Oh wow ! What a flashback. I remember AR ! I feel on the spines, there would be a grade or something. I also learned quite early ( my mom read to me from a young age and I wanted to do it on my own during insomnia bouts) but i do not feel we weren’t allowed to read above. And if the school restricted me, my parents never would. I remember vividly , Sorcerer’s Stone being my first large chapter book , getting it right when it came out.

After absorbing the Roald Dahls and such. I think a key part missing, and there are studies to back this, is parents reading to the child from 0-3.

My suggestion would be to just carry one around and default to it more often.

It’s primarily a mathematical theory book. Just the desire for something more and more brain crunching is what will inevitably lead you there lol. I’ve heard Hegel (I think it’s Hegel) might be the most impenetrable philosopher out there so maybe that’s the endgame lol.

It alternates chapters between Achilles and The Tortoise and mathematical theory, the former serving as your guide and it really helps make the book tolerable for the layman 😂 definitely worth reading but not easy by any means.

The synopsis seems like a standard thriller. What's so bad about it compared to other books in that genre?

I think the Atlantic fixed this , it no longer works for them. But nearly all others, I agree. I was about to give the same advice and confidently say it works on all .. to get hit lol but it’s okay I actually needed to give them some money anyway.

And a neat song.

You're not reading what I'm writing so I'm going to stop.

[removed]

> Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed

Hmm, sounds familiar. *checks personal book database* Uh oh.

Ah well, it was cheap and I fully expected it to be a bullshit title. I bought it mostly as a resource for the Ripper case evidence, not because I expected any resolution. I just hope it's at least readable.

Thank you!

Yeah the stuff that really sticks out to me is some of the more horrifying stuff that the Capitol and District 13 do in the books. Off the top of my head: The mutts at the end of Katniss's first Hunger Games are much darker in the books than in the movies. The avoxes are more fleshed out in the books, and speak to just how far the Capitol will go to oppress people. The imprisonment and torture of Octavia, Venus and Flavia in District 13 was completely left out of the movies, to terrible effect I think because in the books that's a huge signifier that Coin should not become President. And just in general the suffering of people in the outer districts is a lot clearer in the books. The movies kinda take a lot of that out and replace it with an emphasis on a love triangle that barely even exists in the books.

So seeing more books checked out leads to show that the library is more in use and thus needs more funds?

This is a good blog post by a librarian on this topic.

Read nine lives by Peter swanson, that is the definition of a one star book lol

>Obviously all the symbolic and thematic content flew over my head, but I don’t remember ever having a problem actually reading it.

And that's OK, because after that first pass, you probably understood it better the next time you encountered it.

Ray Bradbury has a ton of stuff if you want something more fun

That’s been on my list forever. But are you saying it’s literary fiction or that literary fiction will lead you to this text? Or both?

I wonder if they've gotten complaints from parents about children reading books with "mature themes" and this is how they deal with it. I agree; it's bizarre and inimical to learning.

Oh shit, prostate massage? Those terrorists were totally justified in calling in a bomb threat, in that case. I'm sure there's not any questionable material in any of the straight books, so this is completely fair and has nothing to do with *checks title of post* LGBTQ+ material.

The Forever War by Haldeman. Pretty heavy stuff. Not really time travel, but the effects of FTL travel.

I am hyperlexic and that is INSANE. If that had been the policy when I was a child I'd've had a meltdown every single day.

Yeah the movie kinda go ooh look how horrible kids are killing each other but it's fun action. But the books really go in depth about how dark and horrible it all is. Plus the starvation, punishments, and other things the capitol does to keep them in line.

I love the books and just reread the trilogy. I appreciate how it really discusses the trauma. I forgot until rereading that in the second book the first half is just about how their are handling their return to home and dealing with their trauma. The second movie scans past that quickly and goes to the second game action parts. For YA it's so good to focus on the emotions, that even though they did what they had to do to survive it still affects them. It sometimes feels like a lot of the criticisms about them are based on some of the copy cats in the genre that do just focus on factions/ fighting/ love triangle!

Most libraries are funded by local taxes, grants and donors. I don't know if circulation plays a part in funding decisions, but I'm sure that the various services, not confined to book lending effects the decisions made about the three main sources.

1. Terrible, total waste of time/money, probably DNF
2. I didn't like it and will never recommend it to anyone.
3. Fine enough as a time filler but forgettable.
4. I liked it. Entertaining. Engaging. Was worth the read, would recommend.
5. Life changing. Changed my worldview. Utter love. I'll keep this on my shelf forever and sing its praises to anyone who will listen.