There is a small little used bookstore my girlfriend and I went to last weekend. It’s tucked away in a massive brick warehouse turned to a multipurpose space. You need to make an appointment and get a key code to enter. It’s floor to ceiling books. Stacks on stacks. You’re encouraged to go diving. It’s just a treasure trove. So much fun. We left after an hour and a half with a box full of books. Best find that day, first edition of the Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy, in great shape. Used books stores are like time capsules.

The article and its soures make clear how the misapprehension happened.

book tube lied to me and said it was 5 star upsetting

My book tube and booktok is shitting all over this author right now lol

A regular bookstore's selection of books published more than a few years ago will range from okay to abysmal.

It's the likelihood of finding books that no one in the world has read or even thought about in the past 20 years. An intimate feeling, between the author and me. "I'm the only one who knows who you are."

The prose is boring. That is true. But what if that's the point?

In the cold world of Foundation, where a good chunk of our story deals with mathematicians and psychologists, why be surprised when we are exposed to a hollow and dry prose that reflects the atmosphere of the world.

Lovecraft died in 1937. Ehrenreich was born in 1941, English in 1948. I don't think he was quoting them.

The smell and endless possibilities. Love them.

You have to read it to know if you like it or not lol

I did the same, mainly so I could leave a review on Goodreads: “quite long”.

Huh, if that, a question that sounded very reasonable to me, is overthinking, then wth am I? Ultrathinking?

There’s a place in Ohio called Dollar Book Swap. It’s a warehouse full of used books and every book is $1 no matter what. It’s heaven. Smelled bad. Quite musty smelling. But still heaven.

FOR REAL i can’t believe there’s debate on it.. the letter is just so dumb lol

Lily BLOSSOM Bloom, to make it even worse

Good to hear. Unfortunately your markup doesn't work. Remove the spaces around !

Yes, but that’s not always a good thing. I had a brother who stole basically everything I ever loved during and after my childhood. (This included a handmade clay statue of Bilbo starting off on his journey in plain pale clay with giant cloak and all) So I was dying to find two things, a copy of my mint Woodstock album with the pictures inside on flipping pages, and a copy of the wonderful book of the Disney Haunted Mansion album, with the full color wonderful picture book of the two (incredibly nerdy strong boy and twit girlfriend) kids who explore the mansion. I probably, at very different times of my life, listened to both of these..literally over 40 times each as a child. So I went online. Both Woodstock with the fancy pictures inside, and Disney’s Haunted Manson were insanely expensive. I’m talking several hundred for the Disney, and the super rare Woodstock was the same. No wonder that horrible brother of mine always had money! Even offline at the few (and dusty) record stores I couldn’t find them. So be careful what you throw away! I love big City old bookstores for the weird and wonderful things you come across unexpectedly! But even those have now been combed by ppl who care nothing about memories, fun new penguin authors never heard of, amazing art book collections of painting schools you’d never experienced, sci-fi books never read by one-off authors that were fabulous, or classics you loved. they’ve all been picked clean, valued and put on all the sites; Ebay, Shopify, Facebook Marketplace and hundreds more. No more the fun of finding hundreds of Ellery Queen magazines in fabulous shape. Or the Green Leather bound 1970’s version of The Hobbit I saved by hiding it wrapped up in a plastic bag and old newspapers!

Lmao

Even modern literature greats acknowledge that Austen was a good writer, especially her prose.

The only big author I can think of who hated Austen is Twain, and he appears to have done so tongue in cheek.

Maybe you're just bad at separating your personal taste from whether literature is actually good.

You're making me regret downloading the It Ends with Us audiobook...

Mostly the books

What book are you referencing?

So true. That just makes me stand there frozen in indecision until I end up leaving empty-handed. 🫤

The Edith Grossman translation is fantastic

Is there a particular edition or translation that gets recommended most often?

Verity is the worst book I have ever read in my entire life and I am GOBSMACKED by the amount of people I like and respect rating this shit 5 stars. Jeremy is the most boring piece of white bread and yet two women are going absolutely INSANE over him??? Lowen takes days to read what is possibly the shortest manuscript ever?? A manuscript which, by the way, is just sex. Most of this book is just sex. I was praying for it to end. Please god let it end.

Verity also deserves an Oscar for managing to fool an entire hospital, care staff, etc. that she wasn't actually disabled and was fine. And how did she avoid flinching when Lowen tried to make her flinch? Is that even possible? Wouldn't that be really fucking hard to learn? But there's no explanation of Verity's prize winning skills.

There's also a lot of moments where I felt distinctly like "this is uncomfortable" but that weren't noted at all. First, at the start, Jeremy and Lowen are in a random men's bathroom to clean her up because she's covered in blood, right? And in front of this ABSOLUTE STRANGER she takes off her shirt. Okay, fine, maybe she doesn't mind. But then Jeremy proceeds to LOCK THE DOOR and instead of finding this strange or alarming, Lowen is like aww! How kind of him!

And later in the book, it's established that she has a problem with sleepwalking and will even unlock her own door and go outside. Jeremy proposes installing another lock so that he can lock her in from the outside and she can't leave the room UNTIL HE LETS HER. Once again, this is seen not as alarming or terrifying (she barely even knows him!!!!) but she's like omg aww that's so sweet of him. I also thought this lock was going to be a big deal, but like many of the things in this book (the sleepwalking included), absolutely nothing happened with it. Idk what the point of it all was.

Absolute shite. I read it for a laugh and I wasn't even laughing, just furious at the popularity of such a godawful book. I couldn't even call it a thriller because Lowen is almost immediately like, I think Verity is faking being disabled, and bam! Yes! That's the case! And the letter was so fucking stupid. What an annoying twist. I don't even care whether Verity was evil or not.

Plus, and this is definitely more of a personal take, it seems from reading and watching reviews of Hoover's other books that the ideal end goal of every single female character is to settle down with a man and have babies. She's a bit obsessed with it (speaking of, how insanely fertile are the ladies in Verity?!). So the fact that Verity's evil actions come because she doesn't want these things... It gives me bad vibes. I'm not saying that Hoover is doing this deliberately, by any means, but I think the ideal woman being one that marries and demurely becomes a mother and the evil woman being one that doesn't want to be a mother and that doesn't love her kids isn't the greatest.

And my final question: who the fuck is BITING INTO A HEADBOARD??? How strong are their teeth?!