Bibliofran - The Dragon's Hoard

@katy-l-wood put this in the tags, "#deciding what to eat for dinner #EVERY NIGHT #what should I cook? #babe what do you want for dinner? #I love food #but when I have to ask that question #I suddenly forget every food I like #and it never ends #personal"

My partner and I have this problem! It doesn't help that neither of us are good enough cooks to decide something on the spur of the moment that we'll both enjoy, so we have to plan a week's worth of dinners before we get groceries.

One thing that helps us is having a spreadsheet of dinner options. It includes where the recipe is, what type of protein it has, and what cooking method it uses. (We should probably add how long it takes, but we haven't gotten around to that.) This lets us look for slow cooker recipes or a way to use up the package of ground beef in the freezer.

This isn't perfect -- we still spend a lot of time staring at the spreadsheet, trying to find something that we're in the mood for and haven't done two of the last three weeks. However, it helps a lot with the "I suddenly forgot every food I like" problem!

This sounds like a variation on Tom Smith’s Undead Happy Trees.

imagine Bob Ross painting in the style of Hieronymus Bosch

“this little demon down here is kind of lonely, let’s give him some happy little friends. little demon party.”

This explains the situation of e-books in libraries much better than I did.  It’s incredibly frustrating for librarians, most of whom just want to connect people with books!

It’s been an increasing source of frustration for many library users: waiting weeks, sometimes months to get to the top of the waiting list for a popular eBook or e-Audiobook.

Why does it take so long? After all, it’s not a physical object, it’s a digital file that lives in the “cloud”, why can’t multiple people access it simultaneously instead of only one at a time? Barring that, why doesn’t the library just buy more copies so that the waiting list is shorter? Getting people access to books and information is what libraries are all about, but the struggle for acquiring lendable e-content is very real, and it’s getting harder all the time. Why? What’s the big hairy deal? For that answer, you have to look to the “Big 5” Publishers, who are responsible for close to 80% of trade book sales. 

Publishers have been extremely wary about allowing library users virtual access to their books. After all, digital copies of books never wear out or have to be replaced, and are more vulnerable to unauthorized copying (“pirating”). Publshers were afraid if they allowed libraries access to their books digitally, they would be losing money. Individual publishers came up with their own sets of rules for libraries to access their e-content, and they have been tweaked many times since 2006.

In addition, the prices libraries must pay for ebooks and e-audiobooks is very high. Libraries must pay up to 4X the retail price for digital versions of books (which only one user can have access to at a time).  Meeting the library patron’s needs for downloadable content is a very expensive enterprise, indeed! Take a look at this comparison of the prices for various versions of the same book:

It becomes easy to see that acquiring ebooks for public use is a very expensive endeavor…

Read more on The Cheshire Library Blog.

Beautifully said!

Neil Gaiman on Libraries and Librarians.

@bookscoffeeyarnandcats

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It breaks my heart that this is necessary.

If you publicly and unreservedly condemn the actions of Nazis in Charlottesville and elsewhere, including everything from quiet hate speech to vehicular terrorism, can you please reblog this post.

I think a few friends, a few followers, every Jew who happens across this post and my own heart could do with knowing that there are more of you out there than there are of them

I guess Mr. Snowflake there needs to just move along from McDonalds.

If your library doesn't have the diverse books you want and you're comfortable talking with (usually very friendly and helpful) people, you can also talk with someone on staff. In addition to the purchase recommendation form, they may have an agreement with other libraries to borrow the books from them for you. This helps two libraries! Your local library learns that more people want diverse books, so they are more likely to buy them in the future. The other library gets check-outs, so they know people are reading their diverse books.

If you don't have time to read, look for diverse audiobooks, CDs, and DVDs! If it's hard for you to get to the library, look at their website or call/email them. They may have pickup lockers in different areas of town or even a delivery service. They probably have eBooks, eAudiobooks, and/or streaming music and movies that you can check out from home.

Friendly reminder that if you talk about how representation is important and how there's not enough diverse media, I implore you to seek out the media that already exists. And if you live in an area with a public library, go to see if they're available at your public library. And then go check them out.

As a librarian, it is demoralizing to see how low the circulation statistics are on lgbt+ books and books by BIPOC authors. I include them in displays and readers advisory, but people still don't check them out as much. Libraries only have a finite amount of resources, including space. We don't get a book then keep it forever. If not enough people check it out, we have to get rid of it to make room for more books. And when James Patterson Book #69 gets checked out 30 times in one year and cool, subversive Sci fi novel with a Black trans woman main character has never been checked out once, the librarian (me) has to make a hard decision.

If you're looking for something tangible and easy to do this pride month, look for lgbt+ books (there are millions of lists online that you can find. It's easier than it's ever been to find diverse books) and check them out from your library.

No time to read? Look for a short story or poetry anthology and just read as much as you have time for. Or just check out a book cus it looks interesting and read as much as you can. We have movies too.

As cool as it would be for me to just keep the books I want and get rid of the ones I don't, I have to listen to the community on matters of collection development. And the community tells me what books they want by checking them out and leaving the ones they don't want on the shelf.

If you think this doesn't apply to you because you live in a progressive area and obviously the books are being checked out, you're wrong. I once worked in a community with a large lgbt population. Those books were not getting checked out. If you want to tell me you live in a conservative area and your library doesn't have any diverse books, you are legally obligated to check the catalog before replying to this post. I currently work in a conservative community and we have lgbt+ and bipoc books. And if you still cannot find any, you are legally obligated to see if your library has a collection request form that patrons can fill out before replying to this post.

Well, crap.  Raven is a great comic with lots of action, drama, and humor.  I would be very sad to see it end.  If you can’t or don’t want to buy it yourself, check it out from your local library!  If they don’t already have it, please recommend it.

Raven the Pirate Princess is Sinking

I despise doing posts where I ask for help, but here we are.

About two years ago I started a new creator owned project.  It began as a spin-off of Princeless, but the reality is this - Raven The Pirate Princess is its own thing altogether.  I knew this from the first issue and if you’ve been reading, so have you.

Sure, the first few issues of Raven: Pirate Princess had that heroic lady feminist banter for which Princeless has become known both among its fans and detractors.  I mean, Raven had this scene:

and issue 1 had this scene:

But perhaps much more importantly, the first issue of Raven had this:

but that wasn’t where that ended.  This is a book about a community of diverse queer women actively claiming their place in the world and taking what’s theirs.  It’s about Raven, who is desperately in love with her childhood best friend Ximena

It’s about Ximena, a girl who was held captive for years by a pirate king who pretended to be her liberator.  Who fell in love with the pirate’s daughter, only to be left behind by that father when she outlived her value.

About Sunshine, the thief that chose the wrong target and ended up falling in love with a woman already hopelessly in love with somebody else.

It’s about Katie, the bisexual second in command who’s motivated by honor…and occasionally beating the snot out of a dude or two

Oh and in case I forgot to mention, Katie is also incredibly muscular:

And Jayla, the asexual science genius who’s tired of being treated like a little sister

and Cid, the deaf engineer who quietly keeps the ship running

and of course, these two:

The socially awkward poet and the angry sword fighter who couldn’t stand her who have somehow become these two:

But here’s the thing: this comic is failing.  It has a very dedicated and exuberant but at this point SMALL fanbase.  Today I had a hard conversation with Action Lab about the reality of the numbers on this book versus what it costs to produce this book and, suffice it to say, Action Lab isn’t ready to cancel the book, but they aren’t ready to greenlight year 3 either.  After Year 2 #13, Raven is set to go on the shelf until numbers can support continuing it.

This is where I need your help

If you care about this book full of queer pirate ladies and you want it to continue, we need to find a way to spread the word about it.  We don’t need to sell single issues (it would be nice) but ultimately we need the trades sales that back up the continuation of this big YA Pirate/Revenge/Adventure/Romance thing.

Digital copies can be bought instantly right on Comixology: https://www.comixology.com/Princeless-Raven-The-Pirate-Princess/comics-series/46971

You can buy the physical volumes on amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B01BF7U91Q

In fact, if you’ve already purchased volumes 1-4, volume 5 is available for preorder there right now! 

Maybe you’ve bought all the issues already.  Thank you!  If you still want to support Raven, you can review the books on Amazon or other retailers, you can share, reblog or retweet this post.  You can tell a friend about the book! 

If you have a comics review site or, say, a blog where you talk about LGBT media, contact me for review links or interviews.  Please, help us save our ship.

@the-other-sandy, weren’t we just talking about Grapenuts?

Grapenuts

Neither grapes nor nuts.

The closest thing to gravel still considers fit for human consumption.

Possibly a major joke being played on the human race by hamsters.