Hi, I'm posting to ask if there are any books here that has the main focus on Dark Academia? There are a couple I read like A Dark and Drowning Tide and Ace of Spades where dark academia is in the background, sometimes barely noticeable, whereas other topics or genres are strong in the forefront like sapphic romantasy or YA Gossip Girl/Pretty Little Liars. These types of books with no a strong focus on dark academia are completely fine, I have nothing against them, the main reason I'm drawn to dark academia is because of the exploration into an elite university with the humanities studies and how it's twisted into something dark. The less focus on different genres, the better. Even The DaVinci Code is borderline to me, the thriller and detective vibes are stronger than dark academia vibes (and also it's fun to read how lowkey inaccurate the observations are 🫣).

It's why I've joined this quest to read more books like it. I'm thinking along the lines of:

• The Historian
• Babel
• Katabasis

The Secret History and Piranesi are good examples of what I'm looking for and I've placed a hold on The Secret History one. Are there any examples of that in this quest list? Thank you! 🥰

It’s so unsettling to think about how the exploitation of local people through tourism isn’t just a dystopian, fictional nightmare. It reflects the practices happening today. So far, this book really makes me think about companies that disguise try to exploitation by saying they’re “supporting the local economy” and “providing jobs,” as if employment automatically makes their presence benevolent. There’s absolutely nothing uplifting about an economy being “helped” when the people supposedly benefiting from it are treated as disposable, subjected to abuse, and denied the basic dignity of being treated like human beings.

Unrelated to books, but I hope it’s okay I’m posting here.

I’ve noticed that many users on here aren’t using other social media. Not hard to guess why.

I’ve recently stopped using the one social media I used to frequent regularly: Tumblr. I was mostly there to engage with fandom output (not discourse), but it was quite helpful for providing coverage of very niche news that a lot of outlets weren’t reporting on (e.g., I got my Odyssey film news from there 🔗). Tumblr’s been acting up for me and deleting my account randomly so I decided to give myself a break from it.

Tumblr wasn’t the only place I got my news from, it wasn’t viable for that. I get it from youtube also. Only from independent outlets I can trust, mainly: Zeteo, Novara Media, The Majority Report (which is mostly entertainment for me). I know, they just happen to be left-wing lol. I haven’t really subscribed to any of them because I’m in college and my transactions are monitored.

Before I was on Pagebound, I used to get my news from Instagram, i.e. I was made aware of the gazan and the darfur genocide, and couple other issues. I won’t say it was completely wasteful, I learned a lot of important things. But it started taking a toll on me mentally and afflicting me with new, unknown insecurities + perpetual hopelessness, that I needed to get away.

I haven’t cared about cable since I started caring about politics (and I just found it boring before). I’m not from the US, and I’ll let you know that TV has been so thoroughly hijacked by the governing party in my country that it is impossible to get reliable news coverage that isn’t completely cherry-picked to further a very bigoted narrative. I won’t even mention newspapers, I cut them up and make collage out of them sometimes.

I’ve noticed that I’ve become aggressively particular about where I get any information from. I used to get perfume recs from reddit, but I’ve forgone social media so thoroughly (save for YT, I need something) these past few months that I’m forced to engage with real people about these stuff (I use Parfumo for ratings and compositions, if you’re curious).

So I’m curious where everybody gets their news from. Anywhere you think is reliable? How has the media landscape in your country affect how you get your news? Does it go further than just news for you? I’d be open to branching out myself.