the Bliss family. The Blisses believe the boy, who calls himself Sal, is a runaway from a nearby farm town. Then, as a series of strange incidents implicate Sal — and riled by the feverish heatwave baking the town from the inside out — there are some around town who start to believe that maybe Sal is exactly who he claims to be. But whether he's a traumatised child or the devil incarnate, Sal is certainly one strange fruit: he talks in riddles, his uncanny knowledge and understanding reaches far outside the realm of a normal child — and ultimately his eerily affecting stories of Heaven, Hell, and earth will mesmerise and enflame the entire town. Devastatingly beautiful, The Summer That Melted Everything is a captivating story about community, redemption, and the dark places where evil really lies.

literaryted paused reading...

The Burial Tide

Neil Sharpson

Drawing on the creatures and horrors of Irish folklore,The Burial Tide unearths our darkest how far we’d go to win our freedom, and how quickly our desires blur the line between human and monster. A woman who can’t remember her death. On an eerily quiet island off the coast of Ireland, a woman with no memory claws her way out of her grave and back to life. But not everyone welcomes the return of Mara Fitch. An island with a terrible secret. Inishbannock. Where strange misshapen figures watch from the trees and the roads are covered in teeth. Where two brothers gamble for nothing, the doctor only treats the dead, and the pub owner speaks in riddles. Where a poet loses and finds his soul. And a husband without a wife claims to know everything about Mara. A past that refuses to stay buried. As Mara returns to her life on this upside-down island, her memories begin to leech their way back to the surface. The more she remembers, the more the village will do anything to stop her . . . But the sea remembers it all.

Gift Pagebound Royalty Merch Store Roadmap Founder Announcements

Support

FAQ Contact Us Report a bug

team@pagebound.co

Company

About Us Terms of Use Privacy Policy Content Policy

Gift Pagebound Royalty Merch Store Roadmap Founder Announcements