i’ll go first: “My NEW HOUSE in JAPAN is HAUNTED by a SAMURAI?!?! (SCARY) (DONT WATCH AT 3AM)”

We’re probably all familiar with “the classics” writ large, but I really want to hear about your personal classics—the books in your reading life that have stood the test of time, the books you’ve repeatedly come back to over the course of years. Which books have been your steady companions? Which books have been most influential in your life?

A few of my personal classics have been:

• Mink River by Brian Doyle (this book changed my view of what magical realism can look like in fiction, and every re-read is a joy)
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (a beautiful ode to ordinary people and places—this book became my gold standard for depictions of average folks in fiction)
• Words Under the Words: Selected Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye (one of the poems in this collection, “Kindness,” changed my brain chemistry forever)

so i just started reading ninth house by leigh bardugo, who, right in the opening, makes multiple references to dante’s inferno and i have been meaning to get into it since r f kuang dropped the recommended (almost study guide) reading list for her new book katabasis. but im a complete noob to classics and i genuinely tried so hard to get into it and failed (i could not find a single version that had both the audiobook and ebook versions) so i come to you for help. please help me find a good, easy to follow and if possible, with annotations, like an annotated copy rather than having all the info dumped into translators note or smth equivalent. for reference, crime and punishment is my intro to classics right now, and yes i am well aware this is Not a good start but i Really wanna be able to read dark academia and Understand niche references because they’re becoming my favorite genre after babel. 🥹

I am curious about people's reading routines in daily life.

How do you read? With snacks? Drink? Day or night? Indoors vs Outdoors? In bed, or balcony? Snuggled to couch? Do you put some background noise while reading? Do you read before bed or after waking up? Do you put any goals for yourself? Are you a walking DNF or you push yourself through finishing the book?

For me, i always read in bed or couch when i sit my mom, i do read outside most of time also because i am not really social person. I always have something to drink with me while i read! Sometimes i skip reading before bed, sometimes i open my eyes and immediately start reading because i have nothing better to do. I cant read without a noise in background, silence irritates me. I open rain or ocean sounds while read in bed at night with my fairy lights open! Often i put myself percentage goals of my book, "i will read %10 of this", or "i will read x many chapters" even though i dont force myself to meet my goal. I never had a book i dnfed so far. Sure, i might get bored, that book might take a month to finish but it finishes! I do take breaks from that book if i am bored and lean to other books, because why not?

I would like to listen your habits as well! 🫶🏻

Hi all. I'm having some big feels today and I thought, who better to commiserate with than Boundlings?

I work for a small public library in the US. We have been fighting our governing body on a monthly basis, begging them not to cut our funding, but last night our luck finally ran out. We will be losing roughly 1/3 of our total budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

As is the case in many other libraries worldwide, we're already operating on the thinnest margin possible, so bearing the brunt of such a sweeping reduction is going to HURT. Our staff members are underpaid and don't have benefits, our building hasn't been renovated in something like 60 years, and we don't have nearly enough space or money to consistently serve our patrons/community in the ways they deserve.

I'm not really going anywhere important with this thread - I just feel extremely disheartened, scared, and annoyed. An alarming percentage of the general public is functionally illiterate and you're eliminating LIBRARY FUNDING as your first line of defense?! What a world.......................