Books

After 20 years of declining numbers, indie booksellers in the U.S. have come ‘roaring back,’ says Andy Hunter.

"There are about 70% more bookstores now than there were six years ago in the United States," says Andy Hunter, the founder/CEO of Bookshop.org. Fast Company checks in on his site, which gives over 80% of its profit margin to independent bookstores, structuring itself as a B Corporation (a for-profit company certified for its social-impact) while providing an alternative to Amazon and other online booksellers:

Hunter created Bookshop.org in January 2020 to help independent bookstores survive by utilizing e-commerce... "There were over 5,000 bookstores in the American Booksellers Association in 1995, which is one year after Amazon launched. By 2019, that had gone down to 1,889, so more than half of them disappeared." He says he never could have predicted how the pandemic would accelerate his company's growth... "All these stores that had been trying to get around e-commerce or never really launching or building their website, they had to sell online. That was the only way they could survive during the pandemic...."

"Our goal is to help independent local bookstores get their fair share of online sales, which would end up being maybe 10% of Amazon's market share," he says. "And right now we're at about 2%, so we have a long way to go. But a lot of people didn't even think we could ever get 1%...." Bookshop.org has given almost $47 million back to local bookstores. For Hunter, it's not just about the money but changing the way society thinks. He's delighted that many big organizations no longer use Amazon affiliate links, choosing to send people his way instead. "People have absorbed the message that they should support independent bookstores when they buy books," he says.

So, when we were recording the last episode of the podcast there was a bit that reminded me (on the spot, so no time to do research) of an old sci-fi story I read a long time ago. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it, or the author and there is a small part of me that thinks it might even have been a Twilight Zone episode.

But on the off-chance it was a short story, if anyone recognises this (very sparing, sorry) description I'd love to add a link to the story in the episodes show notes.

So, the story is centred around time-travel and the ruling society has turned it into a tourist attraction where there are guided tours into the past. As part of each tour, customers are told never to stray off the paths that are clearly marked out for fear of the possible consequences.

On one tour (which I think was a group going back to Jurassic times to see the dinosaurs), one of the customers stumbles and places one foot off the designated path and onto a patch of grass. He quickly recovers his balance but the damage is done - the future they return to has been irrevocably altered in numerous ways.

Does that sound at all familiar to anyone?

I just finished Prophet Song and loved it but I want to rant about the second sentence. Here are the first three:

The night has come and she has not heard the knocking, standing at the window looking out onto the garden. How the dark gathers without sound the cherry trees. It gathers the last of the leaves and the leaves do not resist the dark but accept the dark in whisper.

The first sentence is great. Introduces the setting and the tone and tells the reader, "I'm about to play with standard grammar."

The third sentence is, like, one of thesis statements for the book. Lovely imagery. I wouldn't have written it that way but I'm not a poet and I'm sure there's some meter I'm missing.

But the second sentence is clunky. It reads like he forgot a word. He didn't. If you read it as "How the dark gathers, without sound, the cherry trees." then it's fine. It links to the next sentence. But I read it as "How the dark gathers without sound the cherry trees."

I ran an informal servey at a board game night and no thought this was a sentence. They did not understand.

So here's where my rant begins: he knew I'd do that. He demonstrates profound ability to control how you read. And he absolutely can write grammatically illegal sentences that are super readable and compelling. He's good at this shit.

He goes back to the cherry trees over and over again in the book and it's comforting to check back in on the tree metaphor. It's a wonderful, comforting metaphor for suffering. You get to high five it a bunch of times during the book. It's important you remember the trees.

And I sure did! Because of that clunky second sentence I showed my friends. My wife said, "only a white guy would dare write like this." And, I dunno about only but his choices do scream, "I'm a pretentious Irish poet and this is Literary Literature."

He knows people are going to say, "this dude wishes he was Joyce" and "he sure ain't Cormac McCarthy." Again, he's good at this shit. I think he wanted to do a Literary Literature about refugees.

Back to cherry trees. I think he chose to make that sentence flow so badly that it stuck in your craw so you'd remember the stupid trees. Talk about them. I think this is a thing Literary types like to do. To put ideas in your head using these fun meta tricks.

And it worked! I'm talking about the damn trees. And if you read the book and are reading this you are being reminded of the trees and the peotic thesis. I think this is intentional. You don't risk the second sentence of your book being clunky unless you know what'll happen.

But was it worth it? I almost put the book down. I've never read this dude before. I almost gave it back to the library on page three when I realized he wasn't doing paragraphs. I'm ok without quotation marks. Didn't bother me.

I read an interview where he said he felt like Europeas just weren't getting the refugee crisis. I've seen people criticize him to telling this story in Ireland or telling a fictional story when so many real life stories happened in the 30s. And much more recently in Eastern Europe. But I don't buy that criticism. He's correct that Europeans don't get it. Well, I know Americans don't because I'm here and ICE and shit. But I've seen some y'all's media and it sure looks like you are in the same boat as us.

Whatever. He may as well give it a shot. If tarting it up with metaphor and Literary Literature gets the message out then great.

But if you want to get the message out then why risk the clunky second sentence? Is it not clunky to Literary Literature types?! If it isn't clunky then I'd have expected him spend another sentence or two of the trees. Can't high five a metaphor you forgot.

So I think this is intentionally clunky. And it does help me remember the tree metaphor. But maybe it does more? I certainly showed it to a bunch of folks. But the lack of paragraph breaks dominate the conversation and he had to know it would. He's good at this shit.

Ideas? I'm obviously overreacting. But this is an important choice! One that I don't understand. I don't understand lots of stuff and it doesn't usually bother me. Why does this sentence bother me?

I’m a sucker for gimmicky things some times around reading, and this is probably one that I enjoy the most. I thought I would share it here in case you wanted to join me.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is written in an epistolary style, as though it were journal entries, news articles, and letters. Five years ago, Matt Kirkland started sending out those entries via email on the day they happen in the book. It takes place between May 3rd and November 7th.

Congratulations, and thank you for participating in the 2^nd^ Annual Book Bingo for c/Books@Lemmy.World!

If the existence of this bingo is a surprise to you, or you want to revisit the guide, see this link.

If you would like to join us for 2026 bingo, we'll be posting information on the morning of May 1^st^, US Central Time (UTC -5)!

There are 2 official ways to submit your card and be recognized:

• Fill out the web form we made using Tally, which will organize the data for us. Completing the form will also give you a Markdown-friendly list to copy and post in this thread if you would like.
• Or, if you would prefer, comment in this thread with your list of completed squares, including the titles/authors you read. Here is a list of squares for reference/copypaste:
• Please provide information on all squares you completed a work for, even if it didn't result in a completed bingo for that line.

* 1A: Number in the Title - 
* 1B: Author from a Different Continent - 
* 1C: Featured Creature - 
* 1D: Minority Author - 
* 1E: Now a Major Motion Picture - 
* 2A: Independent Author - 
* 2B: Set in War - 
* 2C: Orange Crush - 
* 2D: Short and Sweet - 
* 2E: Banned Book - 
* 3A: Mythology or Legend as Important to Plot - 
* 3B: Title: [X] of [Y] - 
* 3C: FREE SPACE - Off Your TBR Pile - 
* 3D: LGBTQIA+ Lead -  
* 3E: Saddle Up - 
* 4A: New Release - 
* 4B: Alliterative Title - 
* 4C: Judge a Book by Its Cover - 
* 4D: Award Winner - 
* 4E: Gamble, Game, or Contest - 
* 5A: Steppin' Up! - 
* 5B: Political - 
* 5C: Late to the Party - 
* 5D: Cozy Read - 
* 5E: Jerk with a Heart of Gold - 

ADDITIONAL POINTS TO READ BEFORE TURNING IN YOUR CARDS!

Questions? Please ask!

Turn-in Guidance

• Please make an effort to spell titles and author names correctly! For titles with more than one author, please separate author names with a comma. This will help with data compilation for a bingo stats thread coming later!
• If you didn't do a square, don't list it. Please leave incomplete squares completely blank on the Tally form.
• If you did complete a square, even if that one didn;t directly result in a completed bingo, please fill it in. This will help with the bingo statistics page coming soon.
• You can substitute any square, but please remember: only one substitution per card. On the form, there's a substitution checklist for each square that will trigger a place to fill in the substitution information. If you accidentally choose a substitution for the wrong square, please de-select the substitution to clear it.
• Please make a note if you did a square on hard mode. On the form, there is a hard mode checkbox for each square.
• Only turn in your card(s) once you have finished with bingo; do not submit a card still in progress. If you're using the Tally form, there is a review page before submission; please make sure that you click submit after double-checking your entries! You cannot edit your card once submitted, so if you realize you've made a mistake, please post in this thread to notify us. You can also copy and pase the submission review page to place it in the thread to share with other participants.
• The feedback questions at the end aren't required, but will help us with improving Bingo for all of you in the future.

More than one card?

If you did more than one card, and are submitting via Tally, please differentiate your username for each additional card. For example, I would list my first card under "JaymesRS@literature.cafe" and my second under "JaymesRS@literature.cafe - 2".

Timeline

Submit your finished card(s) by May 1st, 2025! This thread and the Tally submission form will remain open until 12 noon, US Central Time (UTC -5) on May 1^st^ as a courtesy, so please make sure your cards are turned in by then, so they can be counted.

Reward

Any five in a row is considered a win! Your only reward this year (as of the time of posting) is the warm glow of satisfaction and bragging rights. However, our ultimate plan is to recognize bingo participation with a flair-like system in the future, so we plan to calculate completion retroactively whenever that's available.

In Closing

Again... HERE IS THE LINK TO THE TALLY FORM TO TURN IN YOUR CARD (or you can comment in this thread). The form goes live on April 17^th^, 2025, and both it and this thread close around noon on May 1^st^, US Central Time (UTC -5). Be sure to get your card(s) in before then!

Thanks to everyone that participated this year! This was a fun challenge to put together for us. If you are interested in helping to coordinate the bingo challenge or related resources, please reach out to the moderators of !books@lemmy.world and let us know!

Bookshop.org now partners with the evil company so I guess now we just go directly to the publisher's website to buy.

Another week where I didn't get to read anything.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

For details on the c/Books Bingo, check the Midpoint check-in post.

This month we read and talked about the Strugatsky brothers influential sci-fi classic 'Roadside Picnic'. We all really enjoyed this one and its not difficult to appreciate why it became a classic and has inspired countless authors, movie makers (Tarkovsky's movie 'Stalker' is based on the novel) and game developers (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl is loosely based on the novel too).

It's here or wherever you get your podcasts from.

One thing to note - we're leaving Spotify after May, we can't carry on contributing, even in our small way, to a company that does shitty things to musicians and who's ex-CEO invests in AI and AI weapons companies.

Proud moment for me:

I made it through the second of 8 absolutely delightful, engaging, and extremely PLEASURABLE novels in a series about a topic I love.

But the first book ended POORLY... because they knew that fans like me would be the second. It’s like it LITERALLY had zero ending. Meaning there was this absurd violation of novelistic structure.

And the second cemented my creeping suspicion that this all... all all all... was trifling crap. It’s like porn for people who like fast talking smart alecks, snide, sarcastic, and battle after battle after battle.

One amazingly engaging battle after another. So enjoyable. Exactly what I love.

Except that there's zero heart, soul, message... oh... it takes a head nod in the direction of what is noble and how should people behave...

But at the end of the day...

Lovely useless battles of stupid.

So... I did not buy the third.

I'm done.

Victory.

I’m not going to mention the name of the series because I don’t want to get into it with fans who are fine reading the same book 8 times: Hero and partner in exotic setting fight stuff until they live or die.

That’s the book.

Sirens of Titan made me weep for three hours. This is what I expect a novel to do. Moby Dick changed the way I examine culture and society. Emma taught me to be expect the unexpected. Valuable books do valuable work. Entertaining books entertain. I get it. I consider the elevation of my human experience more valuable than being entertained for five hours. Thoughts?

A new week, with a new weekly thread!

What have you been reading or listening to lately?

For details on the c/Books Bingo, check the Midpoint check-in post.

Starting today and going for 34 days, @tomes@phantasmal.work will be posting Love Among the Chickens by P. G. Wodehouse.

I made this bot to get novels into my Mastodon feed. The last one was Summer by Edith Wharton. I needed something lighter this time.

Not sure if this is allowed here, but I really enjoy this series and I’m thrilled to see it’s getting a TV adaptation. I’ve always thought it seems like the perfect book to adapt, given, well you know, the whole intergalactic TV setup.

The live-action “Dungeon Crawler Carl” TV series is now officially in development at Peacock, Variety has learned.

As previously reported, Chris Yost will write and executive produce the series, with Seth MacFarlane set to executive produce under his Fuzzy Door banner. Dinniman is also an EP, as is Fuzzy Door’s Erica Huggins. Rachel Hargreaves-Heald will serve as executive in charge of production for Fuzzy Door.

Dinnman also addressed fans who were concerned about the prospect of a live-action series versus an animated one, given the fantasy nature of the books. But Dinnman expressed his confidence in MacFarlane’s ability to bring the books to life.

“[We’re] not going to do it if it’s gonna look like absolute shit,” he said. “And they will do CGI testing on Princess Donut and stuff like that. And that’s all I can say, I think. It’s all gonna hinge on what it looks like. But Fuzzy Door, specifically, if you watch ‘Ted’ or ‘The Orville,’ you’ll see that they know what they’re doing when it comes to this.”

...a book about how its actually a really really terrible idea. The authors (notably, the same authors of the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) started out with the intention of writing about how cool and necessary space colonization is... but over the course of their research, came to realize that it's really not.

Nothing at my end. Life has been kinda busy lately.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

For details on the c/Books Bingo, check the Midpoint check-in post.

Just finished it and love every minute. Any recs for similar books.

No spoilers for others please

Hello everyone! The weekly threads are back after a small hiatus.

I was reading Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (first book in her October Daye urban fantasy series), picked it up again but bookmark had dropped somewhere and I couldn't find where I was, so may start from some earlier place.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

For details on the c/Books Bingo, check the Midpoint check-in post.

cross-posted from: https://hilariouschaos.com/post/9693955

cross-posted from: https://hilariouschaos.com/post/9693586

Quick author note before reading: i made this book free for everyone using ai. I planned out the entire book, came up with the concept and plot. However to give you this book in its entirety for free without killing too much of my personal time, i let my writing engine draft it. That being said, i hope you enjoy.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 System Foundations

Chapter 2 Structural Rules

Chapter 3 Ordered Hierarchy

Chapter 4 Classification Systems

Chapter 5 Domain Separation

Chapter 6 Functional Assignment

Chapter 7 Angelic Structure

Chapter 8 Celestial Hierarchy

Chapter 9 Enforcement Systems

Chapter 10 Infernal Classification

Chapter 11 Entity Types

Chapter 12 Environmental Conditions

Chapter 13 Domain Interaction

Chapter 14 Summoning Systems

Chapter 15 Sacred Authority

Chapter 16 Ritual Geometry

Chapter 17 Binding and Banishing

Chapter 18 Rise of Grimoires

Chapter 19 The Lesser Key of Solomon

Chapter 20 Ars Goetia

Chapter 21 Infernal Functions

Chapter 22 Infernal Structure

Chapter 23 The 72 Demons

Chapter 24 Demon Knowledge

Chapter 25 Hidden Information

Chapter 26 Scrying and Perception

Chapter 27 Thin Places

Chapter 28 Boundary Zones

Chapter 29 Herbs and Plants

Chapter 30 Metals and Stones

Chapter 31 Smoke and Fire

Chapter 32 Ritual Objects

Chapter 33 The Chakra System

Chapter 34 Consciousness and Perception

Chapter 35 The System Circuit

This isn’t a traditional demonology book because it’s not mainly about demons.

A normal demonology book focuses on demons themselves. It explains who they are, what they do, their stories, and their meanings. The attention stays on the beings.

This book does something different. It focuses on how interaction works.

Instead of centering on demons, it explains the structure behind interaction—things like setup, environment, authority, perception, and internal processing. Demons are included, but only as one part inside that system, not the main focus.

You can think of it like this. A traditional demonology book describes the “characters.” This book explains the “rules of the system” those characters exist within.

Because of that, it reads more like a manual than a story or a collection of lore. It shows how different parts connect, what conditions are required, and how the whole process works from start to finish.

So in simple terms:

A demonology book tells you about demons. This book explains how the system of interaction works, where demons are just one piece of it.

https://files.catbox.moe/gzoox3.pdf