Willow (they)

A photo of a reader holding a library book up in front of them, before a grey-painted wall with a bright sticky note blue-taped to it that reads, "Goodbye, grey walls!" The library book itself is Simon Cavelle's "Paint Effects: A Comprehensive Guide to Home-Decorating Paint Techniques" and features on its yellow cover a tube of gouache paint alongside two detailing paint brushes, a photograph of a blue starburst-ribbon being painted on a periwinkle background, and across the top of the book twines a leafy, painted vine with round blue blossoms and a repeating pair of red dots like berries.

Today's book: "Paint Effects: A Comprehensive Guide to Home-Decorating Paint Techniques" by Simon Cavelle

It's more for reference than reading: this year I (finally!) banish these depressing grey walls. Gonna sketch up some possibilities over the weekend!

💙📚 #BookSky #CurrentlyReading #NowReading

Traditional mixed media painting showing a forest scene. There's a stream in the middle, with a fallen tree trunk acting as a bridge over it, with Pikachu and Eevee running through it, and Charmander clinging to the trunk behind them. In front of them, Bulbasaur stands on a rock in the stream, with Squirtle splashing around in the water, the two enjoying themselves. Various bug Pokemon can be seen in the distance: Weedle, Kakuna and Caterpie on trees, and two Butterfree flying around.

Many adventures still await! 🌱✨

30 years ago on this day, we both started our journeys. Happy Birthday to Pokemon and I!

#art #pokemonday #pokemon #pokemonart

Finished "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston!

What. A. Book. I definitely see why so many people love this; it's outstanding! The dialect slowed me down (dialect always does), but I didn't mind one bit. Did you know Hurston reportedly wrote this book in seven weeks? Incredible.

💙📚

A comic of two foxes, one of whom is blue, the other is green. In this one, Blue and Green are rushing towards each other, with a narrative text above each, with an arrow pointing at each fox respectively. Narration above Green: Heat-seeking behaviour Narration above Blue: Attention-guided missile The foxes reach each other, swirling together like liquid or koi fish. Narration: Impact! Curling up together, coiled around each other in a tight cuddle, the foxes rest, calm and content. Narration: Equilibrium

Read what you love and don't worry what others think.

Read romance.
Read horror.
Read biographies.
Read children's books.
Read sci-fi.
Read thrillers.
Read fantasy.
Read young adult.

Read.

💙📚

A photo of a reader holding a library book up in front of them, before a tidy bookcase filled with more books. The library book itself is "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston, with cover art by Patrick Dougher, cover design by Stephen Brayda, and cover photograph by OSTILL is Franck Camhi on Shutterstock: an illustration of mixed media and vibrant colors and textures, a black woman stands in profile against a gold sun on a jewel-blue background of overlapping, faded newsprint and worn canvas; paint splashes add color to the woman's monochromatic bust, while a frenetic celebration of patterns and hues overlay her blouse and the crown upon her head.

Today's book: "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston

In my perpetual quest to read diversely, this classic was cited both as a banned book and among a lot of people's all-time favorites. Good enough for me! (Also, this cover is stunning!)

💙📚 #BookSky #CurrentlyReading #NowReading

I don't remember the first baby steps of learning to read, but I do get the same "What is THAT?" feeling now that I used to whenever I encounter something—a word or phrase—that I don't recognize/understand. The only difference is now I can look it up right away.

Question of the Day: What was it like for you when you learned to read? #booksky

Consistent organization with very clear genre labels/signs (I about lost my mind trying to find anything in the last bookshop I visited). Also cozy reading corners and a variety of friendly bookshop critters.

Happy National Trading Card Day, lovelies! 💬📚

What is your dream bookstore like? 💙📚✨

#QOTD #BookishQOTD #booksky #readersky #bookishquestions

Finished "The Indian in the Cupboard" by Lynne Reid Banks

This was a fun story (even if the book-cupboard was an unaesthetic white metal medicine cabinet, ha ha). I liked Omri's growth in the book, but I'm very glad the 1995 film had much more nuance and much less stereotyping/infantilization.

💙📚

Not really, except when it's obviously learning-machine-generated (automatic nope). I've found I sometimes get attached to certain cover illustrations and would rather wait to acquire books with such covers. I do also avoid highly saturated covers that are physically painful to look at.

Happy National Tile Day, lovelies! 💬📚

Do you judge books by their covers? 💙📚✨

#QOTD #BookishQOTD #booksky #readersky #bookishquestions

A photo of a reader holding a library book up in front of them, before a tidy bookcase filled with more books. The library book itself is "The Indian in the Cupboard" by Lynne Reid Banks, its cover a promotional poster for the 1995 film adaptation: a young boy gapes, awe-struck, at the miniature toy Indian man brought to life by the magic of an otherwise nondescript cupboard; the two are backlit and rimmed with bright, soft light, and in the blurry background rises a city skyline.

Today's book: "The Indian in the Cupboard" by Lynne Reid Banks

Excited for this one! Kid-me wore out the VHS for the movie a lot. We had the cassette box that looked like the Cupboard with a "keyhole" on the right side and came with a little plastic key.

💙📚 #BookSky #CurrentlyReading #NowReading

"I know that my kindness hurts me, but I will continue to choose it, not because I’m naive, but because my actions define me.” - Najwa Zebian

#sundaysentence 📚💙

The cover of Toni Morrison's novel "Sula" as designed by Carol Devine Carson: on a field the color of deep green-blue jewels, gold script spells out the title on a slight slant, the large letter S in sweeping cursive.

"Maybe it hadn't been a community, but it had been a place. Now there weren't any places left, just separate houses with separate televisions and separate telephones and less and less dropping by."

—from Toni Morrison's "Sula"

💙📚 #BookSky #SundaySentence

Sentence of the Day:

The undoubted sign of a society well under control or in decline is that language has ceased to be a means of communication and has become instead a shield for those who master it.

Voltaire’s Bastards: the Dictatorship of Reason in the West; John Ralston Saul.
#Booksky

A photo of a reader holding a paperback library book out in front of them, before a bookcase tidily filled with more books. The library book itself: Toni Morrison's novel "Sula" with Carol Devine Carson's cover design of the title in gold script, the large letter S in sweeping cursive, on a field of deep jewel-toned green-blue.

Today's book: "Sula" by Toni Morrison

First time reading any of Toni Morrison's works. I've heard good things.

💙📚 #BookSky #CurrentlyReading #NowReading

Seems like a useful opportunity for professors teaching Intro to Sociology to explain what state indoctrination looks like

Happy Prevent Plagiarism Day, lovelies! 💬📚

Do you enjoy stories inspired by other stories? 💙📚✨

#QOTD #BookishQOTD #booksky #readersky #bookishquestions

A photo of six library books stacked on a shelf, in front of a tidy row of more books. The library books from top to bottom are: "Paint Effects: A Comprehensive Guide to Home-Decorating Paint Techniques" by Simon Cavelle, "Sula" by Toni Morrison, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston, "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. Le Guin, "Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century" edited by Alice Wong, and "The Indian in the Cupboard" by Lynne Reid Banks.

Today was library day! (I was a little greedy.)

–Simon Cavelle's "Paint Effects"
–Toni Morrison's "Sula"
–Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
–Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed"
–Alice Wong's "Disability Visibility"
–Lynne Reid Banks's "The Indian in the Cupboard"

💙📚 #BookSky

Digital pastel illustration. Two ghostly white Harts (archaic term for a Stag, or male Deer), gently trot along a river bank. They are backed with lush tree foliage, and mirrored in the river below.

Two Harts.

A watercolour painting with a block quilt inspired layout, there's a mustelid or an element of mustelid diet in each block. The mustelids from top to bottom are the American mink, badger, stoat, pine marten, weasel, river otter, and polecat. Parts of their diet included are rabbits, eggs, fish, frogs, fruit, and birds.

Mustelid menu! Here's my second one for #FebruaryFrost26, for the prompt quilt. #art

The cover of Notes of a Native Son, with a photo of a Black man, only his face shown, as a cutout on a yellow-orange background

"It is the peculiar triumph of society--and its loss--that it is able to convince those people to whom it has given inferior status of the reality of this decree; it has the force and the weapons to translate this dictum into fact"

- Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

#SundaySentence

a colourful landscape in the dolomites, with a summery palette. wild flowers are in the foreground.

fighting the grey weather with colourful mountains ⚔️

#sketchbook #art #landscapeart #gouache

Love a good chapter title! Robert Jordan in particular really spoiled me for top-tier titles, though, ha ha. Personally I prefer chapters to either have non-spoilery titles or no titles. In comparison, titling a chapter with the POV character name feels almost patronizing.

Graphic with the text What's a perfect book to give for Valentine's Day?

Happy Valentine's Day, #BookSky

What's a perfect book to give for Valentine's Day?

I love to gift Built to Last by Erin Hahn.

Definitely Amal El-Mohtar's "The River Has Roots", Becky Chambers's Monk and Robot novellas, and/or Diana Wynne Jones's "Howl's Moving Castle" (although I might be a smidge biased).

A white trumpeter swan drifts across the glass surface of a pond peppered with lilly pads. Stacks of submerged deadfall lie undisturbed.

Here’s one from a wayzzz back, “Slow Drift,” oil on linen, 30”x24”.

That's so cool!!!