Like many on Pagebound, I am staunchly anti-AI, for all the reasons we know about.

I have been very engaged with learning about authors who may use this and eliminating them from my TBR.

I am also a publishing person by trade, and have studied the evolution of the English language, as well as my decade experience of copyediting and working with the written word.

There is a scary intersection, in my opinion, where readers are now throwing around accusations of AI usage in books that "sound like AI." I admit, I am a skeptic, and am hesitant to believe anything is real anymore. But I do think it's alarming that anyone can accuse a writer of AI, even if they haven't ever used it, because of their use of em dashes (em dashes till I die!!!) or style of language used. It's something I've been thinking about more and more, and I don't really have a thesis to this post other than to start a discussion that perhaps there should be some more nuance or careful approach when claiming a book is AI.

(This post was inspired by my seeing someone post in a forum that "this book sounds AI" when I, in fact, worked on it pre-publication process, and know for a fact it isn't.)

(And I even hesitate writing this, because I'm SO anti-AI, and I want the whole system to crumble! But I also don't want legit writers to be taken down in the process.)

hi friends, i feel like there can sometimes be a lack of appreciation and exploration of platonic love in favour of romantic love in literary fiction (both classic and contemporary). romantic relationships are often foregrounded as the central or highest-stakes, but platonic relationships can be equally interesting and complex. sometimes platonic love can also be seen as just a precursor to romance or interpreted as implicit romance.

one of my favourite parts of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot was the psychologically intense platonic relationship between Myshkin and Rogozhin, which was given as much attention and detail as the romantic relationships.

keen to hear any thoughts on this + any recs for litfic that focuses on platonic love and depicts it in an interesting/complex way :)

Hello I need some help. This may have me sounding heartless and cold but I promise I’m not. Typically it is very difficult for me to get emotional and cry over a book, a movie, etc. Heck I didn’t even cry on my wedding day, meanwhile my husband wept the entire time. I cry pretty easily when I’m frustrated or angry though. Anyway… I would like to find a book that makes me cry. Preferably not just absolutely depressing, but maybe some sad crying/happy crying mixture? Idk open to any of the recommendations but note that it takes a lot to make me cry. So if you are someone who cries easily to books, feel free to suggest but maybe give me a disclaimer that you are that kind of person.

I think the only time I’ve cried in a book is at the end of the divergent series when I read it like 10+ years ago. And I might have cried when I read CC1 when a certain someone (L) died. Movies that have made me cry were when iron man dies in Avengers and a movie called October Baby which is about adoption and well, I’m adopted so that’s why I felt an emotional tie. There may be others but those are the only ones I remember.

Please help me cry! 😂

Hi fellow readers, In a couple of months I'll be visiting Paris 😍 for the very first time. When I visit a city I like to prepare by reading a book set in the city so that I can relive the novel while I experience the city, its streets, monuments, food, and atmosphere.

Do you have any recommendations? I want to read a book where the city is not just a setting but becomes an integral part and protagonist of the story. For example, before visiting Barcelona I've re-read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (one of my favourite novels) and then during my trip I got to actually visit one of the real places that where mentioned in the book 🤩!

Thanks in advance!

I like reading non-fiction, specifically sociological books in the realm of feminist lit, queer lit, and I'm planning to read more history. I'm just so slow with it. qwq When things get jargon-heavy (which they tend to be, with any science) it's so difficult to maintain a train of thought with the concepts being explained and how they relate. I get frustrated with myself every time someone discusses Judith Butler's work because for years (before I even started reading queer theory) I've had a similar perspective on the concept of gender and I am in a constant battle with myself not to try to read Gender Troubles because I just know how much I'd struggle. Especially reading it alone as opposed to in a class or book club setting. I'm just barely slogging through Pascoe's "Dude You're a Fag", and I'm rereading literally every sentence twice so that I can actually conceptualise what is being said, and Butler's writing is notoriously academic. I think I'm mostly struggling with reading it as an ebook. I think I'd have better luck with something I could own and annotate and pelt across a room. Short of writing chapter summaries like I'm planning a book report, I'm not sure what I can do to get better with this. Other than just powering through, of course; I don't actually expect the work of specialists in their fields to be easy to consume, but I do want to hear from anyone who has worked through similar experiences.

since discovering ebooks i’ve become very, very selective with my physical books — often i only pick up copies of my favourite books.

what are your most treasured physical books? these can be special/collector’s editions, covers featuring beautiful artwork, or copies with sentimental value.

i’ve been obsessed with slowly collecting the Vintage Classics Woolf series. she’s one of my favourite authors and i just think the small square-ish proportions and abstract covers by Finnish artist Aino-Maija Metsola are so lovely.

my heart also yearns for this illustrated Folio Society collection of His Dark Materials 🤩

​Please share which 3 books actually shaped who you are today. Let’s call it your Literary DNA 🧬☺️

​If you had to pick just one book from each stage of your life, what would they be?

1. The Childhood Spark: The first book you obsessed over as a kid.
2. The Teen Mood: The book that got you when you felt like no one else did.
3. The Adult Anchor: A book you’ve read recently that actually changed how you think.

I’ll go first: Childhood: Harry Potter This is where my love for reading actually started. Still waiting for my Hogwarts letter though... im sure it just got lost in the mail🤣 Teen: Speak I lost count of how many times I re-read this. It found me at a time when I felt unheard and taught me the incredible power of finding your own voice. It’s haunting but so necessary. Adult: Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop Life has been a bit chaotic lately and this book was the deep breath I needed. It’s a beautiful reminder that it’s okay to slow down and find peace in the quiet moments❤️

What's yours? Looking forward to read all your replies ☺️❤️

I keep thinking about how this book is going to age. The author uses so many words he coined-- enshittification, the Great Enshittening, the Enshittocene-- that it's too gimmicky for my taste. And there are so many references to recent events that I wonder what it will be like to read this book in a few years. In early 2026 I already feel like I'm reading this book after the time it was intended for because of the section about Twitter. My impression so far is that the book is too rooted in today's Zeitgeist for it to be relevant in the future. Unless the internet and other things become even more enshittified.