@requiredreading.bsky.social
Longtime book blogger, sometime librarian, and current book seller based in Washington State. Find me at www.shayshortt.com
"There were fifteen stairs; she struck her head on the seventh."
We're sharing a delicious (and dark) excerpt from @freyamarske.bsky.social's upcoming sapphic Cinderella novella Cinder House! Things are looking awfully Gothic in here.
reactormag.com/excerpts-cin...
It has been a while since I wrote a long review, but I had a lot of thoughts about Katabasis by R.F. Kuang!
This novel is Babel's spiritual sibling, but instead of the relationship between academia and imperialism, it delves into the individual human cost of climbing the ivory tower.
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Itβs Friday, and if you havenβt read this towering stack of great literature, itβs new to you! This week, Ann mixes it up a bit and responds to an op-ed by David Brooks in the NYT. Is the novel really dead? Read the article, watch Annβs take, and let us know what you think.
18.07.2025 15:47 β π 177 π 48 π¬ 24 π 34God bless the librarians who tape little numbers on the spines of series books so you can know what order the books go in. stars in their heavenly crown, truly.
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"When a trope befalls a character I donβt care about, itβs like holding a blank slate up to a mirror to see a second blank slate reflected back at me."
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I LOVE a good trope, but you have to make me CARE first.
reactormag.com/let-them-eat...
I was looking for more info about how @thestorygraph.com uses AI, and didn't find their privacy policy very forthcoming. I found this social media post, but I really don't feel like that information should be buried there! So in case anyone else was wondering:
www.threads.net/@the.storygr...
βIt wasnβt like heβd ever demanded anything of her. He was the only person sheβd ever loved of whom that was true. It was the greatest gift heβd given herβand the worst blow heβd dealt.β
- THE FRIEND ZONE EXPERIMENT by Zen Cho
#bookreview ππ
βYouβve been so focused on marrying off your children to the debilitated descendants of Victoria and Albert that youβve forgotten where all the real action is nowadays: Asia.β
The new Kevin Kwan book is here, and it's a retelling of an Anthony Trollope novel. ππ
#bookreview
βMagical girls exist because justice does not.β
A quixotic blend of fantasy & reality. Magical girls are real, but so too are credit card debt, COVID-19, and mass unemployment. This strangely nostalgic, deceptively simple novel taps into both the dreams & anxieties of millennials.
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#bookreview
The Emperor in the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang was such an interesting read, but so difficult to talk about! I think I'm going to need to write a spoiler review in order to really dig into the meat of it!
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βNow that Preston did not appear inclined to have it out with her, Lissie wanted all the more to have it out with him.β
A modern Chinese American retelling of Pride & Prejudice in which the reputation of the beloved family restaurant stands in for the reputation of the Bennet girls.
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Crazy Rich Asians meets Portrait of a Thief in this heist story set amidst the glitzy upper crust of Shanghai society.
SuccessfulΒ & well-educated, Lulu, Jane, and Rinaβ3 of Chinaβs "shΓ¨ngnΗ" or "leftover women"βspentΒ their 20s pursuing their careers.Β Now they must decide what's next
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#bookreview
& you can use libro.fm to buy audiobooks from independent bookstores (rather than amazon's audible)!
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βAn Earth with climate change and nuclear war and, like, zombies and werewolves is still a way better place than Mars.β
A City on Mars takes a much-needed step back and examines the technical, legal, and psychological barriers that remain between us and viable space settlement.
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Congrats to Heather O'Neill for championing The Future (L'Avenir) by Catherine Leroux (translated by Susan Ouriou) to victory on #CanadaReads2024
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"The story, tough going and complicated, nonetheless proved to be a revelation for Lego; for the first time, he has understood what Stutt sees in books: a sense of discovering a reality impossible to conceive of beforehand but that, once grasped, reveals itself to be age-old, weighing on the mind as only truths one has been unaware of can. Words reveal things that are already there."
And so #CanadaReads2024 comes to a close! New review of the final book soon, but for now:
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Continuing my Canada Reads 2024 read-a-long with Shut Up You're Pretty by TΓ©a Mutonji, which consists of vignettes from the life of a Congolese-Canadian girl growing up in Scarborough's house projects and grappling with identity and the expectations of femininity while trying to survive
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Bad Cree is an atmospheric horror novel that grew out of a short story Johns published in 2019. Frightening as this story is, it is also a tale about hope, healing, and family, themes which I found more compelling than the horror elements of the tale. ππ
#CanadaReads2024
In Torontoβs rapidly gentrifying Chinatown, an elderly Chinese man is struck and killed by a driver in a hit and run accident. His widow is left alone to grieve, and to remember.
As a matter of personal taste, this might be my favourite Canada Reads 2024 contender so far (still two left to read).ππ
I can't believe it's already time to start my annual Canada Reads series again! Kicking things off with the first romance novel ever in this competition, Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune. Less than a month until the debates begin! π¨π¦
shayshortt.com/2024/02/07/c...
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Canada Reads Day One, here we go!
www.cbc.ca/books/canada...
Very probably not going to make it all the way through The Future by Catherine Leroux before the Canada Reads debates begin tomorrow. Oh well! Four out of five isn't bad.ππ
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Finished the fourth Canada Reads book! Bad Blood is an atmospheric horror novel that grew out of a short story Johns published in 2019. Frightening as this story is, it is also a tale about hope, healing, and family, themes which I found more compelling than the horror elements of the tale. ππ
28.02.2024 20:05 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Love to see CBC providing information about to access the Canada Reads books in accessibility-friendly formats ππ
www.cbc.ca/books/canada...
Had to put it down a lot of times (and maybe almost put it in the freezer) but I made it through! One week to the debates, one more book to make it through. ππ
26.02.2024 04:29 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0My next book from the Canada Reads shortlist is supposed to be Bad Cree, but it's slow going not because its bad but because its too creepy to do my usual pre-bedtime reading! ππ
23.02.2024 16:06 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 0 π 1A statement on the 2023 Hugo awards.
adriantchaikovsky.com
