Reading When Moon Hits the Eye by John Scalzi.

I am still in the start, but the premise is hilarious. Looking forward to how everything unfolds.

What about all of you, what have you been reading or listening to lately?

Check Official Bingo Challenge Post and the accompanying Recommendations Post for our Bingo for 2026!

Have you read something that you really enjoyed and want to give others a reason to try it out because it fits a square? Want to solicit help finding things to read that fit squares? This is a great place to do that.

• Official Thread Link Here
• Questions, Complaints, Whines, General Commentary, Shitposting

This thread will contain one top level comment for each Bingo square. In order to preserve the organization and readability of this post, please limit recommendations to only replies on those top-level comments. We will be removing comments that don't follow this rule for for this specific post.

Markdown Card

You can scroll through the thread or use the links above if your reader supports comment linking directly.

Reminder, Please DO NOT make comments that are not replies to a prepopulated top-level comment. Your comment will just be removed without any additional info.

Want to read more, but need motivation or direction? Want to gamify or expand your reading? Try book bingo! Our hope with this challenge is to provide a fun way for you to keep up with your recreational reading goals throughout the next twelve months.

How Does It Work?

The goal is to read something that fits the theme for each bingo square in any single row, column, or corner diagonal of your choice (one work per square) on this year’s card. You’re welcome to complete the entire card (or multiple cards) for an additional challenge goal, but you only need to check off a single line of 5 squares to complete the challenge.

So what can you read? Well, anything you enjoy, really. There’s no requirement to consume any particular kind of work, so any length, format, subject, or genre is totally fine. Want to read graphic novels, audiobooks, poetry, 10-page memoirs, or works in other languages? No problem. There’s no bingo police, either! If you think you can make a well-reasoned argument for why something fits the spirit of a square, go for it. You can even swap out a square (see Rules, below) if it doesn’t quite work for you.

After the thread closes at the end of April, we’ll use the submissions to put together a summary of the results, as well as to determine eligibility for community flair (currently not possible, but maybe in the future!) or some other recognition. If you want to be included, please make sure to contribute to that post as that will be the only way we are tracking the end participation.

Rules

• You must read a different work for every square you complete, even across multiple cards. There’s no problem, however, overlapping other reading challenges that aren’t associated with c/Books (or Books on piefed.world).
• Repeating authors on the same card isn’t forbidden, but we encourage you to read different authors for every square on a card.
• Likewise, we encourage you to primarily read things you haven’t read before (though we subvert that explicitly in one square this year).
• If you’re having trouble filling a certain square, you’re welcome to replace it with any square from a previous year's card, with the following restrictions:
  • You may not have two squares that are functionally the same on your card.
  • The center square (C3) cannot be swapped.
  • Please limit your substitutions to one per card.
• Anything you finish during the challenge period (see Schedule, below) is eligible, as long as you were no more than halfway through on May 1^st^, 2026.

Schedule

This year’s bingo runs May 1^st^, 2026 (today!) – April 30^th^, 2027.

• On May 1^st^, we post not only this thread, but also a recommendations thread and a Storygraph challenge (seeded with lots of suggestions already!) to help you plan your bingo reads.
• Every week, there’s a community “What are you reading?” thread. We encourage you to share your progress and ask for/suggest recommendations!
• Halfway through the year (usually the first week of November), we’ll make a midpoint check-in post to remind you bingo exists. Let us know how it’s going, give us feedback, and get help with troublesome squares.
• In mid-April, 2027, we’ll post a turn-in thread. Make sure to submit your list of completed squares through that thread before it closes on April 30^th^! (A form will be available if you’d rather keep your reads private.) This is the only way we can count your participation, even if you’ve been tracking your progress on Storygraph or in other threads.
• In Summer 2027 (June or July, if not sooner), we’ll post 2026’s stats, created from all the (anonymized) submissions. Look forward to unnecessary graphs and charts! (See 2024’s stats for an example.)

Changing Up the Challenge

Want an additional challenge, or maybe subvert some general rule for a more targeted challenge? Try one of these, or come up with a variation of your own (and share them!).

• Hard Mode: This is just a stretch goal for those interested; it does not convey any greater achievement. Most square descriptions include an optional extra restriction, which you can do or ignore on a square-by-square basis. It’s up to you!
• Genre Mode: Read only one genre.
• Review Mode: Write a sentence or two (ratings alone don’t count) about each work you read for bingo, either here on c/Books, a personal blog, Bookwyrm, The Storygraph, Hardcover.app, or elsewhere.
• Strictly Regular Mode: Read only works that don’t qualify for hard mode.
• Single Author Deep Dive: Limit yourself to just one author for the entire challenge.

The Card

Squares in List Form

The Squares

Row 1

• 1A LGBTQIA+ Lead: A major figure identifies as LGBTQIA+. HARD MODE: Features a significant, committed relationship (romantic, queerplatonic, or deep primary partnership) between LGBTQIA+ characters.
• 1B Supplementary, My Dear Watson: Includes extra material like a map, glossary, introduction, afterword, or author’s note. HARD MODE: The work includes notes that add context or richness, such as footnotes, endnotes, sidenotes, or marginalia. (miskatonic.org/footnotes.html has a long list of qualifying works.)
• 1C A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words: Illustrations, photographs, or graphic elements noticeably enhance the work. HARD MODE: Heavily visual, such as a graphic novel, manga, photo essay, picture book, or coffee table book.
• 1D Award Winner: Has won a notable literary award with broad recognition. HARD MODE: Has won two or more distinct awards (e.g., a Hugo and a Locus, or a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Heartland Prize).
• 1E Against the Odds: A person rises against a seemingly insurmountable challenge. HARD MODE: An “unlikely” hero—someone who steps up despite having no special destiny, powers, or prior training.

Row 2

• 2A Revisiting an Old Friend: Reread a work that holds a special place in your heart. HARD MODE: Reread it in a modified format (updated reissue, manga or graphic novel adaptation, illustrated or annotated edition, different language or translation, listen to the audiobook, etc.).
• 2B Author from a Different Continent: The author(s) resides on a different continent than you do. HARD MODE: The work required translation to be published in your native language.
• 2C Weapon on the Cover: The cover art (or key art, for short works) features a weapon (sword, gun, bow, tank, etc.). HARD MODE: No knives or swords.
• 2D Great Big Title: The title takes up a lot of real estate on the cover (or cover-analogue). HARD MODE: It’s also six (6) words or longer (articles, conjunctions, and names do count, but subtitles don’t).
• 2E Independent Author: Self-published by the author at the time of reading. This includes works that have been picked up by a conventional publishing house, but are not yet rereleased, as well as those that are no longer conventionally published. HARD MODE: Not published via Amazon Kindle Direct.

Row 3

• 3A Punctuated!: The title on the cover (or cover-analogue) includes at least one punctuation symbol. Example: Thud! by Terry Pratchett. HARD MODE: Includes a symbol that is not a comma, apostrophe, or colon (e.g. !, ?, -, or …).
• 3B We’re Putting the Band (Back) Together: A group assembles for a common purpose. HARD MODE: The group had previously drifted apart, but is now reunited.
• 3C FREE SPACE - Off Your TBR Pile: A work that’s been on your TBR list for a long time. HARD MODE: First published over ten years ago.
• 3D What’s in a Name?: The title contains the name (or pseudonym) of a figure or collective whose story is central to the work. Examples: Jane Eyre, Dracula, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. HARD MODE: The title is only the name, nothing else. (Multi-name titles with ‘and’, like Romeo and Juliet, as well as basic honorifics like ‘Mr.’/‘Mrs.’, still qualify.)
• 3E Late to the Party: Apparently this is a really popular work, you just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Read something you’ve seen recommended over and over. HARD MODE: Has not been released as a major film or television franchise prior to the end of the challenge.

Row 4

• 4A Minority Author: The author belongs to a demographic that is underrepresented or marginalized in publishing where you live (e.g. LGBTQIA+, BIPOC). HARD MODE: Belongs to more than one marginalized group.
• 4B Rooted & Rising: The natural world is prominent in some aspect of the work, such as setting, theme, or narrative catalyst. HARD MODE: Nature is key to a major figure’s resilience or ability to survive. Example: Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.
• 4C Free Read: A work you didn’t pay to read (e.g. in the public domain, a gift, from the library or a Little Free Library, an ARC, or borrowed from a friend). Illicit downloads or stolen copies of the work do not qualify. HARD MODE: By an author you’ve never read before.
• 4D The Ink Is Still Fresh: New for 2026/2027 (no reprints or new editions). First translations into your language of choice are allowed. HARD MODE: Not a sequel.
• 4E Putting the Pieces Together: The premise involves an individual or team solving a puzzle, uncovering a secret, unraveling an ancient mystery, or investigating a crime. HARD MODE: The “detective” is an everyday civilian or an amateur in the field of the investigation, like a cop looking for a lost city on vacation, or an archaeologist trying to solve a murder.

Row 5

• 5A Get Off My Lawn: A major figure is middle-aged or older. HARD MODE: They’re considered a senior citizen or elderly.
• 5B The Late, Great…: The author is deceased. HARD MODE: They passed away before January 1, 2000.
• 5C Sufficiently Advanced: Technology plays a major role in the narrative or world. HARD MODE: A prominent aspect of this technology attempts to preserve or create life (e.g. robots, AI, cloning, medical advancements, cryogenics, or resurrection machines).
• 5D Kintsugi: A major figure attempts to navigate a significant personal or systemic struggle, trauma, or loss. HARD MODE: Centered on a healing journey.
• 5E Double Up, Double Down: Includes two or more points of view that are notably separate from one another (although they may eventually converge), rather than jumping between members of an adventuring party or one person’s past and present. See also epistolary works/letter collections, critique/analysis, sociology-related works, shared worlds, parallel narratives, and nesting narratives. Example: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. HARD MODE: The title includes a pluralized or repeated word.

Resources

If you make or find any bingo-related resources, ping or DM me so I can add them here. Thanks!

• 2026 Bingo Recommendations List
• The Storygraph Reading Challenge

Appreciation

• This challenge is inspired by, but totally separate from, the one run by r/Fantasy on Reddit. We deeply appreciate the past organizers and the work they did that we are now benefitting from.
• 2026 bingo card font credits: Figtree, by Erik Kennedy.

Markdown Card

https://archive.ph/FyuI0

Recently finished this one. This is a pop philosophy book on why, epistimologically, it makes sense to just use expert opinion (without checking their reasoning or reasons carefully yourself) generally. It was written just before widespread AI use, with more of a focus on vaccine denial and conspiracy theory. But I think it has a lot to do with AI use, especially in schools and conversation. Many students are turning to an AI to complete homework and study, with mixed (and often disastrous) results.

Importantly, the book only makes the moral case in a weak sense. The main good is 'justified, true beliefs held' with a minimum of error, time, and effort. It does argue that we have to use expert testimony for most of our beliefs (wikipedia) anyway; and that the best way to manage expert incentives and opinion is institutional (and not trying to become an expert in everything yourself).

Overall, I found it troubling to read. The rationalization is pretty compelling, and there are few glaringly obvious leaps or gaps. Worse, the rationalizations aren't hard.

For a newly created bookish social media, which genre you will propose to push more?

Latest Devil's Library podcast episode is now live in which we talk about Delilah S. Dawson's sapphic horror 'Bloom'. An odd novella, Dawson can clearly write well but its all a bit of a mess.

As always, no ads, no sponsors, no genAI and available at the link above or wherever you get your podcasts from - unless that happens to be Spotify as we stopped publishing there.

I struggle with this a bit. Even if the book is 3.98 stars, i view that as not passing lowest bar. I consider most 4 stars books to not be there time, but rather the number of stars is how i filter out bad books

Also, how do you use your stars? Do you change your rating often?

For me, it generally goes like this:

• 1 Star -Either its so bad that its offense or i dnf it
• 2 Stars - Either bad or mediocre, not really work any time
• 3 Stars - An okay book with a couple of redeeming points
• 4 Stars - A great book with some flaws that bother me
• 5 Stars - An excellent book, i am jumping in my sits.

I am reading mangas these days. Read first 4 volumes of Attack on Titans, but since I am reading these through 3-in-1 omnibus, going to read till 6th volume at least. Will decide the next book after that.

What about all of you, what have you been reading or listening to lately?

Check Official Bingo Challenge Post and the accompanying Recommendations Post for our Bingo for 2026!

As the nation celebrates two and a half centuries of independence, we put together a syllabus of some essential criminal justice reading.

I think of this following list of books as a syllabus — the kind of reading sequence I’d build for a class on the first 250 years of the U.S. justice system.

The point is not to list the best or most important books about criminal justice, or that any or every book is the final word on the system, or the endorsement of any particular claims. Indeed, that would be impossible, as some of these texts disagree in ways large and small.

Like any syllabus, this one is shaped by judgment, accident, taste and limitations. This list comes from my attempt to consider the breadth of the U.S justice system over key time periods, and to see how a series of books could lean into one another to reveal an evolving set of practices, probing questions, and diverse perspectives about punishment, power, race, reform, mercy and the meaning of justice in American life. These issues remain critical 250 years after the signatories of the Declaration of Independence made a revolutionary decree against any government that would infringe upon the rights to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I am looking for books similar to "At the Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft(ive pretty much read everything from lovecraft), "Eversion" by Alastair Reynolds, "Das Eulentor" by Alexander Gruber (dont know if this book ever released in another language), "The Hollow Places" by T. Kingfisher, I also tried reading "Ascension" by Nicholas Binge but it wasnt really to my taste. Hope you have some ideas. thx in advance

Today's pickups, I nearly shat myself in the aisle when I saw Land's Fanged Noumena on the shelf for $12.50. Love him or hate him, that is an insane price that I could otherwise flip and pay for the rest of the haul several times over, and Land's contributions to cyberpunkism as a legitimate branch of posthumanism are worth celebrating by anyone, even if you disagree with the author.

Other than that, a whole bunch of Weird Nonfic to keep me busy for the next few weeks.

~$87 for the whole lot, nearly half of that being Bord's Alien Animals for $30 - higher than the lowest online prices, but in very good condition. Everything else picture but not named was between $5-7 each.

Support your local bookstore!

I've finished the "Old Man's War" series from John Scalzi. It was great!

Can you recommend any other good sci-fi series playing in space for my next read?

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/48797836

Anyone else here read Time out of Joint by Philip K. Dick?

I thought this was a nice, concise, and original read, and my first real attempt at an American SF story. I went into it with very little background, only a brief blurb written in Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie about Dick's description of the uncanny feeling of driving to the outskirts of one's own town - one of the most memorable scenes from the book. The first half is certainly the better, while the second half's over-explained and sort of goofy rational explanation for everything took away a bit of the intrigue.

Very cinematic. Funny when it needed to be, moody throughout, and pretty transgressive to [my idea of] the standards of the late-50s.

Props to SF Masterworks for making such a great presentation. I always try to find their prints of books whenever possible.