I finished Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman last week. It's the first book of Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

I mentioned the week before that the litRPG doesn't have high stakes, since you know nothing is going to happen to your character and it's just going to get stronger and stronger, but I failed to realise that this happens when you don't care about any side characters. Which is not to say that something happens (or doesn't happen) to side characters, but that the side characters are well written that you care about them.

Started The Novice by Trudi Canavan. The second book in The Black Magician trilogy.

The first book was completely focused on one place and one task, this book expands the world, and different characters are doing completely different things so it's interesting to see how things will develop. I am still in the start though, and while the book feels as quick to read as the first one, it has quite a bit of bullying in it (at least in the start, where I am), and I am not a fan of reading that, so the progress is going pretty slow. Going to stick with it though, cause it feels like the kind of book where our protagonist is going to become super powerful, with somewhat "good" ending.

What about all of you? What have you all 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

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74524484

I'm having trouble putting my feelings about this book into words.

How do I go about describing the shattering of a window I didn't know I was peeking through? A slap in the face from someone I didn't know could exist?

My Kindle melted in my hands as I read. The plastic softened and turned to skin and the screen bent and twisted into eyes and a mouth and a nose, a face. I stared at the eyes, and as the words flickered and tears welled, I heard the mouth move to whisper and then speak and then scream, and I know it was the truth what it said.

bell hooks was a witch; of that, at least, I'm sure.

The Will to Change is honest, sober, and painfully aware of what it is that makes men men, and the systems that rip their nature from them. It describes the iron grip that crushes and shapes boys into loveless archetypes, writhing in a sea of needles that keeps them from being truly human; that same hand that puppeteers their mothers and sisters and lovers, and their fathers and brothers and friends, the same hand that sews their mouths shut as it rips their minds to shreds and chokes their hearts. This book is an indictment of patriarchy not just because of what it does to women, but especially for what it does to men; what it takes from them and the promises it shatters and the silence it demands.

That being said, every word is loving. It is a deep, powerful, raw yearning for love, for healing, for companionship and community. Every chapter begs men to reconsider, to change, to choose love and forego their pain and hurt, to choose to be people instead of dominators and patriarchs, to choose peace instead of violence and war. The Will to Change looks men in the eye and sees past the stoic veneer patriarchy demands and offers release: release from loveless marriages, release from unfulfilling sex, release from violence and grief, release from endless work, release from the burden of living according to a diseased and corrosive script instead of according to our needs and desires. Even as it ravages traditional notions of masculinity and maleness, the feminism of The Will to Change is a hand outstretched and a warm embrace; a guide and a tutor for a new kind of man that can live free and truly love.

And that's what I loved most about it. Anyone can point out the issues, and in fact many do: the male loneliness epidemic, men are unhappy, the sexual marketplace is a mess, nothing is good for men... Any struggling man or boy will find that their issues are recognized, that their strife is known and acknowledged, but the answers are always unsatisfying. You need to be more violent, more isolated, more hateful. Distrust, deny, control, dominate. Those are the answers you hear so very often. Then, as was already the case when the book was first published over 20 years ago, things got worse for the men that stuck with the old system, that corrosive and hateful system named with such a dreadfully misconstrued word as patriarchy. But The Will to Change is different: it offers a solution rooted in love and compassion. It moves away from the destruction that pervades traditional masculinity and describes a better future for men. It shows a glimpse of a nurturing masculinity, a kind masculinity, a passionate masculinity; it shows men that there's a path forward where the promises of the patriarchy, of pleasure and wholeness and self, can be fulfilled, away from pain and domination. The lonely man, the angry man, the hurt man, they all can read this book and find a guiding light.

bell hooks saw men and she makes a feminism that saves them. She truly saw and understood and loved, even as men hated and raged and hurt she loved, and as they thrashed around sightless and deaf and lost she loved, and she loved, and she loved, and she says that, to love, men need the will to change. Ultimately, I agree.

I only wish, one day, I can love as she so dearly hoped I would.

---

Rating: READ IT NOW

Check it out here!

When Anna's Archive suffered widespread downtime earlier this month, many users feared a legal crackdown. Instead, the site was reportedly targeted by a coordinated assault on its network infrastructure. Just as it did after facing $340 million in damages and losing several domains earlier this year, the Archive quickly bounced back.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/[email protected]/t/3120649

As AI tech companies increasingly buy and destroy books to feed to their AI models, Anna's Archive is calling for volunteers to help preserve them for the public record.

Picked up my first Piers Anthony book today when browsing around the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne. Looking forward to getting stuck in to this while on my flight home tonight

Hey guys! I'm looking for new books and i just love books with a unique format. Can be plot, writing style or even cover. My most unique reads were battle royale and horrostor. What are yours? Edit: just remember invisible monsters by Chuck Palanhiuk! Another unique book.

As the title says, I'm reaching the milestone of reading 150 books and I'd love you all to help me choose my 150th book to read!

I'm not bound to a particular genre though romantasy, heavy horror or romance books are not my preferred genres to read. Everything else works! My favorite genres are thrillers, sci-fi, adventures, detective mysteries though I can read pretty much everything except the three genres I mentioned above. So you can recommend a wide range of books.

The book that gets the most upvotes will be my next pick! If I already read that one, it will be the next most upvoted one and so on. If your book suggestion got few upvotes, worry not! I have a plan for it too. I'll gather all the options that got fewer upvotes into a list and randomly choose a book from it as my next read.

I think 3 days is enough to let everyone make their suggestions, so that's when I'll pick the book!

Edit: 3 days have passed and we have a winner! The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin suggested by belluck!

Oh, I forgot about today's weekly thread. So without further ado,

What have you all been reading or listening to lately?

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

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74144681

The symbol for Amazon's VGT3, the Las Vegas facility where it scans book for AI training data.

Amazon is buying massive quantities of books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying them in the process.

A 404 Media investigation was able to reveal Amazon’s book buying operation, which hasn’t been previously reported, by placing a tracking device in a rare book we suspected would be acquired by an AI company for training data, and following it around the country to its final destination.

That final destination was an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, Nevada. Amazon employees who work at this location say all they do is receive massive shipments of printed books which they then cut the bindings off in order to scan the books more quickly. The printed book is destroyed in the process. The logo of the Amazon team that works at this warehouse, called VGT3, is a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands.

“Amazon purchases books through commercial channels to help develop and improve the products and services our customers use,” an Amazon spokesperson told me in a statement.

The world’s AI companies are constantly looking for, and spending extreme resources to locate, more material to train their AI models. With books, that sometimes means destroying them in the process, something that large parts of the public have spoken up against, and which we can now confirm Amazon is doing.

In July, I published a story about booksellers who reported a historical spike in sales starting in the past year. They suspected this spike in sales was due to AI companies acquiring any books they can in search of new training data. Printed books are valuable as training data because a lot of the text they contain is not readily available on the internet, which AI companies have already scraped. The data is also conveniently organized and, if the book was printed before 2022, is guaranteed to be free of AI-generated text, which can make any AI model that is trained on it worse via a recursive process called “model collapse.”

📖 Do you know work at a facility where you scan books? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at @emanuel.404. Otherwise, send me an email at [email protected].

These booksellers suspected AI companies were behind these large bulk purchases because of the high number of books they were buying, the seemingly random choice of books, and the fact that these buyers, unlike libraries and universities, did not seem price sensitive at all. But booksellers couldn’t say for certain who was behind the large purchases because the marketplaces where they sell their books keep the buyers anonymous. When an order comes in, a bookseller ships the sold books to a warehouse operated by the marketplaces, where books are sorted and then sent to the buyer.

In July, one bookseller told me they received a very large order of around 1,000 books on Biblio, one of these marketplaces. The seller agreed to put an Apple AirTag provided by 404 Media in one of the books included in this order so we could see where the book was going. And by extension, which company, AI or otherwise, was behind this massive order. 404 Media granted the bookseller anonymity because they worried sharing this information would harm their business. Biblio did not respond to a request for comment.

We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.

email registration required by 404 media

No, threepio hasn’t been upgraded to have some thrusters, it’s supposed to artoo, who’s answering correctly.

The pages feel thinner and you can see the text on the other side more as well. Book 6 is a 10th printing and book 7 is a 5th printing. Doesn’t say years, so I wonder if they switched to thinner or back to thicker?

This time we read and discussed Andrew Joseph White's debut adult novel (he has written several youth oriented books prior to this) You Weren't Meant To Be Human - there's content warnings with this book, it is brutal and punishing but its also an important read I think.

Available here or wherever you get your podcasts from (but not Spotify) - as always no ads, no sponsors, no gen AI.