people really just be writing anything /pos

i could write a story just for fun!!

this is so lovely im enjoying this

Alright Boundlings I’m curious!! Who has made the switch to dark mode and who is keeping light mode? Dare I make it a competition and say battle it out with an emoji or gif in the comments on which team you are repping??

🎤 ahem in one corner we have the prettiest pastels and visually stunning colors… it’s Light Mode versus the new competitor, a dark sultry visually calming high color scheme… it’s Dark Mode. Let the battle begin 🥊

hehe in all seriousness I needed the high contrast that dark mode offers from an accessibility standpoint so team dark mode all the way over here 🖤

I wanted recommendations based off a specific book so I made a post on the forum of the book because, well it meant it was more likely to be seen by people who have read it. But should I have posted it here in the Club? Just stating the book? I don't know if I made the right decision. Can someone tell me? 🥲

Okay, so I’m new to the app and just wanted to say that I’m absolutely loving it here so far! Posts and exchanges all feel really friendly and respectful and I’m just very happy to be a part of this community.

The next major app release (1.2.0) is now available on iOS and Android - this one comes with a ton of updates, so make sure your apps are updated to see the latest! Web users, the majority of these updates are already on web (with a few exceptions, addressed below):

Midnight Theme (aka dark mode): very excited to share our version of dark mode! You can choose your theme in Account & Settings -> Preferences. The Midnight theme incorporates accessibility principals (high contrast, sparse use of bright color, no pure blacks/pure whites) while maintaining Pagebound's unique visual identity. We know this is highly anticipated on web as well - we're working on it! Midnight will be available on web hopefully this fall, latest this winter.

Notifications Upgrade: Notifications are split into categories so you can reference what is most important to you. You can also sort/filter your notifications, and mark them read/unread one by one by clicking the blue dot (if the dot is gray, click it to mark the notification as unread).

Browse your library when adding books: When adding a book to a list, your plan, or a shelf, you now have the option to search from "All Books" or "My Books". Tapping "My Books" lets you browse your own library, and filter by status/shelf. This is helpful if you want to browse your tbr while adding books to your plan, for example.

Library Improvements: You can now search, sort, and filter your library with additional sort/filter options (such as average rating and owned/not owned) and view your library books in list view or book cover grid view

Improved Book Status Modal: The book status modal (ie the popup where you change a book's status and add to shelves) got a major quality of life update: you can edit read dates, format, and page length in the modal when a book is in "reading" or when you move a book to "finished", you can create a new shelf in the modal, and you can search your shelves

New Preferences & Account Management options: A new feed preference was added (toggle on/off seeing posts from people you follow when the book is not in your library) as well as library management tools (library export & mass editing/deleting library options)

Discover Quests & Discover Lists upgrade: Discover Quests got new categories and will show new quests in each category on every site/app visit. The Quest card and List card shown on discover got upgrades to show more relevant info & make them more browsable

Additional tiny upgrades: Pull down to refresh your profile, browsing past plans shows in descending month order, plan performance enhancements so loading and editing is snappier, UI cleanup, and various bug fixes.

Community Updates We announced the Fall Readalong book picks last week - if you missed the announcement, head to the Seasonal Readalong page to see the picks! The Fall Readalong starts September 1st.

We also have partnered with Simon Maverick to bring a Dark Romance limited time quest - we've gotten so many requests for a Dark Romance quest, so we're very excited to have this out!

This was a long one, thank you if you made it this far 🙏 Happy reading! Jennifer + Lucy

everybody I can't wait for the next fun tidbit post to share this because I'm too amused.

In the Soviet Union, censorship was often lighter for translated works, meaning a lot of overtly queer texts were translated directly into the vernacular without changes. In many cases, the regime employed "interpretive censorship" instead, where they basically said "yeah this is HETEROSEXUAL. NOTHING QUEER GOING ON HERE." Sappho was published with an introduction insisting that Sappho was straight.

Source: Brian James Baer, ‘Translating queer texts in Soviet Russia: A case study in productive censorship’ (2011) 4(1) Translation Studies 21.

(edited for a typo)

These three things seem certain. Since ARC Controversies are the only one pertinent to this site, I'm going to write about that one. I was thinking about this earlier, as the latest discussion of the topic made the rounds on social media and I posted my thoughts there:

I think authors who go after people who are trading or selling ARCs come out looking badly in most cases, and the reason for it is fairly simple. Copyright is a matter of public policy. It entails not only a private right but a public benefit (in fact, the latter is the main purpose of copyright, in the U.S.). A sort of bargain is struck between the public and the copyright holder. The copyright holder is granted an exclusive bundle of rights for a very long time (for example, their life PLUS 70 years more for their heirs) and in exchange the public also retains certain rights, such as Fair Use or, particularly pertinent here, rights under the First Sale Doctrine.

An author can't easily deprive the public of those First Sale Doctrine rights. Certainly, printing something on the front of or inside a work has been found inadequate in the courts.

Even an actual contract restricting sale or giveaways may be inadequate in most cases, where there isn't a 'true' license involved.

Most authors don't seem to get worked up over this, but there are a few now and again who are happy to take the long-term, robust rights granted to them under the Copyright Act while at the same time railing against others for exercising the rights reserved to the public. That doesn't give me a good view of that particular author. For some reason, it is almost always indie authors who get worked up over this, and I think there is a certain lack of professionalism involved (and, again, it's a small subset; most authors don't seem to get too exorcised over the subject).

In any event, I think the public and private rights/benefits of the copyright system are both important, so if people want to give away or sell ARCs, in most cases they're probably well within the public right to do so (in the U.S.) and shouldn't feel bad about it, imo.

ETA: I appreciate the discussion. IP and Policy are strong interests of mine and it's nice that people like to engage with it with a variety of backgrounds and opinions!

Hey everyone! I am so sorry if it feels like a dumb question 🩷 How do you deal with new words while reading books? English is my second language. Previously, I used to look up the meaning of the word in the dictionary on the spot while reading but it started to feel really irritating as it kept breaking the flow. As of now, I just underline them to find their meanings later. I try to correlate and understand what that particular word would mean by figuring out the context behind the line or scene in the book. But I still feel as if I am not really learning new words and also I always end up forgetting what they mean later.
I'd love to know if anyone has had a similar experience and how they read in their second language and retain new words. Also, I really can't stop translating the book in my head. It's like I will read a line or para in English and then automatically translate it into Hindi (🇮🇳 lang) in my mind to understand it😭

Ps: I am so sorry, the post got a bit longer than I expected. Also, I apologise if I made any grammatical errors or wrote something wrong. I understand that the problem lies in my vocab and comprehension skills and I promise I am trying to improve them. Thank youuuuu 💖

Alright, Boundling fam. What do you do when a book makes you angry mad frustrated pissed annoyed screaming at the walls?

Usually, I’ll bitch about it to whoever will listen (or not tell me to stop talking, really), read bad reviews, think about how I’d want to see it done instead, etc etc.

But that’s not enough for me right now for this book. I need ideas and no I will not DNF. I need to finish this book so I can finish it so I can judge it to hell without guilt.

Also, please tell me I’m not absolutely deranged for feeling this way. Tell me this is a reasonable coping method I beg.

What do y'all do when you're not sure how to rate a book? I finished Tender is the Flesh and have no idea how to rate it. Every moment of that book made me uncomfortable and nauseous... But that was kinda the whole point. The author definitely achieved what she set out to do and got her points across very well, and it invoked many emotions, so in that case I would give it 5 stars... However, I did not enjoy a single moment of reading that book and only continued out of a deep need to know what happens next (another sign of a good book), so it would feel weird to give it a high rating. Usually I'm good with horror, but this was something special.

Do many other people feel this way about certain books and how do y'all go about critiquing/rating books like this. Do you rate things more on the writing itself/the messages delivered, or more on the pure emotions experienced while reading?

Quick semi announcement that the new app version was released on Android! This includes Midnight mode (ie dark mode) and a bunch of other quality of life improvements.

Hopefully we can get Apple out ASAP but we've been waiting over a week on their review, it's been a bit of a battle! But we didn't want to keep Android waiting while Apple is stuck.

Hello pagebound!! I want to hear your recommendations on the best audiobook performances. I don’t care the genre, I just want to experience some great audiobooks. I need to stop listening to the same music over and over again at work and instead expand my literary experience! For me, I will always recommend Andy Serkis narrating the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is just chefs kiss

When you’re reading a book and sobbing your eyes out, who do you cuddle with? Show us a picture!!

(Yes, this is absolutely 100% me shamelessly posting a thread to see everyone’s pets. And if you cuddle a plant or a stuffed animal, show us those too! I’m not sorry for this post.)

hi! i’ve been trying to look for books that are heavy on comedy while also being murder mystery (comedy whodunnits, something like the movie clue from 1985), but couldn’t find good ones or ones that really hit the mark 😵‍💫 with this, i want to ask if any of you guys have recommendations? 🥹 thank you sm in advance!!! <33