Post Modern Literature might be the term but I am looking for some books that play with the format, the narrative structures, the literary devices, the very nature of literature. It's a big broad spectrum. Percy Jackson's Chapter Titles fit, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's Footnotes fit, Discworld Footnotes fit, Frankenstein's Narrative fits, just something to excite the big lump of grey matter trapped in my skull. It doesn't have to be deep or meaningful just interesting. Maybe something I can learn from or something that sticks with me.

Hi, I need some recommendations for a book bingo challenge I’m doing in my book journal.

The catergories I need help with are:

1. ‘Made Me Cry’ - I don’t often cry at books so I’m going to need some really good recs for this one

2. ‘Read a Scary Book’ - I don’t read a lot of horror or scary books so recs are definitely needed!

3. ‘Debut Novel’ - Have you read any great debuts lately?

And incase you’re interested the other prompts are: • Read in One Day • Set in Another World • Book 75 • One Word Title • Physical TBR • Made Me Laugh • Rec From a Friend • Read a Classic • Over 500 Pages (I used Demon Copperhead for this one) • Read a Banned Book • Has a Colour in the Title (probably going to use The Color Purple for this one) • Won an Award • Published in 1993 (from a quick google, I’m thinking maybe The Virgin Suicides for this prompt)

Feel free to comment any recs for the other categories too.

For context, I’ve just started this journal a week ago, I had been doing another journal for 2026 but it wasn’t really working for me so I decided to do a whole new one 😅 I could go back and use some of the books I’ve already read this year to fill in some prompts on the book bingo but I’m going to attempt to fill it in with books I’ve read since making the journal.

Thanks in advance 🥰

There is something horrible about rating books, in general, and I'd love to have a discussion about that here, but that doesn't matter immediately.

I'm moreso interested on whether there are books you folks have read that you'd rate 1-3 stars, bad to mediocre, that however you think should be read by people by the conversations it starts, the values, the prose, or any reason at all.

For my part, I'm currently slogging through Samuel Delany's Stars in my Pocket, and while I think, so far, I won't rate it above a 3.5, this man prose's is so excessively rich, so abundant, gorgeous and turgid that people should go through the trouble of fighting his awful storytelling.

Every month I like to reflect back on the books I have read and pick a favorite book of the month. Then every 3 months I narrow the list down to contenders for Top Read of the Year! I have challenged myself not to change the list after I have made it, my mind might change throughout the year but the list can't. Since the first 6 months of the year have passed I thought I'd share my process and my first contender! My favorite monthly reads: January: The Handmaids Tale February: Beloved March: The Color Purple April: My Year of Rest and Relaxation May: The Radium Girls June: Blood on her Tongue

The Color Purple won the first 3 months and The Radium Girls won the next 3. MY first contender for Top Read of the 2026 is The Color Purple!

Does anyone else bracket out their favorite reads to reach a Top Read of the Year? If you do what were your favorite reads so far this year and what is your first contender for Top Read of 2026? Does your list of favorites change throughout the year? If you haven't done this before I'd love to hear your monthly favorites and your first contender! Are you surprised by your results? Is it difficult or easy to choose?

I’m so excited to go to my first ALA conference after 13 years working in libraries! I’ll be there Friday-Monday. Any sessions people are excited for?

I got the idea from Mancarryingthing's youtube video called "I "love" the way we talk about books". It a 1 minute skit depicting two people talking about books and one of them always finds reasons why the other's reading is "not valid reading". In the end it is revealed that the "insufferable reader" archetype hasn't read a book in a very long time and is just regurgitating stuff he sees online. If you don't get the jist, just watch the video, it is really short and gets the point across way better.

So it got me thinking about how my reading habits wouldn't clarify as "valid reading" in the eye of a person like this. So far I got:

• While I like reading classics it isn't my main genre, so i would probably get called "performative" for even picking them up.
• Some classics I read were written by people who would get deemed "problematic" by modern standards (for being racist, sexist etc..). So for reading them I would also be probably called "problematic" despite not agreeing with any of their views and not supporting them financially either (cuz ykow they are dead).
• I started reading manga this year so that (depending on the type of insufferable reader) would get me called a "larper", since I have only gotten to the more popular titles or a "cheater" as I also add mangas to my reading challanges.
• Since my main genre is fantasy and sci fi and I like to read for fun some would also assume that I am too stupid to read "real literature".

Of course this is all good natured fun, remember to not take anything seriously that people like this say, as you can never do something that pleases everyone. Also don't go on booktwitter, its not worth it.