paulie

knitting through the horrors (⁠ ⁠´⁠◡⁠‿⁠ゝ⁠◡⁠`⁠) | Full-time Ursula K. le Guin fan-club member

2340 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Paladin’s Grace (The Saint of Steel, #1)

A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)

Reading...

A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes

40%

paulie commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

pearl_reads

Are you a commenter or a poster?

Are you the type of person to comment or post more on Pagebound?

Personally, I've noticed I comment MUCH more than I post. Sometimes I don't post for a book at all. I only do so when I have something to say. Meanwhile, I feel like comments spark much more discussion (imo ofc) bc sometimes I can't exactly explain my point on a book, but then someone might make a post on it, then I can engage with it properly. It just makes it easier for me, if that makes sense. When the forum's empty, I feel like I'm talking to myself sometimes tho. 😭

Post from the Remember You Will Die forum

paulie

Thoughts from 41% 📖 | Margot Frank

spoilers

View spoiler

paulie commented on a post from the Founder Announcements forum

jenniferPagebound

Product Updates + New App Version [2/5/2026]

Hi everyone, we've just released a big app update with many quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and some new features. These are all available on web as well. Please make sure your apps are updated to the latest version, 1.1.1, to see these changes! As a reminder, you can check out what we're working on and what's coming up next via the public roadmap (in the footer on web, in the more menu on the app)

Here's a list of updates:

New Main Quest badge tiers, now viewable on the app
ability to pin comments to your own posts, lists, and activity
improved search on app: UI enhancements to make searching for things that are not books easier, removed the auto-populated most searched books from the search widget
ability to track your progress in Time for audiobooks (HH:MM)
progress bar / breakdown by status added to Plan
estimated page count added to book page
you can enlarge a book cover on the book screen by tapping the book cover
rereading button (when you go to track a reread, the button says re-reading instead of reading)
sort reviews by star rating
filter options on Book Journey
new search, filter, and sort options on Browse All Lists and Browse All Quests screens
see more info about your followers and users you follow in the following/followers modals
changed the button on the home feed "currently reading" books from "post in forum" to "go to forum" for easier access to the forum + encouraging folks to check existing posts!

We're working on monthly wrapups, reading streaks, and some prep for more stats next! We will also be making some additional enhancements to Quests (like: a book recommendations section similar to the Community Recs on book pages, stats for how many users earned each badge tier, and a feed tab like the new feed tab on book pages)

Thanks everyone and happy reading, Jennifer + Lucy

1099

166

paulie commented on paulie's update

paulie started reading...

A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes

Anthony Bale

A captivating journey of the expansive world of medieval travel, from London to Constantinople to the court of China and beyond. Europeans of the Middle Ages were the first to use travel guides to orient their wanderings, as they moved through a world punctuated with miraculous wonders and beguiling encounters. In this vivid and alluring history, medievalist Anthony Bale invites readers on an odyssey across the medieval world, recounting the advice that circulated among those venturing to the road for pilgrimage, trade, diplomacy, and war. Journeying alongside scholars, spies, and saints, from Western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes and the ends of the earth, Bale provides indispensable information on the exchange rate between Bohemian ducats and Venetian groats, medieval cures for seasickness, and how to avoid extortionist tour guides and singing sirens. He takes us from the streets of Rome, more ruin than tourist spot, and tours of the Khan’s court in Beijing to Mamluk-controlled Jerusalem, where we ride asses across the holy terrain, and bustling bazaars of Tabriz. We also learn of rumored fantastical places, like ones where lambs grow on trees and giant canes grow fruit made of gems. And we are offered a glimpse of what non-European travelers thought of the West on their own travels. Using previously untranslated contemporaneous documents from a colorful range of travelers, and from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, North Africa, and Russia, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a witty and unforgettable exploration of how Europeans understood―and often misunderstood―the larger world. 20 illustrations; 6 maps

paulie started reading...

A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes

Anthony Bale

paulie commented on a feature request

paulie

Look at Forum option from the Main Page

From your home page, you can immediately add a post to a forum, but going into the forums to search for posts and see if somebody else has already posted something similar has a longer path (click on the book > go to the forum section > then search your percentage / key words). I feel like this can contribute to duplicate posts on big forums, as people might not remember to check the forums before hitting the post in forum button. Would a button / option to directly open the forum page of a book from your home page be a viable option? Alternatively, would it be viable to transform the post in forum button into a "look at forum" button, and then have the post option there?

Released 🚀

paulie commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

deathprobably

Edited

Design Your Own Literature Class ✨

I've been seeing more folks designing personal curriculum: essentially inventing a class for themselves using resources they've researched and then compiled. The topics themselves have been fascinating, and often niche, so I was curious about what other Boundlings might do themselves.

So! If you could design a literature class on any topic, as general or niche as you wanted, what would it be?

131

paulie commented on paulie's update

paulie is interested in reading...

16h

Lolly Willowes

Sylvia Townsend Warner

When Laura Willowes’s beloved father dies, she is absorbed in the household of her brother and his family. There, she leaves behind “Laura” and enters into the state of “Aunt Lolly,” a genteel spinster indispensable to the upbringing of her nieces. For twenty years, Lolly is neither indulgent nor impulsive, until one day when she decides to move to a village in the Chilterns, much to her family’s chagrin. But it’s in the countryside, among nature, where Lolly has her first taste of freedom. Duty-bound to no one except herself, she revels in the solitary life. When her nephew moves there, and Lolly feels once again thrust into her old familial role, she reaches out to the otherworldly, to the darkness, to the unheeded power within the hearts of women to feel at peace once more . . .

paulie is interested in reading...

16h

Lolly Willowes

Sylvia Townsend Warner

paulie commented on paulie's update

paulie made progress on...

16h

Remember You Will Die

Eden Robins

40%

paulie made progress on...

16h

Remember You Will Die

Eden Robins

40%

paulie is interested in reading...

Bloom Town: Genesis

Ally North

June, 1852.A preacher’s daughter with a secret. An outlaw running from the gallows. A love story spanning oceans and deserts and years. When Abby Proctor is kidnapped from a train in the middle of the desert halfway to her new life in California, she makes a promise to herself—she will escape. Because there’s a reason Abby is leaving Iowa and all its oppressions behind, and she refuses to be someone’s prisoner again. Especially when that someone is the infamous female outlaw Joey ‘JT London’ Taylor, Abby's brash, brooding, and inconveniently beautiful captor.But as Abby plots her escape, she stumbles upon a larger conspiracy at play behind her kidnapping—a complicated revelation considering the feelings she’s been having for Joey, who might not be the ruthless criminal everyone believes her to be. And when Abby realizes it’s all connected—her kidnapping, the secrets she left behind in Iowa, even her plans in California—she has to decide between returning to a life of obedience and unhappiness, or trusting an enigmatic outlaw who is bound for the gallows.

paulie commented on Fantasy's update

Fantasy started reading...

Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

paulie commented on paulie's update

paulie is interested in reading...

Becoming Baba Yaga: Trickster, Feminist, and Witch of the Woods

Kris Spisak

Explore the folklore of the trickster, villain, and rescuer known as Baba Yaga in a new light. When darkness, fear, and instability inundate our daily lives, folktale figures like Baba Yaga speak to the dichotomy of our existence—the hope and the horror, the magic and the mundane. At once an old hag and an enchantress, a demon and wish granter, a feminist and nothing more than a fairytale, Baba Yaga is an endlessly complex folktale character. Becoming Baba Yaga provides an in-depth look at the Baba Yaga mythos and history through Slavic folklore. Filled with historical and cultural context, analyses, and the stories themselves that add depth to the conversation. A comprehensive resource for anyone hoping to learn more about this ambiguous character and how her multifaceted presence still ripples through the present day, Becoming Baba Yaga is as thoughtful as it is illuminating. Spisak explores Baba Yaga’s connection to nature as an Earth goddess and as an herbalist. She also delves into the Shadow Self and Baba Yaga’s aspect as a trickster and places her in a modern context as not merely a witch of the woods but also as an archetype and force for finding your own path. Becoming Baba Yaga shares how she is both a force for good as much as evil and a feminist before her time.

paulie is interested in reading...

Becoming Baba Yaga: Trickster, Feminist, and Witch of the Woods

Kris Spisak

paulie commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

deathprobably

Edited

Design Your Own Literature Class ✨

So! If you could design a literature class on any topic, as general or niche as you wanted, what would it be?

131

paulie commented on TinyPorcelaineHorses's review of A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes

TinyPorcelaineHorses

Feb 04, 2026

5.0

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

This is an interesting kind of non fiction for me: written by a scholar who clearly knows the subject well, but far more focused on painting a psychological and emotional portrait of history, and what it was like to live in such different times and cultures. The last few lines of the book (which I found out from a footnote paraphrase Cicero) were really beautiful and I found the entire epilogue about return journeys surprisingly moving.

Come to get a good big picture understanding of what it was like to journey on the silk roads. Stay for the really interesting dissection of travellers tall tales (especially that one about the enormous testicles), what those untruths mean, and a montage of beautiful glimpses into the heads of people across continents and centuries.

I started this review out intending to give four stars, but the more I think back and the more I write about it, the more I talk myself into it just being five. I could read a whole book about what's contained in each chapter, but I think that kind of leaving me wanting more is perfect for an overview like this.

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