#goodreads — Public Fediverse posts

All it takes is one great review from a happy customer... and we are good working for free for at least another 18 months! If you like what we do, please review "After Dinner Conversation" stories on #Amazon, #Goodreads, or elsewhere.

📚 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6) - J.K. Rowling (2005) ★★★★★

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8872812403?utm_medium=api&utm_source=rss

#Goodreads #Libros

I am 66 books into this year, and next up I shall be rereading this one. I have it on my Kindle (other ebook readers are available) but feel that I need an actual physical copy sitting on my politics shelf.

#CurrentlyReading #Goodreads #ReadingChallenge #Bibliophile #Booklovers #Bookworm #Politics #SinclairLewis #ItCantHappenHere

When Shapes Take Hold

Avery Wilde’s When Shapes Take Hold: A Cascadia Mystery is a character-driven environmental mystery set along Washington’s Hood Canal. The novel follows architect Cole Walker after his dogs uncover illegal crab traps near a waterfront lodge, a discovery that leads to forged invoices, concealed shipments, a secret tunnel, and a broader scheme threatening the surrounding community and ecosystem. Wilde develops the investigation through close attention to physical evidence, local relationships, and the rhythms of the fjord. The result is a mystery grounded as firmly in its setting as it is in criminal intrigue.

Cole’s architectural perspective gives the story a distinctive way of observing the world. He reads landscapes, structures, light, and spatial inconsistencies with the same care that an investigator might study testimony. This sensitivity helps him recognize clues, but it also reveals his emotional life, particularly his need for openness, color, and belonging. His gradual movement from guarded isolation toward participation in the community provides the novel with a satisfying internal arc. By the epilogue, his thoughts about building have become a statement of personal growth: “How the shape of things might take hold if he listened.”

The supporting characters give the investigation warmth and consequence. Sam’s steady competence, Tara’s vulnerability and resolve, and the community’s investment in the water make the central crime feel personal. Murphy and Cooper contribute humor and affection while also serving meaningful roles in the plot, repeatedly using their instincts to uncover dangers the human characters overlook. Wilde balances these communal scenes with moments of tension, particularly Cole’s passage through the hidden tunnel and the operation to expose the illegal harvesting network. The novel’s deliberate pacing allows its relationships, setting, and ecological concerns to develop alongside the mystery.

When Shapes Take Hold is a story about learning to belong to a place by accepting responsibility for it. The novel connects environmental stewardship with attentiveness, courage, and public action, culminating in Cole’s defense of the fjord and the community’s recognition of his motives: “You spoke for the water. Not for yourself. People hear the difference.” Wilde presents the Hood Canal landscape as both a living system and a source of emotional meaning, giving the conclusion a sense of earned renewal. The book offers an inviting blend of regional mystery, ecological awareness, found family, and personal restoration.

Pages: 218 | ASIN : B0H66YR4MH

Knoxi’s World

Knoxi’s World by James Nathaniel Miller II is a sprawling Christian action thriller that mixes human-trafficking conspiracies, college basketball, romance, covert rescue missions, political intrigue, and futuristic quantum technology. The story follows Knoxi Musket, an eighteen-year-old University of Texas freshman whose plans for basketball and a future in politics are interrupted when she becomes involved with Alexis Blanca, a trafficking survivor hiding behind the identity of Tejano star Glorietta Zomata. That encounter draws Knoxi and her extended circle into an international corporate scheme designed to protect and profit from forced labor. It’s a big, crowded story, but its central concern stays personal: what happens when someone sees another person suffering and decides that walking away isn’t acceptable.

Knoxi is an appealing lead because her courage comes with fear, confusion, and emotional consequences. She can confront a hostile reporter, fight an attacker, fly into danger, and make hard decisions under pressure, but the book also lets her grieve over the people she can’t rescue. Her faith isn’t simply part of the setting. It shapes her choices, her relationships, and the way she understands responsibility. The strongest scenes often involve survivors such as Alexis, Robbie, and Peaches. Their experiences give the conspiracy a human cost, while the Muskets’ lively family relationships keep the story from becoming relentlessly grim. Humor, romance, sports talk, and affectionate teasing regularly break through the tension.

The novel moves with the restless energy of a television action series. Chapters often end on gunshots, revelations, disappearances, or sudden changes of plan, and the narrative keeps widening until it includes cartels, compromised officials, media corporations, pirates, secret military technology, and a corporate merger with global consequences. Readers of Ted Dekker may recognize the combination of Christian conviction, physical danger, moral confrontation, and heightened reality. Miller’s approach is warmer and more family-centered than Dekker’s darker psychological suspense, though. He’s especially interested in loyalty, marriage, parenthood, and the idea that ordinary acts of compassion can ripple outward. The futuristic inventions occasionally function like narrative wild cards, but they fit the book’s enthusiastic, anything-can-happen spirit.

What I liked most wasn’t the weaponry or the global plot. It was Knoxi’s realization that rescue work leaves wounds even when the mission succeeds. The book gives victory a complicated emotional texture, allowing her to feel relief, guilt, exhaustion, and renewed purpose at the same time. Rolfe Sagan’s surprising role also adds some welcome moral complexity, transforming a hostile media figure into someone whose final actions help expose the conspiracy, although the ending deliberately leaves questions about his fate. Knoxi’s World is earnest, energetic, and openly devotional, with a generous belief in courage, redemption, and the power of stopping for one vulnerable person.

Pages: 297 | ASIN : B0797LYXJN

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3KqseCZv0BKG2bAu2bMuXc?si=A3W7QrIXSGSuUWceyxmSnw

HALLO!

Es ist so weit: #Kotomori ist live.

Dazu gibt es natürlich einen passenden Blog-Beitrag:

https://kotomori.de/willkommen-auf-kotomori/

#Books #Manga #BuchBlog #BuchCommunity #bookcrossing
#goodreads

Heyho du da!
Hast du einen kurzen Moment?

Erinnerst du dich noch an #Kotomori?
Eine Plattform für alle die Geschichten lieben und Welten erschaffen. Eine Community von und für Bücher-Nerds.

So weit so gut. Wollte nur bekanntgeben das die Seite Morgen gegen 12:00 Uhr live gehen wird.

https://kotomori.de

#Books #Manga #BuchBlog #BuchCommunity #bookcrossing #goodreads

RE: https://sharkey.daddelwerk.net/notes/aoa1hd7tgtlq02c3

Bookstores & Love Stories: My Trip to Scotland Inspired by ‘One Day’

At the top of the year, my eldest niece aka Niece invited me to join her on a trip to Scotland.

Dear Reader, I was just as perplexed as you are that my first-generation Haitian-American niece (like me) a) wanted to visit Scotland and b) visit during early Spring, whilst still chilly and rainy. The tropical Caribbean—where her mother was born—is right there! A shorter flight, no less!

Well, the trip was centered around the musical adaptation of the bestselling novel One Day by David Nicholls. Turns out I had watched the Netflix series a couple of years prior. It wasn’t until the credits were rolling that I learned it was based on a book. Had I known, I would’ve read the novel, then jumped into the series to do what we readers do: compare and contrast. Niece also watched the movie starring Anne Hathaway.

Set in Edinburgh, Scotland, One Day revolves around Emma and Dexter (Em and Dex), who meet at a “uni” (university) graduation party in 1988. What’s supposed to be a one-night-stand expands into a decades-long friendship fraught with unspoken, secret feelings.

It’s frustrating and endearing because the feelings are reciprocated. This isn’t a story of unrequited love. Somehow, through his immaturity and womanizing, Emma loves Dexter, and despite his sometimes selfish behavior towards her, she really is the only woman he’s ever loved .

For years, they’re not in the same place in life—geographically, career, relationships, maturity, financially. He’s white; her family is of Indian descent, though in the play she’s depicted by a Black woman. Em and Dex go on vacations together, call, and write letters, a crucial one is never delivered nor read. There’s a feeling of FINALLY! when they become a couple.

Then you realize there’s too much left in the book. Clearly, the coupling is not the typical happily ever after ending. I screamed at the TV watching the series, talked out loud to myself while reading the book, and was grabbed by Niece on my left and Sister on my right in the theater during the musical.

Niece and I knew what was coming. Sister did not.

The play was our second-to-last night in Scotland. It was a wonderful evening. We snapped photos and bought souvenirs in the downstairs lobby of The Royal Lyceum. Niece surprised us with a VIP experience in the theater’s upper room. A reserved bar table awaited us. The bartender served us chilled champagne until it was time to claim our seats—first row of the mezzanine.

Niece, ever the researcher, planner, and fellow book lover, found several bookstores for us to visit while in Scotland. I’m an over-packer and had to be mindful of suitcase space. I still had to buy a bag. In addition to the ONLY FOUR books I bought, I purchased lovely-smelling body butters, a vase from a museum gift shop, funky overalls for The Roots Picnic in Philadelphia in May, mini bottles of whisky for myself and brother, and whatever else escapes me at the moment.

It was late March. We braved chilly winds and rain. I wore leggings under my clothes every day and still never got too hot as we walked around, especially when we bookstore-hopped.

One of the first days, if not the first, we visited Waterstones, a chain bookstore. I purchased Before We Hit the Ground by Selali Fiamanya and a leather bookmark branded with the store name. On a separate day, Aunt-Niece Day, (my sister stayed at the hotel), we visited the combo McNauhtan’s Bookshop & Gallery and Typewronger, where I snagged Redwood Court by DeLana R.A. Dameron. The store owner stamped the inside of my book and gave me an elephant origami.

A short, brisk walk brought us to Topping & Company Booksellers, where I continued my purchases of Black-authored books with Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh and Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah. I also witnessed a real-life love story in real time.

While browsing on the lower level, I watched an elderly couple enter. They were both stooped over and took small steps. They were also snazzy dressers. The wife declared she’d wait for him downstairs, to which he replied, “You’re not going to come with me?”

The combination of the raspiness of his weathered voice, the longing in his voice, him reaching out to place his hand on hers, her quick and simple “ok,” and them shuffling off together towards the elevator left me teary-eyed with a lump in my throat.

I bet they didn’t squander years like Emma and Dexter did.

I want that elderly couple’s relationship one day.

Subscribe so you can read more about my trip to Scotland and other book musings.

Part three of my three-part introduction is finally up: What can you expect from my blog and what other services will my blog replace?

https://pygospa.codeberg.page/posts/blogging-since-2001-ish/

#introduction #introductions #blogosphere #boycottbigtech #unplugamazon #unplugmeta #unplugtrump #facebook #googleplus #instagram #wordpresscom #goodreads #trakttv #letterboxd #backloggd #discogs #boardgamegeeks #archive #oldposts

If It’s Such Great Literature, Why Does It Only Have 3.5 Stars?

"Do “mediocre” Goodreads ratings represent a lukewarm response to some titles, or reflect a readership passionately divided into polarised factions?"

#SciComm by @grrlscientist

#Literature #ClassicLit #GreatBooks #LiteraryCriticism #GoodReads #Ratings #Books https://grrlscientist.medium.com/about-those-3-star-books-that-are-considered-to-be-great-literature-4a9c1119b563

If It’s Such Great Literature, Why Does It Only Have 3.5 Stars?

"Do “mediocre” Goodreads ratings represent a lukewarm response to some titles, or reflect a readership passionately divided into polarised factions?"

#SciComm by @GrrlScientist

#Literature #ClassicLit #GreatBooks #LiteraryCriticism #GoodReads #Ratings #Books https://grrlscientist.medium.com/about-those-3-star-books-that-are-considered-to-be-great-literature-4a9c1119b563

If It’s Such Great Literature, Why Does It Only Have 3.5 Stars?

"Do “mediocre” Goodreads ratings represent a lukewarm response to some titles, or reflect a readership passionately divided into polarised factions?"

#SciComm by @grrlscientist

#Literature #ClassicLit #GreatBooks #LiteraryCriticism #GoodReads #Ratings #Books https://grrlscientist.medium.com/about-those-3-star-books-that-are-considered-to-be-great-literature-4a9c1119b563

You'd think, since #goodreads is now part of #Amazon, it would be updated/updateable as Amazon is updated. Ain't technology #ironic? We can do so many things, but so many others are still beyond our capabilities.

Cindy Larie Cowles

#quote #quotes #irony

#Bookwyrm #fediday2025

#Vortrag von @jascha

#Adaption von #Goodreads: #Buchobjekt mit #Beschreibung, #Link für #Erwerb, #Leseaktivität, #Leseliste, #Rezension;

#Bücher ID: #ISBN / #OpenLibrary ID, #Goodreads #Schlüssel; für feststellen der #Ausgabe; #Ergebnis: #dezentral​er #Buchkatalog

#Liste​n: #verschieden​e #Modi: #geschlossen​e #Liste / #Liste bei der andere #Bücher hinzufügen können mit #Moderation / #offen​e #Liste / #Gruppenliste

https://c-tube.c-base.org/w/re2HqzmfyLrk7n4ecPGJGc

#testaPP

I scraped 3B Goodreads reviews to train a better recommendation model

https://book.sv

#HackerNews #scraping #Goodreads #recommendation_model #data_analysis #machine_learning #book_reviews

"What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?" There were plenty more possibilities I could've chosen for my response to Daily Prompts QOTD, but I chose this one...
#personalitytraits #redflags #pink #tuesdaythoughts #mindfulness #bekind #dontbeadick #writerslife #goodreads #bekind

https://rickollie.com/2025/09/09/what-personality-trait-in-people-raises-a-red-flag-with-you-2/

Аудиокнига на първия ми роман в Storytel

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://petertoushkov.eu/goodreads/audiokniga-na-parviya-mi-roman-v-storytel/

Nearly two years ago I met and wrote about Natalia Kessler. She went from being a War Crimes Lawyer to an Adult Figure Skater, Artist, Dancer and wife. Here's her story. #NataliaKessler #FigureSkater #Artist #Dancer #Lawyer #BarbieTheMovie #Inspiration #HealingJourney #GoodReads #WritersCommunity

https://rickollie.com/2023/07/20/natalia-kessler-from-figure-skating-to-artistic-fulfillment/

Nearly two years ago I met and wrote about Natalia Kessler. She went from being a War Crimes Lawyer to an Adult Figure Skater, Artist, Dancer and wife. Here's her story. #NataliaKessler #FigureSkater #Artist #Dancer #Lawyer #BarbieTheMovie #Inspiration #HealingJourney #GoodReads #WritersCommunity

https://rickollie.com/2023/07/20/natalia-kessler-from-figure-skating-to-artistic-fulfillment/

Nearly two years ago I met and wrote about Natalia Kessler. She went from being a War Crimes Lawyer to an Adult Figure Skater, Artist, Dancer and wife. Here's her story. #NataliaKessler #FigureSkater #Artist #Dancer #Lawyer #BarbieTheMovie #Inspiration #HealingJourney #GoodReads #WritersCommunity

https://rickollie.com/2023/07/20/natalia-kessler-from-figure-skating-to-artistic-fulfillment/

Nearly two years ago I met and wrote about Natalia Kessler. She went from being a War Crimes Lawyer to an Adult Figure Skater, Artist, Dancer and wife. Here's her story. #NataliaKessler #FigureSkater #Artist #Dancer #Lawyer #BarbieTheMovie #Inspiration #HealingJourney #GoodReads #WritersCommunity

https://rickollie.com/2023/07/20/natalia-kessler-from-figure-skating-to-artistic-fulfillment/

21 out of 300 - https://weewritinglassie.home.blog/2025/01/26/the-wee-writing-lassies-300-books-in-a-year-book-21/ #BooksMakeGreatGifts #book #booklover #bookspotlight #goodreads

Instagramming at #Instagram! #books #bookrelease #truecrime #newbooks #reels #booktok #bookstagram #authors #bookspotlight #bookstoread #bookboost #goodreads #writers #interviews #ebooks #womenwhokill #truecrimecommunity #readers #reading #bookstodon

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7o5xlcB5C3/

bonjour tout le monde, à part #goodreads, quelqu'un connaîtrait une solution pour organiser des groupes de lecture en ligne ? #lecture #livres #bookclub #bookstodon #reading #internet #reseauxsociaux #ecrivains #writerscoffeeclub

@Sollenbum
I loved Babel by R.F. Kuang but was pretty disappointed with this one. The main character is NOT Chinese, as you'll soon find. In Canada and the US, there are plenty of #Pretendians who claim Indigenous ancestry they don't have. Similar but different.

I've read a LOT of writers from the Chinese diasporas, many of them second-generation. Most are probably on my #goodreads page. Amy Tan is a good starting point.

Olympia walkers and readers, Saturday July 29 Jonathon Stalls, author of WALK - Slow Down, Wake Up, and Connect at 1-3 Miles per Hour, will be in Olympia. He’s leading a walking experience at 3pm and giving a book reading/signing at Browsers Bookshop at 4pm. See you there?

https://www.intrinsicpaths.com/event-details/connection-walk-book-reading-at-browsers-bookstore-olympia

#WalkOLY #Olympia #walking #OlyWA #JonathonStalls #walkability #GoodReads #books #reading

Olympia walkers and readers, Saturday July 29 Jonathon Stalls, author of WALK - Slow Down, Wake Up, and Connect at 1-3 Miles per Hour, will be in Olympia. He’s leading a walking experience at 3pm and giving a book reading/signing at Browsers Bookshop at 4pm. See you there?

https://www.intrinsicpaths.com/event-details/connection-walk-book-reading-at-browsers-bookstore-olympia

#WalkOLY #Olympia #walking #OlyWA #JonathonStalls #walkability #GoodReads #books #reading

Olympia walkers and readers, Saturday July 29 Jonathon Stalls, author of WALK - Slow Down, Wake Up, and Connect at 1-3 Miles per Hour, will be in Olympia. He’s leading a walking experience at 3pm and giving a book reading/signing at Browsers Bookshop at 4pm. See you there?

https://www.intrinsicpaths.com/event-details/connection-walk-book-reading-at-browsers-bookstore-olympia

#WalkOLY #Olympia #walking #OlyWA #JonathonStalls #walkability #GoodReads #books #reading

Olympia walkers and readers, Saturday July 29 Jonathon Stalls, author of WALK - Slow Down, Wake Up, and Connect at 1-3 Miles per Hour, will be in Olympia. He’s leading a walking experience at 3pm and giving a book reading/signing at Browsers Bookshop at 4pm. See you there?

https://www.intrinsicpaths.com/event-details/connection-walk-book-reading-at-browsers-bookstore-olympia

#WalkOLY #Olympia #walking #OlyWA #JonathonStalls #walkability #GoodReads #books #reading

Olympia walkers and readers, Saturday July 29 Jonathon Stalls, author of WALK - Slow Down, Wake Up, and Connect at 1-3 Miles per Hour, will be in Olympia. He’s leading a walking experience at 3pm and giving a book reading/signing at Browsers Bookshop at 4pm. See you there?

https://www.intrinsicpaths.com/event-details/connection-walk-book-reading-at-browsers-bookstore-olympia

#WalkOLY #Olympia #walking #OlyWA #JonathonStalls #walkability #GoodReads #books #reading

#book 13: Homestead by Melinda Moustakis

A beautifully written story of two people with a shared dream who try to make a life together. I loved this character-driven novel.

My thoughts, including a brief mention of the #audiobook can be found on #GoodReads if you care to look.

#fiction #AtriaBooks #MacmillanAudio #bookstodon @bookstodon @audiobooks

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5358000023