Finally got some reading time and finished Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (first book in her October Daye urban fantasy series)!

It's a very quick book, which is kind of ironic for me to say, since I took months to finish it, but finished the last third or so of the book in a single sitting.

There were certain things in the start that I didn't like, but was enjoying the book by the time I finished it. Would love to read more in the series.

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

We spend a lot of time reading books. Some of them, maybe a disproportionate number, we like. Others, not so much.

Disproportionate because, at least for me, it's difficult to get through 500 pages of something I dislike.

This is one of those occasions where you are encouraged to be constructive in your criticism. Hopefully, with some wit.

Leave a review for a book you didn't like and tell us what to read instead.

What I liked about it:

1.The story 2. How simple the writing is. 3. The space themes

What have you been reading or listening to lately?

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

Such as when it's launching? They said june, and we're already halfway through June, so I'm just wondering if anyone has any info on it?

TIA

New episode is out now here, or wherever you get your podcasts from. This time we talked about Iain Banks' debut 1984 novel The Wasp Factory, which is simultaneously a very well written book and also difficult to get through at times due to things like the extended and very graphic scenes of animal cruelty in it.

As ever; no ads, no sponsors, no AI, just talking. Note: we're no longer pushing episodes to Spotify.

What have you 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.ml/post/48430665

I tore through The Faith of Beasts by JSAC, really loving the new universe they've developed. Very much looking forward to rereading TMoG, Livesuit and TFoB very soon and the show being developed.

I'm reading book 4, Children of Strife by Tchaikovsky and enjoying it thoroughly. AT has been my favorite contemporary author for the last few years based on how wide-ranging and prolific he is. I discovered AT by reading The Final Architecture series, which is still my favorite series by him. Honorable mention is his Dogs of War series, also amazing.

Last year I discovered China Mieville by reading Embassytown, the mindfuck storytelling and intelligent prose blew me away. That book still haunts me and twists my brain almost a year after reading it. I've never had a book that still makes me think and feel strange months after finishing it. Perdido Street Station was also amazing, super fun and original steampunk world. Very much looking forward reading the next two in that series and digesting more of his catalogue, I think he's my new favorite.

Also recently read The Prefect by Alaistar Reynolds, set in the Revelation Space universe and it's also fantastic, really good stuff. Stoked to finish the series.

As far DNF I was surprised I couldn't push through The Algerbraist by Iain Banks, I got bogged down on Jupiter just couldn't keep at it.

Do you think it's overrated or perfectly rated?

I've heard it said once that it's prose is awful. Is it poorly written? Atleast, does it have a good story?

I'm talking about books that have like 10 reviews on Goodreads or storygraph (if they even show up when you search for them).

What have you been reading or listening to lately?

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

8/10 - needed more arguing with ART.

Consider one of your senses, not even the most important one— vision, but a minor one like smell, gone! Imagine a world of smell barred from you. Not reading Dostoevsky is just like that, not developing a sense.

And, his final novel, his magnum opus— The Brothers Karamazov, branches out new senses and intellectual capacities like an energetic sprout in your mind.

This book is deeply philosophical. But, like novels of the later period, like Proust did in Remembrance of Things Past, the author is not living the philosophy (existentialism in the aforementioned case), but explains it in detail in the author's voice. Let me enumerate the ideas being covered: Christianity and related concepts of sins, soul, free will, and kindness, psychology, law and jurisprudence, and life through his infinite lenses.

He is, in a sense, the sincerest novelist I have encountered. Ivan is one of the most powerful atheist characters I have ever read of, that too, in a novel about Christianity.

The first part is deeply about Christianity, or, to be specific, Dostoevsky's interpretation of Eastern Orthodoxy. In his mind, suffering and joy are intertwined, as if one joyfully suffers in a feast of suffering.

::: spoiler Spoiler perhaps In the chapter The Grand Inquisitor, we see a battle between absolute submission and relative comfort (championed by the Grand Inquisitor) vs free will and suffering (by Jesus). Only to see that Jesus' silence wins over the argument (not in the mind of Ivan, though), by the very act of coming back silently to suffer in his free will. :::

While The Grand Inquisitor remains the most intense of all chapters in the novel, the ultimate and deeper question posed at the end of the book is the nature of crime.

::: spoiler Spoiler Dimitri didn't kill his father. He merely wanted to kill him, for very real reasons, but never attempted it. Ivan wanted to get rid of his father, deep down, without making his hands dirty, of course, being an intelligent man. But all brothers, including Alyosha, never really liked their father, and if not killing him directly, would've found the world a better place without him.

If you accuse Ivan of his deadly despise, well… all the brothers are guilty of that. Yet, none was guilty enough, not because of the lack of action, not because of how they were brought up, leaving them less guilty, but because they never really wanted to profit from the murder. Yet, they bear guilt too, in their soul, for the flick of moments they despised their father.

But, Smerdyakov, the vile and the crook, and the veritable villain to the core of his heart, is really a complete villain. He has every reason to despise the old man, and probably more than the legitimate children. Cannot his bright future really be traded against the person who is not only the reason for his sufferings, but is also completely oblivious to that and bears no regrets and three thousand roubles?

This whole courtroom drama poses a serious battle between the modern jurisprudence that was being slowly established instead of the old legal codes,1 in Russia. He questioned the very basics of what is a crime, and to what degree, the fine lines between intentions, impulses, and actions. He questioned why we should be punished or not. :::

Like a true philosopher, who is aware of the insignificance of our knowledge by far, Dostoevsky never gave any solution, but asked such really important questions, and asked how! As if, just like Socrates, he also wants an unassuming general reader to slowly work out the answer in the depths of his mind.